Imamat 10:11

10:11 and to teach the Israelites all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through ¹  Moses.”

Imamat 14:57

14:57 to teach when something is unclean and when it is clean. ²  This is the law for dealing with infectious disease.” ³ 

Imamat 26:23

26:23 “‘If in spite of these things ⁴  you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me, ⁵ 

Imamat 10:10

10:10 as well as ⁶  to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, ⁷ 

[10:11]  ¹ tn Heb “by the hand of” (so KJV).

[14:57]  ² tn Heb “to teach in the day of the unclean and in the day of the clean.”

[14:57]  ³ tn Heb “This is the law of the disease.” Some English versions specify this as “skin disease” (e.g., NIV, NLT), but then have to add “and (+ infectious NLT) mildew” (so NIV) because a house would not be infected with a skin disease.

[14:57]  sn For an explanation of the term “disease” see Lev 13:2.

[26:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “And if in these.”

[26:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in vv. 24 and 27.

[10:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and,” but regarding the translation “as well as,” see the note at the end of v. 9.

[10:10]  ⁷ 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.