Ulangan 19:10

19:10 You must not shed innocent blood ¹  in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. ² 

Amsal 1:16

1:16 for they ³  are eager ⁴  to inflict harm, ⁵ 

and they hasten ⁶  to shed blood. ⁷ 

Yesaya 1:21

Purifying Judgment

1:21 How tragic that the once-faithful city

has become a prostitute! ⁸ 

She was once a center of ⁹  justice,

fairness resided in her,

but now only murderers. ¹⁰ 

[19:10]  ¹ tn Heb “innocent blood must not be shed.” The Hebrew phrase דָּם נָקִי (dam naqiy) means the blood of a person to whom no culpability or responsibility adheres because what he did was without malice aforethought (HALOT 224 s.v דָּם 4.b).

[19:10]  ² tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”

[1:16]  ³ tn Heb “their feet.” The term “feet” is a synecdoche of the part (= their feet) for the whole person (= they), stressing the eagerness of the robbers.

[1:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “run.” The verb רוּץ (ruts, “run”) functions here as a metonymy of association, meaning “to be eager” to do something (BDB 930 s.v.).

[1:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”

[1:16]  ⁶ tn The imperfect tense verbs may be classified as habitual or progressive imperfects describing their ongoing continual activity.

[1:16]  ⁷ tc The BHS editors suggest deleting this entire verse from MT because it does not appear in several versions (Codex B of the LXX, Coptic, Arabic) and is similar to Isa 59:7a. It is possible that it was a scribal gloss (intentional addition) copied into the margin from Isaiah. But this does not adequately explain the differences. It does fit the context well enough to be original.

[1:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “How she has become a prostitute, the faithful city!” The exclamatory אֵיכָה (’ekhah, “how!”) is used several times as the beginning of a lament (see Lam 1:1; 2;1; 4:1-2). Unlike a number of other OT passages that link references to Israel’s harlotry to idolatry, Isaiah here makes the connection with social and moral violations.

[1:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “filled with.”

[1:21]  ¹⁰ tn Or “assassins.” This refers to the oppressive rich and/or their henchmen. R. Ortlund (Whoredom, 78) posits that it serves as a synecdoche for all varieties of criminals, the worst being mentioned to imply all lesser ones. Since Isaiah often addressed his strongest rebuke to the rulers and leaders of Israel, he may have in mind the officials who bore the responsibility to uphold justice and righteousness.