Leviticus 15:31

31 " 'You must keep the people of Israel away from things that make them "unclean." Then they will not die for being "unclean." And they will not die for making the place where the LORD lives "unclean." It is in the middle of the camp.' "

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 On the eighth day she must get two doves or two young pigeons. She must bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
30 " 'The priest must sacrifice them. One is for a sin offering. The other is for a burnt offering. In that way he will pay for her sin in the sight of the Lord. He will do it because her flow of blood made her "unclean."
31 " 'You must keep the people of Israel away from things that make them "unclean." Then they will not die for being "unclean." And they will not die for making the place where the LORD lives "unclean." It is in the middle of the camp.' "
32 Those are the rules for a man who has liquid waste flowing out of his body. They apply to a man who is made "unclean" by semen that flows from his body.
33 They apply to a woman who is having her monthly period. They apply to a man or woman who has a liquid flow. And they apply to a man who makes love to a woman who is not "clean."
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