Imamat 2:5

2:5 If your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, it must be choice wheat flour mixed with olive oil, unleavened.

Imamat 2:14

2:14 “‘If you present a grain offering of first ripe grain to the Lord, you must present your grain offering of first ripe grain as soft kernels roasted in fire – crushed bits of fresh grain. ¹ 

Imamat 7:18

7:18 If some of the meat of his peace offering sacrifice is ever eaten on the third day it will not be accepted; it will not be accounted to the one who presented it, since it is spoiled, ²  and the person who eats from it will bear his punishment for iniquity. ³ 

Imamat 7:20

7:20 The person who eats meat from the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord while his uncleanness persists ⁴  will be cut off from his people. ⁵ 

Imamat 7:36

7:36 This is what the Lord commanded to give to them from the Israelites on the day Moses ⁶  anointed them ⁷  – a perpetual allotted portion throughout their generations. ⁸ 

Imamat 11:44

11:44 for I am the Lord your God and you are to sanctify yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any of the swarming things that creep on the ground,

Imamat 13:2

13:2 “When someone has ⁹  a swelling ¹⁰  or a scab ¹¹  or a bright spot ¹²  on the skin of his body ¹³  that may become a diseased infection, ¹⁴  he must be brought to Aaron the priest or one of his sons, the priests. ¹⁵ 

Imamat 13:58

13:58 But the garment or the warp or the woof or any article of leather which you wash and infection disappears from it ¹⁶  is to be washed a second time and it will be clean.”

Imamat 14:4

14:4 then the priest will command that two live clean birds, a piece of cedar wood, a scrap of crimson fabric, ¹⁷  and some twigs of hyssop ¹⁸  be taken up ¹⁹  for the one being cleansed. ²⁰ 

Imamat 15:6

15:6 The one who sits on the furniture the man with a discharge sits on must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.

Imamat 16:11

The Sin Offering Sacrificial Procedures

16:11 “Aaron is to present the sin offering bull which is for himself, and he is to make atonement on behalf of himself and his household. He is to slaughter the sin offering bull which is for himself,

Imamat 17:3

17:3 “Blood guilt ²¹  will be accounted to any man ²²  from the house of Israel ²³  who slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat inside the camp or outside the camp, ²⁴ 

Imamat 17:8

17:8 “You are to say to them: ‘Any man ²⁵  from the house of Israel or ²⁶  from the foreigners who reside ²⁷  in their ²⁸  midst, who offers ²⁹  a burnt offering or a sacrifice

Imamat 18:26

18:26 You yourselves must obey ³⁰  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ³¹ 

Imamat 20:22

Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

20:22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ³²  so that ³³  the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out.

Imamat 20:26

20:26 You must be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the other peoples to be mine.

Imamat 21:14

21:14 He must not marry ³⁴  a widow, a divorced woman, or one profaned by prostitution; he may only take a virgin from his people ³⁵  as a wife.

Imamat 22:16

22:16 and so cause them to incur a penalty for guilt ³⁶  when they eat their holy offerings, ³⁷  for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’”

Imamat 25:2

25:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath ³⁸  to the Lord.

Imamat 25:11

25:11 That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. ³⁹ 

Imamat 25:35

Debt and Slave Regulations

25:35 “‘If your brother ⁴⁰  becomes impoverished and is indebted to you, ⁴¹  you must support ⁴²  him; he must live ⁴³  with you like a foreign resident. ⁴⁴ 

Imamat 25:46

25:46 You may give them as inheritance to your children after you to possess as property. You may enslave them perpetually. However, as for your brothers the Israelites, no man may rule over his brother harshly. ⁴⁵ 

Imamat 25:53

25:53 He must be with the one who bought him ⁴⁶  like a yearly hired worker. ⁴⁷  The one who bought him ⁴⁸  must not rule over him harshly in your sight.

Imamat 27:9-10

Redemption of Vowed Animals

27:9 “‘If what is vowed is a kind of animal from which an offering may be presented ⁴⁹  to the Lord, anything which he gives to the Lord from this kind of animal ⁵⁰  will be holy. 27:10 He must not replace or exchange it, good for bad or bad for good, and if he does indeed exchange one animal for another animal, then both the original animal ⁵¹  and its substitute will be holy.

[2:14]  ¹ tn The translation of this whole section of the clause is difficult. Theoretically, it could describe one, two, or three different ways of preparing first ripe grain offerings (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 27). The translation here takes it as a description of only one kind of prepared grain. This is suggested by the fact that v. 16 uses only one term “crushed bits” (גֶּרֶשׂ, geres) to refer back to the grain as it is prepared in v. 14 (a more technical translation is “groats”; see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:178, 194). Cf. NAB “fresh grits of new ears of grain”; NRSV “coarse new grain from fresh ears.”

[7:18]  ² tn Or “desecrated,” or “defiled,” or “forbidden.” For this difficult term see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:422. Cf. NIV “it is impure”; NCV “it will become unclean”; NLT “will be contaminated.”

[7:18]  ³ tn Heb “his iniquity he shall bear” (cf. Lev 5:1); NIV “will be held responsible”; NRSV “shall incur guilt”; TEV “will suffer the consequences.”

[7:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “and his unclean condition is on him.”

[7:20]  ⁵ sn The exact meaning of this penalty clause is not certain. It could mean that he will be executed, whether by God or by man, he will be excommunicated from sanctuary worship and/or community benefits (cf. TEV, CEV), or his line will be terminated by God (i.e., extirpation), etc. See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 100; J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:457-60; and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 241-42 for further discussion.

[7:36]  ⁶ tn Heb “the day he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:36]  ⁷ tn Heb “which the Lord commanded to give to them in the day he anointed them from the children of Israel.” Thus v. 36 is tied syntactically to v. 35 (see the note there).

[7:36]  ⁸ tn Heb “for your generations”; cf. NIV “for the generations to come”; TEV “for all time to come.”

[13:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “A man, if [or when] he has….” The term for “a man, human being” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female, since either could be afflicted with infections on the skin.

[13:2]  ¹⁰ tn Some of the terms for disease or symptoms of disease in this chapter present difficulties for the translator. Most modern English versions render the Hebrew term שְׂאֵת (sÿ’et) as “swelling,” which has been retained here (see the explanation in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 189). Some have argued that “deeper (עָמֹק, ’amoq) than the skin of his body” in v. 3 means that “this sore was lower than the surrounding skin” (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:773), in which case “swelling” would be an inappropriate translation of שְׂאֵת in v. 2. Similarly, שְׂאֵת also occurs in v. 19, and then v. 20 raises the issue of whether or not it appears to be “lower (שָׁפָל, shafal) than the skin” (cf. also 14:37 for a mark on the wall of a house), which may mean that the sore sinks below the surface of the skin rather than protruding above it as a swelling would (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 76-77). Thus, one could translate here, for example, “discoloration” (so Milgrom and II שְׂאֵת “spot, blemish on the skin” in HALOT 1301 s.v. II שְׂאֵת) or “local inflammation, boil, mole” (so Levine). However, one could interpret “lower” as “deeper,” i.e., visibly extending below the surface of the skin into the deeper layers as suggested by J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 188, 192. “Swelling” often extends deeply below the surface of the skin, it is certainly a common symptom of skin diseases, and the alternation of these two terms (i.e., “deeper” and “lower”) in vv. 25-26 below shows that they both refer to the same phenomenon (see also the note on v. 20 below), so it is retained in the present translation.

[13:2]  ¹¹ tn The etymology and meaning of this term is unknown. It could mean “scab” (KJV, ASV, NASB) or possibly “rash” (NIV, NLT), “flaking skin,” or an “eruption” (NRSV) of some sort.

[13:2]  ¹² tn Heb “shiny spot” or “white spot,” but to render this term “white spot” in this chapter would create redundancy in v. 4 where the regular term for “white” occurs alongside this word for “bright spot.”

[13:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the skin of his flesh” as opposed to the head or the beard (v. 29).

[13:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a mark [or stroke; or plague] of disease.” In some places in this context (vv. 2, 3) it could be translated “a contagious skin disease.” Although the Hebrew term צָרָעַת (tsara’at) rendered here “diseased” is translated in many English versions as “leprosy,” it does not refer to Hanson’s disease, which is the modern technical understanding of the term “leprosy” (HALOT 1057 s.v. צָרְעַת a). There has been much discussion of the proper meaning of the term and the disease(s) to which it may refer (see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:774-76, 816-26; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 187-89; and the literature cited by them). The further description of the actual condition in the text suggests that the regulations are concerned with any kind of infectious diseases that are observable on the surface of the skin and, in addition to that, penetrate below the surface of the skin (vv. 3-4) or spread further across the surface of the skin (vv. 5-8). It is true that, in the OT, the term “disease” is often associated specifically with white “scaly” skin diseases that resemble the wasting away of the skin after death (see Milgrom who, in fact, translates “scale disease”; cf., e.g., Exod 4:6-7 and Num 12:9-12, esp. v. 12), but here it appears to be a broader term for any skin disease that penetrates deep or spreads far on the body. Scaly skin diseases would be included in this category, but also other types. Thus, a “swelling,” “scab,” or “bright spot” on the skin might be a symptom of disease, but not necessarily so. In this sense, “diseased” is a technical term. The term “infection” can apply to any “mark” on the skin whether it belongs to the category of “disease” or not (compare and contrast v. 3, where the “infection” is not “diseased,” with v. 4, where the “infection” is found to be “diseased”).

[13:2]  ¹⁵ tn Or “it shall be reported to Aaron the priest.” This alternative rendering may be better in light of the parallel use of the same expression in Lev 14:2, where the priest had to go outside the camp in order to inspect the person who had been diseased. Since the rendering “he shall be brought to Aaron the priest” might confuse matters there, this expression should be rendered “it shall be reported” both here in 13:2 (cf. also v. 9) and in 14:2. See, however, the further note on 14:2 below, where it is argued that the diseased person would still need to “be brought” to the priest even if this happened outside the camp. Most English versions retain the idea of the afflicted person being “brought” to the priest for inspection.

[13:58]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the infection turns aside from them.”

[14:4]  ¹⁷ tn The term rendered here “crimson fabric” consists of two Hebrew words and means literally, “crimson of worm” (in this order only in Lev 14:4, 6, 49, 51, 52 and Num 19:6; for the more common reverse order, “worm of crimson,” see, e.g., the colored fabrics used in making the tabernacle, Exod 25:4, etc.). This particular “worm” is an insect that lives on the leaves of palm trees, the eggs of which are the source for a “crimson” dye used to color various kinds of cloth (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 86). That a kind of dyed “fabric” is intended, not just the dye substance itself, is made certain by the dipping of it along with the other ritual materials listed here into the blood and water mixture for sprinkling on the person being cleansed (Lev 14:6; cf. also the burning of it in the fire of the red heifer in Num 19:6). Both the reddish color of cedar wood and the crimson colored fabric seem to correspond to the color of blood and may, therefore, symbolize either “life,” which is in the blood, or the use of blood to “make atonement” (see, e.g., Gen 9:4 and Lev 17:11). See further the note on v. 7 below.

[14:4]  ¹⁸ sn Twigs of hyssop (probably one or several species of marjoram thymus), a spice and herb plant that grows out of walls in Palestine (see 1 Kgs 4:33 [5:13 HT], HALOT 27 s.v. אֵזוֹב, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 195), were particularly leafy and therefore especially useful for sprinkling the purifying liquid (cf. vv. 5-7). Many of the details of the ritual procedure are obscure. It has been proposed, for example, that the “cedar wood” was a stick to which the hyssop was bound with the crimson material to make a sort of sprinkling instrument (Hartley, 195). In light of the burning of these three materials as part of the preparation of the ashes of the red heifer in Num 19:5-6, however, this seems unlikely.

[14:4]  ¹⁹ tn The MT reads literally, “And the priest shall command and he shall take.” Clearly, the second verb (“and he shall take”) contains the thrust of the priest’s command, which suggests the translation “that he take” (cf. also v. 5a). Since the priest issues the command here, he cannot be the subject of the second verb because he cannot be commanding himself to “take” up these ritual materials. Moreover, since the ritual is being performed “for the one being cleansed,” the antecedent of the pronoun “he” cannot refer to him. The LXX, Smr, and Syriac versions have the third person plural here and in v. 5a, which corresponds to other combinations with the verb וְצִוָּה (vÿtsivvah) “and he (the priest) shall command” in this context (see Lev 13:54; 14:36, 40). This suggests an impersonal (i.e., “someone shall take” and “someone shall slaughter,” respectively) or perhaps even passive rendering of the verbs in 14:4, 5 (i.e., “there shall be taken” and “there shall be slaughtered,” respectively). The latter option has been chosen here.

[14:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the one cleansing himself” (i.e., Hitpael participle of טָהֵר, taher, “to be clean”).

[17:3]  ²¹ tn The complex wording of vv. 3-4 requires stating “blood guilt” at the beginning of v. 3 even though it is not mentioned until the middle of v. 4. The Hebrew text has simply “blood,” but in this case it refers to the illegitimate shedding of animal blood, similar to the shedding of the blood of an innocent human being (Deut 19:10, etc.). In order for it to be legitimate the animal must be slaughtered at the tabernacle and its blood handled by the priests in the prescribed way (see, e.g., Lev 1:5; 3:2, 17; 4:5-7; 7:26-27, etc.; cf. vv. 10-16 below for more details).

[17:3]  ²² tn Heb “Man man.” The reduplication is way of saying “any man” (cf. Lev 15:2; 22:18, etc.). See the note on Lev 15:2.

[17:3]  ²³ tn The original LXX adds “or the sojourners who sojourn in your midst” (cf. Lev 16:29, etc., and note esp. 17:8, 10, and 13 below).

[17:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “or who slaughters from outside to the camp.”

[17:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Man, man.” The repetition of the word “man” is distributive, meaning “any [or “every”] man” (GKC 395-96 §123.c; cf. Lev 15:2).

[17:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has an alternative sense (“or”).

[17:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “from the sojourner who sojourns.”

[17:8]  ²⁸ tc The LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate have “your” (plural) rather than “their.”

[17:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “causes to go up.”

[18:26]  ³⁰ tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate.

[18:26]  ³¹ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

[20:22]  ³² tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31, etc.).

[20:22]  ³³ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[21:14]  ³⁴ tn Heb “take.” In context this means “take as wife,” i.e., “marry.”

[21:14]  ³⁵ tc The MT has literally, “from his peoples,” but Smr, LXX, Syriac, Targum, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “from his people,” referring to the Israelites as a whole.

[22:16]  ³⁶ tn Heb “iniquity of guilt”; NASB “cause them to bear punishment for guilt.” The Hebrew word עָוֹן (’avon, “iniquity”) can designate either acts of iniquity or the penalty (i.e., punishment) for such acts.

[22:16]  ³⁷ sn That is, when the lay people eat portions of offerings that should have been eaten only by priests and those who belonged to priestly households.

[25:2]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the land shall rest a Sabbath.”

[25:11]  ³⁹ tn Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not…and you shall not….”

[25:11]  sn See v. 5 above and the notes there.

[25:35]  ⁴⁰ tn It is not clear to whom this refers. It is probably broader than “sibling” (cf. NRSV “any of your kin”; NLT “any of your Israelite relatives”) but some English versions take it to mean “fellow Israelite” (so TEV; cf. NAB, NIV “countrymen”) and others are ambiguous (cf. CEV “any of your people”).

[25:35]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and his hand slips with you.”

[25:35]  ⁴² tn Heb “strengthen”; NASB “sustain.”

[25:35]  ⁴³ tn The form וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living,” but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal, and GKC 218 §76.i; cf. Lev 18:5).

[25:35]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “a foreigner and resident,” which is probably to be combined (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 170-71).

[25:46]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and your brothers, the sons of Israel, a man in his brother you shall not rule in him in violence.”

[25:53]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “be with him”; the referent (the one who bought him) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:53]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “As a hired worker year in year.”

[25:53]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “He”; the referent (the one who bought him) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[27:9]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “which they may present from it an offering.” The plural active verb is sometimes best rendered in the passive (GKC 460 §144.f, g). Some medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, a ms of the Targum, and the Vulgate all have the singular verb instead (cf. similarly v. 11).

[27:9]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “from it.” The masculine suffix “it” here is used for the feminine in the MT, but one medieval Hebrew ms, some mss of Smr, the LXX, and the Syriac have the feminine. The referent (this kind of animal) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[27:10]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “it and its substitute.” The referent (the original animal offered) has been specified in the translation for clarity.