Deuteronomy 9:1

Theological Justification of the Conquest

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. ¹ 

Deuteronomy 11:8

The Abundance of the Land of Promise

11:8 Now pay attention to all the commandments ²  I am giving ³  you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed, ⁴ 

Deuteronomy 15:15

15:15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you to do this thing today.

Deuteronomy 19:4

19:4 Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live, ⁵  if he has accidentally killed another ⁶  without hating him at the time of the accident. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 23:10

23:10 If there is someone among you who is impure because of some nocturnal emission, ⁸  he must leave the camp; he may not reenter it immediately.

Deuteronomy 29:10

29:10 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God – the heads of your tribes, ⁹  your elders, your officials, every Israelite man,

Deuteronomy 30:2

30:2 Then if you and your descendants ¹⁰  turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being ¹¹  just as ¹²  I am commanding you today,

¹ tn Heb “fortified to the heavens” (so NRSV); NLT “cities with walls that reach to the sky.” This is hyperbole.

² tn Heb “the commandment.” The singular מִצְוָה (mitsvah, “commandment”) speaks here as elsewhere of the whole corpus of covenant stipulations in Deuteronomy (cf. 6:1, 25; 7:11; 8:1).

³ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in vv. 13, 27).

⁴ tn Heb “which you are crossing over there to possess it.”

³ tn Heb “and this is the word pertaining to the one who kills who flees there and lives.”

⁴ tn Heb “who strikes his neighbor without knowledge.”

⁵ tn Heb “yesterday and a third (day)” (likewise in v. 6). The point is that there was no animosity between the two parties at the time of the accident and therefore no motive for the killing. Cf. NAB “had previously borne no malice”; NRSV “had not been at enmity before.”

⁴ tn Heb “nocturnal happening.” The Hebrew term קָרֶה (qareh) merely means “to happen” so the phrase here is euphemistic (a “night happening”) for some kind of bodily emission such as excrement or semen. Such otherwise normal physical functions rendered one ritually unclean whether accidental or not. See Lev 15:16-18; 22:4.

⁵ tc Heb “your heads, your tribes.” The Syriac presupposes either “heads of your tribes” or “your heads, your judges,” etc. (reading שֹׁפְטֵכֶם [shofÿtekhem] for שִׁבְטֵיכֶם [shivtekhem]). Its comparative difficulty favors the originality of the MT reading. Cf. KJV “your captains of your tribes”; NRSV “the leaders of your tribes”; NLT “your tribal leaders.”

⁶ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “children.”

⁷ tn Or “heart and soul” (also in vv. 6, 10).

⁸ tn Heb “according to all.”