The impurity of violence constitutes our fourth ‘grammar’ for speaking about the problem of violence across the Hebrew Bible. According to several biblical texts, shed blood defiles. Objects of this defilement include land, humans, and, in some instances, the divine name itself. Examples of bloodshed’s defiling capacities appear variously across Priestly and Priestly inspired texts in Leviticus, Numbers, and Ezekiel, though the conception itself ranges more widely in the Hebrew Bible. According to the author of Lamentations 4, for instance, Israel’s prophets and priests became polluted because they ‘shed [innocent] blood in the midst of [Zion]’ (4:13–14). The psalmist states that the Israelites had ‘poured out innocent blood … and the land was polluted’ (Ps 106:39). Isaiah proclaims that the people had ‘shed blood on [their] hands’ and therefore their sacrificial offerings were rejected (1:15).