6:1 Now these are the commandments, 23 statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed 24
7:16 You must destroy 27 all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship 28 their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
20:1 When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry 39 and troops 40 who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.
25:11 If two men 47 get into a hand-to-hand fight, and the wife of one of them gets involved to help her husband against his attacker, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his genitals, 48
29:1 (28:69) 50 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. 51
30:1 “When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses 52 I have set before you, you will reflect upon them 53 in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.
32:24 They will be starved by famine,
eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; 57
I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,
along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.
1 tn Or “selected”; Heb “took.”
2 tn Heb “would be a prey.”
3 sn Do not know good from bad. This is a figure of speech called a merism (suggesting a whole by referring to its extreme opposites). Other examples are the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9), the boy who knows enough “to reject the wrong and choose the right” (Isa 7:16; 8:4), and those who “cannot tell their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11). A young child is characterized by lack of knowledge.
4 sn Mount Seir is synonymous with Edom.
5 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the Rephaites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the Ammonites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “under heaven” (so NIV, NRSV).
8 tn Heb “from before you.”
9 sn Aroer. Now known as àAraáir on the northern edge of the Arnon river, Aroer marked the southern limit of Moab and, later, of the allotment of the tribe of Reuben (Josh 13:9, 16).
10 tn Heb “the city in the wadi.” This enigmatic reference may refer to Ar or, more likely, to Aroer itself. Epexegetically the text might read, “From Aroer…, that is, the city in the wadi.” See D. L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 1–11 (WBC), 49.
11 tn Heb “was left to him.” The final phrase “to him” is redundant in English and has been left untranslated.
12 sn Argob. This is a subdistrict of Bashan, perhaps north of the Yarmuk River. See Y. Aharoni, Land of the Bible, 314.
13 tn Heb “in the midst of” (so ASV).
14 tn Heb “it is wisdom and understanding.”
15 tn Heb “wise and understanding.”
16 tn Heb “the
17 tn Heb “he will not drop you,” i.e., “will not abandon you” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
18 tn Or “will not.” The translation understands the imperfect verbal form to have an added nuance of capability here.
19 tn In the Hebrew text the form is a participle, which is subordinated to what precedes. For the sake of English style, the translation divides this lengthy verse into two sentences.
20 tn Heb “who hate” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). Just as “to love” (אָהַב, ’ahav) means in a covenant context “to choose, obey,” so “to hate” (שָׂנֵא, sane’) means “to reject, disobey” (cf. the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37; see also 5:10).
21 tn Heb “visiting the sin of fathers upon sons and upon a third (generation) and upon a fourth (generation) of those who hate me.” God sometimes punishes children for the sins of a father (cf. Num 16:27, 32; Josh 7:24-25; 2 Sam 21:1-9). On the principle of corporate solidarity and responsibility in OT thought see J. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup). In the idiom of the text, the father is the first generation and the “sons” the second generation, making grandsons the third and great-grandsons the fourth. The reference to a third and fourth generation is a way of emphasizing that the sinner’s punishment would last throughout his lifetime. In this culture, where men married and fathered children at a relatively young age, it would not be unusual for one to see his great-grandsons. In an Aramaic tomb inscription from Nerab dating to the seventh century b.c., Agbar observes that he was surrounded by “children of the fourth generation” as he lay on his death bed (see ANET 661). The language of the text differs from Exod 34:7, the sons are the first generation, the grandsons (literally, “sons of the sons”) the second, great-grandsons the third, and great-great-grandsons the fourth. One could argue that formulation in Deut 5:9 (see also Exod 20:50) is elliptical/abbreviated or that it suffers from textual corruption (the repetition of the words “sons” would invite accidental omission).
22 tn Heb “keep” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
23 tn Heb “commandment.” The word מִצְוָה (mitsvah) again is in the singular, serving as a comprehensive term for the whole stipulation section of the book. See note on the word “commandments” in 5:31.
24 tn Heb “where you are going over to possess it” (so NASB); NRSV “that you are about to cross into and occupy.”
25 sn Sacred pillars. The Hebrew word (מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) denotes a standing pillar, usually made of stone. Its purpose was to mark the presence of a shrine or altar thought to have been visited by deity. Though sometimes associated with pure worship of the
26 sn Sacred Asherah poles. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], as here). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).
27 tn Heb “devour” (so NRSV); KJV, NAB, NASB “consume.” The verbal form (a perfect with vav consecutive) is understood here as having an imperatival or obligatory nuance (cf. the instructions and commands that follow). Another option is to take the statement as a continuation of the preceding conditional promises and translate “and you will destroy.”
28 tn Or “serve” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).
29 tn Heb “the
30 tn Heb “if forgetting, you forget.” The infinitive absolute is used for emphasis; the translation indicates this with the words “at all” (cf. KJV).
31 sn The very finger of God. This is a double figure of speech (1) in which God is ascribed human features (anthropomorphism) and (2) in which a part stands for the whole (synecdoche). That is, God, as Spirit, has no literal finger nor, if he had, would he write with his finger. Rather, the sense is that God himself – not Moses in any way – was responsible for the composition of the Ten Commandments (cf. Exod 31:18; 32:16; 34:1).
32 tn Heb “according to all the words.”
33 tn Heb “the
34 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the
35 tn Heb “according to the former writing.” See note on the phrase “the same words” in v. 2.
36 tn Heb “ten words.” The “Ten Commandments” are known in Hebrew as the “Ten Words,” which in Greek became the “Decalogue.”
37 tn Heb “the
38 tn Heb “the
39 tn Heb “horse and chariot.”
40 tn Heb “people.”
41 tn Heb “the priests, the sons of Levi.”
42 tn Heb “in the name of the
43 tn Heb “by their mouth.”
44 tn Heb “every controversy and every blow.”
45 tn Heb “Atone for.”
46 tn Heb “and do not place innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel.”
47 tn Heb “a man and his brother.”
48 tn Heb “shameful parts.” Besides the inherent indelicacy of what she has done, the woman has also threatened the progenitive capacity of the injured man. The level of specificity given this term in modern translations varies: “private parts” (NAB, NIV, CEV); “genitals” (NASB, NRSV, TEV); “sex organs” (NCV); “testicles” (NLT).
49 tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”
50 sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.
51 sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).
52 tn Heb “the blessing and the curse.”
53 tn Heb “and you bring (them) back to your heart.”
54 tn Or “am no longer able to lead you” (NIV, NLT); Heb “am no longer able to go out and come in.”
55 tn Heb “he.” Since the pronoun could be taken to refer to Moses, the referent has been specified as “the
56 tc The LXX reads, “as the
57 tn The Hebrew term קֶטֶב (qetev) is probably metaphorical here for the sting of a disease (HALOT 1091-92 s.v.).