Genesis 34:30

34:30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought ruin ¹  on me by making me a foul odor ²  among the inhabitants of the land – among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I ³  am few in number; they will join forces against me and attack me, and both I and my family will be destroyed!”

Deuteronomy 23:7

23:7 You must not hate an Edomite, for he is your relative; ⁴  you must not hate an Egyptian, for you lived as a foreigner ⁵  in his land.

Deuteronomy 23:2

23:2 A person of illegitimate birth ⁶  may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 16:21

Examples of Legal Cases

16:21 You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole ⁸  near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself.

Psalms 106:40

106:40 So the Lord was angry with his people ⁹ 

and despised the people who belong to him. ¹⁰ 

Zechariah 11:8

11:8 Next I eradicated the three shepherds in one month, ¹¹  for I ran out of patience with them and, indeed, they detested me as well.

[34:30]  ¹ tn The traditional translation is “troubled me” (KJV, ASV), but the verb refers to personal or national disaster and suggests complete ruin (see Josh 7:25, Judg 11:35, Prov 11:17). The remainder of the verse describes the “trouble” Simeon and Levi had caused.

[34:30]  ² tn In the causative stem the Hebrew verb בָּאַשׁ (ba’ash) means “to cause to stink, to have a foul smell.” In the contexts in which it is used it describes foul smells, stenches, or things that are odious. Jacob senses that the people in the land will find this act terribly repulsive. See P. R. Ackroyd, “The Hebrew Root באשׁ,” JTS 2 (1951): 31-36.

[34:30]  ³ tn Jacob speaks in the first person as the head and representative of the entire family.

[23:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “brother.”

[23:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “sojourner.”

[23:2]  ⁶ tn Or “a person born of an illegitimate marriage.”

[23:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “enter the assembly of the Lord.” The phrase “do so” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[16:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “an Asherah, any tree.”

[106:40]  ⁹ tn Heb “the anger of the Lord burned against his people.”

[106:40]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his inheritance.”

[11:8]  ¹¹ sn Zechariah is only dramatizing what God had done historically (see the note on the word “cedars” in 11:1). The “one month” probably means just any short period of time in which three kings ruled in succession. Likely candidates are Elah, Zimri, Tibni (1 Kgs 16:8-20); Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem (2 Kgs 15:8-16); or Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah (2 Kgs 24:1–25:7).