Note 861 — Chapter XXI

A group of difficult expressions. The verb נִקָּה is Ni. of a root which originally had the physical meaning to clean out of a place, and this Ni. is so used of a plundered town in Isa. iii. 26. But its more usual meaning is to be spoken free from guilt (Psalm xix. 14, etc.). Most commentators take it here in the physical sense, Hitzig quoting the use of καθαρίζω in Mark vii. 19. מִזֶה כָמוֹהָ are variously rendered. מזה is mostly understood as locative, hence, i.e. from the land just mentioned, but some take it with steal (Hitzig), some with cleaned out (Ewald, Orelli, etc.). כָמוֹהָ is rendered like it—the flying roll (Ewald, Orelli), which cannot be, since the roll flies upon the face of the land, and the sinner is to be purged out of it; or in accordance with the roll or its curse (Jerome, Köhler). But Wellhausen reads מִזֶה כַמֶּה, and takes נִקָּה in its usual meaning and in the past tense, and renders Every thief has for long remained unpunished; and so in the next clause. So, too, Nowack. LXX. Every thief shall be condemned to death, ἕως θανάτου ἐκδιθήσεται.