Joshua 6:18

6:18 But be careful when you are setting apart the riches for the Lord. If you take any of it, you will make the Israelite camp subject to annihilation and cause a disaster. ¹ 

Joshua 6:21

6:21 They annihilated with the sword everything that breathed in the city, ²  including men and women, young and old, as well as cattle, sheep, and donkeys.

Genesis 18:25

18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the godly with the wicked, treating the godly and the wicked alike! Far be it from you! Will not the judge ³  of the whole earth do what is right?” ⁴ 

Exodus 20:5

20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ⁵  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ⁶  God, responding to ⁷  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ⁸  of those who reject me, ⁹ 

Numbers 16:27-31

16:27 So they got away from the homes of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram on every side, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stationed themselves ¹⁰  in the entrances of their tents with their wives, their children, and their toddlers. 16:28 Then Moses said, “This is how ¹¹  you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own will. ¹²  16:29 If these men die a natural death, ¹³  or if they share the fate ¹⁴  of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. 16:30 But if the Lord does something entirely new, ¹⁵  and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up ¹⁶  along with all that they have, and they ¹⁷  go down alive to the grave, ¹⁸  then you will know that these men have despised the Lord!”

16:31 When he had finished ¹⁹  speaking ²⁰  all these words, the ground that was under them split open,

Job 20:23-28

20:23 “While he is ²¹  filling his belly,

God ²²  sends his burning anger ²³  against him,

and rains down his blows upon him. ²⁴ 

20:24 If he flees from an iron weapon,

then an arrow ²⁵  from a bronze bow pierces him.

20:25 When he pulls it out ²⁶  and it comes out of his back,

the gleaming point ²⁷  out of his liver,

terrors come over him.

20:26 Total darkness waits to receive his treasures; ²⁸ 

a fire which has not been kindled ²⁹ 

will consume him

and devour what is left in his tent.

20:27 The heavens reveal his iniquity;

the earth rises up against him.

20:28 A flood will carry off his house,

rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath.

[6:18]  ¹ tn Heb “Only you keep [away] from what is set apart [to the Lord] so that you might not, as you are setting [it] apart, take some of what is set apart [to the Lord] and make the camp of Israel set apart [to destruction by the Lord] and bring trouble on it.”

[6:21]  ² tn Heb “all which was in the city.”

[18:25]  ³ tn Or “ruler.”

[18:25]  ⁴ sn Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right? For discussion of this text see J. L. Crenshaw, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,” ZAW 82 (1970): 380-95, and C. S. Rodd, “Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Just?” ExpTim 83 (1972): 137-39.

[20:5]  ⁵ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ⁶ sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ⁷ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ⁹ tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[16:27]  ¹⁰ tn The verb נִצָּבִים (nitsavim) suggests a defiant stance, for the word is often used in the sense of taking a stand for or against something. It can also be somewhat neutral, having the sense of positioning oneself for a purpose.

[16:28]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in this.”

[16:28]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text simply has כִּי־לֹא מִלִּבִּי (ki-lo’ millibbi, “for not from my heart”). The heart is the center of the will, the place decisions are made (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament). Moses is saying that the things he has done have not come “from the will of man” so to speak – and certainly not from some secret desire on his part to seize power.

[16:29]  ¹³ tn Heb “if like the death of every man they die.”

[16:29]  ¹⁴ tn The noun is פְּקֻדָּה (pÿquddah, “appointment, visitation”). The expression refers to a natural death, parallel to the first expression.

[16:30]  ¹⁵ tn The verb בָּרָא (bara’) is normally translated “create” in the Bible. More specifically it means to fashion or make or do something new and fresh. Here the verb is joined with its cognate accusative to underscore that this will be so different everyone will know it is of God.

[16:30]  ¹⁶ tn The figures are personifications. But they vividly describe the catastrophe to follow – which was very much like a mouth swallowing them.

[16:30]  ¹⁷ tn The word is “life” or “lifetime”; it certainly means their lives – they themselves. But the presence of this word suggest more. It is an accusative specifying the state of the subject – they will go down alive to Sheol.

[16:30]  ¹⁸ tn The word “Sheol” in the Bible can be used four different ways: the grave, the realm of the departed [wicked] spirits or Hell, death in general, or a place of extreme danger (one that will lead to the grave if God does not intervene). The usage here is certainly the first, and very likely the second as well. A translation of “pit” would not be inappropriate. Since they will go down there alive, it is likely that they will sense the deprivation and the separation from the land above. See H. W. Robinson, Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament; N. J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Netherworld in the Old Testament (BibOr 21), 21-23; and A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic, especially ch. 3.

[16:31]  ¹⁹ tn The initial temporal clause is standard: It begins with the temporal indicator “and it was,” followed here by the Piel infinitive construct with the preposition and the subjective genitive suffix. “And it happened when he finished.”

[16:31]  ²⁰ tn The infinitive construct with the preposition lamed (ל) functions here as the direct object of the preceding infinitive. It tells what he finished.

[20:23]  ²¹ tn D. J. A. Clines observes that to do justice to the three jussives in the verse, one would have to translate “May it be, to fill his belly to the full, that God should send…and rain” (Job [WBC], 477). The jussive form of the verb at the beginning of the verse could also simply introduce a protasis of a conditional clause (see GKC 323 §109.h, i). This would mean, “if he [God] is about to fill his [the wicked’s] belly to the full, he will send….” The NIV reads “when he has filled his belly.” These fit better, because the context is talking about the wicked in his evil pursuit being cut down.

[20:23]  ²² tn “God” is understood as the subject of the judgment.

[20:23]  ²³ tn Heb “the anger of his wrath.”

[20:23]  ²⁴ tn Heb “rain down upon him, on his flesh.” Dhorme changes עָלֵימוֹ (’alemo, “upon him”) to “his arrows”; he translates the line as “he rains his arrows upon his flesh.” The word בִּלְחוּמוֹ (bilkhumo,“his flesh”) has been given a wide variety of translations: “as his food,” “on his flesh,” “upon him, his anger,” or “missiles or weapons of war.”

[20:24]  ²⁵ tn Heb “a bronze bow pierces him.” The words “an arrow from” are implied and are supplied in the translation; cf. “pulls it out” in the following verse.

[20:25]  ²⁶ tn The MT has “he draws out [or as a passive, “it is drawn out/forth”] and comes [or goes] out of his back.” For the first verb שָׁלַף (shalaf, “pull, draw”), many commentators follow the LXX and use שֶׁלַח (shelakh, “a spear”). It then reads “and a shaft comes out of his back,” a sword flash comes out of his liver.” But the verse could also be a continuation of the preceding.

[20:25]  ²⁷ tn Possibly a reference to lightnings.

[20:26]  ²⁸ tn Heb “all darkness is hidden for his laid up things.” “All darkness” refers to the misfortunes and afflictions that await. The verb “hidden” means “is destined for.”

[20:26]  ²⁹ tn Heb “not blown upon,” i.e., not kindled by man. But G. R. Driver reads “unquenched” (“Hebrew notes on the ‘Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach’,” JBL 53 [1934]: 289).