Leviticus 26:39-42

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ¹  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ²  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ³  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁴  by which they also walked ⁵  in hostility against me ⁶  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ⁷  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁸  their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ⁹  and I will remember the land.

Nehemiah 1:8-9

1:8 Please recall the word you commanded your servant Moses: ‘If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations. ¹⁰  1:9 But if you repent ¹¹  and obey ¹²  my commandments and do them, then even if your dispersed people are in the most remote location, ¹³  I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen for my name to reside.’

Jonah 3:10

3:10 When God saw their actions – they turned ¹⁴  from their evil way of living! ¹⁵  – God relented concerning the judgment ¹⁶  he had threatened them with ¹⁷  and he did not destroy them. ¹⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

² tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

³ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

⁴ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

⁵ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

⁶ tn Heb “with me.”

⁷ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

⁸ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

⁹ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹⁰ tn Heb “peoples.”

¹¹ tn Heb “turn to me.”

¹² tn Heb “keep.” See the note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

¹³ tn Heb “at the end of the heavens.”

¹⁴ tn This clause is introduced by כִּי (ki, “that”) and functions as an epexegetical, explanatory clause.

¹⁵ tn Heb “from their evil way” (so KJV, ASV, NAB); NASB “wicked way.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “calamity” or “disaster.” The noun רָעָה (ra’ah, “calamity, disaster”) functions as a metonymy of result – the cause being the threatened judgment (e.g., Exod 32:12, 14; 2 Sam 24:16; Jer 18:8; 26:13, 19; 42:10; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; HALOT 1263 s.v. רָעָה 6). The root רָעָה is repeated three times in vv. 8 and 10. Twice it refers to the Ninevites’ moral “evil” (vv. 8 and 10a) and here it refers to the “calamity” or “disaster” that the Lord had threatened (v. 10b). This repetition of the root forms a polysemantic wordplay that exploits this broad range of meanings of the noun. The wordplay emphasizes that God’s response was appropriate: because the Ninevites repented from their moral “evil” God relented from the “calamity” he had threatened.

¹⁷ tn Heb “the disaster that he had spoken to do to them.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “and he did not do it.” See notes on 3:8-9.