20:22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, 5 so that 6 the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out.
4:25 After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, 7 if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind 8 and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him, 9 4:26 I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you 10 today that you will surely and swiftly be removed 11 from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be 12 annihilated.
23:1 A long time 34 passed after the Lord made Israel secure from all their enemies, 35 and Joshua was very old. 36
2:1 Joshua son of Nun sent two spies out from Shittim secretly and instructed them: 37 “Find out what you can about the land, especially Jericho.” 38 They stopped at the house of a prostitute named Rahab and spent the night there. 39
50:16 God says this to the evildoer: 40
“How can you declare my commands,
and talk about my covenant? 41
50:17 For you hate instruction
and reject my words. 42
50:18 When you see a thief, you join him; 43
you associate with men who are unfaithful to their wives. 44
50:19 You do damage with words, 45
and use your tongue to deceive. 46
50:20 You plot against your brother; 47
you slander your own brother. 48
94:20 Cruel rulers 49 are not your allies,
those who make oppressive laws. 50
94:21 They conspire against 51 the blameless, 52
and condemn to death the innocent. 53
1 tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.
2 tn Heb “and I have visited its [punishment for] iniquity on it.” See the note on Lev 17:16 above.
3 tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”
4 tc The MT reads the singular “nation” and is followed by ASV, NASB, NRSV; the LXX, Syriac, and Targum have the plural “nations” (cf. v. 24).
5 tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31, etc.).
6 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
7 tn Heb “have grown old in the land,” i.e., been there for a long time.
8 tn Heb “a form of anything.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, TEV “an idol.”
9 tn The infinitive construct is understood here as indicating the result, not the intention, of their actions.
10 sn I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you. This stock formula introduces what is known form-critically as a רִיב (riv) or controversy pattern. It is commonly used in the ancient Near Eastern world in legal contexts and in the OT as a forensic or judicial device to draw attention to Israel’s violation of the
11 tn Or “be destroyed”; KJV “utterly perish”; NLT “will quickly disappear”; CEV “you won’t have long to live.”
12 tn Or “be completely” (so NCV, TEV). It is not certain here if the infinitive absolute indicates the certainty of the following action (cf. NIV) or its degree.
13 tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”
14 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the subject of the warning in v. 18) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
15 tn Heb “in his heart.”
16 tn Or “invokes a blessing on himself.” A formalized word of blessing is in view, the content of which appears later in the verse.
17 tn Heb “heart.”
18 tn Heb “thus destroying.” For stylistic reasons the translation begins a new sentence here.
19 tn Heb “the watered with the parched.” The word “ground” is implied. The exact meaning of the phrase is uncertain although it appears to be figurative. This appears to be a proverbial observation employing a figure of speech (a merism) suggesting totality. That is, the Israelite who violates the letter and even spirit of the covenant will harm not only himself but everything he touches – “the watered and the parched.” Cf. CEV “you will cause the rest of Israel to be punished along with you.”
20 tn Heb “the wrath of the
21 tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”
22 tn Heb “the entire oath.”
23 tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”
24 tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”
25 tn Heb “set him apart.”
26 tn Heb “for evil”; NAB “for doom”; NASB “for adversity”; NIV “for disaster”; NRSV “for calamity.”
27 tn Heb “will say and see.” One expects a quotation to appear, but it seems to be omitted. To avoid confusion in the translation, the verb “will say” is omitted.
28 tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” This construction is a hendiadys intended to intensify the emotion.
29 tn Heb “and it will be as every good word which the
30 tn Heb “so the
31 tn Heb “when you violate the covenant of the
32 tn Heb “and you walk and serve other gods and bow down to them.”
33 tn Or “perish.”
34 tn Heb “many days.”
35 tn Heb “the
36 tn Heb “was old, coming into the days.” This expression, referring to advancing in years, also occurs in the following verse.
37 tn Heb “Joshua, son of Nun, sent from Shittim two men, spies, secretly, saying.”
38 tn Heb “go, see the land, and Jericho.”
39 tn Heb “they went and entered the house of a woman, a prostitute, and her name was Rahab, and they slept there.”
40 tn Heb “evil [one].” The singular adjective is used here in a representative sense; it refers to those within the larger covenant community who have blatantly violated the
41 tn Heb “What to you to declare my commands and lift up my covenant upon your mouth?” The rhetorical question expresses sarcastic amazement. The
42 tn Heb “and throw my words behind you.”
43 tn Heb “you run with him.”
44 tn Heb “and with adulterers [is] your portion.”
45 tn Heb “your mouth you send with evil.”
46 tn Heb “and your tongue binds together [i.e., “frames”] deceit.”
47 tn Heb “you sit, against your brother you speak.” To “sit” and “speak” against someone implies plotting against that person (see Ps 119:23).
48 tn Heb “against the son of your mother you give a fault.”
49 tn Heb “a throne of destruction.” “Throne” stands here by metonymy for rulers who occupy thrones.
50 tn Heb “Is a throne of destruction united to you, one that forms trouble upon a statute?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “Of course not!” The translation, while not preserving the interrogative form of the statement, reflects its rhetorical force.
51 tn Or “attack.”
52 tn Heb “the life of the blameless.”
53 tn Heb “and the blood of the innocent they declare guilty.”