Matthew Henry on Leviticus 15:1-18
We have here the law concerning the ceremonial uncleanness that was contracted by running issues in men. It is called in the margin (Lev 15:2) the running of the reins: a very grievous and loathsome disease, which was, usually the effect and consequent of wantonness and uncleanness, and a dissolute course of life, filling men's bones with the sins of their youth, and leaving them to mourn at the last, when all the pleasures of their wickedness have vanished, and nothing remains but the pain and anguish of a rotten carcase and a wounded conscience. And what fruit has the sinner then of those things whereof he has so much reason to be ashamed? Rom 6:21. As modesty is an ornament of grace to th…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on Leviticus 15:2
When any man hath a running issue - The cases of natural uncleanness, both of men and women, mentioned in this chapter, taken in a theological point of view, are not of such importance to us as to render a particular description necessary, the letter of the text being, in general, plain enough. The disease mentioned in the former part of this chapter appears to some to have been either the consequence of a very bad infection, or of some criminal indulgence; for they find that it might be communicated in a variety of ways, which they imagine are here distinctly specified. On this ground the person was declared unclean, and all commerce and connection with him strictly forbidden. The Septuagin…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Leviticus 15:2
Speak unto the children of Israel,.... From whence we learn, says the above mentioned writer, that these uncleannesses were only usual among the children of Israel, not among the Gentiles; that is, the laws respecting them were only binding on the one, and not on the other (s):
and say unto them, when any man; in the Hebrew text it is, "a man, a man", which the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases, a young man, and an old man:
hath a running issue out of his flesh; what physicians call a "gonorrhoea", and we, as in the margin of our Bibles, "the running of the reins":
because of his issue, he is unclean; in a ceremonial sense, though it arises from a natural cause; but if not from any criminal…
