Some versions have found it necessary to repeat the prohibition of alcoholic drinks at the beginning of this verse to make clear the connection with the preceding verse. Or verse 10 may begin with the words “This is to be done in order that you may distinguish….”

The holy and the common … the unclean and the clean: the Revised Standard Version rendering follows the order of the original literally. This kind of construction is commonly used in Hebrew and is called “chiasmus.” It appears most often at the end of a discourse unit. The elements are positioned like a kind of cross: (holy … common … unclean … clean) A-B-B-A. However, in ordinary English and in many other languages, this kind of construction is not common. It is more logical to reverse the order of the last two elements so that the parallelism of the two groups can become more apparent: (holy … common … clean … unclean) A-B-A-B. This is what Good News Translation has done. However, if the Hebrew-type structure is natural in the receptor language, it may be used in translation.

The basic meaning of the term holy is “that which belongs to God” or “especially dedicated to God,” and the opposite is common, “that which is not holy,” “that which is ordinary,” or “that which is for everyday use.” This meaning is clearly brought out in the Good News Translation rendering of this verse. The terms clean and unclean refer to ritual appropriateness and not to physical cleanliness.

A very important question for translators is whether or not the two pairs of words are intended as synonyms or whether the writer had in mind two different kinds of distinctions that were to be made by the priests. Are the two words holy and clean identical? And similarly, do common and unclean refer to the same thing? In the New Testament the latter two appear to be synonymous (Acts 10.28), but in the Old Testament a very good case can be made that they are considered two different states. This is the only occurrence in Leviticus of the noun translated common (which occurs only six times elsewhere in the Old Testament). It is quite possible that it refers to anything that is not holy and would therefore cover things both clean and unclean. As the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says, “in the Old Testament the common is ritually neutral and may be either clean or unclean” (Volume 1, page 663). The distinctions to be made by the priests could therefore be diagramed as follows:

The practical implication for all this for the translator is that one should not attempt to convey the impression that the two pairs of words are intended as synonyms. Translators should avoid the meaning “between the holy and that which is not holy, that is to say, between the ritually clean and the ritually unclean.” When the two pairs are separated by only a comma (as in Good News Translation), this is at least one way of understanding the rendering. It would be better to say something like “between the holy and that which is not holy, as well as between the ritually clean and the ritually unclean.” It will also be important to define these important terms in a glossary.

Note that the same two pairs of words occur in the same order in Ezekiel 22.26 and 44.23.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .