Deuteronomy 31:9-13

The Deposit of the Covenant Text

31:9 Then Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the Levitical priests, who carry the ark of the Lord’s covenant, and to all Israel’s elders. 31:10 He ¹  commanded them: “At the end of seven years, at the appointed time of the cancellation of debts, ²  at the Feast of Temporary Shelters, ³  31:11 when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses, you must read this law before them ⁴  within their hearing. 31:12 Gather the people – men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages – so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law. 31:13 Then their children, who have not known this law, ⁵  will also hear about and learn to fear the Lord your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Deuteronomy 31:2

31:2 He said to them, “Today I am a hundred and twenty years old. I am no longer able to get about, ⁶  and the Lord has said to me, ‘You will not cross the Jordan.’

Deuteronomy 34:1

The Death of Moses

34:1 Then Moses ascended from the deserts of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. ⁷  The Lord showed him the whole land – Gilead to Dan,

Nehemiah 8:1-7

8:1 all the people gathered together ⁸  in the plaza which was in front of the Water Gate. They asked ⁹  Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had commanded Israel. 8:2 So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly which included men and women and all those able to understand what they heard. (This happened on the first day of the seventh month.) 8:3 So he read it before the plaza in front of the Water Gate from dawn till noon ¹⁰  before the men and women and those children who could understand. ¹¹  All the people were eager to hear ¹²  the book of the law.

8:4 Ezra the scribe stood on a towering wooden platform ¹³  constructed for this purpose. Standing near him on his right were Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Masseiah. On his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. 8:5 Ezra opened the book in plain view ¹⁴  of all the people, for he was elevated above all the people. When he opened the book, ¹⁵  all the people stood up. 8:6 Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people replied “Amen! Amen!” as they lifted their hands. Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.

8:7 Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah – all of whom were Levites ¹⁶  – were teaching the people the law, as the people remained standing.

Nehemiah 8:14-15

8:14 They discovered written in the law that the LORD had commanded through ¹⁷  Moses that the Israelites should live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month, 8:15 and that they should make a proclamation and disseminate this message ¹⁸  in all their cities and in Jerusalem: ¹⁹  “Go to the hill country and bring back olive branches and branches of wild olive trees, myrtle trees, date palms, and other leafy trees to construct temporary shelters, as it is written.”

Nehemiah 8:18

8:18 Ezra ²⁰  read in the book of the law of God day by day, from the first day to the last. ²¹  They observed the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly ²²  as was required. ²³ 

Nehemiah 13:1

Further Reforms by Nehemiah

13:1 On that day the book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing ²⁴  of the people. They found ²⁵  written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite may ever enter the assembly of God,

Jeremiah 36:6

36:6 So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast ²⁶  in the Lord’s temple. Read out loud where all of them can hear you what I told you the Lord said, which you wrote in the scroll. ²⁷ 

Jeremiah 36:15

36:15 They said to him, “Please sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch sat down and read it to them. ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 36:21

36:21 The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He went and got it from the room of Elishama, the royal secretary. Then he himself ²⁹  read it to the king and all the officials who were standing around him.

[31:10]  ¹ tn Heb “Moses.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[31:10]  ² tn The Hebrew term שְׁמִטָּה (shÿmittah), a derivative of the verb שָׁמַט (shamat, “to release; to relinquish”), refers to the procedure whereby debts of all fellow Israelites were to be canceled. Since the Feast of Tabernacles celebrated God’s own deliverance of and provision for his people, this was an appropriate time for Israelites to release one another. See note on this word at Deut 15:1.

[31:10]  ³ tn The Hebrew phrase הַסֻּכּוֹת[חַג] ([khag] hassukot, “[festival of] huts” [or “shelters”]) is traditionally known as the Feast of Tabernacles. See note on the name of the festival in Deut 16:13.

[31:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “before all Israel.”

[31:13]  ⁵ tn The phrase “this law” is not in the Hebrew text, but English style requires an object for the verb here. Other translations also supply the object which is otherwise implicit (cf. NIV “who do not know this law”; TEV “who have never heard the Law of the Lord your God”).

[31:2]  ⁶ tn Or “am no longer able to lead you” (NIV, NLT); Heb “am no longer able to go out and come in.”

[34:1]  ⁷ sn For the geography involved, see note on the term “Pisgah” in Deut 3:17.

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “like one man.”

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “said [to].”

[8:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from the light till the noon of the day.”

[8:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all who could hear with understanding.” The word “children” is understood to be implied here by a number of English versions (e.g., NAB, TEV, NLT).

[8:3]  ¹² tn Heb “the ears of all the people were toward.”

[8:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “a tower of wood.”

[8:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to the eyes.”

[8:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the book) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:7]  ¹⁶ tc The MT reads “and the Levites.” The conjunction (“and”) should be deleted, following the LXX, Aquila, and the Vulgate. That the vav (ו) of the MT is the vav explicativum (“even the Levites”) is unlikely here.

[8:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “by the hand of.”

[8:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a voice.”

[8:15]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[8:18]  ²⁰ tn Heb “He”; the referent (Ezra) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “the last day.”

[8:18]  ²² tn Heb “on the eighth day an assembly.” The words “they held” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:18]  ²³ tn Heb “according to the judgment.”

[13:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “ears.”

[13:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “it was found.” The Hebrew verb is passive.

[36:6]  ²⁶ sn Regular fast days were not a part of Israel’s religious calendar. Rather fast days were called on special occasions, i.e., in times of drought or a locust plague (Joel 1:14; 2:15), or during a military crisis (2 Chr 20:3), or after defeat in battle (1 Sam 31:13; 2 Sam 1:12). A fast day was likely chosen for the reading of the scroll because the people would be more mindful of the crisis they were in and be in more of a repentant mood. The events referred to in the study note on v. 1 would have provided the basis for Jeremiah’s anticipation of a fast day when the scroll could be read.

[36:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “So you go and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord on a fast day, and in that way [for the explanation of this rendering see below] you will be reading them in the ears of all Judah [= the people of Judah] who come from their towns [i.e., to the temple to fast].” Again the syntax of the original is awkward, separating several of the qualifying phrases from the word or phrase they are intended to modify. In most of the “literal” English versions the emphasis on “what the Lord said” tends to get lost and it looks like two separate groups are to be addressed rather than one. The intent of the phrase is to define who the people are who will hear; the וַ that introduces the clause is explicative (BDB 252 s.v. וַ 1.b) and the גַּם (gam) is used to emphasize the explicative “all Judah who come in from their towns” (cf. BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 2). If some force were to be given to the “literal” rendering of that particle here it would be “actually.” This is the group that is to be addressed according to v. 3. The complex Hebrew sentence has been restructured to include all the relevant information in more comprehensible and shorter English sentences.

[36:15]  ²⁸ tn Or “‘to us personally’…to them personally”; Heb “‘in our ears’…in their ears.” Elsewhere this has been rendered “in the hearing of” or “where they could hear.” All three of those idioms sound unnatural in this context. The mere personal pronoun seems adequate.

[36:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and Jehudi read it.” However, Jehudi has been the subject of the preceding; so it would be awkward in English to use the personal subject. The translation has chosen to bring out the idea that Jehudi himself read it by using the reflexive.