Exodus 29:32-33

29:32 Aaron and his sons are to eat the meat of the ram and the bread that was in the basket at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 29:33 They are to eat those things by which atonement was made ¹  to consecrate and to set them apart, but no one else ²  may eat them, for they are holy.

Leviticus 24:5-9

24:5 “You must take choice wheat flour ³  and bake twelve loaves; ⁴  there must be two tenths of an ephah of flour in ⁵  each loaf, 24:6 and you must set them in two rows, six in a row, ⁶  on the ceremonially pure table before the Lord. 24:7 You must put pure frankincense ⁷  on each row, ⁸  and it will become a memorial portion ⁹  for the bread, a gift ¹⁰  to the Lord. 24:8 Each Sabbath day ¹¹  Aaron ¹²  must arrange it before the Lord continually; this portion ¹³  is from the Israelites as a perpetual covenant. 24:9 It will belong to Aaron and his sons, and they must eat it in a holy place because it is most holy to him, a perpetual allotted portion ¹⁴  from the gifts of the Lord.”

¹ tn The clause is a relative clause modifying “those things,” the direct object of the verb “eat.” The relative clause has a resumptive pronoun: “which atonement was made by them” becomes “by which atonement was made.” The verb is a Pual perfect of כִּפֵּר (kipper, “to expiate, atone, pacify”).

² tn The Hebrew word is “stranger, alien” (זָר, zar). But in this context it means anyone who is not a priest (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 324).

³ sn See the note on Lev 2:1.

⁴ tn Heb “and bake it twelve loaves”; KJV, NAB, NASB “cakes.”

⁵ tn The words “of flour” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “six of the row.”

⁷ tn This is not just any “incense” (קְטֹרֶת, qÿtoret; R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 3:913-16), but specifically “frankincense” (לְבֹנָה, lÿvonah; R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:756-57).

⁸ tn Heb “on [עַל, ’al] the row,” probably used distributively, “on each row” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 395-96). Perhaps the frankincense was placed “with” or “along side of” each row, not actually on the bread itself, and was actually burned as incense to the Lord (cf. NIV “Along [Alongside CEV] each row”; NRSV “with each row”; NLT “near each row”; B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 165). This particular preposition can have such a meaning.

⁹ sn The “memorial portion” (אַזְכָרָה, ’azkharah) was normally the part of the grain offering that was burnt on the altar (see Lev 2:2 and the notes there), as opposed to the remainder, which was normally consumed by the priests (Lev 2:3; see the full regulations in Lev 6:14-23 [6:7-16 HT]).

¹⁰ sn See the note on Lev 1:9 regarding the term “gift.”

¹¹ tn Heb “In the day of the Sabbath, in the day of the Sabbath.” The repetition is distributive. A few medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac delete the second occurrence of the expression.

¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Aaron) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹³ tn The word “portion” is supplied in the translation here for clarity, to specify what “this” refers to.

¹⁴ tn Or “a perpetual regulation”; NRSV “a perpetual due.”