Kejadian 3:17-18

3:17 But to Adam ¹  he said,

“Because you obeyed ²  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ³  thanks to you; ⁴ 

in painful toil you will eat ⁵  of it all the days of your life.

3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

but you will eat the grain ⁶  of the field.

Kejadian 6:11-13

6:11 The earth was ruined ⁷  in the sight of ⁸  God; the earth was filled with violence. ⁹  6:12 God saw the earth, and indeed ¹⁰  it was ruined, ¹¹  for all living creatures ¹²  on the earth were sinful. ¹³  6:13 So God said ¹⁴  to Noah, “I have decided that all living creatures must die, ¹⁵  for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am about to destroy ¹⁶  them and the earth.

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 ¹⁷  have been defiled with all these things. 18:25 Therefore ¹⁸  the land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity upon it, ¹⁹  so that the land has vomited out its inhabitants. 18:26 You yourselves must obey ²⁰  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ²¹  18:27 for the people who were in the land before you have done all these abominations, ²²  and the land has become unclean. 18:28 So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it ²³  just as it has vomited out the nations ²⁴  that were before you.

Imamat 20:22

Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

20:22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ²⁵  so that ²⁶  the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out.

Bilangan 35:33-34

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. 35:34 Therefore do not defile the land that you will inhabit, in which I live, for I the Lord live among the Israelites.”

Bilangan 35:2

35:2 “Instruct the Israelites to give ²⁷  the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites ²⁸  will possess. You must also give the Levites grazing land around the towns.

Bilangan 33:9

33:9 They traveled from Marah and came to Elim; in Elim there are twelve fountains of water and seventy palm trees, so they camped there.

Mazmur 106:36-39

106:36 They worshiped ²⁹  their idols,

which became a snare to them. ³⁰ 

106:37 They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. ³¹ 

106:38 They shed innocent blood –

the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

The land was polluted by bloodshed. ³² 

106:39 They were defiled by their deeds,

and unfaithful in their actions. ³³ 

Yeremia 3:1-2

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again. ³⁴ 

Doing that would utterly defile the land. ³⁵ 

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ³⁶ 

So what makes you think you can return to me?” ³⁷ 

says the Lord.

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ³⁸ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ³⁹ 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ⁴⁰ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁴¹ 

Yehezkiel 7:20-24

7:20 They rendered the beauty of his ornaments into pride, ⁴²  and with it they made their abominable images – their detestable idols. Therefore I will render it filthy to them. 7:21 I will give it to foreigners as loot, to the world’s wicked ones as plunder, and they will desecrate it. 7:22 I will turn my face away from them and they will desecrate my treasured place. ⁴³  Vandals will enter it and desecrate it. ⁴⁴  7:23 (Make the chain, ⁴⁵  because the land is full of murder ⁴⁶  and the city is full of violence.) 7:24 I will bring the most wicked of the nations and they will take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their sanctuaries ⁴⁷  will be desecrated.

Yehezkiel 22:24-31

22:24 “Son of man, say to her: ‘You are a land that receives no rain ⁴⁸  or showers in the day of my anger.’ ⁴⁹  22:25 Her princes ⁵⁰  within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows ⁵¹  within it. 22:26 Her priests abuse my law and have desecrated my holy things. They do not distinguish between the holy and the profane, ⁵²  or recognize any distinction between the unclean and the clean. They ignore ⁵³  my Sabbaths and I am profaned in their midst. 22:27 Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey – shedding blood and destroying lives – so they can get dishonest profit. 22:28 Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. ⁵⁴  They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. 22:29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have wronged the poor and needy; they have oppressed the foreigner who lives among them and denied them justice. ⁵⁵ 

22:30 “I looked for a man from among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. ⁵⁶  22:31 So I have poured my anger on them, and destroyed them with the fire of my fury. I hereby repay them for what they have done, ⁵⁷  declares the sovereign Lord.”

Mikha 2:10

2:10 But you are the ones who will be forced to leave! ⁵⁸ 

For this land is not secure! ⁵⁹ 

Sin will thoroughly destroy it! ⁶⁰ 

Roma 8:20-21

8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God ⁶¹  who subjected it – in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

[3:17]  ¹ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

[3:17]  ² tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

[3:17]  ³ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

[3:17]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

[3:17]  ⁵ sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

[3:18]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term עֵשֶׂב (’esev), when referring to human food, excludes grass (eaten by cattle) and woody plants like vines.

[6:11]  ⁷ tn Apart from Gen 6:11-12, the Niphal form of this verb occurs in Exod 8:20 HT (8:24 ET), where it describes the effect of the swarms of flies on the land of Egypt; Jer 13:7 and 18:4, where it is used of a “ruined” belt and “marred” clay pot, respectively; and Ezek 20:44, where it describes Judah’s morally “corrupt” actions. The sense “morally corrupt” fits well in Gen 6:11 because of the parallelism (note “the earth was filled with violence”). In this case “earth” would stand by metonymy for its sinful inhabitants. However, the translation “ruined” works just as well, if not better. In this case humankind’s sin is viewed has having an adverse effect upon the earth. Note that vv. 12b-13 make a distinction between the earth and the living creatures who live on it.

[6:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “before.”

[6:11]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew word translated “violence” refers elsewhere to a broad range of crimes, including unjust treatment (Gen 16:5; Amos 3:10), injurious legal testimony (Deut 19:16), deadly assault (Gen 49:5), murder (Judg 9:24), and rape (Jer 13:22).

[6:12]  ¹⁰ tn Or “God saw how corrupt the earth was.”

[6:12]  ¹¹ tn The repetition in the text (see v. 11) emphasizes the point.

[6:12]  ¹² tn Heb “flesh.” Since moral corruption is in view here, most modern western interpreters understand the referent to be humankind. However, the phrase “all flesh” is used consistently of humankind and the animals in Gen 6-9 (6:17, 19; 7:15-16, 21; 8:17; 9:11, 15-17), suggesting that the author intends to picture all living creatures, humankind and animals, as guilty of moral failure. This would explain why the animals, not just humankind, are victims of the ensuing divine judgment. The OT sometimes views animals as morally culpable (Gen 9:5; Exod 21:28-29; Jonah 3:7-8). The OT also teaches that a person’s sin can contaminate others (people and animals) in the sinful person’s sphere (see the story of Achan, especially Josh 7:10). So the animals could be viewed here as morally contaminated because of their association with sinful humankind.

[6:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “had corrupted its way.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix on “way” refers to the collective “all flesh.” The construction “corrupt one’s way” occurs only here (though Ezek 16:47 uses the Hiphil in an intransitive sense with the preposition בְּ [bet, “in”] followed by “ways”). The Hiphil of שָׁחָת (shakhat) means “to ruin, to destroy, to corrupt,” often as here in a moral/ethical sense. The Hebrew term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way”) here refers to behavior or moral character, a sense that it frequently carries (see BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a).

[6:13]  ¹⁴ sn On the divine style utilized here, see R. Lapointe, “The Divine Monologue as a Channel of Revelation,” CBQ 32 (1970): 161-81.

[6:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the end of all flesh is coming [or “has come”] before me.” (The verb form is either a perfect or a participle.) The phrase “end of all flesh” occurs only here. The term “end” refers here to the end of “life,” as v. 3 and the following context (which describes how God destroys all flesh) make clear. The statement “the end has come” occurs in Ezek 7:2, 6, where it is used of divine judgment. The phrase “come before” occurs in Exod 28:30, 35; 34:34; Lev 15:14; Num 27:17; 1 Sam 18:13, 16; 2 Sam 19:8; 20:8; 1 Kgs 1:23, 28, 32; Ezek 46:9; Pss 79:11 (groans come before God); 88:3 (a prayer comes before God); 100:2; 119:170 (prayer comes before God); Lam 1:22 (evil doing comes before God); Esth 1:19; 8:1; 9:25; 1 Chr 16:29. The expression often means “have an audience with” or “appear before.” But when used metaphorically, it can mean “get the attention of” or “prompt a response.” This is probably the sense in Gen 6:13. The necessity of ending the life of all flesh on earth is an issue that has gotten the attention of God. The term “end” may even be a metonymy for that which has prompted it – violence (see the following clause).

[6:13]  ¹⁶ tn The participle, especially after הִנֵּה (hinneh) has an imminent future nuance. The Hiphil of שָׁחָת (shakhat) here has the sense “to destroy” (in judgment). Note the wordplay involving this verb in vv. 11-13: The earth is “ruined” because all flesh has acted in a morally “corrupt” manner. Consequently, God will “destroy” all flesh (the referent of the suffix “them”) along with the ruined earth. They had ruined themselves and the earth with violence, and now God would ruin them with judgment. For other cases where “earth” occurs as the object of the Hiphil of שָׁחָת, see 1 Sam 6:5; 1 Chr 20:1; Jer 36:29; 51:25.

[18:24]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.

[18:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and I have visited its [punishment for] iniquity on it.” See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[18:26]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

[18:27]  ²² tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”

[18:28]  ²³ tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”

[18:28]  ²⁴ 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).

[20:22]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[35:2]  ²⁷ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive: “command…and they will give,” or “that they give.”

[35:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[106:36]  ²⁹ tn Or “served.”

[106:36]  ³⁰ sn Became a snare. See Exod 23:33; Judg 2:3.

[106:37]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew term שֵׁדִים (shedim, “demons”) occurs only here and in Deut 32:17. Some type of lesser deity is probably in view.

[106:38]  ³² sn Num 35:33-34 explains that bloodshed defiles a land.

[106:39]  ³³ tn Heb “and they committed adultery in their actions.” This means that they were unfaithful to the Lord (see Ps 73:27).

[3:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[3:1]  sn For the legal background for the illustration that is used here see Deut 24:1-4.

[3:1]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”

[3:1]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.

[3:2]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

[7:20]  ⁴² tc The MT reads “he set up the beauty of his ornament as pride.” The verb may be repointed as plural without changing the consonantal text. The Syriac reads “their ornaments” (plural), implying עֶדְיָם (’edyam) rather than עֶדְיוֹ (’edyo) and meaning “they were proud of their beautiful ornaments.” This understands “ornaments” in the common sense of women’s jewelry, which then were used to make idols. The singular suffix “his ornaments” would refer to using items from the temple treasury to make idols. D. I. Block points out the foreshadowing of Ezek 16:17 which, with Rashi and the Targum, supports the understanding that this is a reference to temple items. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:265.

[7:22]  ⁴³ sn My treasured place probably refers to the temple (however, cf. NLT “my treasured land”).

[7:22]  ⁴⁴ sn Since the pronouns “it” are both feminine, they do not refer to the masculine “my treasured place”; instead they probably refer to Jerusalem or the land, both of which are feminine in Hebrew.

[7:23]  ⁴⁵ 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]  ⁴⁶ 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.

[7:24]  ⁴⁷ sn Or “their holy places” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV).

[22:24]  ⁴⁸ tc The MT reads “that is not cleansed”; the LXX reads “that is not drenched,” which assumes a different vowel pointing as well as the loss of a מ (mem) due to haplography. In light of the following reference to showers, the reading of the LXX certainly fits the context well. For a defense of the emendation, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32. Yet the MT is not an unreasonable reading since uncleanness in the land also fits the context, and a poetic connection between rain and the land being uncleansed may be feasible since washing with water is elsewhere associated with cleansing (Num 8:7; 31:23; Ps 51:7).

[22:24]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “in a day of anger.”

[22:25]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “a conspiracy of her prophets is in her midst.” The LXX reads “whose princes” rather than “a conspiracy of prophets.” The prophets are mentioned later in the paragraph (v. 28). If one follows the LXX in verse 25, then five distinct groups are mentioned in vv. 25-29: princes, priests, officials, prophets, and the people of the land. For a defense of the Septuagintal reading, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:720, n. 4.

[22:25]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “her widows they have multiplied.” The statement alludes to their murderous acts.

[22:26]  ⁵² tn Or “between the consecrated and the common.”

[22:26]  ⁵³ tn Heb “hide their eyes from.” The idiom means to disregard or ignore something or someone (see Lev 20:4; 1 Sam 12:3; Prov 28:27; Isa 1:15).

[22:28]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “her prophets coat for themselves with whitewash.” The expression may be based on Ezek 13:10-15.

[22:29]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “and the foreigner they have oppressed without justice.”

[22:30]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “I did not find.”

[22:31]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.”

[2:10]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “Arise and go!” These imperatives are rhetorical. Those who wrongly drove widows and orphans from their homes and land inheritances will themselves be driven out of the land (cf. Isa 5:8-17). This is an example of poetic justice.

[2:10]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “for this is no resting place.” The Lord speaks to the oppressors.

[2:10]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “uncleanness will destroy, and destruction will be severe.”

[8:20]  ⁶¹ tn Grk “because of the one”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.