Leviticus 15:31

31 "'So you must warn the people of Israel to stay separated from things that make them unclean. If you don't warn the people, they might make my Holy Tent unclean, and then they would have to die!'"

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 Then on the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the Meeting Tent.
30 The priest must offer one bird for a sin offering and the other for a whole burnt offering. In this way the priest will make her clean so she can belong to the Lord again.
31 "'So you must warn the people of Israel to stay separated from things that make them unclean. If you don't warn the people, they might make my Holy Tent unclean, and then they would have to die!'"
32 These are the teachings for the person who discharges a body fluid and for the man who becomes unclean from semenn coming out of his body.
33 These are the teachings for the woman who becomes unclean from her monthly period, for a man or woman who has a discharge, and for a man who becomes unclean by having sexual relations with a woman who is unclean.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.