Discovery BoxLeviticus 18:1--19:37
Context18:1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 18:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘I am the Lord your God! 18:3 You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you have been living, 1 and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am about to bring you; 2 you must not 3 walk in their statutes. 18:4 You must observe my regulations 4 and you must be sure to walk in my statutes. 5 I am the Lord your God. 18:5 So you must keep 6 my statutes and my regulations; anyone who does so will live by keeping them. 7 I am the Lord.
18:6 “‘No man is to approach any close relative 8 to have sexual intercourse with her. 9 I am the Lord. 10 18:7 You must not 11 expose your father’s nakedness by having sexual intercourse with your mother. 12 She is your mother; you must not have intercourse with her. 18:8 You must not have sexual intercourse with your father’s wife; she is your father’s nakedness. 13 18:9 You must not have sexual intercourse with your sister, whether she is your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, 14 whether she is born in the same household or born outside it; 15 you must not have sexual intercourse with either of them. 16 18:10 You must not expose the nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter by having sexual intercourse with them, because they are your own nakedness. 17 18:11 You must not have sexual intercourse with the daughter of your father’s wife born of your father; she is your sister. You must not have intercourse with her. 18 18:12 You must not have sexual intercourse with your father’s sister; she is your father’s flesh. 19 18:13 You must not have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s flesh. 18:14 You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s brother; you must not approach his wife to have sexual intercourse with her. 20 She is your aunt. 21 18:15 You must not have sexual intercourse with your daughter-in-law; she is your son’s wife. You must not have intercourse with her. 18:16 You must not have sexual intercourse with your brother’s wife; she is your brother’s nakedness. 22 18:17 You must not have sexual intercourse with both a woman and her daughter; you must not take as wife either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to have intercourse with them. 23 They are closely related to her 24 – it is lewdness. 25 18:18 You must not take a woman in marriage and then marry her sister as a rival wife 26 while she is still alive, 27 to have sexual intercourse with her.
18:19 “‘You must not approach a woman in her menstrual impurity 28 to have sexual intercourse with her. 18:20 You must not have sexual intercourse 29 with the wife of your fellow citizen to become unclean with her. 18:21 You must not give any of your children as an offering to Molech, 30 so that you do not profane 31 the name of your God. I am the Lord! 18:22 You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; 32 it is a detestable act. 33 18:23 You must not have sexual intercourse 34 with any animal to become defiled with it, and a woman must not stand before an animal to have sexual intercourse with it; 35 it is a perversion. 36
18:24 “‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for the nations which I am about to drive out before you 37 have been defiled with all these things. 18:25 Therefore 38 the land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity upon it, 39 so that the land has vomited out its inhabitants. 18:26 You yourselves must obey 40 my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, 41 18:27 for the people who were in the land before you have done all these abominations, 42 and the land has become unclean. 18:28 So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it 43 just as it has vomited out the nations 44 that were before you. 18:29 For if anyone does any of these abominations, the persons who do them will be cut off from the midst of their people. 45 18:30 You must obey my charge to not practice any of the abominable statutes 46 that have been done before you, so that you do not 47 defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God.’”
19:1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 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. 19:3 Each of you must respect his mother and his father, 48 and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. 19:4 Do not turn to idols, 49 and you must not make for yourselves gods of cast metal. I am the Lord your God.
19:5 “‘When you sacrifice a peace offering sacrifice to the Lord, you must sacrifice it so that it is accepted for you. 50 19:6 It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice and on the following day, 51 but what is left over until the third day must be burned up. 52 19:7 If, however, it is eaten 53 on the third day, it is spoiled, 54 it will not be accepted, 19:8 and the one who eats it will bear his punishment for iniquity 55 because he has profaned 56 what is holy to the Lord. 57 That person will be cut off from his people. 58
19:9 “‘When you gather in the harvest 59 of your land, you must not completely harvest the corner of your field, 60 and you must not gather up the gleanings of your harvest. 19:10 You must not pick your vineyard bare, 61 and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.
19:11 “‘You must not steal, you must not tell lies, and you must not deal falsely with your fellow citizen. 62 19:12 You must not swear falsely 63 in my name, so that you do not profane 64 the name of your God. I am the Lord. 19:13 You must not oppress your neighbor or commit robbery against him. 65 You must not withhold 66 the wages of the hired laborer overnight until morning. 19:14 You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. 67 You must fear 68 your God; I am the Lord.
19:15 “‘You 69 must not deal unjustly in judgment: 70 you must neither show partiality to the poor nor honor the rich. 71 You must judge your fellow citizen fairly. 72 19:16 You must not go about as a slanderer among your people. 73 You must not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is at stake. 74 I am the Lord. 19:17 You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him. 75 19:18 You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge 76 against the children of your people, but you must love your neighbor as yourself. 77 I am the Lord. 19:19 You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed, 78 you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed, and you must not wear 79 a garment made of two different kinds of fabric. 80
19:20 “‘When a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, 81 although she is a slave woman designated for another man and she has not yet been ransomed, or freedom has not been granted to her, there will be an obligation to pay compensation. 82 They must not be put to death, because she was not free. 19:21 He must bring his guilt offering to the Lord at the entrance of the Meeting Tent, a guilt offering ram, 83 19:22 and the priest is to make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, 84 and he will be forgiven 85 of his sin 86 that he has committed.
19:23 “‘When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, 87 you must consider its fruit to be forbidden. 88 Three years it will be forbidden to you; 89 it must not be eaten. 19:24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, praise offerings 90 to the Lord. 19:25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest. 91 I am the Lord your God.
19:26 “‘You must not eat anything with the blood still in it. 92 You must not practice either divination or soothsaying. 93 19:27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard. 94 19:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person 95 or incise a tattoo on yourself. 96 I am the Lord. 19:29 Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, 97 so that the land does not practice prostitution and become full of lewdness. 98
19:30 “‘You must keep my Sabbaths and fear my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 19:31 Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits 99 to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. 19:32 You must stand up in the presence of the aged, honor the presence of an elder, and fear your God. I am the Lord. 19:33 When a foreigner resides 100 with you in your land, you must not oppress him. 19:34 The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so 101 you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 19:35 You must not do injustice in the regulation of measures, whether of length, weight, or volume. 102 19:36 You must have honest balances, 103 honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. 104 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt. 19:37 You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations. 105 I am the Lord.’”
[18:3] 1 tn Heb “As the work [or “deed”] of the land of Egypt, which you were dwelling in it, you must not do.”
[18:3] 2 tn Heb “and as the work [or “deed”] of the land of Canaan which I am bringing you to there, you must not do.” The participle “I am bringing” is inceptive; the
[18:3] 3 tn Heb “and you shall not walk.”
[18:4] 4 tn Heb “My regulations you shall do”; KJV, NASB “my judgments”; NRSV “My ordinances”; NIV, TEV “my laws.”
[18:4] 5 tn Heb “and my statutes you shall keep [or “watch; guard”] to walk in them.”
[18:5] 6 tn Heb “And you shall keep.”
[18:5] 7 tn Heb “which the man shall do them and shall live in them.” The term for “a man, human being; mankind” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. The expression וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living” so it is written וְחָיָה (vÿkhayah) in Smr, but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal and GKC 218 §76.i; cf. Lev 25:35).
[18:6] 8 tn Heb “Man, man shall not draw near to any flesh (שְׁאֵר, shÿ’er) of his body/flesh (בָּשָׂר, basar).” The repetition of the word “man” is distributive, meaning “any (or “every”) man” (GKC 395-96 §123.c; cf. Lev 15:2). The two words for “flesh” are combined to refer to emphasize the physical familial relatedness (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 282, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 119).
[18:6] 9 tn Heb “to uncover [her] nakedness” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), which is clearly euphemistic for sexual intercourse (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 282, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 119). This expression occurs a number of times in the following context and is generally translated “have sexual intercourse with [someone],” although in the case of the father mentioned in the following verse the expression may be connected to the shame or disgrace that would belong to the father whose wife’s sexuality is violated by his son. See the note on the word “mother” in v. 7.
[18:6] 10 sn The general statement prohibiting sexual intercourse between close relatives serves as an opening summary statement for the following section, which gives details concerning which degrees of relationship are specifically forbidden.
[18:7] 11 tn The verbal negative here is the same as that used in the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:4-5, 7, 13-17). It suggests permanent prohibition rather than a simple negative command and could, therefore, be rendered “must not” here and throughout the following section as it is in vv. 3-4 above.
[18:7] 12 tn Heb “The nakedness of your father and [i.e., even] the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover.”
[18:8] 13 tn Heb “the nakedness of your father she is.” See the note on v. 7 above. This law refers to another wife of the man’s father, who is not that man’s mother. The laws in the Pentateuch sometimes assume the possibility that a man may have more than one wife (cf., e.g., Deut 21:15-17).
[18:9] 14 tn Heb “the daughter of your father or the daughter of your mother.”
[18:9] 15 tn Heb “born of house or born of outside.” CEV interprets as “whether you grew up together or not” (cf. also TEV, NLT).
[18:9] 16 tc Several medieval Hebrew
[18:10] 17 sn That is, to have sexual intercourse with one’s granddaughter would be like openly exposing one’s own shameful nakedness (see the note on v. 7 above).
[18:11] 18 tn Heb “The nakedness of the daughter of your father’s wife born of your father, she is your sister; you must not uncover her nakedness.” That is, a half sister, the daughter of the man’s father by another wife, who is not the man’s mother, is to be considered a true sister. Therefore, the man must not have sexual intercourse with her.
[18:12] 19 tc A few medieval Hebrew
[18:14] 20 tn Heb “you must not draw near to his wife.” In the context this refers to approaching one’s aunt to have sexual intercourse with her, so this has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[18:14] 21 tn As in v. 12 (see the note there), some
[18:16] 22 sn Regarding the last clause, see the notes on vv. 7 and 10 above.
[18:17] 23 tn Heb “You must not uncover the nakedness of both a woman and her daughter; the daughter of her son and the daughter of her daughter you must not take to uncover her nakedness.” Translating “her” as “them” provides consistency in the English. In this kind of context, “take” means to “take in marriage” (cf. also v. 18). The LXX and Syriac have “their nakedness,” referring to the nakedness of the woman’s granddaughters, rather than the nakedness of the woman herself.
[18:17] 24 tc Heb “they are her flesh.” The LXX reads “your” here (followed by NRSV). If the LXX reading were followed by the present translation, the result would be “They are closely related to you.”
[18:17] 25 tn The term rendered “lewdness” almost always carries a connotation of cunning, evil device, and divisiveness (cf. HALOT 272 s.v. I זִמָּה 2, “infamy”), and is closely associated with sexual and religious infidelity (cf., e.g., Lev 19:29; 20:14; Job 31:11; Jer 13:27; Ezek 16:27; 22:9). Recent English versions differ on how they handle this: NAB “would be shameful”; CEV “would make you unclean”; NIV “wickedness”; NLT “horrible wickedness”; NRSV “depravity”; TEV “incest.”
[18:18] 26 tn Or “as a concubine”; Heb “And a woman to her sister you shall not take to be a second wife [or “to be a concubine”].” According to HALOT 1059 s.v. III צרר, the infinitive “to be a second wife” (לִצְרֹר, litsror) is a denominative verb from II צָרָה A (“concubine; second wife”), which, in turn, derives from II צר “to treat with hostility” (cf. J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 283, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 122).
[18:18] 27 tn Heb “on her in her life.”
[18:19] 28 tn Heb “in the menstruation of her impurity”; NIV “during the uncleanness of her monthly period.”
[18:20] 29 tn Heb “And to the wife of your fellow citizen you shall not give your layer for seed.” The meaning of “your layer” (שְׁכָבְתְּךָ, shÿkhavtÿkha) is uncertain (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 122, “you shall not place your layer of semen”; but cf. also J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 283, and the literature cited there for the rendering, “you shall not give your penis for seed”).
[18:21] 30 tn Heb “And from your seed you shall not give to cause to pass over to Molech.” Smr (cf. also the LXX) has “to cause to serve” rather than “to cause to pass over.” For detailed remarks on Molech and Molech worship see N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers (NCBC), 87-88; P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 259-60; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 333-37, and the literature cited there. It could refer to either human sacrifice or a devotion of children to some sort of service of Molech, perhaps of a sexual sort (cf. Lev 20:2-5; 2 Kgs 23:10, etc.). The inclusion of this prohibition against Molech worship here may be due to some sexual connection of this kind, or perhaps simply to the lexical link between זֶרַע (zera’) meaning “seed, semen” in v. 20 but “offspring” in v. 21.
[18:21] 31 tn Heb “and you shall not profane.” Regarding “profane,” see the note on Lev 10:10 above.
[18:22] 32 tn Heb “And with a male you shall not lay [as the] lyings of a woman” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 123). The specific reference here is to homosexual intercourse between males.
[18:22] 33 tn The Hebrew term תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, rendered “detestable act”) refers to the repugnant practices of foreigners, whether from the viewpoint of other peoples toward the Hebrews (e.g., Gen 43:32; 46:34; Exod 8:26) or of the
[18:23] 34 tn See the note on v. 20 above.
[18:23] 35 tn Heb “to copulate with it” (cf. Lev 20:16).
[18:23] 36 tn The Hebrew term תֶּבֶל (tevel, “perversion”) derives from the verb “to mix; to confuse” and therefore refers to illegitimate mixtures of species or violation of the natural order of things.
[18:24] 37 tn Heb “which I am sending away (Piel participle of שָׁלַח [shalakh, “to send”]) from your faces.” The rendering here takes the participle as anticipatory of the coming conquest events.
[18:25] 38 tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.
[18:25] 39 tn Heb “and I have visited its [punishment for] iniquity on it.” See the note on Lev 17:16 above.
[18:26] 40 tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew
[18:26] 41 tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”
[18:27] 42 tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”
[18:28] 43 tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”
[18:28] 44 tc The MT reads the singular “nation” and is followed by ASV, NASB, NRSV; the LXX, Syriac, and Targum have the plural “nations” (cf. v. 24).
[18:29] 45 sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.
[18:30] 46 tn Heb “to not do from the statutes of the detestable acts.”
[18:30] 47 tn Heb “and you will not.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
[19:3] 48 tn Heb “A man his mother and his father you [plural] shall fear.” The LXX, Syriac, Vulgate, and certain Targum
[19:4] 49 sn Regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִים, ’elilim), see B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 126; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 304; N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers (NBC), 89; and Judith M. Hadley, NIDOTTE 1:411. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god; God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless; weak; powerless; nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”
[19:5] 50 tn Heb “for your acceptance”; cf. NIV, NLT “it will be accepted on your behalf.”
[19:6] 51 tn Heb “from the following day” (HALOT 572 s.v. מָחֳרָת 2.b).
[19:6] 52 tn Heb “shall be burned with fire”; KJV “shall be burnt in the fire.” Because “to burn with fire” is redundant in contemporary English the present translation simply has “must be burned up.”
[19:7] 53 tn Heb “And if being eaten [infinitive absolute] it is eaten [finite verb].” For the infinitive absolute used to highlight contrast rather than emphasis see GKC 343 §113.p.
[19:7] 54 tn Or “desecrated,” or “defiled,” or “forbidden.” For this difficult term see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:422, on Lev 7:18.
[19:8] 55 tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.
[19:8] 56 sn Regarding “profaned,” see the note on Lev 10:10 above.
[19:8] 57 tn Heb “the holiness of the
[19:8] 58 sn On the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.
[19:9] 59 tn Heb “And in your harvesting the harvest.”
[19:9] 60 tn Heb “you shall not complete the corner of your field to harvest.”
[19:10] 61 tn Heb “And you shall not deal severely with your vineyard.”
[19:11] 62 tn Heb “you shall not deal falsely a man with his fellow citizen.”
[19:12] 63 tn Heb “And you shall not swear to the falsehood.”
[19:12] 64 tn Heb “and you shall not profane”; NAB “thus profaning.”
[19:13] 65 tn Heb “You shall not oppress your neighbor and you shall not rob.”
[19:13] 66 tn Heb “hold back with you”; perhaps “hold back for yourself” (cf. NRSV “keep for yourself”).
[19:14] 67 tn Heb “You shall not curse a deaf [person] and before a blind [person] you shall not put a stumbling block.”
[19:14] 68 tn Heb “And you shall fear.” Many English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV) regard the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) as adversative in force here (“but”).
[19:15] 69 tc Smr has the singular rather than the plural “you” of the MT, which brings this verb form into line with the ones surrounding it.
[19:15] 70 tn Heb “You shall not do injustice in judgment” (NASB similar); cf. NIV “do not pervert justice.”
[19:15] 71 tn Heb “You shall not lift up faces of poor [people] and you shall not honor faces of great.”
[19:15] 72 tn Heb “In righteousness you shall judge your fellow citizen.”
[19:16] 73 tn The term רָכִיל (rakhil) is traditionally rendered “slanderer” here (so NASB, NIV, NRSV; see also J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 304, 316), but the exact meaning is uncertain (see the discussion in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 129). It is sometimes related to I רָכַל (“to go about as a trader [or “merchant”]”; BDB 940 s.v. רָכַל), and taken to refer to cutthroat business dealings, but there may be a II רָכַל, the meaning of which is dubious (HALOT 1237 s.v. II *רכל). Some would render it “to go about as a spy.”
[19:16] 74 tn Heb “You shall not stand on the blood of your neighbor.” This part of the verse is also difficult to interpret. The rendering here suggests that one will not allow a neighbor to be victimized, whether in court (cf. v. 15) or in any other situation (see the discussion in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 129).
[19:17] 75 tn Heb “and you will not lift up on him sin.” The meaning of the line is somewhat obscure. It means either (1) that one should rebuke one’s neighbor when he sins lest one also becomes guilty, which is the way it is rendered here (see NIV, NRSV, NEB, JB; see also B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 129-30, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 303, and the discussion on pp. 316-17), or (2) one may rebuke one’s neighbor without incurring sin just as long as he does not hate him in his heart (see the first part of the verse; cf. NASB, NAB).
[19:18] 76 tn Heb “and you shall not retain [anger?].” This line seems to refer to the retaining or maintaining of some vengeful feelings toward someone. Compare the combination of the same terms for taking vengeance and maintaining wrath against enemies in Nahum 1:2 (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 305).
[19:18] 77 sn Some scholars make a distinction between the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) with the direct object and the more unusual construction with the preposition לְ (lamed) as it is here and in Lev 19:34 and 2 Chr 19:2 only. If there is a distinction, the construction here probably calls for direct and helpful action toward one’s neighbor (see the discussion in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 305, and esp. 317-18). Such love stands in contrast to taking vengeance or bearing a grudge against someone and, in NT terms, amounts to fulfilling the so-called “golden rule” (Matt 7:12).
[19:19] 78 tn Heb “Your animals, you shall not cross-breed two different kinds.”
[19:19] 79 tn Heb “you shall not cause to go up on you.”
[19:19] 80 sn Cf. Deut 22:11 where the Hebrew term translated “two different kinds” (כִּלְאַיִם, kil’ayim) refers to a mixture of linen and wool woven together in a garment.
[19:20] 81 tn Heb “And a man when he lies with a woman the lying of seed.”
[19:20] 82 sn That is, the woman had previously been assigned for marriage to another man but the marriage deal had not yet been consummated. In the meantime, the woman has lost her virginity and has, therefore, lost part of her value to the master in the sale to the man for whom she had been designated. Compensation was, therefore, required (see the explanation in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 130-31).
[19:21] 83 sn On the guilt offering see the note on Lev 5:15 above.
[19:22] 84 tn Heb “on his sin which he has sinned.”
[19:22] 85 tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him.”
[19:22] 86 tn Heb “from his sin.”
[19:23] 87 tn Heb “tree of food”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV “trees for food.”
[19:23] 88 tn Heb “you shall circumcise its fruit [as] its foreskin,” taking the fruit to be that which is to be removed and, therefore, forbidden. Since the fruit is uncircumcised it is forbidden (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306, and esp. B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 131-32).
[19:23] 89 tn Heb “it shall be to you uncircumcised.”
[19:24] 90 tn See B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 132, where the translation reads “set aside for jubilation”; a special celebration before the
[19:25] 91 tn Heb “to add to you its produce.” The rendering here assumes that the point of this clause is simply that finally being allowed to eat the fruit in the fifth year adds the fruit of the tree to their harvest. Some take the verb to be from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”) rather than יָסַף (yasaf, “to add; to increase”), rendering the verse, “to gather to you the produce” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 260, and see the versions referenced in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306). Others take it to mean that by following the regulations given previously they will honor the
[19:26] 92 tn Heb “You shall not eat on the blood.” See the extensive remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 319-20, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 132-33. The LXX has “on the mountains,” suggesting that this is a prohibition against illegitimate places and occasions of worship, not the eating of blood.
[19:26] 93 tn Heb “You shall not practice divination and you shall not practice soothsaying”; cf. NRSV “practice augury or witchcraft.” For suggestions regarding the practices involved see B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 133, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 320.
[19:27] 94 tc Heb “and you [singular] shall not ruin the corner of your [singular] beard.” Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Tg. Ps.-J. have the plural pronouns (i.e., “you” and “your” plural) rather than the singular of the MT.
[19:28] 95 tn Heb “And slash for the soul you shall not give.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 21:1, 5; 22:5). See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 306, 320-21.
[19:28] 96 tn Heb “and a writing of incision you shall not give in you.”
[19:29] 97 tn Heb “to make her practice harlotry.” Some recent English versions regard this as religious or temple prostitution (cf. TEV, CEV).
[19:29] 98 tn Heb “and the land become full of lewdness.” Regarding the term “lewdness,” see the note on Lev 18:17 above.
[19:31] 99 sn The prohibition here concerns those who would seek special knowledge through the spirits of the dead, whether the dead in general or dead relatives in particular (i.e., familiar spirits; see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 321, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 134). Cf. Lev 20:6 below.
[19:33] 100 tn Heb “And when a sojourner sojourns.”
[19:34] 101 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
[19:35] 102 tn That is, liquid capacity (HALOT 640 s.v. מְשׂוּרָה). Cf. ASV, NIV, NRSV, TEV “quantity”; NAB, NASB “capacity.”
[19:36] 103 tn Heb “balances of righteousness,” and so throughout this sentence.
[19:36] 104 sn An ephah is a dry measure which measures about four gallons, or perhaps one third of a bushel, while a hin is a liquid measure of about 3.6 liters (= approximately 1 quart).
[19:37] 105 tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31).
