Exodus 29:37

29:37 For seven days ¹  you are to make atonement for the altar and set it apart as holy. Then the altar will be most holy. ²  Anything that touches the altar will be holy. ³ 

Leviticus 6:27

6:27 Anyone who touches its meat must be holy, and whoever spatters some of its blood on a garment, ⁴  you must wash ⁵  whatever he spatters it on in a holy place.

Leviticus 6:29

6:29 Any male among the priests may eat it. It is most holy. ⁶ 

Leviticus 7:6

7:6 Any male among the priests may eat it. It must be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. ⁷ 

Ezekiel 44:19

44:19 When they go out to the outer court to the people, they must remove the garments they were ministering in, and place them in the holy chambers; they must put on other garments so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their garments. ⁸ 

Matthew 23:19

23:19 You are blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

¹ tn Once again this is an adverbial accusative of time. Each day for seven days the ritual at the altar is to be followed.

² tn The construction is the superlative genitive: “holy of holies,” or “most holy.”

³ sn This line states an unusual principle, meant to preserve the sanctity of the altar. S. R. Driver explains it this way (Exodus, 325): If anything comes in contact with the altar, it becomes holy and must remain in the sanctuary for Yahweh’s use. If a person touches the altar, he likewise becomes holy and cannot return to the profane regions. He will be given over to God to be dealt with as God pleases. Anyone who was not qualified to touch the altar did not dare approach it, for contact would have meant that he was no longer free to leave but was God’s holy possession – and might pay for it with his life (see Exod 30:29; Lev 6:18b, 27; and Ezek 46:20).

⁴ tn Heb “on the garment”; NCV “on any clothes”; CEV “on the clothes of the priest.”

⁵ tc The translation “you must wash” is based on the MT as it stands (cf. NASB, NIV). Smr, LXX, Syriac, Tg. Ps.-J., and the Vulgate have a third person masculine singular passive form (Pual), “[the garment] must be washed” (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT). This could also be supported from the verbs in the following verse, and it requires only a repointing of the Hebrew text with no change in consonants. See the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 90 and J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:404.

⁶ tn Heb “holiness of holinesses [or holy of holies] it is” (also in 7:1).

⁷ tn Heb “holiness of holinesses [or holy of holies] it is”; NAB “most sacred”; TEV “very holy.”

⁸ sn For a similar concept of the transmitting of holiness, see Exod 19:12-14; Lev 10:1-2; 2 Sam 6:7. Similar laws concerning the priest are found in Lev 10 and 21.