70 Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer God and the Jerusalemite leadership have blood on their clothes owing to killing, and I suggest that it is the blood, i.e. the result of the shedding of blood, that in both cases causes the clothes to become ritually defiled. Furthermore, the legislation in Lev 6,20 (cf. above) may also be relevant: the blood from the sacrifices must be washed away from the priests’ clothes in a holy place. Thus, blood per se has ritual significance and can influence the ritual status of something else. In view of these arguments, I conclude that the blood on the priests’ and on the prophets’ clothes in Lam 4,14 has ritual significance: the clothes are described as “defiled”, implying all the ritual connotations the root can have. c) Contextual concerns The interpretation of the phrase µdb lag in Lam 4,14 as referring to the priests’ and the prophets’ ritual defilement is also strengthened by its immediate context. The speakers in the following verse 15, identified with the people of Jerusalem (cf. above), command the priests and the prophets to “get out of the way”. Further, they call the priests and the prophets “unclean” and tell them “not to touch” (w[gt la). I suggest that the repeated use of the Qal form of the root [gn in verses 14 and 15 indicates that the message of the two verses is, to a certain extent, parallel. As such, verse 15 can shed light upon the interpretation of Lam 4,14. In verse 14, the people of Jerusalem cannot touch the priests’ clothes, and in verse 15, the people of Jerusalem are commanding the priests not to touch (anything). In verse 15, the ban against touching is followed by the declaration of the priests’ unclean status: they are amf, i.e. they are “unclean”. It stands to reason that they cannot be touched because they are unclean. Further, given the overall similarity between verses 14 and 15, we are justified in assuming that the same is true for verse 14 as well. Hence, I suggest that the statement that the priests’ clothes are “defiled by blood” implies that the clothes are made “unclean” by blood. 3. Conclusion So far, we have learnt that Lam. 4,14-15 describes a situation where the priests’ and the prophets’ clothes were ritually defiled, and where, probably because of this defilement, the people of Jerusalem could not touch the clothes. Moreover, the people of Jerusalem declare the priests and the prophets as unclean. If we take these facts together, I propose that we have here yet another example of transmittance of impurity via indirect touch. In this case, the priests’ and the prophets’ clothes have been defiled by the (figurative) blood upon them, the blood that was spilt (v. 13b) as a result of their sins and iniquities (v. 13a) (14). These impure clothes in their turn have the ability to render anyone who touches them impure, and that is the reason why the people of Jerusalem cannot touch them. (14) This interpretation has already been hinted at by BERLIN, Lamentations, 101-102, n. i, who writes that the people have to avoid contact with the bloodstained clothing of the priest and prophets because this clothing is now “contaminated and would render impure anyone who touched it”.