3:12 This is the land we brought under our control at that time: The territory extending from Aroer 2 by the Wadi Arnon and half the Gilead hill country with its cities I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites. 3
6:10 Then when the Lord your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you – a land with large, fine cities you did not build,
9:1 Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications. 4
20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that 12 the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing 13 to survive.
1 sn Wadi Jabbok. Now known as the Zerqa River, this is a major tributary of the Jordan that normally served as a boundary between Ammon and Gad (Deut 3:16).
2 tn The words “the territory extending” are not in the Hebrew text; they are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
sn Aroer. See note on this term in Deut 2:36.
3 sn Reubenites and Gadites. By the time of Moses’ address the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had already been granted permission to settle in the Transjordan, provided they helped the other tribes subdue the occupants of Canaan (cf. Num 32:28-42).
4 tn Heb “fortified to the heavens” (so NRSV); NLT “cities with walls that reach to the sky.” This is hyperbole.
5 tn Heb “men, sons of Belial.” The Hebrew term בְּלִיַּעַל (bÿliyya’al) has the idea of worthlessness, without morals or scruples (HALOT 133-34 s.v.). Cf. NAB, NRSV “scoundrels”; TEV, CEV “worthless people”; NLT “worthless rabble.”
6 tc The LXX and Tg read “your” for the MT’s “their.”
7 tn The translation understands the relative clause as a statement by Moses, not as part of the quotation from the evildoers. See also v. 2.
8 tn Heb “border.”
9 tn Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).
10 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”
11 sn You will add three more cities. Since these are alluded to nowhere else and thus were probably never added, this must be a provision for other cities of refuge should they be needed (cf. v. 8). See P. C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (NICOT), 267.
12 tn The antecedent of the relative pronoun is “cities.”
13 tn Heb “any breath.”