Leviticus 11:31

31 Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean till evening.

Leviticus 11:31 in Other Translations

31 These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.

31 These are unclean to you among all that swarm. Whoever touches them when they are dead shall be unclean until the evening.

31 All these small animals are unclean for you. If any of you touch the dead body of such an animal, you will be defiled until evening.

31 Among the crawling creatures, these are unclean for you. If you touch them when they are dead, you are ritually unclean until evening.

31 These are unclean for you among all the swarming creatures. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean until evening.

Leviticus 11:31 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 11:31

These are unclean to you of all that creep
Unfit for food, and not to be touched, at least when dead, as in the next clause, that is, these eight sorts of creeping things before mentioned, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it, and these only, as Maimonides says {r}:

whosoever doth touch them when they are dead shall be unclean until
the even;
for touching them while alive did not defile, only when dead; and this the Jews interpret, while they are in the case in which they died, that is, while they are moist; for, as Ben Gersom says, if they are so dry, as that they cannot return to their moisture, they do not defile; for which reason, neither the bones, nor nails, nor nerves, nor skin of these creeping things, defile; but, they say ^F19, while the back bone is whole, and the bones cleave to it, then a creeping thing is reckoned moist, and while it is so it defiles.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 Hilchot, Abot Hatumaot, c. 4. sect. 14.
F19 Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Niddah, c. 7. sect. 1.

Leviticus 11:31 In-Context

29 “ ‘Of the animals that move along the ground, these are unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,

30 the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon.

31 Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean till evening.

32 When one of them dies and falls on something, that article, whatever its use, will be unclean, whether it is made of wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth. Put it in water; it will be unclean till evening, and then it will be clean.

33 If one of them falls into a clay pot, everything in it will be unclean, and you must break the pot.