Discovery BoxJeremiah 7:9
Context7:9 You steal. 1 You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to 2 other gods whom you have not previously known.
Jeremiah 11:13
Context11:13 This is in spite of the fact that 3 the people of Judah have as many gods as they have towns 4 and the citizens of Jerusalem have set up as many altars to sacrifice to that disgusting god, Baal, as they have streets in the city!’ 5
Jeremiah 18:15
Context18:15 Yet my people have forgotten me
and offered sacrifices to worthless idols!
This makes them stumble along in the way they live
and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. 6
They have left them to walk in bypaths,
in roads that are not smooth and level. 7
Jeremiah 32:29-35
Context32:29 The Babylonian soldiers 8 that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. 9 32:30 This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me 10 from their earliest history until now 11 and because they 12 have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. 13 I, the Lord, affirm it! 14 32:31 This will happen because 15 the people of this city have aroused my anger and my wrath since the time they built it until now. 16 They have made me so angry that I am determined to remove 17 it from my sight. 32:32 I am determined to do so because the people of Israel and Judah have made me angry with all their wickedness – they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, and especially the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem 18 have done this wickedness. 19 32:33 They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 20 I tried over and over again 21 to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction. 22 32:34 They set up their disgusting idols in the temple which I have claimed for my own 23 and defiled it. 32:35 They built places of worship for the god Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they could sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god Molech. 24 Such a disgusting practice was not something I commanded them to do! It never even entered my mind to command them to do such a thing! So Judah is certainly liable for punishment.’ 25
Deuteronomy 13:6
Context13:6 Suppose your own full brother, 26 your son, your daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend should seduce you secretly and encourage you to go and serve other gods 27 that neither you nor your ancestors 28 have previously known, 29
Deuteronomy 13:13
Context13:13 some evil people 30 have departed from among you to entice the inhabitants of their cities, 31 saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods” (whom you have not known before). 32
Deuteronomy 28:36
Context28:36 The Lord will force you and your king 33 whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there.
Deuteronomy 28:64
Context28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.
Deuteronomy 32:17
Context32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to gods they had not known;
to new gods who had recently come along,
gods your ancestors 34 had not known about.
[7:9] 1 tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.
[7:9] 2 tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.
[11:13] 3 tn This is again an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) contextually. The nuance is a little hard to establish due to the nature of the rhetoric of the passage which utilizes the figure of apostrophe where the
[11:13] 5 tn Heb “For [or Indeed] the number of your [sing.] cities are your [sing.] gods, Judah, and the number of the streets of Jerusalem [or perhaps (your) streets, Jerusalem] you [plur.] have set up altars to the shameful thing, altars to sacrifice to Baal.” This passage involves a figure of speech where the speaker turns from describing something about someone to addressing him/her directly (a figure called apostrophe). This figure is not common in contemporary English literature or conversation and translating literally would lead to confusion on the part of some readers. Hence, the translation retains the third person in keeping with the rest of the context. The shift from singular “your cities” to plural “you have set up” is interpreted contextually to refer to a shift in addressing Judah to addressing the citizens of Jerusalem whose streets are being talked about. The appositional clause, “altars to sacrifice to Baal” has been collapsed with the preceding clause to better identify what the shameful thing is and to eliminate a complex construction. The length of this sentence runs contrary to the usual practice of breaking up long complex sentences in Hebrew into shorter equivalent ones in English. However, breaking up this sentence and possibly losing the connecting link with the preceding used to introduce it might lead to misunderstanding.
[18:15] 6 sn Heb “the ancient path.” This has already been referred to in Jer 6:16. There is another “old way” but it is the path trod by the wicked (cf. Job 22:15).
[18:15] 7 sn Heb “ways that are not built up.” This refers to the built-up highways. See Isa 40:4 for the figure. The terms “way,” “by-paths,” “roads” are, of course, being used here in the sense of moral behavior or action.
[32:29] 8 tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.
[32:29] 9 sn Compare Jer 19:13.
[32:30] 10 tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.” For this idiom see BDB 744 s.v. עַיִן 3.c and compare usage in 18:10.
[32:30] 11 tn Heb “from their youth.”
[32:30] 12 tn Heb “the people of Israel.” However, since “people of Israel” has been used in the preceding line for the northern kingdom as opposed to the kingdom of Judah, it might lead to confusion to translate literally. Moreover, the pronoun “they” accomplishes the same purpose.
[32:30] 13 tn Heb “by the work of their hands.” See the translator’s note on 25:6 and the parallelism in 25:14 for this rendering rather than referring it to the making of idols as in 1:16; 10:3.
[32:30] 14 tn Heb “Oracle of the
[32:31] 15 tn The statements in vv. 28-29 regarding the certain destruction of the city are motivated by three parallel causal clauses in vv. 30a, b, 31, the last of which extends through subordinate and coordinate clauses until the end of v. 35. An attempt has been made to bring out this structure by repeating the idea “This/it will happen” in front of each of these causal clauses in the English translation.
[32:31] 16 tn Heb “from the day they built it until this day.”
[32:31] 17 tn Heb “For this city has been to me for a source of my anger and my wrath from the day they built it until this day so as remove it.” The preposition ְל (lamed) with the infinitive (Heb “so as to remove it”; לַהֲסִירָהּ, lahasirah) expresses degree (cf. R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 37, §199, and compare usage in 2 Sam 13:2).
[32:32] 18 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
[32:32] 19 tn Heb “remove it from my sight 32:33 because of all the wickedness of the children of Israel and the children of Judah which they have done to make me angry, they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” The sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and an attempt has been made to preserve the causal connections.
[32:33] 20 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.” Compare the same idiom in 2:27.
[32:33] 21 tn For the idiom involved here see the translator’s note on 7:13. The verb that introduces this clause is a Piel infinitive absolute which is functioning in place of the finite verb (see, e.g., GKC 346 §113.ff and compare usage in Jer 8:15; 14:19. This grammatical point means that the versions cited in BHS fn a may not be reading a different text after all, but may merely be interpreting the form as syntactically equivalent to a finite verb as the present translation has done.).
[32:33] 22 tn Heb “But they were not listening so as to accept correction.”
[32:34] 23 tn Heb “the house which is called by my name.” Cf. 7:10, 11, 14 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 for the explanation for this rendering.
[32:35] 24 sn Compare Jer 7:30-31; 19:5 and the study notes on 7:30. The god Molech is especially associated with the practice of child sacrifice (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; 2 Kgs 23:10). In 1 Kgs 11:7 this god is identified as the god of the Ammonites who is also called Milcom in 1 Kgs 11:5; 2 Kgs 23:13. Child sacrifice, however, was not confined to this god; it was also made to the god Baal (Jer 19:5) and to other idols that the Israelites had set up (Ezek 16:20-21). This practice was, however, strictly prohibited in Israel (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut 12:31; 18:10). It was this practice as well as other pagan rites that Manasseh had instituted in Judah that ultimately led to Judah’s demise (2 Kgs 24:3-4). Though Josiah tried to root these pagan practices (2 Kgs 23:4-14) out of Judah he could not do so. The people had only made a pretense of following his reforms; their hearts were still far from God (Jer 3:10; 12:2).
[32:35] 25 tn Heb “They built high places to Baal which are in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to cause their sons and daughters to pass through [the fire] to Molech [a thing] which I did not command them and [which] did not go up into my heart [= “mind” in modern psychology] to do this abomination so as to make Judah liable for punishment.” For the use of the Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) to refer to the liability for punishment see BDB s.v. חָטָא Hiph.3 and compare the usage in Deut 24:8. Coming at the end as this does, this nuance is much more likely than “cause Judah to sin” which is the normal translation assigned to the verb here. The particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) that precedes it is here once again introducing a result and not a purpose (compare other clear examples in 27:10, 15). The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style and an attempt has been made to make clear that what is detestable and not commanded is not merely child sacrifice to Molech but child sacrifice in general.
[13:6] 26 tn Heb “your brother, the son of your mother.” In a polygamous society it was not rare to have half brothers and sisters by way of a common father and different mothers.
[13:6] 27 tn In the Hebrew text these words are in the form of a brief quotation: “entice you secretly saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods.’”
[13:6] 28 tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 17).
[13:6] 29 tn Heb “which you have not known, you or your fathers.” (cf. KJV, ASV; on “fathers” cf. v. 18).
[13:13] 30 tn Heb “men, sons of Belial.” The Hebrew term בְּלִיַּעַל (bÿliyya’al) has the idea of worthlessness, without morals or scruples (HALOT 133-34 s.v.). Cf. NAB, NRSV “scoundrels”; TEV, CEV “worthless people”; NLT “worthless rabble.”
[13:13] 31 tc The LXX and Tg read “your” for the MT’s “their.”
[13:13] 32 tn The translation understands the relative clause as a statement by Moses, not as part of the quotation from the evildoers. See also v. 2.
