Leviticus 18:24-28

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 ¹  have been defiled with all these things. 18:25 Therefore ²  the land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity upon it, ³  so that the land has vomited out its inhabitants. 18:26 You yourselves must obey ⁴  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ⁵  18:27 for the people who were in the land before you have done all these abominations, ⁶  and the land has become unclean. 18:28 So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it ⁷  just as it has vomited out the nations ⁸  that were before you.

Deuteronomy 4:26

4:26 I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ⁹  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ¹⁰  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ¹¹  annihilated.

Deuteronomy 29:26-28

29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship. ¹²  29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ¹³  written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

Deuteronomy 29:2

The Exodus, Wandering, and Conquest Reviewed

29:2 Moses proclaimed to all Israel as follows: “You have seen all that the Lord did ¹⁴  in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, all his servants, and his land.

Deuteronomy 17:20

17:20 Then he will not exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or left, and he and his descendants will enjoy many years ruling over his kingdom ¹⁵  in Israel.

Deuteronomy 25:9

25:9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. ¹⁶  She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” ¹⁷ 

Deuteronomy 25:1

25:1 If controversy arises between people, ¹⁸  they should go to court for judgment. When the judges ¹⁹  hear the case, they shall exonerate ²⁰  the innocent but condemn ²¹  the guilty.

Jeremiah 7:15

7:15 And I will drive you out of my sight just like I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel.’” ²² 

Jeremiah 24:9

24:9 I will bring such disaster on them that all the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified. I will make them an object of reproach, a proverbial example of disaster. I will make them an object of ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ²³  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ²⁴ 

Ezekiel 33:27-29

33:27 “This is what you must say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, those living in the ruins will die ²⁵  by the sword, those in the open field I will give to the wild beasts for food, and those who are in the strongholds and caves will die of disease. 33:28 I will turn the land into a desolate ruin; her confident pride will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will be so desolate no one will pass through them. 33:29 Then they will know that I am the Lord when I turn the land into a desolate ruin because of all the abominable deeds they have committed.’ ²⁶ 

Luke 21:24

21:24 They ²⁷  will fall by the edge ²⁸  of the sword and be led away as captives ²⁹  among all nations. Jerusalem ³⁰  will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ³¹ 

[18:24]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.

[18:25]  ³ tn Heb “and I have visited its [punishment for] iniquity on it.” See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[18:26]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

[18:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”

[18:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”

[18:28]  ⁸ 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).

[4:26]  ⁹ sn I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you. This stock formula introduces what is known form-critically as a רִיב (riv) or controversy pattern. It is commonly used in the ancient Near Eastern world in legal contexts and in the OT as a forensic or judicial device to draw attention to Israel’s violation of the Lord’s covenant with them (see Deut 30:19; Isa 1:2; 3:13; Jer 2:9). Since court proceedings required the testimony of witnesses, the Lord here summons heaven and earth (that is, all creation) to testify to his faithfulness, Israel’s disobedience, and the threat of judgment.

[4:26]  ¹⁰ tn Or “be destroyed”; KJV “utterly perish”; NLT “will quickly disappear”; CEV “you won’t have long to live.”

[4:26]  ¹¹ tn Or “be completely” (so NCV, TEV). It is not certain here if the infinitive absolute indicates the certainty of the following action (cf. NIV) or its degree.

[29:26]  ¹² tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”

[29:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “the entire curse.”

[29:2]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text includes “to your eyes,” but this is redundant in English style (cf. the preceding “you have seen”) and is omitted in the translation.

[17:20]  ¹⁵ tc Heb “upon his kingship.” Smr supplies כִּסֵא (kise’, “throne”) so as to read “upon the throne of his kingship.” This overliteralizes what is a clearly understood figure of speech.

[25:9]  ¹⁶ sn The removal of the sandal was likely symbolic of the relinquishment by the man of any claim to his dead brother’s estate since the sandal was associated with the soil or land (cf. Ruth 4:7-8). Spitting in the face was a sign of utmost disgust or disdain, an emotion the rejected widow would feel toward her uncooperative brother-in-law (cf. Num 12:14; Lev 15:8). See W. Bailey, NIDOTTE 2:544.

[25:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “build the house of his brother”; TEV “refuses to give his brother a descendant”; NLT “refuses to raise up a son for his brother.”

[25:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “men.”

[25:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the judges) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “declare to be just”; KJV, NASB “justify the righteous”; NAB, NIV “acquitting the innocent.”

[25:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “declare to be evil”; NIV “condemning the guilty (+ party NAB).”

[7:15]  ²² tn Heb “the descendants of Ephraim.” However, Ephraim here stands (as it often does) for all the northern tribes of Israel.

[24:9]  ²³ tn Or “an object of reproach in peoples’ proverbs…an object of ridicule in people’s curses.” The alternate translation treats the two pairs which are introduced without vavs (ו) but are joined by vavs as examples of hendiadys. This is very possible here but the chain does not contain this pairing in 25:18; 29:18.

[24:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I will make them for a terror for disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and for a proverb, for a taunt and a curse in all the places which I banish them there.” The complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down into equivalent shorter sentences to conform more with contemporary English style.

[33:27]  ²⁵ tn Heb “fall.”

[33:29]  ²⁶ sn The judgments of vv. 27-29 echo the judgments of Lev 26:22, 25.

[21:24]  ²⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ²⁸ tn Grk “by the mouth of the sword” (an idiom for the edge of a sword).

[21:24]  ²⁹ sn Here is the predicted judgment against the nation until the time of Gentile rule has passed: Its people will be led away as captives.

[21:24]  ³⁰ tn Grk “And Jerusalem.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ³¹ sn Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled implies a time when Israel again has a central role in God’s plan.