The Hebrew noun nebelah refers to a carcass, corpse, or the body of a dead animal or person. In Levitical law, it specifically designates the body of an animal that has died of natural causes or been torn by wild beasts, as opposed to one properly slaughtered. Contact with a nebelah rendered a person ceremonially unclean.
This term is central to the Levitical purity laws in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. The prohibition against touching or eating a carcass taught Israel the distinction between clean and unclean, life and death. Theologically, the concept underscored that death is a consequence of the fall and is incompatible with the holiness of God. The laws about carcasses served as constant reminders that Israel was called to be a holy people, separate from the contamination of death.