Leviticus 11:1

Clean and Unclean Land Creatures

11:1 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them,

Leviticus 18:2

18:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘I am the Lord your God!

Leviticus 15:2

15:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When any man ¹  has a discharge ²  from his body, ³  his discharge is unclean.

Leviticus 19:2

19:2 “Speak to the whole congregation of the Israelites and tell them, ‘You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

Leviticus 21:1

Rules for the Priests

21:1 The Lord said to Moses: “Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron – say to them, ‘For a dead person ⁴  no priest ⁵  is to defile himself among his people, ⁶ 

Leviticus 23:2

23:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘These are the Lord’s appointed times which you must proclaim as holy assemblies – my appointed times: ⁷ 

Leviticus 25:2

25:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath ⁸  to the Lord.

Leviticus 27:2

27:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When a man makes a special votive offering ⁹  based on the conversion value of persons to the Lord, ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 1:2

1:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When ¹¹  someone ¹²  among you presents an offering ¹³  to the Lord, ¹⁴  you ¹⁵  must present your offering from the domesticated animals, either from the herd or from the flock. ¹⁶ 

Leviticus 10:4

10:4 Moses then called to Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel, Aaron’s uncle, and said to them, “Come near, carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp.”

Leviticus 22:3

22:3 Say to them, ‘Throughout your generations, ¹⁷  if any man from all your descendants approaches the holy offerings which the Israelites consecrate ¹⁸  to the Lord while he is impure, ¹⁹  that person must be cut off from before me. ²⁰  I am the Lord.

Leviticus 22:18

22:18 “Speak to Aaron, his sons, and all the Israelites and tell them, ‘When any man ²¹  from the house of Israel or from the foreigners in Israel ²²  presents his offering for any of the votive or freewill offerings which they present to the Lord as a burnt offering,

Leviticus 23:10

23:10 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am about to give to you and you gather in its harvest, ²³  then you must bring the sheaf of the first portion of your harvest ²⁴  to the priest,

[15:2]  ¹ tn Heb “Man man.” The reduplication is a way of saying “any man” (cf. Lev 17:3; 22:18, etc.; see the distributive repetition of the noun in GKC 395-96 §123.c).

[15:2]  ² tn The term “discharge” actually means “to flow,” whether referring to a full flow as at a spring of water (Ps 78:20 and parallels) or in reference to the promised land as “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exod 3:8 and parallels).

[15:2]  ³ tn Heb “man, man when there is a discharge from his flesh.” The repetition of the word “man” is distributive, meaning “any [or “every”] man” (GKC 395-96 §123.c). It is well-recognized that the term “flesh” (i.e., “body”) in this chapter refers regularly and euphemistically to the male and female genital members or areas of the body (HALOT 164 s.v. בָּשָׂר 5.b; see also, e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 93). The euphemism has been retained in this translation since it is, in fact, intended in the Hebrew text. Some English versions partially remove the euphemism (e.g., NAB “from his private parts”; NRSV “from his member”) while some remove it completely (e.g., NLT “a genital discharge”; TEV “from his penis”; CEV “with an infected penis”).

[21:1]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 19:28 above and the literature cited there).

[21:1]  ² tn Heb “no one,” but “priest” has been used in the translation to clarify that these restrictions are limited to the priests, not to the Israelites in general (note the introductory formula, “say to the priests, the sons of Aaron”).

[21:1]  ³ tc The MT has “in his peoples,” but Smr, LXX, Syriac, Targum, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “in his people,” referring to the Israelites as a whole.

[23:2]  ¹ tn Heb “these are them, my appointed times.”

[25:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the land shall rest a Sabbath.”

[27:2]  ¹ tn Cf. the note on Lev 22:21. Some take this as an expression for fulfilling a vow, “to fulfill a vow” (e.g., HALOT 927-28 s.v. פלא piel and NASB; cf. 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 פָלָא (pala’, “to be wonderful; to be remarkable”), cf. 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 is a special gift to God that arose out of special circumstances in the life of the worshiper.

[27:2]  ² tn Heb “in your valuation, persons to the Lord,” but “in your valuation” is a frozen form and, therefore, the person (“your”) does not figure into the translation (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 73). Instead of offering a person to the Lord one could redeem that person with the appropriate amount of money delineated in the following verses (see the note on Lev 5:15 above and the explanation in Hartley, 480-81).

[1:2]  ¹ tn “When” here translates the MT’s כִּי (ki, “if, when”), which regularly introduces main clauses in legislative contexts (see, e.g., Lev 2:1, 4; 4:2, etc.) in contrast to אִם (’im, “if”), which usually introduces subordinate sections (see, e.g., Lev 1:3, 10, 14; 2:5, 7, 14; 4:3, 13, etc.; cf. כִּי in Exod 21:2 and 7 as opposed to אִם in vv. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11).

[1:2]  ² tn Heb “a man, human being” (אָדָם, ’adam), which in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female, since women could also bring such offerings (see, e.g., Lev 12:6-8; 15:29-30; cf. HALOT 14 s.v. I אָדָם); cf. NIV “any of you.”

[1:2]  ³ tn The verb “presents” is cognate to the noun “offering” in v. 2 and throughout the book of Leviticus (both from the root קרב [qrb]). One could translate the verb “offers,” but this becomes awkward and, in fact, inaccurate in some passages. For example, in Lev 9:9 this verb is used for the presenting or giving of the blood to Aaron so that he could offer it to the Lord. The blood is certainly not being “offered” as an offering to Aaron there.

[1:2]  ⁴ tn The whole clause reads more literally, “A human being (אָדָם, ’adam), if he brings from among you an offering to the Lord.”

[1:2]  ⁵ tn The shift to the second person plural verb here corresponds to the previous second person plural pronoun “among you.” It is distinct from the regular pattern of third person singular verbs throughout the rest of Lev 1-3. This too labels Lev 1:1-2 as an introduction to all of Lev 1-3, not just the burnt offering regulations in Lev 1 (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:146; cf. note 3 above).

[1:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “from the domesticated animal, from the herd, and from the flock.” It is clear from the subsequent division between animals from the “herd” (בָּקָר, baqar, in Lev 1:3-9) and the “flock” (צֹאן, tso’n; see Lev 1:10-13) that the term for “domesticated animal” (בְּהֵמָה, bÿhemah) is a general term meant to introduce the category of pastoral quadrupeds. The stronger disjunctive accent over בְּהֵמָה in the MT as well as the lack of a vav (ו) between it and בָּקָר also suggest בְּהֵמָה is an overall category that includes both “herd” and “flock” quadrupeds.

[22:3]  ¹ tn Heb “To your generations.”

[22:3]  ² tn The Piel (v. 2) and Hiphil (v. 3) forms of the verb קָדַשׁ (qadash) appear to be interchangeable in this context. Both mean “to consecrate” (Heb “make holy [or “sacred”]”).

[22:3]  ³ tn Heb “and his impurity [is] on him”; NIV “is ceremonially unclean”; NAB, NRSV “while he is in a state of uncleanness.”

[22:3]  ⁴ sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty, see the note on Lev 7:20. Cf. the interpretive translation of TEV “he can never again serve at the altar.”

[22:18]  ¹ 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]  ² 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).

[23:10]  ¹ tn Heb “and you harvest its harvest.”

[23:10]  ² tn Heb “the sheaf of the first of your harvest.”