Discovery BoxLeviticus 12:7
Context12:7 The priest 1 is to present it before the Lord and make atonement 2 on her behalf, and she will be clean 3 from her flow of blood. 4 This is the law of the one who bears a child, for the male or the female child.
Leviticus 13:13
Context13:13 the priest must then examine it, 5 and if 6 the disease covers his whole body, he is to pronounce the person with the infection clean. 7 He has turned all white, so he is clean. 8
Leviticus 13:28
Context13:28 But if the bright spot stays in its place, has not spread on the skin, 9 and it has faded, then it is the swelling of the burn, so the priest is to pronounce him clean, 10 because it is the scar of the burn.
Leviticus 13:37
Context13:37 If, as far as the priest can see, the scall has stayed the same 11 and black hair has sprouted in it, the scall has been healed; the person is clean. So the priest is to pronounce him clean. 12
Leviticus 13:58
Context13:58 But the garment or the warp or the woof or any article of leather which you wash and infection disappears from it 13 is to be washed a second time and it will be clean.”
Leviticus 14:4
Context14:4 then the priest will command that two live clean birds, a piece of cedar wood, a scrap of crimson fabric, 14 and some twigs of hyssop 15 be taken up 16 for the one being cleansed. 17
Leviticus 14:18
Context14:18 and the remainder of the olive oil 18 that is in his hand the priest is to put on the head of the one being cleansed. So the priest is to make atonement for him before the Lord.
Leviticus 14:29
Context14:29 and the remainder of the olive oil that is in the hand 19 of the priest he is to put 20 on the head of the one being cleansed to make atonement for him before the Lord.
Leviticus 14:31
Context14:31 a sin offering and the other a burnt offering along with the grain offering. 21 So the priest is to make atonement for the one being cleansed before the Lord.
Leviticus 14:53
Context14:53 and he is to send the live bird away outside the city 22 into the open countryside. So he is to make atonement for the house and it will be clean.
Leviticus 17:15
Context17:15 “‘Any person 23 who eats an animal that has died of natural causes 24 or an animal torn by beasts, whether a native citizen or a foreigner, 25 must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening; then he becomes clean.
[12:7] 1 tn Heb “and he” (i.e., the priest mentioned at the end of v. 6). The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[12:7] 2 sn See the note on Lev 1:4 “make atonement.” The purpose of sin offering “atonement,” in particular, was to purge impurities from the tabernacle (see Lev 15:31 and 16:5-19, 29-34), whether they were caused by physical uncleannesses or by sins and iniquities. In this case, the woman has not “sinned” morally by having a child. Even Mary brought such offerings for giving birth to Jesus (Luke 2:22-24), though she certainly did not “sin” in giving birth to him. Note that the result of bringing this “sin offering” was “she will be clean,” not “she will be forgiven” (cf. Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13). The impurity of the blood flow has caused the need for this “sin offering,” not some moral or relational infringement of the law (contrast Lev 4:2, “When a person sins by straying unintentionally from any of the commandments of the
[12:7] 3 tn Or “she will be[come] pure.”
[12:7] 4 tn Heb “from her source [i.e., spring] of blood,” possibly referring to the female genital area, not just the “flow of blood” itself (as suggested by J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:761). Cf. ASV “from the fountain of her blood.”
[13:13] 5 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).
[13:13] 6 tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, ASV, NASB).
[13:13] 7 tn Heb “he shall pronounce the infection clean,” but see v. 4 above. Also, this is another use of the declarative Piel of the verb טָהֵר (taher; cf. the note on v. 6 above).
[13:13] 8 tn Heb “all of him has turned white, and he is clean.”
[13:28] 9 tn Heb “and if under it the bright spot stands, it has not spread in the skin.”
[13:28] 10 tn This is the declarative Piel of the verb טָהֵר (taher; cf. the note on v. 6 above).
[13:37] 13 tn Heb “and if in his eyes the infection has stood.”
[13:37] 14 tn This is the declarative Piel of the verb טָהֵר (taher, cf. the note on v. 6 above).
[13:58] 17 tn Heb “and the infection turns aside from them.”
[14:4] 21 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] 22 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] 23 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] 24 tn Heb “the one cleansing himself” (i.e., Hitpael participle of טָהֵר, taher, “to be clean”).
[14:18] 25 tn Heb “and the remainder in the oil.”
[14:29] 29 tn Heb “on the hand.”
[14:31] 33 tn Heb “and the one a burnt offering on the grain offering.”
[14:53] 37 tn Heb “to from outside to the city.”
[17:15] 41 tn Heb “And any soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh).
[17:15] 42 tn Heb “carcass,” referring to the carcass of an animal that has died on its own, not the carcass of an animal slaughtered for sacrifice or killed by wild beasts. This has been clarified in the translation by supplying the phrase “of natural causes”; cf. NAB “that died of itself”; TEV “that has died a natural death.”
