Leviticus 20:22-23

Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

20:22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ¹  so that ²  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 ³  which I am about to drive out before you, because they have done all these things and I am filled with disgust against them.

Deuteronomy 12:31

12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! ⁴  For everything that is abhorrent ⁵  to him, ⁶  everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

Deuteronomy 18:12

18:12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things ⁷  the Lord your God is about to drive them out ⁸  from before you.

[20:22]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[20:23]  ³ 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).

[12:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “you must not do thus to/for the Lord your God.”

[12:31]  ⁵ tn See note on this term at Deut 7:25.

[12:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “every abomination of the Lord.” See note on the word “his” in v. 27.

[18:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “these abhorrent things.” The repetition is emphatic. For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, the same term used earlier in the verse has been translated “detestable” here.

[18:12]  ⁸ tn The translation understands the Hebrew participial form as having an imminent future sense here.