Imamat 2:1

Grain Offering Regulations: Offering of Raw Flour

2:1 “‘When a person presents a grain offering ¹  to the Lord, his offering must consist of choice wheat flour, ²  and he must pour olive oil on it and put frankincense ³  on it.

Imamat 2:5

2:5 If your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, it must be choice wheat flour mixed with olive oil, unleavened.

Imamat 2:8-9

2:8 “‘You must bring the grain offering that must be made from these to the Lord. Present it to the priest, ⁴  and he will bring it to the altar. 2:9 Then the priest must take up ⁵  from the grain offering its memorial portion and offer it up in smoke on the altar – it is ⁶  a gift of a soothing aroma to the Lord.

Imamat 2:11

Additional Grain Offering Regulations

2:11 “‘No grain offering which you present to the Lord can be made with yeast, ⁷  for you must not offer up in smoke any yeast or honey as a gift to the Lord. ⁸ 

Imamat 5:13

5:13 So the priest will make atonement ⁹  on his behalf for his sin which he has committed by doing one of these things, ¹⁰  and he will be forgiven. ¹¹  The remainder of the offering ¹²  will belong to the priest like the grain offering.’” ¹³ 

Imamat 6:20-21

6:20 “This is the offering of Aaron and his sons which they must present to the Lord on the day when he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah ¹⁴  of choice wheat flour ¹⁵  as a continual grain offering, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening. 6:21 It must be made with olive oil on a griddle and you must bring it well soaked, ¹⁶  so you must present a grain offering of broken pieces ¹⁷  as a soothing aroma to the Lord.

Imamat 7:9

7:9 Every grain offering which is baked in the oven or ¹⁸  made in the pan ¹⁹  or on the griddle belongs to the priest who presented it.

Imamat 7:17

7:17 but the leftovers from the meat of the sacrifice must be burned up in the fire ²⁰  on the third day.

Imamat 8:28

8:28 Moses then took them from their palms and offered them up in smoke on the altar ²¹  on top of the burnt offering – they were an ordination offering for a soothing aroma; it was a gift to the Lord.

Imamat 11:10

11:10 But any creatures that do not have both fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the streams, from all the swarming things of the water and from all the living creatures that are in the water, are detestable to you.

Imamat 14:31

14:31 a sin offering and the other a burnt offering along with the grain offering. ²²  So the priest is to make atonement for the one being cleansed before the Lord.

Imamat 22:25

22:25 Even from a foreigner ²³  you must not present the food of your God from such animals as these, for they are ruined and flawed; ²⁴  they will not be acceptable for your benefit.’”

Imamat 26:8

26:8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.

[2:1]  ¹ sn The “grain offering” ( מִנְחָה[minkhah]; here קָרְבַּן מִנְחָה, [qorbban minkhah], “an offering of a grain offering”) generally accompanied a burnt or peace offering to supplement the meat with bread (the libation provided the drink; cf. Num 15:1-10), thus completing the food “gift” to the Lord. It made atonement (see the note on Lev 1:4) along with the burnt offering (e.g., Lev 14:20) or alone as a sin offering for the poor (Lev 5:11-13).

[2:1]  ² tn The Hebrew term for “choice wheat flour” (סֹלֶת, selet) is often translated “fine flour” (cf. KJV, NAB, NIV, NCV), but it refers specifically to wheat as opposed to barley (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 10). Moreover, the translation “flour” might be problematic, since the Hebrew term may designate the “grits” rather than the more finely ground “flour” (see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:179 as opposed to Levine, 10, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 30).

[2:1]  ³ sn This is not just any “incense” (קְטֹרֶת, qÿtoret; R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 3:913-16), but specifically “frankincense” (לְבֹנָה, lÿvonah; R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:756-57).

[2:8]  ⁴ tc There are several person, gender, and voice verb problems in this verse. First, the MT has “And you shall bring the grain offering,” but the LXX and Qumran have “he” rather than “you” (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:185). Second, the MT has “which shall be made” (i.e., the 3rd person masculine Niphal passive verb which, in fact, does not agree with its feminine subject, מִנְחָה, minkhah, “grain offering”), while the LXX has “which he shall make” (3rd person Qal), thus agreeing with the LXX 3rd person verb at the beginning of the verse (see above). Third, the MT has a 3rd person vav consecutive verb “and he shall present it to the priest,” which agrees with the LXX but is not internally consistent with the 2nd person verb at the beginning of the verse in the MT. The BHS editors conjecture that the latter might be repointed to an imperative verb yielding “present it to the priest.” This would require no change of consonants and corresponds to the person of the first verb in the MT. This solution has been tentatively accepted here (cf. also J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 26-27), even though it neither resolves the gender problem of the second verb nor fits the general grammatical pattern of the chapter in the MT.

[2:9]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb הֵרִים (herim, “to take up”; cf. NAB “lift”) is commonly used for setting aside portions of an offering (see, e.g., Lev 4:8-10 and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 4:335-36). A number of English versions employ the more normal English idiom “take out” here (e.g., NIV, NCV); cf. NRSV “remove.”

[2:9]  ⁶ tn The words “it is” (הוּא, hu’) both here and in vv. 10 and 16 are not in the MT, but are assumed. (cf. vv. 2b and 3b and the notes there).

[2:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “Every grain offering which you offer to the Lord must not be made leavened.” The noun “leaven” is traditional in English versions (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but “yeast” is more commonly used today.

[2:11]  ⁸ tc A few Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Tg. Ps.-J. have the verb “present” rather than “offer up in smoke,” but the MT is clearly correct. One could indeed present leavened and honey sweetened offerings as first fruit offerings, which were not burned on the altar (see v. 12 and the note there), but they could not be offered up in fire on the altar. Cf. the TEV’s ambiguous “you must never use yeast or honey in food offered to the Lord.”

[2:11]  tn Heb “for all leaven and all honey you must not offer up in smoke from it a gift to the Lord.”

[5:13]  ⁹ sn The focus of sin offering “atonement” was purging impurities from the tabernacle (see the note on Lev 1:4).

[5:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from one from these,” referring to the four kinds of violations of the law delineated in Lev 5:1-4 (see the note on Lev 5:5 above and cf. Lev 4:27).

[5:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him” (KJV similar).

[5:13]  ¹² tn Heb “and it”; the referent (the remaining portion of the offering) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “and it shall be to the priest like the grain offering,” referring to the rest of the grain that was not offered on the altar (cf. the regulations in Lev 2:3, 10).

[6:20]  ¹⁴ sn A tenth of an ephah is about 2.3 liters, one day’s ration for a single person (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:306).

[6:20]  ¹⁵ tn For the rendering “choice wheat flour” see the note on Lev 2:1.

[6:21]  ¹⁶ tn The term rendered here “well soaked” (see, e.g., NRSV; the Hebrew term is מֻרְבֶּכֶת, murbbekhet) occurs only three times (here; 7:12, and 1 Chr 23:29), and is sometimes translated “well-mixed” (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT; NASB “well stirred”; NAB “well kneaded”). The meaning is uncertain (J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:399-400), but in Lev 7:12 it stands parallel to already prepared grain offerings either “mixed” (the Hebrew term is בְּלוּלֹת (bÿlulot), not מֻרְבֶּכֶת as in Lev 6:21 [6:14 HT]) or anointed with oil.

[6:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “broken bits [?] of a grain offering of pieces,” but the meaning of the Hebrew term rendered here “broken bits” (תֻּפִינֵי, tufiney) is quite uncertain. Some take it from the Hebrew verb “to break up, to crumble” (פַּת [pat]; e.g., the Syriac, NAB, NIV, NLT “broken” pieces) and others from “to bake” (אָפַה, ’afah; e.g., NRSV “baked pieces”). For a good summary of other proposed options, see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 90. Compare Lev 2:5-6 for the general regulations regarding this manner of grain offering. Similar but less problematic terminology is used there.

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and” rather than “or” (cf. also the next “or”).

[7:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and all made in the pan”; cf. KJV “fryingpan”; NAB “deep-fried in a pot.”

[7:17]  ²⁰ 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).

[8:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “toward the altar” (see the note on Lev 1:9).

[14:31]  ²² tn Heb “and the one a burnt offering on the grain offering.”

[22:25]  ²³ tn Heb “And from the hand of a son of a foreigner.”

[22:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “for their being ruined [is] in them, flaw is in them”; NRSV “are mutilated, with a blemish in them”; NIV “are deformed and have defects.” The MT term מָשְׁחָתָם (moshkhatam, “their being ruined”) is a Muqtal form (= Hophal participle) from שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to ruin”). Smr has plural בהם משׁחתים (“deformities in them”; cf. the LXX translation). The Qumran Leviticus scroll (11QpaleoLev) has תימ הם[…], in which case the restored participle would appear to be the same as Smr, but there is no בְּ (bet) preposition before the pronoun, yielding “they are deformed” (see D. N. Freedman and K. A. Mathews, The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, 41 and the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 358).