| 5. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the disjunctive conjunction o {אוֹ | ʾō} ‘or’, framing two parallel scenarios for ritual impurity. The first scenario pairs the noun ish {אִישׁ | ʾîš} ‘man’ with the relative clause introduced by asher {אֲשֶׁר | ʾă-šer} ‘who’, governing the Qal imperfect verb yigga {יִגַּע | yig-gaʿ} ‘he touches’ and the prepositional construct be-khol-sherets {בְּכָל־שֶׁרֶץ | bə-ḵol-še-reṣ} ‘any crawling creature’. The result clause, marked by yitma-lo {יִטְמָא־לוֹ | yiṭ-maʾ-lō} ‘becomes unclean for him’, specifies personal defilement. The disjunctive o {אוֹ | ʾō} then introduces the second parallel scenario, with be-adam {בְאָדָם | bə-ʾā-dam} ‘with a person’ followed by a similar relative clause. The closing phrase le-khol tum-ato {לְכֹל טֻמְאָתֹו | lə-ḵol ṭu-maʾ-tō} ‘for all his uncleanness’ broadens the scope to every form of impurity, reinforcing the equivalence of animal and human sources of defilement. |