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Leviticus 15

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1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

2 Speak ye to the sons of Israel, and say to them, A man, any man, that has·​·a·​·flow from his flesh, because of his flow he is unclean.

3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his flow; whether his flesh run with his flow, or his flesh be sealed from his flow, it is his uncleanness.

4 Every bed, upon which he who has·​·a·​·flow lies, is·​·unclean; and every vessel, upon which he sits, shall·​·be·​·unclean.

5 And a man who touches his bed shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

6 And he who sits on the vessel on which he that has the flow sat shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

7 And he who touches the flesh of him who has the flow shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

8 And if he who has the flow spit upon him who is clean; then he shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

9 And every chariot he rides on who has the flow shall·​·be·​·unclean.

10 And whoever touches anything that was under him shall be·​·unclean until the evening; and he who carries them shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

11 And everyone he touches who has the flow, and has not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

12 And the pottery vessel, that he who has·​·a·​·flow touches, shall be broken; and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water.

13 And when he who has·​·a·​·flow is cleansed of his flow; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his garments, and bathe his flesh in living waters, and shall be clean.

14 And on the eighth day he shall take for himself two turtledoves, or two young doves, and come before Jehovah to the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation, and give them to the priest;

15 and the priest shall make them, one for a sin offering, and one for a burnt·​·offering; and the priest shall make·​·atonement for him before Jehovah for his flow.

16 And a man, when the laying·​·down of seed go·​·out from him, then he shall bathe all his flesh in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

17 And every garment, and every skin, on which is the laying·​·down of seed, shall be washed in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

18 And the woman with whom a man shall lie, lying·​·down with seed, they shall bathe with water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

19 And if a woman have a flow, and her flow in her flesh be blood, she shall be in her isolation seven days; and all who touch her shall·​·be·​·unclean until the evening.

20 And everything that she lies upon in her isolation shall·​·be·​·unclean; and everything that she sits upon shall·​·be·​·unclean.

21 And everyone who touches her bed shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

22 And whoever touches any vessel that she sat on shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

23 And if it be on the bed, or on the vessel on which she sits, when he touches it, he shall be·​·unclean until the evening.

24 And if a man lying shall lie with her, and the uncleanness of her isolation shall be upon him, he shall be·​·unclean seven days; and all the bed on which he lies shall·​·be·​·unclean.

25 And if a woman have a flowing flow of her blood many days not in the time of her isolation, or if it flow beyond her isolation; all the days of the flow of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her isolation; she shall be unclean.

26 Every bed upon which she lies all the days of her flow shall be for her as the bed of her isolation; and all of the vessels that she sits upon shall be unclean, as the uncleanness of her isolation.

27 And whoever touches them shall be·​·unclean, and shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and be·​·unclean until the evening.

28 But if she be cleansed of her flow, then she shall number to herself seven days, and afterwards she shall be·​·clean.

29 And on the eighth day she shall take for herself two turtledoves, or two young doves, and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation.

30 And the priest shall make one for a sin offering, and one for a burnt·​·offering; and the priest shall make·​·atonement for her before Jehovah for the flow of her uncleanness.

31 And you shall separate the sons of Israel from their uncleanness; and they will not die in their uncleanness, when they defile My Habitation that is in the midst of them.

32 This is the law of the flow, and of him whose laying·​·down of seed goes·​·out from him, and he is·​·unclean by it;

33 and of her that is infirm in her isolation, and of him that has a flowing flow, of the male, and of the female, and of the man who lies with her that is unclean.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

Commentaar

 

Woman

  
woman looking to sky
woman looking to sky

The word "woman" is used a number of different ways in the Bible – as a simple description, as someone connected to a man ("his woman"), as a temptation to the men of Israel (women of other nations) and even as a term of address (Jesus addresses Mary as "woman" twice). There are also various spiritual meanings, and context is important. In most cases, a "woman" in the Bible represents a church, either a true one following the Lord or a false one out to deceive. This follows from the idea that the true character of an organization – or of an individual person – is determined by its goals, its mission, what it cares about most. This is well represented by women, because women are, at their inmost levels, forms of affection and love. Men, by contrast, are forms of thought and intellect, which appear prominent but actually play the secondary role of describing and supporting the defining loves and affections. The most central of a woman's loves and affections is the love of truth. On an individual scale this is central to the union between a wife and a husband: She loves his intellect and ideas, and blends them with her own to produce acts of love and kindness; meanwhile her love inspires him to seek more true ideas and greater wisdom so those acts of love and kindness can be ever better. The relationship between the church and the Lord is different, obviously, because the Lord is perfect love and perfect wisdom in balance, and is ultimately both masculine and feminine. The church is also not specifically feminine, being made up of men and women working in harmony. Even so, the defining aspect of a church is its love for truth, and how it receives ideas from the Lord. So while "woman" sometimes represents a church in general, it can also represents the love of truth that exists in that church, or the love of truth itself. Not all churches are true, of course. The reason the people of Israel were so strongly forbidden to intermarry with the people that surrounded them was that the foreign women represented false churches and false beliefs. And for an Israeli woman to take a foreign husband represented introducing falsity into the Israeli church. Two other uses of "woman" are more limited, primarily to the Book of Genesis. One of them is Eve, the first woman, formed from the rib of Adam. In that story Adam represents the Most Ancient Church, and the woman represents what the Writings call the "proprium," a sense of self, of identity, of control that the Lord gave to people of the church at that time. In a way this fits with the more general representation, because the love of truth is an important way we can feel a sense of power in our own spiritual growth, but the representation of Eve is relatively unique. Much of the rest of Genesis is dealing rather directly with the Lord's own development during his childhood on earth. Since the Lord thought and felt more deeply than we can possibly imagine, the women in this stories – Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel and others – represent true ideas themselves, rather than affections for truth.