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 5:22

The Narrative of the Sinai Revelation and Israel’s Response

5:22 The Lord said these things to your entire assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness with a loud voice, and that was all he said. ⁶  Then he inscribed the words ⁷  on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

Deuteronomy 26:5

26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ⁸  Aramean ⁹  was my ancestor, ¹⁰  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ¹¹  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people.

[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.”

[5:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he added no more” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NLT “This was all he said at that time.”

[5:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the words spoken by the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:5]  ¹¹ tn Though the Hebrew term אָבַד (’avad) generally means “to perish” or the like (HALOT 2-3 s.v.; BDB 1-2 s.v.; cf. KJV “a Syrian ready to perish”), a meaning “to go astray” or “to be lost” is also attested. The ambivalence in the Hebrew text is reflected in the versions where LXX Vaticanus reads ἀπέβαλεν (apebalen, “lose”) for a possibly metathesized reading found in Alexandrinus, Ambrosianus, ἀπέλαβεν (apelaben, “receive”); others attest κατέλειπεν (kateleipen, “leave, abandon”). “Wandering” seems to suit best the contrast with the sedentary life Israel would enjoy in Canaan (v. 9) and is the meaning followed by many English versions.

[26:5]  ¹² sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

[26:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “father.”

[26:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.