¹tn Heb “A man his mother and his father you [plural] shall fear.” The LXX, Syriac, Vulgate, and certain Targum mss reverse the order, “his father and his mother.” The term “fear” is subject to misunderstanding by the modern reader, so the term “respect” has been used in the translation.
²sn Regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (<yl!yl!a$) see Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 126; Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 304; Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers, NBC, 89; and NIDOTTE 1:411. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with la@ (a$l, “god; God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless; weak; powerless; nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”
³tn Heb “for your acceptance.”
⁴tn Heb “from the following day” (HALOT 572).
⁵tn Heb “And if being eaten [infinitive absolute] it is eaten [finite verb].” For the infinitive absolute used to highlight contrast rather than emphasis see GKC §113.p.
⁶tn Or “desecrated,” or “defiled,” or “forbidden.” For this difficult term see Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 [AB], 422 on Lev 7:18.
⁷tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.
⁸sn Regarding “profaned,” see the note on Lev 10:10 above.
⁹tn Heb “the holiness of the Lord.”
¹⁰sn On the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.
¹¹tn Heb “And in your harvesting the harvest.”
¹²tn Heb “you shall not complete the corner of your field to harvest.”
¹³tn Heb “And you shall not deal severely with your vineyard.”
¹⁴tn Heb “you shall not deal falsely a man with his fellow citizen.”
¹⁵tn Heb “And you shall not swear to the falsehood.”
¹⁶tn Heb “and you shall not profane.”
¹⁷tn Heb “You shall not oppress your neighbor and you shall not rob.”
¹⁸tn Heb “hold back with you”; perhaps “hold back for yourself” (cf. NRSV “keep for yourself”).
¹⁹tn Heb “You shall not curse a deaf [person] and before a blind [person] you shall not put a stumbling block.”
²⁰tn Heb “And you shall fear….”
²¹tc The Samaritan Pentateuch has the sing. rather than the plural “you” of the MT, which brings this verb form into line with the ones surrounding it.
²²tn Heb “You shall not do injustice in judgment.”
²³tn Heb “You shall not lift up faces of poor [people] and you shall not honor faces of great.”
²⁴tn Heb “In righteousness you shall judge your fellow citizen.”
²⁵tn The term lyk!r` (r*k!l) is traditionally rendered “slanderer” here (NASB, NIV, NRSV, etc.; see also Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 304, 316), but the exact meaning is uncertain (see the discussion in Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 129). It is sometimes related to I lkr (“to go about as a trader [or ‘merchant’]”; BDB 940a), and taken to refer to cutthroat business dealings, but there may be a II lkr, the meaning of which is dubious (HALOT 1237). Some would render it “to go about as a spy.”
²⁶tn Heb “You shall not stand on the blood of your neighbor.” This part of the verse is also difficult to interpret. The rendering here suggests that one will not allow a neighbor to be victimized, whether in court (cf. v. 15) or in any other situation (see the discussion in Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 129).
²⁷tn Heb “and you will not lift up on him sin.”
sn The meaning of the line is somewhat obscure. It means that one either should rebuke one’s neighbor when he sins lest one also becomes guilty, which is the way it is rendered here (see NIV, NRSV, NEB, JB, Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 129-30, and Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 303, and the discussion on pp. 316-17), or may rebuke one’s neighbor without incurring sin just as long as he does not hate him in his heart (see the first part of the verse; cf. NASB, NAB).
²⁸tn Heb “and you shall not retain [anger?].” This line seems to refer to the retaining or maintaining of some vengeful feelings toward someone. Compare the combination of the same terms for taking vengeance and maintaining wrath against enemies in Nahum 1:2 (see Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 305).
²⁹sn Some scholars make a distinction between the verb bha (“to love”) with the direct object and the more unusual construction with the preposition l (lamed) as it is here and in Lev 19:34 and 2 Chr 19:2 only. If there is a distinction, the construction here probably calls for direct and helpful action toward one’s neighbor (see the discussion in Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 305 and esp. 317-18). Such love stands in contrast to taking vengeance or bearing a grudge against someone and, in NT terms, amounts to fulfilling the “golden rule” (Matt 7:12).
³⁰tn Heb “Your animals, you shall not cross-breed two different kinds.”
³¹tn Heb “you shall not cause to go up on you.”
³²sn Cf. Deut 22:11 where the Hebrew term translated “two different kinds” (<y]a^l=K!, K!la^y]<) refers to a mixture of linen and wool woven together in a garment.
³³tn Heb “And a man when he lies with a woman the lying of seed.”
³⁴sn That is, the woman had previously been assigned for marriage to another man but the marriage deal had not yet been consummated. In the meantime, the woman has lost her virginity and has, therefore, lost part of her value to the master in the sale to the man for whom she had been designated. Compensation was, therefore, required (see the explanation in Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 130-31).
³⁵sn On the guilt offering see the note on Lev 5:15 above.
³⁶tn Heb “on his sin which he has sinned.”
³⁷tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him.”
³⁸tn Heb “from his sin.”
³⁹tn Heb “tree of food.”
⁴⁰tn Heb “you shall circumcise its fruit [as] its foreskin,” taking the fruit to be that which is to be removed and, therefore, forbidden. Since the fruit is uncircumcised it is forbidden (see Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306 and esp. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 131-32).
⁴¹tn Heb “it shall be to you uncircumcised.”
⁴²tn See Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 132, where the translation reads “set aside for jubilation”; a special celebration before the Lord.
⁴³tn 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 [sa (“to gather”) rather than [sy (“to add; to increase”), rendering the verse, “to gather to you the produce” (Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 260, and see the versions referred to in Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306). Others take it 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, Leviticus [WBC], 303 and 306).
⁴⁴tn Heb “You shall not eat on the blood.” See the extensive remarks in Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 319-20 and Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 132-33). The LXX has “on the mountains,” suggesting that this is a prohibition against illegitimate places and occasions of worship, not the eating of blood.
⁴⁵tn Heb “You shall not practice divination and you shall not practice soothsaying.” For suggestions regarding the practices involved see Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 133 and Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 320.
⁴⁶tc Heb “and you [singular] shall not ruin the corner of your [singular] beard.” The Samaritan Pentateuch, LXX, Syriac, and Tg. Ps.-J. have the plural pronouns (i.e., “you” and “your” plural) rather than the singular of the MT.
⁴⁷tn Heb “And slash for the soul you shall not give.” The Hebrew term vp#n\ (“soul; person; life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 21:1, 5; 22:5). See Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306 and 320-21.
⁴⁸tn Heb “and a writing of incision you shall not give in you.”
⁴⁹tn Heb “to make her practice harlotry.”
⁵⁰tn Heb “and the land become full of lewdness.” Regarding “lewdness,” see the note on Lev 18:17 above.
⁵¹sn The prohibition here concerns those who would seek special knowledge through the spirits of the dead, whether the dead in general or dead relatives (i.e., familiar spirits; see Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 321 and Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 134). Cf. Lev 20:6 below.
⁵²tn Heb “And when a sojourner sojourns.”
⁵³tn Heb “and.”
⁵⁴tn That is, liquid capacity (HALOT 640).
⁵⁵tn Heb “balances of righteousness,” and so throughout this sentence.
⁵⁶sn An ephah is a dry measure which measures about four gallons, or perhaps one third of a bushel, and a hin is a liquid measure of about 3.6 liters (= ca. 1 quart).
⁵⁷tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC §120.d, although rmv (“to keep”) is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31, etc.).