Leviticus 11:31 (WEB)

Passage

These are they which are unclean to you among all that creep. Whoever touches them when they are dead, shall be unclean until the evening.

Nearby Context

Leviticus 11:29 “‘These are they which are unclean to you among the creeping things that creep on the earth: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,

Leviticus 11:30 the gecko, and the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink, and the chameleon.

Leviticus 11:31 These are they which are unclean to you among all that creep. Whoever touches them when they are dead, shall be unclean until the evening.

Leviticus 11:32 On whatever any of them falls when they are dead, it shall be unclean; whether it is any vessel of wood, or clothing, or skin, or sack, whatever vessel it is, with which any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the evening; then it will be clean.

Leviticus 11:33 Every earthen vessel, into which any of them falls, all that is in it shall be unclean, and you shall break it.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "unclean", "creep", "whoever", "touches", "dead", "shall", and "until". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "unclean" and "creep", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 30's "the gecko and the monitor lizard the..." into verse 32's "On whatever any of them falls when...", so "unclean" and "creep" belong inside that flow. In Leviticus context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "unclean" and "creep" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.