Leviticus 14:9

14:9 When the seventh day comes ¹  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. ² 

Leviticus 15:5

15:5 Anyone who touches his bed ³  must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. ⁴ 

Leviticus 15:11

15:11 Anyone whom the man with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water ⁵  must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.

Leviticus 15:13

Purity Regulations for Male Bodily Discharges

15:13 “‘When the man with the discharge becomes clean from his discharge he is to count off for himself seven days for his purification, and he must wash his clothes, bathe in fresh water, ⁶  and be clean.

Leviticus 22:6

22:6 the person who touches any of these ⁷  will be unclean until evening and must not eat from the holy offerings unless he has bathed his body in water.

Psalms 51:2

51:2 Wash away my wrongdoing! ⁸ 

Cleanse me of my sin! ⁹ 

Psalms 51:7

51:7 Sprinkle me ¹⁰  with water ¹¹  and I will be pure; ¹² 

wash me ¹³  and I will be whiter than snow. ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 36:25

36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ¹⁵  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.

Matthew 3:11

3:11 “I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am – I am not worthy ¹⁶  to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ 

Luke 11:38-39

11:38 The ¹⁸  Pharisee was astonished when he saw that Jesus ¹⁹  did not first wash his hands ²⁰  before the meal. 11:39 But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean ²¹  the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ²² 

Ephesians 5:26-27

5:26 to sanctify her by cleansing her ²³  with the washing of the water by the word, 5:27 so that he ²⁴  may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁵ 

Hebrews 9:9-10

9:9 This was a symbol for the time then present, when gifts and sacrifices were offered that could not perfect the conscience of the worshiper. 9:10 They served only for matters of food and drink ²⁶  and various washings; they are external regulations ²⁷  imposed until the new order came. ²⁸ 

Hebrews 10:22

10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in the assurance that faith brings, ²⁹  because we have had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience ³⁰  and our bodies washed in pure water.

Hebrews 10:1

Concluding Exposition: Old and New Sacrifices Contrasted

10:1 For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect those who come to worship. ³¹ 

Hebrews 3:1

Jesus and Moses

3:1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, ³²  partners in a heavenly calling, take note of Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess, ³³ 

Revelation 1:5

1:5 and from Jesus Christ – the faithful ³⁴  witness, ³⁵  the firstborn from among the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth. To the one who loves us and has set us free ³⁶  from our sins at the cost of ³⁷  his own blood

[14:9]  ¹ tn Heb “And it shall be on the seventh day.”

[14:9]  ² tn Heb “and he shall be clean” (see the note on v. 8).

[15:5]  ³ tn Heb “And a man who touches in his bed”; NLT “touch the man’s bedding.”

[15:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until the evening” (cf. also vv. 6-8, 10-11, etc.).

[15:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “And all who the man with the discharge touches in him and his hands he has not rinsed in water.”

[15:13]  ⁶ tn For the expression “fresh water” see the note on Lev 14:5 above.

[22:6]  ⁷ sn The phrase “any of these” refers back to the unclean things touched in vv. 4b-5.

[51:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “Thoroughly wash me from my wrongdoing.”

[51:2]  ⁹ sn In vv. 1b-2 the psalmist uses three different words to emphasize the multifaceted character and degree of his sin. Whatever one wants to call it (“rebellious acts,” “wrongdoing,” “sin”), he has done it and stands morally polluted in God’s sight. The same three words appear in Exod 34:7, which emphasizes that God is willing to forgive sin in all of its many dimensions. In v. 2 the psalmist compares forgiveness and restoration to physical cleansing. Perhaps he likens spiritual cleansing to the purification rites of priestly law.

[51:7]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[51:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “cleanse me with hyssop.” “Hyssop” was a small plant (see 1 Kgs 4:33) used to apply water (or blood) in purification rites (see Exod 12:22; Lev 14:4-6, 49-52; Num 19:6-18. The psalmist uses the language and imagery of such rites to describe spiritual cleansing through forgiveness.

[51:7]  ¹² tn After the preceding imperfect, the imperfect with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates result.

[51:7]  ¹³ tn The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[51:7]  ¹⁴ sn I will be whiter than snow. Whiteness here symbolizes the moral purity resulting from forgiveness (see Isa 1:18).

[36:25]  ¹⁵ sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.

[3:11]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “of whom I am not worthy.”

[3:11]  ¹⁷ sn With the Holy Spirit and fire. There are differing interpretations for this phrase regarding the number of baptisms and their nature. (1) Some see one baptism here, and this can be divided further into two options. (a) The baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire could refer to the cleansing, purifying work of the Spirit in the individual believer through salvation and sanctification, or (b) it could refer to two different results of Christ’s ministry: Some accept Christ and are baptized with the Holy Spirit, but some reject him and receive judgment. (2) Other interpreters see two baptisms here: The baptism of the Holy Spirit refers to the salvation Jesus brings at his first advent, in which believers receive the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of fire refers to the judgment Jesus will bring upon the world at his second coming. One must take into account both the image of fire and whether individual or corporate baptism is in view. A decision is not easy on either issue. The image of fire is used to refer to both eternal judgment (e.g., Matt 25:41) and the power of the Lord’s presence to purge and cleanse his people (e.g., Isa 4:4-5). The pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, a fulfillment of this prophecy no matter which interpretation is taken, had both individual and corporate dimensions. It is possible that since Holy Spirit and fire are governed by a single preposition in Greek, the one-baptism view may be more likely, but this is not certain. Simply put, there is no consensus view in scholarship at this time on the best interpretation of this passage.

[11:38]  ¹⁸ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[11:38]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:38]  ²⁰ tn The words “his hands” are not in the Greek text, but have been supplied for clarity.

[11:39]  ²¹ sn The allusion to washing (clean the outside of the cup) shows Jesus knew what they were thinking and deliberately set up a contrast that charged them with hypocrisy and majoring on minors.

[11:39]  ²² tn Or “and evil.”

[5:26]  ²³ tn The direct object “her” is implied, but not found in the Greek text. It has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the passage.

[5:27]  ²⁴ tn The use of the pronoun αὐτός (autos) is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious.

[5:27]  ²⁵ tn Grk “but in order that it may be holy and blameless.”

[9:10]  ²⁶ tn Grk “only for foods and drinks.”

[9:10]  ²⁷ tc Most witnesses (D¹ Ï) have “various washings, and external regulations” (βαπτισμοῖς καὶ δικαιώμασιν, baptismoi" kai dikaiwmasin), with both nouns in the dative. The translation “washings; they are… regulations” renders βαπτισμοῖς, δικαιώματα (baptismoi", dikaiwmata; found in such important mss as Ì⁴⁶ א* A I P 0278 33 1739 1881 al sa) in which case δικαιώματα is taken as the nominative subject of the participle ἐπικείμενα (epikeimena). It seems far more likely that scribes would conform δικαιώματα to the immediately preceding datives and join it to them by καί than they would to the following nominative participle. Both on external and internal evidence the text is thus secure as reading βαπτισμοῖς, δικαιώματα.

[9:10]  ²⁸ tn Grk “until the time of setting things right.”

[10:22]  ²⁹ tn Grk “in assurance of faith.”

[10:22]  ³⁰ sn The phrase our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience combines the OT imagery of the sprinkling with blood to give ritual purity with the emphasis on the interior cleansing provided by the new covenant: It is the heart that is cleansed and the conscience made perfect (cf. Heb 8:10; 9:9, 14; 10:2, 16).

[10:1]  ³¹ tn Grk “those who approach.”

[3:1]  ³² tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 2:11.

[3:1]  ³³ tn Grk “of our confession.”

[1:5]  ³⁴ tn Or “Jesus Christ – the faithful one, the witness…” Some take ὁ πιστός (Jo pistos) as a second substantive in relation to ὁ μάρτυς (Jo martus). In the present translation, however, ὁ πιστός was taken as an adjective in attributive position to ὁ μάρτυς. The idea of martyrdom and faithfulness are intimately connected. See BDAG 820 s.v. πιστός 1.a.α: “ὁ μάρτυς μου ὁ πιστός μου Rv 2:13 (μάρτυς 3); in this ‘book of martyrs’ Christ is ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς (καὶ ὁ ἀληθινός) 1:5; 3:14; cp. 19:11 (the combination of ἀληθινός and πιστός in the last two passages is like 3 Macc 2:11). Cp. Rv 17:14.”

[1:5]  ³⁵ sn The Greek term translated witness can mean both “witness” and “martyr.”

[1:5]  ³⁶ tc The reading “set free” (λύσαντι, lusanti) has better ms support (̹⁸ א A C 1611 2050 2329 2351 Ï^A sy) than its rival, λούσαντι (lousanti, “washed”; found in P 1006 1841 1854 2053 2062 Ï^K lat bo). Internally, it seems that the reading “washed” could have arisen in at least one of three ways: (1) as an error of hearing (both “released” and “washed” are pronounced similarly in Greek); (2) an error of sight (both “released” and “washed” look very similar – a difference of only one letter – which could have resulted in a simple error during the copying of a ms); (3) through scribal inability to appreciate that the Hebrew preposition ב can be used with a noun to indicate the price paid for something. Since the author of Revelation is influenced significantly by a Semitic form of Greek (e.g., 13:10), and since the Hebrew preposition “in” (ב) can indicate the price paid for something, and is often translated with the preposition “in” (ἐν, en) in the LXX, the author may have tried to communicate by the use of ἐν the idea of a price paid for something. That is, John was trying to say that Christ delivered us at the price of his own blood. This whole process, however, may have been lost on a later scribe, who being unfamiliar with Hebrew, found the expression “delivered in his blood” too difficult, and noticing the obvious similarities between λύσαντι and λούσαντι, assumed an error and then proceeded to change the text to “washed in his blood” – a thought more tolerable in his mind. Both readings, of course, are true to scripture; the current question is what the author wrote in this verse.

[1:5]  ³⁷ tn The style here is somewhat Semitic, with the use of the ἐν (en) + the dative to mean “at the price of.” The addition of “own” in the English is stylistic and is an attempt to bring out the personal nature of the statement and the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ death – a frequent refrain in the Apocalypse.