The context of this passage is the Israelites arrayed for war. He must sit outside the community for 12 hours soaking in the hot sun, his own damp nut-fog, and musty shame.

Ħ:30 am ~ His wooden spear beside him, the solider rises with the sun and a smile from a half remembered dream.Ħ:31 am ~ The solider stretches, yawns, places his hand on his bed roll, suddenly feeling and seeing the sticky mess.Ħ:43 am ~ The solider finally tracks down his commanding officer, and has a half-mumbled conversation with an awkwardness worthy of an SNL sketch.Ħ:45 pm ~ In the evening, as the sun is beginning to set (Hebrew ‘ereb), the solider ritually washes himself.ĭuring this intervening time the man was ritually unclean, he was in a common state, not worthy to fight in the holy army of YHWH. Returning to the solider who sprays sperm in his sleep, we see this clearly. This is further illustrated by the requirements made on a person who becomes unclean: separation from the community until the ritual offerings, sacrifices, and/or washing takes place. We stress: ritual uncleanliness is not the same as religious turpitude. Thus the chiastic structure of the passage- holy, common // unclean, clean- shows the holy is clean because it is separate and ready to enter into a community of worship, and the common is unclean in that it is not suitable for worship, but it is not necessarily evil. The sense of the word is the distinction between things that are specifically suitable for use in worship (holy, separate) and things that are not (common, everyday). It does not speak primarily to moral or ethical compositions. Some older translations will still render the word chol as “profane” or “unholy,” but the meaning of these choices is lost to modern readers.

You are to distinguish between the holy ( qodesh) and the common ( chol), and between the unclean ( tame’) and the clean ( tahowr) and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through Moses. Clean and unclean do have moral implications in some passages, but that is not the primary medium of the convention, neither is it relevant to the passage at hand.Ī key passage to understand the clean/unclean dichotomy is Leviticus 10:10-11: The Bible does not say that women are evil or less than men because of their menstrual cycles or the participating in the birthing process, any more than it says men are evil when they ejaculate. In the Bible, unclean does not primarily indicate that something is inherently evil or is a sign of moral turpitude. These are normal, daily, monthly occurrences, or completely up to chance. Notice that majority of these things naturally happen without any willful act by the person subsequently deemed unclean. someone who is unclean (Leviticus 15 22:4-7 Numbers 19:21-22 ) Women on their period (Leviticus 15:19-24)Ĭoming into contact with anyone who has come into contact with any of the above, i.e. Molds and infestations in a house or clothing (Leviticus 13:47-51)Ĭoming in contact with an animal corpse (Leviticus 5:2)Ĭoming in contact with a human corpse (Numbers 5:2b 19:11 ), Having certain skin diseases (Leviticus 13-14) For some initial perspective, here is a partial list of things that can make someone ritually unclean:Įating unclean animals (Leviticus 11:26 Deuteronomy 14:8)

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