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.

Leviticus 20:22-26

Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

20:22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ⁹  so that ¹⁰  the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out. 20:23 You must not walk in the statutes of the nation ¹¹  which I am about to drive out before you, because they have done all these things and I am filled with disgust against them. 20:24 So I have said to you: You yourselves will possess their land and I myself will give it to you for a possession, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has set you apart from the other peoples. ¹²  20:25 Therefore you must distinguish ¹³  between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean, and you must not make yourselves detestable by means of an animal or bird or anything that creeps on the ground – creatures ¹⁴  I have distinguished for you as unclean. ¹⁵  20:26 You must be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the other peoples to be mine.

Psalms 106:38

106:38 They shed innocent blood –

the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

The land was polluted by bloodshed. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ¹⁷ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ¹⁸ 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ¹⁹ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ²⁰ 

[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).

[20:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31, etc.).

[20:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[20:23]  ¹¹ tc One medieval Hebrew ms, Smr, and all the major ancient versions have the plural “nations.” Some English versions retain the singular (e.g., KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); others have the plural “nations” (e.g., NAB, NIV) and still others translate as “people” (e.g., TEV, NLT).

[20:24]  ¹² tc Here and with the same phrase in v. 26, the LXX adds “all,” resulting in the reading “all the peoples.”

[20:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “And you shall distinguish.” The verb is the same as “set apart” at the end of the previous verse. The fact that God had “set them apart” from the other peoples roundabout them called for them to “distinguish between” the clean and the unclean, etc.

[20:25]  ¹⁴ tn The word “creatures” has been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the following relative clause modifies the animal, bird, or creeping thing mentioned earlier, and not the ground itself.

[20:25]  ¹⁵ tc The MT has “to defile,” but Smr, LXX, and Syriac have “to uncleanness.”

[106:38]  ¹⁶ sn Num 35:33-34 explains that bloodshed defiles a land.

[3:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.