Text -- Leviticus 2:4-16 (NET)

Processed Grain Offerings

2:4 “‘When you present an offering of grain baked in an oven, it must be made of choice wheat flour baked into unleavened loaves mixed with olive oil or unleavened wafers smeared with olive oil. 2:5 If your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, it must be choice wheat flour mixed with olive oil, unleavened. 2:6 Crumble it in pieces and pour olive oil on it– it is a grain offering. 2:7 If your offering is a grain offering made in a pan, it must be made of choice wheat flour deep fried in olive oil. 2:8 “‘You must bring the grain offering that must be made from these to the Lord. Present it to the priest, and he will bring it to the altar. 2:9 Then the priest must take up from the grain offering its memorial portion and offer it up in smoke on the altar– it is a gift of a soothing aroma to the Lord. 2:10 The remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and to his sons– it is most holy from the gifts of the Lord.

Additional Grain Offering Regulations

2:11 “‘No grain offering which you present to the Lord can be made with yeast, for you must not offer up in smoke any yeast or honey as a gift to the Lord. 2:12 You can present them to the Lord as an offering of first fruit, but they must not go up to the altar for a soothing aroma. 2:13 Moreover, you must season every one of your grain offerings with salt; you must not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be missing from your grain offering– on every one of your grain offerings you must present salt. 2:14 “‘If you present a grain offering of first ripe grain to the Lord, you must present your grain offering of first ripe grain as soft kernels roasted in fire– crushed bits of fresh grain. 2:15 And you must put olive oil on it and set frankincense on it– it is a grain offering. 2:16 Then the priest must offer its memorial portion up in smoke– some of its crushed bits, some of its olive oil, in addition to all of its frankincense– it is a gift to the Lord.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 2:4

¹ tn The insertion of the words “it must be made of” is justified by the context and the expressed words “it shall be made of” in vv. 7 and 8 below.

² sn These “loaves” were either “ring-shaped” (HALOT 317 s.v. חַלָּה) or “perforated” (BDB 319 s.v. חַלָּה; cf. J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:184).

³ tn Heb “and.” Here the conjunction vav (ו) has an alternative sense (“or”).

⁴ tn The Hebrew word מְשֻׁחִים (mÿshukhim) translated here as “smeared” is often translated “anointed” in other contexts. Cf. TEV “brushed with olive oil” (CEV similar).

NET Notes: Lev 2:6

¹ tn There is no vav (ו, “and”) in the MT at the beginning of v. 6 and the verb is pointed as an infinite absolute. The present translation has rendered it as an imperative (see GKC 346 §113.bb) and, therefore, the same for the following vav consecutive perfect verb (cf. NIV “Crumble it and pour oil on it”; cf. also NRSV, NEB, NLT, and J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:185, but note the objections to this rendering in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 26). The LXX seems to suggest adding a vav (“and”) and pointing the verb as a consecutive perfect, which yields “and you shall break it in pieces” (cf. the BHS textual note; Hartley, 26, prefers the LXX rendering).

NET Notes: Lev 2:7

¹ tn Heb “a grain offering of a pan”; cf. KJV “fryingpan”; NAB “pot”; CEV “pan with a lid on it.”

² sn Lev 7:9 makes it clear that one cooked “on” a griddle but “in” a pan. This suggests that the oil in the pan served for deep fat frying, hence the translation “deep fried in olive oil” (see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:185); cf. also NAB.

NET Notes: Lev 2:8

¹ tc There are several person, gender, and voice verb problems in this verse. First, the MT has “And you shall bring the grain offering,” but the LXX and Qumran have “he” rather than “you” (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:185). Second, the MT has “which shall be made” (i.e., the 3rd person masculine Niphal passive verb which, in fact, does not agree with its feminine subject, מִנְחָה, minkhah, “grain offering”), while the LXX has “which he shall make” (3rd person Qal), thus agreeing with the LXX 3rd person verb at the beginning of the verse (see above). Third, the MT has a 3rd person vav consecutive verb “and he shall present it to the priest,” which agrees with the LXX but is not internally consistent with the 2nd person verb at the beginning of the verse in the MT. The BHS editors conjecture that the latter might be repointed to an imperative verb yielding “present it to the priest.” This would require no change of consonants and corresponds to the person of the first verb in the MT. This solution has been tentatively accepted here (cf. also J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 26-27), even though it neither resolves the gender problem of the second verb nor fits the general grammatical pattern of the chapter in the MT.

NET Notes: Lev 2:9

¹ tn The Hebrew verb הֵרִים (herim, “to take up”; cf. NAB “lift”) is commonly used for setting aside portions of an offering (see, e.g., Lev 4:8-10 and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 4:335-36). A number of English versions employ the more normal English idiom “take out” here (e.g., NIV, NCV); cf. NRSV “remove.”

² tn The words “it is” (הוּא, hu’) both here and in vv. 10 and 16 are not in the MT, but are assumed. (cf. vv. 2b and 3b and the notes there).

NET Notes: Lev 2:10

¹ tn See the note on “it is” in v. 9b.

NET Notes: Lev 2:11

¹ tn Heb “Every grain offering which you offer to the Lord must not be made leavened.” The noun “leaven” is traditional in English versions (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but “yeast” is more commonly used today.

² tc A few Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Tg. Ps.-J. have the verb “present” rather than “offer up in smoke,” but the MT is clearly correct. One could indeed present leavened and honey sweetened offerings as first fruit offerings, which were not burned on the altar (see v. 12 and the note there), but they could not be offered up in fire on the altar. Cf. the TEV’s ambiguous “you must never use yeast or honey in food offered to the Lord.”

tn Heb “for all leaven and all honey you must not offer up in smoke from it a gift to the Lord.”

NET Notes: Lev 2:12

¹ sn The “first fruit” referred to here was given to the priests as a prebend for their service to the Lord, not offered on the altar (Num 18:12).

NET Notes: Lev 2:13

¹ tn Heb “from upon your grain offering.”

NET Notes: Lev 2:14

¹ tn The translation of this whole section of the clause is difficult. Theoretically, it could describe one, two, or three different ways of preparing first ripe grain offerings (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 27). The translation here takes it as a description of only one kind of prepared grain. This is suggested by the fact that v. 16 uses only one term “crushed bits” (גֶּרֶשׂ, geres) to refer back to the grain as it is prepared in v. 14 (a more technical translation is “groats”; see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:178, 194). Cf. NAB “fresh grits of new ears of grain”; NRSV “coarse new grain from fresh ears.”

NET Notes: Lev 2:16

¹ tn See the note on “it is” in 2:9b.