Exodus 20:24

20:24 ‘You must make for me an altar made of earth, ¹  and you will sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, ²  your sheep and your cattle. In every place ³  where I cause my name to be honored ⁴  I will come to you and I will bless you.

Deuteronomy 12:5

12:5 But you must seek only the place he ⁵  chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, ⁶  and you must go there.

Deuteronomy 12:2

12:2 You must by all means destroy ⁷  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 7:13

7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ⁹  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you.

Deuteronomy 7:1

The Dispossession of Nonvassals

7:1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, ¹⁰  Girgashites, ¹¹  Amorites, ¹²  Canaanites, ¹³  Perizzites, ¹⁴  Hivites, ¹⁵  and Jebusites, ¹⁶  seven ¹⁷  nations more numerous and powerful than you –

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹⁸  I am giving ¹⁹  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ²⁰  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ²¹ 

Deuteronomy 9:3

9:3 Understand today that the Lord your God who goes before you is a devouring fire; he will defeat and subdue them before you. You will dispossess and destroy them quickly just as he ²²  has told you.

Psalms 78:68-69

78:68 He chose the tribe of Judah,

and Mount Zion, which he loves.

78:69 He made his sanctuary as enduring as the heavens above; ²³ 

as secure as the earth, which he established permanently. ²⁴ 

Psalms 132:13-14

132:13 Certainly ²⁵  the Lord has chosen Zion;

he decided to make it his home. ²⁶ 

132:14 He said, ²⁷  “This will be my resting place forever;

I will live here, for I have chosen it. ²⁸ 

[20:24]  ¹ sn The instructions here call for the altar to be made of natural things, not things manufactured or shaped by man. The altar was either to be made of clumps of earth or natural, unhewn rocks.

[20:24]  ² sn The “burnt offering” is the offering prescribed in Lev 1. Everything of this animal went up in smoke as a sweet aroma to God. It signified complete surrender by the worshiper who brought the animal, and complete acceptance by God, thereby making atonement. The “peace offering” is legislated in Lev 3 and 7. This was a communal meal offering to celebrate being at peace with God. It was made usually for thanksgiving, for payment of vows, or as a freewill offering.

[20:24]  ³ tn Gesenius lists this as one of the few places where the noun in construct seems to be indefinite in spite of the fact that the genitive has the article. He says בְּכָל־הַמָּקוֹם (bÿkhol-hammaqom) means “in all the place, sc. of the sanctuary, and is a dogmatic correction of “in every place” (כָּל־מָקוֹם, kol-maqom). See GKC 412 §127.e.

[20:24]  ⁴ tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”), but in the Hiphil especially it can mean more than remember or cause to remember (remind) – it has the sense of praise or honor. B. S. Childs says it has a denominative meaning, “to proclaim” (Exodus [OTL], 447). The point of the verse is that God will give Israel reason for praising and honoring him, and in every place that occurs he will make his presence known by blessing them.

[12:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[12:5]  ⁶ tc Some scholars, on the basis of v. 11, emend the MT reading שִׁכְנוֹ (shikhno, “his residence”) to the infinitive construct לְשָׁכֵן (lÿshakhen, “to make [his name] to dwell”), perhaps with the 3rd person masculine singular sf לְשַׁכְּנוֹ (lÿshakÿno, “to cause it to dwell”). Though the presupposed nounשֵׁכֶן (shekhen) is nowhere else attested, the parallel here with שַׁמָּה (shammah, “there”) favors retaining the MT as it stands.

[12:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “destroying you must destroy”; KJV “Ye shall utterly (surely ASV) destroy”; NRSV “must demolish completely.” The Hebrew infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis, which is reflected in the translation by the words “by all means.”

[12:2]  ⁸ sn Every leafy tree. This expression refers to evergreens which, because they keep their foliage throughout the year, provided apt symbolism for nature cults such as those practiced in Canaan. The deity particularly in view is Asherah, wife of the great god El, who was considered the goddess of fertility and whose worship frequently took place at shrines near or among clusters (groves) of such trees (see also Deut 7:5). See J. Hadley, NIDOTTE 1:569-70; J. DeMoor, TDOT 1:438-44.

[7:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “will bless the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[7:1]  ¹⁰ sn Hittites. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 b.c.) they were at their zenith, establishing outposts and colonies near and far. Some elements were obviously in Canaan at the time of the Conquest (1400-1350 b.c.).

[7:1]  ¹¹ sn Girgashites. These cannot be ethnically identified and are unknown outside the OT. They usually appear in such lists only when the intention is to have seven groups in all (see also the note on the word “seven” later in this verse).

[7:1]  ¹² sn Amorites. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200 b.c. or thereabouts.

[7:1]  ¹³ sn Canaanites. These were the indigenous peoples of the land, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000 b.c.). The OT identifies them as descendants of Ham (Gen 10:6), the only Hamites to have settled north and east of Egypt.

[7:1]  ¹⁴ sn Perizzites. This is probably a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).

[7:1]  ¹⁵ sn Hivites. 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 the term “Horites” in Deut 2:12).

[7:1]  ¹⁶ sn Jebusites. These inhabited the hill country, particularly in and about Jerusalem (cf. Num 13:29; Josh 15:8; 2 Sam 5:6; 24:16).

[7:1]  ¹⁷ sn Seven. This is an ideal number in the OT, one symbolizing fullness or completeness. Therefore, the intent of the text here is not to be precise and list all of Israel’s enemies but simply to state that Israel will have a full complement of foes to deal with. For other lists of Canaanites, some with fewer than seven peoples, see Exod 3:8; 13:5; 23:23, 28; 33:2; 34:11; Deut 20:17; Josh 3:10; 9:1; 24:11. Moreover, the “Table of Nations” (Gen 10:15-19) suggests that all of these (possibly excepting the Perizzites) were offspring of Canaan and therefore Canaanites.

[8:1]  ¹⁸ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[9:3]  ²² tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid redundancy.

[78:69]  ²³ tc Heb “and he built like the exalting [ones] his sanctuary.” The phrase כְּמוֹ־רָמִים (kÿmo-ramim, “like the exalting [ones]”) is a poetic form of the comparative preposition followed by a participial form of the verb רוּם (rum, “be exalted”). The text should be emended to כִּמְרֹמִים (kimromim, “like the [heavenly] heights”). See Ps 148:1, where “heights” refers to the heavens above.

[78:69]  ²⁴ tn Heb “like the earth, [which] he established permanently.” The feminine singular suffix on the Hebrew verb יָסַד (yasad, “to establish”) refers to the grammatically feminine noun “earth.”

[132:13]  ²⁵ tn Or “for.”

[132:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “he desired it for his dwelling place.”

[132:14]  ²⁷ tn The words “he said” are added in the translation to clarify that what follows are the Lord’s words.

[132:14]  ²⁸ tn Heb “for I desired it.”