Deuteronomy 4:19

4:19 When you look up ¹  to the sky ²  and see the sun, moon, and stars – the whole heavenly creation ³  – you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, ⁴  for the Lord your God has assigned ⁵  them to all the people ⁶  of the world. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 17:3

17:3 by serving other gods and worshiping them – the sun, ⁸  moon, or any other heavenly bodies which I have not permitted you to worship. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 17:2

17:2 Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you – in one of your villages ¹⁰  that the Lord your God is giving you – who sins before the Lord your God ¹¹  and breaks his covenant

Deuteronomy 17:16

17:16 Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, ¹²  for the Lord has said you must never again return that way.

Deuteronomy 21:3

21:3 Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse ¹³  must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked – that has never pulled with the yoke –

Job 31:26-28

31:26 if I looked at the sun ¹⁴  when it was shining,

and the moon advancing as a precious thing,

31:27 so that my heart was secretly enticed,

and my hand threw them a kiss from my mouth, ¹⁵ 

31:28 then this ¹⁶  also would be iniquity to be judged, ¹⁷ 

for I would have been false ¹⁸  to God above.

Jeremiah 19:13

19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled by dead bodies ¹⁹  just like this place, Topheth. For they offered sacrifice to the stars ²⁰  and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the roofs of those houses.’”

Ezekiel 8:16

8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there ²¹  at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, ²²  were about twenty-five ²³  men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, ²⁴  facing east – they were worshiping the sun ²⁵  toward the east!

[4:19]  ¹ tn Heb “lest you lift up your eyes.” In the Hebrew text vv. 16-19 are subordinated to “Be careful” in v. 15, but this makes for an unduly long sentence in English.

[4:19]  ² tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[4:19]  ³ tn Heb “all the host of heaven.”

[4:19]  ⁴ tn In the Hebrew text the verbal sequence in v. 19 is “lest you look up…and see…and be seduced…and worship them…and serve them.” However, the first two actions are not prohibited in and of themselves. The prohibition pertains to the final three actions. The first two verbs describe actions that are logically subordinate to the following actions and can be treated as temporal or circumstantial: “lest, looking up…and seeing…, you are seduced.” See Joüon 2:635 §168.h.

[4:19]  ⁵ tn Or “allotted.”

[4:19]  ⁶ tn Or “nations.”

[4:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “under all the heaven.”

[17:3]  ⁸ tc The MT reads “and to the sun,” thus including the sun, the moon, and other heavenly spheres among the gods. However, Theodotion and Lucian read “or to the sun,” suggesting perhaps that the sun and the other heavenly bodies are not in the category of actual deities.

[17:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “which I have not commanded you.” The words “to worship” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[17:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “gates.”

[17:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “does the evil in the eyes of the Lord your God.”

[17:16]  ¹² tn Heb “in order to multiply horses.” The translation uses “do so” in place of “multiply horses” to avoid redundancy (cf. NAB, NIV).

[21:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “slain [one].”

[31:26]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “light”; but parallel to the moon it is the sun. This section speaks of false worship of the sun and the moon.

[31:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and my hand kissed my mouth.” The idea should be that of “my mouth kissed my hand.” H. H. Rowley suggests that the hand was important in waving or throwing the kisses of homage to the sun and the moon, and so it receives the focus. This is the only place in the OT that refers to such a custom. Outside the Bible it was known, however.

[31:28]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “it.”

[31:28]  ¹⁷ tn See v. 11 for the construction. In Deut 17:2ff. false worship of heavenly bodies is a capital offense. In this passage, Job is talking about just a momentary glance at the sun or moon and the brief lapse into a pagan thought. But it is still sin.

[31:28]  ¹⁸ tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) in the Piel means “to deny.” The root meaning is “to deceive; to disappoint; to grow lean.” Here it means that he would have failed or proven unfaithful because his act would have been a denial of God.

[19:13]  ¹⁹ tn The words “by dead bodies” is not in the text but is implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the host of heaven.”

[8:16]  ²¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

[8:16]  ²² sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).

[8:16]  ²³ tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.

[8:16]  ²⁴ sn The temple faced east.

[8:16]  ²⁵ tn Or “the sun god.”