Deuteronomy 1:28

1:28 What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage ¹  by describing people who are more numerous ²  and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven ³  itself! Moreover, they said they saw ⁴  Anakites ⁵  there.”

Deuteronomy 4:6

4:6 So be sure to do them, because this will testify of your wise understanding ⁶  to the people who will learn of all these statutes and say, “Indeed, this great nation is a very wise ⁷  people.”

Deuteronomy 7:6

7:6 For you are a people holy ⁸  to the Lord your God. He ⁹  has chosen you to be his people, prized ¹⁰  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 9:7

The History of Israel’s Stubbornness

9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget ¹¹  – 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. ¹² 

Deuteronomy 14:2

14:2 For you are a people holy ¹³  to the Lord your God. He ¹⁴  has chosen you to be his people, prized ¹⁵  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 14:21

14:21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages ¹⁶  and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. ¹⁷ 

Deuteronomy 15:9

15:9 Be careful lest you entertain the wicked thought that the seventh year, the year of cancellation of debts, has almost arrived, and your attitude ¹⁸  be wrong toward your impoverished fellow Israelite ¹⁹  and you do not lend ²⁰  him anything; he will cry out to the Lord against you and you will be regarded as having sinned. ²¹ 

Deuteronomy 20:1

Laws Concerning War with Distant Enemies

20:1 When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry ²²  and troops ²³  who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

Deuteronomy 31:16

31:16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, ²⁴  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they ²⁵  are going. They ²⁶  will reject ²⁷  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ²⁸ 

Deuteronomy 31:27

31:27 for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. ²⁹  Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the Lord; you will be even more rebellious after my death! ³⁰ 

Deuteronomy 33:29

33:29 You have joy, Israel! Who is like you?

You are a people delivered by the Lord,

your protective shield

and your exalted sword.

May your enemies cringe before you;

may you trample on their backs.

[1:28]  ¹ tn Heb “have caused our hearts to melt.”

[1:28]  ² tn Heb “greater.” Many English versions understand this to refer to physical size or strength rather than numbers (cf. “stronger,” NAB, NIV, NRSV; “bigger,” NASB).

[1:28]  ³ tn Or “as the sky.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[1:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “we have seen.”

[1:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “the sons of the Anakim.”

[4:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “it is wisdom and understanding.”

[4:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “wise and understanding.”

[7:6]  ¹¹ tn That is, “set apart.”

[7:6]  ¹² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:6]  ¹³ tn Or “treasured” (so NIV, NRSV); NLT “his own special treasure.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[9:7]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord” (likewise in the following verse with both “him” and “he”). See note on “he” in 9:3.

[14:2]  ²¹ tn Or “set apart.”

[14:2]  ²² tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[14:2]  ²³ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[14:21]  ²⁶ tn Heb “gates” (also in vv. 27, 28, 29).

[14:21]  ²⁷ sn Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. This strange prohibition – one whose rationale is unclear but probably related to pagan ritual – may seem out of place here but actually is not for the following reasons: (1) the passage as a whole opens with a prohibition against heathen mourning rites (i.e., death, vv. 1-2) and closes with what appear to be birth and infancy rites. (2) In the other two places where the stipulation occurs (Exod 23:19 and Exod 34:26) it similarly concludes major sections. (3) Whatever the practice signified it clearly was abhorrent to the Lord and fittingly concludes the topic of various breaches of purity and holiness as represented by the ingestion of unclean animals (vv. 3-21). See C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid In Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35.

[15:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “your eye.”

[15:9]  ³² tn Heb “your needy brother.”

[15:9]  ³³ tn Heb “give” (likewise in v. 10).

[15:9]  ³⁴ tn Heb “it will be a sin to you.”

[20:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “horse and chariot.”

[20:1]  ³⁷ tn Heb “people.”

[31:16]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “lie down with your fathers” (so NASB); NRSV “ancestors.”

[31:16]  ⁴² tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style. The third person singular also occurs in the Hebrew text twice more in this verse, three times in v. 17, once in v. 18, five times in v. 20, and four times in v. 21. Each time it is translated as third person plural for stylistic reasons.

[31:16]  ⁴³ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:16]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “abandon” (TEV, NLT).

[31:16]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:27]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “stiffness of neck” (cf. KJV, NAB, NIV). See note on the word “stubborn” in Deut 9:6.

[31:27]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “How much more after my death?” The Hebrew text has a sarcastic rhetorical question here; the translation seeks to bring out the force of the question.