5:1 Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: 3 “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them!
8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments 4 I am giving 5 you today so that you may live, increase in number, 6 and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 7
28:1 “If you indeed 17 obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving 18 you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.
28:15 “But if you ignore 19 the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: 20
1 tn Heb “would be a prey.”
2 sn Do not know good from bad. This is a figure of speech called a merism (suggesting a whole by referring to its extreme opposites). Other examples are the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9), the boy who knows enough “to reject the wrong and choose the right” (Isa 7:16; 8:4), and those who “cannot tell their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11). A young child is characterized by lack of knowledge.
3 tn Heb “and Moses called to all Israel and he said to them”; NAB, NASB, NIV “Moses summoned (convened NRSV) all Israel.”
5 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).
6 tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).
7 tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”
8 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).
7 tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB, NRSV).
8 tc The LXX and Smr add “and good” to bring the phrase in line with a familiar cliché (cf. Deut 6:18; Josh 9:25; 2 Kgs 10:3; 2 Chr 14:1; etc.). This is an unnecessary and improper attempt to force a text into a preconceived mold.
9 tn Heb “in the eyes of the
9 tn Heb “the Passover.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.
10 tc The MT reading אֶל (’el, “unto”) before “the place” should, following Smr, Syriac, Targums, and Vulgate, be omitted in favor of ב (bet; בַּמָּקוֹם, bammaqom), “in the place.”
11 tn Heb “the
11 tn Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).
12 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”
13 sn You will add three more cities. Since these are alluded to nowhere else and thus were probably never added, this must be a provision for other cities of refuge should they be needed (cf. v. 8). See P. C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (NICOT), 267.
13 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”
14 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).
15 tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”
16 tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”
17 tn Heb “you will not cause your ways to prosper.”
19 tn Or “am no longer able to lead you” (NIV, NLT); Heb “am no longer able to go out and come in.”
21 tn Heb “stiffness of neck” (cf. KJV, NAB, NIV). See note on the word “stubborn” in Deut 9:6.
22 tn Heb “How much more after my death?” The Hebrew text has a sarcastic rhetorical question here; the translation seeks to bring out the force of the question.