Leviticus 15:1-15, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Leviticus 15:1-15
An abnormal male discharge affects contact until recovery and offering
An abnormal male discharge makes body, bed, and seat transmit status
When a man has a running issue from his flesh, he is unclean. Whether the flesh runs with the issue or is stopped from it, that is his uncleanness. Every bed he lies on is unclean, and everything he sits on is unclean. Whoever touches his bed, sits on what he sat on, or touches his flesh washes clothes, bathes, and is unclean until evening. If he spits on someone clean, that person washes, bathes, and waits until evening. The saddle he rides on is unclean. Whoever carries things that were under him washes and bathes. If he touches someone without having rinsed his hands, that person washes and bathes. An earthen vessel he touches is broken; a wooden vessel is rinsed.
The map is thorough because ordinary furniture spreads the status. The condition may look like disease. The text does not name a diagnosis and does not assign moral guilt. It describes contact, washing, time, and broken clay.
Seven clean days and two birds close the case after the discharge stops
When he is cleansed of his issue, he counts seven days for his cleansing, washes clothes, bathes his flesh in running water, and is clean. On the eighth day he takes two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest at the door. The priest offers one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering and makes atonement for him before the LORD for his issue.
Recovery has a clock and a pair of birds, the same inexpensive pair used elsewhere when bodies return from a flow. Purification offering here answers a bodily discharge, not a confession of sin.
How this should shape us
Give people with a genital or urinary disorder privacy, washing, and medical care. Do not treat the condition as punishment, and do not use this contact map as a reason to humiliate a man or to play doctor with his body.
Teach it back
Explain Leviticus 15:1-15 in your own words. Include its ritual, legal, narrative, or calendar movement; one source-supported detail; one uncertainty; and one use the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters disagree over the system's symbolic logic, compositional layers, health effects, ancient practice, species and condition identifications, sanctuary-contamination models, and the relation of removable ritual status to wrongdoing. No one model explains every rule without remainder.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Leviticus 15:1-15, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, ritual and legal vocabulary, names, clause relationships, KJV language controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lev.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 15:1-15
Supports: Unit-bounded translator notes on Hebrew, syntax, ritual vocabulary, measures, textual questions, and older-English wording; silence is not treated as evidence.
NET Bible Leviticus PDF, complete PDF pp. 1-99, translation and translator notes for 15:1-15
Supports: Open critical orientation to sacrifice, priestly portions, sacred space, holiness, purity, and sanctuary protection in Leviticus 1-15.
Yale Bible Study, 'Leviticus Part 1,' complete guide sections 'What is Sacred About Sacrifice?', 'Thanksgiving, Pleas, and Devotion,' and 'Purity & Impurity,' applied to Leviticus 15:1-15
Supports: A modern critical comparison of purity models and their compositional implications, used only within the accessible publisher evidence.
Baden, Two Models of Biblical Purity, Oxford University Press 2026, publisher chapter previews and contents for the sanctuary-contamination and ritual-status models
Supports: Jewish scholarly controls for menstruation, prolonged bleeding, status, terminology, and later legal development.
Fonrobert, 'Menstruant as Zavah,' complete sections on Leviticus 15, niddah, zavah, Second Temple and rabbinic development
Supports: Publisher-visible framing of scholarly disagreement about Hebrews and supersessionism, used as a restraint on Christian canonical claims rather than as a complete solution.
Church, 'Hebrews and the Question of Supersessionism,' Oxford 2024 official abstract and metadata, pp. 167-180
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Leviticus 15:1-15, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Leviticus
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, ritual and legal vocabulary, names, clause relationships, KJV language controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lev.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 15:1-15
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Leviticus with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, PDF generated 2025-12-31
Supports: Unit-bounded translator notes on Hebrew, syntax, ritual vocabulary, measures, textual questions, and older-English wording; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Leviticus PDF, complete PDF pp. 1-99, translation and translator notes for 15:1-15
Open source ↗modern critical open study guide
Leviticus Part 1: Sacrifice, Purity, and Holiness
Joel S. Baden and Yale Bible Study
Yale Divinity School, 2023 course edition
Supports: Open critical orientation to sacrifice, priestly portions, sacred space, holiness, purity, and sanctuary protection in Leviticus 1-15.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, 'Leviticus Part 1,' complete guide sections 'What is Sacred About Sacrifice?', 'Thanksgiving, Pleas, and Devotion,' and 'Purity & Impurity,' applied to Leviticus 15:1-15
Open source ↗modern scholarly monograph open chapter previews
Two Models of Biblical Purity: The Science of Ritual
Joel S. Baden
Oxford University Press, 2026
Supports: A modern critical comparison of purity models and their compositional implications, used only within the accessible publisher evidence.
Exact location: Baden, Two Models of Biblical Purity, Oxford University Press 2026, publisher chapter previews and contents for the sanctuary-contamination and ritual-status models
Open source ↗modern jewish scholarly open text and rabbinic reception study
Menstruant as Zavah: How the Laws of Niddah Developed
Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert
TheTorah.com, 2018
Supports: Jewish scholarly controls for menstruation, prolonged bleeding, status, terminology, and later legal development.
Exact location: Fonrobert, 'Menstruant as Zavah,' complete sections on Leviticus 15, niddah, zavah, Second Temple and rabbinic development
Open source ↗modern christian scholarly handbook chapter abstract
Hebrews and the Question of Supersessionism
Philip Church
The Oxford Handbook of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles, Oxford University Press, 2024
Supports: Publisher-visible framing of scholarly disagreement about Hebrews and supersessionism, used as a restraint on Christian canonical claims rather than as a complete solution.
Exact location: Church, 'Hebrews and the Question of Supersessionism,' Oxford 2024 official abstract and metadata, pp. 167-180
Open source ↗