Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 11:31
These [are] unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.
31. creep ] swarm.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
31-35. whosoever doth touch them,when . . . dead, shall be unclean until the evenTheseregulations must have often caused annoyance by suddenly requiringthe exclusion of people from society, as well as the ordinances ofreligion. Nevertheless they were extremely useful and salutary,especially as enforcing attention to cleanliness. This is a matter ofessential importance in the East, where venomous reptiles often creepinto houses and are found lurking in boxes, vessels, or holes in thewall; and the carcass of one of them, or a dead mouse, mole, lizard,or other unclean animal, might be inadvertently touched by the hand,or fall on clothes, skin bottles, or any article of common domesticuse. By connecting, therefore, the touch of such creatures withceremonial defilement, which required immediately to be removed, aneffectual means was taken to prevent the bad effects of venom and allunclean or noxious matter.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
These are unclean to you of all that creep,…. Unfit for food, and not to be touched, at least when dead, as in the next clause, that is, these eight sorts of creeping things before mentioned, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it, and these only, as Maimonides says r:
whosoever doth touch them when they are dead shall be unclean until the even; for touching them while alive did not defile, only when dead; and this the Jews interpret, while they are in the case in which they died, that is, while they are moist; for, as Ben Gersom says, if they are so dry, as that they cannot return to their moisture, they do not defile; for which reason, neither the bones, nor nails, nor nerves, nor skin of these creeping things, defile; but, they say s, while the back bone is whole, and the bones cleave to it, then a creeping thing is reckoned moist, and while it is so it defiles.
r Hilchot, Abot Hatumaot, c. 4. sect. 14. s Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Niddah, c. 7. sect. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(31) These are unclean.Better, these are the most unclean, as Lev. 11:29. That is, the eight animals thus enumerated are pre-eminently unclean of all the creeping things.
When they be dead.The phrase, whosoever doth touch them when they be dead, is simply another expression for whosoever toucheth the carcase of them, which is used in Lev. 11:24. Defilement is only contracted when their dead bodies are touched, but not if touched when alive. According to the canon which obtained during the second Temple, there is no kind of living creature that becomes defiled while it is alive, or defiles when it is alive, save man only.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Lev 11:31 These [are] unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.
Ver. 31. Touch them, when they be dead. ] There is no kind of living creature that is defiled while it is alive, or that defileth while it is alive, save man only, saith Maimony. Others note that there were more remarkable expressions of God’s anger upon man’s sin in the dead body of a man than of a beast. The one made unclean but till evening: the other seven days.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
unclean. Better, “most unclean”; so in Lev 11:29.
when they be dead. Compare Lev 11:24.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Lev 11:8, Lev 11:24, Lev 11:25
Reciprocal: Lev 5:2 – touch Lev 11:39 – General Num 19:11 – toucheth the dead 1Sa 20:26 – he is not clean