▼ Heb “As the work [or “deed”] of the land of Egypt, which you were dwelling in it, you must not do.”

▼ Heb “and as the work [or “deed”] of the land of Canaan which I am bringing you to there, you must not do.” The participle “I am bringing” is inceptive; the Lord is “about to” bring them into the land of Canaan, as opposed to their having dwelt previously in the land of Egypt (see the first part of the verse).

▼ Heb “and you shall not walk.”

▼ Heb “My regulations you shall do”; KJV, NASB “my judgments”; NRSV “My ordinances”; NIV, TEV “my laws.”

▼ The Hebrew term translated “regulation” (מִשְׁפָּט, mishpat) refers to the set of regulations about to be set forth in the following chapters (cf. Lev 19:37; 20:22; 25:18; 26:46). Note especially the thematic and formulaic relationships between the introduction here in Lev 18:1–5 and the paraenesis in Lev 20:22–26, both of which refer explicitly to the corrupt nations and the need to separate from them by keeping the Lord’s regulations.

▼ Heb “and my statutes you shall keep [or “watch; guard”] to walk in them.”

▼ Heb “And you shall keep.”

▼ Heb “which the man shall do them and shall live in them.” The term for “a man, human being; mankind” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. The expression וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living” so it is written וְחָיָה (v^ekhayah) in Smr, but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal and GKC 218 #76.i; cf. Lev 25:35).