Compare 7.19b-21. There is all the more reason to forbid to the priests what is not allowed to the lay people.

None of the line of Aaron: the word translated line here has the same root as “descendant” in verse 3. This expression may equally well be translated “No priest…” or “No man in the priestly family….”

Leper: better, “who has a dreaded skin disease,” as in Good News Translation. See 13.8 and the comments at the beginning of chapter 13.

Discharge: see 15.2.

An emission of semen: literally “a discharge,” but this word is used almost always of a discharge from the sexual organs. If the subject is a woman, it refers to the menstrual flow. But when the subject is a male, the reference is to seminal fluid. Some languages have very different ways of talking about this bodily function. One may say “pass the liquid of his manhood” or some other expression that is also far from the form of the source text. Compare 15.16-18.

The Revised Standard Version rendering of the last part of this verse could easily give the impression that it is forbidden to touch anything that has been in contact with a dead body, or to touch a man who has had an emission of semen. In translation these words should be structured in such a way as to avoid such an impression. It should be clear that a priest becomes unclean either by touching an object that has touched a corpse or by having an emission of semen himself. There is no mention in this verse of touching another person who has had such an emission.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .