Leviticus 4:14

4:14 the assembly must present a young bull for a sin offering when the sin they have committed ¹  becomes known. They must bring it before the Meeting Tent,

Leviticus 6:27

6:27 Anyone who touches its meat must be holy, and whoever spatters some of its blood on a garment, ²  you must wash ³  whatever he spatters it on in a holy place.

Leviticus 12:7

12:7 The priest ⁴  is to present it before the Lord and make atonement ⁵  on her behalf, and she will be clean ⁶  from her flow of blood. ⁷  This is the law of the one who bears a child, for the male or the female child.

Leviticus 15:30

15:30 and the priest is to make one a sin offering and the other a burnt offering. ⁸  So the priest ⁹  is to make atonement for her before the Lord from her discharge of impurity.

¹ tn Heb “and the sin which they committed on it becomes known”; KJV “which they have sinned against it.” The Hebrew עָלֶיהָ (’aleha, “on it”) probably refers back to “one of the commandments” in v. 13 (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:243).

² tn Heb “on the garment”; NCV “on any clothes”; CEV “on the clothes of the priest.”

³ 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.

³ tn Heb “and he” (i.e., the priest mentioned at the end of v. 6). The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ sn See the note on Lev 1:4 “make atonement.” The purpose of sin offering “atonement,” in particular, was to purge impurities from the tabernacle (see Lev 15:31 and 16:5-19, 29-34), whether they were caused by physical uncleannesses or by sins and iniquities. In this case, the woman has not “sinned” morally by having a child. Even Mary brought such offerings for giving birth to Jesus (Luke 2:22-24), though she certainly did not “sin” in giving birth to him. Note that the result of bringing this “sin offering” was “she will be clean,” not “she will be forgiven” (cf. Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13). The impurity of the blood flow has caused the need for this “sin offering,” not some moral or relational infringement of the law (contrast Lev 4:2, “When a person sins by straying unintentionally from any of the commandments of the Lord”).

⁵ tn Or “she will be[come] pure.”

⁶ tn Heb “from her source [i.e., spring] of blood,” possibly referring to the female genital area, not just the “flow of blood” itself (as suggested by J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:761). Cf. ASV “from the fountain of her blood.”

⁴ tn Heb “And the priest shall make the one a sin offering and the one a burnt offering.”

⁵ tn Heb “And the priest.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.