Imamat 18:9

18:9 You must not have sexual intercourse with your sister, whether she is your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, ¹  whether she is born in the same household or born outside it; ²  you must not have sexual intercourse with either of them. ³ 

Imamat 20:17

20:17 “‘If a man has sexual intercourse with ⁴  his sister, whether the daughter of his father or his mother, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. ⁵  He has exposed his sister’s nakedness; he will bear his punishment for iniquity. ⁶ 

Imamat 20:2

20:2 “You are to say to the Israelites, ‘Any man from the Israelites or from the foreigners who reside in Israel ⁷  who gives any of his children ⁸  to Molech ⁹  must be put to death; the people of the land must pelt him with stones. ¹⁰ 

1 Samuel 13:1

Saul Fails the Lord

13:1 Saul was [thirty] ¹¹  years old when he began to reign; he ruled over Israel for [forty] ¹²  years.

1 Samuel 13:8-14

13:8 He waited for seven days, the time period indicated by Samuel. ¹³  But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the army began to abandon Saul. ¹⁴ 

13:9 So Saul said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings.” Then he offered a burnt offering. 13:10 Just when he had finished offering the burnt offering, Samuel appeared on the scene. Saul went out to meet him and to greet him. ¹⁵ 

13:11 But Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul replied, “When I saw that the army had started to abandon me ¹⁶  and that you didn’t come at the appointed time and that the Philistines had assembled at Micmash, 13:12 I thought, ¹⁷  ‘Now the Philistines will come down on me at Gilgal and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt obligated ¹⁸  to offer the burnt offering.”

13:13 Then Samuel said to Saul, “You have made a foolish choice! You have not obeyed ¹⁹  the commandment that the Lord your God gave ²⁰  you. Had you done that, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever! 13:14 But now your kingdom will not continue! The Lord has sought out ²¹  for himself a man who is loyal to him ²²  and the Lord has appointed ²³  him to be leader over his people, for you have not obeyed what the Lord commanded you.”

Yehezkiel 22:11

22:11 One ²⁴  commits an abominable act with his neighbor’s wife; another obscenely defiles his daughter-in-law; another violates ²⁵  his sister – his father’s daughter ²⁶  – within you.

[18:9]  ¹ tn Heb “the daughter of your father or the daughter of your mother.”

[18:9]  ² tn Heb “born of house or born of outside.” CEV interprets as “whether you grew up together or not” (cf. also TEV, NLT).

[18:9]  ³ tc Several medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Syriac have “her nakedness” rather than “their nakedness,” thus agreeing with singular “sister” at the beginning of the verse.

[18:9]  tn For a smooth English translation “either of” was added.

[20:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “takes.” The verb “to take” in this context means “to engage in sexual intercourse,” though some English versions translate it as “marry” (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV).

[20:17]  ⁵ tn Regarding the “cut off” penalty, see the note on Lev 7:20.

[20:17]  ⁶ tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[20:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “or from the sojourner who sojourns”; NAB “an alien residing in Israel.”

[20:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “his seed” (so KJV, ASV); likewise in vv. 3-4.

[20:2]  ⁹ tn Regarding Molech and Molech worship see the note on Lev 18:21.

[20:2]  ¹⁰ tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning (see instead סָקַל, saqal), but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (רָגָם, ragam; see HALOT 1187 s.v. רגם qal.a, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 136).

[13:1]  ¹¹ tc The MT does not have “thirty.” A number appears to have dropped out of the Hebrew text here, since as it stands the MT (literally, “a son of a year”) must mean that Saul was only one year old when he began to reign! The KJV, attempting to resolve this, reads “Saul reigned one year,” but that is not the normal meaning of the Hebrew text represented by the MT. Although most LXX mss lack the entire verse, some Greek mss have “thirty years” here (while others have “one year” like the MT). The Syriac Peshitta has Saul’s age as twenty-one. But this seems impossible to harmonize with the implied age of Saul’s son Jonathan in the following verse. Taking into account the fact that in v. 2 Jonathan was old enough to be a military leader, some scholars prefer to supply in v. 1 the number forty (cf. ASV, NASB). The present translation (“thirty”) is a possible but admittedly uncertain proposal based on a few Greek mss and followed by a number of English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT). Other English versions simply supply ellipsis marks for the missing number (e.g., NAB, NRSV).

[13:1]  ¹² tc The MT has “two years” here. If this number is to be accepted as correct, the meaning apparently would be that after a lapse of two years at the beginning of Saul’s reign, he then went about the task of consolidating an army as described in what follows (cf. KJV, ASV, CEV). But if the statement in v. 1 is intended to be a comprehensive report on the length of Saul’s reign, the number is too small. According to Acts 13:21 Saul reigned for forty years. Some English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT), taking this forty to be a round number, add it to the “two years” of the MT and translate the number in 2 Sam 13:1 as “forty-two years.” While this is an acceptable option, the present translation instead replaces the MT’s “two” with the figure “forty.” Admittedly the textual evidence for this decision is weak, but the same can be said of any attempt to restore sense to this difficult text (note the ellipsis marks at this point in NAB, NRSV). The Syriac Peshitta lacks this part of v. 1.

[13:8]  ¹³ tn This apparently refers to the instructions given by Samuel in 1 Sam 10:8. If so, several years had passed. On the relationship between chs. 10 and 13, see V. P. Long, The Art of Biblical History (FCI), 201-23.

[13:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “dispersed from upon him”; NAB, NRSV “began to slip away.”

[13:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to bless him.”

[13:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “dispersed from upon me.”

[13:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “said.”

[13:12]  ¹⁸ tn Or “I forced myself” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, CEV); NAB “So in my anxiety I offered”; NIV “I felt compelled.”

[13:13]  ¹⁹ tn Or “kept.”

[13:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “commanded.”

[13:14]  ²¹ tn This verb form, as well as the one that follows (“appointed”), indicates completed action from the standpoint of the speaker. This does not necessarily mean that the Lord had already conducted his search and made his choice, however. The forms may be used for rhetorical effect to emphasize the certainty of the action. The divine search for a new king is as good as done, emphasizing that the days of Saul’s dynasty are numbered.

[13:14]  ²² tn Heb “according to his heart.” The idiomatic expression means to be like-minded with another, as its use in 1 Sam 14:7 indicates.

[13:14]  ²³ tn Heb “commanded.”

[22:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “a man.”

[22:11]  ²⁵ tn The verb is the same one used in verse 10b and suggests forcible sexual violation of the woman.

[22:11]  ²⁶ sn Sexual relations with one’s half-sister may be primarily in view here. See Lev 18:9; 20:17.