15:31 “‘Thus you 3 are to set the Israelites apart from their impurity so that they 4 do not die in their impurity by defiling my tabernacle which is in their midst.
74:3 Hurry and look 8 at the permanent ruins,
and all the damage the enemy has done to the temple! 9
A psalm of Asaph.
79:1 O God, foreigners 11 have invaded your chosen land; 12
they have polluted your holy temple
and turned Jerusalem 13 into a heap of ruins.
5:11 “Therefore, as surely as I live, says the sovereign Lord, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare 14 you.
3:4 Her prophets are proud; 18
they are deceitful men.
Her priests defile what is holy; 19
they break God’s laws. 20
1 sn It is debated whether this is a Corinthian slogan. If it is not, then Paul is essentially arguing that there are two types of sin, nonsexual sins which take place outside the body and sexual sins which are against a person’s very own body. If it is a Corinthian slogan, then it is a slogan used by the Corinthians to justify their immoral behavior. With it they are claiming that anything done in the body or through the body had no moral relevance. A decision here is very difficult, but the latter is to be preferred for two main reasons. (1) This is the most natural understanding of the statement as it is written. To construe it as a statement by Paul requires a substantial clarification in the sense (e.g., “All other sins…” [NIV]). (2) Theologically the former is more difficult: Why would Paul single out sexual sins as more intrinsically related to the body than other sins, such as gluttony or drunkenness? For these reasons, it is more likely that the phrase in quotation marks is indeed a Corinthian slogan which Paul turns against them in the course of his argument, although the decision must be regarded as tentative.
2 tn Grk “the ‘in you’ Holy Spirit.” The position of the prepositional phrase ἐν ὑμῖν (en Jumin, “in you”) between the article and the adjective effectively places the prepositional phrase in first attributive position. Such constructions are generally translated into English as relative clauses.
3 tn Heb “And you shall.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV).
4 tn Heb “and they.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates a negative purpose (“lest,” so NAB, NASB).
5 tn Heb “And I, I shall give my faces.”
6 sn On the “cut off” penalty see the notes on Lev 7:20 and 17:4.
7 tn Heb “for the sake of defiling my sanctuary and to profane my holy name.”
8 tn Heb “lift up your steps to,” which may mean “run, hurry.”
9 tn Heb “everything [the] enemy has damaged in the holy place.”
10 sn Psalm 79. The author laments how the invading nations have destroyed the temple and city of Jerusalem. He asks God to forgive his people and to pour out his vengeance on those who have mistreated them.
11 tn Or “nations.”
12 tn Heb “have come into your inheritance.”
13 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
14 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
15 sn My treasured place probably refers to the temple (however, cf. NLT “my treasured land”).
16 sn Since the pronouns “it” are both feminine, they do not refer to the masculine “my treasured place”; instead they probably refer to Jerusalem or the land, both of which are feminine in Hebrew.
17 tn Heb “in that day.”
18 sn Applied to prophets, the word פֹּחֲזִים (pokhazim, “proud”) probably refers to their audacity in passing off their own words as genuine prophecies from the
19 tn Or “defile the temple.”
20 tn Heb “they treat violently [the] law.”