Numbers 35:33

35:33 “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

Isaiah 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ¹ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ² 

Isaiah 26:21

26:21 For look, the Lord is coming out of the place where he lives, ³ 

to punish the sin of those who live on the earth.

The earth will display the blood shed on it;

it will no longer cover up its slain. ⁴ 

Ezekiel 7:23

7:23 (Make the chain, ⁵  because the land is full of murder ⁶  and the city is full of violence.)

Ezekiel 22:3

22:3 Then say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), ⁷  and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

[1:15]  ¹ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ² sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[26:21]  ³ tn Heb “out of his place” (so KJV, ASV).

[26:21]  ⁴ sn This implies that rampant bloodshed is one of the reasons for divine judgment. See the note at 24:5.

[7:23]  ⁵ tc The Hebrew word “the chain” occurs only here in the OT. The reading of the LXX (“and they will make carnage”) seems to imply a Hebrew text of ַהבַּתּוֹק (habbattoq, “disorder, slaughter”) instead of הָרַתּוֹק (haratoq, “the chain”). The LXX is also translating the verb as a third person plural future and taking this as the end of the preceding verse. As M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 1:154) notes, this may refer to a chain for a train of exiles but “the context does not speak of exile but of the city’s fall. The versions guess desperately and we can do little better.”

[7:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “judgment for blood,” i.e., indictment or accountability for bloodshed. The word for “judgment” does not appear in the similar phrase in 9:9.

[22:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “her time”; this refers to the time of impending judgment (see the note on “doom” in v. 4).