And on the day that he goes into the holy place, into the inner court, to minister in the holy place: On the day that he goes refers to the end of the seven days. The holy place is the Temple building; the inner court is the courtyard that surrounds the Temple building. Logically, these two places should be mentioned in the reverse order because a person had to go into the courtyard first in order to get to the Temple. Translations have handled this problem in different ways. The Septuagint omits the holy place and simply has the priest going into the inner courtyard (so also New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, Moffatt). New King James Version , on the other hand, retains the holy place and omits the inner court. Others change the order of these phrases; for example, Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version say “the inner courtyard of the Temple” (similarly New International Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). Hebrew Old Testament Text Project insists that the holy place should be retained. The best solution is to retain both phrases but place them in their logical order; for example, New Living Translation begins this verse with “The first day he returns to work and enters the inner courtyard and the sanctuary.”

He shall offer his sin offering: Even though the priest became ritually clean seven days earlier, he still must offer a sacrifice to atone for the fact that he became unclean by being near, or touching, a dead body. For sin offering, see the comments on 40.39.

Says the Lord GOD: For this solemn, formal declaration by God, see verse 12.

Good News Translation takes the clause to minister in the holy place with the following clause to show the purpose for the sin offering. In Hebrew this clause goes with the previous words to show why the priest is going into the Temple, that is, “to serve in the temple” (New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version), to conduct the sacred rituals. At most, translators may indicate that the priest must sacrifice the sin offering before he begins the rituals. Contemporary English Version does this by rendering this verse as “he must go to the inner courtyard of the temple and offer a sacrifice for sin. After that, he may once again serve as my priest. I, the LORD God, have spoken” (similarly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Another possible model is:

• Then he may go into the inner courtyard and the sanctuary to perform his duties as a priest. But before he can do them, he must first bring a sin offering for himself. I, the Lord Yahweh, have spoken.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .