Bilangan 6:4-15

6:4 All the days of his separation he must not eat anything that is produced by the grapevine, from seed ¹  to skin. ² 

6:5 “‘All the days of the vow ³  of his separation no razor may be used on his head ⁴  until the time ⁵  is fulfilled for which he separated himself to the Lord. He will be holy, ⁶  and he must let ⁷  the locks of hair on his head grow long.

6:6 “‘All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he must not contact ⁸  a dead body. ⁹  6:7 He must not defile himself even ¹⁰  for his father or his mother or his brother or his sister if they die, ¹¹  because the separation ¹²  for ¹³  his God is on his head. 6:8 All the days of his separation he must be holy to the Lord.

Contingencies for Defilement

6:9 “‘If anyone dies very suddenly ¹⁴  beside him and he defiles ¹⁵  his consecrated head, ¹⁶  then he must shave his head on the day of his purification – on the seventh day he must shave it. 6:10 On the eighth day he is to bring ¹⁷  two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the entrance to the tent of meeting. 6:11 Then the priest will offer one for a purification offering ¹⁸  and the other ¹⁹  as a burnt offering, ²⁰  and make atonement ²¹  for him, because of his transgression ²²  in regard to the corpse. So he must reconsecrate ²³  his head on that day. 6:12 He must rededicate ²⁴  to the Lord the days of his separation and bring a male lamb in its first year as a reparation offering, ²⁵  but the former days will not be counted ²⁶  because his separation ²⁷  was defiled.

Fulfilling the Vows

6:13 “‘Now this is the law of the Nazirite: When the days of his separation are fulfilled, he must be brought ²⁸  to the entrance of the tent of meeting, 6:14 and he must present his offering ²⁹  to the Lord: one male lamb in its first year without blemish for a burnt offering, one ewe lamb in its first year without blemish for a purification offering, one ram without blemish for a peace offering, ³⁰  6:15 and a basket of bread made without yeast, cakes of fine flour mixed with olive oil, wafers made without yeast and smeared with olive oil, and their ³¹  grain offering and their drink offerings. ³² 

[6:4]  ¹ tn This word also is rare, occurring only here.

[6:4]  ² sn Here is another hapax legomenon, a word only found here. The word seems linked to the verb “to be clear,” and so may mean the thin skin of the grape. The reason for the strictness with these two words in this verse is uncertain. We know the actual meanings of the words, and the combination must form a merism here, meaning no part of the grape could be eaten. Abstaining from these common elements of food was to be a mark of commitment to the Lord. Hos 3:1 even denounces the raisin cakes as part of a pagan world, and eating them would be a violation of the oath.

[6:5]  ³ tc The parallel expression in v. 8 (“all the days of his separation”) lacks the word “vow.” This word is also absent in v. 5 in a few medieval Hebrew manuscripts. The presence of the word in v. 5 may be due to dittography.

[6:5]  ⁴ sn There is an interesting parallel between this prohibition and the planting of trees. They could not be pruned or trimmed for three years, but allowed to grow free (Lev 20:23). Only then could the tree be cut and the fruit eaten. The natural condition was to be a sign that it was the Lord’s. It was to be undisturbed by humans. Since the Nazirite was to be consecrated to the Lord, that meant his whole person, hair included. In the pagan world the trimming of the beard and the cutting of the hair was often a sign of devotion to some deity.

[6:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “days.”

[6:5]  ⁶ tn The word “holy” here has the sense of distinct, different, set apart.

[6:5]  ⁷ tn The Piel infinitive absolute functions as a verb in this passage; the Piel carries the sense of “grow lengthy” or “let grow long.”

[6:6]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verb is simply “enter, go,” no doubt with the sense of go near.

[6:6]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew has נֶפֶשׁ מֵת (nefesh met), literally a “dead person.” But since the word נֶפֶשׁ can also be used for animals, the restriction would be for any kind of corpse. Death was very much a part of the fallen world, and so for one so committed to the Lord, avoiding all such contamination would be a witness to the greatest separation, even in a family.

[6:7]  ¹⁰ tn The vav (ו) conjunction at the beginning of the clause specifies the cases of corpses that are to be avoided, no matter how painful it might be.

[6:7]  ¹¹ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition and the suffixed subjective genitive – “in the dying of them” – to form the adverbial clause of time.

[6:7]  sn The Nazirite would defile himself, i.e., ruin his vow, by contacting their corpses. Jesus’ hard saying in Matt 8:22, “let the dead bury their own dead,” makes sense in the light of this passage – Jesus was calling for commitment to himself.

[6:7]  ¹² tn The word “separation” here is metonymy of adjunct – what is on his head is long hair that goes with the vow.

[6:7]  ¹³ tn The genitive could perhaps be interpreted as possession, i.e., “the vow of his God,” but it seems more likely that an objective genitive would be more to the point.

[6:9]  ¹⁴ tn The construction uses the imperfect tense followed by the infinitive absolute, יָמוּת מֵת (yamut met). Because the verb is in a conditional clause, the emphasis that is to be given through the infinitive must stress the contingency. The point is “if someone dies – unexpectedly.” The next words underscore the suddenness of this.

[6:9]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea within the conditional clause.

[6:9]  ¹⁶ sn The expression is figurative for the vow that he took; the figure is the metonymy because the reference to the head is a reference to the long hair that symbolizes the oath.

[6:10]  ¹⁷ tn The imperfect tense in this verse is still instructional rather than a simple future. The translations can vary, but the point that it is directive must be caught.

[6:11]  ¹⁸ tn The traditional translation of חַטָּאת (khatta’t) is “sin offering,” but it is more precise to render it “purification offering” (as with the other names of sacrifices) to show the outcome, not the cause of the offering (see Lev 4). Besides, this offering was made for ritual defilements (for which no confession was required) as well as certain sins (for which a confession of sin was required). This offering restored the person to the ritual state of purity by purifying the area into which he would be going.

[6:11]  ¹⁹ tn The repetition of “the one…and the one” forms the distributive sense of “the one…and the other.”

[6:11]  ²⁰ tn The burnt offering (Lev 1) reflects the essence of atonement: By this sacrifice the worshiper was completely surrendering to God, and God was completely accepting the worshiper.

[6:11]  ²¹ tn The verb וְכִפֶּר (vÿkhipper) is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The meaning of the verb is “to expiate, pacify, atone.” It refers to the complete removal of the barrier of fellowship between the person and God, and the total acceptance of that person into his presence. The idea of “to cover,” often linked to this meaning, is derived from a homonym, and not from this word and its usage.

[6:11]  ²² tn The verb “to sin” has a wide range of meanings, beginning with the idea of “missing the way or the goal.” In view of the nature of this case – the prescribed ritual without confession – the idea is more that he failed to keep the vow’s stipulations in this strange circumstance than that he committed intentional sin.

[6:11]  ²³ tn The verb simply means “to consecrate,” but because it refers to a vow that was interrupted, it must here mean to “reconsecrate.”

[6:12]  ²⁴ tn The same idea is to be found now in the use of the word נָזַר (nazar), which refers to a recommitment after the vow was interrupted.

[6:12]  ²⁵ tn The necessity of bringing the reparation offering was due to the reinstatement into the vow that had been interrupted.

[6:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “will fall”; KJV “shall be lost”; ASV, NASB, NRSV “shall be void.”

[6:12]  ²⁷ tc The similar expression in v. 9 includes the word “head” (i.e., “his consecrated head”). The LXX includes this word in v. 12 as well.

[6:13]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew text has “he/one shall bring him”; since there is no expressed subject, this verb should be taken in the passive sense – “he shall be brought.” Since the context suggests an obligatory nuance, the translation “he must be brought” has been used. Some scholars solve the problem by emending the Hebrew text here, but there is no manuscript evidence to support the emendation.

[6:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “he shall offer his offering” – the object is a cognate accusative.

[6:14]  ³⁰ sn The peace offering שְׁלָמִים (shÿlamim) is instructed in Lev 3 and 7. The form is always in the plural. It was a sacrifice that celebrated the fact that the worshiper was at peace with God, and was not offered in order to make peace with God. The peace offering was essentially a communal meal in the presence of God. Some have tried to equate this offering with similar sounding names in Akkadian and Ugaritic (see B. A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord [SJLA], 3-52), but the unique features of the Israelite sacrifice make this connection untenable.

[6:15]  ³¹ tn The suffixes in the MT are plural in this verse, whereas in v. 17 they are singular. This seems to be a matter of stylistic choice, referring to whomever may be taking the vow.

[6:15]  ³² sn The offerings for the termination of the Nazirite vow would not have been inexpensive. This indicates that the person making the short term vow may have had income, or have come from a wealthier section of society. Short term vows had to be considered carefully as this ruling required a good amount of food to be brought.