Deuteronomy 29:18-20

29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. ¹  29:19 When such a person ²  hears the words of this oath he secretly ³  blesses himself ⁴  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁵  This will destroy ⁶  the watered ground with the parched. ⁷  29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ⁸  will rage ⁹  against that man; all the curses ¹⁰  written in this scroll will fall upon him ¹¹  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ¹² 

Deuteronomy 32:32-33

32:32 For their vine is from the stock ¹³  of Sodom,

and from the fields of Gomorrah. ¹⁴ 

Their grapes contain venom,

their clusters of grapes are bitter.

32:33 Their wine is snakes’ poison,

the deadly venom of cobras.

Job 20:14

20:14 his food is turned sour ¹⁵  in his stomach; ¹⁶ 

it becomes the venom of serpents ¹⁷  within him.

Jeremiah 4:18

4:18 “The way you have lived and the things you have done ¹⁸ 

will bring this on you.

This is the punishment you deserve, and it will be painful indeed. ¹⁹ 

The pain will be so bad it will pierce your heart.” ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 9:15

9:15 So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, ²¹  say. ²²  ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ²³ 

Lamentations 3:5

3:5 He has besieged ²⁴  and surrounded ²⁵  me

with bitter hardship. ²⁶ 

Lamentations 3:19

ז (Zayin)

3:19 Remember ²⁷  my impoverished and homeless condition, ²⁸ 

which is a bitter poison. ²⁹ 

Hebrews 12:15

12:15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no one be like a bitter root springing up ³⁰  and causing trouble, and through him many become defiled.

[29:18]  ¹ 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.”

[29:19]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the subject of the warning in v. 18) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[29:19]  ³ tn Heb “in his heart.”

[29:19]  ⁴ tn Or “invokes a blessing on himself.” A formalized word of blessing is in view, the content of which appears later in the verse.

[29:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “heart.”

[29:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “thus destroying.” For stylistic reasons the translation begins a new sentence here.

[29:19]  ⁷ 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.”

[29:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.

[29:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

[29:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the entire oath.”

[29:20]  ¹¹ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

[29:20]  ¹² tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”

[32:32]  ¹³ tn Heb “vine.”

[32:32]  ¹⁴ sn Sodom…Gomorrah. The term “vine” is a reference to the pagan deities which, the passage says, find their ultimate source in Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, in the soil of perversion exemplified by these places (cf. Gen 18:20; 19:4-28; Isa 1:10; 3:9; Jer 23:14; Lam 4:6; Ezek 16:44-52; Matt 10:15; 11:23-24).

[20:14]  ¹⁵ tn The perfect verb in the apodosis might express the suddenness of the change (see S. R. Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 204), or it might be a constative perfect looking at the action as a whole without reference to inception, progress, or completion (see IBHS 480-81 §30.1d). The Niphal perfect simply means “is turned” or “turns”; “sour is supplied in the translation to clarify what is meant.

[20:14]  ¹⁶ tn The word is “in his loins” or “within him.” Some translate more specifically “bowels.”

[20:14]  ¹⁷ sn Some commentators suggest that the ancients believed that serpents secreted poison in the gall bladder, or that the poison came from the gall bladder of serpents. In any case, there is poison (from the root “bitter”) in the system of the wicked person; it may simply be saying it is that type of poison.

[4:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Your way and your deeds.”

[4:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “How bitter!”

[4:18]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Indeed, it reaches to your heart.” The subject must be the pain alluded to in the last half of the preceding line; the verb is masculine, agreeing with the adjective translated “painful.” The only other possible antecedent “punishment” is feminine.

[9:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[9:15]  ²² tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…” The person is shifted from third to first to better conform with English style.

[9:15]  ²³ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[3:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he has built against me.” The verb בָּנָה (banah, “to build”) followed by the preposition עַל (’al, “against”) often refers to the action of building siege-works against a city, that is, to besiege a city (e.g., Deut 20:2; 2 Kgs 25:1; Eccl 9:14; Jer 52:4; Ezek 4:2; 17:17; 21:27). Normally, an explicit accusative direct object is used (e.g., מָצוֹד [matsor] or מָצוֹדִים [matsorim]); however, here, the expression is used absolutely without an explicit accusative [BDB 124 s.v. בָּנָה 1a.η]).

[3:5]  ²⁵ tn The verb נָקַף (naqaf, “to surround”) refers to the military action of an army surrounding a besieged city by placing army encampments all around the city, to prevent anyone in the city from escaping (2 Kgs 6:14; 11:8; Pss 17:9; 88:18; Job 19:6).

[3:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “with bitterness and hardship.” The nouns רֹאשׁ וּתְלָאָה (ro’sh utÿla’ah, lit. “bitterness and hardship”) function as adverbial accusatives of manner: “with bitterness and hardship.” The two nouns רֹאשׁ וּתְלָאָה (ro’sh utÿla’ah, “bitterness and hardship”) form a nominal hendiadys: the second retains its full nominal sense, while the first functions adverbially: “bitter hardship.” The noun II רֹאשׁ (ro’sh, “bitterness”) should not be confused with the common homonymic root I רֹאשׁ (ro’sh, “head”). The noun תְּלָאָה (tÿla’ah, “hardship”) is used elsewhere in reference to the distress of Israel in Egypt (Num 20:14), in the wilderness (Exod 18:8), and in exile (Neh 9:32).

[3:19]  ²⁷ tc The LXX records ἐμνήσθην (emnhsqhn, “I remembered”) which may reflect a first singular form זָכַרְתִּי (zakharti) whereas the MT preserves the form זְכָר (zÿkhor) which may be Qal imperative 2nd person masculine singular (“Remember!”) or infinitive construct (“To remember…”). A 2nd person masculine singular imperative would most likely address God. In the next verse נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is the subject of זְכָר (zÿkhor). If נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) is also the subject here one would expect a 2fs Imperative זִכְרִי (zikhri) a form that stands in the middle of the MT’s זְכָר (zÿkhor) and the presumed זָכַרְתִּי (zakharti) read by the LXX. English versions are split between the options: “To recall” (NJPS), “Remember!” (RSV, NRSV, NASB), “Remembering” (KJV, NKJV), “I remember” (NIV).

[3:19]  ²⁸ tn The two nouns עָנְיִי וּמְרוּדִי (’onyi umÿrudi, lit., “my poverty and my homelessness”) form a nominal hendiadys in which one noun functions adjectivally and the other retains its full nominal sense: “my impoverished homelessness” or “homeless poor” (GKC 397-98 §124.e). The nearly identical phrase is used in Lam 1:7 and Isa 58:7 (see GKC 226 §83.c), suggesting this was a Hebrew idiom. Jerusalem’s inhabitants were impoverished and homeless.

[3:19]  ²⁹ tn Heb “wormwood and gall.” The two nouns joined by ו (vav), לַעֲנָה וָרֹאשׁ (la’ana varo’sh, “wormwood and bitterness”) form a nominal hendiadys. The first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions adjectivally: “bitter poison.”

[12:15]  ³⁰ tn Grk “that there not be any root of bitterness,” but referring figuratively to a person who causes trouble (as in Deut 29:17 [LXX] from which this is quoted).