Leviticus 15:16-18

Emissions, Voluntary or Otherwise. Here only washing is needed. The existence of the first part of the law may well help to allay the horror with which the phenomenon is often needlessly regarded. In the second part, there is no suggestion of sin, as in the writings of Augustine and other fathers, or in the medieval deductions from Genesis 3. Cf., however, Exodus 19:15; 1 Samuel 21:5; 2 Samuel 11:11; 1 Corinthians 7:5; Revelation 14:4; in the OT passages the ritual aspect of the act is emphasized, in the NT the moral. To primitive thought, the act has its significance for good or evil quite apart from considerations of wedlock (cf. also Leviticus 15:24).