Genesis 45:6

45:6 For these past two years there has been famine in ¹  the land and for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.

Deuteronomy 21:4

21:4 and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, ²  to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. ³  There at the wadi they are to break the heifer’s neck.

Deuteronomy 21:1

Laws Concerning Unsolved Murder

21:1 If a homicide victim ⁴  should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, ⁵  and no one knows who killed ⁶  him,

Deuteronomy 8:12

8:12 When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses,

Isaiah 30:24

30:24 The oxen and donkeys used in plowing ⁷ 

will eat seasoned feed winnowed with a shovel and pitchfork. ⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “the famine [has been] in the midst of.”

² tn The combination “a wadi with flowing water” is necessary because a wadi (נַחַל, nakhal) was ordinarily a dry stream or riverbed. For this ritual, however, a perennial stream must be chosen so that there would be fresh, rushing water.

³ sn The unworked heifer, fresh stream, and uncultivated valley speak of ritual purity – of freedom from human contamination.

⁴ tn Heb “slain [one].” The term חָלָל (khalal) suggests something other than a natural death (cf. Num 19:16; 23:24; Jer 51:52; Ezek 26:15; 30:24; 31:17-18).

⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁶ tn Heb “struck,” but in context a fatal blow is meant; cf. NLT “who committed the murder.”

⁷ tn Heb “the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground.”

⁸ sn Crops will be so abundant that even the work animals will eat well.