Leviticus 5:2

5:2 Or when there is ¹  a person who touches anything ceremonially ²  unclean, whether the carcass of an unclean wild animal, or the carcass of an unclean domesticated animal, or the carcass of an unclean creeping thing, even if he did not realize it, ³  but he himself has become unclean and is guilty; ⁴ 

Leviticus 11:5

11:5 The rock badger ⁵  is unclean to you because it chews the cud even though its hoof is not divided.

Leviticus 11:38

11:38 but if water is put on the seed and such a carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.

Leviticus 13:11

13:11 it is a chronic ⁶  disease on the skin of his body, ⁷  so the priest is to pronounce him unclean. ⁸  The priest ⁹  must not merely quarantine him, for he is unclean. ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 13:15

13:15 so the priest is to examine the raw flesh ¹¹  and pronounce him unclean ¹²  – it is diseased.

¹ tc The insertion of the words “when there is” is a reflection of the few Hebrew mss, Smr, and LXX that have כִּי (ki, “when, if”; cf. vv. 3 and esp. 4) rather than the MT’s אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “who”). Many English versions render this as a conditional clause (“if”).

² tn The word “ceremonially” has been supplied in the translation to clarify that the uncleanness involved is ritual or ceremonial in nature.

³ tn Heb “and it is hidden from him,” meaning that the person who contracted the ceremonial uncleanness was not aware at the time what had happened, but later found out that he had become ceremonially unclean. This same phrase occurs again in both vv. 3 and 4.

⁴ sn Lev 5:2-3 are parallel laws of uncleanness (contracted from animals and people, respectively), and both seem to assume that the contraction of uncleanness was originally unknown to the person (vv. 2 and 3) but became known to him or her at a later time (v. 3; i.e., “has come to know” in v. 3 is to be assumed for v. 2 as well). Uncleanness itself did not make a person “guilty” unless he or she failed to handle it according to the normal purification regulations (see, e.g., “wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening,” Lev 15:5 NIV; cf. Lev 11:39-40; 15:5-12, 16-24; Num 19, etc.). The problem here in Lev 5:2-3 is that, because the person had not been aware of his or her uncleanness, he or she had incurred guilt for not carrying out these regular procedures, and it would now be too late for that. Thus, the unclean person needs to bring a sin offering to atone for the contamination caused by his or her neglect of the purity regulations.

⁵ sn A small animal generally understood to be Hyrax syriacus; KJV, ASV, NIV “coney”; NKJV “rock hyrax.”

⁹ tn The term rendered here “chronic” is a Niphal participle meaning “grown old” (HALOT 448 s.v. II ישׁן nif.2). The idea is that this is an old enduring skin disease that keeps on developing or recurring.

¹⁰ tn Heb “in the skin of his flesh” as opposed to the head or the beard (v. 29; cf. v. 2 above).

¹¹ tn This is the declarative Piel of the verb טָמֵא (tame’, cf. the note on v. 3 above).

¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the priest) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹³ sn Instead of just the normal quarantine isolation, this condition calls for the more drastic and enduring response stated in Lev 13:45-46. Raw flesh, of course, sometimes oozes blood to one degree or another, and blood flows are by nature impure (see, e.g., Lev 12 and 15; cf. J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 191).

¹³ tn Heb “and the priest shall see the living flesh.”

¹⁴ tn This is the declarative Piel of the verb טָמֵא (tame’; cf. the note on v. 3 above).