[693] The nearest passage to the _deliverance_ of the priests to Haggai is Lev. vi. 20, 21 (Heb.), 27, 28 (Eng.). This is part of the Priestly Code not promulgated till 445 B.C., but based, of course, on long extant custom, some of it very ancient. _Everything that touches the flesh_ (of the sin-offering, which is holy) _shall be holy_—יִקְדַּשׁ, the verb used by the priests in their answer to Haggai—_and when any of its blood has been sprinkled on a garment, that whereon it was sprinkled shall be washed in a holy place. The earthen vessel wherein it has been boiled shall be broken, and if it has been boiled in a brazen vessel, this shall be scoured and rinsed with water._ [694] So several old edd. and many codd., and adopted by Baer (see his note _in loco_) in his text. But most of the edd. of the Massoretic text read ביד after Cod. Hill. For the importance of the question see above, p. 227. [695] Torah. [696]‎ תְּמֵא נֶפֶשׁ. [697] There does not appear to be the contrast between indirect contact with a holy thing and direct contact with a polluted which Wellhausen says there is. In either case the articles whose character is in question stand second from the source of holiness and pollution—the holy flesh and the corpse. [698] See above, p. 245, n. 693. [699] Pusey, _in loco_. [700] The LXX. have here found inserted three other clauses: ἕνεκεν τὼν λημμάτων αὐτῶν τῶν ὀρθρινῶν, ὀδυνηθήσονται ἀπὸ προσώπου πόνων αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐμισεῖτε ἐν πύλαις ἐλέγχοντας. The first clause is a misreading (Wellhausen), יַעַן לִקְחֹתָם שַׁחַר for יַעַן לְקַחְתֶּם שֹׁחַד, _because ye take a bribe_, and goes well with the third clause, modified from Amos v. 10: שָׂנְאוּ בַשַּׁעַר מוֹכִיחַ, _they hate him who reproves in the gate_. These may have been inserted into the Hebrew text by some one puzzled to know what the source of the people’s pollution was, and who absurdly found it in sins which in Haggai’s time it was impossible to impute to them. The middle clause, יִתְעַנּוּ מִפְּנֵי עַצְבֵיהֶם, _they vex themselves with their labours_, is suitable to the sense of the Hebrew text of the verse, as Wellhausen points out, but besides gives a connection with what follows. [701] From this day and onward. [702] Heb. literally _since they were_. A.V. _since those days were_. [703] Winevat, יֶקֶב, is distinguished from winepress, גת, in Josh. ix. 13, and is translated by the Greek ὑπολήνιον Mark xii. I, ληνόν Matt. xxi. 33, _dug a pit for the winepress_; but the name is applied sometimes to the whole winepress—Hosea ix. 2 etc., Job xxiv. 11, _to tread the winepress_. The word translated _measures_, as in LXX. μετρητάς, is פּוּרָה, and that is properly the vat in which the grapes were trodden (Isa. lxiii. 3), but here it can scarcely mean fifty _vatfuls_, but must refer to some smaller measure—cask? [704] See above, pp. 228 f., n. 625.