Numbers 5:17

5:17 The priest will then take holy water ¹  in a pottery jar, and take some ²  of the dust ³  that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it into the water.

Numbers 15:20

15:20 You must offer up a cake of the first of your finely ground flour ⁴  as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up.

Numbers 18:30

18:30 “Therefore you will say to them, ⁵  ‘When you offer up ⁶  the best of it, then it will be credited to the Levites as the product of the threshing floor and as the product of the winepress.

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¹ tn This is probably water taken from the large bronze basin in the courtyard. It is water set apart for sacred service. “Clean water” (so NEB) does not capture the sense very well, but it does have the support of the Greek that has “pure running water.” That pure water would no doubt be from the bronze basin anyway.

² tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a partitive sense.

³ sn The dust may have come from the sanctuary floor, but it is still dust, and therefore would have all the pollutants in it.

⁴ tn Or “the first of your dough.” The phrase is not very clear. N. H. Snaith thinks it means a batch of loaves from the kneading trough – the first batch of the baking (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 251).

⁵ tn The wording of this verse is confusing; it may be that it is addressed to the priests, telling them how to deal with the offerings of the Levites.

⁶ tn The clause begins with the infinitive construct with its preposition and suffixed subject serving to indicate the temporal clause.