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 15:3
And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue,.... Or the sign of it, by which it may be judged whether he is unclean by it or no:
whether his flesh run with his issue; or salivates, or emits a flow of matter like a saliva, or in the manner of spittle:
or his flesh be stopped from his issue; with it, or because of it; because it is gross, as Jarchi says, it cannot come forth freely:
it is his uncleanness; whether it be one or the other, he is reckoned on account of it an unclean person. This was an emblem of the corruption and vitiosity of nature, and of all evil things that are in or flow out of the evil heart of man, which are defiling to him; see Matthew 15:18.
