16:18 “Then 1 he is to go out to the altar which is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He is to take 2 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. 16:19 Then he is to sprinkle on it some of the blood with his finger seven times, and cleanse and consecrate it 3 from the impurities of the Israelites.
16:20 “When he has finished purifying the holy place, 4 the Meeting Tent, and the altar, he is to present the live goat.
1 tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates the sequence of events here.
2 tn Heb “And he shall take.”
3 tn Heb “and he shall purify it and he shall consecrate it.”
4 tn Heb “And he shall finish from atoning the holy place.” In this case, the “holy place” etc. are direct objects of the verb “to atone” (cf. v. 33a below). In this case, therefore, the basic meaning of the verb (i.e., “to purge” or “wipe clean”) comes to the forefront. When the prepositions עַל (’al) or בֲּעַד (ba’ad) occur with the verb כִּפֶּר (kipper) the purging is almost always being done “for” or “on behalf of” priests or people (see the note on Lev 1:4 as well as R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:698, the literature cited there, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 110, for more details).