Imamat 26:14-17

The Consequences of Disobedience

26:14 “‘If, however, ¹  you do not obey me and keep ²  all these commandments – 26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep ³  all my commandments and you break my covenant – 26:16 I for my part ⁴  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ⁵  You will sow your seed in vain because ⁶  your enemies will eat it. ⁷  26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

Yesaya 5:5-7

5:5 Now I will inform you

what I am about to do to my vineyard:

I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, ⁸ 

I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. ⁹ 

5:6 I will make it a wasteland;

no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, ¹⁰ 

and thorns and briers will grow there.

I will order the clouds

not to drop any rain on it.

5:7 Indeed ¹¹  Israel ¹²  is the vineyard of the Lord who commands armies,

the people ¹³  of Judah are the cultivated place in which he took delight.

He waited for justice, but look what he got – disobedience! ¹⁴ 

He waited for fairness, but look what he got – cries for help! ¹⁵ 

Nahum 1:14

Oracle of Judgment against the King of Nineveh

1:14 The Lord has issued a decree against you: ¹⁶ 

“Your dynasty will come to an end. ¹⁷ 

I will destroy the idols and images in the temples of your gods.

I will desecrate ¹⁸  your grave – because you are accursed!” ¹⁹ 

[26:14]  ¹ tn Heb “And if.”

[26:14]  ² tn Heb “and do not do.”

[26:15]  ³ tn Heb “to not do.”

[26:16]  ⁴ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

[26:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

[26:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

[26:16]  ⁷ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

[5:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “and it will become [a place for] grazing.” בָּעַר (ba’ar, “grazing”) is a homonym of the more often used verb “to burn.”

[5:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “and it will become a trampled place” (NASB “trampled ground”).

[5:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “it will not be pruned or hoed” (so NASB); ASV and NRSV both similar.

[5:7]  ¹¹ tn Or “For” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[5:7]  ¹² tn Heb “the house of Israel” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[5:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “men,” but in a generic sense.

[5:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “but, look, disobedience.” The precise meaning of מִשְׂפָּח (mishpakh), which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain. Some have suggested a meaning “bloodshed.” The term is obviously chosen for its wordplay value; it sounds very much like מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “justice”). The sound play draws attention to the point being made; the people have not met the Lord’s expectations.

[5:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “but, look, a cry for help.” The verb (“he waited”) does double duty in the parallelism. צְעָקָה (tsa’qah) refers to the cries for help made by the oppressed. It sounds very much like צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “fairness”). The sound play draws attention to the point being made; the people have not met the Lord’s expectations.

[1:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “has commanded concerning you.” The referent of the 2nd person masculine singular suffix (“you”) probably refers to the Assyrian king (cf. 3:18-19) rather than to the personified city of Nineveh (so NIV). Elsewhere in the book of Nahum, the city of Nineveh is referred to by the feminine rather than masculine gender. Some modern English versions supply terms not in the Hebrew text to indicate the addressee more clearly: NIV “Nineveh”; NLT “the Assyrians in Nineveh.”

[1:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from your name there will no longer be sown.”

[1:14]  ¹⁸ tn The MT reading אָשִׂים קִבְרֶךָ (’asim qivrekha, “I will make your grave”) is usually understood as a figure of speech (metonymy of effect) meaning that the Lord will destroy/execute the Assyrian king. On the other hand, the Targum and Syriac treat this as a double-accusative construction – the implied second object of אָשִׂים being מִבֵּית אֱלֹהֶיךָ (mibbet ’elohekha, “the house [i.e., “temple”] of your gods”): “I will make it [the house (i.e., temple) of your gods] your grave.” Cathcart suggests revocalizing the MT אָשִׂים to a Hiphil imperfect אָשִׁיִם (’ashiyim) from שָׁמֵם (shamem, “to devastate”): “I will devastate your grave.” Cathcart notes that the destruction of one’s grave, like the threat of no burial, was a common ancient Near Eastern treaty-curse: “Tombs, especially royal tombs, were often protected by curses directed against persons who might violate and desecrate them, and the very curse kings used to have inscribed on their tombs were precisely the curse of no progeny and no resting-place” (K. J. Cathcart, “Treaty-Curses and the Book of Nahum,” CBQ 35 [1973]: 180-81). This might reflect the background of the ancient Near Eastern kudurru curses which were made against those who might devastate a royal grave and which were put into effect by the gods of the king (see F. C. Fensham, “Common Trends in Curses of the Near Eastern Treaties and Kudurru-Inscriptions Compared with Maledictions of Amos and Isaiah,” ZAW 75 [1963]: 157-59). Despite the fact the king’s grave was allegedly protected by the Assyrian gods, the Lord would nevertheless successfully destroy it, and it would be the Assyrian king who would receive the curse. This approach respects the traditional consonantal text and only involves the revocalization of the MT’s שׂ (sin) to שׁ (shin).

[1:14]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew verb קַלֹּוֹתָ (qallota) is usually rendered “you are despised” (e.g., Gen 16:4-5; 1 Sam 2:30). However, it is possible that the Hebrew root קָלַל (qalal) is related to the Assyrian term qalu “accursed” (W. von Soden, “Hebraische Wortforschung,” VTSup 16 [1967]: 295).