Commentary - Leviticus 15:31-33

Bird's-eye view

This concluding paragraph of Leviticus 15 serves as the great "therefore" for all the preceding regulations concerning bodily discharges. It is the theological anchor, explaining the ultimate "why" behind these seemingly strange and intimate laws. The issue is not primarily hygiene, though God's laws are never irrational and certainly promote health. The central issue is the awesome and dangerous reality of a holy God dwelling in the midst of a physically and spiritually leaky people. The tabernacle is the ground zero of God's presence on earth, and any form of uncleanness, which is a tangible symbol of sin and death's corruption, cannot be allowed to approach it casually. The penalty for such careless contamination is not a fine, but death. This passage therefore elevates the entire chapter from a mere list of ceremonial rules to a profound statement about the absolute necessity of separation, mediation, and cleansing for anyone who would live in fellowship with the living God. It sets the stage for the Day of Atonement in the next chapter, which is God's ultimate provision for this very problem.

In short, God is teaching His people a foundational lesson through these embodied, everyday realities. Life in a fallen world is messy. Our bodies themselves are marked by the curse, prone to decay and involuntary emissions that symbolize our loss of integrity and control. These laws were a constant, tangible sermon, preaching that our natural state is one of unfitness for God's presence. Access to God is not a human right; it is a gracious gift, and it is given on His terms. The entire system, summarized here, points relentlessly to the need for a perfect cleanser and a better tabernacle, one not made with hands.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

Leviticus 15 is the culmination of a section dealing with various forms of ritual uncleanness (chapters 11-15). The book begins with the laws of sacrifice, showing how a sinful man can approach a holy God (chapters 1-7). It then details the consecration of the priesthood, the mediators of this system (chapters 8-10). Following this, the law addresses what makes a person unfit to enter the holy space. This includes unclean foods (chapter 11), the uncleanness of childbirth (chapter 12), and the defiling diseases, particularly leprosy (chapters 13-14). Chapter 15 brings this principle to its most personal and unavoidable level: the normal, involuntary functions of the human body. By concluding this entire section with the stark warning of verse 31, the law impresses upon Israel that holiness is not an abstract concept. It is a matter of life and death that touches every part of their existence, right down to their own skin. This provides the immediate justification for the institution of the Day of Atonement in chapter 16, the ultimate answer to the problem of a holy God dwelling among an unclean people.

Key Issues

The Grammar of Holiness

To our modern, sanitized sensibilities, the contents of Leviticus 15 can seem embarrassing, primitive, or just plain weird. But this is because we have forgotten the grammar of holiness. God, in His wisdom, was teaching His kindergarten people the basic alphabet of sin and redemption. He used tangible, unavoidable realities as object lessons. Bodily discharges, things that flow out of us beyond our control, are potent symbols of the corruption that dwells within us. They are a picture of life leaking away, a reminder of the death that is at work in our members because of the fall.

This was not about God being squeamish. It was about God being holy. His presence is a consuming fire. To approach Him requires perfect integrity, perfect wholeness. Since we lack this entirely, these laws served as a gracious, constant reminder. Every time a man or woman was in a state of ritual uncleanness, they were not being told they were morally wicked; they were being reminded that they were creatures of the fall, unfit in their natural state to stand before the Creator. This system was designed to create a deep-seated longing for a true and final cleansing, a cleansing that could never be accomplished by washing clothes or waiting for the sun to go down.

Verse by Verse Commentary

31 “Thus you shall keep the sons of Israel separated from their uncleanness, so that they will not die in their uncleanness by making My tabernacle that is among them unclean.”

Here is the linchpin of the whole chapter. The word separated is key; it is related to the word for "Nazarite," one set apart. God is commanding a quarantine. The Israelites are to be cordoned off from their own uncleanness. This is a powerful picture of our condition. We need to be saved from ourselves. The reason for this separation is not arbitrary; it is a matter of life and death. Proximity is the issue. If God were not dwelling among them, their uncleanness would simply be a feature of their fallenness. But because His holy tabernacle is pitched in the center of their camp, their uncleanness becomes a mortal threat. It is like bringing a lit match into a powder magazine. God's holiness and man's uncleanness are volatile when brought together without the prescribed mediation. To defile the tabernacle is to profane God's name, to treat His holy dwelling as common, and the penalty for such high-handed contempt is death. This establishes the fundamental principle: God's presence is a blessing to the pure, but a consuming fire to the unclean.

32 This is the law for the one with a discharge, and for the man who has a seminal emission so that he is unclean by it,

This verse begins the formal summary, a concluding statement that neatly ties up the preceding regulations. It is legal language, the kind of phrase that concludes a section of a law code. The text explicitly mentions two of the male conditions: the pathological discharge (likely a venereal disease) and the normal seminal emission. Notice the scope. It covers both the abnormal and the normal, the diseased and the healthy. This is crucial. The ceremonial law was not simply a primitive public health code. While a diseased discharge was certainly a health issue, a normal emission was not. Yet both rendered a man unclean. This shows us that the issue was not hygiene but theology. The point was that man, even in his natural and healthy state, is not fit for the immediate presence of God. Something has to be done. Some cleansing is required.

33 and for the woman who is ill because of menstrual impurity, and for the one who has a discharge, whether a male or a female, or a man who lies with an unclean woman.

The summary concludes by listing the remaining cases. It includes the woman in her regular menstrual cycle, which made her unclean for seven days. It then gives a catch-all for anyone, male or female, with an abnormal, prolonged discharge (like the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospels). And finally, it reiterates that uncleanness is contagious, mentioning the man who has relations with a woman during her period of impurity. The law is comprehensive. It covers men and women, the healthy and the sick, the voluntary and the involuntary. No one is exempt. Everyone, at some point, is unclean. This was a great leveling reality in Israel. No one could claim perpetual purity. All were regularly reminded of their need for grace and cleansing. It was a schoolmaster, driving them again and again to the sacrificial system that pointed to the Lamb of God who would one day provide a true, permanent, and internal cleansing.

Application

We are no longer under this ceremonial law. Christ has come. He is the true tabernacle, God dwelling among us. And His blood cleanses from all sin, not just from ritual defilement. The woman with the issue of blood touched Him and was made clean, not the other way around. In Christ, the entire system is reversed. He is a fountain of cleanness, and all who come to Him in faith are washed.

But does this mean these verses have nothing to say to us? Not at all. The general equity, the underlying principle, is as relevant as ever. God is still holy. And we, the church, are now His temple, His dwelling place by the Spirit (1 Cor 3:16). The warning against defiling the tabernacle is therefore a warning to us not to defile the church. We are to be separated from our uncleanness. This is not a ritual separation, but a moral and spiritual one. We are to put off the old self, which is corrupt, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:22-24).

These laws should instill in us a profound gratitude for the finished work of Jesus Christ. He did not die to make us comfortable with our uncleanness, but to cleanse us from it. He did not tear the veil so that we could saunter casually into God's presence, but so that we could draw near with confidence, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:22). The great danger for us is not that we will forget to wash our clothes, but that we will forget the infinite cost of our access to God. We must not treat the holy things of God as common. We must not defile the church, His body, with unrepentant sin, with malice, with hypocrisy, or with lovelessness. The God who warned Israel not to defile His tabernacle is the same God we worship, and He has not become less holy.