Numbers 15:30-31

Deliberate Sin

15:30 “‘But the person¹ who acts defiantly,² whether native-born or a resident foreigner, insults³ the Lord.⁴ That person⁵ must be cut off⁶ from among his people. 15:31 Because he has despised⁷ the word of the Lord and has broken⁸ his commandment, that person⁹ must be completely cut off.¹⁰ His iniquity will be on him.’”¹¹

Deuteronomy 1:43

1:43 I spoke to you, but you did not listen. Instead you rebelled against the Lord¹² and recklessly went up to the hill country.

Deuteronomy 17:12-13

17:12 The person who pays no attention¹³ to the priest currently serving the Lord your God there, or to the verdict – that person must die, so that you may purge evil from Israel. 17:13 Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and not be so presumptuous again.

Deuteronomy 18:22

18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my¹⁴ name and the prediction¹⁵ is not fulfilled,¹⁶ then I have¹⁷ not spoken it;¹⁸ the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

Deuteronomy 19:11-13

19:11 However, suppose a person hates someone else¹⁹ and stalks him, attacks him, kills him,²⁰ and then flees to one of these cities. 19:12 The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger²¹ to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent²² from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

Deuteronomy 19:1

Laws Concerning Manslaughter

19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he²³ is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

Deuteronomy 2:29-34

2:29 just as the descendants of Esau who live at Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us.” 2:30 But King Sihon of Heshbon was unwilling to allow us to pass near him because the Lord our²⁴ God had made him obstinate²⁵ and stubborn²⁶ so that he might deliver him over to you²⁷ this very day. 2:31 The Lord said to me, “Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession.” 2:32 When Sihon and all his troops²⁸ emerged to encounter us in battle at Jahaz,²⁹ 2:33 the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, along with his sons³⁰ and everyone else.³¹ 2:34 At that time we seized all his cities and put every one of them³² under divine judgment,³³ including even the women and children; we left no survivors.

Psalms 19:13

19:13 Moreover, keep me from committing flagrant³⁴ sins;

do not allow such sins to control me.³⁵

Then I will be blameless,

and innocent of blatant³⁶ rebellion.

Hebrews 10:26

10:26 For if we deliberately keep on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins is left for us,³⁷

Hebrews 10:2

10:2 For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have³⁸ no further consciousness of sin?

Hebrews 2:10

2:10 For it was fitting for him, for whom and through whom all things exist,³⁹ in bringing many sons to glory, to make the pioneer⁴⁰ of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

¹tn Heb “soul.”

²tn The sin is described literally as acting “with a high hand” – בְּיָד רָמָה (bÿyad ramah). The expression means that someone would do something with deliberate defiance, with an arrogance in spite of what the Lord said. It is as if the sinner was about to attack God, or at least lifting his hand against God. The implication of the expression is that it was done in full knowledge of the Law (especially since this contrasts throughout with the sins of ignorance). Blatant defiance of the word of the Lord is dealt with differently. For similar expressions, see Exod 14:8 and Num 33:3.

³tn The verb occurs only in the Piel; it means “to blaspheme,” “to revile.”

⁴tn The word order in the Hebrew text places “Yahweh” first for emphasis – it is the Lord such a person insults.

⁵tn Heb “soul.”

⁶tn The clause begins with “and” because the verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. As discussed with Num 9:13, to be cut off could mean excommunication from the community, death by the community, or death by divine intervention.

⁷tn The verb בָּזָה (bazah, “to despise”) means to treat something as worthless, to treat it with contempt, to look down the nose at something as it were.

⁸tn The verb פָּרַר (parar, “to break”) can mean to nullify, break, or violate a covenant.

⁹tn Heb “soul.”

¹⁰tn The construction uses the Niphal imperfect with the modifying Niphal infinitive absolute. The infinitive makes the sentence more emphatic. If the imperfect tense is taken as an instruction imperfect, then the infinitive makes the instruction more binding. If it is a simple future, then the future is certain. In either case, there is no exclusion from being cut off.

¹¹sn The point is that the person’s iniquity remains with him – he must pay for his sin. The judgment of God in such a case is both appropriate and unavoidable.

¹²tn Heb “the mouth of the Lord.” See note at 1:26.

¹³tn Heb “who acts presumptuously not to listen” (cf. NASB).

¹⁴tn Heb “the Lord’s.” See note on the word “his” in v. 5.

¹⁵tn Heb “the word,” but a predictive word is in view here. Cf. NAB “his oracle.”

¹⁶tn Heb “does not happen or come to pass.”

¹⁷tn Heb “the Lord has.” See note on the word “his” in v. 5.

¹⁸tn Heb “that is the word which the Lord has not spoken.”

¹⁹tn Heb “his neighbor.”

²⁰tn Heb “rises against him and strikes him fatally.”

²¹tn The גֹאֵל הַדָּם (go’el haddam, “avenger of blood”) would ordinarily be a member of the victim’s family who, after due process of law, was invited to initiate the process of execution (cf. Num 35:16-28). See R. Hubbard, NIDOTTE 1:789-94.

²²sn Purge out the blood of the innocent. Because of the corporate nature of Israel’s community life, the whole community shared in the guilt of unavenged murder unless and until vengeance occurred. Only this would restore spiritual and moral equilibrium (Num 35:33).

²³tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

²⁴tc The translation follows the LXX in reading the first person pronoun. The MT, followed by many English versions, has a second person masculine singular pronoun, “your.”

²⁵tn Heb “hardened his spirit” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “made his spirit stubborn.”

²⁶tn Heb “made his heart obstinate” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “made his heart defiant.”

²⁷tn Heb “into your hand.”

²⁸tn Heb “people.”

²⁹sn Jahaz. This is probably Khirbet el-Medeiyineh. See J. Dearman, “The Levitical Cities of Reuben and Moabite Toponymy,” BASOR 276 (1984): 55-57.

³⁰tc The translation follows the Qere or marginal reading; the Kethib (consonantal text) has the singular, “his son.”

³¹tn Heb “all his people.”

³²tn Heb “every city of men.” This apparently identifies the cities as inhabited.

³³tn 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.

³⁴tn Or “presumptuous.”

³⁵tn Heb “let them not rule over me.”

³⁶tn Heb “great.”

³⁷tn Grk “is left,” with “for us” implied by the first half of the verse.

³⁸tn Grk “the worshipers, having been purified once for all, would have.”

³⁹tn Grk “for whom are all things and through whom are all things.”

⁴⁰sn The Greek word translated pioneer is used of a “prince” or leader, the representative head of a family. It also carries nuances of “trailblazer,” one who breaks through to new ground for those who follow him. It is used some thirty-five times in the Greek OT and four times in the NT, always of Christ (Acts 3:15; 5:31; Heb 2:10; 12:2).