5:1 Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: 3 “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them!
32:21 They have made me jealous 5 with false gods, 6
enraging me with their worthless gods; 7
so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, 8
with a nation slow to learn 9 I will enrage them.
1 tn Heb “it is wisdom and understanding.”
2 tn Heb “wise and understanding.”
3 tn Heb “and Moses called to all Israel and he said to them”; NAB, NASB, NIV “Moses summoned (convened NRSV) all Israel.”
4 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”).
5 sn They have made me jealous. The “jealousy” of God is not a spirit of pettiness prompted by his insecurity, but righteous indignation caused by the disloyalty of his people to his covenant grace (see note on the word “God” in Deut 4:24). The jealousy of Israel, however (see next line), will be envy because of God’s lavish attention to another nation. This is an ironic wordplay. See H. Peels, NIDOTTE 3:938-39.
6 tn Heb “what is not a god,” or a “nondeity.”
7 tn Heb “their empty (things).” The Hebrew term used here to refer pejoratively to the false gods is הֶבֶל (hevel, “futile” or “futility”), used frequently in Ecclesiastes (e.g., Eccl 1:1, “Futile! Futile!” laments the Teacher, “Absolutely futile! Everything is futile!”).
8 tn Heb “what is not a people,” or a “nonpeople.” The “nonpeople” (לֹא־עָם, lo’-’am) referred to here are Gentiles who someday would become God’s people in the fullest sense (cf. Hos 1:9; 2:23).
9 tn Heb “a foolish nation” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “a nation that has no understanding”; NLT “I will provoke their fury by blessing the foolish Gentiles.”