Deuteronomy 1:39

1:39 Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, ¹  and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, ²  will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.

Deuteronomy 20:20

20:20 However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, ³  and you may use it to build siege works ⁴  against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

Deuteronomy 28:33

28:33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.

Deuteronomy 31:27

31:27 for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. ⁵  Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the Lord; you will be even more rebellious after my death! ⁶ 

Deuteronomy 33:9

33:9 He said to his father and mother, “I have not seen him,” ⁷ 

and he did not acknowledge his own brothers

or know his own children,

for they kept your word,

and guarded your covenant.

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¹ tn Heb “would be a prey.”

² 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.

³ tn Heb “however, a tree which you know is not a tree for food you may destroy and cut down.”

⁴ tn Heb “[an] enclosure.” The term מָצוֹר (matsor) may refer to encircling ditches or to surrounding stagings. See R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 238.

⁵ tn Heb “stiffness of neck” (cf. KJV, NAB, NIV). See note on the word “stubborn” in Deut 9:6.

⁶ tn Heb “How much more after my death?” The Hebrew text has a sarcastic rhetorical question here; the translation seeks to bring out the force of the question.

⁷ sn This statement no doubt alludes to the Levites’ destruction of their own fellow tribesmen following the golden calf incident (Exod 32:25-29).