Deuteronomy 32:39

The Vindication of the Lord

32:39 “See now that I, indeed I, am he!” says the Lord, ¹ 

“and there is no other god besides me.

I kill and give life,

I smash and I heal,

and none can resist ²  my power.

Deuteronomy 32:1

Invocation of Witnesses

32:1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;

hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

Deuteronomy 2:6

2:6 You may purchase ³  food to eat and water to drink from them.

Job 5:18

5:18 For ⁴  he ⁵  wounds, ⁶  but he also bandages;

he strikes, but his hands also heal.

Hosea 6:1-2

Superficial Repentance Breeds False Assurance of God’s Forgiveness

6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!

He himself has torn us to pieces,

but he will heal us!

He has injured ⁷  us,

but he will bandage our wounds!

6:2 He will restore ⁸  us in a very short time; ⁹ 

he will heal us in a little while, ¹⁰ 

so that we may live in his presence.

¹ tn Verses 39-42 appear to be a quotation of the Lord and so the introductory phrase “says the Lord” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “deliver from” (so NRSV, NLT).

³ tn Heb includes “with silver.”

⁴ sn Verses 18-23 give the reasons why someone should accept the chastening of God – the hand that wounds is the same hand that heals. But, of course, the lines do not apply to Job because his suffering is not due to divine chastening.

⁵ tn The addition of the independent pronoun here makes the subject emphatic, as if to say, “For it is he who makes….”

⁶ tn The imperfect verbs in this verse describe the characteristic activities of God; the classification as habitual imperfect fits the idea and is to be rendered with the English present tense.

⁷ tn “has struck”; NRSV “struck down.”

⁸ tn The Piel of חָיָה (khayah) may mean: (1) to keep/preserve persons alive from the threat of premature death (1 Kgs 20:31; Ezek 13:18; 18:27); (2) to restore the dead to physical life (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; cf. NCV “will put new life in us”); or (3) to restore the dying back to life from the threat of death (Ps 71:20; BDB 311 s.v. חָיָה).

⁹ tn Heb “after two days” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV). The expression “after two days” is an idiom meaning “after a short time” (see, e.g., Judg 11:4; BDB 399 s.v. יוֹם 5.a).

¹⁰ tn Heb “on the third day” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV), which parallels “after two days” and means “in a little while.” The “2-3” sequence is an example of graded numerical parallelism (Prov 30:15-16, 18-19, 21-23, 24-28, 29-31). This expresses the unrepentant overconfidence of Israel that the Lord’s discipline of Israel would be relatively short and that he would restore them quickly.