Deuteronomy 4:10

4:10 You ¹  stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he ²  said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands. ³  Then they will learn to revere me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children.”

Deuteronomy 4:1

The Privileges of the Covenant

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.

Deuteronomy 5:1

The Opening Exhortation

5:1 Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: ⁶  “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them!

Deuteronomy 5:31

5:31 But as for you, remain here with me so I can declare to you all the commandments, ⁷  statutes, and ordinances that you are to teach them, so that they can carry them out in the land I am about to give them.” ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 14:23

14:23 In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, ⁹  your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.

Deuteronomy 17:19

17:19 It must be with him constantly and he must read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and observe all the words of this law and these statutes and carry them out.

Deuteronomy 31:12-13

31:12 Gather the people – men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages – so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law. 31:13 Then their children, who have not known this law, ¹⁰  will also hear about and learn to fear the Lord your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Deuteronomy 31:19

31:19 Now write down for yourselves the following song and teach it to the Israelites. Put it into their very mouths so that this song may serve as my witness against the Israelites!

¹ tn The text begins with “(the) day (in) which.” In the Hebrew text v. 10 is subordinate to v. 11, but for stylistic reasons the translation treats v. 10 as an independent clause, necessitating the omission of the subordinating temporal phrase at the beginning of the verse.

² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 4:3.

³ tn Heb “my words.” See v. 13; in Hebrew the “ten commandments” are the “ten words.”

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).

⁷ tn Heb “and Moses called to all Israel and he said to them”; NAB, NASB, NIV “Moses summoned (convened NRSV) all Israel.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “commandment.” The MT actually has the singular (הַמִּצְוָה, hammitsvah), suggesting perhaps that the following terms (חֻקִּים [khuqqim] and מִשְׁפָּטִים [mishpatim]) are in epexegetical apposition to “commandment.” That is, the phrase could be translated “the entire command, namely, the statutes and ordinances.” This would essentially make מִצְוָה (mitsvah) synonymous with תּוֹרָה (torah), the usual term for the whole collection of law.

¹¹ tn Heb “to possess it” (so KJV, ASV); NLT “as their inheritance.”

¹³ tn This refers to wine in the early stages of fermentation. In its later stages it becomes wine (יַיִן, yayin) in its mature sense.

¹⁶ tn The phrase “this law” is not in the Hebrew text, but English style requires an object for the verb here. Other translations also supply the object which is otherwise implicit (cf. NIV “who do not know this law”; TEV “who have never heard the Law of the Lord your God”).