Uncleanness

Uncleanness (chiefly טֻמאָה, used in the almost technical sense of Levitical defilement) is the term by which, in the law of Moses, is indicated that condition which caused the temporary suspension of a Hebrew man or woman from religious and social privileges as a subject of the Theocracy.

1. About seventy specific cases of possible uncleanness are described, and others implied. Various modes of classifying them have been resorted to. The old Jewish writers made two classes, according to the length of the ceremonial suspension. The lighter class embraced the instances of uncleanness for the day; the heavier class, those of a longer period (Pesictha, in Ugol. 15:1148; Maimonides, Constitutiones, in Ugol. 8:58; where the contaminated of the lighter class is called טבול יו, de die

lavandus; comp. Lightfoot, altarm. of O.T. [Works by Pitman, 2, 122]; although he gives four classes, according to time). Other writers (see Cornelius a Lapide on Le 15:22) make also two classes, but on a different principle: "Duplex fuit immundities Hebr. Una erat peccatum, quia prsecepto Dei vetita, talis erat comedere carnes immundas. Talis etiam erat pati lepram, etc. Altera non erat vetita, sed solum indicata et statuta, talis erat tangere leprosum, etc. Haec non erant peccata, sed tantum inducebant irregularitatem quandam." Modern Jews profess to be bound only by the former of these classes. The threefold classification, however, which is indicated in the law of Moses itself seems to be most convenient, and is most commonly adopted (a) "Every leper;" (b) "Every one that hath an issue;" (c) "Whosoever is defiled by the dead" (see Nu 5:2). The lawgiver, no doubt, here refers to his own enactments in Leviticus and under the three generic phrases includes all the instances of uncleanness.