Leviticus 16:29

Review of the Day of Atonement

16:29 “This is to be a perpetual statute for you. ¹  In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you must humble yourselves ²  and do no work of any kind, ³  both the native citizen and the foreigner who resides ⁴  in your midst,

Leviticus 23:27-29

23:27 “The ⁵  tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. ⁶  It is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must humble yourselves ⁷  and present a gift to the Lord. 23:28 You must not do any work on this particular day, ⁸  because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for yourselves ⁹  before the Lord your God. 23:29 Indeed, ¹⁰  any person who does not behave with humility on this particular day will be cut off from his people. ¹¹ 

Numbers 29:7

The Day of Atonement

29:7 “‘On the tenth day of this seventh month you are to have a holy assembly. You must humble yourselves; ¹²  you must not do any work on it.

¹ tn Heb “And it [feminine] shall be for you a perpetual statute.” Verse 34 begins with the same clause except for the missing demonstrative pronoun “this” here in v. 29. The LXX has “this” in both places and it suits the sense of the passage, although both the verb and the pronoun are sometimes missing in this clause elsewhere in the book (see, e.g., Lev 3:17).

² tn Heb “you shall humble your souls.” The verb “to humble” here refers to various forms of self-denial, including but not limited to fasting (cf. Ps 35:13 and Isa 58:3, 10). The Mishnah (m. Yoma 8:1) lists abstentions from food and drink, bathing, using oil as an unguent to moisten the skin, wearing leather sandals, and sexual intercourse (cf. 2 Sam 12:16-17, 20; see the remarks in J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:1054; B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 109; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 242).

³ tn Heb “and all work you shall not do.”

⁴ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner who sojourns.”

⁵ tn Heb “Surely the tenth day” or perhaps “Precisely the tenth day.” The Hebrew adverbial particle אַךְ (’akh) is left untranslated by most recent English versions; cf. however NASB “On exactly the tenth day.”

⁶ sn See the description of this day and its regulations in Lev 16 and the notes there.

⁷ tn Heb “you shall humble your souls.” See the note on Lev 16:29 above.

⁸ tn Heb “in the bone of this day.”

⁹ tn Heb “on you [plural]”; cf. NASB, NRSV “on your behalf.”

¹⁰ tn The particular כִּי (ki) is taken in an asseverative sense here (“Indeed,” see the NJPS translation).

¹¹ tn Heb “it [i.e., that person; literally “soul,” feminine] shall be cut off from its peoples [plural]”; NLT “from the community.”

¹² tn Heb “afflict yourselves”; NAB “mortify yourselves”; NIV, NRSV “deny yourselves.”