Leviticus 15:31

31 "And you shall keep the {Israelites} separate from their uncleanness so that they might not die because of their uncleanness by their making my tabernacle, which [is] in their midst, unclean.

Leviticus 15:31 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 15:31

Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their
uncleanness
Or because of it, and while they are in it, as from other persons, even their nearest relations, and from the house of God, as the next clause shows; or teach them, by observing the above laws and rules, to separate themselves, and that they be careful and cautions to keep themselves apart while in such impurities; and the children of Israel are only made mention of, because these laws are only binding upon them, with their proselytes and servants, free or not free F12, but not upon Gentiles; (See Gill on Leviticus 15:2): that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle
that [is] among them;
from whence it appears, that men and women, in the above circumstances, might not go into the tabernacle; and it was chiefly to prevent their access to it that these laws were given, for the greater reverence and honour of it; and that for such persons to enter there was a pollution of it, and the punishment was cutting off, or death; and for one to die in his impurity, without purification and sacrifice, was a dreadful thing, and to be deprecated, and to be guarded against by an observance of the above laws. But the Jews now say F13, that forasmuch as the reason of these precepts was, because such persons were forbidden to enter into the temple, that being destroyed, all these precepts of uncleanness are ceased also.


FOOTNOTES:

F12 Misn. Zabim, c. 2. sect. 1.
F13 Leo Modena's History of Rites, Customs of the present Jews, par. 1. c. 8.

Leviticus 15:31 In-Context

29 And on the eighth day she shall take for herself two turtledoves or two {young doves}, and she shall bring them to the priest at [the] tent of assembly's entrance.
30 And the priest shall {sacrifice} the one [as] a sin offering and the {other} [as] a burnt offering, and so the priest shall make atonement for her {before} Yahweh from her unclean body fluid discharge.'
31 "And you shall keep the {Israelites} separate from their uncleanness so that they might not die because of their uncleanness by their making my tabernacle, which [is] in their midst, unclean.
32 "This [is] the regulation of [the one with] the body fluid discharge and [the one] from whom an emission of semen goes out so that he becomes unclean by it
33 and {concerning} the menstruating [woman] in her bleeding and the person who discharges his body fluid, for the male and for the female and for a man who lies with an unclean woman."

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Literally "sons/children of Israel"
  • [b]. Or "by" or "in"
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.