37 If part of their carcass falls on any sowing seed which is to be sown, it is clean.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Any sowing seed - If any part of an impure carcass fall accidentally on seed about to be sown, it shall not on that account be deemed unclean; but if the water put to the seed to prepare it for being sown, shall be touched by such impure carcass, the seed shall be considered as unclean, Leviticus 11:38. Probably this may be the meaning of these passages.
And if any part of their carcass fall upon any sowing seed that is to be sown,.... That which is selected from the other seed in order to be sown, and which is laid by and laid up for that purpose; should the carcass, or any part of the carcass of a creeping thing fall upon an heap of it, into a vessel in which it was put, as a dead mouse or the like:
yet it shall be clean; be fit for use and sown in the earth; because being cast into the earth, and dying and quickening there, and then springing up again in stalk and ear, it would go through various changes before it became the food of man: the Targum of Jonathan describes it, such as is sown in its dryness, or being dry; for if it was wetted it was unfit for use, as follows.
Seed - Partly because this was necessary provision for man; and partly because such seed would not be used for man's food till it had received many alterations in the earth whereby such pollution was taken away.
*More commentary available at chapter level.