Deuteronomy 16:1

The Passover-Unleavened Bread Festival

16:1 Observe the month Abib ¹  and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month ²  he ³  brought you out of Egypt by night.

Deuteronomy 22:8

22:8 If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail ⁴  around your roof to avoid being culpable ⁵  in the event someone should fall from it.

Deuteronomy 1:3

1:3 However, it was not until ⁶  the first day of the eleventh month ⁷  of the fortieth year ⁸  that Moses addressed the Israelites just as ⁹  the Lord had instructed him to do.

Deuteronomy 20:5

20:5 Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, ¹⁰  “Who among you ¹¹  has built a new house and not dedicated ¹²  it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else ¹³  dedicate it.

¹ sn The month Abib, later called Nisan (Neh 2:1; Esth 3:7), corresponds to March-April in the modern calendar.

² tn Heb “in the month Abib.” The demonstrative “that” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁴ tn Or “a parapet” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV “a battlement”; NLT “a barrier.”

⁵ tn Heb “that you not place bloodshed in your house.”

⁷ tn Heb “in” or “on.” Here there is a contrast between the ordinary time of eleven days (v. 2) and the actual time of forty years, so “not until” brings out that vast disparity.

⁸ sn The eleventh month is Shebat in the Hebrew calendar, January/February in the modern (Gregorian) calendar.

⁹ sn The fortieth year would be 1406 b.c. according to the “early” date of the exodus. See E. H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 66-75.

¹⁰ tn Heb “according to all which.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “people” (also in vv. 8, 9).

¹¹ tn Heb “Who [is] the man” (also in vv. 6, 7, 8).

¹² tn The Hebrew term חָנַךְ (khanakh) occurs elsewhere only with respect to the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:63 = 2 Chr 7:5). There it has a religious connotation which, indeed, may be the case here as well. The noun form (חָנֻכָּה, khanukah) is associated with the consecration of the great temple altar (2 Chr 7:9) and of the postexilic wall of Jerusalem (Neh 12:27). In Maccabean times the festival of Hanukkah was introduced to celebrate the rededication of the temple following its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1 Macc 4:36-61).

¹³ tn Heb “another man.”