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 25:1

25:1 If controversy arises between people, ³  they should go to court for judgment. When the judges ⁴  hear the case, they shall exonerate ⁵  the innocent but condemn ⁶  the guilty.

Deuteronomy 26:10

26:10 So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 26:2

26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ⁸  chooses to locate his name. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 15:5

15:5 if you carefully obey ¹⁰  him ¹¹  by keeping ¹²  all these commandments that I am giving ¹³  you today.

Deuteronomy 15:2

15:2 This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; ¹⁴  he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, ¹⁵  for it is to be recognized as “the Lord’s cancellation of debts.”

Deuteronomy 13:1

13:1 Suppose a prophet or one who foretells by dreams ¹⁶  should appear among you and show you a sign or wonder, ¹⁷ 

Psalms 104:29

104:29 When you ignore them, they panic. ¹⁸ 

When you take away their life’s breath, they die

and return to dust.

Acts 12:23

12:23 Immediately an angel of the Lord ¹⁹  struck ²⁰  Herod ²¹  down because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died. ²² 

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 “men.”

⁴ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the judges) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “declare to be just”; KJV, NASB “justify the righteous”; NAB, NIV “acquitting the innocent.”

⁶ tn Heb “declare to be evil”; NIV “condemning the guilty (+ party NAB).”

⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

⁸ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁹ sn The place where he chooses to locate his name. This is a circumlocution for the central sanctuary, first the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. See Deut 12:1-14 and especially the note on the word “you” in v. 14.

¹⁰ tn Heb “if listening you listen to the voice of.” The infinitive absolute is used for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “carefully.” The idiom “listen to the voice” means “obey.”

¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 15:4.

¹² tn Heb “by being careful to do.”

¹³ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB); NAB “which I enjoin you today.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “his neighbor,” used idiomatically to refer to another person.

¹⁵ tn Heb “his neighbor and his brother.” The words “his brother” may be a scribal gloss identifying “his neighbor” (on this idiom, see the preceding note) as a fellow Israelite (cf. v. 3). In this case the conjunction before “his brother” does not introduce a second category, but rather has the force of “that is.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “or a dreamer of dreams” (so KJV, ASV, NASB). The difference between a prophet (נָבִיא, navi’) and one who foretells by dreams (חֹלֵם אוֹ, ’o kholem) was not so much one of office – for both received revelation by dreams (cf. Num 12:6) – as it was of function or emphasis. The prophet was more a proclaimer and interpreter of revelation whereas the one who foretold by dreams was a receiver of revelation. In later times the role of the one who foretold by dreams was abused and thus denigrated as compared to that of the prophet (cf. Jer 23:28).

¹⁷ tn The expression אוֹת אוֹ מוֹפֵת (’ot ’o mofet) became a formulaic way of speaking of ways of authenticating prophetic messages or other works of God (cf. Deut 28:46; Isa 20:3). The NT equivalent is the Greek term σημεῖον (shmeion), a sign performed (used frequently in the Gospel of John, cf. 2:11, 18; 20:30-31). They could, however, be counterfeited or (as here) permitted to false prophets by the Lord as a means of testing his people.

¹⁸ tn Heb “you hide your face, they are terrified.”

¹⁹ tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” See the note on the word “Lord” in 5:19.

²⁰ sn On being struck…down by an angel, see Acts 23:3; 1 Sam 25:28; 2 Sam 12:15; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr 13:20; 2 Macc 9:5.

²¹ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Herod) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²² sn He was eaten by worms and died. Josephus, Ant. 19.8.2 (19.343-352), states that Herod Agrippa I died at Caesarea in a.d. 44. The account by Josephus, while not identical to Luke’s account, is similar in many respects: On the second day of a festival, Herod Agrippa appeared in the theater with a robe made of silver. When it sparkled in the sun, the people cried out flatteries and declared him to be a god. The king, carried away by the flattery, saw an owl (an omen of death) sitting on a nearby rope, and immediately was struck with severe stomach pains. He was carried off to his house and died five days later. The two accounts can be reconciled without difficulty, since while Luke states that Herod was immediately struck down by an angel, his death could have come several days later. The mention of worms with death adds a humiliating note to the scene. The formerly powerful ruler had been thoroughly reduced to nothing (cf. Jdt 16:17; 2 Macc 9:9; cf. also Josephus, Ant. 17.6.5 [17.168-170], which details the sickness which led to Herod the Great’s death).