Numbers 6:3

6:3 he must separate 1  himself from wine and strong drink, he must drink neither vinegar 2  made from wine nor vinegar made from strong drink, nor may he drink any juice 3  of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins. 4 

Numbers 11:8

11:8 And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it with mills or pounded it in mortars; they baked it in pans and made cakes of it. It tasted like fresh olive oil. 5 

Numbers 19:17

19:17 “‘For a ceremonially unclean person you must take 6  some of the ashes of the heifer 7  burnt for purification from sin and pour 8  fresh running 9  water over them in a vessel.

1 tn The operative verb now will be the Hiphil of נָזַר (nazar); the consecration to the Lord meant separation from certain things in the world. The first will be wine and strong drink – barley beer (from Akkadian sikaru, a fermented beer). But the second word may be somewhat wider in its application than beer. The Nazirite, then, was to avoid all intoxicants as a sign of his commitment to the Lord. The restriction may have proved a hardship in the daily diet of the one taking the vow, but it spoke a protest to the corrupt religious and social world that used alcohol to excess.

2 tn The “vinegar” (חֹמֶץ, homets) is some kind of drink preparation that has been allowed to go sour.

3 tn This word occurs only here. It may come from the word “to water, to be moist,” and so refer to juice.

4 tn Heb “dried” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

5 tn Heb “And its taste was like the taste of fresh olive oil.”

6 tn The verb is the perfect tense, third masculine plural, with a vav (ו) consecutive. The verb may be worded as a passive, “ashes must be taken,” but that may be too awkward for this sentence. It may be best to render it with a generic “you” to fit the instruction of the text.

7 tn The word “heifer” is not in the Hebrew text, but it is implied.

8 tn Here too the verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; rather than make this passive, it is here left as a direct instruction to follow the preceding one. For the use of the verb נָתַן (natan) in the sense of “pour,” see S. C. Reif, “A Note on a Neglected Connotation of ntn,” VT 20 (1970): 114-16.

9 tn The expression is literally “living water.” Living water is the fresh, flowing spring water that is clear, life-giving, and not the collected pools of stagnant or dirty water.