Where does the expression "stumbling block" come from?
A stumbling block or scandal in the Bible, or in politics (including history), is a metaphor for a behavior or attitude that leads another to sin or to destructive behavior.
The origin of the metaphor is the prohibition of putting a stumbling block before the blind (Leviticus 19:14). Geoffrey W. Bromiley calls the image "especially appropriate to a rocky land like Palestine". In the Hebrew Bible, the term for "stumbling block" is Biblical Hebrew miḵšōl (מִכְשׁוֹל). In the Septuagint, miḵšōl is translated into Koine Greek skandalon (σκανδαλον), a word which occurs only in Hellenistic literature, in the sense "snare for an enemy; cause of moral stumbling". In the Septuagint Psalms 140:9 a stumbling block means anything that leads to sin.
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