18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; 6 you must listen to him.
24:6 One must not take either lower or upper millstones as security on a loan, for that is like taking a life itself as security. 7
32:5 His people have been unfaithful 8 to him;
they have not acted like his children 9 – this is their sin. 10
They are a perverse 11 and deceitful generation.
33:20 Of Gad he said:
Blessed be the one who enlarges Gad.
Like a lioness he will dwell;
he will tear at an arm – indeed, a scalp. 12
33:26 There is no one like God, O Jeshurun, 13
who rides through the sky 14 to help you,
on the clouds in majesty.
1 tn Heb “in that hill country,” repeating the end of v. 43.
2 tn Heb “came out to meet.”
3 sn Hormah is probably Khirbet el-Meshash, 5.5 mi (9 km) west of Arad and 7.5 mi (12 km) SE of Beer Sheba. Its name is a derivative of the verb חָרָם (kharam, “to ban; to exterminate”). See Num 21:3.
4 tn Heb “so you will perish.”
5 tn Heb “listen to the voice of the
6 tc The MT expands here on the usual formula by adding “from among you” (cf. Deut 17:15; 18:18; Smr; a number of Greek texts). The expansion seems to be for the purpose of emphasis, i.e., the prophet to come must be not just from Israel but an Israelite by blood.
tn “from your brothers,” but not referring to actual siblings. Cf. NAB “from among your own kinsmen”; NASB “from your countrymen”; NRSV “from among your own people.” A similar phrase occurs in v. 17.
7 sn Taking millstones as security on a loan would amount to taking the owner’s own life in pledge, since the millstones were the owner’s means of earning a living and supporting his family.
8 tc The 3rd person masculine singular שָׁחַת (shakhat) is rendered as 3rd person masculine plural by Smr, a reading supported by the plural suffix on מוּם (mum, “defect”) as well as the plural of בֵּן (ben, “sons”).
tn Heb “have acted corruptly” (so NASB, NIV, NLT); NRSV “have dealt falsely.”
9 tn Heb “(they are) not his sons.”
10 tn Heb “defect” (so NASB). This highly elliptical line suggests that Israel’s major fault was its failure to act like God’s people; in fact, they acted quite the contrary.
11 tn Heb “twisted,” “crooked.” See Ps 18:26.
12 tn Heb “forehead,” picturing Gad attacking prey.
13 sn Jeshurun is a term of affection referring to Israel, derived from the Hebrew verb יָשַׁר (yashar, “be upright”). See note on the term in Deut 32:15.
14 tn Or “(who) rides (on) the heavens” (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT). This title depicts Israel’s God as sovereign over the elements of the storm (cf. Ps 68:33). The use of the phrase here may be polemical; Moses may be asserting that Israel’s God, not Baal (called the “rider of the clouds” in the Ugaritic myths), is the true divine king (cf. v. 5) who controls the elements of the storm, grants agricultural prosperity, and delivers his people from their enemies. See R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “The Polemic against Baalism in Israel’s Early History and Literature,” BSac 151 (1994): 275.