Leviticus 11:31

31 Of all small moving creatures, these are unclean for you—anyone who 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 The following are unclean for you among the small creatures that move about on the ground: the rat, the mouse, any kind of large lizard,

30 the gecko, the spotted lizard, the lizard, the skink, and the chameleon.

31 Of all small moving creatures, these are unclean for you—anyone who touches them when they are dead will be unclean until evening.

32 Moreover, anything on which one of these creatures falls when it is dead will be unclean, whether it is wood, cloth, skin, or funeral clothing—any such item that can be used to do work. It must be put into water and will be unclean until evening. Then it will be clean again.

33 If any of these creatures fall into a pottery jar, everything inside it will be unclean; you must smash the pot.