Genesis 28:20

28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God is with me and protects me on this journey I am taking and gives me food ¹  to eat and clothing to wear,

Leviticus 22:18-33

22:18 “Speak to Aaron, his sons, and all the Israelites and tell them, ‘When any man ²  from the house of Israel or from the foreigners in Israel ³  presents his offering for any of the votive or freewill offerings which they present to the Lord as a burnt offering, 22:19 if it is to be acceptable for your benefit ⁴  it must be a flawless male from the cattle, sheep, or goats. 22:20 You must not present anything that has a flaw, ⁵  because it will not be acceptable for your benefit. ⁶  22:21 If a man presents a peace offering sacrifice to the Lord for a special votive offering ⁷  or for a freewill offering from the herd or the flock, it must be flawless to be acceptable; ⁸  it must have no flaw. ⁹ 

22:22 “‘You must not present to the Lord something blind, or with a broken bone, or mutilated, or with a running sore, ¹⁰  or with a festering eruption, or with a feverish rash. ¹¹  You must not give any of these as a gift ¹²  on the altar to the Lord. 22:23 As for an ox ¹³  or a sheep with a limb too long or stunted, ¹⁴  you may present it as a freewill offering, but it will not be acceptable for a votive offering. ¹⁵  22:24 You must not present to the Lord something with testicles that are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut off; ¹⁶  you must not do this in your land. 22:25 Even from a foreigner ¹⁷  you must not present the food of your God from such animals as these, for they are ruined and flawed; ¹⁸  they will not be acceptable for your benefit.’”

22:26 The Lord spoke to Moses: 22:27 “When an ox, lamb, or goat is born, it must be under the care of ¹⁹  its mother seven days, but from the eighth day onward it will be acceptable as an offering gift ²⁰  to the Lord. 22:28 You must not slaughter an ox or a sheep and its young ²¹  on the same day. ²²  22:29 When you sacrifice a thanksgiving offering to the Lord, you must sacrifice it so that it is acceptable for your benefit. ²³  22:30 On that very day ²⁴  it must be eaten; you must not leave any part of it ²⁵  over until morning. I am the Lord.

22:31 “You must be sure to do my commandments. ²⁶  I am the Lord. 22:32 You must not profane my holy name, and I will be sanctified in the midst of the Israelites. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, 22:33 the one who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God. ²⁷  I am the Lord.”

Leviticus 22:1

Regulations for the Eating of Priestly Stipends

22:1 The Lord spoke to Moses:

Leviticus 1:1

Introduction to the Sacrificial Regulations

1:1 Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him ²⁸  from the Meeting Tent: ²⁹ 

Psalms 66:13-15

66:13 I will enter ³⁰  your temple with burnt sacrifices;

I will fulfill the vows I made to you,

66:14 which my lips uttered

and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.

66:15 I will offer up to you fattened animals as burnt sacrifices,

along with the smell of sacrificial rams.

I will offer cattle and goats. (Selah)

[28:20]  ¹ tn Heb “bread,” although the term can be used for food in general.

[22:18]  ² tn Heb “Man, man.” The reduplication is a way of saying “any man” (cf. Lev 15:2; 17:3, etc.; see the distributive repetition of the noun in GKC 395-96 §123.c).

[22:18]  ³ tn Heb “and from the foreigner [singular] in Israel.” Some medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate add “who resides” after “foreigner”: “the foreigner who resides in Israel” (cf., e.g., Lev 20:2 above).

[22:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “for your acceptance.” See Lev 1:3-4 above and the notes there.

[22:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “all which in it [is] a flaw.” Note that the same term is used for physical flaws of people in Lev 21:17-24. Cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “blemish”; NASB, NIV, TEV “defect”; NLT “with physical defects.”

[22:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “not for acceptance shall it be for you”; NIV “it will not be accepted on your behalf” (NRSV and NLT both similar).

[22:21]  ⁷ tn The meaning of the expression לְפַלֵּא־נֶדֶר (lÿfalle’-neder) rendered here “for a special votive offering” is much debated. Some take it as an expression for fulfilling a vow, “to fulfill a vow” (e.g., HALOT 927-28 s.v. פלא piel and NASB; cf. NAB, NRSV “in fulfillment of a vow”) or, alternatively, “to make a vow” or “for making a vow” (HALOT 928 s.v. פלא piel [II פלא]). Perhaps it refers to the making a special vow, from the verb פָלַא (pala’, “to be wonderful, to be remarkable”); cf. J. Milgrom, Numbers (JPSTC), 44. B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 151 and 193, suggests that this is a special term for “setting aside a votive offering” (related to פָלָה [palah, “to set aside”]). In general, the point of the expression seems to be that this sacrifice arises as a special gift to God out of special circumstances in the life of the worshiper.

[22:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “for acceptance”; NAB “if it is to find acceptance.”

[22:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “all/any flaw shall not be in it.”

[22:22]  ¹⁰ tn Or perhaps “a wart” (cf. NIV; HALOT 383 s.v. יַבֶּלֶת, but see the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 358).

[22:22]  ¹¹ sn See the note on Lev 21:20 above.

[22:22]  ¹² sn This term for offering “gift” is explained in the note on Lev 1:9.

[22:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “And an ox.”

[22:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and stunted” (see HALOT 1102 s.v. I קלט).

[22:23]  ¹⁵ sn The freewill offering was voluntary, so the regulations regarding it were more relaxed. Once a vow was made, the paying of it was not voluntary (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 151-52, for very helpful remarks on this verse).

[22:24]  ¹⁶ sn Compare Lev 21:20b.

[22:25]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And from the hand of a son of a foreigner.”

[22:25]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for their being ruined [is] in them, flaw is in them”; NRSV “are mutilated, with a blemish in them”; NIV “are deformed and have defects.” The MT term מָשְׁחָתָם (moshkhatam, “their being ruined”) is a Muqtal form (= Hophal participle) from שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to ruin”). Smr has plural בהם משׁחתים (“deformities in them”; cf. the LXX translation). The Qumran Leviticus scroll (11QpaleoLev) has תימ הם[…], in which case the restored participle would appear to be the same as Smr, but there is no בְּ (bet) preposition before the pronoun, yielding “they are deformed” (see D. N. Freedman and K. A. Mathews, The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, 41 and the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 358).

[22:27]  ¹⁹ tn The words “the care of” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied. Although many modern English versions render “with its mother” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), the literal phrase “under its mother” refers to the young animal nursing from its mother. Cf. KJV, ASV “it shall be seven days under the dam,” which would probably be misunderstood.

[22:27]  ²⁰ tn Heb “for an offering of a gift.”

[22:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “And an ox or a sheep, it and its son, you shall not slaughter.”

[22:28]  ²² tn Heb “in one day.”

[22:29]  ²³ tn Heb “for your acceptance” (see the notes on Lev 1:3-4 and 22:19 above).

[22:30]  ²⁴ tn Heb “On that day”; NIV, NCV “that same day.”

[22:30]  ²⁵ tn Heb “from it.”

[22:31]  ²⁶ tn Heb “And you shall keep my commandments and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8, etc.).

[22:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “to be to you for God.”

[1:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “And he (the Lord) called (וַיִּקְרָא, vayyiqra’) to Moses and the Lord spoke (וַיְדַבֵּר, vayÿdabber) to him from the tent of meeting.” The MT assumes “Lord” in the first clause but places it in the second clause (after “spoke”). This is somewhat awkward, especially in terms of English style; most English versions reverse this and place “Lord” in the first clause (right after “called”). The Syriac version does the same.

[1:1]  ²⁹ sn The second clause of v. 1, “and the Lord spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying,” introduces the following discourse. This is a standard introductory formula (see, e.g., Exod 20:1; 25:1; 31:1; etc.). The combination of the first and second clauses is, therefore, “bulky” because of the way they happen to be juxtaposed in this transitional verse (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 8). The first clause of v. 1 connects the book back to the end of the Book of Exodus while the second looks forward the ritual legislation that follows in Lev 1:2ff. There are two “Tents of Meeting”: the one that stood outside the camp (see, e.g., Exod 33:7) and the one that stood in the midst of the camp (Exod 40:2; Num 2:2ff) and served as the Lord’s residence until the construction of the temple in the days of Solomon (Exod 27:21; 29:4; 1 Kgs 8:4; 2 Chr 5:5, etc.; cf. 2 Sam 7:6). Exod 40:35 uses both “tabernacle” and “tent of meeting” to refer to the same tent: “Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” It is clear that “tent of meeting” in Lev 1:1 refers to the “tabernacle.” The latter term refers to the tent as a “residence,” while the former refers to it as a divinely appointed place of “meeting” between God and man (see R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:873-77 and 2:1130-34). This corresponds to the change in terms in Exod 40:35, where “tent of meeting” is used when referring to Moses’ inability to enter the tent, but “tabernacle” when referring to the Lord taking up residence there in the form of the glory cloud. The quotation introduced here extends from Lev 1:2 through 3:17, and encompasses the burnt, grain, and peace offering regulations. Compare the notes on Lev 4:1; 5:14; and 6:1 [5:20 HT] below.

[66:13]  ³⁰ sn Here the psalmist switches to the singular; he speaks as the representative of the nation.