Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThen Haggai said, "If someone ceremonially unclean through contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?" The priests answered, "Yes — it becomes unclean."
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GThen Chaggai said, "If one defiled by a corpse — defiled in his nephesh — touches any of these, does it become unclean?" The priests answered and said, "It becomes unclean."
KJV
King James VersionThen said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleSo Haggai asked, “If one who is defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?” “Yes, it becomes defiled,” the priests answered.
Footnotes
Tame-nephesh — 'unclean of nephesh' — is the technical designation for corpse-defilement under Num 19:11-22. Nephesh here carries its concrete sense of a living or dead person/body (cf. Num 6:6: nephesh met, 'a dead body'), not 'soul' in the abstract. Corpse-defilement was the most severe and contagious impurity in the Levitical system — it spread even through shared airspace within an enclosure (Num 19:14). The F.O.G. retains 'nephesh' to preserve this technical-cultural weight. The asymmetry across vv.12-13 is the rhetorical hinge: impurity spreads outward; holiness does not.
