Leviticus 4:3

For the Priest

4:3 “‘If the high priest ¹  sins so that the people are guilty, ²  on account of the sin he has committed he must present a flawless young bull to the Lord ³  for a sin offering. ⁴ 

Leviticus 4:8

4:8 “‘Then he must take up all the fat from the sin offering bull: ⁵  the fat covering the entrails ⁶  and all the fat surrounding the entrails, ⁷ 

Leviticus 4:14

4:14 the assembly must present a young bull for a sin offering when the sin they have committed ⁸  becomes known. They must bring it before the Meeting Tent,

Leviticus 8:17

8:17 but the rest of the bull – its hide, its flesh, and its dung – he completely burned up ⁹  outside the camp just as the Lord had commanded Moses. ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 16:14

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, ¹¹  and in front of the atonement plate he is to sprinkle some of the blood seven times with his finger. ¹² 

Leviticus 16:18

16:18 “Then ¹³  he is to go out to the altar which is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He is to take ¹⁴  some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it all around on the horns of the altar.

[4:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the anointed priest” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). This refers to the high priest (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:3]  ² tn Heb “to the guilt of the people”; NRSV “thus bringing guilt on the people.”

[4:3]  ³ tn Heb “and he shall offer on his sin which he sinned, a bull, a son of the herd, flawless.”

[4:3]  ⁴ sn The word for “sin offering” (sometimes translated “purification offering”) is the same as the word for “sin” earlier in the verse. One can tell which rendering is intended only by the context. The primary purpose of the “sin offering” (חַטָּאת, khatta’t) was to “purge” (כִּפֶּר, kipper, “to make atonement,” see 4:20, 26, 31, 35, and the notes on Lev 1:4 and esp. Lev 16:20, 33) the sanctuary or its furniture in order to cleanse it from any impurities and/or (re)consecrate it for holy purposes (see, e.g., Lev 8:15; 16:19). By making this atonement the impurities of the person or community were cleansed and the people became clean. See R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:93-103.

[4:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “all the fat of the bull of the sin offering he shall take up from it.”

[4:8]  ⁶ tc The MT has here the preposition עַל (’al, “on, upon” [i.e., “which covers on the entrails,” as awkward in Hebrew as it is in English]), but Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Targums read אֶת (’et), which is what would be expected (i.e., “which covers the entrails”; cf. Lev 3:3, 9, 14). It may have been mistakenly inserted here under the influence of “on (עַל) the entrails” at the end of the verse.

[4:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and all the fat on the entrails.” The fat layer that covers the entrails as a whole (i.e., “that covers the entrails”) is different from the fat that surrounds and adheres to the various organs (“on the entrails,” i.e., surrounding them; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:205-7).

[4:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the sin which they committed on it becomes known”; KJV “which they have sinned against it.” The Hebrew עָלֶיהָ (’aleha, “on it”) probably refers back to “one of the commandments” in v. 13 (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:243).

[8:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “he burned with fire,” an expression which is sometimes redundant in English, but here means “burned up,” “burned up entirely.”

[8:17]  ¹⁴ sn See Lev 4:11-12, 21; 6:30 [23 HT].

[16:14]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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.

[16:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates the sequence of events here.

[16:18]  ²² tn Heb “And he shall take.”