Genesis 39:7

39:7 Soon after these things, his master’s wife took notice of ¹  Joseph and said, “Have sex with me.” ² 

Genesis 39:12

39:12 She grabbed him by his outer garment, saying, “Have sex with me!” But he left his outer garment in her hand and ran ³  outside. ⁴ 

Numbers 25:1

Israel’s Sin with the Moabite Women

25:1 ⁵ When ⁶  Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality ⁷  with the daughters of Moab.

Numbers 25:6-8

25:6 Just then ⁸  one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers ⁹  a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of ¹⁰  the whole community of the Israelites, while they ¹¹  were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 25:7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, ¹²  he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand, 25:8 and went after the Israelite man into the tent ¹³  and thrust through the Israelite man and into the woman’s abdomen. ¹⁴  So the plague was stopped from the Israelites. ¹⁵ 

Numbers 31:16

31:16 Look, these people through the counsel of Balaam caused the Israelites to act treacherously against the Lord in the matter of Peor – which resulted in the plague among the community of the Lord!

Ezekiel 16:33

16:33 All prostitutes receive payment, ¹⁶  but instead you give gifts to every one of your lovers. You bribe them to come to you from all around for your sexual favors!

Revelation 2:20

2:20 But I have this against you: You tolerate that ¹⁷  woman ¹⁸  Jezebel, ¹⁹  who calls herself a prophetess, and by her teaching deceives ²⁰  my servants ²¹  to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. ²² 

[39:7]  ¹ tn Heb “she lifted up her eyes toward,” an expression that emphasizes her deliberate and careful scrutiny of him.

[39:7]  ² tn Heb “lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:12]  ³ tn Heb “he fled and he went out.” The construction emphasizes the point that Joseph got out of there quickly.

[39:12]  ⁴ sn For discussion of this episode, see A. M. Honeyman, “The Occasion of Joseph’s Temptation,” VT 2 (1952): 85-87.

[25:1]  ⁵ sn Chapter 25 tells of Israel’s sins on the steppes of Moab, and God’s punishment. In the overall plan of the book, here we have another possible threat to God’s program, although here it comes from within the camp (Balaam was the threat from without). If the Moabites could not defeat them one way, they would try another. The chapter has three parts: fornication (vv. 1-3), God’s punishment (vv. 4-9), and aftermath (vv. 10-18). See further G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, 105-21; and S. C. Reif, “What Enraged Phinehas? A Study of Numbers 25:8,” JBL 90 (1971): 200-206.

[25:1]  ⁶ tn This first preterite is subordinated to the next as a temporal clause; it is not giving a parallel action, but the setting for the event.

[25:1]  ⁷ sn The account apparently means that the men were having sex with the Moabite women. Why the men submitted to such a temptation at this point is hard to say. It may be that as military heroes the men took liberties with the women of occupied territories.

[25:6]  ⁸ tn The verse begins with the deictic particle וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh), pointing out the action that was taking place. It stresses the immediacy of the action to the reader.

[25:6]  ⁹ tn Or “to his family”; or “to his clan.”

[25:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of.”

[25:6]  ¹¹ tn The vav (ו) at the beginning of the clause is a disjunctive because it is prefixed to the nonverbal form. In this context it is best interpreted as a circumstantial clause, stressing that this happened “while” people were weeping over the sin.

[25:7]  ¹² tn The first clause is subordinated to the second because both begin with the preterite verbal form, and there is clearly a logical and/or chronological sequence involved.

[25:8]  ¹³ tn The word קֻבָּה (qubbah) seems to refer to the innermost part of the family tent. Some suggest it was in the tabernacle area, but that is unlikely. S. C. Reif argues for a private tent shrine (“What Enraged Phinehas? A Study of Numbers 25:8,” JBL 90 [1971]: 200-206).

[25:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he thrust the two of them the Israelite man and the woman to her belly [lower abdomen].” Reif notes the similarity of the word with the previous “inner tent,” and suggests that it means Phinehas stabbed her in her shrine tent, where she was being set up as some sort of priestess or cult leader. Phinehas put a quick end to their sexual immorality while they were in the act.

[25:8]  ¹⁵ sn Phinehas saw all this as part of the pagan sexual ritual that was defiling the camp. He had seen that the Lord himself had had the guilty put to death. And there was already some plague breaking out in the camp that had to be stopped. And so in his zeal he dramatically put an end to this incident, that served to stop the rest and end the plague.

[16:33]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.

[2:20]  ¹⁷ tn The Greek article has been translated here with demonstrative force.

[2:20]  ¹⁸ tc The ms evidence for γυναῖκα (gunaika, “woman”) alone includes {א C P 1611 2053 pc lat}. The ms evidence for the addition of “your” (σου, sou) includes A 1006 2351 Ï^K pc sy. With the pronoun, the text reads “your wife, Jezebel” instead of “that woman, Jezebel.” In Revelation, A C are the most important mss, along with א Ì⁴⁷ (which only reads in portions of chapters 9-17) 1006 1611 2053; in this instance, the external evidence slightly favors the shorter reading. But internally, it gains strength. The longer reading implies the idea that the angel in 2:18 is the bishop or leader of the church in Thyatira. The pronoun “your” (σου) is used four times in vv. 19-20 and may have been the cause for the scribe copying it again. Further, once the monarchical episcopate was in vogue (beginning in the 2nd century) scribes might have been prone to add “your” here.

[2:20]  ¹⁹ sn Jezebel was the name of King Ahab’s idolatrous and wicked queen in 1 Kgs 16:31; 18:1-5; 19:1-3; 21:5-24. It is probable that the individual named here was analogous to her prototype in idolatry and immoral behavior, since those are the items singled out for mention.

[2:20]  ²⁰ tn Grk “teaches and deceives” (διδάσκει καὶ πλανᾷ, didaskei kai plana), a construction in which the first verb appears to specify the means by which the second is accomplished: “by her teaching, deceives…”

[2:20]  ²¹ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

[2:20]  ²² sn To commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Note the conclusions of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:29, which specifically prohibits Gentile Christians from engaging in these activities.