Leviticus 15:31

31 You shall teach therefore the children of Israel to take heed of uncleanness, that they may not die in their filth, when they shall have defiled my tabernacle that is among them.

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 offer for herself to the priest, two turtles, or two young pigeons, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony:
30 And he shall offer one for sin, and the other for a holocaust, and he shall pray for her before the Lord, and for the issue of her uncleanness.
31 You shall teach therefore the children of Israel to take heed of uncleanness, that they may not die in their filth, when they shall have defiled my tabernacle that is among them.
32 This is the law of him that hath the issue of seed, and that is defiled by copulation.
33 And of the woman that is separated in her monthly times, or that hath a continual issue of blood, and of the man that sleepeth with her.
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