Chapter 15
Leviticus 15 - GENERAL REMARKS - This chapter is not for the weak-stomached person. If you are uncomfortable with body language and functions, then I recommend you skip this chapter until a later date.
Leviticus 15:2-15 - Commentators on this passage seem pretty certain that this is talking about seminal emissions either due to disease or normal nocturnal emissions. But I am not so certain. In the first case, seminal emissions are specifically addressed in vs. 16-19. Secondly, the Lord is laying down pretty strict cleansing laws for a "healthy" bodily fluid - in a healthy male, the seminal fluid is clean and disease-free. I believe the Lord has in mind here discharges due to disease. Clearly, the discharge is coming from the pelvic area, because the Scripture refers to things a man would sit or lie down on (vs 4 & 6), whether it be anal or penile. Furthermore, healthy semen has nothing to do with spittle. In verse 8, however, the one on whom this man spits is unclean. This suggests that all the bodily fluids are contaminated, including spittle, which would be due to disease.
In the case of disease, if the man has a disease that should produce a discharge, and it doesn't. The man is still unclean (vs. 3).
Leviticus 15:12 - The verb form for "breaking" the clay pot is intensive, which is best translated "the clay pot the unclean man touches shall be shattered to little pieces". The same verb form is used for cleansing the wooden vessel. It should be "thoroughly washed out with water." The NASB just says "rinsed", but there is more force attached to this action.
Leviticus 15:16-18 - The Lord differentiates between seminal emissions related to coitus and all other causes of seminal emissions (such as normal nocturnal). Verses 16-17 deal with non-coital emissions, and one can see that provision for cleansing clothing is involved. Verse 18 is specifically for coitus, and the command is to wash and be unclean until evening, no provision for washing clothing is specified.
Leviticus 15:19-24 - This passage speaks of menstrual cycles.
Leviticus 15:23 - There appears to be an instance where this law was in force before it was ever written down. Remember when Jacob's wife Rachel had stolen her father's household gods. She hid them in her saddle. Laban comes to her and she says she cannot get off the saddle because she is having her cycle (see Genesis 31:34). It could be that there was a prohibition understood that whatever a woman sits on during her cycle is unclean and a man should not touch. We have already noted how several laws of God were written in creation order before they were ever written down by Moses. This might be another instance.
Leviticus 15:24 - "If a man actually lies with her..." (NASB). This construction in Hebrew is adjectival intensification. The NASB translators are taking this construction as semi-outrageous. "If he actually does this unclean thing...", as if no one would ever really want to do it.
