4:3 “‘If the high priest 1 sins so that the people are guilty, 2 on account of the sin he has committed he must present a flawless young bull to the Lord 3 for a sin offering. 4
15:1 14 The Lord spoke to Moses:
21:10 15 The Israelites traveled on and camped in Oboth.
1 tn Heb “the anointed priest” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). This refers to the high priest (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).
2 tn Heb “to the guilt of the people”; NRSV “thus bringing guilt on the people.”
3 tn Heb “and he shall offer on his sin which he sinned, a bull, a son of the herd, flawless.”
4 sn The word for “sin offering” (sometimes translated “purification offering”) is the same as the word for “sin” earlier in the verse. One can tell which rendering is intended only by the context. The primary purpose of the “sin offering” (חַטָּאת, khatta’t) was to “purge” (כִּפֶּר, kipper, “to make atonement,” see 4:20, 26, 31, 35, and the notes on Lev 1:4 and esp. Lev 16:20, 33) the sanctuary or its furniture in order to cleanse it from any impurities and/or (re)consecrate it for holy purposes (see, e.g., Lev 8:15; 16:19). By making this atonement the impurities of the person or community were cleansed and the people became clean. See R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:93-103.
5 tn All of v. 11 is a so-called casus pendens (also known as an extraposition or a nominative absolute), which means that it anticipates the next verse, being the full description of “all (the rest of) the bull” (lit. “all the bull”) at the beginning of v. 12 (actually after the first verb of the verse; see the next note below).
6 tn Heb “And he (the offerer) shall bring out all the bull to from outside to the camp to a clean place.”
7 tn Heb “a clean place,” but referring to a place that is ceremonially clean. This has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb “the pouring out [place] of fatty ash.”
9 tn Heb “burn with fire.” This expression is somewhat redundant in English, so the translation collocates “fire” with “wood,” thus “a wood fire.”
10 sn See the note on the word “slaughter” in v. 15.
11 tn Heb “And he shall bring out the bull to from outside to the camp.”
12 tn The sentence begins with the emphatic use of the infinitive absolute with the verb in the Hophal imperfect: “he shall surely be put to death.” Then, a second infinitive absolute רָגוֹם (ragom) provides the explanatory activity – all the community is to stone him with stones. The punishment is consistent with other decrees from God (see Exod 31:14,15; 35:2). Moses had either forgotten such, or they had simply neglected to (or were hesitant to) enact them.
13 tn Heb “stoned him with stones, and he died.”
14 sn The wilderness wandering officially having begun, these rules were then given for the people to be used when they finally entered the land. That they would be provided here would be of some encouragement to the nation after their great failure. God still spoke of a land that was to be their land, even though they had sinned greatly. This chapter collects a number of religious rules. The first 16 verses deal with rulings for sacrifices. Then, vv. 17-36 concerns sins of omission. Finally, rules concerning tassels are covered (vv. 37-41). For additional reading, see G. B. Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925); B. A. Levine, In the Presence of the
15 sn See further D. L. Christensen, “Numbers 21:14-15 and the Book of the Wars of Yahweh,” CBQ 36 (1974): 359-60; G. W. Coats, “The Wilderness Itinerary,” CBQ 34 (1972): 135-52; G. I. Davies, “The Wilderness Itinerary,” TB 25 (1974): 46-81; idem, The Way of the Wilderness; G. E. Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,” BA 25 (1962): 66-87.
16 tn Or “border.”
17 tn Grk “And when.” Because of the length of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences, καί (kai) has not been translated here; a new sentence is begun instead.
18 sn They began to stone him. The irony of the scene is that the people do exactly what the speech complains about in v. 52.
19 tn Or “outer garments.”
20 tn Grk “whose blood is brought by the high priest.”