Deuteronomy 11:4-8

11:4 or what he did to the army of Egypt, including their horses and chariots, when he made the waters of the Red Sea ¹  overwhelm them while they were pursuing you and he ²  annihilated them. ³  11:5 They did not see ⁴  what he did to you in the desert before you reached this place, 11:6 or what he did to Dathan and Abiram, ⁵  sons of Eliab the Reubenite, ⁶  when the earth opened its mouth in the middle of the Israelite camp ⁷  and swallowed them, their families, ⁸  their tents, and all the property they brought with them. ⁹  11:7 I am speaking to you ¹⁰  because you are the ones who saw all the great deeds of the Lord!

The Abundance of the Land of Promise

11:8 Now pay attention to all the commandments ¹¹  I am giving ¹²  you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed, ¹³ 

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¹ tn Heb “Reed Sea.” “Reed Sea” (or “Sea of Reeds”) is a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew expression יָם סוּף (yam suf), traditionally translated “Red Sea.” See note on the term “Red Sea” in Exod 13:18.

² tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

³ tn Heb “and the Lord destroyed them to this day” (cf. NRSV); NLT “he has kept them devastated to this very day.” The translation uses the verb “annihilated” to indicate the permanency of the action.

⁴ tn See note on these same words in v. 3.

⁵ sn Dathan and Abiram. These two (along with others) had challenged Moses’ leadership in the desert with the result that the earth beneath them opened up and they and their families disappeared (Num 16:1-3, 31-35).

⁶ tn Or “the descendant of Reuben”; Heb “son of Reuben.”

⁷ tn Heb “in the midst of all Israel” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV); NASB “among all Israel.” In the Hebrew text these words appear at the end of the verse, but they are logically connected with the verbs. To make this clear the translation places the phrase after the first verb.

⁸ tn Heb “their houses,” referring to all who lived in their household. Cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “households.”

⁹ tn Heb “and all the substance which was at their feet.”

¹⁰ tn On the addition of these words in the translation see note on “They did not see” in v. 3.

¹¹ tn Heb “the commandment.” The singular מִצְוָה (mitsvah, “commandment”) speaks here as elsewhere of the whole corpus of covenant stipulations in Deuteronomy (cf. 6:1, 25; 7:11; 8:1).

¹² tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in vv. 13, 27).

¹³ tn Heb “which you are crossing over there to possess it.”