Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 1:3 
Context1:3 However, it was not until 1 the first day of the eleventh month 2 of the fortieth year 3 that Moses addressed the Israelites just as 4 the Lord had instructed him to do.
Deuteronomy 14:28
Context14:28 At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages.
Deuteronomy 15:12
Context15:12 If your fellow Hebrew 5 – whether male or female 6 – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant 7 go free. 8
Deuteronomy 24:5
Context24:5 When a man is newly married, he need not go into 9 the army nor be obligated in any way; he must be free to stay at home for a full year and bring joy to 10 the wife he has married.
1 tn Heb “in” or “on.” Here there is a contrast between the ordinary time of eleven days (v. 2) and the actual time of forty years, so “not until” brings out that vast disparity.
2 sn The eleventh month is Shebat in the Hebrew calendar, January/February in the modern (Gregorian) calendar.
3 sn The fortieth year would be 1406
4 tn Heb “according to all which.”
5 sn Elsewhere in the OT, the Israelites are called “Hebrews” (עִבְרִי, ’ivriy) by outsiders, rarely by themselves (cf. Gen 14:13; 39:14, 17; 41:12; Exod 1:15, 16, 19; 2:6, 7, 11, 13; 1 Sam 4:6; Jonah 1:9). Thus, here and in the parallel passage in Exod 21:2-6 the term עִבְרִי may designate non-Israelites, specifically a people well-known throughout the ancient Near East as ’apiru or habiru. They lived a rather vagabond lifestyle, frequently hiring themselves out as laborers or mercenary soldiers. While accounting nicely for the surprising use of the term here in an Israelite law code, the suggestion has against it the unlikelihood that a set of laws would address such a marginal people so specifically (as opposed to simply calling them aliens or the like). More likely עִבְרִי is chosen as a term to remind Israel that when they were “Hebrews,” that is, when they were in Egypt, they were slaves. Now that they are free they must not keep their fellow Israelites in economic bondage. See v. 15.
6 tn Heb “your brother, a Hebrew (male) or Hebrew (female).”
7 tn Heb “him.” The singular pronoun occurs throughout the passage.
8 tn The Hebrew text includes “from you.”
9 tn Heb “go out with.”
10 tc For the MT’s reading Piel שִׂמַּח (simmakh, “bring joy to”), the Syriac and others read שָׂמַח (samakh, “enjoy”).
