Historical chapter commentary
Verse 2. Issue of seed, shall be unclean. These legal uncleannesses were instituted in order to give the people a horror of carnal impurities. Challoner.—If the gonorrhœa, and the lawful act of marriage, (verse 16,) and nocturnal delusions, (Deuteronomy 23:10,) induce a kind of uncleanness—surely to imitate Onan is most detestable, Genesis 28:9. Tirinus.—The Jews rank the latter crime with murder, and so does Tertullian. See Exodus 21:22.
Verse 3. At every moment, is not in Heb., but something like it occurs in the Sam. and Septuagint According to the Hebrew the uncleanness subsists for some time after the issue has ceased. Grotius pretends that these disorders were contagious; but the reason why God requires such purity in his people, is given verse 31. He dwelt among them, and would not allow of any disrespectful behaviour. There were to live like priests in his temple. The pagans in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, required the like attention to cleanliness in their priests. Herod. ii.—Noctem flumine purgas. Persius ii. Calmet.
Verse 11. Such a one; the person under the disorder, unless he have washed his hands.
Verse 12. Broken, after he is perfectly healed. Calmet.
Verse 15. Offer, (faciet) “shall sacrifice.” D.—For sin. Legal, or any other that he may have incurred.
Verse 16. Evening, whether the action were lawful or not. Menochius.—Some explain this verse, of nocturnal inconveniences; and verse 18, of the act of marriage. The latter rendered unclean only in as much as it hindered a person from partaking of any thing sacred, though he might perform the duties of life. Calmet.—This law was to lay some restraint on the too frequent use of marriage. Theodoret. D.
Verse 19. At … month. The Hebrew and other versions omit this. Calmet.—But “her issue in her flesh,” implies as much. Bible.—Naturalists anciently deemed this very contagious. Solin c. i. Plin. ix. 15. Calmet.—Days, not out of the camp, but from the company of men.
Verse 20. One, except infants, and so forth
Verse 24. Days, supposing the case was not brought before the judge, and the man did it through ignorance: otherwise it was death. Calmet. 20:18.
Verse 25. Blood, hæmorrhoids. Menochius.—Flowers. Hebrew “all the days of the issue of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation. She shall be unclean.”
Verse 28. Run. Then she might act as usual, without defiling what she touched. It seems from verse 13, that this law regarded only the time while the tabernacle was in the camp. It would have been very difficult to observe it, when the people were dispersed throughout the land of Chanaan. Calmet.
Verse 31. Teach. So the Septuagint also read. Hebrew “Thus you shall remove … from their filth.” Houbig.—Filth. God threatens to kill them, if they approach unclean. Menochius.—S. Jerom (in Gal. v.) understands this of those abominable sins, which ought not to be mentioned. Worthington.