Numbers 6:21

6:21 “This is the law ¹  of the Nazirite who vows to the Lord his offering according to his separation, as well as whatever else he can provide. ²  Thus he must fulfill ³  his vow that he makes, according to the law of his separation.”

Leviticus 7:11

The Peace Offering

7:11 “‘This is the law of the peace offering sacrifice which he ⁴  is to present to the Lord.

Leviticus 7:16-38

7:16 “‘If his offering is a votive or freewill sacrifice, ⁵  it may be eaten on the day he presents his sacrifice, and also the leftovers from it may be eaten on the next day, ⁶  7:17 but the leftovers from the meat of the sacrifice must be burned up in the fire ⁷  on the third day. 7:18 If some of the meat of his peace offering sacrifice is ever eaten on the third day it will not be accepted; it will not be accounted to the one who presented it, since it is spoiled, ⁸  and the person who eats from it will bear his punishment for iniquity. ⁹  7:19 The meat which touches anything ceremonially ¹⁰  unclean must not be eaten; it must be burned up in the fire. As for ceremonially clean meat, ¹¹  everyone who is ceremonially clean may eat the meat. 7:20 The person who eats meat from the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord while his uncleanness persists ¹²  will be cut off from his people. ¹³  7:21 When a person touches anything unclean (whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or an unclean detestable creature) ¹⁴  and eats some of the meat of the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people.’” ¹⁵ 

Sacrificial Instructions for the Common People: Fat and Blood

7:22 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: ¹⁶  7:23 “Tell the Israelites, ‘You must not eat any fat of an ox, sheep, or goat. 7:24 Moreover, the fat of an animal that has died of natural causes ¹⁷  and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be used for any other purpose, ¹⁸  but you must certainly never eat it. 7:25 If anyone eats fat from the animal from which he presents a gift to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people. ¹⁹  7:26 And you must not eat any blood of the birds or the domesticated land animals in any of the places where you live. ²⁰  7:27 Any person who eats any blood – that person will be cut off from his people.’” ²¹ 

Priestly Portions of Peace Offerings

7:28 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: ²²  7:29 “Tell the Israelites, ‘The one who presents his peace offering sacrifice to the Lord must bring his offering to the Lord from his peace offering sacrifice. 7:30 With his own hands he must bring the Lord’s gifts. He must bring the fat with the breast ²³  to wave the breast as a wave offering before the Lord, ²⁴  7:31 and the priest must offer the fat up in smoke on the altar, but the breast will belong to Aaron and his sons. 7:32 The right thigh you must give as a contribution offering ²⁵  to the priest from your peace offering sacrifices. 7:33 The one from Aaron’s sons who presents the blood of the peace offering and fat will have the right thigh as his share, 7:34 for the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution offering I have taken from the Israelites out of their peace offering sacrifices and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons from the people of Israel as a perpetual allotted portion.’” ²⁶ 

7:35 This is the allotment of Aaron and the allotment of his sons from the Lord’s gifts on the day Moses ²⁷  presented them to serve as priests ²⁸  to the Lord. 7:36 This is what the Lord commanded to give to them from the Israelites on the day Moses ²⁹  anointed them ³⁰  – a perpetual allotted portion throughout their generations. ³¹ 

Summary of Sacrificial Regulations in Leviticus 6:8-7:36

7:37 This is the law ³²  for the burnt offering, the grain offering, ³³  the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering, ³⁴  and the peace offering sacrifice, 7:38 which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai on the day he commanded the Israelites to present their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai.

Leviticus 22:21-23

22:21 If a man presents a peace offering sacrifice to the Lord for a special votive offering ³⁵  or for a freewill offering from the herd or the flock, it must be flawless to be acceptable; ³⁶  it must have no flaw. ³⁷ 

22:22 “‘You must not present to the Lord something blind, or with a broken bone, or mutilated, or with a running sore, ³⁸  or with a festering eruption, or with a feverish rash. ³⁹  You must not give any of these as a gift ⁴⁰  on the altar to the Lord. 22:23 As for an ox ⁴¹  or a sheep with a limb too long or stunted, ⁴²  you may present it as a freewill offering, but it will not be acceptable for a votive offering. ⁴³ 

Leviticus 23:28

23:28 You must not do any work on this particular day, ⁴⁴  because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for yourselves ⁴⁵  before the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 12:6

12:6 And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, ⁴⁶  your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

Deuteronomy 12:1

The Central Sanctuary

12:1 These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ⁴⁷  has given you to possess. ⁴⁸ 

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ⁴⁹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

[6:21]  ¹ tn Actually, “law” here means a whole set of laws, the basic rulings on this topic.

[6:21]  ² tn Heb “whatever else his hand is able to provide.” The imperfect tense has the nuance of potential imperfect – “whatever he can provide.”

[6:21]  ³ tn Heb “according to the vow that he vows, so he must do.”

[7:11]  ⁴ tn This “he” pronoun refers to the offerer. Smr and LXX have plural “they.”

[7:16]  ⁵ tn For the distinction between votive and freewill offerings see the note on Lev 22:23 and the literature cited there.

[7:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “and on the next day and the left over from it shall be eaten.”

[7:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “burned with fire,” an expression which is sometimes redundant in English, but here means “burned up,” “burned up entirely” (likewise in v. 19).

[7:18]  ⁸ tn Or “desecrated,” or “defiled,” or “forbidden.” For this difficult term see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:422. Cf. NIV “it is impure”; NCV “it will become unclean”; NLT “will be contaminated.”

[7:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “his iniquity he shall bear” (cf. Lev 5:1); NIV “will be held responsible”; NRSV “shall incur guilt”; TEV “will suffer the consequences.”

[7:19]  ¹⁰ tn The word “ceremonially” has been supplied in the translation both here and in the following sentence to clarify that the uncleanness involved is ritual or ceremonial in nature.

[7:19]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew has simply “the flesh,” but this certainly refers to “clean” flesh in contrast to the unclean flesh in the first half of the verse.

[7:20]  ¹² tn Heb “and his unclean condition is on him.”

[7:20]  ¹³ sn The exact meaning of this penalty clause is not certain. It could mean that he will be executed, whether by God or by man, he will be excommunicated from sanctuary worship and/or community benefits (cf. TEV, CEV), or his line will be terminated by God (i.e., extirpation), etc. See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 100; J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:457-60; and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 241-42 for further discussion.

[7:21]  ¹⁴ sn For these categories of unclean animals see Lev 11.

[7:21]  ¹⁵ sn For the interpretation of this last clause see the note on Lev 7:20.

[7:22]  ¹⁶ sn See the note on Lev 6:8 [6:1 HT] above.

[7:24]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “carcass,” referring to the carcass of an animal that has died on its own, not the carcass of an animal slaughtered for sacrifice or killed by wild beasts. This has been clarified in the translation by supplying the phrase “of natural causes”; cf. NAB, TEV “that has died a natural death.”

[7:24]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “shall be used for any work”; cf. NIV, NLT “may be used for any other purpose.”

[7:25]  ¹⁹ sn See the note on Lev 7:20.

[7:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and any blood you must not eat in any of your dwelling places, to the bird and to the animal.”

[7:27]  ²¹ sn See the note on Lev 7:20.

[7:28]  ²² sn See the note on Lev 6:8 [6:1 HT].

[7:30]  ²³ tn Heb “on the breast.”

[7:30]  ²⁴ tc Many Hebrew mss and some versions (esp. the LXX) limit the offerings in the last part of this verse to the fat portions, specifically, the fat and the fat lobe of the liver (see the BHS footnote). The verse is somewhat awkward in Hebrew but nevertheless correct.

[7:32]  ²⁵ tn Older English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV) translate this Hebrew term (תְּרוּמָה, tÿrumah) “heave offering,” derived from the idea of “to raise, to lift” found in the verbal root (cf. NAB “a raised offering”). “Contribution offering” is a better English rendering because it refers to something “taken out from” (i.e., “lifted up from”; cf. the Hebrew term הֵרִים (herim) in, e.g., Lev 2:9; 4:8, etc.) the offering as a special contribution to the specific priest who presided over the offering procedures in any particular instance (see the next verse and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 4:335-37). Cf. TEV “as a special contribution”; NCV, NLT “as a gift.”

[7:34]  ²⁶ tn Or “a perpetual regulation”; cf. NASB “as their due forever”; NRSV “as a perpetual due”; NLT “their regular share.”

[7:35]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the day he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:35]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in the day of he presented them to serve as priests to the Lord.” The grammar here is relatively unusual. First, the verb “presented” appears to be in the perfect rather than the infinitive (but see GKC 531), the latter being normal in such temporal expressions. Second, the active verb form appears to be used as a passive plural (“they were presented”). However, if it is translated active and singular then Moses would be the subject: “on the day he [Moses] offered them [Aaron and his sons].”

[7:36]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the day he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:36]  ³⁰ tn Heb “which the Lord commanded to give to them in the day he anointed them from the children of Israel.” Thus v. 36 is tied syntactically to v. 35 (see the note there).

[7:36]  ³¹ tn Heb “for your generations”; cf. NIV “for the generations to come”; TEV “for all time to come.”

[7:37]  ³² sn The Hebrew term translated “law” (תוֹרָה [torah]) occurs up to this point in the book only in Lev 6:9 [6:2 HT], 14 [7 HT], 25 [18 HT], 7:1, 7, 11, and here in 7:37. This suggests that Lev 7:37-38 is a summary of only this section of the book (i.e., Lev 6:8 [6:1 HT]-7:36), not all of Lev 1-7.

[7:37]  ³³ tc In the MT only “the grain offering” lacks a connecting ו (vav). However, many Hebrew , Smr, LXX, Syriac, and some mss of Tg. Onq. have the ו (vav) on “the grain offering” as well.

[7:37]  ³⁴ sn The inclusion of the “ordination offering” (מִלּוּאִים, milu’im; the term apparently comes from the notion of “filling [of the hand],” cf. Lev 8:33) here anticipates Lev 8. It is a kind of peace offering, as the regulations in Lev 8:22-32 will show (cf. Exod 29:19-34). In the context of the ordination ritual for the priests it fits into the sequence of offerings as a peace offering would: sin offering (Lev 8:14-17), burnt and grain offering (Lev 8:18-21), and finally peace (i.e., ordination) offering (Lev 8:22-32). Moreover, in this case, Moses received the breast of the ordination offering as his due since he was the presiding priest over the sacrificial procedures (Lev 8:29; cf. Lev 7:30-31), while Aaron and his sons ate the portions that would have been consumed by the common worshipers in a regular peace offering procedure (Exod 29:31-34; cf. Lev 7:15-18). For a general introduction to the peace offering see the note on Lev 3:1.

[22:21]  ³⁵ tn The meaning of the expression לְפַלֵּא־נֶדֶר (lÿfalle’-neder) rendered here “for a special votive offering” is much debated. Some take it as an expression for fulfilling a vow, “to fulfill a vow” (e.g., HALOT 927-28 s.v. פלא piel and NASB; cf. NAB, NRSV “in fulfillment of a vow”) or, alternatively, “to make a vow” or “for making a vow” (HALOT 928 s.v. פלא piel [II פלא]). Perhaps it refers to the making a special vow, from the verb פָלַא (pala’, “to be wonderful, to be remarkable”); cf. J. Milgrom, Numbers (JPSTC), 44. B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 151 and 193, suggests that this is a special term for “setting aside a votive offering” (related to פָלָה [palah, “to set aside”]). In general, the point of the expression seems to be that this sacrifice arises as a special gift to God out of special circumstances in the life of the worshiper.

[22:21]  ³⁶ tn Heb “for acceptance”; NAB “if it is to find acceptance.”

[22:21]  ³⁷ tn Heb “all/any flaw shall not be in it.”

[22:22]  ³⁸ tn Or perhaps “a wart” (cf. NIV; HALOT 383 s.v. יַבֶּלֶת, but see the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 358).

[22:22]  ³⁹ sn See the note on Lev 21:20 above.

[22:22]  ⁴⁰ sn This term for offering “gift” is explained in the note on Lev 1:9.

[22:23]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “And an ox.”

[22:23]  ⁴² tn Heb “and stunted” (see HALOT 1102 s.v. I קלט).

[22:23]  ⁴³ sn The freewill offering was voluntary, so the regulations regarding it were more relaxed. Once a vow was made, the paying of it was not voluntary (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 151-52, for very helpful remarks on this verse).

[23:28]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “in the bone of this day.”

[23:28]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “on you [plural]”; cf. NASB, NRSV “on your behalf.”

[12:6]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “heave offerings of your hand.”

[12:1]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “fathers.”

[12:1]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “you must be careful to obey in the land the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days which you live in the land.” This adverbial statement modifies “to obey,” not “to possess,” so the order in the translation has been rearranged to make this clear.

[1:1]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.