20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that 3 the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing 4 to survive. 20:17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them 5 – the Hittites, 6 Amorites, 7 Canaanites, 8 Perizzites, 9 Hivites, 10 and Jebusites 11 – just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 20:18 so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship 12 their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God.
27:28 “‘Surely anything which a man permanently dedicates to the Lord 13 from all that belongs to him, whether from people, animals, or his landed property, must be neither sold nor redeemed; anything permanently dedicated is most holy to the Lord. 27:29 Any human being who is permanently dedicated 14 must not be ransomed; such a person must be put to death.
21:2 So Israel made a vow 15 to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed deliver 16 this people into our 17 hand, then we will utterly destroy 18 their cities.”
1 tn Heb “every city of men.” This apparently identifies the cities as inhabited.
2 tn Heb “under the ban” (נַחֲרֵם, nakharem). The verb employed is חָרַם (kharam, usually in the Hiphil) and the associated noun is חֵרֶם (kherem). See J. Naudé, NIDOTTE, 2:276-77, and, for a more thorough discussion, Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 28-77.
3 tn The antecedent of the relative pronoun is “cities.”
4 tn Heb “any breath.”
5 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “utterly.” Cf. CEV “completely wipe out.”
6 sn Hittite. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200
7 sn Amorite. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200
8 sn Canaanite. These were the indigenous peoples of the land of Palestine, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000
9 sn Perizzite. This probably refers to a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).
10 sn Hivite. These are usually thought to be the same as the Hurrians, a people well-known in ancient Near Eastern texts. They are likely identical to the Horites (see note on “Horites” in Deut 2:12).
11 tc The LXX adds “Girgashites” here at the end of the list in order to list the full (and usual) complement of seven (see note on “seven” in Deut 7:1).
12 tn Heb “to do according to all their abominations which they do for their gods.”
13 tn Heb “Surely, any permanently dedicated [thing] which a man shall permanently dedicate to the
14 tn Heb “permanently dedicated from among men.”
15 tn The Hebrew text uses a cognate accusative with the verb: They vowed a vow. The Israelites were therefore determined with God’s help to defeat Arad.
16 tn The Hebrew text has the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of נָתַן (natan) to stress the point – if you will surely/indeed give.”
17 tn Heb “my.”
18 tn On the surface this does not sound like much of a vow. But the key is in the use of the verb for “utterly destroy” – חָרַם (kharam). Whatever was put to this “ban” or “devotion” belonged to God, either for his use, or for destruction. The oath was in fact saying that they would take nothing from this for themselves. It would simply be the removal of what was alien to the faith, or to God’s program.
19 tn Heb “but all the people they struck down with the edge of the sword until they destroyed them.”