LEVITICUS 15:13-15, 28-30

 Q: When it talks about a male discharge I would presume it is referring to a male ejaculation. But in the next paragraph it refers to a woman’s discharge, which makes me question that. Also, waiting seven days after each “discharge” would seem odd if this were in fact referring to sex. So what sort of male and female discharge is being referenced here?

According to two commentaries I consulted, the particular verses listed above only deal with abnormal discharges such as seminal emissions related to sexual disease or chronic menstrual bleeding (menorrhagia). The woman in Mark 5:25-34 is one example of someone afflicted by the latter condition. The intervening verses 16-27 outline less stringent purification procedures needed after normal male discharges or female menstruation. The fact that purification is even needed after these latter bodily functions (and after childbirth) has caused some people to wrongly deduce that sex itself must be regarded as sinful by God. This should not be the interpretation given to these laws.

One reason for these detailed laws was to separate godly worship from pagan practices. “[T]he strictness with which anything which suggests the sexual and sensual is banned from the worship of God is one of the most noteworthy characteristics of the religion of Israel and distinguishes it most sharply from the religions of the neighboring peoples...” (New Bible Commentary, p. 152)

“Blemishes preclude animals from being used in sacrifices or priests from officiating in the sanctuary...Similarly all bodily discharges are defiling and disqualify a person from approaching the temple. Discharges are not just incompatible with holiness, understood as physical normality, they symbolize breaches in the nation's body politic.” (G. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, p. 222)

And finally, after wading through 107 pages of commentary on Leviticus 15 by Jacob Milgrom, I came up with this pithy comment worthy of passing on: “The bodily impurities [in Leviticus] focus on four phenomena: death, blood, semen, and scale disease. Their common denominator is death. Vaginal blood and semen represent the forces of life; their loss – death.” (Leviticus 1-16, p. 1002)