22:23a

If we have built for ourselves an altar to turn away from Him: It may be more natural to begin a new sentence here. For example:

If we built an altar to turn away from the Lord (Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures)

to turn away from Him: This is the same phrase that was used in 22:16. See how you translated it there.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

If we have built ourselves an altar so that we could turn against Yahweh
-or-
If we built the altar in order to disobey Yahweh

22:23b

and: The Hebrew conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as and can also be translated as “or.”

to offer burnt offerings: The phrase burnt offerings was used in 8:31. You should translate this term the same way as in that verse. It refers to animals that were totally burned as an atonement for sins. See Letiticus 1:1-17 for more information about burnt offerings.

and grain offerings: The term grain offerings refers to offerings of wheat. For more information on grain offerings, see Letiticus 2:1-16.

or to sacrifice fellowship offerings on it: The phrase fellowship offerings refers to sacrifices in which part of the animal was burned, and the rest of the animal was eaten by the worshipers. Many English versions refer to these offerings as “peace offerings.” The people who ate the animal had fellowship with Yahweh. See Letiticus 3:1-17 for more information about peace/fellowship offerings.

The Hebrew word translated here as fellowship offerings was used in 8:31. See the note in 8:31a.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

or to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, and peace offerings on it,
-or-
And if we built an altar to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, or fellowship offerings on it,

22:23c

may the LORD Himself hold us accountable: The Hebrew sentence that the Berean Standard Bible translates as may the LORD Himself hold us accountable is more literally “May Yahweh himself demand.” This is an oath formula. They are asking Yahweh to punish them if they have sinned against him.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

may Yahweh himself demand an accounting from us
-or-
let Yahweh himself punish us

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.