Bible Strands
Leviticus 15:19
When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses delivers this instruction to the Israelites as part of the priestly purity code following the regulations on male and female emissions. The directive establishes immediate ritual boundaries for the camp regarding menstrual blood.
The words — The verb זָבָה (za.Vah) means "discharging," coupled with דָּם (dam) for "blood," to describe a flow originating from her flesh (בְּשָׂרָהּ). This phrasing treats the physiological event as a defined category of ritual impurity rather than a moral failing.
The thread — The seven-day impurity period mirrors the postpartum uncleanness in Leviticus 12:2 and provides the cultural backdrop for the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5:25. These passages share the same ancient classification system where blood flow triggers temporary ceremonial separation.
Why it lands — The text mandates that the woman and anyone who contacts her remain unclean until evening. It requires the community to enforce physical separation protocols to preserve the designated standard of ritual purity.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even.
Cross-references
- Leviticus 12:2 “Say to the Israelites, ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be unclean for seven days, as she is during the days of her menstruation.
- Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
- Mark 5:25 And a woman was there who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years.
- Leviticus 12:4 The woman shall continue in purification from her bleeding for thirty-three days. She must not touch anything sacred or go into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are complete.
- Leviticus 20:18 If a man lies with a menstruating woman and has sexual relations with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has uncovered the source of her blood. Both of them must be cut off from among their people.
- Lamentations 1:8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.
- Lamentations 1:17 Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
- Ezekiel 36:17 “Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds. Their behavior before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman’s impurity.