Ulangan 7:12-15

Promises of Good for Covenant Obedience

7:12 If you obey these ordinances and are careful to do them, the Lord your God will faithfully keep covenant with you ¹  as he promised ²  your ancestors. 7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ³  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you. 7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ⁴  among you or your livestock. 7:15 The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.

Ulangan 28:1-14

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ⁵  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ⁶  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 ⁷  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ⁸  28:4 Your children ⁹  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. ¹⁰  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ¹¹  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ¹²  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 ¹³  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ¹⁴  and obey him. ¹⁵  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ¹⁶  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ¹⁷  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ¹⁸  promised your ancestors ¹⁹  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; ²⁰  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 ²¹  commandments which I am urging ²²  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ²³  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ²⁴  them.

[7:12]  ¹ tn Heb “will keep with you the covenant and loyalty.” On the construction used here, see v. 9.

[7:12]  ² tn Heb “which he swore on oath.” The relative pronoun modifies “covenant,” so one could translate “will keep faithfully the covenant (or promise) he made on oath to your ancestors.”

[7:13]  ³ tn Heb “will bless the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[7:14]  ⁴ sn One of the ironies about the promises to the patriarchs concerning offspring was the characteristic barrenness of the wives of the men to whom these pledges were made (cf. Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31). Their affliction is in each case described by the very Hebrew word used here (עֲקָרָה, ’aqarah), an affliction that will no longer prevail in Canaan.

[28:1]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[28:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[28:3]  ⁸ tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:6]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

[28:7]  ¹² tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

[28:8]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[28:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:13]  ²² tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

[28:14]  ²³ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

[28:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in order to serve.”