Deuteronomy 1:8

1:8 Look! I have already given the land to you. ¹  Go, occupy the territory that I, ²  the Lord, promised ³  to give to your ancestors ⁴  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants.” ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 4:26

4:26 I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ⁶  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ⁷  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ⁸  annihilated.

Deuteronomy 9:28

9:28 Otherwise the people of the land ⁹  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.” ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 28:64

28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.

¹ tn Heb “I have placed before you the land.”

² tn Heb “the Lord.” Since the Lord is speaking, it is preferable for clarity to supply the first person pronoun in the translation.

³ tn Heb “swore” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). This refers to God’s promise, made by solemn oath, to give the patriarchs the land.

⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 11, 21, 35).

⁵ tn Heb “their seed after them.”

⁶ sn I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you. This stock formula introduces what is known form-critically as a רִיב (riv) or controversy pattern. It is commonly used in the ancient Near Eastern world in legal contexts and in the OT as a forensic or judicial device to draw attention to Israel’s violation of the Lord’s covenant with them (see Deut 30:19; Isa 1:2; 3:13; Jer 2:9). Since court proceedings required the testimony of witnesses, the Lord here summons heaven and earth (that is, all creation) to testify to his faithfulness, Israel’s disobedience, and the threat of judgment.

⁷ tn Or “be destroyed”; KJV “utterly perish”; NLT “will quickly disappear”; CEV “you won’t have long to live.”

⁸ tn Or “be completely” (so NCV, TEV). It is not certain here if the infinitive absolute indicates the certainty of the following action (cf. NIV) or its degree.

¹¹ 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.

¹² tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT).