Deuteronomy 28:1-14

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ¹  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ²  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. 28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ³  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ⁴  28:4 Your children ⁵  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁶  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ⁷  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ⁸  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ⁹  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ¹⁰  and obey him. ¹¹  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ¹²  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ¹³  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ¹⁴  promised your ancestors ¹⁵  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ¹⁶  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 28:13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ¹⁷  commandments which I am urging ¹⁸  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹⁹  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ²⁰  them.

Deuteronomy 28:1

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ²¹  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ²²  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

Deuteronomy 2:3

2:3 “You have circled around this mountain long enough; now turn north.

Deuteronomy 3:14

3:14 Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the Argob region as far as the border with the Geshurites ²³  and Maacathites ²⁴  (namely Bashan) and called it by his name, Havvoth-Jair, ²⁵  which it retains to this very day.)

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ²⁶  I am giving ²⁷  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ²⁸  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ²⁹ 

Deuteronomy 9:4-9

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. 9:5 It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, ³⁰  that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he ³¹  made on oath to your ancestors, ³²  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 9:6 Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn ³³  people!

The History of Israel’s Stubbornness

9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget ³⁴  – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. ³⁵  9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there ³⁶  forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

Deuteronomy 11:1

Reiteration of the Call to Obedience

11:1 You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments ³⁷  at all times.

Deuteronomy 11:1

Reiteration of the Call to Obedience

11:1 You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments ³⁸  at all times.

Deuteronomy 28:9

28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ³⁹  and obey him. ⁴⁰ 

Zechariah 3:7

3:7 “The Lord who rules over all says, ‘If you live ⁴¹  and work according to my requirements, you will be able to preside over my temple ⁴²  and attend to my courtyards, and I will allow you to come and go among these others who are standing by you.

[28:1]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ² tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[28:2]  ³ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[28:3]  ⁴ tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:6]  ⁶ sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.

[28:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

[28:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

[28:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.

[28:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ¹² tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).

[28:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[28:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

[28:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

[28:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in order to serve.”

[28:1]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ²² tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[3:14]  ²³ sn Geshurites. Geshur was a city and its surrounding area somewhere northeast of Bashan (cf. Josh 12:5 ; 13:11, 13). One of David’s wives was Maacah, the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur and mother of Absalom (cf. 2 Sam 13:37; 15:8; 1 Chr 3:2).

[3:14]  ²⁴ sn Maacathites. These were the people of a territory southwest of Mount Hermon on the Jordan River. The name probably has nothing to do with David’s wife from Geshur (see note on “Geshurites” earlier in this verse).

[3:14]  ²⁵ sn Havvoth-Jair. The Hebrew name means “villages of Jair,” the latter being named after a son (i.e., descendant) of Manasseh who took the area by conquest.

[8:1]  ²⁶ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[9:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “uprightness of your heart” (so NASB, NRSV). The Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “righteousness”), though essentially synonymous here with יֹשֶׁר (yosher, “uprightness”), carries the idea of conformity to an objective standard. The term יֹשֶׁר has more to do with an inner, moral quality (cf. NAB, NIV “integrity”). Neither, however, was grounds for the Lord’s favor. As he states in both vv. 4-5, the main reason he allowed Israel to take this land was the sinfulness of the Canaanites who lived there (cf. Gen 15:16).

[9:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:5]  ³² tn Heb “fathers.”

[9:6]  ³³ tn Heb “stiff-necked” (so KJV, NAB, NIV).

[9:7]  ³⁴ tn By juxtaposing the positive זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) with the negative אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (’al-tishÿkakh, “do not forget”), Moses makes a most emphatic plea.

[9:7]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the Lord” (likewise in the following verse with both “him” and “he”). See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:9]  ³⁶ tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[11:1]  ³⁷ tn This collocation of technical terms for elements of the covenant text lends support to its importance and also signals a new section of paraenesis in which Moses will exhort Israel to covenant obedience. The Hebrew term מִשְׁמָרוֹת (mishmarot, “obligations”) sums up the three terms that follow – חֻקֹּת (khuqot), מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishppatim), and מִצְוֹת (mitsot).

[11:1]  ³⁸ tn This collocation of technical terms for elements of the covenant text lends support to its importance and also signals a new section of paraenesis in which Moses will exhort Israel to covenant obedience. The Hebrew term מִשְׁמָרוֹת (mishmarot, “obligations”) sums up the three terms that follow – חֻקֹּת (khuqot), מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishppatim), and מִצְוֹת (mitsot).

[28:9]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[3:7]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “walk,” a frequent biblical metaphor for lifestyle or conduct; TEV “If you [+ truly CEV] obey.” To “walk” in the ways of the Lord is to live life as he intends (cf. Deut 8:6; 10:12-22; 28:9).

[3:7]  ⁴² sn The statement you will be able to preside over my temple (Heb “house,” a reference to the Jerusalem temple) is a hint of the increasingly important role the high priest played in the postexilic Jewish community, especially in the absence of a monarchy. It also suggests the messianic character of the eschatological priesthood in which the priest would have royal prerogatives.