Deuteronomy 18:20

18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized ¹  him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.

Deuteronomy 18:1

Provision for Priests and Levites

18:1 The Levitical priests ²  – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. ³ 

Deuteronomy 18:1

Provision for Priests and Levites

18:1 The Levitical priests ⁴  – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. ⁵ 

Isaiah 9:14-15

9:14 So the Lord cut off Israel’s head and tail,

both the shoots and stalk ⁶  in one day.

9:15 The leaders and the highly respected people ⁷  are the head,

the prophets who teach lies are the tail.

Isaiah 28:17-18

28:17 I will make justice the measuring line,

fairness the plumb line;

hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, ⁸ 

the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place.

28:18 Your treaty with death will be dissolved; ⁹ 

your agreement ¹⁰  with Sheol will not last. ¹¹ 

When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by, ¹² 

you will be overrun by it. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 14:15

14:15 I did not send those prophets, though they claim to be prophesying in my name. They may be saying, ‘No war or famine will happen in this land.’ But I, the Lord, say this about ¹⁴  them: ‘War and starvation will kill those prophets.’ ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 28:15-17

28:15 Then the prophet Jeremiah told the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you! You are making these people trust in a lie! ¹⁶  28:16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ¹⁷  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ¹⁸ 

28:17 In the seventh month of that very same year ¹⁹  the prophet Hananiah died.

Jeremiah 29:21-22

29:21 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²⁰  also has something to say about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you and claiming my authority to do so. ²¹  ‘I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and he will execute them before your very eyes. 29:22 And all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use them as examples when they put a curse on anyone. They will say, “May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab whom the king of Babylon roasted to death in the fire!” ²² 

Zechariah 13:3

13:3 Then, if anyone prophesies in spite of this, his father and mother to whom he was born will say to him, ‘You cannot live, for you lie in the name of the Lord.’ Then his father and mother to whom he was born will run him through with a sword when he prophesies. ²³ 

Revelation 19:20

19:20 Now ²⁴  the beast was seized, and along with him the false prophet who had performed the signs on his behalf ²⁵  – signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Both of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur. ²⁶ 

[18:20]  ¹ tn Or “commanded” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[18:1]  ² tn The MT places the terms “priests” and “Levites” in apposition, thus creating an epexegetical construction in which the second term qualifies the first, i.e., “Levitical priests.” This is a way of asserting their legitimacy as true priests. The Syriac renders “to the priest and to the Levite,” making a distinction between the two, but one that is out of place here.

[18:1]  ³ sn Of his inheritance. This is a figurative way of speaking of the produce of the land the Lord will give to his people. It is the Lord’s inheritance, but the Levites are allowed to eat it since they themselves have no inheritance among the other tribes of Israel.

[18:1]  ⁴ tn The MT places the terms “priests” and “Levites” in apposition, thus creating an epexegetical construction in which the second term qualifies the first, i.e., “Levitical priests.” This is a way of asserting their legitimacy as true priests. The Syriac renders “to the priest and to the Levite,” making a distinction between the two, but one that is out of place here.

[18:1]  ⁵ sn Of his inheritance. This is a figurative way of speaking of the produce of the land the Lord will give to his people. It is the Lord’s inheritance, but the Levites are allowed to eat it since they themselves have no inheritance among the other tribes of Israel.

[9:14]  ⁶ sn The metaphor in this line is that of a reed being cut down.

[9:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “the elder and the one lifted up with respect to the face.” For another example of the Hebrew idiom, see 2 Kgs 5:1.

[28:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “[the] refuge, [the] lie.” See v. 15.

[28:18]  ⁹ tn On the meaning of כָּפַר (kafar) in this context, see HALOT 494 s.v. I כפר and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:515, n. 9.

[28:18]  ¹⁰ tn Normally the noun חָזוּת (khazut) means “vision.” See the note at v. 15.

[28:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “will not stand” (NIV, NRSV).

[28:18]  ¹² tn See the note at v. 15.

[28:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “you will become a trampling place for it.”

[14:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord about.” The first person construction has been used in the translation for better English style.

[14:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in my name and I did not send them [= whom I did not send] and they are saying [= who are saying], ‘Sword and famine…’, by sword and famine those prophets will be killed.” This sentence has been restructured to conform to contemporary English style.

[28:15]  ¹⁶ tn Or “You are giving these people false assurances.”

[28:16]  ¹⁷ sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.

[28:16]  ¹⁸ sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the Lord had already told them to submit to Babylon, Hananiah was really counseling rebellion against the Lord. What Hananiah had done was contrary to the law of Deut 13:6 and was punishable by death.

[28:17]  ¹⁹ sn Comparison with Jer 28:1 shows that this whole incident took place in the space of two months. Hananiah had prophesied that the captivity would be over before two years had past. However, before two months were past, Hananiah himself died in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of his death. His death was a validation of Jeremiah as a true prophet. The subsequent events of 588 b.c. would validate Jeremiah’s prophesies and invalidate those of Hananiah.

[29:21]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “prophesying lies in my name.” For an explanation of this idiom see the study notes on 14:14 and 23:27.

[29:22]  ²² sn Being roasted to death in the fire appears to have been a common method of execution in Babylon. See Dan 3:6, 19-21. The famous law code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi also mandated this method of execution for various crimes a thousand years earlier. There is a satirical play on words involving their fate, “roasted them to death” (קָלָם, qalam), and the fact that that fate would become a common topic of curse (קְלָלָה, qÿlalah) pronounced on others in Babylon.

[13:3]  ²³ sn Death (in this case being run…through with a sword) was the penalty required in the OT for prophesying falsely (Deut 13:6-11; 18:20-22).

[19:20]  ²⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the introduction of an unexpected development in the account: The opposing armies do not come together in battle; rather the leader of one side is captured.

[19:20]  ²⁵ tn For this meaning see BDAG 342 s.v. ἐνώπιον 4.b, “by the authority of, on behalf of Rv 13:12, 14; 19:20.”

[19:20]  ²⁶ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”