4:9 Again, however, pay very careful attention, 3 lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.
4:25 After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, 4 if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind 5 and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him, 6
33:9 He said to his father and mother, “I have not seen him,” 26
and he did not acknowledge his own brothers
or know his own children,
for they kept your word,
and guarded your covenant.
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 “watch yourself and watch your soul carefully.”
4 tn Heb “have grown old in the land,” i.e., been there for a long time.
5 tn Heb “a form of anything.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, TEV “an idol.”
6 tn The infinitive construct is understood here as indicating the result, not the intention, of their actions.
7 tn Here the terms are not the usual חֻקִּים (khuqqim) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim; as in v. 1) but חֻקֹּת (khuqqot, “statutes”) and מִצְוֹת (mitsot, “commandments”). It is clear that these terms are used interchangeably and that their technical precision ought not be overly stressed.
8 tn Heb “commanding.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation.
9 tn Heb “repeat” (so NLT). If from the root I שָׁנַן (shanan), the verb means essentially to “engrave,” that is, “to teach incisively” (Piel); note NAB “Drill them into your children.” Cf. BDB 1041-42 s.v.
10 tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”
11 tn Heb “that not.” The words “I am speaking” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
12 tn Heb “who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord.” The collocation of the verbs “know” and “see” indicates that personal experience (knowing by seeing) is in view. The term translated “discipline” (KJV, ASV “chastisement”) may also be rendered “instruction,” but vv. 2b-6 indicate that the referent of the term is the various acts of divine judgment the Israelites had witnessed.
13 tn The words “which revealed” have been supplied in the translation to show the logical relationship between the terms that follow and the divine judgments. In the Hebrew text the former are in apposition to the latter.
14 tn Heb “his strong hand and his stretched-out arm.”
15 tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”
16 tc Heb “in the eyes of the
17 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
18 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”
19 tn Heb “the
20 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).
21 tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”
22 tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”
23 tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”
24 tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”
25 tn The phrase “this law” is not in the Hebrew text, but English style requires an object for the verb here. Other translations also supply the object which is otherwise implicit (cf. NIV “who do not know this law”; TEV “who have never heard the Law of the Lord your God”).
26 sn This statement no doubt alludes to the Levites’ destruction of their own fellow tribesmen following the golden calf incident (Exod 32:25-29).