Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 16:11
Context16:11 You shall rejoice before him 1 – you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, 2 the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you – in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name.
Deuteronomy 16:1
Context16:1 Observe the month Abib 3 and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month 4 he 5 brought you out of Egypt by night.
Deuteronomy 19:1--20:20
Context19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he 6 is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses, 19:2 you must set apart for yourselves three cities 7 in the middle of your land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession. 19:3 You shall build a roadway and divide into thirds the whole extent 8 of your land that the Lord your God is providing as your inheritance; anyone who kills another person should flee to the closest of these cities. 19:4 Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live, 9 if he has accidentally killed another 10 without hating him at the time of the accident. 11 19:5 Suppose he goes with someone else 12 to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax 13 to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose 14 from the handle and strikes 15 his fellow worker 16 so hard that he dies. The person responsible 17 may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. 18 19:6 Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, 19 and kill him, 20 though this is not a capital case 21 since he did not hate him at the time of the accident. 19:7 Therefore, I am commanding you to set apart for yourselves three cities. 19:8 If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he promised your ancestors 22 and gives you all the land he pledged to them, 23 19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments 24 I am giving 25 you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities 26 to these three. 19:10 You must not shed innocent blood 27 in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. 28 19:11 However, suppose a person hates someone else 29 and stalks him, attacks him, kills him, 30 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 avenger 31 to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent 32 from Israel, so that it may go well with you.
19:14 You must not encroach on your neighbor’s property, 33 which will have been defined 34 in the inheritance you will obtain in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 35
19:15 A single witness may not testify 36 against another person for any trespass or sin that he commits. A matter may be legally established 37 only on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 19:16 If a false 38 witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, 39 19:17 then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges 40 who will be in office in those days. 19:18 The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused, 41 19:19 you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. In this way you will purge 42 evil from among you. 19:20 The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you. 19:21 You must not show pity; the principle will be a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, and a foot for a foot. 43
20:1 When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry 44 and troops 45 who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. 20:2 As you move forward for battle, the priest 46 will approach and say to the soldiers, 47 20:3 “Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them, 20:4 for the Lord your God goes with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies to give you victory.” 48 20:5 Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, 49 “Who among you 50 has built a new house and not dedicated 51 it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else 52 dedicate it. 20:6 Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it. 20:7 Or who among you 53 has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her.” 20:8 In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier’s 54 heart as fearful 55 as his own.” 20:9 Then, when the officers have finished speaking, 56 they must appoint unit commanders 57 to lead the troops.
20:10 When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace. 20:11 If it accepts your terms 58 and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves. 59 20:12 If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it. 20:13 The Lord your God will deliver it over to you 60 and you must kill every single male by the sword. 20:14 However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you. 20:15 This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.
20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that 61 the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing 62 to survive. 20:17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them 63 – the Hittites, 64 Amorites, 65 Canaanites, 66 Perizzites, 67 Hivites, 68 and Jebusites 69 – just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 20:18 so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship 70 their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God. 20:19 If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, 71 you must not chop down its trees, 72 for you may eat fruit 73 from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! 74 20:20 However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, 75 and you may use it to build siege works 76 against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.
[16:11] 1 tn Heb “the
[16:1] 3 sn The month Abib, later called Nisan (Neh 2:1; Esth 3:7), corresponds to March-April in the modern calendar.
[16:1] 4 tn Heb “in the month Abib.” The demonstrative “that” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[16:1] 5 tn Heb “the
[19:1] 5 tn Heb “the
[19:2] 7 sn These three cities, later designated by Joshua, were Kedesh of Galilee, Shechem, and Hebron (Josh 20:7-9).
[19:4] 11 tn Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”
[19:4] 12 tn Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”
[19:4] 13 tn Heb “yesterday and a third (day)” (likewise in v. 6). The point is that there was no animosity between the two parties at the time of the accident and therefore no motive for the killing. Cf. NAB “had previously borne no malice”; NRSV “had not been at enmity before.”
[19:5] 13 tn Heb “his neighbor” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “his friend.”
[19:5] 14 tn Heb “and he raises his hand with the iron.”
[19:5] 15 tn Heb “the iron slips off.”
[19:5] 17 tn Heb “his neighbor.”
[19:5] 18 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the person responsible for his friend’s death) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[19:6] 15 tn Heb “and overtake him, for the road is long.”
[19:6] 16 tn Heb “smite with respect to life,” that is, fatally.
[19:6] 17 tn Heb “no judgment of death.”
[19:8] 18 tn Heb “he said to give to your ancestors.” The pronoun has been used in the translation instead for stylistic reasons.
[19:9] 19 tn Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).
[19:9] 20 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”
[19:9] 21 sn You will add three more cities. Since these are alluded to nowhere else and thus were probably never added, this must be a provision for other cities of refuge should they be needed (cf. v. 8). See P. C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (NICOT), 267.
[19:10] 21 tn Heb “innocent blood must not be shed.” The Hebrew phrase דָּם נָקִי (dam naqiy) means the blood of a person to whom no culpability or responsibility adheres because what he did was without malice aforethought (HALOT 224 s.v דָּם 4.b).
[19:10] 22 tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”
[19:11] 23 tn Heb “his neighbor.”
[19:11] 24 tn Heb “rises against him and strikes him fatally.”
[19:12] 25 tn 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.
[19:13] 27 sn 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).
[19:14] 29 tn Heb “border.” Cf. NRSV “You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker.”
[19:14] 30 tn Heb “which they set off from the beginning.”
[19:14] 31 tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it.” This phrase has been left untranslated to avoid redundancy.
[19:15] 31 tn Heb “rise up” (likewise in v. 16).
[19:15] 32 tn Heb “may stand.”
[19:16] 33 tn Heb “violent” (חָמָס, khamas). This is a witness whose motivation from the beginning is to do harm to the accused and who, therefore, resorts to calumny and deceit. See I. Swart and C. VanDam, NIDOTTE 2:177-80.
[19:16] 34 tn Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).
[19:17] 35 tn The appositional construction (“before the
[19:18] 37 tn Heb “his brother” (also in the following verse).
[19:19] 39 tn Heb “you will burn out” (בִּעַרְתָּ, bi’arta). Like a cancer, unavenged sin would infect the whole community. It must, therefore, be excised by the purging out of its perpetrators who, presumably, remained unrepentant (cf. Deut 13:6; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21-22, 24; 24:7).
[19:21] 41 sn This kind of justice is commonly called lex talionis or “measure for measure” (cf. Exod 21:23-25; Lev 24:19-20). It is likely that it is the principle that is important and not always a strict application. That is, the punishment should fit the crime and it may do so by the payment of fines or other suitable and equitable compensation (cf. Exod 22:21; Num 35:31). See T. S. Frymer-Kensky, “Tit for Tat: The Principle of Equal Retribution in Near Eastern and Biblical Law,” BA 43 (1980): 230-34.
[20:1] 43 tn Heb “horse and chariot.”
[20:2] 45 sn The reference to the priest suggests also the presence of the ark of the covenant, the visible sign of God’s presence. The whole setting is clearly that of “holy war” or “Yahweh war,” in which God himself takes initiative as the true commander of the forces of Israel (cf. Exod 14:14-18; 15:3-10; Deut 3:22; 7:18-24; 31:6, 8).
[20:2] 46 tn Heb “and he will say to the people.” Cf. NIV, NCV, CEV “the army”; NRSV, NLT “the troops.”
[20:4] 47 tn Or “to save you” (so KJV, NASB, NCV); or “to deliver you.”
[20:5] 49 tn Heb “people” (also in vv. 8, 9).
[20:5] 50 tn Heb “Who [is] the man” (also in vv. 6, 7, 8).
[20:5] 51 tn The Hebrew term חָנַךְ (khanakh) occurs elsewhere only with respect to the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:63 = 2 Chr 7:5). There it has a religious connotation which, indeed, may be the case here as well. The noun form (חָנֻכָּה, khanukah) is associated with the consecration of the great temple altar (2 Chr 7:9) and of the postexilic wall of Jerusalem (Neh 12:27). In Maccabean times the festival of Hanukkah was introduced to celebrate the rededication of the temple following its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1 Macc 4:36-61).
[20:5] 52 tn Heb “another man.”
[20:7] 51 tn Heb “Who [is] the man.”
[20:8] 53 tn Heb “his brother’s.”
[20:9] 55 tn The Hebrew text includes “to the people,” but this phrase has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[20:9] 56 tn Heb “princes of hosts.”
[20:11] 57 tn Heb “if it answers you peace.”
[20:11] 58 tn Heb “become as a vassal and will serve you.” The Hebrew term translated slaves (מַס, mas) refers either to Israelites who were pressed into civil service, especially under Solomon (1 Kgs 5:27; 9:15, 21; 12:18), or (as here) to foreigners forced as prisoners of war to become slaves to Israel. The Gibeonites exemplify this type of servitude (Josh 9:3-27; cf. Josh 16:10; 17:13; Judg 1:28, 30-35; Isa 31:8; Lam 1:1).
[20:13] 59 tn Heb “to your hands.”
[20:16] 61 tn The antecedent of the relative pronoun is “cities.”
[20:16] 62 tn Heb “any breath.”
[20:17] 63 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “utterly.” Cf. CEV “completely wipe out.”
[20:17] 64 sn Hittite. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200
[20:17] 65 sn Amorite. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200
[20:17] 66 sn Canaanite. These were the indigenous peoples of the land of Palestine, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000
[20:17] 67 sn Perizzite. This probably refers to a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).
[20:17] 68 sn Hivite. These are usually thought to be the same as the Hurrians, a people well-known in ancient Near Eastern texts. They are likely identical to the Horites (see note on “Horites” in Deut 2:12).
[20:17] 69 tc The LXX adds “Girgashites” here at the end of the list in order to list the full (and usual) complement of seven (see note on “seven” in Deut 7:1).
[20:18] 65 tn Heb “to do according to all their abominations which they do for their gods.”
[20:19] 67 tn Heb “to fight against it to capture it.”
[20:19] 68 tn Heb “you must not destroy its trees by chopping them with an iron” (i.e., an ax).
[20:19] 69 tn Heb “you may eat from them.” The direct object is not expressed; the word “fruit” is supplied in the translation for clarity.
[20:19] 70 tn Heb “to go before you in siege.”
[20:20] 69 tn Heb “however, a tree which you know is not a tree for food you may destroy and cut down.”
[20:20] 70 tn Heb “[an] enclosure.” The term מָצוֹר (matsor) may refer to encircling ditches or to surrounding stagings. See R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 238.
