Keluaran 40:23

40:23 And he set the bread in order on it ¹  before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Imamat 17:11

17:11 for the life of every living thing ²  is in the blood. ³  So I myself have assigned it to you ⁴  on the altar to make atonement for your lives, for the blood makes atonement by means of the life. ⁵ 

Imamat 21:6

21:6 “‘They must be holy to their God, and they must not profane ⁶  the name of their God, because they are the ones who present the Lord’s gifts, ⁷  the food of their God. Therefore they must be holy. ⁸ 

Imamat 21:8

21:8 You must sanctify him because he presents the food of your God. He must be holy to you because I, the Lord who sanctifies you all, ⁹  am holy.

Imamat 21:17

21:17 “Tell Aaron, ‘No man from your descendants throughout their generations ¹⁰  who has a physical flaw ¹¹  is to approach to present the food of his God.

Imamat 21:21

21:21 No man from the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a physical flaw may step forward ¹²  to present the Lord’s gifts; he has a physical flaw, so he must not step forward to present the food of his God.

Bilangan 4:7

4:7 “On the table of the presence ¹³  they must spread a blue ¹⁴  cloth, and put on it the dishes, the pans, the bowls, and the pitchers for pouring, and the Bread of the Presence must be on it continually.

Bilangan 28:2

28:2 “Command the Israelites: ¹⁵  ‘With regard to my offering, ¹⁶  be sure to offer ¹⁷  my food for my offering made by fire, as a pleasing aroma to me at its appointed time.’ ¹⁸ 

Amos 8:11-12

8:11 Be certain of this, ¹⁹  the time is ²⁰  coming,” says the sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land –

not a shortage of food or water

but an end to divine revelation! ²¹ 

8:12 People ²²  will stagger from sea to sea, ²³ 

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from ²⁴  the Lord,

but they will not find any. ²⁵ 

Yohanes 6:51

6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread ²⁶  that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

[40:23]  ¹ tn Heb uses a cognate accusative construction, “he arranged the arrangement.”

[17:11]  ² tn Heb “the life of the flesh.” Here “flesh” stands for “every living thing,” that is, all creatures (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT “every creature”; CEV “every living creature.”

[17:11]  ³ tn Heb “for the soul/life (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) of the flesh, it is in the blood” (cf. the note of v. 10 above and v. 14 below). Although most modern English versions begin a new sentence in v. 11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (see, e.g., NJPS, NASB, NIV, NRSV), the כִּי (ki, “for, because”) at the beginning of the verse suggests continuation from v. 10, as the rendering here indicates (see, e.g., NEB, NLT; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 261; and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 239).

[17:11]  sn This verse is a well-known crux interpretum for blood atonement in the Bible. The close association between the blood and “the soul/life [נֶפֶשׁ] of the flesh [בָּשָׂר, basar]” (v. 11a) begins in Gen 9:2-5 (if not Gen 4:10-11), where the Lord grants man the eating of meat (i.e., the “flesh” of animals) but also issues a warning: “But flesh [בָּשָׂר] with its soul/life [נֶפֶשׁ], [which is] its blood, you shall not eat” (cf. G. J. Wenham, Genesis [WBC], 1:151 and 193). Unfortunately, the difficulty in translating נֶפֶשׁ consistently (see the note on v. 10 above) obscures the close connection between the (human) “person” in v. 10 and “the life” (of animals, 2 times) and “your (human) lives” in v. 11, all of which are renderings of נֶפֶשׁ. The basic logic of the passage is that (a) no נֶפֶשׁ should eat the blood when he eats the בָּשָׂר of an animal (v. 10) because (b) the נֶפֶשׁ of בָּשָׂר is identified with the blood that flows through and permeates it (v. 11a), and (c) the Lord himself has assigned (i.e., limited the use of) animal blood, that is, animal נֶפֶשׁ, to be the instrument or price of making atonement for the נֶפֶשׁ of people (v. 11b). See the detailed remarks and literature cited in R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:693-95, 697-98.

[17:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “And I myself have given it to you.”

[17:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “for the blood, it by (בְּ, bet preposition, “in”] the life makes atonement.” The interpretation of the preposition is pivotal here. Some scholars have argued that it is a bet of exchange; that is, “the blood makes atonement in exchange for the life [of the slaughtered animal]” (see R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:694-95, 697 for analysis and criticism of this view). It is more likely that, as in the previous clause (“your lives”), “life/soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) here refers to the person who makes the offering, not the animal offered. The blood of the animal makes atonement for the person who offers it either “by means of” (instrumental bet) the “life/soul” of the animal, which it symbolizes or embodies (the meaning of the translation given here); or perhaps the blood of the animal functions as “the price” (bet of price) for ransoming the “life/soul” of the person.

[21:6]  ⁶ sn Regarding “profane,” see the note on Lev 10:10 above.

[21:6]  ⁷ sn Regarding the Hebrew term for “gifts,” see the note on Lev 1:9 above (cf. also 3:11 and 16 in combination with the word for “food” that follows in the next phrase here).

[21:6]  ⁸ tc Smr and all early versions have the plural adjective “holy” rather than the MT singular noun “holiness.”

[21:8]  ⁹ tn The three previous second person references in this verse are all singular, but this reference is plural. By adding “all” this grammatical distinction is preserved in the translation.

[21:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to their generations.”

[21:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “who in him is a flaw”; cf. KJV, ASV “any blemish”; NASB, NIV “a defect.” The rendering “physical flaw” is used to refer to any birth defect or physical injury of the kind described in the following verses (cf. the same Hebrew word also in Lev 24:19-20). The same term is used for “flawed” animals, which must not be offered to the Lord in Lev 22:20-25.

[21:21]  ¹² tn Or “shall approach” (see HALOT 670 s.v. נגשׁ).

[4:7]  ¹³ sn The Hebrew actually has the “table of faces,” and this has been traditionally rendered “table of shewbread.”

[4:7]  ¹⁴ tn The Greek has “violet” instead of blue. This is also the case in vv. 8, 10, and 14.

[28:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and say to them.” These words have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[28:2]  ¹⁶ tn Th sentence begins with the accusative “my offering.” It is suspended at the beginning as an independent accusative to itemize the subject matter. The second accusative is the formal object of the verb. It could also be taken in apposition to the first accusative.

[28:2]  ¹⁷ tn The construction uses the imperfect tense expressing instruction, followed by the infinitive construct used to express the complement of direct object.

[28:2]  ¹⁸ sn See L. R. Fisher, “New Ritual Calendar from Ugarit,” HTR 63 (1970): 485-501.

[8:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the days are.”

[8:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

[8:12]  ²² tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:12]  ²³ tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

[8:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

[8:12]  ²⁵ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[6:51]  ²⁶ tn Grk “And the bread.”