The Question of Indirect Touch 67 Accordingly, we have a clear contrast: Ezek 44,19 claims that the clothes can convey their status and Hag 2,12 claims that they cannot. In order to solve this impasse, scholars have come up with tentative solutions to this contradiction. Kessler, for example, suggests three potential explanations without going into further details: a) the existence of a diversity of priestly opinions; b) the priestly response in Hag 2,13 is primarily redactional, dramatic, and literary, inserted for the sake of setting up the analogy of v. 14; c) the legislation in Ezek 44,19 was either unknown to the priests in Haggai or regarded as future and eschatological legislation (5). All three explanations have merit. Nonetheless, the first and the third explanations are the more viable ones: it is possible that the priests in Judah around 520 BC would differ from the exilic prophet Ezekiel in their view of the transmittance of holiness, either in open defiance of each other or due to lack of knowledge of an alternative standpoint. Furthermore, given the fact that the material in Ezek 40-48 concerns the future, it is possible that Haggai and the priests, assuming that they were familiar with the material in question, regarded it as irrelevant for the legislation of contemporary matters of ritual. The second option is less likely, insofar as it is based on the view that Hag 2,10-14 is a literary product with no foundation in an actual encounter between the prophet and the priests: this option suggests that Haggai’s oracles were first and foremost written compositions rather than spoken oracles, a view that receives no support from the text of Haggai itself. To conclude, Hag 2,12 and Ezek 44,19 contradict each other with regard to the ability of something holy to render something else holy via indirect touch. Thus, we lack a definite resolution of the issue of indirect touch. With this lack in mind, we now turn to the third passage with bearing on the issue of indirect touch, namely Lam 4,14. 2. Lam 4,14 Lam 4,14 is part of a longer section (vv. 13-16) that blames the leadership for the fall of Jerusalem. The leaders, identified with the priests and the prophets in verse 13 and with the priests and the elders in verse 16, are described as having shed the blood of innocent persons in the past and as currently wandering blind in the streets. Our present interest primarily concerns 14b. A close analysis of its syntax, vocabulary and context will reveal affinities with Hag 2,12-13. In view of these affinities, I suggest that Lam 4,14 has a bearing upon the interpretation of Hag 2,12-13. a) Syntactical concerns In order to interpret Lam 4,14 (µhyçblb w[gy wlkwy alb) correctly, we must first identify the people involved: who are the subject of the 3 m. pl. verbs wlkwy and w[gy in 14b, and to whom does the possessive suffix in µhyçblb (“their clothes”) refer? In the case of the two verbs, it is preferable to regard their subject as the common people of Jerusalem, their presence being assumed although not explicitly mentioned (6). This identification is suggested (5) KESSLER, Haggai, 204, n. 52.