Text -- Leviticus 10:9 (NET)

10:9 “Do not drink wine or strong drink, you and your sons with you, when you enter into the Meeting Tent, so that you do not die, which is a perpetual statute throughout your generations,

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 10:9

¹ tn Heb “a perpetual statute for your generations”; NAB “a perpetual ordinance”; NRSV “a statute forever”; NLT “a permanent law.” The Hebrew grammar here suggests that the last portion of v. 9 functions as both a conclusion to v. 9 and an introduction to vv. 10-11. It is a pivot clause, as it were. Thus, it was a “perpetual statute” to not drink alcoholic beverages when ministering in the tabernacle, but it was also a “perpetual statue” to distinguish between holy and profane and unclean and clean (v. 10) as well as to teach the children of Israel all such statutes (v. 11).