Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 1:17 
Context1:17 They 1 must not discriminate in judgment, but hear the lowly 2 and the great alike. Nor should they be intimidated by human beings, for judgment belongs to God. If the matter being adjudicated is too difficult for them, they should bring it before me for a hearing.
Deuteronomy 5:24
Context5:24 You said, “The Lord our God has shown us his great glory 3 and we have heard him speak from the middle of the fire. It is now clear to us 4 that God can speak to human beings and they can keep on living.
Deuteronomy 9:28
Context9:28 Otherwise the people of the land 5 from which you brought us will say, “The Lord was unable to bring them to the land he promised them, and because of his hatred for them he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” 6
Deuteronomy 17:15
Context17:15 you must select without fail 7 a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens 8 you must appoint a king – you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. 9
Deuteronomy 20:19
Context20:19 If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, 10 you must not chop down its trees, 11 for you may eat fruit 12 from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! 13
Deuteronomy 23:14
Context23:14 For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat 14 your enemies for you. Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent 15 among you and turn away from you.
Deuteronomy 25:5
Context25:5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, 16 and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. 17
Deuteronomy 25:9
Context25:9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. 18 She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” 19
Deuteronomy 28:51
Context28:51 They 20 will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, 21 or lambs of your flocks 22 until they have destroyed you.
Deuteronomy 29:18
Context29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. 23
1 tn Heb “you,” and throughout the verse (cf. NASB, NRSV).
2 tn Heb “the small,” but referring to social status, not physical stature.
3 tn Heb “his glory and his greatness.”
4 tn Heb “this day we have seen.”
5 tc The MT reads only “the land.” Smr supplies עַם (’am, “people”) and LXX and its dependents supply “the inhabitants of the land.” The truncated form found in the MT is adequate to communicate the intended meaning; the words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT).
7 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, indicated in the translation by the words “without fail.”
8 tn Heb “your brothers,” but not referring to siblings (cf. NIV “your brother Israelites”; NLT “a fellow Israelite”). The same phrase also occurs in v. 20.
9 tn Heb “your brothers.” See the preceding note on “fellow citizens.”
10 tn Heb “to fight against it to capture it.”
11 tn Heb “you must not destroy its trees by chopping them with an iron” (i.e., an ax).
12 tn Heb “you may eat from them.” The direct object is not expressed; the word “fruit” is supplied in the translation for clarity.
13 tn Heb “to go before you in siege.”
14 tn Heb “give [over] your enemies.”
15 tn Heb “nakedness of a thing”; NLT “any shameful thing.” The expression עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers specifically to sexual organs and, by extension, to any function associated with them. There are some aspects of human life that are so personal and private that they ought not be publicly paraded. Cultically speaking, even God is offended by such impropriety (cf. Gen 9:22-23; Lev 18:6-12, 16-19; 20:11, 17-21). See B. Seevers, NIDOTTE 3:528-30.
16 tn Heb “take her as wife”; NRSV “taking her in marriage.”
17 sn This is the so-called “levirate” custom (from the Latin term levir, “brother-in-law”), an ancient provision whereby a man who died without male descendants to carry on his name could have a son by proxy, that is, through a surviving brother who would marry his widow and whose first son would then be attributed to the brother who had died. This is the only reference to this practice in an OT legal text but it is illustrated in the story of Judah and his sons (Gen 38) and possibly in the account of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2:8; 3:12; 4:6).
18 sn The removal of the sandal was likely symbolic of the relinquishment by the man of any claim to his dead brother’s estate since the sandal was associated with the soil or land (cf. Ruth 4:7-8). Spitting in the face was a sign of utmost disgust or disdain, an emotion the rejected widow would feel toward her uncooperative brother-in-law (cf. Num 12:14; Lev 15:8). See W. Bailey, NIDOTTE 2:544.
19 tn Heb “build the house of his brother”; TEV “refuses to give his brother a descendant”; NLT “refuses to raise up a son for his brother.”
20 tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).
21 tn Heb “increase of herds.”
22 tn Heb “growth of flocks.”
23 tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”
