Footnotes

1. Numbers 19:11 tn The form is the participle with the article functioning as a substantive: “the one who touches.”
2. Numbers 19:11 tn Heb “the dead.”
3. Numbers 19:11 tn The expression is full: לְכָל־נֶפֶשׁ אָדָם (l^ekhol nefesh ʾadam)—of any life of a man, i.e., of any person.
4. Numbers 19:11 tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it follows only the participle used as the subject, but since the case is hypothetical and therefore future, this picks up the future time. The adjective “ceremonially” is supplied in the translation as a clarification.
5. Numbers 19:12 tn The verb is the Hitpael of חָטָא (khataʾ), a verb that normally means “to sin.” But the Piel idea in many places is “to cleanse; to purify.” This may be explained as a privative use (“to un-sin” someone, meaning cleanse) or denominative (“make a sin offering for someone”). It is surely connected to the purification offering, and so a sense of purify is what is wanted here.
6. Numbers 19:13 sn It is in passages like this that the view that being “cut off” meant the death penalty is the hardest to support. Would the Law prescribe death for someone who touches a corpse and fails to follow the ritual? Besides, the statement in this section that his uncleanness remains with him suggests that he still lives on.
7. Numbers 19:14 tn The word order gives the classification and then the condition: “a man, when he dies….”
8. Numbers 19:16 tn The expression for “in the open field” is literally “upon the face of the field” (עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה, ʿal p^ene hassadeh). This ruling is in contrast now to what was contacted in the tent.
9. Numbers 19:16 tn Heb “a dead body,” but in contrast to the person killed with a sword, this must refer to someone who died of natural causes.
10. Numbers 19:16 sn See Matt 23:27 and Acts 23:3 for application of this by the time of Jesus.
11. Numbers 19:17 tn The verb is the perfect tense, third masculine plural, with a vav (ו) consecutive. The verb may be worded as a passive, “ashes must be taken,” but that may be too awkward for this sentence. It may be best to render it with a generic “you” to fit the instruction of the text.
12. Numbers 19:17 tn The word “heifer” is not in the Hebrew text, but it is implied.
13. Numbers 19:17 tn Here too the verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; rather than make this passive, it is here left as a direct instruction to follow the preceding one. For the use of the verb נָתַן (natan) in the sense of “pour,” see S. C. Reif, “A Note on a Neglected Connotation of ntn,” VT 20 (1970): 114-16.
14. Numbers 19:17 tn The expression is literally “living water.” Living water is the fresh, flowing spring water that is clear, life-giving, and not the collected pools of stagnant or dirty water.
15. Numbers 19:19 tn The construction uses a simple Piel of חָטָא (khataʾ, “to purify”) with a pronominal suffix—“he shall purify him.” Some commentators take this to mean that after he sprinkles the unclean then he must purify himself. But that would not be the most natural way to read this form.
16. Numbers 19:21 tn The form has the conjunction with it: וּמַזֵּה (umazzeh). The conjunction subordinates the following as the special law. It could literally be translated “and this shall be…that the one who sprinkles.”
17. Numbers 19:21 sn This gives the indication of the weight of the matter, for “until the evening” is the shortest period of ritual uncleanness in the Law. The problem of contamination had to be taken seriously, but this was a relatively simple matter to deal with—if one were willing to obey the Law.