Deuteronomy 4:34

4:34 Or has God ¹  ever before tried to deliver ²  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ³  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ⁴  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

Deuteronomy 7:8

7:8 Rather it is because of his ⁵  love ⁶  for you and his faithfulness to the promise ⁷  he solemnly vowed ⁸  to your ancestors ⁹  that the Lord brought you out with great power, ¹⁰  redeeming ¹¹  you from the place of slavery, from the power ¹²  of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 9:12

9:12 And he said to me, “Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.” ¹³ 

Deuteronomy 13:5

13:5 As for that prophet or dreamer, ¹⁴  he must be executed because he encouraged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, redeeming you from that place of slavery, and because he has tried to entice you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to go. In this way you must purge out evil from within. ¹⁵ 

Deuteronomy 26:5

26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ¹⁶  Aramean ¹⁷  was my ancestor, ¹⁸  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ¹⁹  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people.

Deuteronomy 28:68

28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

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¹ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

² tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

³ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

⁴ tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

⁵ tn Heb “the Lord’s.” See note on “He” in 7:6.

⁶ tn For the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) as a term of choice or election, see note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

⁷ tn Heb “oath.” This is a reference to the promises of the so-called “Abrahamic Covenant” (cf. Gen 15:13-16).

⁸ tn Heb “swore on oath.”

⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13).

¹⁰ tn Heb “by a strong hand” (NAB similar); NLT “with such amazing power.”

¹¹ sn Redeeming you from the place of slavery. The Hebrew verb translated “redeeming” (from the root פָּדָה, padah) has the idea of redemption by the payment of a ransom. The initial symbol of this was the Passover lamb, offered by Israel to the Lord as ransom in exchange for deliverance from bondage and death (Exod 12:1-14). Later, the firstborn sons of Israel, represented by the Levites, became the ransom (Num 3:11-13). These were all types of the redemption effected by the death of Christ who described his atoning work as “a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28; cf. 1 Pet 1:18).

¹² tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NRSV), a metaphor for power or domination.

¹³ tc Heb “a casting.” The MT reads מַסֵּכָה (massekhah, “a cast thing”) but some mss and Smr add עֵגֶל (’egel, “calf”), “a molten calf” or the like (Exod 32:8). Perhaps Moses here omits reference to the calf out of contempt for it.

¹⁴ tn Heb “or dreamer of dreams.” See note on this expression in v. 1.

¹⁵ tn Heb “your midst” (so NAB, NRSV). The severity of the judgment here (i.e., capital punishment) is because of the severity of the sin, namely, high treason against the Great King. Idolatry is a violation of the first two commandments (Deut 5:6-10) as well as the spirit and intent of the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).

¹⁶ tn Though the Hebrew term אָבַד (’avad) generally means “to perish” or the like (HALOT 2-3 s.v.; BDB 1-2 s.v.; cf. KJV “a Syrian ready to perish”), a meaning “to go astray” or “to be lost” is also attested. The ambivalence in the Hebrew text is reflected in the versions where LXX Vaticanus reads ἀπέβαλεν (apebalen, “lose”) for a possibly metathesized reading found in Alexandrinus, Ambrosianus, ἀπέλαβεν (apelaben, “receive”); others attest κατέλειπεν (kateleipen, “leave, abandon”). “Wandering” seems to suit best the contrast with the sedentary life Israel would enjoy in Canaan (v. 9) and is the meaning followed by many English versions.

¹⁷ sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

¹⁸ tn Heb “father.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.