Imamat 9:12

The Burnt Offering for the Priests

9:12 He then slaughtered the burnt offering, and his sons ¹  handed ²  the blood to him and he splashed ³  it against the altar’s sides.

Imamat 19:25

19:25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest. ⁴  I am the Lord your God.

[9:12]  ¹ tn For smoothness in the English translation, “his” was used in place of “Aaron’s.”

[9:12]  ² tn The verb is a Hiphil form of מָצָא, matsa’, “to find” (i.e., causative, literally “to cause to find,” but here the meaning is “to hand to” or “pass to”; see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 117-18, and J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:581-82). The distinction between this verb and “presented” in v. 9 above (see the note there) is that in v. 9 Aaron’s sons held the bowl while Aaron manipulated some of the blood at the altar, while here in v. 12 they simply handed the bowl to him so he could splash all the blood around on the altar (Milgrom, 581).

[9:12]  ³ tn For “splashed” (also in v. 18) see the note on Lev 1:5.

[19:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “to add to you its produce.” The rendering here assumes that the point of this clause is simply that finally being allowed to eat the fruit in the fifth year adds the fruit of the tree to their harvest. Some take the verb to be from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”) rather than יָסַף (yasaf, “to add; to increase”), rendering the verse, “to gather to you the produce” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 260, and see the versions referenced in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306). Others take it to mean that by following the regulations given previously they will honor the Lord so that the Lord will cause the trees to increase the amount of fruit they would normally produce (Hartley, 303, 306; cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).