Leviticus 16:11-14

The Sin Offering Sacrificial Procedures

16:11 “Aaron is to present the sin offering bull which is for himself, and he is to make atonement on behalf of himself and his household. He is to slaughter the sin offering bull which is for himself, 16:12 and take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord ¹  and a full double handful of finely ground fragrant incense, ²  and bring them inside the veil-canopy. ³  16:13 He must then put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the cloud of incense will cover the atonement plate which is above the ark of the testimony, ⁴  so that he will not die. ⁵  16:14 Then he is to take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the eastern face of the atonement plate, ⁶  and in front of the atonement plate he is to sprinkle some of the blood seven times with his finger. ⁷ 

[16:12]  ¹ tn Heb “and he shall take the fullness of the censer, coals of fire, from on the altar from to the faces of the Lord.”

[16:12]  ² tn Heb “and the fullness of the hollow of his two hands, finely ground fragrant incense.”

[16:12]  ³ tn Heb “and he shall bring from house to the veil-canopy.”

[16:13]  ⁴ tn The text here has only “above the testimony,” but this is surely a shortened form of “above the ark of the testimony” (see Exod 25:22 etc.; cf. Lev 16:2). The term “testimony” in this expression refers to the ark as the container of the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them (see Exod 25:16 with Deut 10:1, 5, etc.).

[16:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he will not die,” but it is clear that the purpose for the incense cloud was to protect the priest from death in the presence of the Lord (cf. vv. 1-2 above).

[16:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “on the faces of the atonement plate toward the east.” Some have taken this to mean that the ark was stationed just behind the veil-canopy on the eastern side of the most holy place. Thus, the high priest would need to enter and walk toward the west end of the most holy place and then turn eastward in order to face the ark and sprinkle the blood in an eastward direction. The rendering here, however, requires that the ark was stationed on the western end, or perhaps in the middle of the area, so that as the priest entered he was already facing the ark and would sprinkle the blood on the eastern face of the atonement plate, in a westward direction (see, e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 239 versus J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:1032).

[16:14]  ⁷ sn Presumably in this case the blood was sprinkled seven times on the ground in front of the ark on which the atonement plate was mounted.