Keluaran 12:15

12:15 For seven days ¹  you must eat ²  bread made without yeast. ³  Surely ⁴  on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast ⁵  from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off ⁶  from Israel.

Keluaran 12:19

12:19 For seven days ⁷  yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast – that person ⁸  will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a foreigner ⁹  or one born in the land.

Keluaran 30:33-38

30:33 Whoever makes perfume like it and whoever puts any of it on someone not a priest ¹⁰  will be cut off ¹¹  from his people.’”

30:34 The Lord said to Moses: “Take ¹²  spices, gum resin, ¹³  onycha, ¹⁴  galbanum, ¹⁵  and pure frankincense ¹⁶  of equal amounts ¹⁷  30:35 and make it into an incense, ¹⁸  a perfume, ¹⁹  the work of a perfumer. It is to be finely ground, ²⁰  and pure and sacred. 30:36 You are to beat some of it very fine and put some of it before the ark of the testimony in the tent of meeting where I will meet with you; it is to be most holy to you. 30:37 And the incense that you are to make, you must not make for yourselves using the same recipe; it is to be most holy to you, belonging to the Lord. 30:38 Whoever makes anything like it, to use as perfume, ²¹  will be cut off from his people.”

[12:15]  ¹ tn This expression is an adverbial accusative of time. The feast was to last from the 15th to the 21st of the month.

[12:15]  ² tn Or “you will eat.” The statement stresses their obligation – they must eat unleavened bread and avoid all leaven.

[12:15]  ³ tn The etymology of מַצּוֹת (matsot, “unleavened bread,” i.e., “bread made without yeast”) is uncertain. Suggested connections to known verbs include “to squeeze, press,” “to depart, go out,” “to ransom,” or to an Egyptian word “food, cake, evening meal.” For a more detailed study of “unleavened bread” and related matters such as “yeast” or “leaven,” see A. P. Ross, NIDOTTE 4:448-53.

[12:15]  ⁴ tn The particle serves to emphasize, not restrict here (B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 183, n. 15).

[12:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “every eater of leavened bread.” The participial phrase stands at the beginning of the clause as a casus pendens, that is, it stands grammatically separate from the sentence. It names a condition, the contingent occurrences of which involve a further consequence (GKC 361 §116.w).

[12:15]  ⁶ tn The verb וְנִכְרְתָה (vÿnikhrÿtah) is the Niphal perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it is a common formula in the Law for divine punishment. Here, in sequence to the idea that someone might eat bread made with yeast, the result would be that “that soul [the verb is feminine] will be cut off.” The verb is the equivalent of the imperfect tense due to the consecutive; a translation with a nuance of the imperfect of possibility (“may be cut off”) fits better perhaps than a specific future. There is the real danger of being cut off, for while the punishment might include excommunication from the community, the greater danger was in the possibility of divine intervention to root out the evildoer (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 94). Gesenius lists this as the use of a perfect with a vav consecutive after a participle (a casus pendens) to introduce the apodosis (GKC 337 §112.mm).

[12:15]  sn In Lev 20:3, 5-6, God speaks of himself as cutting off a person from among the Israelites. The rabbis mentioned premature death and childlessness as possible judgments in such cases, and N. M. Sarna comments that “one who deliberately excludes himself from the religious community of Israel cannot be a beneficiary of the covenantal blessings” (Exodus [JPSTC], 58).

[12:19]  ⁷ tn “Seven days” is an adverbial accusative of time (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 12, §56).

[12:19]  ⁸ tn The term is נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), often translated “soul.” It refers to the whole person, the soul within the body. The noun is feminine, agreeing with the feminine verb “be cut off.”

[12:19]  ⁹ tn Or “alien”; or “stranger.”

[30:33]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a stranger,” meaning someone not ordained a priest.

[30:33]  ¹¹ sn The rabbinic interpretation of this is that it is a penalty imposed by heaven, that the life will be cut short and the person could die childless.

[30:34]  ¹² tn The construction is “take to you,” which could be left in that literal sense, but more likely the suffix is an ethical dative, stressing the subject of the imperative.

[30:34]  ¹³ sn This is from a word that means “to drip”; the spice is a balsam that drips from a resinous tree.

[30:34]  ¹⁴ sn This may be a plant, or it may be from a species of mollusks; it is mentioned in Ugaritic and Akkadian; it gives a pungent odor when burnt.

[30:34]  ¹⁵ sn This is a gum from plants of the genus Ferula; it has an unpleasant odor, but when mixed with others is pleasant.

[30:34]  ¹⁶ tn The word “spice is repeated here, suggesting that the first three formed half of the ingredient and this spice the other half – but this is conjecture (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 400).

[30:34]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “of each part there will be an equal part.”

[30:35]  ¹⁸ tn This is an accusative of result or product.

[30:35]  ¹⁹ tn The word is in apposition to “incense,” further defining the kind of incense that is to be made.

[30:35]  ²⁰ tn The word מְמֻלָּח (mÿmullakh), a passive participle, is usually taken to mean “salted.” Since there is no meaning like that for the Pual form, the word probably should be taken as “mixed,” as in Rashi and Tg. Onq. Seasoning with salt would work if it were food, but since it is not food, if it means “salted” it would be a symbol of what was sound and whole for the covenant. Some have thought that it would have helped the incense burn quickly with more smoke.

[30:38]  ²¹ tn Or to smell it, to use for the maker’s own pleasure.