9:15 Then he presented the people’s offering. He took the sin offering male goat which was for the people, slaughtered it, and performed a decontamination rite with it 7 like the first one. 8
1 tn Heb “Then he”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. Based on the parallel statements in 4:10 and 4:31, it is the priest who performs this action rather than the person who brought the offering.
2 sn The focus of sin offering “atonement” was purging impurities from the tabernacle (see the note on Lev 1:4).
3 tn Heb “from.” In this phrase the preposition מִן (min) may be referring to the reason or cause (“on account of, because of”; GKC 383 §119.z). As J. E. Hartley (Leviticus [WBC], 47) points out, “from” may refer to the removal of the sin, but is an awkward expression. Hartley also suggests that the phrasing might be “an elliptical expression for יְכַפֵּר עַל־לְטַהֵר אֶת־מִן, ‘he will make expiation for…to cleanse…from…,’ as in 16:30.”
4 tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him” (KJV similar).
5 tn Heb “It must not be baked leavened” (cf. Lev 2:11). The noun “leaven” is traditional in English versions (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but “yeast” is more commonly used today.
6 tn Heb “holiness of holinesses [or holy of holies] it is”; cf. NAB “most sacred.”
7 tn The expression “and performed a decontamination rite [with] it” reads literally in the MT, “and decontaminated [with] it.” The verb is the Piel of חטא (kht’, Qal = “to sin”), which means “to decontaminate, purify” (i.e., “to de-sin”; see the note on Lev 8:15).
8 sn The phrase “like the first one” at the end of the verse refers back to the sin offering for the priests described in vv. 8-11 above. The blood of the sin offering of the common people was applied to the burnt offering altar just like that of the priests.
9 tn Heb “and the priest shall see it” (cf. KJV). The MT has “him/it” which some take to refer to the person as a whole (i.e., “him”; see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:770; NIV, NRSV, etc.), while others take it as a reference to the “infection” (נֶגַע, nega’) in v. 42 (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 172, 177). Smr has “her/it,” which would probably refer to “disease” (צָרַעַת, tsara’at) in v. 42. The general pattern in the chapter suggests that “it,” either the infection or the disease, is the object of the examination (see, e.g., v. 3 above and v. 50 below).
10 tn Heb “and behold.”
11 tn Heb “like appearance of disease of skin of flesh.”
12 tn Heb “And he shall slaughter.”
13 tn Heb “in the place which.”
14 sn See the note on Lev 4:3 regarding the term “sin offering.”
15 sn See the note on Lev 1:3 regarding the “burnt offering.”
16 tn Since the priest himself presents this offering as a wave offering (v. 12), it would seem that the offering is already in his hands and he would, therefore, be the one who slaughtered the male lamb in this instance rather than the offerer. Smr and LXX make the second verb “to slaughter” plural rather than singular, which suggests that it is to be taken as an impersonal passive (see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:852).
17 tn Heb “the guilt offering, it [is] to the
18 tn Heb “sacrifice.” This has been translated as “offer” for stylistic reasons to avoid the redundancy of “sacrifice their sacrifices.”
19 tn On “goat demons” of the desert regions see the note on Lev 16:8.
20 tn Heb “which they are committing harlotry after them.”
21 tn Heb “for your generations.”
22 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.