Leviticus

Chapters

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12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21
22. 22
23. 23
24. 24
25. 25
26. 26
27. 27

In the maps

• Leviticus 16:29

  On the Day of Atonement Israel must 'afflict' or 'deny' themselves. Pitre reports Jacob Milgrom's finding that the oldest interpretations of this verse include abstinence from marital relations among the acts of self-denial (Mishnah, Yoma 8:1), alongside fasting (pp 97–98). Since Numbers 30 uses the same idiom for a woman's vow, a vow 'to afflict the soul' can be a vow of sexual abstinence — the key that makes the Numbers 30 argument for Mary's vow work.