8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments 3 I am giving 4 you today so that you may live, increase in number, 5 and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 6 8:2 Remember the whole way by which he 7 has brought you these forty years through the desert 8 so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. 8:3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. 9 He did this to teach you 10 that humankind 11 cannot live by bread 12 alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. 13 8:4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years. 8:5 Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, 14 the Lord your God disciplines you. 8:6 So you must keep his 15 commandments, live according to his standards, 16 and revere him. 8:7 For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, 17 springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills, 8:8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey, 8:9 a land where you may eat food 18 in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron 19 and from whose hills you can mine copper. 8:10 You will eat your fill and then praise the Lord your God because of the good land he has given you.
8:11 Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. 8:12 When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses, 8:13 when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything, 8:14 be sure 20 you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, 8:15 and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents 21 and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow 22 from a flint rock and 8:16 fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you 23 and eventually bring good to you. 8:17 Be careful 24 not to say, “My own ability and skill 25 have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, 26 even as he has to this day. 8:19 Now if you forget the Lord your God at all 27 and follow other gods, worshiping and prostrating yourselves before them, I testify to you today that you will surely be annihilated. 8:20 Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you 28 because you would not obey him. 29
9:1 Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications. 30 9:2 They include the Anakites, 31 a numerous 32 and tall people whom you know about and of whom it is said, “Who is able to resist the Anakites?” 9:3 Understand today that the Lord your God who goes before you is a devouring fire; he will defeat and subdue them before you. You will dispossess and destroy them quickly just as he 33 has told you. 9:4 Do not think to yourself after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “Because of my own righteousness the Lord has brought me here to possess this land.” It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out ahead of you. 9:5 It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, 34 that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he 35 made on oath to your ancestors, 36 to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 9:6 Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn 37 people!
9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget 38 – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. 39 9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there 40 forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing. 9:10 The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, written by the very finger 41 of God, and on them was everything 42 he 43 said to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire at the time of that assembly. 9:11 Now at the end of the forty days and nights the Lord presented me with the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 9:12 And he said to me, “Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.” 44 9:13 Moreover, he said to me, “I have taken note of these people; they are a stubborn 45 lot! 9:14 Stand aside 46 and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, 47 and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”
9:15 So I turned and went down the mountain while it 48 was blazing with fire; the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 9:16 When I looked, you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God and had cast for yourselves a metal calf; 49 you had quickly turned aside from the way he 50 had commanded you! 9:17 I grabbed the two tablets, threw them down, 51 and shattered them before your very eyes. 9:18 Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him. 9:19 For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger 52 that threatened to destroy you. But he 53 listened to me this time as well. 9:20 The Lord was also angry enough at Aaron to kill him, but at that time I prayed for him 54 too. 9:21 As for your sinful thing 55 that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, 56 ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain. 9:22 Moreover, you continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, 57 Massah, 58 and Kibroth-Hattaavah. 59 9:23 And when he 60 sent you from Kadesh-Barnea and told you, “Go up and possess the land I have given you,” you rebelled against the Lord your God 61 and would neither believe nor obey him. 9:24 You have been rebelling against him 62 from the very first day I knew you!
9:25 I lay flat on the ground before the Lord for forty days and nights, 63 for he 64 had said he would destroy you. 9:26 I prayed to him: 65 O, Lord God, 66 do not destroy your people, your valued property 67 that you have powerfully redeemed, 68 whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength. 69 9:27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; ignore the stubbornness, wickedness, and sin of these people. 9:28 Otherwise the people of the land 70 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.” 71 9:29 They are your people, your valued property, 72 whom you brought out with great strength and power. 73
1 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).
2 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
3 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).
4 tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).
5 tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”
6 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).
5 tn Heb “the
6 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.
7 tn Heb “manna which you and your ancestors did not know.” By popular etymology the word “manna” comes from the Hebrew phrase מָן הוּא (man hu’), i.e., “What is it?” (Exod 16:15). The question remains unanswered to this very day. Elsewhere the material is said to be “white like coriander seed” with “a taste like honey cakes” (Exod 16:31; cf. Num 11:7). Modern attempts to associate it with various desert plants are unsuccessful for the text says it was a new thing and, furthermore, one that appeared and disappeared miraculously (Exod 16:21-27).
8 tn Heb “in order to make known to you.” In the Hebrew text this statement is subordinated to what precedes, resulting in a very long sentence in English. The translation makes this statement a separate sentence for stylistic reasons.
9 tn Heb “the man,” but in a generic sense, referring to the whole human race (“mankind” or “humankind”).
10 tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. CEV).
11 sn Jesus quoted this text to the devil in the midst of his forty-day fast to make the point that spiritual nourishment is incomparably more important than mere physical bread (Matt 4:4; cf. Luke 4:4).
9 tn Heb “just as a man disciplines his son.” The Hebrew text reflects the patriarchal idiom of the culture.
11 tn Heb “the commandments of the
12 tn Heb “by walking in his ways.” The “ways” of the Lord refer here to his moral standards as reflected in his commandments. The verb “walk” is used frequently in the Bible (both OT and NT) for one’s moral and ethical behavior.
13 tn Or “wadis.”
15 tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. NASB, NCV, NLT) or “bread” in particular (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV).
16 sn A land whose stones are iron. Since iron deposits are few and far between in Palestine, the reference here is probably to iron ore found in mines as opposed to the meteorite iron more commonly known in that area.
17 tn The words “be sure” are not in the Hebrew text; vv. 12-14 are part of the previous sentence. For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 in the translation and the words “be sure” repeated from v. 11 to indicate the connection.
19 tn Heb “flaming serpents”; KJV, NASB “fiery serpents”; NAB “saraph serpents.” This figure of speech (metonymy) probably describes the venomous and painful results of snakebite. The feeling from such an experience would be like a burning fire (שָׂרָף, saraf).
20 tn Heb “the one who brought out for you water.” In the Hebrew text this continues the preceding sentence, but the translation begins a new sentence here for stylistic reasons.
21 tn Heb “in order to humble you and in order to test you.” See 8:2.
23 tn For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 17 in the translation and the words “be careful” supplied to indicate the connection.
24 tn Heb “my strength and the might of my hand.”
25 tc Smr and Lucian add “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the standard way of rendering this almost stereotypical formula (cf. Deut 1:8; 6:10; 9:5, 27; 29:13; 30:20; 34:4). The MT’s harder reading presumptively argues for its originality, however.
27 tn Heb “if forgetting, you forget.” The infinitive absolute is used for emphasis; the translation indicates this with the words “at all” (cf. KJV).
29 tn Heb “so you will perish.”
30 tn Heb “listen to the voice of the
31 tn Heb “fortified to the heavens” (so NRSV); NLT “cities with walls that reach to the sky.” This is hyperbole.
33 sn Anakites. See note on this term in Deut 1:28.
34 tn Heb “great and tall.” Many English versions understand this to refer to physical size or strength rather than numbers (cf. “strong,” NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT).
35 tn Heb “the
37 tn Heb “uprightness of your heart” (so NASB, NRSV). The Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “righteousness”), though essentially synonymous here with יֹשֶׁר (yosher, “uprightness”), carries the idea of conformity to an objective standard. The term יֹשֶׁר has more to do with an inner, moral quality (cf. NAB, NIV “integrity”). Neither, however, was grounds for the
38 tn Heb “the
39 tn Heb “fathers.”
39 tn Heb “stiff-necked” (so KJV, NAB, NIV).
41 tn By juxtaposing the positive זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) with the negative אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (’al-tishÿkakh, “do not forget”), Moses makes a most emphatic plea.
42 tn Heb “the
43 tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.
45 sn The very finger of God. This is a double figure of speech (1) in which God is ascribed human features (anthropomorphism) and (2) in which a part stands for the whole (synecdoche). That is, God, as Spirit, has no literal finger nor, if he had, would he write with his finger. Rather, the sense is that God himself – not Moses in any way – was responsible for the composition of the Ten Commandments (cf. Exod 31:18; 32:16; 34:1).
46 tn Heb “according to all the words.”
47 tn Heb “the
47 tc Heb “a casting.” The MT reads מַסֵּכָה (massekhah, “a cast thing”) but some
49 tn Heb “stiff-necked.” See note on the word “stubborn” in 9:6.
51 tn Heb “leave me alone.”
52 tn Heb “from under heaven.”
53 tn Heb “the mountain.” The translation uses a pronoun for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.
55 tn On the phrase “metal calf,” see note on the term “metal image” in v. 12.
56 tn Heb “the
57 tn The Hebrew text includes “from upon my two hands,” but as this seems somewhat obvious and redundant, it has been left untranslated for stylistic reasons.
59 tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” Although many English versions translate as two terms, this construction is a hendiadys which serves to intensify the emotion (cf. NAB, TEV “fierce anger”).
60 tn Heb “the
61 tn Heb “Aaron.” The pronoun is used in the translation to avoid redundancy.
63 tn Heb “your sin.” This is a metonymy in which the effect (sin) stands for the cause (the metal calf).
64 tn Heb “burned it with fire.”
65 sn Taberah. By popular etymology this derives from the Hebrew verb בָעַר (ba’ar, “to burn”), thus, here, “burning.” The reference is to the
66 sn Massah. See note on this term in Deut 6:16.
67 sn Kibroth-Hattaavah. This place name means in Hebrew “burial places of appetite,” that is, graves that resulted from overindulgence. The reference is to the Israelites stuffing themselves with the quail God had provided and doing so with thanklessness (Num 11:31-35).
67 tn Heb “the
68 tn Heb “the mouth of the Lord your God,” that is, against the commandment that he had spoken.
69 tn Heb “the
71 tn The Hebrew text includes “when I prostrated myself.” Since this is redundant, it has been left untranslated.
72 tn Heb “the
73 tn Heb “the
74 tn Heb “Lord
75 tn Heb “your inheritance”; NLT “your special (very own NRSV) possession.” Israel is compared to landed property that one would inherit from his ancestors and pass on to his descendants.
76 tn Heb “you have redeemed in your greatness.”
77 tn Heb “by your strong hand.”
75 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.
76 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT).
77 tn Heb “your inheritance.” See note at v. 26.
78 tn Heb “an outstretched arm.”