32:14 butter from the herd
and milk from the flock,
along with the fat of lambs,
rams and goats of Bashan,
along with the best of the kernels of wheat;
and from the juice of grapes you drank wine.
32:2 My teaching will drop like the rain,
my sayings will drip like the dew, 1
as rain drops upon the grass,
and showers upon new growth.
4:1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances 4 I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, 5 is giving you.
81:16 “I would feed Israel the best wheat, 8
and would satisfy your appetite 9 with honey from the rocky cliffs.” 10
147:14 He 11 brings peace to your territory. 12
He abundantly provides for you 13 the best grain.
1 tn Or “mist,” “light drizzle.” In some contexts the term appears to refer to light rain, rather than dew.
2 tn Heb “it is wisdom and understanding.”
3 tn Heb “wise and understanding.”
4 tn These technical Hebrew terms (חֻקִּים [khuqqim] and מִשְׁפָּטִים [mishpatim]) occur repeatedly throughout the Book of Deuteronomy to describe the covenant stipulations to which Israel had been called to subscribe (see, in this chapter alone, vv. 1, 5, 6, 8). The word חֻקִּים derives from the verb חֹק (khoq, “to inscribe; to carve”) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim) from שָׁפַט (shafat, “to judge”). They are virtually synonymous and are used interchangeably in Deuteronomy.
5 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 31, 37).
6 tn Heb “take up the name of the Lord your God to emptiness”; KJV “take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” The idea here is not cursing or profanity in the modern sense of these terms but rather the use of the divine Name for unholy, mundane purposes, that is, for meaningless (the Hebrew term is שָׁוְא) and empty ends. In ancient Israel this would include using the Lord’s name as a witness in vows one did not intend to keep.
7 tn Heb “who takes up his name to emptiness.”
8 tn Heb “and he fed him from the best of the wheat.” The Hebrew text has a third person form of the preterite with a vav (ו) consecutive attached. However, it is preferable, in light of the use of the first person in v. 14 and in the next line, to emend the verb to a first person form and understand the vav as conjunctive, continuing the apodosis of the conditional sentence of vv. 13-14. The third masculine singular pronominal suffix refers to Israel, as in v. 6.
9 tn Heb “you.” The second person singular pronominal suffix refers to Israel, as in vv. 7-10.
10 sn The language in this verse, particularly the references to wheat and honey, is reminiscent of Deut 32:13-14.
11 tn Heb “the one who.”
12 tn Heb “he makes your boundary peace.”
13 tn Heb “satisfies you with.”
14 sn The location is mentioned in Judg 11:33.