4:1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances 8 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, 9 is giving you.
4:1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances 10 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, 11 is giving you. 4:2 Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to 12 you.
1 tn Heb “My regulations you shall do”; KJV, NASB “my judgments”; NRSV “My ordinances”; NIV, TEV “my laws.”
2 tn Heb “and my statutes you shall keep [or “watch; guard”] to walk in them.”
3 tn Heb “And you shall keep.”
4 tn Heb “which the man shall do them and shall live in them.” The term for “a man, human being; mankind” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. The expression וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living” so it is written וְחָיָה (vÿkhayah) in Smr, but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal and GKC 218 §76.i; cf. Lev 25:35).
5 tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31).
6 tn This clause also serves as a purpose/result clause of the preceding – “in order that you may remember….” But because the line is so long, it is simpler to make this a separate sentence in the translation.
7 tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV).
8 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.
9 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 31, 37).
10 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.
11 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 31, 37).
12 tn Heb “commanding.”