Imamat 23:33-44

The Festival of Booths

23:33 The Lord spoke to Moses: 23:34 “Tell the Israelites, ‘On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Festival of Temporary Shelters ¹  for seven days to the Lord. 23:35 On the first day is a holy assembly; you must do no regular work. ²  23:36 For seven days you must present a gift to the Lord. On the eighth day there is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must present a gift to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly day; ³  you must not do any regular work.

23:37 “‘These are the appointed times of the Lord that you must proclaim as holy assemblies to present a gift to the Lord – burnt offering, grain offering, sacrifice, and drink offerings, ⁴  each day according to its regulation, ⁵  23:38 besides ⁶  the Sabbaths of the Lord and all your gifts, votive offerings, and freewill offerings which you must give to the Lord.

23:39 “‘On ⁷  the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the produce of the land, you must celebrate a pilgrim festival of the Lord for seven days. On the first day is a complete rest and on the eighth day is complete rest. 23:40 On the first day you must take for yourselves branches from majestic trees ⁸  – palm branches, branches of leafy trees, and willows of the brook – and you must rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 23:41 You must celebrate it as a pilgrim festival to the Lord for seven days in the year. This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations; ⁹  you must celebrate it in the seventh month. 23:42 You must live in temporary shelters ¹⁰  for seven days; every native citizen in Israel must live in temporary shelters, 23:43 so that your future generations may know that I made the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”

23:44 So Moses spoke to the Israelites about the appointed times of the Lord. ¹¹ 

Mazmur 51:19

51:19 Then you will accept ¹²  the proper sacrifices, burnt sacrifices and whole offerings;

then bulls will be sacrificed ¹³  on your altar. ¹⁴ 

Mikha 6:6-8

6:6 With what should I ¹⁵  enter the Lord’s presence?

With what ¹⁶  should I bow before the sovereign God? ¹⁷ 

Should I enter his presence with burnt offerings,

with year-old calves?

6:7 Will the Lord accept a thousand rams,

or ten thousand streams of olive oil?

Should I give him my firstborn child as payment for my rebellion,

my offspring – my own flesh and blood – for my sin? ¹⁸ 

6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good,

and what the Lord really wants from you: ¹⁹ 

He wants you to ²⁰  promote ²¹  justice, to be faithful, ²² 

and to live obediently before ²³  your God.

Roma 12:1

Consecration of the Believer’s Life

12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ²⁴  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²⁵  – which is your reasonable service.

Ibrani 13:16

13:16 And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, ²⁶  for God is pleased with such sacrifices.

[23:34]  ¹ tn The rendering “booths” (cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV) is probably better than the traditional “tabernacles” in light of the meaning of the term סֻכָּה (sukkah, “hut, booth”), but “booths” are frequently associated with trade shows and craft fairs in contemporary American English. The nature of the celebration during this feast (see the following verses) as a commemoration of the wanderings of the Israelites after they left Egypt suggests that a translation like “temporary shelters” is more appropriate.

[23:35]  ² tn Heb “work of service”; KJV “servile work”; NASB “laborious work”; TEV “daily work.”

[23:36]  ³ tn The Hebrew term עֲצֶרֶת (’atseret) “solemn assembly [day]” derives from a root associated with restraint or closure. It could refer either to the last day as “closing assembly” day of the festival (e.g., NIV) or a special day of restraint expressed in a “solemn assembly” (e.g., NRSV); cf. NLT “a solemn closing assembly.”

[23:37]  ⁴ tn The LXX has “[their] burnt offerings, and their sacrifices, and their drink offerings.”

[23:37]  ⁵ tn Heb “a matter of a day in its day”; NAB “as prescribed for each day”; NRSV, NLT “each on its proper day.”

[23:38]  ⁶ tn Heb “from to separation.” See BDB 94 s.v. בַּד 1.e for an explanation of this phrase. This phrase is repeated in front of each of the four items in this verse in the Hebrew text, but these have not been translated into English for stylistic reasons. Cf. KJV, NASB “besides”; NRSV “apart from.”

[23:39]  ⁷ tn Heb “Surely on the fifteenth day.” The Hebrew adverbial particle אַךְ (’akh) is left untranslated by most recent English versions; however, cf. NASB “On exactly the fifteenth day.”

[23:40]  ⁸ tn Heb “fruit of majestic trees,” but the following terms and verses define what is meant by this expression. For extensive remarks on the celebration of this festival in history and tradition see B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 163; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 389-90; and P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 328-29.

[23:41]  ⁹ tn Heb “for your generations.”

[23:42]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the huts” (again at the end of this verse and in v. 43), perhaps referring to temporary shelters (i.e., huts) made of the foliage referred to in v. 40 (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 389).

[23:44]  ¹¹ sn E. S. Gerstenberger (Leviticus [OTL], 352) takes v. 44 to be an introduction to another set of festival regulations, perhaps something like those found in Exod 23:14-17. For others this verse reemphasizes the Mosaic authority of the preceding festival regulations (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 390).

[51:19]  ¹² tn Or “desire, take delight in.”

[51:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “then they will offer up bulls.” The third plural subject is indefinite.

[51:19]  ¹⁴ sn Verses 18-19 appear to reflect the exilic period, when the city’s walls lay in ruins and the sacrificial system had been disrupted.

[6:6]  ¹⁵ sn With what should I enter the Lord’s presence? The prophet speaks again, playing the role of an inquisitive worshiper who wants to know what God really desires from his followers.

[6:6]  ¹⁶ tn The words “with what” do double duty in the parallelism and are supplied in the second line of the translation for clarification.

[6:6]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the exalted God.”

[6:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is often translated “soul,” but the word usually refers to the whole person; here “the sin of my soul” = “my sin.”

[6:8]  ¹⁹ sn What the Lord really wants from you. Now the prophet switches roles and answers the hypothetical worshiper’s question. He makes it clear that the Lord desires proper attitudes more than ritual and sacrifice.

[6:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “except.” This statement is actually linked with what precedes, “What does he want from you except….”

[6:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “to do,” in the sense of “promote.”

[6:8]  ²² tn Heb “to love faithfulness.”

[6:8]  ²³ tn Heb “to walk humbly [or perhaps, “carefully”] with.”

[12:1]  ²⁴ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[12:1]  ²⁵ tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

[12:1]  sn Taken as predicate adjectives, the terms alive, holy, and pleasing are showing how unusual is the sacrifice that believers can now offer, for OT sacrifices were dead. As has often been quipped about this text, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.”

[13:16]  ²⁶ tn Grk “neglect doing good and fellowship.”