Ulangan 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ³  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ⁴ 

Ulangan 12:2

12:2 You must by all means destroy ⁵  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ⁶ 

Ulangan 12:6

12:6 And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, ⁷  your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

Ulangan 14:26

14:26 Then you may spend the money however you wish for cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever you desire. You and your household may eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and enjoy it.

Ulangan 15:19

Giving God the Best

15:19 You must set apart ⁸  for the Lord your God every firstborn male born to your herds and flocks. You must not work the firstborn of your bulls or shear the firstborn of your flocks.

Ulangan 16:15

16:15 You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he ⁹  chooses, for he ¹⁰  will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; ¹¹  so you will indeed rejoice!

Ulangan 19:9

19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ¹²  I am giving ¹³  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ¹⁴  to these three.

Ulangan 20:5

20:5 Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, ¹⁵  “Who among you ¹⁶  has built a new house and not dedicated ¹⁷  it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else ¹⁸  dedicate it.

Ulangan 25:7

25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ¹⁹  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

Ulangan 26:5

26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ²⁰  Aramean ²¹  was my ancestor, ²²  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ²³  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people.

Ulangan 26:12

Presentation of the Third-year Tithe

26:12 When you finish tithing all ²⁴  your income in the third year (the year of tithing), you must give it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows ²⁵  so that they may eat to their satisfaction in your villages. ²⁶ 

[8:1]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ³ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[12:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “destroying you must destroy”; KJV “Ye shall utterly (surely ASV) destroy”; NRSV “must demolish completely.” The Hebrew infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis, which is reflected in the translation by the words “by all means.”

[12:2]  ⁶ sn Every leafy tree. This expression refers to evergreens which, because they keep their foliage throughout the year, provided apt symbolism for nature cults such as those practiced in Canaan. The deity particularly in view is Asherah, wife of the great god El, who was considered the goddess of fertility and whose worship frequently took place at shrines near or among clusters (groves) of such trees (see also Deut 7:5). See J. Hadley, NIDOTTE 1:569-70; J. DeMoor, TDOT 1:438-44.

[12:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “heave offerings of your hand.”

[15:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “sanctify” (תַּקְדִּישׁ, taqdish), that is, put to use on behalf of the Lord.

[16:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[16:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[16:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in all the work of your hands” (so NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “in all your undertakings.”

[19:9]  ¹² tn Heb “all this commandment.” This refers here to the entire covenant agreement of the Book of Deuteronomy as encapsulated in the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).

[19:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today.”

[19:9]  ¹⁴ sn You will add three more cities. Since these are alluded to nowhere else and thus were probably never added, this must be a provision for other cities of refuge should they be needed (cf. v. 8). See P. C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (NICOT), 267.

[20:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “people” (also in vv. 8, 9).

[20:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Who [is] the man” (also in vv. 6, 7, 8).

[20:5]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew term חָנַךְ (khanakh) occurs elsewhere only with respect to the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:63 = 2 Chr 7:5). There it has a religious connotation which, indeed, may be the case here as well. The noun form (חָנֻכָּה, khanukah) is associated with the consecration of the great temple altar (2 Chr 7:9) and of the postexilic wall of Jerusalem (Neh 12:27). In Maccabean times the festival of Hanukkah was introduced to celebrate the rededication of the temple following its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1 Macc 4:36-61).

[20:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “another man.”

[25:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister in law.” In the second instance the pronoun (“she”) has been used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

[26:5]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn Heb “father.”

[26:5]  ²³ tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.

[26:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb includes “the tithes of.” This has not been included in the translation to avoid redundancy.

[26:12]  ²⁵ tn The terms “Levite, resident foreigner, orphan, and widow” are collective singulars in the Hebrew text (also in v. 13).

[26:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “gates.”