Imamat 20:8

20:8 You must be sure to obey my statutes. ¹  I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

Imamat 26:3

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, ² 

Imamat 26:11

26:11 “‘I will put my tabernacle ³  in your midst and I will not abhor you. ⁴ 

Imamat 25:55

25:55 because the Israelites are my own servants; ⁵  they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Imamat 26:15

26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep ⁶  all my commandments and you break my covenant –

Imamat 18:5

18:5 So you must keep ⁷  my statutes and my regulations; anyone who does so will live by keeping them. ⁸  I am the Lord.

Imamat 19:37

19:37 You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations. ⁹  I am the Lord.’”

Imamat 25:18

25:18 You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them ¹⁰  so that you may live securely in the land. ¹¹ 

Imamat 25:42

25:42 Since they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt, they must not be sold in a slave sale. ¹² 

Imamat 22:3

22:3 Say to them, ‘Throughout your generations, ¹³  if any man from all your descendants approaches the holy offerings which the Israelites consecrate ¹⁴  to the Lord while he is impure, ¹⁵  that person must be cut off from before me. ¹⁶  I am the Lord.

Imamat 20:22

Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

20:22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ¹⁷  so that ¹⁸  the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out.

Imamat 26:30

26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ¹⁹  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²⁰  I will abhor you. ²¹ 

Imamat 18:4

18:4 You must observe my regulations ²²  and you must be sure to walk in my statutes. ²³  I am the Lord your God.

Imamat 19:19

19:19 You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed, ²⁴  you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed, and you must not wear ²⁵  a garment made of two different kinds of fabric. ²⁶ 

Imamat 26:43

26:43 The land will be abandoned by them ²⁷  in order that it may make up for ²⁸  its Sabbaths while it is made desolate ²⁹  without them, ³⁰  and they will make up for their iniquity because ³¹  they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred ³²  my statutes.

Imamat 4:2

4:2 “Tell the Israelites, ‘When a person sins by straying unintentionally ³³  from any of the Lord’s commandments which must not be violated, and violates any ³⁴  one of them ³⁵  –

Imamat 18:26

18:26 You yourselves must obey ³⁶  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ³⁷ 

Imamat 26:4

26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ³⁸  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ³⁹ 

Imamat 26:40

26:40 However, when ⁴⁰  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁴¹  by which they also walked ⁴²  in hostility against me ⁴³ 

[20:8]  ¹ tn Heb “And you shall keep my statutes 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.).

[26:3]  ² tn Heb “and my commandments you shall keep and 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 20:8; 25:18, etc.).

[26:11]  ³ tn LXX codexes Vaticanus and Alexandrinus have “my covenant” rather than “my tabernacle.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “my dwelling.”

[26:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “and my soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] will not abhor you.”

[25:55]  ⁵ tn Heb “because to me the sons of Israel are servants.”

[26:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “to not do.”

[18:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “And you shall keep.”

[18:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “which the man shall do them and shall live in them.” The term for “a man, human being; mankind” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. The expression וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living” so it is written וְחָיָה (vÿkhayah) in Smr, 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 25:35).

[19:37]  ⁹ 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).

[25:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And you shall keep and 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 20:8, etc.).

[25:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and you shall dwell on the land to security.”

[25:42]  ¹² tn Or perhaps reflexive Niphal rather than passive, “they shall not sell themselves [as in] a slave sale.”

[22:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “To your generations.”

[22:3]  ¹⁴ tn The Piel (v. 2) and Hiphil (v. 3) forms of the verb קָדַשׁ (qadash) appear to be interchangeable in this context. Both mean “to consecrate” (Heb “make holy [or “sacred”]”).

[22:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and his impurity [is] on him”; NIV “is ceremonially unclean”; NAB, NRSV “while he is in a state of uncleanness.”

[22:3]  ¹⁶ sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty, see the note on Lev 7:20. Cf. the interpretive translation of TEV “he can never again serve at the altar.”

[20:22]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:30]  ¹⁹ sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

[26:30]  ²⁰ tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

[26:30]  ²¹ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

[18:4]  ²² tn Heb “My regulations you shall do”; KJV, NASB “my judgments”; NRSV “My ordinances”; NIV, TEV “my laws.”

[18:4]  sn The Hebrew term translated “regulation” (מִשְׁפָּט, mishpat) refers to the set of regulations about to be set forth in the following chapters (cf. Lev 19:37; 20:22; 25:18; 26:46). Note especially the thematic and formulaic relationships between the introduction here in Lev 18:1-5 and the paraenesis in Lev 20:22-26, both of which refer explicitly to the corrupt nations and the need to separate from them by keeping the Lord’s regulations.

[18:4]  ²³ tn Heb “and my statutes you shall keep [or “watch; guard”] to walk in them.”

[19:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Your animals, you shall not cross-breed two different kinds.”

[19:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “you shall not cause to go up on you.”

[19:19]  ²⁶ sn Cf. Deut 22:11 where the Hebrew term translated “two different kinds” (כִּלְאַיִם, kil’ayim) refers to a mixture of linen and wool woven together in a garment.

[26:43]  ²⁷ tn Heb “from them.” The preposition “from” refers here to the agent of the action (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 455).

[26:43]  ²⁸ tn The jussive form of the verb with the simple vav (ו) here calls for a translation that expresses purpose.

[26:43]  ²⁹ tn The verb is the Hophal infinitive construct with the third feminine singular suffix (GKC 182 §67.y; cf. v. 34).

[26:43]  ³⁰ tn Heb “from them.”

[26:43]  ³¹ tn Heb “because and in because,” a double expression, which is used only here and in Ezek 13:10 (without the vav) for emphasis (GKC 492 §158.b).

[26:43]  ³² tn Heb “and their soul has abhorred.”

[4:2]  ³³ tn Heb “And a person, when he sins in straying.” The English translation of “by straying” (בִּשְׁגָגָה [bishgagah] literally, “in going astray; in making an error”) varies greatly, but almost all suggest that this term refers to sins that were committed by mistake or done not knowing that the particular act was sinful (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:228-29). See, e.g., LXX “involuntarily”; Tg. Onq. “by neglect”; KJV “through ignorance”; ASV, RSV, NJPS “unwittingly”; NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “unintentionally”; NAB, NEB “inadvertently”; NCV “by accident.” However, we know from Num 15:27-31 that committing a sin “by straying” is the opposite of committing a sin “defiantly” (i.e., בְּיַד רָמָה [bÿyad ramah] “with a raised hand,” v. 30). In the latter case the person, as it were, raises his fist in presumptuous defiance against the Lord. Thus, he “blasphemes” the Lord and has “despised” his word, for which he should be “cut off from among his people” (Num 15:30-31). One could not bring an offering for such a sin. The expression here in Lev 4:2 combines “by straying” with the preposition “from” which fits naturally with “straying” (i.e., “straying from” the Lord’s commandments). For sins committed “by straying” from the commandments (Lev 4 throughout) or other types of transgressions (Lev 5:1-6) there was indeed forgiveness available through the sin offering. See R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:94-95.

[4:2]  ³⁴ tn This is an emphatic use of the preposition מִן (min; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 56-57, §325).

[4:2]  ³⁵ tn The “when” clause (כִּי, ki) breaks off here before its resolution, thus creating an open-ended introduction to the following subsections, which are introduced by “if” (אִם [’im] vv. 3, 13, 27, 32). Also, the last part of the verse reads literally, “which must not be done and does from one from them.”

[18:26]  ³⁶ 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]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

[26:4]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[26:40]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁴² tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁴³ tn Heb “with me.”