4:25 After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, 1 if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind 2 and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him, 3
15:7 If a fellow Israelite 21 from one of your villages 22 in the land that the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive 23 to his impoverished condition. 24
15:12 If your fellow Hebrew 25 – whether male or female 26 – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant 27 go free. 28
17:8 If a matter is too difficult for you to judge – bloodshed, 30 legal claim, 31 or assault 32 – matters of controversy in your villages 33 – you must leave there and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses. 34
18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized 35 him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.
22:22 If a man is caught having sexual relations with 44 a married woman 45 both the man who had relations with the woman and the woman herself must die; in this way you will purge 46 evil from Israel.
24:1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive 47 in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house.
24:7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, 48 and regards him as mere property 49 and sells him, that kidnapper 50 must die. In this way you will purge 51 evil from among you.
25:11 If two men 55 get into a hand-to-hand fight, and the wife of one of them gets involved to help her husband against his attacker, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his genitals, 56
28:1 “If you indeed 57 obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving 58 you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.
28:15 “But if you ignore 59 the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: 60
28:58 “If you refuse to obey 61 all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God,
1 tn Heb “have grown old in the land,” i.e., been there for a long time.
2 tn Heb “a form of anything.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, TEV “an idol.”
3 tn The infinitive construct is understood here as indicating the result, not the intention, of their actions.
4 tn Heb “keep” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
5 tn Heb “the
6 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.
7 tn Heb “if forgetting, you forget.” The infinitive absolute is used for emphasis; the translation indicates this with the words “at all” (cf. KJV).
8 tn Heb “if hearing, you will hear.” The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute to emphasize the verbal idea. The translation renders this emphasis with the word “close.”
9 tn Again, the Hebrew term אָהַב (’ahav) draws attention to the reciprocation of divine love as a condition or sign of covenant loyalty (cf. Deut 6:5).
10 tn Heb “heart and soul” or “heart and being.” See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.
11 tn Heb “this commandment.” See note at Deut 5:30.
12 tn Heb “commanding you to do it.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation and “to do it” has been left untranslated.
13 tn Heb “walk in all his ways” (so KJV, NIV); TEV “do everything he commands.”
14 tn Heb “do not listen to,” that is, do not obey.
15 tn Heb “the commandments of the
16 tn Heb “am commanding” (so NASB, NRSV).
17 tn Heb “walk after”; NIV “by following”; NLT “by worshiping.” This is a violation of the first commandment, the most serious of the covenant violations (Deut 5:6-7).
18 tn Heb “or dreamer of dreams.” See note on this expression in v. 1.
19 tn Heb “the
20 tn Heb “all your heart and soul” (so NRSV, CEV, NLT); or “heart and being” (NCV “your whole being”). See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.
21 tn Heb “one of your brothers” (so NASB); NAB “one of your kinsmen”; NRSV “a member of your community.” See the note at v. 2.
22 tn Heb “gates.”
23 tn Heb “withdraw your hand.” Cf. NIV “hardhearted or tightfisted” (NRSV and NLT similar).
24 tn Heb “from your needy brother.”
25 sn Elsewhere in the OT, the Israelites are called “Hebrews” (עִבְרִי, ’ivriy) by outsiders, rarely by themselves (cf. Gen 14:13; 39:14, 17; 41:12; Exod 1:15, 16, 19; 2:6, 7, 11, 13; 1 Sam 4:6; Jonah 1:9). Thus, here and in the parallel passage in Exod 21:2-6 the term עִבְרִי may designate non-Israelites, specifically a people well-known throughout the ancient Near East as ’apiru or habiru. They lived a rather vagabond lifestyle, frequently hiring themselves out as laborers or mercenary soldiers. While accounting nicely for the surprising use of the term here in an Israelite law code, the suggestion has against it the unlikelihood that a set of laws would address such a marginal people so specifically (as opposed to simply calling them aliens or the like). More likely עִבְרִי is chosen as a term to remind Israel that when they were “Hebrews,” that is, when they were in Egypt, they were slaves. Now that they are free they must not keep their fellow Israelites in economic bondage. See v. 15.
26 tn Heb “your brother, a Hebrew (male) or Hebrew (female).”
27 tn Heb “him.” The singular pronoun occurs throughout the passage.
28 tn The Hebrew text includes “from you.”
29 tn Heb “an abomination” (תּוֹעֵבָה); see note on the word “offensive” in v. 1.
30 tn Heb “between blood and blood.”
31 tn Heb “between claim and claim.”
32 tn Heb “between blow and blow.”
33 tn Heb “gates.”
34 tc Several Greek recensions add “to place his name there,” thus completing the usual formula to describe the central sanctuary (cf. Deut 12:5, 11, 14, 18; 16:6). However, the context suggests that the local Levitical towns, and not the central sanctuary, are in mind.
35 tn Or “commanded” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
36 tn Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”
37 tn Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”
38 tn Heb “yesterday and a third (day)” (likewise in v. 6). The point is that there was no animosity between the two parties at the time of the accident and therefore no motive for the killing. Cf. NAB “had previously borne no malice”; NRSV “had not been at enmity before.”
39 sn Heb “send her off.” The Hebrew term שִׁלַּחְתָּה (shillakhtah) is a somewhat euphemistic way of referring to divorce, the matter clearly in view here (cf. Deut 22:19, 29; 24:1, 3; Jer 3:1; Mal 2:16). This passage does not have the matter of divorce as its principal objective, so it should not be understood as endorsing divorce generally. It merely makes the point that if grounds for divorce exist (see Deut 24:1-4), and then divorce ensues, the husband could in no way gain profit from it.
40 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates by the words “in any case.”
41 tn The Hebrew text includes “for money.” This phrase has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
42 tn Or perhaps “must not enslave her” (cf. ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); Heb “[must not] be tyrannical over.”
43 sn You have humiliated her. Since divorce was considered rejection, the wife subjected to it would “lose face” in addition to the already humiliating event of having become a wife by force (21:11-13). Furthermore, the Hebrew verb translated “humiliated” here (עָנָה, ’anah), commonly used to speak of rape (cf. Gen 34:2; 2 Sam 13:12, 14, 22, 32; Judg 19:24), likely has sexual overtones as well. The woman may not be enslaved or abused after the divorce because it would be double humiliation (see also E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy [NAC], 291).
44 tn Heb “lying with” (so KJV, NASB), a Hebrew idiom for sexual relations.
45 tn Heb “a woman married to a husband.”
46 tn Heb “burn.” See note on the phrase “purge out” in Deut 21:21.
47 tn Heb “nakedness of a thing.” The Hebrew phrase עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers here to some gross sexual impropriety (see note on “indecent” in Deut 23:14). Though the term usually has to do only with indecent exposure of the genitals, it can also include such behavior as adultery (cf. Lev 18:6-18; 20:11, 17, 20-21; Ezek 22:10; 23:29; Hos 2:10).
48 tn Heb “from his brothers, from the sons of Israel.” The terms “brothers” and “sons of Israel” are in apposition; the second defines the first more specifically.
49 tn Or “and enslaves him.”
50 tn Heb “that thief.”
51 tn Heb “burn.” See note on the word “purge” in Deut 19:19.
52 tn Heb “and it will be.”
53 tn Heb “if the evil one is a son of smiting.”
54 tn Heb “according to his wickedness, by number.”
55 tn Heb “a man and his brother.”
56 tn Heb “shameful parts.” Besides the inherent indelicacy of what she has done, the woman has also threatened the progenitive capacity of the injured man. The level of specificity given this term in modern translations varies: “private parts” (NAB, NIV, CEV); “genitals” (NASB, NRSV, TEV); “sex organs” (NCV); “testicles” (NLT).
57 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”
58 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).
59 tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”
60 tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”
61 tn Heb “If you are not careful to do.”
62 tn Heb “to the