22:8 If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail 3 around your roof to avoid being culpable 4 in the event someone should fall from it.
1 tn Grk “what you hear in the ear,” an idiom.
2 tn The expression “proclaim from the housetops” is an idiom for proclaiming something publicly (L&N 7.51). Roofs of many first century Jewish houses in Judea and Galilee were flat and had access either from outside or from within the house. Something shouted from atop a house would be heard by everyone in the street below.
3 tn Or “a parapet” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV “a battlement”; NLT “a barrier.”
4 tn Heb “that you not place bloodshed in your house.”