Core Glossary
08 — Core Glossary: Leviticus (English → Mandarin)
This glossary extends the baseline Romans translation_memory.json. All baseline entries are reused exactly where the same term recurs (神, 圣洁, 罪, 约, 恩典, 主, 外邦人, 圣灵, 基督). New Leviticus-specific terms below follow the same schema and risk-tier conventions as the baseline package. Citations reference every chapter of Leviticus (1–27) per the full-book coverage mandate.
Legend
- Risk: Critical / High / Medium / Low (per baseline
doctrine_risk_registry.jsondefinitions) - Reused from baseline: term already fixed in the Romans Language Package; renderings below MUST NOT deviate
- New: introduced in this Leviticus glossary
A. Terms Reused Exactly from Baseline
| Term | Mandarin | Transliteration | Risk | Leviticus citations | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | 神 | Shén | Critical | throughout (1:1, 11:44–45, 19:2, 26:1, etc.) | Reuse baseline exactly; Leviticus’s dense repetition of “I am the LORD your God” (see §C below) intensifies rather than changes the baseline risk profile. |
| Holy | 圣洁 | shèngjié | High | 11:44–45, 19:2, 20:7, 20:26, 21:8 | Reuse baseline exactly. Leviticus is the primary OT source of the “Be holy, for I am holy” refrain central to the curriculum’s Holiness doctrine. |
| Holy Spirit | 圣灵 | Shènglíng | Critical | (rare in Lev.; cf. general OT Spirit-of-God references, not prominent in this book) | Reuse baseline exactly; flag that Leviticus itself makes minimal explicit Spirit-reference — avoid importing NT pneumatology anachronistically into exegesis of this book. |
| Sin | 罪 | zuì | High | 4:1–35, 5:1–13, 16:16, 16:21, 19:17, 20:20 | Reuse baseline exactly. Corresponds to Hebrew חַטָּאת (chatta’ah) in its “sin” sense (as distinct from its “sin offering” sense — see below). |
| Covenant | 约 | yuē | High | 2:13 (“salt of the covenant”), 24:8, 26:9, 26:15, 26:25, 26:42–45 | Reuse baseline exactly. |
| Grace | 恩典 | ēndiǎn | Critical | (concept present via 施恩座, “seat of grace,” 16:2,13–15; not a frequent standalone noun in Lev.) | Reuse baseline exactly; teach the etymological link between 施恩座 and 恩典 explicitly (see 08.B “mercy seat” entry). |
| Lord (title, not the Name) | 主 | zhǔ | Critical | used for אֲדֹנָי/Adonai as a title; NOT used to render יהוה (YHWH) | Reuse baseline exactly; see new entry “YHWH / 耶和华” below for the necessary distinction unique to OT translation. |
| Gentiles | 外邦人 | wàibāngrén | Medium | conceptually relevant background to 19:33–34’s “sojourner” (see new entry below), though Leviticus’s own vocabulary is גֵּר (ger), not the NT-era “nations” category | Reuse baseline term only where “Gentiles/nations” is the actual referent; do not substitute for 寄居的 (sojourner), which is a distinct Levitical category. |
| Messiah/Christ | 基督 | Jīdū | Critical | typologically anticipated via “anointed” priest (16:32, 4:3, 21:10) | Reuse baseline exactly; do not use 基督 itself for OT priestly “anointed one” (see new entry “anointed” below) — keep the type (anointed priest) distinct in vocabulary from its NT fulfillment term, while flagging the typological link in teaching notes. |
B. New Terms Introduced in Leviticus
| Term | Original (Hebrew) | Transliteration | Literal meaning | Mandarin | Risk | Doctrine | Alternatives rejected | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atonement (verb: to atone) | כִּפֵּר | kipper | ”to cover/appease/wipe clean” | 赎罪 | Critical | Sacrificial System and Atonement; Day of Atonement | 遮盖罪孽 (too literal/opaque), 补偿 (bǔcháng, “compensate” — too transactional/secular) | CUV-established rendering. Must be taught as a God-ordained, blood-mediated, substitutionary removal of sin’s guilt — never as self-directed penance, community-service “atonement,” or the secular Chinese sense of 赎罪 as an offender voluntarily making up for a wrong through personal effort. Distinct from baseline 称义 (justification, forensic declaration) and 救恩 (salvation, received deliverance): 赎罪 names the sacrificial mechanism, not the resulting status or state. |
| Day of Atonement | יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים | Yom HaKippurim | ”Day of the Atonements” (plural intensive) | 赎罪日 | Critical | Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) | — | CUV-established. The one annual day on which the high priest enters the Most Holy Place; central to the core passage. Teaching must retain “once a year” (16:34) as a deliberate mark of the old covenant’s incompleteness, contrasted with the “once for all” language the NT applies to Christ (a forward link, not to be imported into the OT text itself). |
| Sin offering | חַטָּאת | chatta’ah | ”sin(-offering)” — same root as sin itself | 赎罪祭 | Critical | Sacrificial System and Atonement | 罪祭 (ambiguous, could be misread as “sin’s own offering”) | Distinguish from guilt offering (赎愆祭) and from “sin” alone (罪, baseline). The offering that deals with unintentional sin and general uncleanness before God. |
| Guilt/trespass offering | אָשָׁם | asham | ”guilt, liability requiring restitution” | 赎愆祭 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement | 赎罪祭 (conflates with sin offering, losing the restitution component) | Combines atonement with quantifiable restitution (e.g., 6:1–7); must retain the repayment dimension. |
| Burnt offering | עֹלָה | olah | ”that which ascends/goes up” | 燔祭 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement | 烧祭 (colloquial, imprecise) | Wholly consumed offering; total consecration to God. Distinguish from paper/incense burning to ancestors (烧纸), which sends provision to the dead rather than offering total consecration to the living God. |
| Grain/tribute offering | מִנְחָה | minchah | ”gift, tribute” | 素祭 | Medium | Sacrificial System and Atonement | 蔬菜祭 (overly literal) | Bloodless component of the sacrificial system; not to be equated with Buddhist vegetarian merit-offerings. |
| Peace/fellowship offering | שֶׁלֶם / זֶבַח שְׁלָמִים | shelamim | ”offering(s) of well-being/wholeness” | 平安祭 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement | — | Shares the character 平安 flagged in baseline (Medium risk there, folk-amulet collision); here the collision is compounded as it names a sacrificial category. Signifies restored covenant fellowship secured through atoning blood, not a purchased talisman of good fortune. |
| Offering (general) | קָרְבָּן | qorban | ”that which is brought near” | 祭物 / 供物 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement | 礻物, 供品 (too close to folk temple offering-tray vocabulary without qualification) | Must be distinguished from reciprocal-favor offerings to ancestors (祭祖) or folk deities (上供), which are gift-transactions seeking appeasement or favor. The Levitical qorban is God’s own prescribed means of approach to himself. |
| Blood | דָּם | dam | ”blood” | 血 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement; Scapegoat and Substitution | — | Carries “life” (see נֶפֶשׁ below, ch.17); the atoning medium given by God, not a magically potent substance for oath-binding (血誓) or folk exorcism ritual. |
| Priest | כֹּהֵן | kohen | ”one who stands/mediates [before God]“ | 祭司 | High | The Priesthood and Mediation | 和尚 (Buddhist monk — rejected), 道士 (Daoist priest — rejected), 巫师 (shaman/sorcerer — rejected) | The Levitical priest is a God-appointed mediator performing prescribed atonement on behalf of the people, prefiguring Christ as great High Priest (cf. Hebrews). Must not be conflated with a ritual specialist who generates merit, luck, or supernatural power through technique (神通/法力, already rejected in baseline for other terms), nor with a Daoist temple priest performing rites for a fee. |
| High priest | כֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל | kohen ha-gadol | ”the great priest” | 大祭司 | High | The Priesthood and Mediation; Day of Atonement | — | The sole mediator permitted into the Most Holy Place, and only once a year, and only with blood. |
| Anointed / anointing oil | מָשׁוּחַ / מִשְׁחָה | mashuach / mishchah | ”smeared/rubbed with oil” | 受膏的 / 膏油 | High | The Priesthood and Mediation | — | Shares the root מָשַׁח that underlies Mashiach/Messiah (基督, baseline Critical term). Teaching must make this typological bridge explicit rather than assume the reader infers it. |
| Consecration / ordination | מִלֻּאִים | milu’im | lit. “fillings” (of the hand, i.e., installation into office) | 承接圣职 | Medium | The Priesthood and Mediation | 受戒 (Buddhist monastic ordination — rejected) | Formal installation into a divinely delegated mediating office, not entry into a self-cultivating monastic lineage. |
| Altar | מִזְבֵּח | mizbeach | ”place of slaughter/sacrifice” | 祭坛 | Medium | Sacrificial System and Atonement | 神坛 (too close to generic folk/ancestral altar without qualification) | The single, divinely designated site of sacrifice, distinct from household or temple altars to other spirits. |
| Most Holy Place / Holy of Holies | קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים | qodesh ha-qodashim | ”holy of holies” (superlative construction) | 至圣所 | High | The Holiness of God; Day of Atonement | 圣地 (too generic — used for any pilgrimage sacred site) | God’s dwelling-place behind the veil, accessible only via blood atonement through the one appointed mediator — not a naturally numinous site open to devotees generally, unlike a Daoist “sacred grotto” (洞天福地) or Buddhist pilgrimage site (圣地). |
| Veil / curtain | פָּרֹכֶת | parochet | ”screen, dividing curtain” | 幔子 | Medium | The Holiness of God; The Priesthood and Mediation | — | Marks the barrier holiness imposes; theologically loaded given its tearing at Christ’s death (Matt 27:51) — a forward link worth flagging, not to be imported into the OT text itself. |
| Mercy seat / atonement cover | כַּפֹּרֶת | kapporet | ”covering” (from כָּפַר, “to atone/cover”) | 施恩座 | Critical | Sacrificial System and Atonement; Day of Atonement | 盖子 (too mundane, loses theological weight), 宝座 (too regal, loses atoning-specific function) | LXX renders this ἱλαστήριον, the same Greek word Paul applies to Christ in Romans 3:25 — a direct intertextual bridge to the baseline Romans package. Shares 恩 with baseline 恩典 (grace); must be taught as the specific locus of atoning grace, not generic furniture. |
| Ark of the Covenant | אֲרוֹן הָעֵדֻת / אֲרוֹן הַבְּרִית | aron ha-edut / aron ha-berit | ”chest of the testimony/covenant” | 约柜 | Medium | The Holiness of God; The Priesthood and Mediation | — | Directly compounds baseline 约 (covenant); low ambiguity, established Christian term. |
| Cloud (of God’s presence) | עָנָן | anan | ”cloud” | 云彩 | Medium | The Holiness of God | — | God’s veiling, manifest presence; distinct from clouds in Chinese immortal/celestial imagery (仙云, deities riding clouds in folk-Daoist iconography) — brief clarifying note recommended. |
| Lot (casting of) | גּוֹרָל | goral | a marked object cast to determine an outcome | 签 / 抽签 | Medium | Day of Atonement; Scapegoat and Substitution | — | Distinguish from folk divination fortune-stick drawing (求签), already flagged as a rejected practice-analog in the baseline “prophecy”/“election” notes; here it is a one-time, God-directed ritual assignment mechanism, not a technique for reading personal fate. |
| Azazel | עֲזָאזֵל | Azazel | uncertain — proper name/place/figure | 阿撒泻勒 | High | Scapegoat and Substitution; Day of Atonement | — | Transliteration retained per CUV. Requires explanatory teaching note given genuine scholarly disagreement over referent; the text does not depict Israel worshiping or sacrificing “to” Azazel — the goat is sent away, not slain in Azazel’s honor. |
| Scapegoat (doctrinal concept) | (composite — the goat “for Azazel,” 16:8–10, 20–22) | — | “the goat that departs bearing another’s guilt” | 替罪羊 (doctrine name); 归给阿撒泻勒的羊 (in-text technical referent) | Critical | The Scapegoat and Substitution | — | 替罪羊 is common secular Mandarin for an unjustly blamed scapegoat-victim (an injustice). The Levitical scapegoat is the reverse: a divinely appointed, willingly enacted symbol of substitutionary removal of sin, not an unfair human scapegoating. Every doctrinal use requires this clarifying note. |
| Lay hands (identification/transfer gesture) | סָמַךְ (יָד) | samakh (yad) | “to lean/press [the hand] firmly upon” | 按手 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement; Scapegoat and Substitution | — | An identification/transfer gesture in sacrificial and scapegoat contexts; distinct from the NT laying-on-of-hands for blessing/commissioning (a related but not identical usage to flag for cross-curricular consistency). |
| Confess (sin) | הִתְוַדָּה | hitvadah | ”to acknowledge/admit openly” | 认罪 | Medium | Day of Atonement; Sacrificial System and Atonement | — | Specific, named acknowledgment of guilt, not vague general sorrow. |
| Iniquity | עָוֹן | avon | ”crookedness,” moral guilt/culpability | 罪孽 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement; Day of Atonement | — | One of three near-synonym terms (with pesha/过犯 and chattah/罪 within baseline) appearing together at 16:21; the distinctions should be taught even though English often collapses all three to “sin.” |
| Transgression | פֶּשַׁע | pesha | willful rebellion, breach of relationship | 过犯 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement | — | See note under 罪孽 above. |
| Bear/carry (away) | נָשָׂא | nasa | ”to lift, carry, bear” | 担 / 背负 | Critical | The Scapegoat and Substitution | 赔偿 (bǔcháng/péicháng, “compensate” — wrongly commercial) | The scapegoat’s guilt-removal action-verb; physical, ritual removal from the community, not a commercial payment transaction. Foundational to the Substitution doctrine’s vocabulary. |
| Wilderness | מִדְבָּר | midbar | uninhabited desert region | 旷野 | Medium | The Scapegoat and Substitution | — | A place of “no return” for the removed guilt; low ambiguity as a geographic term but thematically weighted. |
| Afflict the soul (fast) | עָנָה נֶפֶשׁ | innah nephesh | ”to humble/afflict one’s life-self” | 刻苦己心 | High | Day of Atonement; Holiness and Call to Be Holy | 苦行 (Buddhist ascetic self-mortification for merit — rejected as equivalence) | Commanded, once-a-year repentant self-denial within an already God-initiated atoning rite — not a self-generated ascetic technique for merit or enlightenment. |
| Perpetual statute | חֻקַּת עוֹלָם | chuqqat olam | ”a decree/statute forever” | 永远的定例 | Medium | Sabbath and Sacred Time; Day of Atonement | — | A fixed divine ordinance for the covenant community; distinct from a vague cosmic-order “eternal principle” (道/天理 register). |
| Sabbath (weekly) | שַׁבָּת | shabbat | ”cessation, rest” | 安息日 | Medium | Sabbath and Sacred Time | 休息日 (generic “day off” — loses covenantal/creation-rest significance) | Established term; low collision risk but doctrinally important — rest grounded in trust in God’s provision and in the creation pattern (cf. Gen. 2:2–3), not mere labor-law scheduling. |
| Sabbath of solemn rest | שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן | shabbat shabbaton | ”a Sabbath of Sabbath-ness” (intensive) | 圣安息日 | Medium | Sabbath and Sacred Time; Day of Atonement | — | The most solemn rest-day of the calendar (applied to Day of Atonement, 16:31, and elsewhere). |
| Sabbath year | שְׁמִטָּה | shemittah | ”release, letting-drop” | 安息年 | Medium | Sabbath and Sacred Time | — | Extends Sabbath-rest logic to the land itself every seventh year. |
| Jubilee | יוֹבֵל | yovel | ”ram’s horn” (the trumpet that announces it) | 禧年 | Medium-High | Sabbath and Sacred Time | 新年 (visually/phonetically similar — flagged to prevent confusion, not a true doctrinal collision) | Periodic, structural release of debts, land, and slaves — a picture of God’s redemptive justice built into Israel’s calendar, not a generic new-year celebration. |
| Redeem / redemption (kinsman-redeemer) | גָּאַל | ga’al | ”to redeem, buy back [as a kinsman’s duty]“ | 救赎 / 赎 | High | Sabbath and Sacred Time; Sacrificial System and Atonement | 赎当 (pawnshop redemption — too commercial/trivial if used without qualification) | Distinct from baseline 救恩 (salvation, the received state): 救赎/赎 names the act of buying back, rooted in kinship obligation and covenant mercy, not mere commercial repossession. |
| Appointed feast(s) | מוֹעֵד | mo’ed | ”appointed time/place of meeting” | 节期 | Medium | Sabbath and Sacred Time | 传统节日 (generic Chinese traditional festival — insufficiently distinguishes redemptive-historical commemoration from agricultural/ancestral commemoration) | God’s own fixed redemptive calendar (Passover, Firstfruits, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles), not a generic cultural holiday. |
| Clean (ritually) | טָהוֹר / טָהֵר | tahor / taher | ritually pure, cleared for approach to God | 洁净 | High | Clean and Unclean; Day of Atonement | 清净 (Daoist/Buddhist meditative/ritual purity through practice — visually similar, one character different: 洁 vs. 清 — flag explicitly to prevent transcription/typing confusion) | Result-state of a God-declared or God-effected status change, not a state of hygienic tidiness or meditative attainment. |
| Unclean (ritually) | טָמֵא / טֻמְאָה | tame / tumah | ritual impurity | 不洁净 / 污秽 | High | Clean and Unclean | 罪 alone (would wrongly equate all impurity with sin — over-collapse) | Broader than “sinful”: ordinary bodily processes (childbirth, skin conditions, discharges) can render a person unclean without moral fault; must not be flattened into a synonym for baseline 罪. |
| Detestable / abomination (dietary) | שֶׁקֶץ | sheqetz | ”detestable thing” | 可憎的 | Medium-High | Clean and Unclean | — | Marks certain animals as outside Israel’s covenant diet, a boundary-marking category, not a claim about the animal’s inherent evil. |
| Skin disease (“leprosy”) | צָרַעַת | tsara’at | a category of skin/hair/fabric/house conditions | 大麻风 | Medium | Clean and Unclean; The Priesthood and Mediation | 皮肤病 (too narrowly modern-clinical) | Broader than Hansen’s disease; the priest’s role is diagnostic/declarative (discerning and pronouncing status), not therapeutic — reinforcing the mediating, declarative priestly function. |
| Nakedness (euphemism for sexual relations) | עֶרְוָה | ervah | ”nakedness, exposure” | 露…的下体 | High | Clean and Unclean (sexual ethics); Holiness | — | A necessary euphemism-for-euphemism rendering; must remain clear, not vague, while retaining appropriate register. |
| Abomination (moral/sexual) | תּוֹעֵבָה | to’evah | ”abomination, detestable act” | 可憎恶的事 | High | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy | — | Marks acts as incompatible with Israel’s covenant holiness; culturally sensitive in contemporary discourse but must not be softened. |
| Neighbor | רֵעַ | rea | ”companion, fellow, associate” | 邻舍 | High | Love of Neighbor (Lev 19:18) | 邻居 (línjū — modern “neighbor next door,” mere physical proximity, loses covenant-community and later universalized ethical scope) | The command “love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18) grounds covenant-community ethics; later universalized by Christ (the Good Samaritan) beyond ethnic Israel — teaching should flag this trajectory without collapsing Leviticus’s own in-context scope. |
| Sojourner / stranger | גֵּר | ger | ”resident alien, one who dwells temporarily” | 寄居的 | High | Love of Neighbor; Unity of Peoples (cf. baseline Gentiles note) | 外邦人 (baseline term — distinct category: “nations” generally, vs. ger, a specific resident-alien legal status within Israel) | Explicitly extends neighbor-love to non-Israelites resident in the land (19:33–34), grounded in Israel’s own memory of being sojourners in Egypt. |
| Mediums / spiritists | בַּעֲלֵי אוֹב / יִדְּעֹנִי | (various — ba’alei ov, yidde’oni) | “masters of a spirit/ghost,” “knowing ones” | 交鬼的 / 行巫术的 | High | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy | — | Direct collision with Chinese ancestor-spirit consultation and folk mediumship (通灵); covenant holiness excludes seeking guidance from any spirit-source other than God himself. |
| Cut off (from the people) | כָּרַת | karat | ”to cut, sever” | 剪除 | Medium-High | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy | 惩罚 (generic “punish” — loses the covenant-severance sense) | Names exclusion from the covenant community/access to God’s holiness, not merely a generic penalty. |
| Without blemish / whole | תָּמִים | tamim | ”complete, whole, without defect” | 无残疾的 / 没有残疾的 | Medium | Sacrificial System and Atonement; The Priesthood and Mediation | — | Applies to both sacrificial animals (ch.1) and priests themselves (ch.21); typologically anticipates Christ’s sinless perfection (1 Pet. 1:19) — not merely a cosmetic/physical standard. |
| Strange/unauthorized fire | אֵש זָרָה | esh zarah | ”foreign/strange fire” | 凡火 | High | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy; The Priesthood and Mediation | — | Illustrates that approach to God’s holiness must be entirely on his prescribed terms; any human liturgical innovation is lethal (ch.10, Nadab and Abihu). |
| Blasphemy / profaning the Name | קִלֵּל / נִקֵּב שֵׁם | (various) | “to curse/pierce [utter] the Name” | 亵渎 | Medium-High | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy | — | Distinguishes profaning God’s holy name from ordinary rudeness or social taboo-breaking. |
| Curse (covenantal) | קְלָלָה | qelalah | ”curse” | 咒诅 | Medium-High | Sabbath and Sacred Time (covenant blessing/curse structure); Holiness | 作法/施咒 (folk magical curse-casting — rejected equivalence) | God’s own articulated consequence for covenant unfaithfulness, not an impersonal or third-party magical hex. |
| Vow | נֶדֶר | neder | ”a vow, solemn promise” | 许愿 | High | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy | — | 许愿 is common in Chinese folk-temple practice for a conditional, transactional promise made to a deity in exchange for a hoped-for favor. The Levitical vow is unconditional, addressed to the one true covenant God, and must be kept regardless of outcome — a clarifying note is required wherever used doctrinally. |
| Dedicate / consecrate | קָדַש / הֶקְדֵּשׁ | qadash / hekdesh | ”to set apart as holy” | 分别为圣 / 献给耶和华为圣 | Medium | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy | — | Reuses the 圣 root shared with baseline 圣洁; reinforces holiness vocabulary at the book’s structural close. |
| Life (in the blood) | נֶפֶשׁ | nephesh | ”life, living being, life-self” (not a Platonic/Greek “soul”) | 生命 | High | Sacrificial System and Atonement; Scapegoat and Substitution | 灵魂 (línghún, “soul” in a Western dualistic sense — risks importing body/soul dualism foreign to nephesh) | “The life of the flesh is in the blood” (17:11, 17:14) — the ground for the entire atoning function of blood; must not be read through Greek/Platonic soul-body dualism. |
| YHWH (the covenant Name) | יְהוָה | YHWH | the personal covenant name of God | 耶和华 | Critical | Holiness of God and Call to Be Holy (recurring “I am the LORD” formula) | 主 alone (a title, not the Name — used for Adonai/kyrios in baseline NT contexts) | CUV-established rendering of the Tetragrammaton. Must be kept distinct from baseline 主 (a title): Leviticus’s ethical commands are repeatedly grounded in God’s own covenant-name identity (“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt”), not in an abstract moral order. |
C. Summary Risk Distribution (Leviticus New Terms)
| Risk Tier | Count (new Leviticus terms) | Review routing (per baseline convention) |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 7 (赎罪, 赎罪日, 赎罪祭, 施恩座, 替罪羊/scapegoat concept, 担/背负 [nasa], 耶和华) | Human theologian review, every occurrence |
| High | 19 | Human theologian review |
| Medium-High | 6 | Human theologian review (treated as High for routing purposes) |
| Medium | 15 | Native speaker review |
| Low | 0 new terms rise only to Low; ritual-object nouns (cedar wood, scarlet thread, hyssop) are Low but not tabulated as standalone doctrine-bearing terms |
All Critical and High tier terms above require human theologian review per every occurrence, consistent with doctrine_risk_registry.json risk-tier conventions in the baseline package. This glossary should be merged into an updated translation_memory.json (version increment) before Phase 2 segment translation begins.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: 神
Transliteration: Shén
Doctrine: God
Rejected alternatives: 上帝, 天, 老天爷
Original: אֱלֹהִים / יהוה
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Leviticus’s dense repetition of ‘I am the LORD your God’ (see yhwh entry) intensifies rather than changes the baseline caution that 神 is also the generic Chinese noun for any deity/spirit; every occurrence in a Leviticus holiness command must make monotheistic exclusivity explicit.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: 圣灵
Transliteration: Shènglíng
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: 祖灵, 灵
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Leviticus itself makes minimal explicit Spirit-reference; avoid importing NT pneumatology anachronistically into exegesis of this book. Retained here for cross-curricular consistency.
Grace
Approved rendering: 恩典
Transliteration: ēndiǎn
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: 功德, 造化, 福气, 阴德
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Leviticus does not use 恩典 as a frequent standalone noun, but the concept is present through 施恩座 (‘seat of bestowed grace’, the mercy seat, Lev 16:2, 13-15), which shares the root 恩. Teach the etymological and doctrinal link explicitly: the one place atonement occurs is named for unearned grace, directly countering the merit-ledger worldview (功德, 阴德).
Lord
Approved rendering: 主
Transliteration: zhǔ
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: 主人, 老爷
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. In Leviticus this title renders אֲדֹנָי (Adonai) only; it must NEVER be used to render the covenant Name יהוה (YHWH), which is rendered 耶和华 (see yhwh entry). Collapsing the Name into this generic title would erase Leviticus’s repeated grounding of its commands in God’s own covenant-name identity.
Messiah
Approved rendering: 基督
Transliteration: Jīdū
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: 弥勒, 救世主式泛称
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Typologically anticipated in Leviticus by the anointed high priest (16:32, 4:3, 21:10) via the shared root מָשַׁח/mashach. Do NOT use 基督 itself for the OT priestly ‘anointed one’ term (受膏的); keep the type and its NT fulfillment term lexically distinct while flagging the typological bridge explicitly in teaching notes.
Yhwh
Approved rendering: 耶和华
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá
Doctrine: The Divine Name Formula (“I Am the LORD”)
Rejected alternatives: 主 (alone), 天, 老天爷
Original: יהוה
Category: God
CUV-established rendering of the Tetragrammaton. Must be kept lexically distinct from 主 (a title used for Adonai/kyrios) and from the generic, impersonal 天 (‘Heaven’) that many Confucian/Daoist-formed readers will otherwise default to. Leviticus grounds its entire ethical and ritual system in the recurring formula ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt’ (e.g. 11:44-45, 18:2-5, 19:1-37, 20:7-8, 26:1-13) — a personal, redemptive-historical grounding, not an abstract moral order (道/天理). This formula recurs roughly 50 times, concentrated in chs. 18-26; consistency of 耶和华 across every occurrence is mandatory.
Atonement Kipper
Approved rendering: 赎罪
Transliteration: shúzuì
Doctrine: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Rejected alternatives: 遮盖罪孽, 补偿
Original: כִּפֵּר
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
CUV-established rendering of כִּפֵּר (kipper), ‘to cover/appease/wipe clean’. Must never be taught as self-directed penance, community-service restitution, or the secular Mandarin sense of an offender independently ‘making up for’ a wrong through personal effort. Always a God-ordained, blood-mediated, substitutionary removal of sin’s barrier. Distinct from baseline 称义 (justification, forensic status) and 救恩 (salvation, received deliverance): 赎罪 names the sacrificial mechanism, not the resulting state.
Day Of Atonement
Approved rendering: 赎罪日
Transliteration: shúzuìrì
Doctrine: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Original: יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים
Category: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
CUV-established. The single annual day (Lev 16, 23:26-32) on which the high priest enters the Most Holy Place with blood. ‘Once a year’ (16:34) must be preserved as marking the old covenant’s repeated, incomplete provision — a deliberate contrast with NT ‘once for all’ language that belongs only in forward-linking teaching notes, never imported into the OT rendering itself. Must never be conflated with 中元节 (Ghost Festival) or 超度 rites for the dead; this rite addresses the living community’s guilt before a holy God.
Sin Offering
Approved rendering: 赎罪祭
Transliteration: shúzuìjì
Doctrine: Sin Offering and Guilt Offering
Rejected alternatives: 罪祭
Original: חַטָּאת
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
CUV-established. The prescribed sacrifice dealing with unintentional sin and general uncleanness before God (Lev 4-6). Reject 罪祭 as ambiguous (could be misread as ‘sin’s own offering’). Must be kept distinct from 赎愆祭 (guilt offering) and from 罪 (sin) alone.
Mercy Seat
Approved rendering: 施恩座
Transliteration: shī ēn zuò
Doctrine: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Rejected alternatives: 盖子, 宝座
Original: כַּפֹּרֶת
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
The gold cover of the ark (כַּפֹּרֶת, kapporet), the specific locus of atoning encounter between God and Israel through sprinkled blood (Lev 16:2, 13-15). Shares the character 恩 with baseline 恩典 (grace, Critical); this deliberate link must be taught explicitly. LXX renders this ἱλαστήριον, the identical Greek word Paul applies to Christ in Romans 3:25 — a direct intertextual bridge to the baseline Romans package that should be surfaced in teaching notes. Never flatten to 盖子 (‘lid’) or 宝座 (overly regal ‘throne’).
Scapegoat
Approved rendering: 替罪羊
Transliteration: tìzuìyáng
Doctrine: The Scapegoat and Substitution
替罪羊 is common secular Mandarin for a person UNJUSTLY blamed for others’ faults — the theological opposite of the Levitical rite (Lev 16:5-10, 20-22), which is a divinely appointed, willingly enacted ritual symbol of substitutionary sin-removal. For the specific in-text ritual referent, use 归给阿撒泻勒的羊 rather than the loaded secular idiom alone. Every doctrinal use of 替罪羊 requires this clarifying note; automated review alone is insufficient.
Bear Carry
Approved rendering: 担
Transliteration: dān
Doctrine: The Scapegoat and Substitution
Rejected alternatives: 赔偿, 补偿
To lift, carry, or bear away (נָשָׂא, nasa) — the scapegoat’s guilt-removal action, physically and ritually removing sin from the community (Lev 16:22). Must not be rendered with a commercial-payment term such as 赔偿/补偿, which would wrongly suggest a financial transaction. 背负 (bēifù) may be used as a stylistic variant carrying the same sense. This is the foundational substitution verb of Leviticus 16.
High Risk Terms
Holy
Approved rendering: 圣洁
Transliteration: shèngjié
Doctrine: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Rejected alternatives: 清净, 圣人般的
Original: קָדוֹשׁ
Category: Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7, 20:26, 21:8 are the primary OT source of the ‘Be holy, for I am holy’ refrain central to this curriculum’s Holiness doctrine; must not be read as Daoist/Buddhist ritual-purity attainment (清净) or ascetic withdrawal. Holiness in Leviticus is enacted through obedience within ordinary communal and cultic life, not achieved by self-cultivation.
Sin
Approved rendering: 罪
Transliteration: zuì
Doctrine: Sin
Rejected alternatives: 报应, 罪犯式的罪
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Corresponds to the Hebrew root חַטָּאת (chatta’ah) in its ‘sin’ sense, as distinct from its ‘sin offering’ sense (see sin_offering entry). In Leviticus must be kept distinct from 不洁净 (ritual impurity), a broader category that does not always imply moral fault.
Covenant
Approved rendering: 约
Transliteration: yuē
Doctrine: Covenant
Rejected alternatives: 合同, 契约
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Recurs throughout Leviticus (2:13 ‘salt of the covenant’, 24:8, 26:9-45). Avoid ordinary commercial contract terms, which suggest a negotiated agreement between equals rather than a gracious relational bond God initiates and keeps.
Guilt Offering
Approved rendering: 赎愆祭
Transliteration: shúqiānjì
Doctrine: Sin Offering and Guilt Offering
Rejected alternatives: 赎罪祭
Original: אָשָׁם
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Combines atonement with a quantifiable restitution component (e.g. Lev 5:16, 6:5, ‘plus one-fifth’). Must not be flattened into 赎罪祭, which would lose the repayment dimension; atonement does not substitute for repairing material wrongs to a neighbor.
Burnt Offering
Approved rendering: 燔祭
Transliteration: fánjì
Doctrine: Burnt Offering and Total Consecration
Rejected alternatives: 烧祭
Original: עֹלָה
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Wholly consumed offering signifying total consecration (Lev 1, 6:8-13). Must be distinguished from burning paper offerings to ancestors (烧纸), which provisions the dead; this offering is total consecration presented to the living God.
Peace Offering
Approved rendering: 平安祭
Transliteration: píng’ānjì
Doctrine: The Peace/Fellowship Offering
Original: שֶׁלֶם / זֶבַח שְׁלָמִים
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Offering of well-being/wholeness (Lev 3, 7:11-21). Reuses the character 平安, already flagged Medium risk in the baseline for colliding with folk-amulet ‘safety and good fortune’ language; here the risk is compounded since it names an entire sacrificial category. Teach as restored covenant fellowship secured through atoning blood, never a purchased talisman of good fortune.
Offering Qorban
Approved rendering: 祭物
Transliteration: jìwù
Doctrine: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Rejected alternatives: 供品
General category term for ‘that which is brought near’ (קָרְבָּן, qorban). Must be distinguished from reciprocal-favor offerings to ancestors (祭祖) or folk deities (上供), which are gift-transactions seeking appeasement or favor. The Levitical qorban is God’s own prescribed means of approach to himself.
Blood
Approved rendering: 血
Transliteration: xuè
Doctrine: The Sanctity of Blood and Life
Original: דָּם
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
The atoning medium carrying life (Lev 17:11, 14). Must not collide with Chinese folk blood-oath/blood-bond concepts (血誓, 歇血为盟), which treat blood as a bonding or magically potent substance. In Leviticus, blood is the divinely designated locus of atoning life, given by God, belonging to God alone.
Priest
Approved rendering: 祭司
Transliteration: jìsī
Doctrine: The Priesthood and Mediation
Rejected alternatives: 和尚, 道士, 巫师
Original: כֹּהֵן
Category: The Priesthood and Mediation
God-appointed mediator performing prescribed atonement and instruction (כֹּהֵן, kohen). Must not be conflated with 和尚 (Buddhist monk), 道士 (Daoist priest), or 巫师 (shaman/sorcerer) — none of which capture a mediator who neither generates merit/power through technique nor performs paid ritual services independent of God’s specific commands. Prefigures Christ as great High Priest.
High Priest
Approved rendering: 大祭司
Transliteration: dàjìsī
Doctrine: The Priesthood and Mediation
Original: כֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל
Category: The Priesthood and Mediation
The sole mediator permitted into the Most Holy Place (Lev 16), and only once a year, and only with blood. Do not present as one elevated grade among interchangeable ritual specialists.
Anointed
Approved rendering: 受膏的
Transliteration: shòugāode
Doctrine: The Priesthood and Mediation
Original: מָשׁוּחַ / מִשְׁחָה
Category: The Priesthood and Mediation
‘Smeared/rubbed with oil’ (מָשׁוּחַ/מִשְׁחָה). Shares the root underlying Mashiach/Messiah (基督, baseline Critical term); this typological bridge must be made explicit in teaching notes (16:32, 4:3, 21:10, 8:12), never assumed. 基督 itself must never be used to render this OT priestly term.
Most Holy Place
Approved rendering: 至圣所
Transliteration: zhìshèngsuǒ
Doctrine: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Rejected alternatives: 圣地
Original: קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
God’s dwelling-place behind the veil, accessible only via blood atonement through the one appointed mediator, once a year (Lev 16). Avoid the generic 圣地, used for any pilgrimage sacred site; unlike a Daoist sacred grotto or Buddhist pilgrimage site, this space is not naturally numinous or open to devotees generally.
Azazel
Approved rendering: 阿撒泻勒
Transliteration: Āsāxièlè
Doctrine: The Scapegoat and Substitution
Original: עֲזָאזֵל
Category: The Scapegoat and Substitution
Transliteration retained per CUV. The uncertain referent (עֲזָאזֵל) — place, figure, or ‘the goat of removal’ — to which the live goat is sent (Lev 16:8-10). Requires an explanatory teaching note given genuine scholarly disagreement; the text depicts the goat being sent away, NOT slaughtered in worship of or sacrifice to Azazel. Must never be presented as Israel honoring a rival deity.
Lay Hands
Approved rendering: 按手
Transliteration: ànshǒu
Doctrine: The Scapegoat and Substitution
Original: סָמַךְ (יָד)
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
To press the hand(s) firmly upon a sacrificial animal or the scapegoat (סָמַךְ יָד, samakh yad) as an identification/transfer gesture (Lev 16:21). Distinct from the NT laying-on-of-hands for blessing/commissioning; flag this distinction for cross-curricular consistency.
Iniquity
Approved rendering: 罪孽
Transliteration: zuìniè
Doctrine: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Original: עָוֹן
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Moral guilt/culpability, lit. ‘crookedness’ (עָוֹן, avon) — one of three near-synonyms for wrongdoing named together at Lev 16:21. Distinct from 过犯 (willful rebellion) and baseline 罪 (missing the mark); teach the three-term cluster as distinct facets of sin even though English often collapses all three.
Transgression
Approved rendering: 过犯
Transliteration: guòfàn
Doctrine: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Original: פֶּשַׁע
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Willful rebellion, a deliberate breach of covenant relationship (פֶּשַׁע, pesha, Lev 16:21). See iniquity entry for the three-term cluster; must not be flattened into a simple synonym for 罪.
Afflict Soul
Approved rendering: 刻苦己心
Transliteration: kèkǔ jǐxīn
Doctrine: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Rejected alternatives: 苦行
Original: עָנָה נֶפֶשׁ
Category: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
To humble/afflict one’s life-self (עִנִּיתֶם אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם), traditionally understood as fasting, commanded once a year (Lev 16:29, 31; 23:27). Must be distinguished from Buddhist ascetic self-mortification (苦行) pursued for merit or enlightenment; this is a commanded, repentant response within an already God-initiated atoning rite, not a self-generated technique for spiritual attainment.
Jubilee
Approved rendering: 禧年
Transliteration: xǐnián
Doctrine: Sabbath Year, Jubilee, and Redemption
Rejected alternatives: 新年
Original: יוֹבֵל
Category: Sabbath and Sacred Time
The fiftieth-year structural release of debts, land, and slaves (יוֹבֵל, yovel, Lev 25). Visually and phonetically close to 新年 (‘New Year’) — flag explicitly to prevent readers from mistaking this for a generic new-year celebration. Gloss with ‘第五十年’ (the fiftieth year) at first occurrence per lesson unit.
Redeem
Approved rendering: 救赎
Transliteration: jiùshú
Doctrine: Sabbath Year, Jubilee, and Redemption
Rejected alternatives: 赎当
To redeem or buy back a person or property as a kinsman’s covenantal duty (גָּאַל, ga’al, Lev 25). Distinct from baseline 救恩 (salvation, the received state): this term names the act of buying back, rooted in kinship obligation and covenant mercy. Avoid the commercial pawnshop sense of 赎当 without qualification.
Clean
Approved rendering: 洁净
Transliteration: jiéjìng
Doctrine: Clean and Unclean
Rejected alternatives: 清净
Original: טָהוֹר / טָהֵר
Category: Clean and Unclean
Ritually pure, cleared for approach to God (טָהוֹר/טָהֵר, tahor/taher). Must not be confused with 清净 (Daoist/Buddhist meditative/ritual purity attained through practice) — a one-character visual collision (洁 vs 清) as much a proofreading risk as a conceptual one; flag for a dedicated automated string-check. This is a declared covenant status, not hygienic tidiness or meditative attainment.
Unclean
Approved rendering: 不洁净
Transliteration: bù jiéjìng
Doctrine: Clean and Unclean
Rejected alternatives: 罪 (alone)
Original: טָמֵא / טֻמְאָה
Category: Clean and Unclean
Ritual impurity (טָמֵא/טֻמְאָה, tame/tumah), which can arise from ordinary bodily processes (childbirth, skin conditions, discharges) without moral fault. Must not be flattened into a synonym for baseline 罪 (sin) — impurity is broader than sin, though it can also result from sin (as in Lev 16).
Nakedness Euphemism
Approved rendering: 露…的下体
Transliteration: lòu…de xiàtǐ
Doctrine: Sexual Ethics and Holiness
Original: עֶרְוָה
Category: Clean and Unclean
A euphemism for sexual relations (עֶרְוָה, ervah), used throughout the Leviticus 18 prohibitions. A necessary euphemism-for-euphemism rendering; must remain clear rather than vague while preserving appropriate formal register.
Abomination Moral
Approved rendering: 可憎恶的事
Transliteration: kězēngwù de shì
Doctrine: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Original: תּוֹעֵבָה
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
An abomination (תּוֹעֵבָה, to’evah) — an act marked as fundamentally incompatible with Israel’s covenant holiness. Culturally sensitive given contemporary discourse, but must not be softened; marks covenant incompatibility, distinct from a merely social taboo.
Neighbor
Approved rendering: 邻舍
Transliteration: línshè
Doctrine: Love of Neighbor (Leviticus 19:18)
Rejected alternatives: 邻居
Original: רֵעַ
Category: Love of Neighbor (Leviticus 19:18)
Companion, fellow, or associate (רֵעַ, rea) — object of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (Lev 19:18). Avoid 邻居 (‘neighbor next door’), which reduces the command to mere physical proximity and loses both the covenant-community scope and the later universalizing move Christ makes with this command (the Good Samaritan).
Sojourner
Approved rendering: 寄居的
Transliteration: jìjū de
Doctrine: Love of Neighbor (Leviticus 19:18)
Rejected alternatives: 外邦人
Original: גֵּר
Category: Love of Neighbor (Leviticus 19:18)
A resident alien dwelling temporarily among Israel (גֵּר, ger), explicitly included in the neighbor-love command (Lev 19:33-34). Distinct from baseline 外邦人 (Gentiles/nations generally): ger is a specific resident-alien legal status, grounded in Israel’s own memory of being sojourners in Egypt.
Mediums Spiritists
Approved rendering: 交鬼的
Transliteration: jiāoguǐ de
Doctrine: Prohibition of Mediums and Spiritism
Original: בַּעֲלֵי אוֹב / יִדְּעֹנִי
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Those who consult spirits or ghosts for guidance (בַּעֲלֵי אוֹב / יִדְּעֹנִי), forbidden to Israel (Lev 19:31, 20:6, 20:27). Direct collision with Chinese ancestor-spirit consultation and folk mediumship (通灵); covenant holiness excludes seeking guidance from any spirit-source other than God himself, including ancestral spirits — requires sensitive, non-dismissive framing given ancestor veneration’s cultural depth.
Cut Off
Approved rendering: 剪除
Transliteration: jiǎnchú
Doctrine: Covenant Penalties and Being Cut Off
Rejected alternatives: 惩罚
Original: כָּרַת
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
To be severed from the covenant community (כָּרַת, karat, Lev 20), by death penalty or divine action, for serious covenant violation. Must not be softened into generic 惩罚 (‘punished’); names severance from covenant relationship and access to God’s holiness.
Strange Fire
Approved rendering: 凡火
Transliteration: fánhuǒ
Doctrine: Unauthorized Worship (Strange Fire)
Original: אֵש זָרָה
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Unauthorized fire offered by Nadab and Abihu, resulting in their death (אֵש זָרָה, esh zarah, Lev 10). Illustrates that approach to God’s holiness must be entirely on his prescribed terms; any human innovation, however well-intended, is lethal. Distinct from Chinese folk-religious flexibility about ritual method across temples/practitioners — Leviticus permits exactly one authorized approach.
Blasphemy Profane Name
Approved rendering: 亵渎
Transliteration: xièdú
Doctrine: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Original: קִלֵּל / נִקֵּב שֵׁם
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
To curse or profane God’s holy name (קִלֵּל / נִקֵּב שֵׁם, Lev 24:11, 16). Distinguishes profaning God’s holy name from ordinary rudeness or breaking a social taboo; the seriousness attaches specifically to God’s name.
Curse Covenantal
Approved rendering: 咒诅
Transliteration: zhòuzǔ
Doctrine: Covenant Blessings and Curses
Rejected alternatives: 作法, 施咒
Original: קְלָלָה
Category: Covenant
God’s own articulated covenant consequence for unfaithfulness (קְלָלָה, qelalah, Lev 26). Must be distinguished from folk magical curse-casting (作法/施咒), an impersonal or third-party hex; the biblical covenant curse is God’s own direct, relational, previously announced consequence.
Vow
Approved rendering: 许愿
Transliteration: xǔyuàn
Doctrine: Vows and Dedication
Original: נֶדֶר
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
A solemn, voluntary promise addressed to God, to be kept regardless of subsequent outcome (נֶדֶר, neder, Lev 27). Extremely common in Chinese folk-temple practice for a conditional, transactional bargain-vow made to a deity in exchange for a hoped-for favor (cf. 还愿, ‘repaying’ a vow once granted). The Levitical vow is unconditional and must be honored regardless of outcome; every doctrinal use requires an explicit clarifying note distinguishing it from temple-vow bargaining.
Life In Blood
Approved rendering: 生命
Transliteration: shēngmìng
Doctrine: The Sanctity of Blood and Life
Rejected alternatives: 灵魂
Original: נֶפֶשׁ
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
‘The life of the flesh is in the blood’ (נֶפֶשׁ, nephesh, Lev 17:11, 14) — the ground for the entire atoning function of blood. Must not be rendered 灵魂 (‘soul’ in a Western dualistic sense), which risks importing a Platonic/Greek body-soul dualism foreign to the integrated Hebrew concept of nephesh; must also not collide with folk blood-oath/potency concepts (血誓).
Medium Risk Terms
Gentiles
Approved rendering: 外邦人
Transliteration: wàibāngrén
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: 夷人, 外国人
Inherited from Romans package, unaltered. Use only where the actual referent is ‘nations’ generally; do not substitute for 寄居的 (sojourner, ger), a distinct and more specific Levitical legal category for a resident alien within Israel (see sojourner entry).
Grain Offering
Approved rendering: 素祭
Transliteration: sùjì
Doctrine: The Grain Offering
Rejected alternatives: 蔬菜祭
Original: מִנְחָה
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Bloodless gift/tribute offering (Lev 2, 6:14-23), one component within the larger blood-based sacrificial economy. Must not be equated with Buddhist vegetarian merit-offerings (素食供品), given to avoid killing sentient beings for merit.
Ordination
Approved rendering: 承接圣职
Transliteration: chéngjiē shèngzhí
Doctrine: Priestly Ordination and Regulations
Rejected alternatives: 受戒
Original: מִלֻּאִים
Category: The Priesthood and Mediation
Formal installation into the priestly mediating office, lit. ‘fillings’ of the hand (מִלֻּאִים, milu’im, Lev 8). Must not be equated with 受戒 (Buddhist monastic ordination centered on personal spiritual attainment); this is installation into a divinely delegated mediatory office.
Altar
Approved rendering: 祭坛
Transliteration: jìtán
Doctrine: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Rejected alternatives: 神坛
Original: מִזְבֵּח
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
The single, divinely designated site of sacrifice (מִזְבֵּח, mizbeach). Avoid 神坛 unqualified, which reads as a generic folk or ancestral altar.
Veil
Approved rendering: 幔子
Transliteration: mànzi
Doctrine: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Original: פָּרֹכֶת
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
The dividing curtain (פָּרֹכֶת, parochet) marking the barrier holiness imposes. Theologically loaded given its tearing at Christ’s death (Matt 27:51); flag this forward link for teaching notes without importing it into OT exegesis.
Ark Of Covenant
Approved rendering: 约柜
Transliteration: yuēguì
Doctrine: Covenant
Original: אֲרוֹן הַבְּרִית
Category: Covenant
The chest containing the tablets of the covenant, surmounted by the mercy seat. Directly compounds baseline 约 (covenant); established Christian term, low ambiguity.
Cloud Presence
Approved rendering: 云彩
Transliteration: yúncai
Doctrine: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
Original: עָנָן
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
God’s veiling, manifest presence appearing over the mercy seat (עָנָן, anan, Lev 16:2). Distinguish briefly from clouds in Chinese immortal/celestial iconography (仙云); here the cloud veils rather than transports a deity.
Lot Casting
Approved rendering: 抽签
Transliteration: chōuqiān
Doctrine: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Original: גּוֹרָל
Category: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
A marked object cast under God’s direction (גּוֹרָל, goral) to designate which goat serves which function (Lev 16:8). Must be distinguished from folk temple fortune-stick drawing (求签), already a rejected practice-analog in the baseline’s prophecy/election notes; here it is a one-time, God-directed ritual assignment mechanism, not a technique for divining personal fate.
Confess
Approved rendering: 认罪
Transliteration: rènzuì
Doctrine: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Original: הִתְוַדָּה
Category: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
To openly and specifically acknowledge guilt (הִתְוַדָּה, hitvadah), part of the scapegoat transfer rite (Lev 16:21). Denotes named, specific acknowledgment, not vague or generalized sorrow.
Wilderness
Approved rendering: 旷野
Transliteration: kuàngyě
Doctrine: The Scapegoat and Substitution
Original: מִדְבָּר
Category: The Scapegoat and Substitution
The uninhabited region to which the scapegoat is sent (מִדְבָּר, midbar), a place of ‘no return’ for the removed guilt (Lev 16:22). Low lexical ambiguity but thematically weighted.
Perpetual Statute
Approved rendering: 永远的定例
Transliteration: yǒngyuǎn de dìnglì
Doctrine: Sabbath and Sacred Time
Original: חֻקַּת עוֹלָם
Category: Sabbath and Sacred Time
A fixed, divinely mandated ordinance for the covenant community, recurring perpetually (חֻקַּת עוֹלָם, chuqqat olam). Distinct from a vague cosmic-order ‘eternal principle’ register (道/天理); a specific covenantal command, not an impersonal universal law.
Sabbath
Approved rendering: 安息日
Transliteration: ānxírì
Doctrine: Sabbath and Weekly Rest
Rejected alternatives: 休息日
Original: שַׁבָּת
Category: Sabbath and Sacred Time
The weekly day of cessation/rest (שַׁבָּת, shabbat). Avoid the generic 休息日 (‘day off’), which loses the covenantal and creation-rest significance; rest is grounded in trust in God’s provision and the creation pattern, not mere labor scheduling.
Sabbath Solemn Rest
Approved rendering: 圣安息日
Transliteration: shèng ānxírì
Doctrine: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Original: שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן
Category: Sabbath and Sacred Time
An intensive ‘Sabbath of Sabbath-ness’ (שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן, shabbat shabbaton), the most solemn rest day of the calendar, applied to the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:31). Retain the intensifying force; not a plain synonym for 安息日.
Sabbath Year
Approved rendering: 安息年
Transliteration: ānxīnián
Doctrine: Sabbath Year, Jubilee, and Redemption
Original: שְׁמִטָּה
Category: Sabbath and Sacred Time
The seventh-year rest extended to the land itself (שְׁמִטָּה, shemittah, Lev 25:2-7). Extends the Sabbath-rest logic beyond persons to the land, grounded in trust that God provides even when the land lies fallow.
Appointed Feasts
Approved rendering: 节期
Transliteration: jiéqī
Doctrine: Sacred Time: The Appointed Feasts
Rejected alternatives: 传统节日
Original: מוֹעֵד
Category: Sabbath and Sacred Time
God’s own fixed redemptive calendar (מוֹעֵד, mo’ed, Lev 23). Distinguish from generic Chinese traditional festivals (传统节日, e.g. 春节, 中秋节), which commemorate agricultural cycles, family reunion, or ancestor veneration rather than God’s specific redemptive acts.
Detestable Dietary
Approved rendering: 可憎的
Transliteration: kězēngde
Doctrine: Clean and Unclean
Original: שֶׁקֶץ
Category: Clean and Unclean
A category marking certain animals as outside Israel’s covenant diet (שֶׁקֶץ, sheqetz, Lev 11). A boundary-marking category, not a claim about the animal’s inherent moral evil.
Skin Disease
Approved rendering: 大麻风
Transliteration: dà máfēng
Doctrine: Clean and Unclean
Rejected alternatives: 皮肤病
Original: צָרַעַת
Category: Clean and Unclean
A broad category of skin, hair, fabric, and house conditions requiring priestly diagnosis (צָרַעַת, tsara’at, Lev 13-14). Broader than clinical Hansen’s disease; a purely medical rendering under-translates the ritual-impurity dimension. The priest’s role is diagnostic/declarative, not therapeutic.
Without Blemish
Approved rendering: 无残疾的
Transliteration: wú cánjí de
Doctrine: Priestly Holiness Standards and Acceptable Offerings
Original: תָּמִים
Category: The Sacrificial System and Atonement
Complete, whole, without defect (תָּמִים, tamim) — the standard for sacrificial animals (Lev 1) and, later, for priests themselves (Lev 21). Typologically anticipates Christ’s sinless perfection (1 Pet 1:19); must not be read as a merely cosmetic or physical grading standard.
Dedicate Consecrate
Approved rendering: 分别为圣
Transliteration: fēnbié wéi shèng
Doctrine: Vows and Dedication
Original: קָדַש / הֶקְדֵּשׁ
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
To set apart a person, animal, or object as holy, dedicated to the LORD (קָדַש / הֶקְדֵּשׁ, qadash/hekdesh, Lev 27). Reuses the 圣 root shared with baseline 圣洁, reinforcing holiness vocabulary at the book’s structural close.
Low Risk Terms
Molech
Approved rendering: 摩洛
Transliteration: Móluò
Doctrine: Prohibition of Molech Worship and Child Sacrifice
Original: מֹלֶךְ
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
A foreign deity to whom child sacrifice is explicitly condemned (Lev 18:21, 20:1-5). Low-risk proper noun; doctrinally useful as a contrast case sharpening the meaning of Israel’s own animal-substitution sacrificial system, which explicitly and consistently forbids human sacrifice.
Lex Talionis
Approved rendering: 以眼还眼，以牙还牙
Transliteration: yǐ yǎn huán yǎn, yǐ yá huán yá
Doctrine: Proportional Justice (Lex Talionis)
Original: עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן
Category: The Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy
‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ (Lev 24:17-22), proportional judicial penalty. Already a naturalized Chinese idiom; note for teaching that it prescribes proportional judicial penalty administered by appointed authority, not license for personal vengeance.
Showbread
Approved rendering: 陈设饼
Transliteration: chénshè bǐng
Doctrine: The Showbread and the Lampstand
Original: לֶחֶם הַפָּנִים
Category: The Priesthood and Mediation
The bread of the Presence, continually set before God in the sanctuary (לֶחֶם הַפָּנִים, lechem ha-panim, Lev 24:5-9). Low risk; worth flagging its typological link to Christ as ‘bread of life’ for teaching notes, without importing that NT vocabulary into the OT text.
Referenced passages