Imamat 8:33

8:33 And you must not go out from the entrance of the Meeting Tent for seven days, until the day when your days of ordination are completed, because you must be ordained over a seven-day period. ¹ 

Imamat 12:5

12:5 If she bears a female child, she will be impure fourteen days as during her menstrual flow, and she will remain sixty-six days in ²  blood purity. ³ 

Imamat 23:27-28

23:27 “The ⁴  tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. ⁵  It is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must humble yourselves ⁶  and present a gift to the Lord. 23:28 You must not do any work on this particular day, ⁷  because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for yourselves ⁸  before the Lord your God.

Imamat 23:34

23:34 “Tell the Israelites, ‘On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Festival of Temporary Shelters ⁹  for seven days to the Lord.

Imamat 23:37

23:37 “‘These are the appointed times of the Lord that you must proclaim as holy assemblies to present a gift to the Lord – burnt offering, grain offering, sacrifice, and drink offerings, ¹⁰  each day according to its regulation, ¹¹ 

[8:33]  ¹ tn Heb “because seven days he shall fill your hands”; KJV “for seven days shall he consecrate you”; CEV “ends seven days from now.”

[8:33]  sn It is apparent that the term for “ordination offering” (מִלֻּאִים, millu’im; cf. Lev 7:37 and the note there) is closely related to the expression “he shall fill (Piel מִלֵּא, mille’) your hands” in this verse. Some derive the terminology from the procedure in Lev 8:27-28, but the term for “hands” there is actually “palms.” It seems more likely that it derives from the notion of putting the priestly responsibilities (or possibly its associated prebends) under their control (i.e., “filling their hands” with authority; see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:538-39). The command “to keep the charge of the Lord” in v. 35 and the expression “by the hand of Moses” (i.e., under the authoritative hand of Moses, v. 36) may also support this interpretation.

[12:5]  ² tn Heb “on purity blood.” The preposition here is עַל (’al) rather than בְּ (bÿ, as it is in the middle of v. 4), but no doubt the same meaning is intended.

[12:5]  ³ tn For clarification of the translation here, see the notes on vv. 2-4 above.

[12:5]  sn The doubling of the time after the birth of a female child is puzzling (see the remarks in J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:750-51; and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 188). Some have argued, for example, that it derives from the relative status of the sexes, or a supposed longer blood flow for the birth of a woman, or even to compensate for the future menstrual periods of the female just born. Perhaps there is a better explanation. First, a male child must be circumcised on the eighth day, so the impurity of the mother could not last beyond the first seven days lest it interfere with the circumcision rite. A female child, of course, was not circumcised, so the impurity of the mother would not interfere and the length of the impure time could be extended further. Second, it would be natural to expect that the increased severity of the blood flow after childbirth, as compared to that of a woman’s menstrual period, would call for a longer period of impurity than the normal seven days of the menstrual period impurity (compare Lev 15:19 with 15:25-30). Third, this suggests that the fourteen day impurity period for the female child would have been more appropriate, and the impurity period for the birth of a male child had to be shortened. Fourth, not only the principle of multiples of seven but also multiples of forty applies to this reckoning. Since the woman’s blood discharge after bearing a child continues for more than seven days, her discharge keeps her from contact with sacred things for a longer period of time in order to avoid contaminating the tabernacle (note Lev 15:31). This ended up totaling forty days for the birth of a male child (seven plus thirty-three) and a corresponding doubling of the second set of days for the woman (fourteen plus sixty-six). See R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:368-70. The fact that the offerings were the same for either a male or a female infant (vv. 6-8) suggests that the other differences in the regulations are not due to the notion that a male child had greater intrinsic value than a female child (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 169).

[23:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “Surely the tenth day” or perhaps “Precisely the tenth day.” The Hebrew adverbial particle אַךְ (’akh) is left untranslated by most recent English versions; cf. however NASB “On exactly the tenth day.”

[23:27]  ⁵ sn See the description of this day and its regulations in Lev 16 and the notes there.

[23:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “you shall humble your souls.” See the note on Lev 16:29 above.

[23:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the bone of this day.”

[23:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “on you [plural]”; cf. NASB, NRSV “on your behalf.”

[23:34]  ⁹ tn The rendering “booths” (cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV) is probably better than the traditional “tabernacles” in light of the meaning of the term סֻכָּה (sukkah, “hut, booth”), but “booths” are frequently associated with trade shows and craft fairs in contemporary American English. The nature of the celebration during this feast (see the following verses) as a commemoration of the wanderings of the Israelites after they left Egypt suggests that a translation like “temporary shelters” is more appropriate.

[23:37]  ¹⁰ tn The LXX has “[their] burnt offerings, and their sacrifices, and their drink offerings.”

[23:37]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a matter of a day in its day”; NAB “as prescribed for each day”; NRSV, NLT “each on its proper day.”