Bilangan 6:3

6:3 he must separate ¹  himself from wine and strong drink, he must drink neither vinegar ²  made from wine nor vinegar made from strong drink, nor may he drink any juice ³  of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins. ⁴ 

Bilangan 6:9

Contingencies for Defilement

6:9 “‘If anyone dies very suddenly ⁵  beside him and he defiles ⁶  his consecrated head, ⁷  then he must shave his head on the day of his purification – on the seventh day he must shave it.

Bilangan 18:24

18:24 But I have given ⁸  to the Levites for an inheritance the tithes of the Israelites that are offered ⁹  to the Lord as a raised offering. That is why I said to them that among the Israelites they are to have no inheritance.”

Bilangan 18:28

18:28 Thus you are to offer up a raised offering to the Lord of all your tithes which you receive from the Israelites; and you must give the Lord’s raised offering from it to Aaron the priest.

Bilangan 19:13

19:13 Anyone who touches the corpse of any dead person and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. And that person must be cut off from Israel, ¹⁰  because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him. He will be unclean; his uncleanness remains on him.

Bilangan 27:3

27:3 “Our father died in the wilderness, although ¹¹  he was not part of ¹²  the company of those that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but he died for his own sin, ¹³  and he had no sons.

Bilangan 29:6

29:6 this is in addition to the monthly burnt offering and its grain offering, and the daily burnt offering with its grain offering and their drink offerings as prescribed, as a sweet aroma, a sacrifice made by fire to the Lord.

Bilangan 35:6

35:6 Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ¹⁴  And you must give them forty-two other towns.

Bilangan 35:33

35:33 “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

[6:3]  ¹ tn The operative verb now will be the Hiphil of נָזַר (nazar); the consecration to the Lord meant separation from certain things in the world. The first will be wine and strong drink – barley beer (from Akkadian sikaru, a fermented beer). But the second word may be somewhat wider in its application than beer. The Nazirite, then, was to avoid all intoxicants as a sign of his commitment to the Lord. The restriction may have proved a hardship in the daily diet of the one taking the vow, but it spoke a protest to the corrupt religious and social world that used alcohol to excess.

[6:3]  ² tn The “vinegar” (חֹמֶץ, homets) is some kind of drink preparation that has been allowed to go sour.

[6:3]  ³ tn This word occurs only here. It may come from the word “to water, to be moist,” and so refer to juice.

[6:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “dried” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[6:9]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea within the conditional clause.

[6:9]  ⁷ 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.

[18:24]  ⁸ tn The classification of the perfect tense here too could be the perfect of resolve, since this law is declaring what will be their portion – “I have decided to give.”

[18:24]  ⁹ tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject (although the “Israelites” is certainly intended), and so it can be rendered as a passive.

[19:13]  ¹⁰ sn It is in passages like this that the view that being “cut off” meant the death penalty is the hardest to support. Would the Law prescribe death for someone who touches a corpse and fails to follow the ritual? Besides, the statement in this section that his uncleanness remains with him suggests that he still lives on.

[27:3]  ¹¹ tn This clause begins with a vav (ו) on a pronoun, marking it out as a disjunctive vav. In this context it fits best to take it as a circumstantial clause introducing concession.

[27:3]  ¹² tn Heb “in the midst of.”

[27:3]  ¹³ tn The word order is emphatic: “but in/on account of his own sins he died.”

[35:6]  ¹⁴ tn The “manslayer” is the verb “to kill” in a participial form, providing the subject of the clause. The verb means “to kill”; it can mean accidental killing, premeditated killing, or capital punishment. The clause uses the infinitive to express purpose or result: “to flee there the manslayer,” means “so that the manslayer may flee there.”