5:7 “‘If he cannot afford an animal from the flock, 12 he must bring his penalty for guilt for his sin that he has committed, 13 two turtledoves or two young pigeons, 14 to the Lord, one for a sin offering and one for a burnt offering.
5:17 “If a person sins and violates any of the Lord’s commandments which must not be violated 15 (although he did not know it at the time, 16 but later realizes he is guilty), then he will bear his punishment for iniquity 17
10:12 Then Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his remaining sons, “Take the grain offering which remains from the gifts of the Lord and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy.
16:18 “Then 40 he is to go out to the altar which is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He is to take 41 some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it all around on the horns of the altar.
23:3 “‘Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there must be a Sabbath of complete rest, 51 a holy assembly. You must not do any work; it is a Sabbath to the Lord in all the places where you live.
23:39 “‘On 58 the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the produce of the land, you must celebrate a pilgrim festival of the Lord for seven days. On the first day is a complete rest and on the eighth day is complete rest.
27:16 “‘If a man consecrates to the Lord some of his own landed property, the conversion value must be calculated in accordance with the amount of seed needed to sow it, 64 a homer of barley seed being priced at fifty shekels of silver. 65
1 tn Heb “Then he”; the referent (the offerer) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The LXX has “they” rather than “he,” suggesting that the priests, not the offerer, were to slaughter the bull (cf. the notes on vv. 6a and 9a).
2 tn Heb “the son of the herd”; cf. KJV “bullock”; NASB, NIV “young bull.”
3 tn “Splash” (cf. NAB) or “dash” (cf. NRSV) is better than “sprinkle,” which is the common English translation of this verb (זָרַק, zaraq; see, e.g., KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT). “Sprinkle” is not strong enough (contrast נָזָה [nazah], which does indeed mean “to sprinkle” or “to splatter”; cf. Lev 4:6).
4 tn Heb “he shall not divide it.” Several Hebrew
5 sn See the note on this phrase in 3:3.
6 sn See v. 7, where this altar is identified as the altar of fragrant incense.
7 sn The focus of sin offering “atonement” was purging impurities from the tabernacle (see the note on Lev 1:4).
8 tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him” (KJV similar).
9 tn In this context the word for “guilt” (אָשָׁם, ’asham) refers to the “penalty” for incurring guilt, the so-called consequential אָשָׁם (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:303; cf. the note on Lev 5:1).
10 sn The focus of sin offering “atonement” was purging impurities from the tabernacle (see the note on Lev 1:4).
11 tn See the note on 4:26 regarding the use of מִן (min).
12 tn Heb “and if his hand does not reach enough of a flock animal” (see the note on v. 11 below). The term translated “animal from the flock” (שֶׂה, seh) is often translated “lamb” (e.g., KJV, NASB, NIV, NCV) or “sheep” (e.g., NRSV, TEV, NLT), but it clearly includes either a sheep or a goat here (cf. v. 6), referring to the smaller pasture animals as opposed to the larger ones (i.e., cattle; cf. 4:3). Some English versions use the more generic “animal” (e.g., NAB, CEV).
13 tn Heb “and he shall bring his guilt which he sinned,” which is an abbreviated form of Lev 5:6, “and he shall bring his [penalty for] guilt to the
14 tn See the note on Lev 1:14 above.
15 tn Heb “and does one from all of the commandments of the
16 tn The words “at the time” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.
17 tn Heb “and he did not know, and he shall be guilty and he shall bear his iniquity” (for the rendering “bear his punishment [for iniquity]”) see the note on Lev 5:1.) This portion of v. 17 is especially difficult. The translation offered here suggests (as in many other English versions) that the offender did not originally know that he had violated the
18 tn Heb “trespasses a trespass” (verb and direct object from the same Hebrew root מַעַל, ma’al). See the note on 5:15.
19 tn Or “neighbor” (ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NASB “companion”; TEV “a fellow-Israelite.”
20 tn Heb “has extorted his neighbor”; ASV “oppressed”; NRSV “defrauded.”
21 tn Heb “and he”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. The “he” refers to the officiating priest. A similar shift between singular and plural occurs in Lev 1:7-9, but see the note on Lev 1:7 and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 89 for the possibility of textual corruption.
22 tn Heb “shall take up from it with his hand some of the choice wheat flour of the grain offering.”
23 sn See the note on Lev 2:2.
24 tc Smr reading, which includes the locative ה (hey, translated “on” the altar), is preferred here. This is the normal construction with the verb “offer up in smoke” in Lev 1-7 (see the note on Lev 1:9).
25 tn Heb “and he shall offer up in smoke [on] the altar a soothing aroma, its memorial portion, to the
26 tn Or “a perpetual regulation”; cf. NASB “a permanent ordinance”; NRSV “as their perpetual due.”
27 tn Heb “for your generations”; cf. NIV “for the generations to come.”
28 tn Heb “touches them”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. In this context “them” must refer to the “gifts” of the
29 tn Or “anyone/anything that touches them shall become holy” (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:443-56). The question is whether this refers to the contagious nature of holy objects (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) or whether it simply sets forth a demand that anyone who touches the holy gifts of the
30 sn A tenth of an ephah is about 2.3 liters, one day’s ration for a single person (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:306).
31 tn For the rendering “choice wheat flour” see the note on Lev 2:1.
32 tn Heb “holiness of holinesses [or holy of holies] it is.” Cf. NAB “most sacred”; CEV “very sacred”; TEV “very holy.”
33 tn See Lev 2:4.
34 tn Instead of “on behalf of the people,” the LXX has “on behalf of your house” as in the Hebrew text of Lev 16:6, 11, 17. Many commentaries follow the LXX here (e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:578; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 118) as do a few English versions (e.g., NAB), but others argue that, as on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16), the offerings of the priests also effected the people, even though there was still the need to have special offerings made on behalf of the people as reflected in the second half of the verse (e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 56).
35 tn The Niphal verb of the Hebrew root קָדַשׁ (qadash) can mean either “to be treated as holy” (so here, e.g., BDB 873 s.v. קָּדַשׁ, LXX, NASB, and NEB) or “to show oneself holy” (so here, e.g., HALOT 1073 s.v. קדשׁnif.1, NIV, NRSV, NLT; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:595, 601-3; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 133-34). The latter rendering seems more likely here since, in the immediate context, the
36 tn In this context the Niphal of the Hebrew root כָּבֵד (kaved) can mean “to be honored” (e.g., NASB and NIV here), “be glorified” (ASV, NRSV and NLT here), or “glorify oneself, show one’s glory” (cf. NAB; e.g., specifically in this verse HALOT 455 s.v. כבדnif.3; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:595, 603-4; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 126, 134). Comparing this clause with the previous one (see the note above), the point may be that when the
37 tn Heb “and he shall take the fullness of the censer, coals of fire, from on the altar from to the faces of the
38 tn Heb “and the fullness of the hollow of his two hands, finely ground fragrant incense.”
39 tn Heb “and he shall bring from house to the veil-canopy.”
40 tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates the sequence of events here.
41 tn Heb “And he shall take.”
42 tn Heb “And I, I shall give my faces.”
43 sn On the “cut off” penalty see the notes on Lev 7:20 and 17:4.
44 tn Heb “for the sake of defiling my sanctuary and to profane my holy name.”
45 sn See the note on Lev 16:2 for the rendering “veil-canopy.”
46 tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
47 tn Heb “holy things,” which means the “holy offerings” in this context, as the following verses show. The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
48 tn Heb “from the holy things of the sons of Israel, and they shall not profane my holy name, which they are consecrating to me.” The latter (relative) clause applies to the “the holy things of the sons of Israel” (the first clause), not the
49 tn Heb “Man, man.” The reduplication is a way of saying “any man” (cf. Lev 15:2; 17:3, etc.; see the distributive repetition of the noun in GKC 395-96 §123.c).
50 tn Heb “and from the foreigner [singular] in Israel.” Some medieval Hebrew
51 tn This is a superlative expression, emphasizing the full and all inclusive rest of the Sabbath and certain festival times throughout the chapter (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 155). Cf. ASV “a sabbath of solemn rest.”
52 sn See the note on Lev 5:11.
53 sn See the note on Lev 2:1.
54 sn See the note on Lev 1:9.
55 tn Heb “wine, one fourth of the hin.” A pre-exilic hin is about 3.6 liters (= ca. 1 quart), so one fourth of a hin would be about one cup.
56 tc Smr, LXX, Syriac, Tg. Onq., and Tg. Ps.-J. insert the word חַלּוֹת (khallot, “loaves”; cf. Lev 2:4 and the note there). Even though “loaves” is not explicit in the MT, the number “two” suggests that these are discrete units, not just a measure of flour, so “loaves” should be assumed even in the MT.
57 tn Heb “with leaven.” The noun “leaven” is traditional in English versions (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but “yeast” is more commonly used today.
58 tn Heb “Surely on the fifteenth day.” The Hebrew adverbial particle אַךְ (’akh) is left untranslated by most recent English versions; however, cf. NASB “On exactly the fifteenth day.”
59 tn The Hebrew term פָּרֹכֶת (parokhet) is usually translated “veil” or “curtain,” but it seems to have stretched not only in front of but also over the top of the ark of the covenant which stood behind and under it inside the most holy place (see R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 3:687-89).
60 tc Several medieval Hebrew
61 tn Heb “for your generations.”
62 tn The verb rendered “misused” means literally “to bore through, to pierce” (HALOT 719 s.v. נקב qal); it is from נָקַב (naqav), not קָבַב (qavav; see the participial form in v. 16a). Its exact meaning here is uncertain. The two verbs together may form a hendiadys, “he pronounced by cursing blasphemously” (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 166), the idea being one of the following: (1) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” in a way or with words that amounted to “some sort of verbal aggression against Yahweh himself” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 362), (2) he pronounced a curse against the man using the name “Yahweh” (N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers [NCBC], 110; G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 311), or (3) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” and thereby blasphemed, since the “Name” was never to be pronounced (a standard Jewish explanation). In one way or another, the offense surely violated Exod 20:7, one of the ten commandments, and the same verb for cursing is used explicitly in Exod 22:28 (27 HT) prohibition against “cursing” God. For a full discussion of these and related options for interpreting this verse see P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 335-36; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 408-9; and Levine, 166.
63 sn See the note on v. 11 above.
64 tn Heb “a conversion value shall be to the mouth of its seed.”
65 tn Heb “seed of a homer of barley in fifty shekels of silver.”