Exodus 29:33

29:33 They are to eat those things by which atonement was made ¹  to consecrate and to set them apart, but no one else ²  may eat them, for they are holy.

Exodus 29:36-37

29:36 Every day you are to prepare a bull for a purification offering ³  for atonement. ⁴  You are to purge ⁵  the altar by making atonement ⁶  for it, and you are to anoint it to set it apart as holy. 29:37 For seven days ⁷  you are to make atonement for the altar and set it apart as holy. Then the altar will be most holy. ⁸  Anything that touches the altar will be holy. ⁹ 

Exodus 30:10-16

30:10 Aaron is to make atonement on its horns once in the year with some of the blood of the sin offering for atonement; ¹⁰  once in the year ¹¹  he is to make atonement on it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.” ¹² 

The Ransom Money

30:11 ¹³ The Lord spoke to Moses: ¹⁴  30:12 “When you take a census ¹⁵  of the Israelites according to their number, ¹⁶  then each man is to pay a ransom ¹⁷  for his life to the Lord when you number them, ¹⁸  so that there will be no plague among them when you number them. 30:13 Everyone who crosses over to those who are numbered ¹⁹  is to pay this: a half shekel ²⁰  according to the shekel of the sanctuary ²¹  (a shekel weighs twenty gerahs). The half shekel is to be an offering ²²  to the Lord. 30:14 Everyone who crosses over to those numbered, from twenty years old and up, is to pay an offering to the Lord. 30:15 The rich are not to increase it, ²³  and the poor are not to pay less than the half shekel when giving ²⁴  the offering of the Lord, to make atonement ²⁵  for your lives. 30:16 You are to receive the atonement money ²⁶  from the Israelites and give it for the service ²⁷  of the tent of meeting. It will be a memorial ²⁸  for the Israelites before the Lord, to make atonement ²⁹  for your lives.”

Leviticus 4:20

4:20 He must do with the rest of the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; this is what he must do with it. ³⁰  So the priest will make atonement ³¹  on their behalf and they will be forgiven. ³² 

Numbers 15:25

15:25 And the priest is to make atonement ³³  for the whole community of the Israelites, and they will be forgiven, ³⁴  because it was unintentional and they have brought their offering, an offering made by fire to the Lord, and their purification offering before the Lord, for their unintentional offense.

Numbers 16:46

16:46 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put burning coals from the altar in it, place incense on it, and go quickly into the assembly and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord – the plague has begun!”

Job 33:24

33:24 and if ³⁵  God ³⁶  is gracious to him and says,

‘Spare ³⁷  him from going down

to the place of corruption,

I have found a ransom for him,’ ³⁸ 

[29:33]  ¹ tn The clause is a relative clause modifying “those things,” the direct object of the verb “eat.” The relative clause has a resumptive pronoun: “which atonement was made by them” becomes “by which atonement was made.” The verb is a Pual perfect of כִּפֵּר (kipper, “to expiate, atone, pacify”).

[29:33]  ² tn The Hebrew word is “stranger, alien” (זָר, zar). But in this context it means anyone who is not a priest (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 324).

[29:36]  ³ tn The construction uses a genitive: “a bull of the sin offering,” which means, a bull that is designated for a sin (or better, purification) offering.

[29:36]  ⁴ sn It is difficult to understand how this verse is to be harmonized with the other passages. The ceremony in the earlier passages deals with atonement made for the priests, for people. But here it is the altar that is being sanctified. The “sin [purification] offering” seems to be for purification of the sanctuary and altar to receive people in their worship.

[29:36]  ⁵ tn The verb is וְחִטֵּאתָ (vÿhitte’ta), a Piel perfect of the word usually translated “to sin.” Here it may be interpreted as a privative Piel (as in Ps 51:7 [9]), with the sense of “un-sin” or “remove sin.” It could also be interpreted as related to the word for “sin offering,” and so be a denominative verb. It means “to purify, cleanse.” The Hebrews understood that sin and contamination could corrupt and pollute even things, and so they had to be purged.

[29:36]  ⁶ tn The construction is a Piel infinitive construct in an adverbial clause. The preposition bet (ב) that begins the clause could be taken as a temporal preposition, but in this context it seems to express the means by which the altar was purged of contamination – “in your making atonement” is “by [your] making atonement.”

[29:37]  ⁷ tn Once again this is an adverbial accusative of time. Each day for seven days the ritual at the altar is to be followed.

[29:37]  ⁸ tn The construction is the superlative genitive: “holy of holies,” or “most holy.”

[29:37]  ⁹ 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).

[30:10]  ¹⁰ tn The word “atonements” (plural in Hebrew) is a genitive showing the result or product of the sacrifice made.

[30:10]  ¹¹ sn This ruling presupposes that the instruction for the Day of Atonement has been given, or at the very least, is to be given shortly. That is the one day of the year that all sin and all ritual impurity would be removed.

[30:10]  ¹² sn The phrase “most holy to the Lord” means that the altar cannot be used for any other purpose than what is stated here.

[30:11]  ¹³ sn This brief section has been interpreted a number of ways by biblical scholars (for a good survey and discussion, see B. Jacob, Exodus, 829-35). In this context the danger of erecting and caring for a sanctuary may have been in view. A census would be taken to count the losses and to cover the danger of coming into such proximity with the holy place; payment was made to ransom the lives of the people numbered so that they would not die. The money collected would then be used for the care of the sanctuary. The principle was fairly straightforward: Those numbered among the redeemed of the Lord were to support the work of the Lord to maintain their fellowship with the covenant. The passage is fairly easy to outline: I. Every covenant member must give a ransom for his life to avoid death (11-12); II. The ransom is the same for all, whether rich or poor (13-15); and III. The ransom money supports the sanctuary as a memorial for the ransomed (16).

[30:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying.” This full means for introducing a quotation from the Lord is used again in 30:17, 22; 31:1; and 40:1. It appears first in 6:10. Cynthia L. Miller discusses its use in detail (The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative, 373-86).

[30:12]  ¹⁵ tn The expression is “when you take [lift up] the sum [head] of the Israelites.”

[30:12]  ¹⁶ tn The form is לִפְקֻדֵיהֶם (lifqudehem, “according to those that are numbered of/by them”) from the verb פָּקַד (paqad, “to visit”). But the idea of this word seems more to be that of changing or determining the destiny, and so “appoint” and “number” become clear categories of meaning for the word. Here it simply refers to the census, but when this word is used for a census it often involves mustering an army for a military purpose. Here there is no indication of a war, but it may be laying down the principle that when they should do this, here is the price. B. Jacob (Exodus, 835) uses Num 31 as a good illustration, showing that the warrior was essentially a murderer, if he killed anyone in battle. For this reason his blood was forfeit; if he survived he must pay a כֹּפֶר (kofer) because every human life possesses value and must be atoned for. The payment during the census represented a “presumptive ransom” so that they could not be faulted for what they might do in war.

[30:12]  ¹⁷ tn The “ransom” is כֹּפֶר (kofer), a word related to words translated “atone” and “atonement.” Here the noun refers to what is paid for the life. The idea is that of delivering or redeeming by a substitute – here the substitute is the money. If they paid the amount, their lives would be safe (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:473).

[30:12]  ¹⁸ tn The temporal clause uses a preposition, an infinitive construct, and then an accusative. The subject is supplied: “in numbering them” means “when [you] number them.” The verb could also be rendered “when you muster them.”

[30:13]  ¹⁹ sn Each man was to pass in front of the counting officer and join those already counted on the other side.

[30:13]  ²⁰ sn The half shekel weight of silver would be about one-fifth of an ounce (6 grams).

[30:13]  ²¹ sn It appears that some standard is in view for the amount of a shekel weight. The sanctuary shekel is sometimes considered to be twice the value of the ordinary shekel. The “gerah,” also of uncertain meaning, was mentioned as a reference point for the ancient reader to understand the value of the required payment. It may also be that the expression meant “a sacred shekel” and looked at the purpose more – a shekel for sanctuary dues. This would mean that the standard of the shekel weight was set because it was the traditional amount of sacred dues (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 333). “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams…Whether an official standard is meant [by ‘sanctuary shekel’] or whether the sanctuary shekel had a different weight than the ‘ordinary’ shekel is not known” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181).

[30:13]  ²² tn Or “contribution” (תְּרוּמָה, tÿrumah).

[30:15]  ²³ tn Or “pay more.”

[30:15]  ²⁴ tn The form is לָתֵת (latet), the Qal infinitive construct with the lamed preposition. The infinitive here is explaining the preceding verbs. They are not to increase or diminish the amount “in paying the offering.” The construction approximates a temporal clause.

[30:15]  ²⁵ tn This infinitive construct (לְכַפֵּר, lÿkhapper) provides the purpose of the giving the offering – to atone.

[30:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the silver of the atonements.” The genitive here is the result (as in “sheep of slaughter”) telling what the money will be used for (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 11, §44).

[30:16]  ²⁷ sn The idea of “service” is maintenance and care of the sanctuary and its service, meaning the morning and evening sacrifices and the other elements to be used.

[30:16]  ²⁸ sn S. R. Driver says this is “to keep Jehovah in continual remembrance of the ransom which had been paid for their lives” (Exodus, 334).

[30:16]  ²⁹ tn The infinitive could be taken in a couple of ways here. It could be an epexegetical infinitive: “making atonement.” Or it could be the infinitive expressing result: “so that atonement will be made for your lives.”

[4:20]  ³⁰ sn Cf. Lev 4:11-12 above for the disposition of “the [rest of] the bull.”

[4:20]  ³¹ sn The focus of sin offering “atonement” was purging impurities from the tabernacle (see the note on Lev 1:4).

[4:20]  ³² tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to them” or “it shall be forgiven to them.”

[15:25]  ³³ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive (וְכִפֶּר, vÿkhipper) to continue the instruction of the passage: “the priest shall make atonement,” meaning the priest is to make atonement for the sin (thus the present translation). This verb means “to expiate,” “to atone for,” “to pacify.” It describes the ritual events by which someone who was separated from the holy Lord God could find acceptance into his presence through the sacrificial blood of the substitutionary animal. See Lev 1 and Num 17:6-15.

[15:25]  ³⁴ tn Or “they will be forgiven.”

[33:24]  ³⁵ tn This verse seems to continue the protasis begun in the last verse, with the apodosis coming in the next verse.

[33:24]  ³⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:24]  ³⁷ tc The verb is either taken as an anomalous form of פָּדַע (pada’, “to rescue; to redeem,” or “to exempt him”), or it is emended to some similar word, like פָּרַע (para’, “to let loose,” so Wright).

[33:24]  ³⁸ sn This verse and v. 28 should be compared with Ps 49:7-9, 15 (8-10, 16 HT) where the same basic vocabulary and concepts are employed.