Leviticus 16:33

16:33 and he is to purify ¹  the Most Holy Place, ²  he is to purify the Meeting Tent and the altar, ³  and he is to make atonement for ⁴  the priests and for all the people of the assembly.

Leviticus 7:7

7:7 The law is the same for the sin offering and the guilt offering; ⁵  it belongs to the priest who makes atonement with it.

Leviticus 16:30

16:30 for on this day atonement is to be made for you to cleanse you from all your sins; you must be clean before the Lord. ⁶ 

Leviticus 17:11

17:11 for the life of every living thing ⁷  is in the blood. ⁸  So I myself have assigned it to you ⁹  on the altar to make atonement for your lives, for the blood makes atonement by means of the life. ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 5:16

5:16 And whatever holy thing he violated ¹¹  he must restore and must add one fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest will make atonement ¹²  on his behalf with the guilt offering ram and he will be forgiven.” ¹³ 

[16:33]  ¹ tn Heb “to atone” (also later in this verse); see the note on “purifying the holy place” in 16:20.

[16:33]  ² tn Heb “the sanctuary of the holy place.” Although this is the only place this expression occurs in the OT, it clearly refers to the innermost shrine behind the veil-canopy, where the ark of the covenant was located.

[16:33]  ³ tn Heb “and the tent of meeting and the alter he shall atone.” The repetition of the verb כִּפֶּר (kipper, “to atone”) at the beginning and end of the sequence appears to be strange, but the MT accents suggest that only “the Most Holy Place” goes with the verb at the beginning of the verse. Of course, the purging of “the Most Holy Place” has been the main emphasis of this chapter from the start (see vv. 2-3 and 11-17).

[16:33]  ⁴ tn At this point in the verse the verb כִּפֶּר (kipper, “to make atonement”) takes its object with the preposition עַל (’al, “for”; literally, “upon”; contrast the first part of the verse and cf. the notes on Lev 1:4 and 16:20 above).

[7:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “like the sin offering like the guilt offering, one law to them.”

[16:30]  ⁹ tn The phrase “from all your sins” could go with the previous clause as the verse is rendered here (see, e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 109, and J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:1011), or it could go with the following clause (i.e., “you shall be clean from all your sins before the Lord”; see the MT accents as well as J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 221, and recent English versions, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[17:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the life of the flesh.” Here “flesh” stands for “every living thing,” that is, all creatures (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT “every creature”; CEV “every living creature.”

[17:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for the soul/life (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) of the flesh, it is in the blood” (cf. the note of v. 10 above and v. 14 below). Although most modern English versions begin a new sentence in v. 11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (see, e.g., NJPS, NASB, NIV, NRSV), the כִּי (ki, “for, because”) at the beginning of the verse suggests continuation from v. 10, as the rendering here indicates (see, e.g., NEB, NLT; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 261; and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 239).

[17:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And I myself have given it to you.”

[17:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “for the blood, it by (בְּ, bet preposition, “in”] the life makes atonement.” The interpretation of the preposition is pivotal here. Some scholars have argued that it is a bet of exchange; that is, “the blood makes atonement in exchange for the life [of the slaughtered animal]” (see R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:694-95, 697 for analysis and criticism of this view). It is more likely that, as in the previous clause (“your lives”), “life/soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) here refers to the person who makes the offering, not the animal offered. The blood of the animal makes atonement for the person who offers it either “by means of” (instrumental bet) the “life/soul” of the animal, which it symbolizes or embodies (the meaning of the translation given here); or perhaps the blood of the animal functions as “the price” (bet of price) for ransoming the “life/soul” of the person.

[5:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and which he sinned from the holy thing.”

[5:16]  ¹⁸ sn Regarding “make atonement” see the note on Lev 1:4.

[5:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him” (KJV similar).