Numbers 18:22

18:22 No longer may the Israelites approach the tent of meeting, or else they will bear their sin ¹  and die.

Numbers 18:32

18:32 And you will bear no sin concerning it when you offer up the best of it. And you must not profane the holy things of the Israelites, or else you will die.’” ² 

Numbers 9:13

9:13 But ³  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ⁴  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ⁵  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ⁶ 

Numbers 27:3

27:3 “Our father died in the wilderness, although ⁷  he was not part of ⁸  the company of those that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but he died for his own sin, ⁹  and he had no sons.

¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive construct of the verb “to bear” with the lamed (ל) preposition to express the result of such an action. “To bear their sin” would mean that they would have to suffer the consequences of their sin.

² tn The final clause could also be rendered “in order that you do not die.” The larger section can also be interpreted differently; rather than take it as a warning, it could be taken as an assurance that when they do all of this they will not be profaning it and so will not die (R. K. Harrison, Numbers [WEC], 253).

³ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) signals a contrastive clause here: “but the man” on the other hand….

⁴ tn The verb חָדַל (khadal) means “to cease; to leave off; to fail.” The implication here is that it is a person who simply neglects to do it. It does not indicate that he forgot, but more likely that he made the decision to leave it undone.

⁵ sn The pronouncement of such a person’s penalty is that his life will be cut off from his people. There are at least three possible interpretations for this: physical death at the hand of the community (G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 84-85), physical and/or spiritual death at the hand of God (J. Milgrom, “A Prolegomenon to Lev 17:11,” JBL 90 [1971]: 154-55), or excommunication or separation from the community (R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 109). The direct intervention of God seem to be the most likely in view of the lack of directions for the community to follow. Excommunication from the camp in the wilderness would have been tantamount to a death sentence by the community, and so there really are just two views.

⁶ tn The word for “sin” here should be interpreted to mean the consequences of his sin (so a metonymy of effect). Whoever willingly violates the Law will have to pay the consequences.

⁴ tn This clause begins with a vav (ו) on a pronoun, marking it out as a disjunctive vav. In this context it fits best to take it as a circumstantial clause introducing concession.

⁵ tn Heb “in the midst of.”

⁶ tn The word order is emphatic: “but in/on account of his own sins he died.”