Earthen vessel - See the marginal references.

And every earthen vessel - Such pitchers as are commonly used for drinking out of, and for holding liquids. M. De la Roque observes that hair-sacks, trunks, and baskets, covered with skin, are used among the travelling Arabs to carry their household utensils in, which are kettles or pots, great wooden bowls, hand-mills, and pitchers. It is very likely that these are nearly the same with those used by the Israelites in their journeyings in the wilderness, for the customs of these people do not change.

And every earthen vessel, whereinto any of them falleth,.... Any of the above eight reptiles, should they by chance fall into the midst an earthen vessel:
whatsoever is in it shall be unclean; if it only by falling touched the outside of it, it was not unclean; but if it fell into it, then whatever was contained in it was unclean; for, as Jarchi says, an earthen vessel does not pollute or receive pollution, but from the air of it (u), from its inside:
and ye shall break it; other vessels might be put into water and rinsed, and so be cleansed, but earthen vessels, being of no great value, were to be broken in pieces: an emblem this, as Ainsworth suggests, of the dissolution of our bodies, which are as earthen vessels, and of the destruction of sin thereby, and of the entire removal of it by death. (u) Vid. Misn. Celaim, c. 2. sect. 1. & Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.

Every earthen vessel, into which (lit., into the midst of which) one of them fell, became unclean, together with the whole of its contents, and was to be broken, i.e., destroyed, because the uncleanness as absorbed by the vessel, and could not be entirely removed by washing (see at Leviticus 6:21). Of course the contents of such a vessel, supposing there were any, were not to be used.