Imamat 4:2
Konteks4:2 “Tell the Israelites, ‘When a person sins by straying unintentionally 1 from any of the Lord’s commandments which must not be violated, and violates any 2 one of them 3 –
Imamat 6:16
Konteks6:16 Aaron and his sons are to eat what is left over from it. It must be eaten unleavened in a holy place; they are to eat it in the courtyard of the Meeting Tent.
Imamat 16:10
Konteks16:10 but the goat which has been designated by lot for Azazel is to be stood alive 4 before the Lord to make atonement on it by sending it away to Azazel into the wilderness. 5
Imamat 17:11
Konteks17:11 for the life of every living thing 6 is in the blood. 7 So I myself have assigned it to you 8 on the altar to make atonement for your lives, for the blood makes atonement by means of the life. 9
Imamat 18:23
Konteks18:23 You must not have sexual intercourse 10 with any animal to become defiled with it, and a woman must not stand before an animal to have sexual intercourse with it; 11 it is a perversion. 12
Imamat 20:27
Konteks20:27 “‘A man or woman who 13 has in them a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit 14 must be put to death. They must pelt them with stones; 15 their blood guilt is on themselves.’”
Imamat 26:41
Konteks26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and 16 then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for 17 their iniquity,
[4:2] 1 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
[4:2] 2 tn This is an emphatic use of the preposition מִן (min; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 56-57, §325).
[4:2] 3 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.”
[16:10] 4 tn The LXX has “he shall stand it” (cf. v. 7).
[16:10] 5 tn Heb “to make atonement on it to send it away to Azazel toward the wilderness.”
[17:11] 6 tn Heb “the life of the flesh.” Here “flesh” stands for “every living thing,” that is, all creatures (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT “every creature”; CEV “every living creature.”
[17:11] 7 tn Heb “for the soul/life (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) of the flesh, it is in the blood” (cf. the note of v. 10 above and v. 14 below). Although most modern English versions begin a new sentence in v. 11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (see, e.g., NJPS, NASB, NIV, NRSV), the כִּי (ki, “for, because”) at the beginning of the verse suggests continuation from v. 10, as the rendering here indicates (see, e.g., NEB, NLT; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 261; and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 239).
[17:11] sn This verse is a well-known crux interpretum for blood atonement in the Bible. The close association between the blood and “the soul/life [נֶפֶשׁ] of the flesh [בָּשָׂר, basar]” (v. 11a) begins in Gen 9:2-5 (if not Gen 4:10-11), where the
[17:11] 8 tn Heb “And I myself have given it to you.”
[17:11] 9 tn Heb “for the blood, it by (בְּ, bet preposition, “in”] the life makes atonement.” The interpretation of the preposition is pivotal here. Some scholars have argued that it is a bet of exchange; that is, “the blood makes atonement in exchange for the life [of the slaughtered animal]” (see R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:694-95, 697 for analysis and criticism of this view). It is more likely that, as in the previous clause (“your lives”), “life/soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) here refers to the person who makes the offering, not the animal offered. The blood of the animal makes atonement for the person who offers it either “by means of” (instrumental bet) the “life/soul” of the animal, which it symbolizes or embodies (the meaning of the translation given here); or perhaps the blood of the animal functions as “the price” (bet of price) for ransoming the “life/soul” of the person.
[18:23] 10 tn See the note on v. 20 above.
[18:23] 11 tn Heb “to copulate with it” (cf. Lev 20:16).
[18:23] 12 tn The Hebrew term תֶּבֶל (tevel, “perversion”) derives from the verb “to mix; to confuse” and therefore refers to illegitimate mixtures of species or violation of the natural order of things.
[20:27] 13 tc Smr, LXX, Syriac, and some Targum
[20:27] 14 tn See the note on the phrase “familiar spirit” in Lev 19:31 above.
[20:27] 15 tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning, but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (see the note on v. 2 above). Smr and LXX have “you [plural] shall pelt them with stones.”
[20:27] sn At first glance Lev 20:27 appears to be out of place but, on closer examination, one could argue that it constitutes the back side of an envelope around the case laws in 20:9-21, with Lev 20:6 forming the front of the envelope (note also that execution of mediums and spiritists by stoning in v. 27 is not explicitly stated in v. 6). This creates a chiastic structure: prohibition against mediums and spiritists (vv. 6 and 27), variations of the holiness formula (vv. 7 and 25-26), and exhortations to obey the
[26:41] 16 tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”
[26:41] 17 tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.