Deuteronomy 9:4

9:4 Do not think to yourself after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “Because of my own righteousness the Lord has brought me here to possess this land.” It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out ahead of you.

Deuteronomy 10:8

10:8 At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi ¹  to carry the ark of the Lord’s covenant, to stand before the Lord to serve him, and to formulate blessings ²  in his name, as they do to this very day.

Deuteronomy 12:18

12:18 Only in the presence of the Lord your God may you eat these, in the place he ³  chooses. This applies to you, your son, your daughter, your male and female servants, and the Levites ⁴  in your villages. In that place you will rejoice before the Lord your God in all the output of your labor. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 16:15

16:15 You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he ⁶  chooses, for he ⁷  will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; ⁸  so you will indeed rejoice!

Deuteronomy 23:5

23:5 But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam and changed ⁹  the curse to a blessing, for the Lord your God loves ¹⁰  you.

Deuteronomy 26:10

26:10 So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him. ¹¹ 

Deuteronomy 29:20

29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ¹²  will rage ¹³  against that man; all the curses ¹⁴  written in this scroll will fall upon him ¹⁵  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ¹⁶ 

¹ sn The Lord set apart the tribe of Levi. This was not the initial commissioning of the tribe of Levi to this ministry (cf. Num 3:11-13; 8:12-26), but with Aaron’s death it seemed appropriate to Moses to reiterate Levi’s responsibilities. There is no reference in the Book of Numbers to this having been done, but the account of Eleazar’s succession to the priesthood there (Num 20:25-28) would provide a setting for this to have occurred.

² sn To formulate blessings. The most famous example of this is the priestly “blessing formula” of Num 6:24-26.

¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 12:5.

² tn See note at Deut 12:12.

³ tn Heb “in all the sending forth of your hands.”

¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

³ tn Heb “in all the work of your hands” (so NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “in all your undertakings.”

¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God changed.” The phrase “the Lord your God” has not been included in the translation here for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy. Moreover, use of the pronoun “he” could create confusion regarding the referent (the Lord or Balaam).

² tn The verb אָהַב (’ahav, “love”) here and commonly elsewhere in the Book of Deuteronomy speaks of God’s elective grace toward Israel. See note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

¹ tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.

² tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

³ tn Heb “the entire oath.”

⁴ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

⁵ tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”