{"id":13366,"date":"2022-10-30T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=13366"},"modified":"2022-10-30T13:22:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T13:22:00","slug":"exodus-2220","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/13366\/exodus-2220\/","title":{"rendered":"Exodus 22:20"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good Morning John,<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you please explain Exodus22:20:\u00a0\u00a0“Whoever sacrifices to gods other than Jehovah alone shall be devoted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the King James Version it says, \u201cHe shall be utterly destroyed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just wondered why you said in your translation “devoted\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Margarite<\/span><\/p>\n

=========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Margarite.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

To translate the Hebrew verb in Exodus 22:20 as “destroy” is a possibility, and one could argue that it is the best choice in that verse.\u00a0 But that verb can also refer to “devoting” a person, an animal, valuables,\u00a0or a whole city to God, which means that no one on earth could have it.\u00a0 A living being, whether person or animal, who was devoted to God had to be killed.\u00a0 A city devoted to God had to be burned to the ground.\u00a0 Precious materials devoted to God had to be brought to God’s high priest.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Several modern translations of Exodus 22:20 have “devoted to destruction” or “set apart for destruction”, to get the point across.\u00a0 We decided just to use “devoted” in our translation and let the Reader pick up on what “devoted” means after seeing it used a few times.\u00a0 For example, Joshua declared that the whole city of Jericho was devoted to God.\u00a0 So, all the goods were His, and every living thing in the city had to die.\u00a0 When Achan secretly took some of the valuables from Jericho to his tent, he, his family, and all his possessions became devoted by contact with it.\u00a0 And you know what Israel had to do to him and all that he had when he was found out.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So, “destroy” is OK in Exodus 22:20, but there are other words that mean “destroy”.\u00a0 This particular word\u00a0can\u00a0mean that, but it is the specific word that is used for “devoted”, and we opted for that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Hope that helps.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Morning John, Can you please explain Exodus22:20:\u00a0\u00a0“Whoever sacrifices to gods other than Jehovah alone shall be devoted.\u201d In the King James Version it says, \u201cHe shall be utterly destroyed.\u201d Just wondered why you said in your translation “devoted\u201d. Thanks. Margarite ========= Hi Margarite. To translate the Hebrew verb in Exodus 22:20 as “destroy” is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}