Ulangan 31:6-7

31:6 Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He will not fail you or abandon you!” 31:7 Then Moses called out to Joshua ¹  in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you will accompany these people to the land that the Lord promised to give their ancestors, ²  and you will enable them to inherit it.

Ulangan 31:23

31:23 and the Lord ³  commissioned Joshua son of Nun, “Be strong and courageous, for you will take the Israelites to the land I have promised them, and I will be with you.” ⁴ 

Yosua 1:7

1:7 Make sure you are ⁵  very strong and brave! Carefully obey ⁶  all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep! ⁷  Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful ⁸  in all you do. ⁹ 

[31:7]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text includes “and said to him.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[31:7]  ² tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 20).

[31:23]  ³ tn Heb “he.” Since the pronoun could be taken to refer to Moses, the referent has been specified as “the Lord” in the translation for clarity. See also the note on the word “you” later in this verse.

[31:23]  ⁴ tc The LXX reads, “as the Lord promised them, and he will be with you.” This relieves the problem of Moses apparently promising to be with Joshua as the MT reads on the surface (“I will be with you”). However, the reading of the LXX is clearly an attempt to clarify an existing obscurity and therefore is unlikely to reflect the original.

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Or “Only be.”

[1:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “so you can be careful to do.” The use of the infinitive לִשְׁמֹר (lishmor, “to keep”) after the imperatives suggests that strength and bravery will be necessary for obedience. Another option is to take the form לִשְׁמֹר as a vocative lamed (ל) with imperative (see Isa 38:20 for an example of this construction), which could be translated, “Indeed, be careful!”

[1:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “commanded you.”

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “be wise,” but the word can mean “be successful” by metonymy.

[1:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “in all which you go.”