15:31 “‘Thus you 4 are to set the Israelites apart from their impurity so that they 5 do not die in their impurity by defiling my tabernacle which is in their midst.
20:27 “‘A man or woman who 21 has in them a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit 22 must be put to death. They must pelt them with stones; 23 their blood guilt is on themselves.’”
24:23 Then Moses spoke to the Israelites and they brought the one who cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. So the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
1 tn Heb “toward the altar” (see the note on Lev 1:9).
2 tn Heb “goes” (KJV, ASV “goeth”); NIV “moves about”; NLT “slither along.” The same Hebrew term is translated “walks” in the following clause.
3 tn Heb “until all multiplying of legs.”
4 tn Heb “And you shall.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV).
5 tn Heb “and they.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates a negative purpose (“lest,” so NAB, NASB).
6 tn Heb “sacrifice.” This has been translated as “offer” for stylistic reasons to avoid the redundancy of “sacrifice their sacrifices.”
7 tn On “goat demons” of the desert regions see the note on Lev 16:8.
8 tn Heb “which they are committing harlotry after them.”
9 tn Heb “for your generations.”
10 sn That is, to have sexual intercourse with one’s granddaughter would be like openly exposing one’s own shameful nakedness (see the note on v. 7 above).
11 tn Heb “And if shutting [infinitive absolute] they shut [finite verb].” For the infinitive absolute used to highlight contrast rather than emphasis see GKC 343 §113.p.
12 tn Heb “from that man” (so ASV); NASB “disregard that man.”
13 tn The Hebrew term תֶּבֶל (tevel, “perversion”) derives from the verb “to mix; to confuse” (cf. KJV, ASV “they have wrought confusion”).
14 tn Heb “[as the] lyings of a woman.” The specific reference here is to homosexual intercourse between males.
15 tn Heb “And a man who takes a woman and her mother.” The Hebrew verb “to take” in this context means “to engage in sexual intercourse.”
16 tn Regarding “lewdness,” see the note on Lev 18:17 above.
17 tn Heb “in fire they shall burn him and them.” The active plural verb sometimes requires a passive translation (GKC 460 §144.f, g), esp. when no active plural subject has been expressed in the context. The present translation specifies “burned to death” because the traditional rendering “burnt with fire” (KJV, ASV; NASB “burned with fire”) could be understood to mean “branded” or otherwise burned, but not fatally.
18 tn Heb “his flesh.”
19 tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.
20 tc One medieval Hebrew
21 tc Smr, LXX, Syriac, and some Targum
22 tn See the note on the phrase “familiar spirit” in Lev 19:31 above.
23 tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning, but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (see the note on v. 2 above). Smr and LXX have “you [plural] shall pelt them with stones.”
sn At first glance Lev 20:27 appears to be out of place but, on closer examination, one could argue that it constitutes the back side of an envelope around the case laws in 20:9-21, with Lev 20:6 forming the front of the envelope (note also that execution of mediums and spiritists by stoning in v. 27 is not explicitly stated in v. 6). This creates a chiastic structure: prohibition against mediums and spiritists (vv. 6 and 27), variations of the holiness formula (vv. 7 and 25-26), and exhortations to obey the
24 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.
25 tn Heb “with leaven.” The noun “leaven” is traditional in English versions (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but “yeast” is more commonly used today.
26 tn Smr and LXX have the Hebrew article on “lambs.” The syntax of this verse is difficult. The object of the verb (two lambs) is far removed from the verb itself (shall wave) in the MT, and the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”), rendered “along with” in this verse, is also added to the far removed subject (literally, “upon [the] two lambs”; see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 159). It is clear, however, that the two lambs and the loaves (along with their associated grain and drink offerings) constituted the “wave offering,” which served as the prebend “for the priest.” Burnt and sin offerings (vv. 18-19a) were not included in this (see Lev 7:11-14, 28-36).
27 tn Or “a perpetual regulation”; NRSV “a perpetual due.”
28 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.
29 tn Heb “And the houses of the villages.”
30 tn Heb “which there is not to them a wall.”
31 tn Heb “on the field.”
32 tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.
33 tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.
34 tn Heb “and diminish you.”
35 tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).
36 tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”
37 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.
38 tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.
39 tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”
40 tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.