Imamat 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.

Ulangan 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.

Ulangan 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.”

Ulangan 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.

Kisah Para Rasul 17:20-23

17:20 For you are bringing some surprising things ¹⁵  to our ears, so we want to know what they ¹⁶  mean.” 17:21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there used to spend their time ¹⁷  in nothing else than telling ¹⁸  or listening to something new.) ¹⁹ 

17:22 So Paul stood ²⁰  before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious ²¹  in all respects. ²²  17:23 For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, ²³  I even found an altar with this inscription: ²⁴  ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, ²⁵  this I proclaim to you.

Kisah Para Rasul 25:9

25:9 But Festus, ²⁶  wanting to do the Jews a favor, asked Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be tried ²⁷  before me there on these charges?” ²⁸ 

Kisah Para Rasul 25:21

25:21 But when Paul appealed to be kept in custody for the decision of His Majesty the Emperor, ²⁹  I ordered him to be kept under guard until I could send him to Caesar.” ³⁰ 

Yeremia 7:15

7:15 And I will drive you out of my sight just like I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel.’” ³¹ 

Yeremia 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. ³²  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ³³ 

Yehezkiel 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 ³⁴  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.’ ³⁵ 

Lukas 21:24

21:24 They ³⁶  will fall by the edge ³⁷  of the sword and be led away as captives ³⁸  among all nations. Jerusalem ³⁹  will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ⁴⁰ 

[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 tn BDAG 684 s.v. ξενίζω 2 translates the substantival participle ξενίζοντα (xenizonta) as “astonishing things Ac 17:20.”

[17:20]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “these things”; but since the referent (“surprising things”) is so close, the repetition of “these things” sounds redundant in English, so the pronoun “they” was substituted in the translation.

[17:21]  ¹⁷ tn The imperfect verb ηὐκαίρουν (hukairoun) has been translated as a customary or habitual imperfect.

[17:21]  ¹⁸ tn BDAG 406-7 s.v. εὐκαιρέω has “used to spend their time in nothing else than telling Ac 17:21.”

[17:21]  ¹⁹ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. The reference to newness may be pejorative.

[17:22]  ²⁰ tn Grk “standing…said.” The participle ζηλώσαντες (zhlwsante") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[17:22]  ²¹ tn The term δεισιδαιμονεστέρους (deisidaimonesterou") is difficult. On the one hand it can have the positive sense of “devout,” but on the other hand it can have the negative sense of “superstitious” (BDAG 216 s.v. δεισιδαίμων). As part of a laudatory introduction (the technical rhetorical term for this introduction was capatatio), the term is probably positive here. It may well be a “backhanded” compliment, playing on the ambiguity.

[17:22]  ²² tn BDAG 513 s.v. κατά B.6 translates the phrase κατὰ πάντα (kata panta) as “in all respects.”

[17:23]  ²³ tn Or “your sanctuaries.” L&N 53.54 gives “sanctuary” (place of worship) as an alternate meaning for the word σεβάσματα (sebasmata).

[17:23]  ²⁴ tn Grk “on which was written,” but since it would have been carved in stone, it is more common to speak of an “inscription” in English. To simplify the English the relative construction with a passive verb (“on which was inscribed”) was translated as a prepositional phrase with a substantive (“inscription”).

[17:23]  ²⁵ tn BDAG 13 s.v. ἀγνοέω 1.b has “Abs. ὅ ἀγνοοῦντες εὐσεβεῖτε what you worship without knowing it (on the subject matter Maximus Tyr. 11, 5e: all sorts of philosophers ἴσασιν οὐκ ἑκόντες καὶ λέγουσιν ἄκοντες sc. τὸ θεῖον = they know and name God without intending to do so) Ac 17:23.” Paul, in typical Jewish Christian style, informs them of the true God, of whom their idols are an ignorant reflection.

[25:9]  ²⁶ sn See the note on Porcius Festus in 24:27.

[25:9]  ²⁷ tn Or “stand trial.”

[25:9]  ²⁸ tn Grk “concerning these things.”

[25:21]  ²⁹ tn A designation of the Roman emperor (in this case, Nero). BDAG 917 s.v. σεβαστός states, “ὁ Σεβαστός His Majesty the Emperor Ac 25:21, 25 (of Nero).” It was a translation into Greek of the Latin “Augustus.”

[25:21]  ³⁰ tn Or “to the emperor” (“Caesar” is a title for the Roman emperor).

[7:15]  ³¹ tn Heb “the descendants of Ephraim.” However, Ephraim here stands (as it often does) for all the northern tribes of Israel.

[24:9]  ³² 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]  sn For an example of how the “example used in curses” worked, see Jer 29:22. Sodom and Gomorrah evidently function much that same way (see 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Deut 29:23; Zeph 2:9).

[24:9]  ³³ 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]  ³⁴ tn Heb “fall.”

[33:29]  ³⁵ sn The judgments of vv. 27-29 echo the judgments of Lev 26:22, 25.

[21:24]  ³⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ³⁷ tn Grk “by the mouth of the sword” (an idiom for the edge of a sword).

[21:24]  ³⁸ 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]  ³⁹ tn Grk “And Jerusalem.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ⁴⁰ sn Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled implies a time when Israel again has a central role in God’s plan.