Numbers 35:33-34

35:33 “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it. 35:34 Therefore do not defile the land that you will inhabit, in which I live, for I the Lord live among the Israelites.”

Psalms 106:38

106:38 They shed innocent blood –

the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

The land was polluted by bloodshed. ¹ 

Isaiah 24:5

24:5 The earth is defiled by ²  its inhabitants, ³ 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, ⁴ 

and broken the permanent treaty. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 2:7

2:7 I brought you ⁶  into a fertile land

so you could enjoy ⁷  its fruits and its rich bounty.

But when you entered my land, you defiled it; ⁸ 

you made the land I call my own ⁹  loathsome to me.

Jeremiah 16:18

16:18 Before I restore them ¹⁰  I will punish them in full ¹¹  for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own ¹²  with their detestable idols.” ¹³ 

Ezekiel 36:17-18

36:17 “Son of man, when the house of Israel was living on their own land, they defiled it by their behavior ¹⁴  and their deeds. In my sight their behavior was like the uncleanness of a woman having her monthly period. 36:18 So I poured my anger on them ¹⁵  because of the blood they shed on the land and because of the idols with which they defiled it. ¹⁶ 

Romans 8:22

8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now.

¹ sn Num 35:33-34 explains that bloodshed defiles a land.

² tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

³ sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.

⁴ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

⁵ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

⁶ sn Note how contemporary Israel is again identified with her early ancestors. See the study note on 2:2.

⁷ tn Heb “eat.”

⁸ sn I.e., made it ceremonially unclean. See Lev 18:19-30; Num 35:34; Deut 21:23.

⁹ tn Heb “my inheritance.” Or “the land [i.e., inheritance] I gave you,” reading the pronoun as indicating source rather than possession. The parallelism and the common use in Jeremiah of the term to refer to the land or people as the Lord’s (e.g., 12:7, 8, 9; 16:18; 50:11) make the possessive use more likely here.

¹⁰ tn Heb “First.” Many English versions and commentaries delete this word because it is missing from the Greek version and is considered a gloss added by a postexilic editor who is said to be responsible also for vv. 14-16. This is not the place to resolve issues of authorship and date. It is the task of the translator to translate the “original” which in this case is the MT supported by the other versions. The word here refers to order in rank or order of events. Compare Gen 38:28; 1 Kgs 18:25. Here allusion is made to the restoration previously mentioned. First in order of events is the punishment of destruction and exile, then restoration.

¹¹ tn Heb “double.” However, usage in Deut 15:18 and probably Isa 40:2 argues for “full compensation.” This is supported also by usage in a tablet from Alalakh in Syria. See P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, J. F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25 (WBC), 218, for bibliography.

¹² tn Heb “my inheritance.”

¹³ tn Many of the English versions take “lifeless statues of their detestable idols” with “filled” as a compound object. This follows the Masoretic punctuation but violates usage. The verb “fill” never takes an object preceded by the preposition בְּ (bet).

¹⁴ tn Heb “way.”

¹⁵ sn See Ezek 7:8; 9:8; 14:19; 20:8, 13, 21; 22:22; 30:15.

¹⁶ sn For the concept of defiling the land in legal literature, see Lev 18:28; Deut 21:23.