Imamat 6:30

6:30 But any sin offering from which some of its blood is brought into the Meeting Tent to make atonement in the sanctuary must not be eaten. It must be burned up in the fire. ¹ 

Imamat 14:29

14:29 and the remainder of the olive oil that is in the hand ²  of the priest he is to put ³  on the head of the one being cleansed to make atonement for him before the Lord.

Imamat 16:10

16:10 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

17:11 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 23:28

23:28 You must not do any work on this particular day, ¹⁰  because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for yourselves ¹¹  before the Lord your God.

[6:30]  ¹ tn Heb “burned with fire,” an expression which is sometimes redundant in English, but here means “burned up,” “burned up entirely.”

[14:29]  ² tn Heb “on the hand.”

[14:29]  ³ tn Heb “give.”

[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 Lord grants man the eating of meat (i.e., the “flesh” of animals) but also issues a warning: “But flesh [בָּשָׂר] with its soul/life [נֶפֶשׁ], [which is] its blood, you shall not eat” (cf. G. J. Wenham, Genesis [WBC], 1:151 and 193). Unfortunately, the difficulty in translating נֶפֶשׁ consistently (see the note on v. 10 above) obscures the close connection between the (human) “person” in v. 10 and “the life” (of animals, 2 times) and “your (human) lives” in v. 11, all of which are renderings of נֶפֶשׁ. The basic logic of the passage is that (a) no נֶפֶשׁ should eat the blood when he eats the בָּשָׂר of an animal (v. 10) because (b) the נֶפֶשׁ of בָּשָׂר is identified with the blood that flows through and permeates it (v. 11a), and (c) the Lord himself has assigned (i.e., limited the use of) animal blood, that is, animal נֶפֶשׁ, to be the instrument or price of making atonement for the נֶפֶשׁ of people (v. 11b). See the detailed remarks and literature cited in R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:693-95, 697-98.

[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.

[23:28]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the bone of this day.”

[23:28]  ¹¹ tn Heb “on you [plural]”; cf. NASB, NRSV “on your behalf.”