Leviticus 15:2
Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: The man that hath an issue of seed, shall be unclean.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Loquimini filiis Israël, et dicite eis : Vir, qui patitur fluxum seminis, immundus erit.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Λάλησον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ καὶ ἐρεῖς αὐτοῖς Ἀνδρὶ ἀνδρὶ ᾧ ἐὰν γένηται ῥύσις ἐκ τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ, ἡ ῥύσις αὐτοῦ ἀκάθαρτός ἐστιν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- דַּבְּרוּ֙ אֶל בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֲלֵהֶ֑ם אִ֣ישׁ אִ֗ישׁ כִּ֤י יִהְיֶה֙ זָ֣ב מִבְּשָׂר֔וֹ זוֹב֖וֹ טָמֵ֥א הֽוּא
Haydock's commentary
Issue of seed, shall be unclean. These legal uncleannesses were instituted in order to give the people a horror of carnal impurities. (Challoner)
If the gonorrhœa, and the lawful act of marriage, (ver. 16,) and nocturnal delusions, (Deuteronomy xxiii. 10,) induce a kind of uncleanness
surely to imitate Onan is most detestable, Genesis xxviii. 9. (Tirinus)
The Jews rank the latter crime with murder, and so does Tertullian. See Exodus xxi. 22.
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, That the ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech
The ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech; lest he either utter what ought to be suppressed or suppress what he ought to utter. For, as incautious speaking leads into error, so indiscreet silence leaves in error those who might have been instructed. For often improvident rulers, fearing to lose human favour, shrink timidly from speaking freely the things that are right; and, according to the voice of the Truth ( Joh. x. 12 ), serve unto the custody of the flock by no means with the zeal of shepherds, but in the way of hirelings; since they fly when the wolf cometh if they hide themselves under silence. For hence it is that the Lord through the prophet upbraids them, saying, Dumb dogs, that cannot bark ( Isai. lvi. 10 ). …