Leviticus 11:2

11:2 “Tell the Israelites: ‘This is the kind of creature you may eat from among all the animals ¹  that are on the land.

Leviticus 11:27

11:27 All that walk on their paws among all the creatures that walk on all fours ²  are unclean to you. Anyone who touches their carcass will be unclean until the evening,

Leviticus 11:46

11:46 This is the law ³  of the land animals, the birds, all the living creatures that move in the water, and all the creatures ⁴  that swarm on the land,

Leviticus 13:10

13:10 The priest will then examine it, ⁵  and if ⁶  a white swelling is on the skin, it has turned the hair white, and there is raw flesh in the swelling, ⁷ 

Leviticus 14:4

14:4 then the priest will command that two live clean birds, a piece of cedar wood, a scrap of crimson fabric, ⁸  and some twigs of hyssop ⁹  be taken up ¹⁰  for the one being cleansed. ¹¹ 

Leviticus 14:7

14:7 and sprinkle it seven times on the one being cleansed ¹²  from the disease, pronounce him clean, ¹³  and send the live bird away over the open countryside. ¹⁴ 

Leviticus 14:53

14:53 and he is to send the live bird away outside the city ¹⁵  into the open countryside. So he is to make atonement for the house and it will be clean.

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, ¹⁶  and be clean.

Leviticus 16:10

16:10 but the goat which has been designated by lot for Azazel is to be stood alive ¹⁷  before the Lord to make atonement on it by sending it away to Azazel into the wilderness. ¹⁸ 

Leviticus 16:20

The Live Goat Ritual Procedures

16:20 “When he has finished purifying the holy place, ¹⁹  the Meeting Tent, and the altar, he is to present the live goat.

Leviticus 26:6

26:6 I will grant peace in the land so that ²⁰  you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. ²¹  I will remove harmful animals ²²  from the land, and no sword of war ²³  will pass through your land.

Leviticus 26:22

26:22 I will send the wild animals ²⁴  against you and they will bereave you of your children, ²⁵  annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population ²⁶  so that your roads will become deserted.

[11:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the animal,” but as a collective plural, and so throughout this chapter.

[11:27]  ² tn Heb “the one walking on four.” Compare Lev 11:20-23.

[11:46]  ³ sn The Hebrew term translated “law” (תוֹרָה, torah) introduces here a summary or colophon for all of Lev 11. Similar summaries are found in Lev 7:37-38; 13:59; 14:54-57; and 15:32-33.

[11:46]  ⁴ tn Heb “for all the creatures.”

[13:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the priest shall see.” The pronoun “it” is unexpressed, but it should be assumed and it refers to the infection (cf. the note on v. 8 above).

[13:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, ASV).

[13:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and rawness [i.e., something living] of living flesh is in the swelling”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “quick raw flesh.”

[14:4]  ⁵ tn The term rendered here “crimson fabric” consists of two Hebrew words and means literally, “crimson of worm” (in this order only in Lev 14:4, 6, 49, 51, 52 and Num 19:6; for the more common reverse order, “worm of crimson,” see, e.g., the colored fabrics used in making the tabernacle, Exod 25:4, etc.). This particular “worm” is an insect that lives on the leaves of palm trees, the eggs of which are the source for a “crimson” dye used to color various kinds of cloth (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 86). That a kind of dyed “fabric” is intended, not just the dye substance itself, is made certain by the dipping of it along with the other ritual materials listed here into the blood and water mixture for sprinkling on the person being cleansed (Lev 14:6; cf. also the burning of it in the fire of the red heifer in Num 19:6). Both the reddish color of cedar wood and the crimson colored fabric seem to correspond to the color of blood and may, therefore, symbolize either “life,” which is in the blood, or the use of blood to “make atonement” (see, e.g., Gen 9:4 and Lev 17:11). See further the note on v. 7 below.

[14:4]  ⁶ sn Twigs of hyssop (probably one or several species of marjoram thymus), a spice and herb plant that grows out of walls in Palestine (see 1 Kgs 4:33 [5:13 HT], HALOT 27 s.v. אֵזוֹב, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 195), were particularly leafy and therefore especially useful for sprinkling the purifying liquid (cf. vv. 5-7). Many of the details of the ritual procedure are obscure. It has been proposed, for example, that the “cedar wood” was a stick to which the hyssop was bound with the crimson material to make a sort of sprinkling instrument (Hartley, 195). In light of the burning of these three materials as part of the preparation of the ashes of the red heifer in Num 19:5-6, however, this seems unlikely.

[14:4]  ⁷ tn The MT reads literally, “And the priest shall command and he shall take.” Clearly, the second verb (“and he shall take”) contains the thrust of the priest’s command, which suggests the translation “that he take” (cf. also v. 5a). Since the priest issues the command here, he cannot be the subject of the second verb because he cannot be commanding himself to “take” up these ritual materials. Moreover, since the ritual is being performed “for the one being cleansed,” the antecedent of the pronoun “he” cannot refer to him. The LXX, Smr, and Syriac versions have the third person plural here and in v. 5a, which corresponds to other combinations with the verb וְצִוָּה (vÿtsivvah) “and he (the priest) shall command” in this context (see Lev 13:54; 14:36, 40). This suggests an impersonal (i.e., “someone shall take” and “someone shall slaughter,” respectively) or perhaps even passive rendering of the verbs in 14:4, 5 (i.e., “there shall be taken” and “there shall be slaughtered,” respectively). The latter option has been chosen here.

[14:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “the one cleansing himself” (i.e., Hitpael participle of טָהֵר, taher, “to be clean”).

[14:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “the one cleansing himself” (i.e., Hitpael participle of טָהֵר [taher, “to be clean”]).

[14:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he shall make him clean.” The verb is the Piel of טָהֵר (taher, “to be clean”), here used as a so-called “declarative” Piel (i.e., “to declare clean”; cf. 13:6, etc.).

[14:7]  ⁸ sn The reddish color of cedar wood and the crimson colored fabric called for in v. 4 (see the note there, esp. the association with the color of blood) as well as the priestly commands to bring “two live” birds (v. 4a), to slaughter one of them “over fresh water” (literally “living water,” v. 5b), and the subsequent ritual with the (second) “live” bird (vv. 6-7) combine to communicate the concept of “life” and “being alive” in this passage. This contrasts with the fear of death associated with the serious skin diseases in view here (see, e.g., Aaron’s description of Miriam’s skin disease in Num 12:12, “Do not let her be like the dead one when it goes out from its mother’s womb and its flesh half eaten away”). Since the slaughtered bird here is not sacrificed at the altar and is not designated as an expiatory “sin offering,” this ritual procedure probably symbolizes the renewed life of the diseased person and displays it publicly for all to see. It is preparatory to the expiatory rituals that will follow (vv. 10-20, esp. vv. 18-20), but is not itself expiatory. Thus, although there are important similarities between the bird ritual here, the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:20-22), and the red heifer for cleansing from corpse contamination (Num 19), this bird ritual is different in that the latter two constitute “sin offerings” (Lev 16:5, 8-10; Num 19:9, 17). Neither of the birds in Lev 14:4-7 is designated or treated as a “sin offering.” Nevertheless, the very nature of the live bird ritual itself and its obvious similarity to the scapegoat ritual suggests that the patient’s disease has been removed far away so that he or she is free from its effects both personally and communally.

[14:53]  ⁷ tn Heb “to from outside to the city.”

[15:13]  ⁸ tn For the expression “fresh water” see the note on Lev 14:5 above.

[16:10]  ⁹ tn The LXX has “he shall stand it” (cf. v. 7).

[16:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to make atonement on it to send it away to Azazel toward the wilderness.”

[16:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And he shall finish from atoning the holy place.” In this case, the “holy place” etc. are direct objects of the verb “to atone” (cf. v. 33a below). In this case, therefore, the basic meaning of the verb (i.e., “to purge” or “wipe clean”) comes to the forefront. When the prepositions עַל (’al) or בֲּעַד (ba’ad) occur with the verb כִּפֶּר (kipper) the purging is almost always being done “for” or “on behalf of” priests or people (see the note on Lev 1:4 as well as R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:698, the literature cited there, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 110, for more details).

[26:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:6]  ¹² tn Heb “and there will be no one who terrifies.” The words “to sleep” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[26:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “harmful animal,” singular, but taken here as a collective plural (so almost all English versions).

[26:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “no sword”; the words “of war” are supplied in the translation to indicate what the metaphor of the sword represents.

[26:22]  ¹² tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.

[26:22]  ¹³ tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[26:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and diminish you.”