Deuteronomy 1:39

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

Deuteronomy 4:9

Reminder of the Horeb Covenant

4:9 Again, however, pay very careful attention, 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.

Deuteronomy 4:25

Threat and Blessing following Covenant Disobedience

4:25 After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

Deuteronomy 6:2

6:2 and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments that I am giving you – you, your children, and your grandchildren – all your lives, to prolong your days.

Deuteronomy 6:7

6:7 and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, 10  as you lie down, and as you get up.

Deuteronomy 11:2

11:2 Bear in mind today that I am not speaking 11  to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments 12  of the Lord your God, which revealed 13  his greatness, strength, and power. 14 

Deuteronomy 11:19

11:19 Teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, 15  as you lie down, and as you get up.

Deuteronomy 12:25

12:25 You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord’s sight. 16 

Deuteronomy 20:14

20:14 However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you.

Deuteronomy 28:4

28:4 Your children 17  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

Deuteronomy 28:11

28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, 18  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he 19  promised your ancestors 20  he would give you.

Deuteronomy 28:55

28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict 21  you in your villages.

Deuteronomy 28:57

28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth 22  and her newborn children 23  (since she has nothing else), 24  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

Deuteronomy 31:12-13

31:12 Gather the people – men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages – so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law. 31:13 Then their children, who have not known this law, 25  will also hear about and learn to fear the Lord your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Deuteronomy 32:46

32:46 he said to them, “Keep in mind all the words I am solemnly proclaiming to you today; you must command your children to observe carefully all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 33:9

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.


tn Heb “would be a prey.”

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.

tn Heb “watch yourself and watch your soul carefully.”

tn Heb “have grown old in the land,” i.e., been there for a long time.

tn Heb “a form of anything.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, TEV “an idol.”

tn The infinitive construct is understood here as indicating the result, not the intention, of their actions.

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.

tn Heb “commanding.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation.

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 Lord.” The LXX adds “your God” to create the common formula, “the Lord your God.” The MT is preferred precisely because it does not include the stereotyped formula; thus it more likely preserves the original text.

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 Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

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).