Ezra 9:1

A Prayer of Ezra

9:1 Now when these things had been completed, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the local residents ¹  who practice detestable things similar to those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

Leviticus 18:24-30

Warning against the Abominations of the Nations

18:24 “‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for the nations which I am about to drive out before you ²  have been defiled with all these things. 18:25 Therefore ³  the land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity upon it, ⁴  so that the land has vomited out its inhabitants. 18:26 You yourselves must obey ⁵  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ⁶  18:27 for the people who were in the land before you have done all these abominations, ⁷  and the land has become unclean. 18:28 So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it ⁸  just as it has vomited out the nations ⁹  that were before you. 18:29 For if anyone does any of these abominations, the persons who do them will be cut off from the midst of their people. ¹⁰  18:30 You must obey my charge to not practice any of the abominable statutes ¹¹  that have been done before you, so that you do not ¹²  defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God.’”

Deuteronomy 12:31

12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! ¹³  For everything that is abhorrent ¹⁴  to him, ¹⁵  everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

Deuteronomy 18:12

18:12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things ¹⁶  the Lord your God is about to drive them out ¹⁷  from before you.

Deuteronomy 18:2

18:2 They ¹⁸  will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; ¹⁹  the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.

Deuteronomy 33:2

33:2 He said:

A Historical Review

The Lord came from Sinai

and revealed himself ²⁰  to Israel ²¹  from Seir.

He appeared in splendor ²²  from Mount Paran,

and came forth with ten thousand holy ones. ²³ 

With his right hand he gave a fiery law ²⁴  to them.

[9:1]  ¹ tn Heb “the peoples of the lands.” So also in v. 2.

[18:24]  ² tn Heb “which I am sending away (Piel participle of שָׁלַח [shalakh, “to send”]) from your faces.” The rendering here takes the participle as anticipatory of the coming conquest events.

[18:25]  ³ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.

[18:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “and I have visited its [punishment for] iniquity on it.” See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[18:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate.

[18:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

[18:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”

[18:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”

[18:28]  ⁹ tc The MT reads the singular “nation” and is followed by ASV, NASB, NRSV; the LXX, Syriac, and Targum have the plural “nations” (cf. v. 24).

[18:29]  ¹⁰ sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.

[18:30]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to not do from the statutes of the detestable acts.”

[18:30]  ¹² tn Heb “and you will not.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[12:31]  ¹³ tn Heb “you must not do thus to/for the Lord your God.”

[12:31]  ¹⁴ tn See note on this term at Deut 7:25.

[12:31]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “every abomination of the Lord.” See note on the word “his” in v. 27.

[18:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “these abhorrent things.” The repetition is emphatic. For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, the same term used earlier in the verse has been translated “detestable” here.

[18:12]  ¹⁷ tn The translation understands the Hebrew participial form as having an imminent future sense here.

[18:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he” (and throughout the verse).

[18:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “brothers,” but not referring to actual siblings. Cf. NASB “their countrymen”; NRSV “the other members of the community.”

[33:2]  ²⁰ tn Or “rose like the sun” (NCV, TEV).

[33:2]  ²¹ tc Heb “to him.” The LXX reads “to us” (לָנוּ [lanu] for לָמוֹ [lamo]), the reading of the MT is acceptable since it no doubt has in mind Israel as a collective singular.

[33:2]  ²² tn Or “he shone forth” (NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[33:2]  ²³ tc With slight alteration (מִמְרִבַת קָדֵשׁ [mimrivat qadesh] for the MT’s מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ [merivvot qodesh]) the translation would be “from Meribah Kadesh” (cf. NAB, NLT; see Deut 32:51). However, the language of holy war in the immediate context favors the reading of the MT, which views the Lord as accompanied by angelic hosts.

[33:2]  ²⁴ tc The mispointed Hebrew term אֵשְׁדָּת (’eshdat) should perhaps be construed as אֵשְׁהַת (’eshhat) with Smr.