Leviticus 20:9

Family Life and Sexual Prohibitions ¹ 

20:9 “‘If anyone ²  curses his father and mother ³  he must be put to death. He has cursed his father and mother; his blood guilt is on himself. ⁴ 

Leviticus 19:14

19:14 You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. ⁵  You must fear ⁶  your God; I am the Lord.

Leviticus 24:15

24:15 Moreover, ⁷  you are to tell the Israelites, ‘If any man curses his God ⁸  he will bear responsibility for his sin,

Leviticus 24:11

24:11 The Israelite woman’s son misused the Name and cursed, ⁹  so they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

Leviticus 24:14

24:14 “Bring the one who cursed outside the camp, and all who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the whole congregation is to stone him to death. ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 24:23

24:23 Then Moses spoke to the Israelites and they brought the one who cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. So the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

[20:9]  ¹ sn Compare the regulations in Lev 18:6-23.

[20:9]  ² tn Heb “If a man a man who.”

[20:9]  ³ tn Heb “makes light of his father and his mother.” Almost all English versions render this as some variation of “curses his father or mother.”

[20:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “his blood [plural] is in him.” Cf. NAB “he has forfeited his life”; TEV “is responsible for his own death.”

[19:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “You shall not curse a deaf [person] and before a blind [person] you shall not put a stumbling block.”

[19:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “And you shall fear.” Many English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV) regard the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) as adversative in force here (“but”).

[24:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “And.”

[24:15]  ¹⁰ sn See the note on v. 11 above and esp. Exod 22:28 [27 HT].

[24:11]  ¹³ tn The verb rendered “misused” means literally “to bore through, to pierce” (HALOT 719 s.v. נקב qal); it is from נָקַב (naqav), not קָבַב (qavav; see the participial form in v. 16a). Its exact meaning here is uncertain. The two verbs together may form a hendiadys, “he pronounced by cursing blasphemously” (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 166), the idea being one of the following: (1) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” in a way or with words that amounted to “some sort of verbal aggression against Yahweh himself” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 362), (2) he pronounced a curse against the man using the name “Yahweh” (N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers [NCBC], 110; G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 311), or (3) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” and thereby blasphemed, since the “Name” was never to be pronounced (a standard Jewish explanation). In one way or another, the offense surely violated Exod 20:7, one of the ten commandments, and the same verb for cursing is used explicitly in Exod 22:28 (27 HT) prohibition against “cursing” God. For a full discussion of these and related options for interpreting this verse see P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 335-36; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 408-9; and Levine, 166.

[24:14]  ¹⁷ tn The words “to death” are supplied in the translation as a clarification; they are clearly implied from v. 16.