Imamat 10:10-11

10:10 as well as ¹  to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, ²  10:11 and to teach the Israelites all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through ³  Moses.”

Ulangan 17:8-11

Appeal to a Higher Court

17:8 If a matter is too difficult for you to judge – bloodshed, ⁴  legal claim, ⁵  or assault ⁶  – matters of controversy in your villages ⁷  – you must leave there and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses. ⁸  17:9 You will go to the Levitical priests and the judge in office in those days and seek a solution; they will render a verdict. 17:10 You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught. 17:11 You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.

[10:10]  ¹ tn Heb “and,” but regarding the translation “as well as,” see the note at the end of v. 9.

[10:10]  ² sn The two pairs of categories in this verse refer to: (1) the status of a person, place, thing, or time – “holy” (קֹדֶשׁ, qodesh) versus “common” (חֹל, khol); as opposed to (2) the condition of a person, place, or thing – “unclean” (טָמֵא, tame’) versus “clean” (טָהוֹר, tahor). Someone or something could gain “holy” status by being “consecrated” (i.e., made holy; e.g., the Hebrew Piel קִדֵּשׁ (qiddesh) in Lev 8:15, 30), and to treat someone or something that was holy as if it were “common” would be to “profane” that person or thing (the Hebrew Piel הִלֵּל [hillel], e.g., in Lev 19:29 and 22:15). Similarly, on another level, someone or something could be in a “clean” condition, but one could “defile” (the Hebrew Piel טִמֵּא [timme’], e.g., in Gen 34:5 and Num 6:9) that person or thing and thereby make it “unclean.” To “purify” (the Hebrew Piel טִהֵר [tiher], e.g., in Lev 16:19 and Num 8:6, 15) that unclean person or thing would be to make it “clean” once again. With regard to the animals (Lev 11), some were by nature “unclean,” so they could never be eaten, but others were by nature “clean” and, therefore, edible (Lev 11:2, 46-47). The meat of clean animals could become inedible by too long of a delay in eating it, in which case the Hebrew term פִּגּוּל (pigul) “foul, spoiled” is used to describe it (Lev 7:18; 19:7; cf. also Ezek 4:14 and Isa 65:4), not the term for “unclean” (טָהוֹר, tahor). Strictly speaking, therefore, unclean meat never becomes clean, and clean meat never becomes unclean.

[10:11]  ³ tn Heb “by the hand of” (so KJV).

[17:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “between blood and blood.”

[17:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “between claim and claim.”

[17:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “between blow and blow.”

[17:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “gates.”

[17:8]  ⁸ tc Several Greek recensions add “to place his name there,” thus completing the usual formula to describe the central sanctuary (cf. Deut 12:5, 11, 14, 18; 16:6). However, the context suggests that the local Levitical towns, and not the central sanctuary, are in mind.