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Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025
the Week of Proper 17 / Ordinary 22
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Read the Bible

Brenton's Septuagint

Numbers 19:11

He that touches the dead body of any man, shall be unclean seven days.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Defilement;   Mourning;   Sanitation;   Water;   Thompson Chain Reference - Bodies, Dead;   Dead Bodies;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Dead, the;   Defilement;   Purifications or Baptisms;   Red Heifer, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Ashes;   Burial;   Clean and Unclean;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Funeral;   Uncleanness;   Water;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Clean, Unclean;   Funeral;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Purification;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Burial;   Nazarite;   Numbers, the Book of;   Tabernacle;   Unclean and Clean;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Purity-Purification;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Clean and Unclean;   Colours;   Medicine;   Numbers, Book of;   Red Heifer;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bier;   Following;   Tiberias ;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Atonement;   Heifer, Red;   Water of Separation;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Ashes;   Burial;   Clean and unclean;   Covenant;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Uncleanness;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Bier;   Body;   Stranger and Sojourner (in the Old Testament);   Uncleanness;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Ancestor Worship;   Burial;   Hafá¹­arah;   Law, Reading from the;   Moses;   Red Heifer;  

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days:
King James Version
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
Lexham English Bible
"‘The one who touches a corpse of any person will be unclean for seven days.
English Standard Version
"Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.
New Century Version
"Those who touch a dead person's body will be unclean for seven days.
New English Translation
"‘Whoever touches the corpse of any person will be ceremonially unclean seven days.
Amplified Bible
'The one who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days.
New American Standard Bible
'The one who touches the dead body of any person will also be unclean for seven days.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Hee that toucheth the dead body of any man, shalbe vncleane euen seuen dayes.
Legacy Standard Bible
‘The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.
Contemporary English Version
The Lord said: If you touch a dead body, you will be unclean for seven days.
Complete Jewish Bible
"Anyone who touches a corpse, no matter whose dead body it is, will be unclean for seven days.
Darby Translation
He that toucheth a dead person, any dead body of a man, shall be unclean seven days.
Easy-to-Read Version
Those who touch a dead body will be unclean for seven days.
George Lamsa Translation
He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
Good News Translation
Those who touch a corpse are ritually unclean for seven days.
Christian Standard Bible®
“The person who touches any human corpse will be unclean for seven days.
Literal Translation
He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Who so now toucheth a deed ma, shal be vncleane seuen dayes:
American Standard Version
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days:
Bible in Basic English
Anyone touching a dead body will be unclean for seven days:
Bishop's Bible (1568)
He that toucheth the dead body of any man, shalbe vncleane seuen dayes.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
He that toucheth the dead, even any man's dead body, shall be unclean seven days;
King James Version (1611)
He that toucheth the dead body of any man, shall bee vncleane seuen dayes.
English Revised Version
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days:
Berean Standard Bible
Whoever touches any dead body will be unclean for seven days.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
He that touchith a deed bodi of man, and is vncleene for this bi seuene daies,
Young's Literal Translation
`He who is coming against the dead body of any man -- is unclean seven days;
Update Bible Version
He that touches any dead body of man shall be unclean seven days:
Webster's Bible Translation
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
World English Bible
He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days:
New King James Version
"He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days.
New Living Translation
"All those who touch a dead human body will be ceremonially unclean for seven days.
New Life Bible
"The one who touches the dead body of any person will be unclean for seven days.
New Revised Standard
Those who touch the dead body of any human being shall be unclean seven days.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
He that toucheth the dead, even any human person, shall be unclean seven days.
Douay-Rheims Bible
He that toucheth the corpse of a man, and is therefore unclean seven days,
Revised Standard Version
"He who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days;
THE MESSAGE
"Anyone who touches a dead body is ritually unclean for seven days. He must purify himself with the Water-of-Cleansing on the third day; on the seventh day he will be clean. But if he doesn't follow the procedures for the third and seventh days, he won't be clean. Anyone who touches the dead body of anyone and doesn't get cleansed desecrates God 's Dwelling and is to be excommunicated. For as long as the Water-of-Cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, he remains ritually unclean.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
'The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

Contextual Overview

11 He that touches the dead body of any man, shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall be purified on the third day and the seventh day, and shall be clean; but if he be not purged on the third day and the seventh day, he shall not be clean. 13 Every one that touches the carcase of the person of a man, if he should have died, and the other not have been purified, has defiled the tabernacle of the Lord: that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of sprinkling has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him. 14 And this is the law; if a man die in a house, every one that goes into the house, and all things in the house, shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel which has not a covering bound upon it, shall be unclean. 16 And every one who shall touch a man slain by violence, or a corpse, or human bone, or sepulchre, shall be unclean seven days. 17 And they shall take for the unclean of the burnt ashes of purification, and they shall pour upon them running water into a vessel. 18 And a clean man shall take hyssop, and dip it into the water, and sprinkle it upon the house, and the furniture, and all the souls that are therein, and upon him that touched the human bone, or the slain man, or the corpse, or the tomb. 19 And the clean man shall sprinkle the water on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day he shall purify himself; and the other shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and shall be unclean until evening. 20 And whatever man shall be defiled and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from the midst of the congregation, because he has defiled the holy things of the Lord, because the water of sprinkling has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

toucheth the dead: He who touched a dead beast was only unclean for one day - Leviticus 11:12, Leviticus 11:27, Leviticus 11:39, but he who touches a dead man is unclean for seven days. This was certainly designed to show the peculiar impurity and sinfulness of man, and the hatefulness of sin, seven times worse than the vilest animal! Numbers 19:16, Numbers 5:2, Numbers 9:6, Numbers 9:10, Numbers 31:19, Leviticus 11:31, Leviticus 21:1, Leviticus 21:11, Lamentations 4:14, Haggai 2:13, Romans 5:12, 2 Corinthians 6:17, Ephesians 2:1, Hebrews 9:14

man: Heb. soul of man

Reciprocal: Genesis 50:10 - seven days Leviticus 5:2 - touch Leviticus 5:3 - the uncleanness Leviticus 7:19 - General Leviticus 7:21 - the uncleanness Leviticus 15:13 - seven days Leviticus 22:4 - unclean Numbers 6:6 - he shall come Numbers 31:13 - without the camp 2 Chronicles 35:6 - sanctify Isaiah 65:4 - remain Ezekiel 39:14 - they shall Ezekiel 44:26 - General Hosea 9:4 - as

Cross-References

Genesis 19:28
And he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and towards the surrounding country, and saw, and behold a flame went up from the earth, as the smoke of a furnace.
Genesis 19:29
And it came to pass that when God destroyed all the cities of the region round about, God remembered Abraam, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when the Lord overthrew those cities in which Lot dwelt.
2 Kings 6:18
And they came down to him; and he prayed to the Lord, and said, Smite, I pray thee, this people with blindness. And he smote them with blindness, according to the word of Elisaie.
Ecclesiastes 10:15
The labour of fools will afflict them, as that of one who knows not to go to the city.
Isaiah 57:10
Thou hast wearied thyself with thy many ways; yet thou saidst not, I will cease to strengthen myself: for thou has done these things; therefore thou has not supplicated me.
Jeremiah 2:36
For thou has been so exceedingly contemptuous as to repeat thy ways; but thou shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assur.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

He that toucheth the dead body of any man,.... A man and not a beast, as Aben Ezra observes; for he that touched the dead body of a beast was unclean only until evening, Leviticus 11:24; any man, Jew or Gentile, as the same writer notes: this is instanced in, as being the principal pollution, though not the only one, yet so some think, for which the water of purification made of the ashes of the burnt heifer was appointed:

shall be unclean seven days; the reason of which is, because death is the fruit of sin, which is of a defiling nature, and to show that all that are dead in sins are defiled and defiling, and are not to be touched, or to have communion and fellowship held with them but to be abstained from.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

One practical effect of attaching defilement to a dead body, and to all that touched it, etc., would be to insure early burial, and to correct a practice not uncommon in the East, of leaving the deal to be devoured by the wild beasts.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Numbers 19:11. He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. — How low does this lay man! He who touched a dead beast was only unclean for one day, Leviticus 11:24; Leviticus 11:27; Leviticus 11:39; but he who touches a dead man is unclean for seven days. This was certainly designed to mark the peculiar impurity of man, and to show his sinfulness - seven times worse than the vilest animal! O thou son of the morning, how art thou fallen!


 
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