Leviticus 15:24
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If a man lies with her and her menstrual flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will become unclean.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
If a man lay with her and her uncleanness came upon him, he became unclean for seven days, and the bed upon which he lay became unclean as well. The meaning cannot be merely if he lie upon the same bed with her, but if he have conjugal intercourse, as is evident from Lev 20:18 and Num 5:13 (cf. Gen 26:10; Gen 34:2; Gen 35:22; Sa1 2:22). It cannot be adduced as an objection to this explanation, which is the only admissible one, that according to Lev 18:19 and Lev 20:18 intercourse with a woman during her menses was an accursed crime, to be punished by extermination. For the law in Lev 20:18 refers partly to conjugal intercourse during the hemorrhage of a woman after child-birth, as the similarity of the words in Lev 20:18 and Lev 12:7 (דּמיה מקור) clearly proves, and to the case of a man attempting cohabitation with a woman during her menstruation. The verse before us, on the contrary, refers simply to the possibility of menstruation commencing during the act of conjugal intercourse, when the man would be involuntarily defiled through the unexpected uncleanness of the woman.
Open source ↗In this chapter we have laws concerning other ceremonial uncleannesses contracted either by bodily disease like that of the leper, or some natural incidents, and this either, I. In men (v. 1-18). Or, II. In women (Lev 15:19-33). We need not be at all curious in explaining these antiquated laws, it is enough if we observe the general intention; but we have need to be very cautious lest sin take occasion by the commandment to become more exceedingly sinful; and exceedingly sinful it is when lust is kindled by sparks of fire from God's altar. The case is bad with the soul when it is putrefied by that which should purify it.
Open source ↗15:24 Sexual intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period will later be forbidden and given a harsh penalty (18:19). This verse probably describes a case in which the woman’s menstrual flow went unnoticed when the sexual activity began or in which the woman’s period began during intercourse. The regulations required the man who came into contact with her blood to share the woman’s seven-day quarantine.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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If a man lies with a menstruating woman and has sexual relations with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has uncovered the source of her blood. Both of them must be cut off from among their people.
You must not approach a woman to have sexual relations with her during her menstrual period.
Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.
He does not eat at the mountain or look to the idols of the house of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman during her period.
Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
In you they have uncovered the nakedness of their fathers; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity.
of a woman in her menstrual period, of any male or female who has a discharge, and of a man who lies with an unclean woman.’”
Abstain from every form of evil.