Imamat 18:21

18:21 You must not give any of your children as an offering to Molech, ¹  so that you do not profane ²  the name of your God. I am the Lord!

Ulangan 32:27

32:27 But I fear the reaction ³  of their enemies,

for ⁴  their adversaries would misunderstand

and say, “Our power is great, ⁵ 

and the Lord has not done all this!”’

Yeremia 14:7

14:7 Then I said, ⁶ 

“O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name ⁷ 

even though our sins speak out against us. ⁸ 

Indeed, ⁹  we have turned away from you many times.

We have sinned against you.

Yeremia 14:21

14:21 For the honor of your name, ¹⁰  do not treat Jerusalem ¹¹  with contempt.

Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. ¹² 

Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it! ¹³ 

Yehezkiel 20:9

20:9 I acted for the sake of my reputation, ¹⁴  so that I would not be profaned before the nations among whom they lived, ¹⁵  before whom I revealed myself by bringing them out of the land of Egypt. ¹⁶ 

Yehezkiel 20:14

20:14 I acted for the sake of my reputation, so that I would not be profaned before the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

Yehezkiel 20:22

20:22 But I refrained from doing so, ¹⁷  and acted instead for the sake of my reputation, so that I would not be profaned before the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

Yehezkiel 20:44

20:44 Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for the sake of my reputation and not according to your wicked conduct and corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

[18:21]  ¹ tn Heb “And from your seed you shall not give to cause to pass over to Molech.” Smr (cf. also the LXX) has “to cause to serve” rather than “to cause to pass over.” For detailed remarks on Molech and Molech worship see N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers (NCBC), 87-88; P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 259-60; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 333-37, and the literature cited there. It could refer to either human sacrifice or a devotion of children to some sort of service of Molech, perhaps of a sexual sort (cf. Lev 20:2-5; 2 Kgs 23:10, etc.). The inclusion of this prohibition against Molech worship here may be due to some sexual connection of this kind, or perhaps simply to the lexical link between זֶרַע (zera’) meaning “seed, semen” in v. 20 but “offspring” in v. 21.

[18:21]  ² tn Heb “and you shall not profane.” Regarding “profane,” see the note on Lev 10:10 above.

[32:27]  ³ tn Heb “anger.”

[32:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “lest.”

[32:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “Our hand is high.” Cf. NAB “Our own hand won the victory.”

[14:7]  ⁶ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. However, it cannot be a continuation of the Lord’s speech and the people have consistently refused to acknowledge their sin. The fact that the prayer here and in vv. 19-22 are followed by an address from God to Jeremiah regarding prayer (cf. 4:11 and the interchanges there between God and Jeremiah and 15:1) also argues that the speaker is Jeremiah. He is again identifying with his people (cf. 8:18-9:2). Here he takes up the petition part of the lament which often contains elements of confession of sin and statements of trust. In 14:1-6 God portrays to Jeremiah the people’s lamentable plight instead of their describing it to him. Here Jeremiah prays what they should pray. The people are strangely silent throughout.

[14:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “Act for the sake of your name.” The usage of “act” in this absolute, unqualified sense cf. BDB 794 s.v. עָוֹשָׂה Qal.I.r and compare the usage, e.g., in 1 Kgs 8:32 and 39. For the nuance of “for the sake of your name” compare the usage in Isa 48:9 and Ezek 20:9, 14.

[14:7]  ⁸ tn Or “bear witness against us,” or “can be used as evidence against us,” to keep the legal metaphor. Heb “testify against.”

[14:7]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can scarcely be causal here; it is either intensive (BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) or concessive (BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c). The parallel usage in Gen 18:20 argues for the intensive force as does the fact that the concessive has already been expressed by אִם (’im).

[14:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “For the sake of your name.”

[14:21]  ¹¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:21]  ¹² tn English versions quite commonly supply “us” as an object for the verb in the first line. This is probably wrong. The Hebrew text reads: “Do not treat with contempt for the sake of your name; do not treat with disdain your glorious throne.” This is case of poetic parallelism where the object is left hanging until the second line. For an example of this see Prov 13:1 in the original and consult E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 103-4. There has also been some disagreement whether “your glorious throne” refers to the temple (as in 17:12) or Jerusalem (as in 3:17). From the beginning of the prayer in v. 19 where a similar kind of verb has been used with respect to Zion/Jerusalem it would appear that the contextual referent is Jerusalem. The absence of an object from the first line makes it possible to retain part of the metaphor in the translation and still convey some meaning.

[14:21]  sn The place of God’s glorious throne was first of all the ark of the covenant where God was said to be enthroned between the cherubim, then the temple that housed it, then the city itself. See 2 Kgs 19:14-15 in the context of Sennacherib’s attack on Jerusalem.

[14:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “Remember, do not break your covenant with us.”

[20:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for the sake of my name.”

[20:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “before the eyes of the nations in whose midst they were.”

[20:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to whom I made myself known before their eyes to bring them out from the land of Egypt.” The translation understands the infinitive construct (“to bring them out”) as indicating manner. God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt was an act of self-revelation in that it displayed his power and his commitment to his promises.

[20:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “drew my hand back.” This idiom also occurs in Lam 2:8 and Ps 74:11.