Haggai 2:13

13 Then Hagai asked, "If someone who is unclean from having had contact with a corpse touches any of these [food items], will they become unclean?" The cohanim answered, "They become unclean."

Haggai 2:13 Meaning and Commentary

Haggai 2:13

Then said Haggai
To the priests; having nothing to object to their answer; but being satisfied with it, he puts another question: if [one that is] unclean by a dead body;
by the touch of it, ( Numbers 19:11 ) : touch any of these, shall it be unclean?
that is, if such an impure person, who was so in a ceremonial sense, should touch any of the above things, bread, pottage, wine, or oil, or any meat, would not they become unclean thereby, and so not fit for use? and the priests answered and said, it shall be unclean;
which was rightly answered; for whatsoever such an unclean person touched was unclean, according to the law, ( Leviticus 19:22 ) . Pollution is more easily and more extensively conveyed than holiness.

Haggai 2:13 In-Context

11 "Here is what ADONAI-Tzva'ot says: 'Ask the cohanim what the Torah says about this:

12 if someone carries meat that has been set aside as holy in a fold of his cloak; and then he lets his cloak touch bread, stew, wine, olive oil or any other food; does that food become holy too?'" The cohanim answered, "No."

13 Then Hagai asked, "If someone who is unclean from having had contact with a corpse touches any of these [food items], will they become unclean?" The cohanim answered, "They become unclean."

14 Hagai then said, "'That is the condition of this people, that is the condition of this nation before me,' says ADONAI, 'and that is the condition of everything their hands produce; so that anything they offer there is unclean.

15 Now, please, from this day on, keep this in mind: before you began laying stones on each other to rebuild the temple of ADONAI,