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zav זָב zav

A DISCHARGE — and the Hebrew that names it is itself a euphemism. Zav mibsaro literally reads ‘flows from his flesh’ or ‘from his body’; it never states what discharges, or from where. NWT resolves the gap — ‘a discharge from his genital organ’ — almost certainly the correct referent, since the chapter’s own structure (an abnormal case in vv1–15, contrasted with an ordinary emission of semen in vv16–18) makes plain what is meant. This translation keeps the indirection instead, on the reader test: the Hebrew itself chose not to be explicit, and a translation more specific than its source is making a decision, not just clarifying one. ⚠ The Spanish shelf splits on exactly this point, and in opposite directions from each other: RV60 reads v2 as ‘flujo de semen’ from the first verse, assuming the specific case the chapter has not yet reached; NVI’s ‘flujo inusual’ keeps the ambiguity the Hebrew keeps. → first discussed at Lev 15:2