Footnotes

1. Numbers 15:25 tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive (וְכִפֶּר, v^ekhipper) to continue the instruction of the passage: “the priest shall make atonement,” meaning the priest is to make atonement for the sin (thus the present translation). This verb means “to expiate,” “to atone for,” “to pacify.” It describes the ritual events by which someone who was separated from the holy Lord God could find acceptance into his presence through the sacrificial blood of the substitutionary animal. See Lev 1 and Num 16:41-50.
2. Numbers 15:26 tn Again, rather than translate literally “and it shall be forgiven [to] them” (all the community), one could say, “they (all the community) will be forgiven.” The meaning is the same.
3. Numbers 15:27 tn The Hebrew text has וְאִם־נֶפֶשׁ אַחַת (v^eʾim nefesh ʾakhat), sometime translated “and if any soul.” But the word describes the whole person, the soul in the body; it refers here to the individual who sins.