Deuteronomy 6:16

Exhortation to Obey the Lord Exclusively

6:16 You must not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. ¹ 

Deuteronomy 8:16

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 ²  and eventually bring good to you.

Deuteronomy 33:8

Blessing on Levi

33:8 Of Levi he said:

Your Thummim and Urim ³  belong to your godly one, ⁴ 

whose authority you challenged at Massah, ⁵ 

and with whom you argued at the waters of Meribah. ⁶ 

Deuteronomy 4:34

4:34 Or has God ⁷  ever before tried to deliver ⁸  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ⁹  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ¹⁰  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

Deuteronomy 8:2

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ¹¹  has brought you these forty years through the desert ¹²  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 13:3

13:3 You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer, ¹³  for the Lord your God will be testing you to see if you love him ¹⁴  with all your mind and being. ¹⁵ 

Deuteronomy 28:56

28:56 Likewise, the most ¹⁶  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ¹⁷  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters,

¹ sn The place name Massah (מַסָּה, massah) derives from a root (נָסָה, nasah) meaning “to test; to try.” The reference here is to the experience in the Sinai desert when Moses struck the rock to obtain water (Exod 17:1-2). The complaining Israelites had, thus, “tested” the Lord, a wickedness that gave rise to the naming of the place (Exod 17:7; cf. Deut 9:22; 33:8).

² tn Heb “in order to humble you and in order to test you.” See 8:2.

³ sn Thummim and Urim. These terms, whose meaning is uncertain, refer to sacred stones carried in a pouch on the breastplate of the high priest and examined on occasion as a means of ascertaining God’s will or direction. See Exod 28:30; Lev 8:8; Num 27:21; 1 Sam 28:6. See also C. Van Dam, NIDOTTE 1:329-31.

⁴ tn Heb “godly man.” The reference is probably to Moses as representative of the whole tribe of Levi.

⁵ sn Massah means “testing” in Hebrew; the name is a wordplay on what took place there. Cf. Exod 17:7; Deut 6:16; 9:22; Ps 95:8-9.

⁶ sn Meribah means “contention, argument” in Hebrew; this is another wordplay on the incident that took place there. Cf. Num 20:13, 24; Ps 106:32.

⁴ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

⁵ tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

⁶ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

⁷ tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

⁵ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁶ tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

⁶ tn Heb “or dreamer of dreams.” See note on this expression in v. 1.

⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁸ tn Heb “all your heart and soul” (so NRSV, CEV, NLT); or “heart and being” (NCV “your whole being”). See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.

⁷ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

⁸ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”