6. Separate … from among. This meaning of the Hebrew idiom qaḥ … mittôk is suggested by the
parallel statement in v 14, below: wehibdaltā
… mittôk ‘You shall separate … from among’.
purify. The verb ṭihhēr
‘to purify’, used to characterize procedures that were part of the levitical
dedication, is highly significant. One normally purifies someone or something
that was impure to start with. Thus the Sanctuary required purification because
it would be defiled by the impurities of the Israelites (Lev 16:19, 30). A
diseased person also required purification, a fact that further links this
chapter to the rites prescribed for the treatment of disease in Leviticus
13–14.
At no point is the verb ṭihhēr employed in describing the
investiture of the Aaronide priests, in Leviticus 8–9; though, to be sure,
purification was essential for the soon-to-be priests. But such procedures are
not conveyed by the verb ṭihhēr. The
implications of this distinction will be explored in the Comment that follows.
For now, it suffices to point out that it is the conception of the Levites as
an offering presented to God that holds the key to their purification.
7. water of purification. Three acts were involved in purifying the
Levites: laundering their clothing, shaving their body hair, and sprinkling
special water on their persons. Laundering and shaving are hardly exceptional
procedures in purificatory rites (cf. Lev 14:8–9; Numbers 19). It remains,
however, to explain the precise function of water in the present process, a
function expressed in the unique term mê ḥaṭṭāʾt,
translated “water of purification.” It is unlikely that the term ḥaṭṭāʾt refers here to a sin offering,
in the usual sense, because no water is directly associated with such
sacrifices. Some commentators, medieval and modern (thus Gray—ICC, for
instance) have identified mê ḥaṭṭāʾt
with mê niddāh ‘water of lustration,
of sprinkling’, which occurs in Num 19:9, 13, 20 and 31:23. This identification
is improbable, as is explained in the Notes on Num 19:9.
The verbal form wehiṭṭehhārû represents the hithpaʿel stem, in a pausal position.
The unassimilated form hitṭahhārû
became hiṭṭahhārû by assimilation of
the first tau to ṭeṭ. In turn, the pausal position produced hiṭṭehhārû. The hithpaʿel
of ṭ-h-r is employed quite frequently
in ritual contexts (cf. Gen 35:2; Lev 14:19, 28; Isa 66:17; Neh 13:22).
Although mê ḥaṭṭāʾt is probably not to be identified with mê niddāh of Numbers 19, it is in Num
19:9 that we find a usage of ḥaṭṭāʾt
that approaches its sense here. Thus ḥaṭṭāʾt
hî ‘It is a [virtual] sin offering’ of Num 19:9 means that the water of
lustration, mixed with the ash of the red cow used there to purify those
contaminated by contact with a corpse, resembles
a sin offering because it, too, serves to purify! Literally, the sense of mê ḥaṭṭāʾt is “Water for the removal of
impurity, sinfulness.” Perhaps we should vocalize consonantal ḥ-ṭ-ʾ-t as ḥaṭṭôʾt, an infinitival form: “purifying, expiating,” hence “water
for purifying.” The form hazzēh
represents the hiphʿil imperative of n-z-h ‘to spatter’, hence “to sprinkle.”
The rare qal form of this verb occurs
in Lev 6:20. (Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1-20: A New Translation
with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 4; New Haven: Yale University Press,
2008], 274-75)
