Leviticus 22:3-7

22:3 Say to them, ‘Throughout your generations, ¹  if any man from all your descendants approaches the holy offerings which the Israelites consecrate ²  to the Lord while he is impure, ³  that person must be cut off from before me. ⁴  I am the Lord. 22:4 No man ⁵  from the descendants of Aaron who is diseased or has a discharge ⁶  may eat the holy offerings until he becomes clean. The one ⁷  who touches anything made unclean by contact with a dead person, ⁸  or a man who has a seminal emission, ⁹  22:5 or a man who touches a swarming thing by which he becomes unclean, ¹⁰  or touches a person ¹¹  by which he becomes unclean, whatever that person’s impurity ¹²  – 22:6 the person who touches any of these ¹³  will be unclean until evening and must not eat from the holy offerings unless he has bathed his body in water. 22:7 When the sun goes down he will be clean, and afterward he may eat from the holy offerings, because they are his food.

Exodus 29:37

29:37 For seven days ¹⁴  you are to make atonement for the altar and set it apart as holy. Then the altar will be most holy. ¹⁵  Anything that touches the altar will be holy. ¹⁶ 

Haggai 2:12-14

2:12 If someone carries holy meat in a fold of his garment and that fold touches bread, a boiled dish, wine, olive oil, or any other food, will that item become holy?’” ¹⁷  The priests answered, “It will not.” 2:13 Then Haggai asked, “If a person who is ritually unclean because of touching a dead body ¹⁸  comes in contact with one of these items, will it become unclean?” The priests answered, “It will be unclean.”

2:14 Then Haggai responded, “‘The people of this nation are unclean in my sight,’ ¹⁹  says the Lord. ‘And so is all their effort; everything they offer is also unclean. ²⁰ 

Zechariah 14:20-21

14:20 On that day the bells of the horses will bear the inscription “Holy to the Lord.” The cooking pots in the Lord’s temple ²¹  will be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar. ²²  14:21 Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah will become holy in the sight of the Lord who rules over all, so that all who offer sacrifices may come and use some of them to boil their sacrifices in them. On that day there will no longer be a Canaanite ²³  in the house of the Lord who rules over all.

Zechariah 14:1

The Sovereignty of the Lord

14:1 A day of the Lord ²⁴  is about to come when your possessions ²⁵  will be divided as plunder in your midst.

Zechariah 1:16

The Oracle of Response

1:16 “‘Therefore,’ says the Lord, ‘I have become compassionate ²⁶  toward Jerusalem ²⁷  and will rebuild my temple ²⁸  in it,’ says the Lord who rules over all. ‘Once more a surveyor’s measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.’

Zechariah 2:9

2:9 “I am about to punish them ²⁹  in such a way,” he says, “that they will be looted by their own slaves.” Then you will know that the Lord who rules over all has sent me.

¹ tn Heb “To your generations.”

² tn The Piel (v. 2) and Hiphil (v. 3) forms of the verb קָדַשׁ (qadash) appear to be interchangeable in this context. Both mean “to consecrate” (Heb “make holy [or “sacred”]”).

³ tn Heb “and his impurity [is] on him”; NIV “is ceremonially unclean”; NAB, NRSV “while he is in a state of uncleanness.”

⁴ sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty, see the note on Lev 7:20. Cf. the interpretive translation of TEV “he can never again serve at the altar.”

⁵ tn Heb “Man man.” The reduplication is a way of saying “any man” (cf. Lev 15:2; 17:3, etc.), but with a negative command it means “No man” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 147).

⁶ sn The diseases and discharges mentioned here are those described in Lev 13-15.

⁷ tn Heb “And the one.”

⁸ tn Heb “in all unclean of a person/soul”; for the Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) meaning “a [dead] person,” see the note on Lev 19:28.

⁹ tn Heb “or a man who goes out from him a lying of seed.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “which there shall be uncleanness to him.”

¹¹ tn The Hebrew term for “person” here is אָדָם (adam, “human being”), which could either a male or a female person.

¹² tn Heb “to all his impurity.” The phrase refers to the impurity of the person whom the man touches to become unclean (see the previous clause). To clarify this, the translation uses “that person’s” rather than “his.”

¹³ sn The phrase “any of these” refers back to the unclean things touched in vv. 4b-5.

¹⁴ tn Once again this is an adverbial accusative of time. Each day for seven days the ritual at the altar is to be followed.

¹⁵ tn The construction is the superlative genitive: “holy of holies,” or “most holy.”

¹⁶ 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).

¹⁷ sn This is probably not an appeal to the Torah (i.e., the Pentateuch) as such but to a priestly ruling (known in postbiblical Judaism as a pÿsaq din). There is, however, a Mosaic law that provides the basis for the priestly ruling (Lev 6:27).

¹⁸ tn Heb “unclean of a person,” a euphemism for “unclean because of a dead person”; see Lev 21:11; Num 6:6. Cf. NAB “unclean from contact with a corpse.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “so this people, and so this nation before me.” In this context “people” and “nation” refer to the same set of individuals; the repetition is emphatic. Cf. CEV “this entire nation.”

²⁰ sn The point here is that the Jews cannot be made holy by unholy fellowship with their pagan neighbors; instead, they and their worship will become corrupted by such associations.

²¹ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

²² sn In the glory of the messianic age there will be no differences between the sacred (the bowls before the altar) and the profane (the cooking pots in the Lord’s temple) – all will be dedicated to his use.

²³ tn Or “merchant”; “trader” (because Canaanites, especially Phoenicians, were merchants and traders; cf. BDB 489 s.v. I and II כְּנַעֲנִי). English versions have rendered the term as “Canaanite” (KJV, NKJV, NASB, NIV), “trader” (RSV, NEB), “traders” (NRSV, NLT), or “merchant” (NAB), although frequently a note is given explaining the other option. Cf. also John 2:16.

²⁴ sn The eschatological day of the Lord described here (and through v. 8) is considered by many interpreters to refer to the period known as the great tribulation, a seven year time of great suffering by God’s (Jewish) people culminating in the establishing of the millennial reign of the Lord (vv. 9-21). For other OT and NT references to this aspect of the day of the Lord see Amos 9:8-15; Joel 1:15–2:11; Isa 1:24-31; 2:2-4; 4:2-6; 26:16–27:6; 33:13-24; 59:1–60:22; 65:13-25; Jer 30:7-11; 32:36-44; Ezek 20:33-44; Dan 11:40; 12:1; Matt 24:21, 29; 25:31-46; Rev 19:11-16.

²⁵ tn Heb “your plunder.” Cf. NCV “the wealth you have taken.”

²⁶ tn Heb “I have turned.” This suggests that the Lord has responded to the “turning” (i.e., repentance) of the people (v. 6) and now, with great love and forgiveness, allows construction of the temple to proceed.

²⁷ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

²⁸ tn Heb “house.”

²⁹ tn Heb “I will wave my hand over them” (so NASB); NIV, NRSV “raise my hand against them.”