Deuteronomy 8:1-2

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments I am giving you today so that you may live, increase in number, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 8:2 Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these forty years through the desert so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.


tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.