Exodus 29:30

29:30 The priest who succeeds him ¹  from his sons, when he first comes ²  to the tent of meeting to minister in the Holy Place, is to wear them for seven days. ³ 

Exodus 29:37

29:37 For seven days ⁴  you are to make atonement for the altar and set it apart as holy. Then the altar will be most holy. ⁵  Anything that touches the altar will be holy. ⁶ 

Exodus 40:12-13

40:12 “You are to bring ⁷  Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and wash them with water. 40:13 Then you are to clothe Aaron with the holy garments and anoint him and sanctify him so that he may minister as my priest.

Leviticus 8:33-35

8:33 And you must not go out from the entrance of the Meeting Tent for seven days, until the day when your days of ordination are completed, because you must be ordained over a seven-day period. ⁸  8:34 What has been done ⁹  on this day the Lord has commanded to be done ¹⁰  to make atonement for you. 8:35 You must reside at the entrance of the Meeting Tent day and night for seven days and keep the charge of the Lord so that you will not die, for this is what I have been commanded.”

Leviticus 14:8-11

The Seven Days of Purification

14:8 “The one being cleansed ¹¹  must then wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and bathe in water, and so be clean. ¹²  Then afterward he may enter the camp, but he must live outside his tent seven days. 14:9 When the seventh day comes ¹³  he must shave all his hair – his head, his beard, his eyebrows, all his hair – and he must wash his clothes, bathe his body in water, and so be clean. ¹⁴ 

The Eighth Day Atonement Rituals

14:10 “On the eighth day he ¹⁵  must take two flawless male lambs, one flawless yearling female lamb, three-tenths of an ephah of choice wheat flour as a grain offering mixed with olive oil, ¹⁶  and one log of olive oil, ¹⁷  14:11 and the priest who pronounces him clean will have the man who is being cleansed stand along with these offerings ¹⁸  before the Lord at the entrance of the Meeting Tent.

[29:30]  ¹ tn Heb “after him”; NCV, NLT “after Aaron.”

[29:30]  ² tn The text just has the relative pronoun and the imperfect tense. It could be translated “who comes/enters.” But the context seems to indicate that this would be when he first comes to the tent to begin his tenure as High Priest, and so a temporal clause makes this clear. “First” has been supplied.

[29:30]  ³ tn “Seven days” is an adverbial accusative of time. The ritual of ordination is to be repeated for seven days, and so they are to remain there in the court in full dress.

[29:37]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The construction is the superlative genitive: “holy of holies,” or “most holy.”

[29:37]  ⁶ 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).

[40:12]  ⁷ tn The verb is “bring near,” or “present,” to Yahweh.

[8:33]  ⁸ tn Heb “because seven days he shall fill your hands”; KJV “for seven days shall he consecrate you”; CEV “ends seven days from now.”

[8:34]  ⁹ tn Heb “just as he has done” (cf. the note on v. 33).

[8:34]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord has commanded to do” (cf. the note on v. 33).

[14:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the one cleansing himself” (i.e., Hitpael participle of טָהֵר [taher, “to be clean”]).

[14:8]  ¹² tn Heb “and he shall be clean” (so ASV). The end result of the ritual procedures in vv. 4-7 and the washing and shaving in v. 8a is that the formerly diseased person has now officially become clean in the sense that he can reenter the community (see v. 8b; contrast living outside the community as an unclean diseased person, Lev 13:46). There are, however, further cleansing rituals and pronouncements for him to undergo in the tabernacle as outlined in vv. 10-20 (see Qal “be[come] clean” in vv. 9 and 20, Piel “pronounce clean” in v. 11, and Hitpael “the one being cleansed” in vv. 11, 14, 17, 18, and 19). Obviously, in order to enter the tabernacle he must already “be clean” in the sense of having access to the community.

[14:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “And it shall be on the seventh day.”

[14:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he shall be clean” (see the note on v. 8).

[14:10]  ¹⁵ tn The subject “he” probably refers to the formerly diseased person in this case (see the notes on Lev 1:5a, 6a, and 9a).

[14:10]  ¹⁶ tn This term is often rendered “fine flour,” but it refers specifically to wheat as opposed to barley (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 10) and, although the translation “flour” is used here, it may indicate “grits” rather than finely ground flour (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:179; see the note on Lev 2:1). The unit of measure is most certainly an “ephah” even though it is not stated explicitly (see, e.g., Num 28:5; cf. 15:4, 6, 8), and three-tenths of an ephah would amount to about a gallon, or perhaps one-third of a bushel (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 196; Milgrom, 845). Since the normal amount of flour for a lamb is one-tenth of an ephah (Num 28:4-5; cf. 15:4), three-tenths is about right for the three lambs offered in Lev 14:10-20.

[14:10]  ¹⁷ tn A “log” (לֹג, log) of oil is about one-sixth of a liter, or one-third of a pint, or two-thirds of a cup.

[14:11]  ¹⁸ tn The MT here is awkward to translate into English. It reads literally, “and the priest who pronounces clean (Piel participle of טָהֵר, taher) shall cause to stand (Hiphil of עָמַד, ’amad) the man who is cleansing himself (Hitpael participle of טָהֵר) and them” (i.e., the offerings listed in v. 10; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity). Alternatively, the Piel of טָהֵר could be rendered “who performs the cleansing/purification” (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:827), perhaps even as a technical term for one who holds the office of “purification priest” (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 87). It is probably better, however, to retain the same meaning here as in v. 7 above (see the note there regarding the declarative Piel use of this verb).