Leviticus 15:16

16 When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body, and he remains unclean until evening.

Leviticus 15:16 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 15:16

And if any man's seed of copulation go out from him
Not in lawful cohabitation, nor voluntarily, but involuntarily, as Aben Ezra observes; not through any disorder, which came by an accident, or in any criminal way, but through a dream, or any lustful imagination; what is commonly called nocturnal pollution ^F3; then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the
even;
and so the Egyptian priests, when it happened that they were defiled by a dream, they immediately purified themselves in a laver ^F4 so the Jewish priests did when the like happened to them asleep in the temple ^F5; see ( Deuteronomy 23:10 Deuteronomy 23:11 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 "----& noctem flumine purgas." Pers. Satyr. 2.
F4 Chaeremon. apud Porphyr. de Abstinentia, l. 4. c. 7.
F5 Misn. Tamid. c. 1. sect. 1.

Leviticus 15:16 In-Context

14 On the eighth day he shall take two doves or two pigeons to the entrance of the Tent of the Lord's presence and give them to the priest.

15 The priest shall offer one of them as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. In this way he will perform the ritual of purification for the man.

16 When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body, and he remains unclean until evening.

17 Anything made of cloth or leather on which the semen falls must be washed, and it remains unclean until evening.

18 After sexual intercourse both the man and the woman must take a bath, and they remain unclean until evening.