וְכָל־בֶּ֣גֶד וְכָל־ע֔וֹר אֲשֶׁר־יִהְיֶ֥ה עָלָ֖יו שִׁכְבַת־זָ֑רַע וְכֻבַּ֥ס בַּמַּ֖יִם וְטָמֵ֥א עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃ פ
17Everything made of cloth or of leather on which the semen falls shall be washed with water and be unclean until the evening.
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated with “clothes” or similar in English is translated in Enlhet as “crawling-in-stuff” (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1971, p. 169ff. ) and in Noongar as bwoka or “Kangaroo skin” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
See also cloth and cloak / shawl.
Every garment and every skin: the Good News Translation rendering is much more natural in English, but other languages may be closer to the original as reflected in Revised Standard Version.
Comes: the verb may be rendered “falls” (Good News Translation) or “comes in contact,” but in other languages “touches” may be better.
Be washed with water: this will be considered redundant in many languages and can be reduced simply to “washed.” See 1.9.
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 .