Numbers 19:11

Purification from Uncleanness

19:11 “‘Whoever touches ¹  the corpse ²  of any person ³  will be ceremonially unclean ⁴  seven days.

Numbers 19:16-20

19:16 And whoever touches the body of someone killed with a sword in the open fields, ⁵  or the body of someone who died of natural causes, ⁶  or a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean seven days. ⁷ 

19:17 “‘For a ceremonially unclean person you must take ⁸  some of the ashes of the heifer ⁹  burnt for purification from sin and pour ¹⁰  fresh running ¹¹  water over them in a vessel. 19:18 Then a ceremonially clean person must take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all its furnishings, and on the people who were there, or on the one who touched a bone, or one killed, or one who died, or a grave. 19:19 And the clean person must sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he must purify him, ¹²  and then he must wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and he will be clean in the evening. 19:20 But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person must be cut off from among the community, because he has polluted the sanctuary of the Lord; the water of purification was not sprinkled on him, so he is unclean.

Deuteronomy 18:11

18:11 one who casts spells, ¹³  one who conjures up spirits, ¹⁴  a practitioner of the occult, ¹⁵  or a necromancer. ¹⁶ 

Matthew 8:28

Healing the Gadarene Demoniacs

8:28 When he came to the other side, to the region of the Gadarenes, ¹⁷  two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were extremely violent, so that no one was able to pass by that way.

Mark 5:2-5

5:2 Just as Jesus ¹⁸  was getting out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit ¹⁹  came from the tombs and met him. ²⁰  5:3 He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. 5:4 For his hands and feet had often been bound with chains and shackles, ²¹  but ²²  he had torn the chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5:5 Each night and every day among the tombs and in the mountains, he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

Luke 8:27

8:27 As ²³  Jesus ²⁴  stepped ashore, ²⁵  a certain man from the town ²⁶  met him who was possessed by demons. ²⁷  For a long time this man ²⁸  had worn no clothes and had not lived in a house, but among ²⁹  the tombs.

[19:11]  ¹ tn The form is the participle with the article functioning as a substantive: “the one who touches.”

[19:11]  ² tn Heb “the dead.”

[19:11]  ³ tn The expression is full: לְכָל־נֶפֶשׁ אָדָם (lÿkhol-nefesh ’adam) – of any life of a man, i.e., of any person.

[19:11]  ⁴ tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it follows only the participle used as the subject, but since the case is hypothetical and therefore future, this picks up the future time. The adjective “ceremonially” is supplied in the translation as a clarification.

[19:16]  ⁵ tn The expression for “in the open field” is literally “upon the face of the field” (עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה, ’al pÿne hassadeh). This ruling is in contrast now to what was contacted in the tent.

[19:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “a dead body”; but in contrast to the person killed with a sword, this must refer to someone who died of natural causes.

[19:16]  ⁷ sn See Matt 23:27 and Acts 23:3 for application of this by the time of Jesus.

[19:17]  ⁸ tn The verb is the perfect tense, third masculine plural, with a vav (ו) consecutive. The verb may be worded as a passive, “ashes must be taken,” but that may be too awkward for this sentence. It may be best to render it with a generic “you” to fit the instruction of the text.

[19:17]  ⁹ tn The word “heifer” is not in the Hebrew text, but it is implied.

[19:17]  ¹⁰ tn Here too the verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; rather than make this passive, it is here left as a direct instruction to follow the preceding one. For the use of the verb נָתַן (natan) in the sense of “pour,” see S. C. Reif, “A Note on a Neglected Connotation of ntn,” VT 20 (1970): 114-16.

[19:17]  ¹¹ tn The expression is literally “living water.” Living water is the fresh, flowing spring water that is clear, life-giving, and not the collected pools of stagnant or dirty water.

[19:19]  ¹² tn The construction uses a simple Piel of חָטָא (khata’, “to purify”) with a pronominal suffix – “he shall purify him.” Some commentators take this to mean that after he sprinkles the unclean then he must purify himself. But that would not be the most natural way to read this form.

[18:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “a binder of binding” (חֹבֵר חָבֶר, khover khaver). The connotation is that of immobilizing (“binding”) someone or something by the use of magical words (cf. Ps 58:6; Isa 47:9, 12).

[18:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “asker of a [dead] spirit” (שֹׁאֵל אוֹב, sho’el ’ov). This is a form of necromancy (cf. Lev 19:31; 20:6; 1 Sam 28:8, 9; Isa 8:19; 19:3; 29:4).

[18:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “a knowing [or “familiar”] [spirit]” (יִדְּעֹנִי, yiddÿ’oniy), i.e., one who is expert in mantic arts (cf. Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27; 1 Sam 28:3, 9; 2 Kgs 21:6; Isa 8:19; 19:3).

[18:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a seeker of the dead.” This is much the same as “one who conjures up spirits” (cf. 1 Sam 28:6-7).

[8:28]  ¹⁷ tc The textual tradition here is quite complicated. A number of mss (B C [Δ] Θ al sy^s,p,h) read “Gadarenes,” which is the better reading here. Many other mss (א² L W Ë^1,13 Ï [sy^hmg] bo) have “Gergesenes.” Others (892^c latt sy^hmg sa mae) have “Gerasenes,” which is the reading followed in Luke 8:26. The difference between Matthew and Luke may be due to uses of variant regional terms.

[5:2]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:2]  ¹⁹ sn Unclean spirit refers to an evil spirit.

[5:2]  ²⁰ tn Grk “met him from the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.” When this is converted to normal English word order (“a man met him from the tombs with an unclean spirit”) it sounds as if “with an unclean spirit” modifies “the tombs.” Likewise, “a man with an unclean spirit from the tombs met him” implies that the unclean spirit came from the tombs, while the Greek text is clear that it is the man who had the unclean spirit who came from the tombs. To make this clear a second verb, “came,” is supplied in English: “came from the tombs and met him.”

[5:4]  ²¹ tn Grk “he had often been bound with chains and shackles.” “Shackles” could also be translated “fetters”; they were chains for the feet.

[5:4]  ²² tn Grk “and.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[8:27]  ²³ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[8:27]  ²⁴ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:27]  ²⁵ tn Grk “stepped out on land.”

[8:27]  ²⁶ tn Or “city.”

[8:27]  ²⁷ tn Grk “who had demons.”

[8:27]  ²⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the demon-possessed man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:27]  ²⁹ tn Or “in.”