Deuturonomy
Looking back (chapters 1-3)
Horeb to Kadesh
11These are the words (Hebr. devarim) that Moses spoke to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan, in the wilderness of the Arava, opposite Zophim [probably the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea), also called the Reed Sea; Hebr. jam sof] between Paran and Tofel, and Laban and Chatsarot and Di-Zahav. 2It is eleven days' journey from [Mount] Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) to Kadesh Barnea via the road from Mount Seir. [Seir is a synonym for Edom. Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai. The Hebrew word chorev shares its root with the words dry/desolate, but also sword. Here we have a geographical description of a dry desert, but also the connection to God's prov, which is a sword (). Kadesh means "holy"; the place may be Tell el-Qudeirat in the Sinai Desert, right on the current border between Israel and Egypt.] 3And it came to pass in the 40th year, in the 11th month [Shvat – Jan/Feb; during the rainy season], on the first day of the month [1406 BC], that Moses spoke to the sons of Israel concerning all that the Lord (Yahweh) had commanded them, 4after he had defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth near Edrei. 5On the other side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook (he made a conscious decision) to explain this teaching (Hebr. torah) and said: 6"The Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) spoke to us at Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) and said, 'You have stayed (lived) long enough at this mountain [in the Sinai desert], 7turn and go up into the hill country of the Amorites and to all the places around the Arava, in the hill country, in the Lowlands [Hebr. Shefelah – the lowlands between the Mediterranean coast and the hill country of Judah], and in the south and along the coast, the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon as far as the great river, the Euphrates River. 8Behold, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord (Yahweh) swore (gave his oath) to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and their seed after them (descendants).' "Leaders are appointed
9And I spoke to you at that time, saying, 'I alone cannot bear you, 10The Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. 11The Lord (Yahweh), the God of your fathers (Elohim), has multiplied you a thousand times and blessed you as he promised you. [To multiply a thousand times is an expression meaning to make them much greater than they were before.] 12How can I alone bear your circumstances, your burdens, and your struggles? 13Take wise men from each of your tribes, men of understanding (ability to judge) and who are well-respected, and I will make them heads (leaders) over you."
[It was Moses' father-in-law Jethro who suggested that Moses must delegate responsibility, see . These qualities form the basis for the requirements for elders in the New Testament, see ; ; . The opening phrase "Take from each of your tribes" shows that they were to appoint their leaders democratically.] 14And you answered me and said, "It is good (right) to do as you have said." 15So I took the heads (leaders) of your tribes, wise men with understanding and full of knowledge, and made them heads (leaders) over you, leaders of 1,000 and leaders of 100 and leaders of 50 and leaders of 10 and scribes, tribe by tribe. 16And I appointed your judges at that time and said, "Hear the cases between your brothers and judge fairly between a man and his brother and the stranger who is with him. 17You shall not be partial (literally: you shall not recognize faces) when you judge [justice is blind, see , ; ]—listen to the small (young, insignificant) as well as the great (powerful). You shall not be afraid of any man's face [their appearance], for the judgment is God's (Elohim's). And if the case is too difficult for you, you shall bring it to me, and I will listen to it." 18And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.Scouts are sent out
19And we journeyed from Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) [Mount Sinai, see ] and went through all this great and terrible wilderness that you saw along the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) commanded us, and we came to Kadesh Barnea. [The journey and the dangers along the way are described in more detail in .] 20And I said to you, "We have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) has given us. 21See, the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has put the land before you; go up and take possession of it, as the Lord (Yahweh), the God of your fathers (Elohim), has told you; do not be afraid and do not be discouraged." 22And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, "Let us send men to explore (dig – Hebr. chafar) the land for us and bring back word about the way we must go up and the cities we are to come to." [] 23This pleased me well, and I took 12 men from among you, one man from each tribe, 24and they turned and went up into the mountains and came to the valley of Eshkol (wadi – Hebr. nachal) and explored it. 25And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us and came back with prov, saying, "Good (plural, good in many ways) is the land that the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) is giving us."Rebellion against the Lord
26Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), 27and you grumbled in your tents and said, "The Lord (Yahweh) hates us; he has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites and destroy us. 28What will happen to us when we go up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, 'The people are bigger and taller than we are, the cities are large and fortified up to the heavens, and besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there. '" [] 29Then I said to you, 'Do not be afraid or terrified of them. 30The Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), who has gone before you, will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31and in the wilderness, where you saw how the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) carried you as a man carries his son [], all the way you went until you came to this place. 32Yet you do not believe in this, in the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), 33who went before you on the way and sought a place for you to pitch your tents, in fire by night to show you the way you should go, and in a cloud by day." 34And the Lord (Yahweh) heard the voice of your words and became angry and swore, saying 35"None of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers, 36except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it [], and to him I will give the land on which he has set his foot, and to his children, because he has followed the Lord (Yahweh) wholeheartedly. [; ] 37The Lord's (Yahweh's) anger was also against me because of you, when he said, 'You shall not enter there either.' [] 38Joshua, the son of Nun, who stands before you, shall go to that place; encourage him (make him strong and bold), for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39Your little ones, whom you said would be taken captive, and your sons, who do not know (have intimate knowledge of) good and evil today, shall come to the place, and I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. 40But you, turn and take the road to the Reed Sea (Red Sea)." [] 41Then you answered and said to me, "We have sinned against the Lord (Yahweh), we will go up and fight according to all that the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded us." And you girded yourselves, every man with his weapon of war, and thought it a simple matter to go up into the hill country. 42But the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Tell them, 'Do not go up and fight, for I am not with you—you will be defeated by your enemies. 43So I spoke to you, but you did not listen; you rebelled against the Lord's (Yahweh's) commands and were arrogant, going up into the hill country. 44And the Amorites who live in the hill country came out against you and chased you like bees and struck you down in Seir as far as Hormah. [] 45And you returned and wept before the Lord (Yahweh), but the Lord (Yahweh) did not listen to your voice or give you an ear. 46And you lived in Kadesh
days
many (really many),
like the days
you lived there (before). [The sentence consists of seven Hebr. words and is structured as a chiasm, where the central word is many (Hebr. ravvim), which is in the plural to emphasize that it was a very long time. The word is framed by days, which is also in the plural. The entire sentence is surrounded by the Hebr. word jasav, which means to sit down and remain. The entire construction of the sentence and its cumbersome repetitions reinforce the idea that it was a long and tiring time!]The journey through the desert
21Then [finally, after 38 years of wandering] we turned and walked into the desert along the road to the Reed Sea (Red Sea), as the Lord (Yahweh) had spoken to me, and we walked around Mount Seir [southwest of the Dead Sea; the mountain plateau where Edom is located] for many days. 2And the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to me and said: 3"You have gone around this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4Command the people and tell them that it is time to cross the border to your brothers, the sons of Esau who live in Seir, and they will be afraid of you, so be of good courage. 5Do not engage in battle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough for the sole of your foot to tread on, because I have given Seir [the land of Edom] to Esau as his possession. 6You shall buy food from them for money (silver) and you shall eat, and you shall also buy water from them for money (silver) so that you may drink. 7For the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has blessed you in all the work of your hands; he knows (is intimately acquainted with) your journey in this great wilderness. These 40 years the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has been with you; you have lacked nothing (you have not been in want of anything)." 8So we departed from our brothers, the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, from the way of the Arabah, from Eilat, and from Ezion-geber. And we turned and took the road through the wilderness of Moab. [Ezion-geber was a port city in Edom on the northern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea) in the region around Eilat/Aqaba, perhaps Coral Island. It was Solomon's main port for worldwide trade, see .] 9And the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Do not attack Moab or engage in battle with them, for I will not give you any of their land as your possession, since I have given Ar [a city in Moab; here also refers to the entire area] to the sons of Lot as their possession. 10The Emim ["terrifying people"] lived there before, a great people, numerous and tall like the Anakim, 11who are also counted among the Rephaim, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim. [The name of the Emim people is the plural form of the word for terror (Hebr. ). They were a feared people, see also .] 12In Seir [southeast of the Dead Sea in Edom] lived the Horites (literally: "cave dwellers" – Hebr. chori), but Esau's sons defeated them and destroyed those who were before them and lived there in their place, as Israel did to the land he possessed, which the Lord (Yahweh) gave to them. 13Now, get up and cross the Zered Brook." And we crossed the Zered Brook. [Zered means "to prune." Zered is a valley between Moab and Edom that has a water flow during the winter that empties into the eastern side of the Dead Sea.] 14And the days from when we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Brook were 38 years [cf. ], until the entire generation, all the men of military age, had disappeared (died, perished) from the midst of the camp, as the Lord (Yahweh) had sworn to them. [] 15Even the hand of the Lord (Yahweh) was against them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp, until they were consumed. 16So it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people, 17the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to me and said, 18"Today is the day you are to cross the border of Moab and Ar, 19and when you come near, opposite the sons of Ammon, do not attack them or fight with them, for I will not give you the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, since I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession. 20It is also counted as the land of the Rephaim, who lived there before, but the Ammonites called them Zamzumim, 21a great people, many and tall like the Anakim, but the Lord (Yahweh) destroyed them before them, and they defeated them and lived there in their place, 22as he did to the sons of Esau who live in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them, and they overcame them and lived in their place to this day. [See .] 23And the Avimites who lived in the villages as far away as Gaza, the Caphtorites who came out of Caphtor destroyed them and lived in their place.Sihon, king of Heshbon, is defeated
24Get up, continue your journey, and cross the Arnon Valley. See, I have given the Amorite Sihon, king of Heshbon, and his land into your hand. Begin to occupy the land and fight against him." 25[The Lord continues to speak to Moses:] "Today I will begin to put the fear and dread of you upon the peoples under the whole heaven, who, when they hear about you, will tremble and be in anguish because of you." 26And I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying, 27"Let me pass through your land on a broad road; I will not turn aside to the right or to the left. 28You shall sell me food for money (silver) so that I may eat, and give me water for money (silver) so that I may drink, just let me pass on my feet, 29as the sons of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land that the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) has given us." 30But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us pass him, for the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) had hardened his spirit and made his heart stubborn, that he might give him into your hand, as it has been revealed today. 31And the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land before you; begin to occupy his land." 32Then Sihon came out against us, he and his people, to battle at Jahaz. 33And the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) delivered him before us, and we struck him and his sons and all his people. 34And we took all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed (annihilated – Hebr. charam) every city, the men and the women and the little ones, we left none remaining (we let no one live). 35Only the livestock we took as spoil for ourselves, with the spoil of the cities we took. 36From Aroer, which is on the border of the Arnon Valley, and from the city in the valley to Gilead, there was not a single city that was too high [high wall – impregnable] for us; the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) delivered them all before us. 37Only the land of the sons of Ammon you did not approach – the entire area along the Jabbok River and the cities in the hill country, just as the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) commanded us [not to take them].Og, king of Bashan, defeated
31Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, king of Bashan, came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. 2And the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand, and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon." [] 3So the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) also gave Og, king of Bashan, into our hands, and all his people, and we struck him down until there were no survivors. 4And we took all his cities at that time—there was not a city that we did not take from them—60 cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5All these were fortified cities with high walls and double gates [gates in dual form], except [these cities we took] a great deal of countryside (villages without walls – Hebr. perazi). 6And we utterly destroyed them [; ] as we did to Sihon, king of Heshbon; we destroyed all the cities, men, women, and children. 7But all the livestock and everything spoiled in the cities we took as spoils for ourselves. 8And we took the land at that time from the hands of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan from the valley of Arnon [in the south] to Mount Hermon 9— the Hermon [in the north] which the Sidonians call Sirion and the Amorites call Senir — 10all the cities on the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, as far as Salca and Edrei, the cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 11For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the Rephaim []. Yes [see, note – this is remarkable], his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon [the present city of Amman in Jordan, as a museum piece]? [The size of the bed was also spectacular:] Its length was 9 cubits [4.1 meters] and its width was 4 cubits [1.8 meters], according to a man's cubit. [Iron was unusual at this time during the late Bronze Age. This, together with the size of the bed, was the reason it attracted attention. The measurement of a cubit (Hebr. ammah) derives from the length of a man's forearm; the distance between the elbow and the middle finger – about 45 cm. There is also a longer royal cubit, which is 52 cm, but since it explicitly says "a man's cubit" here, it is the shorter cubit that is referred to here.]The land is divided
12We occupied this land at that time, from Aroer, which is on the valley of Arnon, and half of the hill country of Gilead, and I gave its towns to the Reubenites and the Gadites. 13and the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, the whole area of Argob, all Bashan, which is called the land of the Rephaim. 14Jair, the son of Manasseh, took the whole region of Argob, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, including Bashan, and named it after himself, Havvoth Jair, to this day. 15And to Machir I gave Gilead. 16And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead as far as the valley of Arnon, the middle of the valley as a border as far as the river Jabbok, which is the border of the sons of Ammon, 17and the Arabah, the Jordan being its border from Kinnereth [Lake Gennesaret] to the Arabah Sea, the Salt Sea [Dead Sea], under the slopes of Pisgah eastward.Preparations for taking the land
18And I commanded you at that time, saying, "The Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you this land to possess; you shall go over armed before your brethren, the house of Israel, all the men of war, 19but your wives and your little ones and your livestock, I know that you have much livestock, shall remain in the cities that I have given you, 20until the Lord (Yahweh) gives rest to your brothers, just as to you, and they also possess the land that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given them on the other side of the Jordan, then you shall return, each to his possession that I have given you."Moses shall not enter the land
21And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, "Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has done to these two kings; so shall the Lord (Yahweh) do to all the kingdoms when you cross over. 22You shall not be afraid (fear) of them, for the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is the one who fights for you." 23And I prayed (pleaded for undeserved mercy – Hebr. chanan) to the Lord (Yahweh) at that time and said: 24"Lord (Adonai), Lord (Yahweh), you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong (mighty) hand, for what god (Hebr. el) is there in heaven or on earth who can do what you do and your mighty deeds? 25Let me cross over, I beg you, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, the good hill country and Lebanon." 26But the Lord (Yahweh) was angry with me because of you and did not listen to me, and the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Enough, do not speak to me any more about this matter. 27Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward, northward, southward, and eastward, and see with your own eyes, for you shall not cross this Jordan. 28But challenge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he shall cross over before the people and he shall cause them to inherit the land that you have seen." 29So we remained in the valley opposite Beit Peor.Key points
Obedience
41And now, Israel, listen to the statutes (literally, "things engraved") and ordinances (binding legal decisions) that I have taught you, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord (Yahweh), the God of your fathers (Elohim), has given you. 2You shall not add to the words that I command you, nor shall you take away from them, but you shall keep the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) that I command (Hebrew tsavah) you. [] 3Your eyes have seen what the Lord (Yahweh) did at Baal Peor to all the men who followed Baal Peor, how the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) destroyed them from among you. 4But you who held fast to (clung to) the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) are alive, every one of you, this day. 5See, I have taught you the statutes (literally "the things engraved") and the ordinances (binding legal decisions) that the Lord (Yahweh) my God (Elohim) commanded me, so that you may do them in the midst of the land which you are entering to possess. 6Keep (guard, protect, preserve) them and do (live by) them, for they are your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples, so that when they hear all these statutes (literally "things engraved"), they will say, "This great nation is truly a wise and understanding people." 7For what great nation is there that has God (Elohim) so close to it as the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) is to us whenever we call upon him? 8And what [other] great nation is there that has statutes (literally "things engraved") and ordinances (binding legal decisions) as righteous as all our teachings, which I give before you today? 9Be careful to guard (watch over, preserve) yourself and preserve (watch over, protect) your soul (your whole being) very carefully (Hebr. meód), so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen and they do not leave your heart during all the days of your life, make them well known (so that they become intimately familiar with them) to your sons and your sons' sons (for all future generations). 10On the day you stood before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) at Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) [Sinai Mountain], when the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Gather the people to me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to revere (respect) me all the days that they live on the earth, and so that they may teach their sons (children)." 11And you came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire to the very heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but saw no form, only a voice. 13And he told you about his covenant, which he commanded you to do (perform, act, live by), the ten commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14And the Lord (Yahweh) commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes (literally, "things engraved") and judgments (binding legal decisions) that you should do in the land where you are going over to possess it.Idolatry is forbidden
15But (therefore), guard (watch over, preserve) your lives (souls) carefully (with great care, constantly; literally: very much – Hebr. meód), because you saw no concrete form (no embodiment) on the day when the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to you at Horeb (Hebrew Chorev) [Mount Sinai] from the midst of the fire. 16Do not act corruptly and make for yourselves carved images,
a figure resembling a man or woman,
17anything resembling any of the animals on earth (Hebr. erets),
resembling any winged bird flying in the sky,
18resembling anything that crawls on the ground (the reddish earth—Hebr. adamah),
resembling any fish that is in the water under the earth (Hebr. erets);
19and otherwise, when you lift up your eyes to the heavens and see the sun and the moon and the stars—all the host of heaven—you are drawn away and worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has assigned to all the peoples under all the heavens. [The idols described in verses 16-19 begin with animals worshipped in Egypt and stars worshipped in Canaan.] 20But the Lord (Yahweh) has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are today. 21Now the Lord (Yahweh) was angry with me because of you and swore that I would not cross the Jordan and that I would not enter the good land that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you as an inheritance, 22but I must die in this land; I may not cross the Jordan, but you may cross over and occupy the good land. 23Take care (protect, preserve) yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) which he has made with you, and make for yourselves carved images, resembling anything that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has forbidden you. 24For the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) is a consuming fire [; ], a jealous God (Hebr. El qana) []. 25When you bear sons and sons' sons, and you have been long in the land, and begin to act deceitfully, and make carved images and mold anything, and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) to provoke him, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you shall soon perish from the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. Your days there will not be many or long, but you will perish completely, 27and the Lord (Yahweh) will scatter you among the nations, and you will be left few in number among the countries where the Lord (Yahweh) will lead you. 28There you shall serve gods made by human hands, wood and stone, which cannot see, hear, eat, or smell. 29But if you [the Israelites scattered among the nations] seek the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) there, you will find him, if you seek (study to gain more knowledge and deeper understanding of) him with all your heart and with all your soul (life). [The word "seek" describes a search to obtain someone who already exists, not just knowledge but total ownership. The verb form also changes from the plural "you" to the singular "your" in the middle of the sentence to reinforce that this is about a personal relationship.] 30When you are in distress and all this happens to you [captivity and slavery] in the days to come, you shall turn to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) and listen (obey) to his voice. 31For a merciful (compassionate – Hebr. rachom) God (El) is the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). He will not abandon (let go of) you or destroy you. He will not forget the covenant with your fathers, which he swore [to keep]. [The word merciful describes the strong love a parent feels for their child. The word also shares its root with the word for womb rechem. This gives the grace in this expression an additional dimension of being nurturing and protective in the same way that the womb is the protection of the small, helpless, and defenseless child.]The Lord is God
32Now ask about the days that were before you, from the day God (Elohim) created man on earth, and from one end of the heavens to the other, whether there has ever been anything like this great thing, or whether anything like it has ever been heard of. 33Has any people ever heard the voice of God (Elohim) speaking out of the midst of fire, as you have heard, and remained alive? 34Or has God (Elohim) ever tried to take a people from the midst of another people with trials, with signs and wonders and war, and with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror, as the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35It was made visible (obvious) to you so that you might know (be intimately acquainted with) that the Lord (Yahweh), he is God (Elohim). There is no other beside him. 36From heaven he has let you hear his voice, to instruct (discipline, train) you, and over the earth he has let you see his great fire, and you heard his voice from (literally: from the midst of) the fire. 37Because he [the Lord] faithfully loved your ancestors [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, see ] and chose their descendants [literally "seed" singular], he himself (his face, through his active presence) brought you out of Egypt with his great power. [] 38He drives out the nations [because of their sin, see ; ] that are greater and more powerful than you, to bring you into their land and give it to you as an inheritance, as it is today. 39Today you shall understand (know, be intimately familiar with, know) and take to heart that the Lord (Yahweh) is God, in heaven above and on earth below—there is no other. 40And you shall keep (guard, protect) his statutes (literally "things engraved") and his commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today, so that it may go well with you and your sons after you, and so that your days may be prolonged (made many) on the earth (Hebr. adamah) that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you for all days (forever, eternally). 41Then Moses set apart three cities on the other side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise (on the east side), 42to which a person who has unintentionally killed someone (literally: 'the manslayer who has killed') may flee—if he did not hate him beforehand [had no motive]. He may flee to one of these cities to live [Num. 35:9-34]. 43Bezer [Bosor] in the wilderness in the land of the Reubenites [; city in the area around Medeba],
and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites
and Golan in Bashan for Manasseh. [; ] The teaching – Torah
44And this is the teaching that Moses presented to the sons of Israel. 45These are the testimonies (statutes – Hebr. edot) and ordinances (literally "things engraved" – Hebr. chuqim) and judgments (binding legal decisions – Hebr. mishpatim) that Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt, 46on the other side of the Jordan in the valley opposite Beit Peor in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. 47And they took possession of his land and the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan toward the sunrise (eastward) 48from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, to Mount Zion, which is Hermon, 49and all the Arabah on the other side of the Jordan eastward, as far as the Arabah Sea [Dead Sea] below the slopes of Pisgah.God's teaching (chapters 5-11)
51And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them:
Hear, O Israel, the statutes (literally "things engraved") and ordinances (binding legal decisions) that I speak in your ears today, that you may learn them and do them. 2The Lord (Yahweh), our God (Elohim), made a covenant with us at [Mount] Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) [Mount Sinai]. 3The Lord (Yahweh) did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, yes, with all of us who are alive here today. 4Face to face, the Lord (Yahweh) spoke on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire. 5I stood between the Lord (Yahweh) and you at that time to tell you (inform you of) the words of the Lord (Yahweh), for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said:Ten words
1) I am the Lord (Ex. 20:2)
6"I am the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 2) Have no other gods (Lev. 20:3-6)
7You shall have no other gods before me (beside me). 8You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), am a jealous God (Hebr. El qana) [demanding undivided loyalty], who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 10and shows mercy (caring, faithful love) to thousands of generations of those who love me and keep (guard, protect, preserve) my commandments (clear commands).3) Do not misrepresent the name of the Lord (Ex. 20:7)
11You shall not take (use) the name of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), in vain (lightly, thoughtlessly), for the Lord (Yahweh) will not hold guiltless anyone who takes (uses) his name in vain (lightly, thoughtlessly).4) Remember the day of rest (Ex. 20:8-11)
12Keep (guard, protect, preserve) the Sabbath day to be holy, as the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded you. 13Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim); you shall not do any work on it, neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your livestock, nor the stranger within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) commands you to keep (guard, protect, preserve) the Sabbath day.5) Honor your father and your mother (Ex. 20:12)
16Honor (value, esteem, respect) your father and your mother, as the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded you, so that your days may be long and it may go well with you (good) in the land (literally: "on/over the ground") that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you. [It is the parents' responsibility, not that of religious leaders, to pass on God's teachings to the next generation. This commandment has to do with both reverence for God and reverence for people (and is placed centrally). For a child, their parents are like a god. By respecting their parents, whom a child can see, they learn to respect God, whom they cannot see. The child also sees how their parents are subject to their Father in heaven, whom they obey. Through this, the child also learns the fear of God. The last part, "in the land...," is not included in , nor is it referred to in .]6) Do not murder (Ex. 20:13)
17You shall not kill (murder).7) Do not commit adultery (Ex. 20:14)
18You shall not commit adultery. 19You shall not steal.9) Do not bear false witness (Ex. 20:16)
20You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.10) Do not covet (Ex. 20:17)
21You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor shall you desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. 22These words the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to the whole assembly on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, out of the cloud, and out of the thick darkness, with a loud voice, and it did not continue any longer. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. 23[Moses speaks to the people:] Then all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me [because you were so afraid], when you heard the voice from the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire. 24You said, "Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can speak with God and still remain alive. 25If we continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God, this great fire will consume us, and we will die! Why should we let that happen? 26Who here on earth (among all flesh) has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking from (within; from the midst of) the fire and survived? 27You [Moses] may come near and hear all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us everything that the Lord our God has spoken to you, and we will listen and obey." 28And the Lord (Yahweh) heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they have spoken well in all that they have said. 29Oh, that they had such hearts always, to fear me and keep (guard, protect, preserve) my commandments (clear commands), so that it might go well with them and their children forever!" 30Go and tell them, 'Return to your tents. 31But you, stay here with me, and I will speak to you all the commandments (clear commands) and statutes (literally "things engraved") and ordinances (binding legal decisions) that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I give them to possess. 32You shall therefore keep (guard, protect, preserve) so that you do as the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded you, do not turn aside to the right or to the left. 33You shall walk in all the ways that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper, and you shall live long (literally: "prolong your days") in the land that you shall possess. 61These are the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) and statutes (literally "things engraved") and ordinances (binding legal decisions) that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded (Hebr. tsavah) you to learn, so that you may do (follow, act according to) them in the land when you cross over and occupy it, 2so that you may revere the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) and keep (guard, protect) all his statutes (literally "things engraved") and his commandments (Hebr. mitzvot) that I have commanded (Hebr. tsavah) you, you and your sons and your sons' sons all the days of your life, so that your days may be many. 3Therefore, listen, Israel, and be careful to do it, so that it may go well with you and you may grow mighty, as the Lord (Yahweh), the God of your fathers (Elohim), has spoken to [promised] you, a land flowing with milk and honey.The greatest commandment – love the Lord your God!
[The following verse constitutes the Jewish creed Shema ("Hear" from the Hebrew shama – to hear, listen, and obey). The phrase is read several times during the day and reads:
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
JHVH (Yahweh) is never pronounced but is replaced because of its holiness with Adonai (Lord). When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus answers by quoting this text, see .] 4Hear, O Israel!
The Lord (Yahweh) [is] our God (Elohim), the Lord (Yahweh)
is one (the only one). [The numeral echad (one), which here could be translated as "the only one," also has the meaning "unique," "united, joined together," and is also used of a man and wife who become "one flesh," see .]
5And you shall love (be devoted to) the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) with all your heart [in all your decisions – in your will, actions, and thoughts]
and with all your soul (with your whole living being)
and with all your strength (with all your power and burning zeal) [intensely as a fire]. [The confession begins with an imperative in the singular and is addressed to the whole people as a unit ("Hear, O Israel!"). In the Bible, individual responsibility is also linked to the collective group. Faith is born in each individual and is personal, but at the same time unites people. Even prayer that originates from each individual is strengthened when prayed together. Both blessings and curses affect the entire group, which is why the exhortation that follows concerns not only one's own heart, but also the united heart of the people, which includes children, see verses 6-7. See also .
The word for heart (Hebr. levav) describes the source of a person's inner life. It partly covers the meaning of the word for soul (Hebr. nefesh, whose meaning encompasses one's entire being, life, and personality). It is not only in our inner being, i.e., in our soul, thoughts, and will, that we are to love God, but also in our external relationships—in our interactions with other people. The word for power (Hebr. meód) is an adjective or adverb (great, more, extremely; to the highest degree; very much) which is used here as a noun. It can refer both to the power and ability we have been given, but also to the abundance and possessions we have been entrusted to manage. With the help of the rich nuances of these three words, Hebrew builds a whole picture of what it means to love God. The Gospel writers use several different Greek words to describe this, cf. ; ; .]
6
A 13-year-old boy at the Western Wall having his first tefillin attached to his arm and forehead. At the bottom is a mezuzah, which is placed on the right side of something you enter. There are different rabbinical schools of thought as to whether it should be placed vertically or diagonally.
In Jewish homes, there is a mezuzah on the doorpost. A mezuzah is a parchment scroll containing two passages from the Torah, and , which is rolled up and attached to a case on the doorpost. See also .]Warning against disobedience
10And it shall be when the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) brings you into the land that he swore (promised) to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, great and good cities that you did not build (yourself), 11and houses filled with all good things that you have not filled (yourself) and hewn cisterns that you have not hewn (yourself), vineyards and olive trees that you have not planted, that you may eat and be satisfied. 12Guard (protect, preserve) yourself so that you do not forget the Lord (Yahweh) who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13You shall revere (fear) the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), and you shall serve him, and in his name you shall swear. 14You shall not follow the gods of other peoples around you, 15for God (El) is jealous, and the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), is in your midst, lest the anger of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), be kindled against you and he destroy you from the face of the earth. 16You shall not test (tempt) the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) as you tested him at Massah. 17You shall carefully keep (guard, protect, preserve – Hebr. shamar shamar) the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) that he has commanded (Hebr. tsavah) you. 18And you shall do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh), so that it may go well with you and you may go in and occupy the good land that the Lord (Yahweh) swore to your fathers, 19to drive out all your enemies before you, as the Lord (Yahweh) has spoken. 20When your son asks you in the future, saying, "What is the meaning of the testimony (statutes) and the ordinances (literally, 'things engraved') and the commandments (binding legal decisions) that the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) has commanded us?" 21Then you shall say to your son, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord (Yahweh) brought us out with a mighty hand. 22And the Lord (Yahweh) showed signs and wonders, great and terrible, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his house, before our eyes. 23And he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land which he swore (promised) to our fathers. 24And the Lord (Yahweh) commanded us to do all these statutes (literally "things engraved") to fear the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim) for our continual (uninterrupted, eternal) good, that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day. 25And it shall be our righteousness, if we keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do (act, live by) all these commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) before the Lord our God (Yahweh Elohim), as he has commanded (Hebr. tsavah) us."into the land
71When the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) brings you into the land you are going to possess, he will drive out many nations before you,
the Hittites
and the Girgashites (Hebr. girgashi)
and the Amorites (Hebr. emori)
and the Canaanites
and the Perizzites
and the Hivites
and the Jebusites (Hebr. jevosi) [the people who lived in Jerusalem before the Israelites came there; see for a more detailed description of what the names of the peoples stand for],
seven peoples greater and more powerful than you, 2and when the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) delivers them over to you, and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them and show them no mercy (undeserved kindness). 3You shall not intermarry with them; your daughters shall not be given to their sons, nor shall their daughters be taken for your sons, 4for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. In this way, the anger of the Lord (Yahweh) will be kindled against you, and he will quickly destroy you. [] 5Instead, you shall deal with them as follows: break down their altars and smash them to pieces, cut down their sacred pillars and burn their Asherah poles [poles for idol worship] in the fire. 6For you are a holy people to the Lord your God (a different people who are to be holy, set apart from sin and idols). He has chosen you to be his treasured possession above all other peoples on earth. 7It was not because you were greater than all other peoples that the Lord (Yahweh) attached himself to you (longed for a relationship with you) and chose you; on the contrary, you were smaller than all other peoples. 8Instead, it was because of the Lord's (Yahweh's) love for you and his faithfulness to the promise he had sworn to your fathers that the Lord (Yahweh) brought you out with a mighty hand and delivered you from the house of slavery, from the hand of the Egyptian king, from the hand of Pharaoh. 9So understand (be aware of, know) that it is the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), who is God (Elohim); the faithful God (El) who keeps his covenant and shows mercy to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. [Mercy for a thousand generations probably refers to infinite eternal mercy, see, for example, .] 10And who punishes
those who hate him [reject his covenant] – to their faces (personally, directly against them),
he does not delay [to act]
against those who hate him – to their faces,
he will punish.
[The phrase "to those who hate him to their faces" is only used here, and based on the construction, the meaning seems to be that they are punished, not the next generation.] 11You shall therefore keep (guard, protect, preserve) the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) and ordinances (literally "things engraved") and decrees (binding legal decisions) that I have commanded (Hebr. tsavah) you this day to do. 12And it shall come to pass, because you listen to these decrees (binding legal decisions) and keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do them, that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will keep (guard, protect, preserve) the covenant with you and the mercy (caring love) that he swore to your fathers. 13And he shall love you and bless you and multiply you. He shall also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, the seed and the wine and your oil, multiply your herds and your flocks in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. 14You shall be blessed above all peoples. No man or woman among you shall be barren, nor shall any of your livestock be barren. 15And the Lord (Yahweh) will take away from you all sickness, and he will not inflict upon you any of the evil diseases of Egypt that you know (have good knowledge of), but will inflict them (the diseases) upon all those who hate you. 16And you shall devour all the nations that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) gives you; your eyes shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. 17If you say in your heart, "These nations are more (greater, stronger) than I, how can I drive them out?" 18You shall not fear (be afraid) them. You shall remember what the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, 19the great trials that your eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm with which the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) brought you out. So shall the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid (fearful). 20Moreover, the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will send hornets among them until the day they leave, and they will hide themselves and perish before you. 21You shall not fear them, for the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is in your midst, a God (El) great and awesome. 22And the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will drive out these nations before you little by little (Hebr. meat meat). You shall not devour [see ] them quickly, lest the wild animals of the field multiply against you. 23But the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will deliver them before you and will make them desolate with a great desolation until they are destroyed. 24And he shall deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their names disappear from under the heavens (literally: "from under the heavens"); no man shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. [The destruction on earth is described from God's perspective – I will destroy from under the heavens.] 25You shall burn the carved images of their gods in the fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, for it will be a snare to you, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). 26And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and be cursed along with it (the abomination); you shall utterly detest it, for it is a consecrated (set apart) object.Do not forget the Lord
81All the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today, you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do (live by) so that you may live and multiply and enter and possess the land that the Lord (Yahweh) promised your fathers [; ]. 2And you shall remember all the ways that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that He has humbled you (forced you to bow down) to test you, to know (have intimate understanding of, knowledge of) what is in your heart, whether you will keep (guard, protect, preserve) his commandments (clear commands) or not. 3And he humbled you (forced you to bow down) and let you suffer from hunger and satisfied you with manna [] which you did not know (lacked knowledge of) what it was, nor did your fathers know (know), so that he might let you know (gain intimate knowledge of) that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Yahweh). [Jesus quotes this word when he is tempted, see ; .] 4Your clothes did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell during these 40 years. 5And you shall remember in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) chastens you. 6And you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) the commandments (clear commands) of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), to walk in his ways and to revere (respect) him. 7For the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs, and deep waters gushing forth in valleys and mountains. 8
Picture from the market in Jerusalem. Often, a country has one type of fruit that is exported, but in Israel, all types of fruit grow and thrive, such as apples, citrus fruits, bananas, etc. The orange-red fruit in the middle of the picture is a Sharon fruit. It is named after the Sharon Plain, which is the coastal strip between Tel Aviv and Mount Carmel.
when you have eaten and are full
and have built good houses and live in them,
13and when your herds and your flocks multiply
and your silver and your gold multiply
and everything you manage multiplies,
14then your heart becomes lifted up and you [easily] forget the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim),
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,
15who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness
where there were snakes, venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground without water,
who gave you water from the hard rock [],
16who fed you with manna in the wilderness [],
which your fathers did not know,
that he humbled you (forced you to bow down) and tested you, to do you good in the end, 17you would say in your heart (then think within yourself): "My power and the strength of my hands have gotten me this prosperity." [] 18But you shall remember the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), for it is he who has given you the power to prosper, it is he who has established his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as it is today. 19And it shall come to pass, if you forget the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I warn you today, that you shall surely perish. 20Just as the Lord (Yahweh) has destroyed the nations before you, so you will be destroyed, because you have not listened to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim).Not because of Israel's righteousness
91Hear, O Israel! Today you are to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities large and fortified up to the heavens, 2a great and lofty people, the sons of Anak, whom you know and of whom you have heard (it said), "Who can stand before the sons of Anak (the Anakim)?" 3Know (have intimate knowledge) therefore today that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is he who goes before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you, and you shall drive them out and cause them to perish quickly, as the Lord (Yahweh) has spoken to you. 4Do not speak (think) in your heart after the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has cast them out before you, saying, "For my righteousness the Lord (Yahweh) has brought me here to possess this land," for it is for the wickedness of these nations that the Lord (Yahweh) is driving them out before you. 5It is not for your righteousness and the uprightness of your heart (righteousness, integrity – Hebr. josher) that you are going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is driving them out before you and to confirm the word that the Lord (Yahweh) swore (promised) to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6Know therefore (have intimate knowledge of) that it is not for your righteousness that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.The Golden Calf
7Remember, do not forget how you made the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) angry in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord (Yahweh). 8Even at Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) [Mount Sinai – so close to the miraculous exodus from Egypt], you provoked the anger of the Lord (Yahweh), and the Lord (Yahweh) was so angry with you that he destroyed you [Ex. 32]. 9When I was up on the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant (the covenant) that the Lord (Yahweh) had carved with you, I stayed on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, I neither ate bread nor drank water, 10and the Lord (Yahweh) gave me two stone tablets written with the finger of God (Elohim), and they were written according to all the words that the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. 11And it came to pass at the end of the forty days and forty nights that the Lord (Yahweh) gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12And the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have been quick to turn away from the way I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image." 13The Lord (Yahweh) spoke to me again and said, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 14Leave me alone so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven (literally: 'from under heaven'), and I will make you a nation mightier and greater than they." [The destruction on earth is described from God's perspective – I will destroy from under heaven.] 15So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), you had made a molten calf, you had quickly turned away from the way that the Lord (Yahweh) commanded you. 17And I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18And I fell down before the Lord (Yahweh) for the first 40 days and 40 nights. I ate no bread and drank no water, because of your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh) and provoking (angering) him. 19I feared the wrath and fierce anger with which the Lord (Yahweh) was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord (Yahweh) listened to me even then. 20Moreover, the Lord (Yahweh) was very angry with Aaron and wanted to destroy him, and I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. 21And I took your sin, the calf that you had made, and burned it in the fire and smashed it into pieces and ground it down until it was only fine (thin) dust, and I threw the dust into the stream that flowed down from the mountain. 22And at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth-Hattaavah, you angered the Lord (Yahweh). 23And when the Lord (Yahweh) sent you from Kadesh-Barnea, saying, "Go up and possess the land that I have given you," you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) and did not believe him or listen to his voice. 24You have been rebellious against the Lord (Yahweh) from the day I knew you. 25And I fell down before the Lord (Yahweh)
the 40 days
and the 40 nights
that I fell down,
because the Lord (Yahweh) had said he would destroy you. [] 26And I prayed to the Lord (Yahweh) and said, "Lord (Adonai), Lord (Yahweh), do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you have redeemed by your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their sin, 28lest the land from which you brought us out say, 'Because the Lord (Yahweh) was unable to bring them into the land he promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to slaughter them in the wilderness. 29Nevertheless, they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out with your great power and with your outstretched arm."New stone tablets
101At that time the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Cut two stone tablets like the first ones, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. 2and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark." 3So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets, like the first ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. 4And he wrote on the tablets as the first time, the ten words that the Lord (Yahweh) spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly, and the Lord (Yahweh) gave them to me. 5And I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made, and there they are, as the Lord (Yahweh) commanded me. 6And the sons of Israel journeyed from Beeroth-Benjaakan to Mosera, where Aaron died and where he was buried. And his son Eleazar served as priest in his place. 7From there they journeyed to Gudgoda [meaning: to cut away], and from Gudgoda to Jotvata [meaning: comfort], a land with streams of water. 8At that time, the Lord (Yahweh) set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord (Yahweh), to stand before the Lord (Yahweh) and serve him, and to bless in his name, to this day. 9Since Levi has no share or inheritance with his brothers, the Lord (Yahweh) is his inheritance, as the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has spoken to him. 10And I [emphasis on I, Moses] stood on the mountain as the first time, 40 days and 40 nights [], and the Lord (Yahweh) listened to me even then, so that the Lord (Yahweh) would not destroy you. 11And the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "Arise, go before the people and see that they go on, so that they may enter and take possession of the land, which I promised (swore, gave my oath) to their fathers to give them."Fear of God
12And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) require of you? That you revere the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim)
that you walk in all his ways
and that you love him
and that you serve the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim)
with all your heart
and with all your soul (your person, being)
13that you keep (guard, protect, preserve) the Lord's commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot)
and his ordinances (literally "things engraved") that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today. 14Behold, the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth and everything on it belong to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 15Only the Lord (Yahweh) found favor in your fathers and loved them, and he chose their descendants after them, even you, from all the peoples as it is today. 16Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. 17For the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), he is the God of gods (Hebr. elohim ha-elohim) and Lord of lords (Hebr. adon ha-adon), the Great God (Hebr. El ha-gadol), the Mighty and the Awesome (Fearful), who does not show partiality and does not accept bribes. 18He executes the decrees (binding legal decisions – Hebr. mishpat) for the fatherless and widows, and loves the stranger and gives him bread and clothing. 19Therefore, you shall love the stranger, for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt. 20You shall revere the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). You shall serve him and cling to him (cling to him, be attached to him), and in his name you shall swear (make promises). 21He is your glory and he is your God (Elohim) who has done these great and wonderful things for you, which your eyes have seen. 22Your fathers went down to Egypt with 70 people, and now the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has made you as numerous as the stars in the heavens.Blessing and curse
111And you shall love the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) and keep (guard, protect, preserve) his commandments and his statutes (literally "things engraved" – Hebr. chukim) and his ordinances (binding legal decisions – Hebr. mishpatim) [plural] and his commandments (clear commands – Hebr. mitzvot) all the days (forever, as long as the days exist, until time ceases). 2And know (be intimately acquainted with) today [remember this], for I have not spoken to your sons who have not known and have not seen the discipline of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm, 3and his signs and his deeds which he did in the midst of Egypt against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his land, 4and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots, how he made the waters of the Reed Sea (Red Sea) drown them when they pursued you, and how the Lord (Yahweh) has destroyed them to this day [], 5and what he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place, 6and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households and their tents and all the living things that followed them, in the midst of Israel []. 7But you have seen all the great things that the Lord (Yahweh) has done. 8Therefore, you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) all the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I have commanded (Hebr. tsavah) you today, so that you may be strong and go in and take possession of the land that you are crossing over to occupy, 9so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) swore (gave his oath) to your fathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. [This word has several fulfillments. One in modern times in the 2020s is that a cow in Israel produces about 12,000 kg/year of milk, the most in the world. In Europe and the US, the figure is 8,000–9,000 kg/year.] 10The land you are going to occupy is not the land of Egypt, from which you came, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your feet like a herb garden, 11but the land you are going to occupy is a land of mountains and valleys, and it drinks water when the rain from the heavens comes down (falls). 12A land that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) cares for (takes care of, is attentive to), for the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), are always (uninterruptedly, constantly) upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. [This is the only time the Bible says what God devotes his time to. The creator of the universe chooses to focus continuously on Israel. He certainly does other things as well, but this tells us something about God's priorities.] 13This will happen if you listen carefully to my commands (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebrew tsavah) you today, to love the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14I will give rain to your land in its season, the early rain (autumn rain – Hebr. ) and the late rain (spring rain – Hebr. ), so that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil. 15And I will give grass in the fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be satisfied. 16Take care (protect, preserve) yourself, lest your heart be deceived and you turn away and serve other gods and worship them, 17and the anger of the Lord (Yahweh) is kindled against you, and he shuts up the heavens [] so that there is no rain, and the land does not yield its fruit, and you quickly perish from the good land that the Lord (Yahweh) gives you. 18Therefore, you shall put these words of mine upon your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand and upon your forehead (Hebr. tofafah) between your eyes. 19And you shall teach them to your sons, talking about them when you sit in your houses and when you walk on the road, and when you lie down and when you rise up. 20And you shall write them on the doorposts (Hebr. mezozót) of your houses and on your gates, 21so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) swore to give to your fathers, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
[These verses are the reason why all orthodox Jews use tefillin and there is a mezuzah on all doorposts in Jewish homes, as well as on the city gates around Israel where they are preserved, see also .] 22If you carefully keep (guard, protect, preserve) all these commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you, to do them, to love the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), to walk in all his ways and to hold fast (cling to, be attached to) to him. 23Then the Lord (Yahweh) will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. 24Every place that the sole of your foot treads shall be yours [Josh. 1:3], from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River, to the Western Sea (the Mediterranean Sea, can also be translated as "the hindering sea") shall be your border. 25No man shall be able to stand against you, for the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will put the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the lands that you shall tread upon, as he has spoken to you. 26See [singular], I set before you today
a blessing and a curse [the exhortation is addressed both individually and collectively to the people],
27the blessing if you obey
the commandments of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot)
which I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today,
28and the curse if you do not listen
to the commandments of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot)
but turn away from the way that I command (Hebrew tsavah) you today and follow other gods that you do not know. 29And it shall be when the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) brings you into the land that you are going to possess, that you shall place the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal [; ]. 30Are they not [the mountains] on the other side of the Jordan, on the road toward the sunset [westward] in the land of the Canaanites, who live in the Arava (wilderness) opposite (toward, across from) Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh [in the city of Shechem, see ]?
[Moses is in Shittim in Moab (; ; ; ). From that place, one can see the sun set between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal; it is literally "the way" that the sun sets! These mountains are located right next to Shechem, a place Abraham had previously come to and where the oaks are mentioned. Arava is a general name often used to describe the desert north and south of the Dead Sea. There are two different Gilgals. Hebr. mol can mean opposite or in the direction of. Gilgal usually refers to a place just north of Jericho, which later becomes Joshua's starting point for military operations in the country. In that case, the direction towards the mountains is described from where Moses is via/across Gilgal towards the two mountains where the sun sets. Shittim and Gilgal are also referred to together in . There is probably also a Gilgal in Samaria (Jiljilia, 20 km south of Gerizim, see ; ), in which case the text describes Shechem as being opposite, close to the other side of this Gilgal.] 31For you shall cross the Jordan to go in and possess the land which the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) gives you, and you shall occupy it and dwell there. 32And you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do (follow, live by) all the statutes (literally "things engraved" – Hebr. chukim) [plural] and ordinances (binding legal decisions – Hebr. mishpatim) [plural] that I give you today.The Covenant (chapters 12-26)
Worship at a chosen place
121These are the statutes (literally "things engraved" – Hebr. chukim) and judgments (binding legal decisions – Hebr. mishpatim) that you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) in the land that the Lord (Yahweh), the God of your fathers (Elohim), has given you to occupy all the days that you live on earth. 2You shall utterly destroy (Hebr. aved aved; the repetition emphasizes complete destruction) all the places where the peoples whom you are dispossessing have served (worshipped) their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3And you shall break down their altars and smash their obelisks and burn their Asherah poles with fire, and you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and wipe out the name of that place. 4You shall not do this to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). [You shall not worship the Lord in the same way and in the same places where idols were sacrificed and worshipped.] 5Only in the place that the Lord will choose from among all your tribes to put his name, there you shall seek his presence. 6And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offerings of your hands, your vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks, 7and there you shall eat before the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) and rejoice in everything you set your hand to, you and your household, with what the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has blessed you with. 8You shall not do as we do here today, every man doing what seems best in his own eyes, 9for you have not yet come to rest (comfort) and to your inheritance that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you. 10But when you cross the Jordan and dwell in the land that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) gives you as an inheritance, and he gives you rest (comfort) from all your enemies around you, so that you may dwell in safety, 11then it shall come to pass that the place which the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall choose to put his name there, there you shall bring everything that I have commanded you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and the offerings of your hands and your vows that you have vowed to the Lord (Yahweh). 12And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), you and your sons and your daughters and your servants and your maidservants and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13Take care (protect, preserve) yourself that you do not offer your burnt offering in every place you see, 14but at the place the Lord (Yahweh) will choose in one of your tribes; there you shall offer your burnt offering, and there you shall do everything I have commanded you. 15In addition, you may slaughter and eat meat within your gates as you (your soul) desire, according to the blessing that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as with the gazelle and the deer. 16You shall only refrain from eating blood; you shall pour out the blood on the ground like water. 17Within your gates, you shall not eat the tithe of your grain or your wine or your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or your flock, or any vow that you have vowed, or your freewill offerings, or the offerings of your hand, 18but you shall eat it before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), in the place that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall choose, you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite who is within your gates, and you shall rejoice before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), in all that you put your hand to. 19Guard (protect, preserve) yourself that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land. 20When the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) enlarges your borders, as he has spoken to [promised] you, and you say, "I will eat meat" because you (your soul; your whole being) desire to eat meat, then you shall eat meat from all that you (your soul) desire. 21If the place that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) chooses to make his name dwell there is too far away from you, then you shall slaughter from your herd and from your flock that the Lord (Yahweh) has given you, as I have commanded you, and you shall eat within your gates from all that your soul desires. 22Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so shall you eat thereof; the clean and the unclean shall eat thereof together (on the same terms).
When eating meat at home, it can be any clean animal except the firstborn of the herd and flock, because it belongs to the Lord (Yahweh). This may only be eaten in connection with sacrifice. Then most of it belongs to the priest, and only the shalom sacrifice may be eaten by yourself.
23Just be strong (firm, confident, brave) in not eating the blood, because blood is life, and you shall not eat life with the meat. 24You shall not eat it, but you shall pour it out like water on the ground. 25You shall not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your sons after you, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh). 26Only the holy things that you have and your vows shall you take and go to the place that the Lord (Yahweh) shall choose, 27and you shall offer your burnt offering, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), and the blood of your sacrifice shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), and you shall eat the flesh. 28Keep (guard, protect, preserve) and listen to all these words that I command you, so that it may go well with you and your sons after you forever when you do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim).Warning against idolatry
29When the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) destroys (cuts off) the nations before you, where you go to dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30be careful (protect, preserve) yourself so that you are not ensnared (deceived) to follow them after they have been destroyed before you, and so that you do not inquire about their gods and say, "How did these nations serve their gods? I will do the same." 31You shall not do so to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), for every abomination to the Lord (Yahweh) that he hates they have done for their gods; even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods. 32All these words that I command you, you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) to do (live and act according to) them. You shall not add to them or take away from them. [; ] 131If a prophet arises among you or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2and the sign or wonder comes true as he has told you, saying, "Let us follow other gods that you do not know and serve them," 3you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) with all your heart and with all your soul. 4You shall walk after the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) and you shall revere (fear) him, and you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) his commandments (clear commands – Hebr. mitzvot), and you shall listen to his voice and serve him, and you shall cleave to him (literally stick to him). 5And the prophet or dreamer who dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken perversely against the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), who brought you out of the land of Egypt and delivered you from the house of bondage, to make you turn aside from the way that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) commanded you to walk in. Thus shall you remove the evil from your midst. 6If your brother, your mother's son, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife in your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul (a soul mate) entices you secretly, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods" which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, 7of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other, 8you shall not agree with him, nor listen to him, nor shall your eyes pity him, you shall not spare him, nor shall you hide (protect) him, 9but you shall be sure to kill him; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of the people. [Stoning was the method of execution, and here it is described that the one who heard what was said in secret shall be the one to cast the first stone.] 10And you shall stone him with stones so that he dies, because he has tried to lure you away from the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11And all Israel shall hear and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is in the midst of you. 12If you hear rumors about any of your cities that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you to live in, saying, 13Some people, the sons of Belial [literally: the worthless, but also a Jewish name for Satan], have gone out from among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods, which we have not known," 14then you shall inquire and investigate (search) and find out carefully and see if it is true that these things, that such abominable things, are done in your midst, 15and you shall strike, strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroy them and everything that is in it and its livestock with the edge of your sword. 16And you shall gather all the spoil from there in the middle of the open space (the square) and burn it with the city in fire, all the spoil to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), and it shall become a heap of ruins (a mound formed by repeated settlement – Hebr. tel) forever; it shall not be rebuilt. [An example is the city of Ai, see ; ; . The Hebrew term is used for "holy war".] 17And none of the devoted things shall cleave (be stuck) to your hand, that the Lord (Yahweh) may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show you mercy (infinite mercy – Hebr. rachamim) and have compassion (eternal mercy – Hebr. rachamim) with you and multiply you as he has promised (sworn an oath seven times – Hebr. shaba) to your fathers, 18when you listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), to keep (guard, protect, preserve) his commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today, to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim).Clean and unclean animals
141You are the sons of the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), you shall not carve (cut – Hebr. gadad) yourselves or make any baldness between your eyes for the dead [in the surrounding cultures it was common to carve oneself () and cut or shave one's hair completely or partially for the dead], 2for you are a holy people to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), who has chosen you to be his own treasure among all the other peoples on the face of the earth. 3You shall not eat anything detestable.Clean and unclean land animals (Lev. 11:1-8)
4These are the animals you may eat [a total of 10 animals – 3 domestic animals and 7 wild animals are listed]: the ox,
the sheep
and the goat,
5the deer (Hebr. ajal)
and the gazelle (Hebr. tsevi)
and the small antelope (Arabic oryx; oryx leucoryx; smallest among the antelopes – Hebr. )
and the wild goat (lerwee – Hebr. ado)
and the ibex (Hebr. dison)
and large antelopes (nubix oryx – Hebr. teo)
and the mountain sheep (Ovis tragelaphus – Hebr. zemer). 6All animals that have cloven hooves and have hooves completely divided in two and that chew the cud among the animals, you may eat. 7But these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud and of those that have cloven hooves:
the camel,
the hare (Hebr. ) and
the rock hyrax (rock hyrax),
for although they chew the cud, they do not have cloven hooves. They are unclean for you.
8And the pig, because it has cloven hooves but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you; you shall not eat their meat, nor touch their carcasses.
[The description in defines more precisely what rumination means, which also includes the hare eating its own feces (which is a form of rumination) and also the rock hyrax, which has three different stomachs and uses acids to break down its food.]Clean and unclean aquatic animals (Lev. 11:9-12)
9You may eat any of these creatures that live in the water, anything that has fins and scales. 10And whatever does not have fins and scales, you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.Clean and unclean flying creatures (Lev. 11:13-19)
[There are different Hebrew words for birds. In , the Hebr. word of is used to describe something that flies. Here in this verse, the word tsipor is used, which is an onomatopoeic word derived from the chirping sound birds make. In modern biology's classification of organisms, the bat () is not classified as a bird but as a mammal. However, the list here fulfills the meanings of the Hebrew words.] 11You may eat any clean bird (songbird – Hebr. tsipor). 12But these are the ones you shall not eat: the eagle
and the vulture
and the osprey
13and the kite
and the buzzard (hawk)
and the falcon
according to its kind (its species; classification – Hebr. min)
14and the raven
according to its kind
15and the ostrich [Hebr. bat jaana]
and the nightjar
and the seagull
and the hawk
according to its kind,
16the minerva owl [a small owl; the Hebrew word shares its root with cup/beaker]
and the desert owl
and the ibis
17
In May 2008, the hoopoe (Upupa epops) was designated Israel's national bird. It has a distinctive loud call and when excited, it raises a plume of feathers on its head.
and the vulture
and the cormorant
18and the stork
and the heron
according to its kind
and the hoopoe
and the bat.
19And all winged swarming creatures are unclean to you; you shall not eat them. 20Of all clean winged creatures, you may eat. [A total of 22 different flying creatures (or groups of animals) are listed as unclean. Common to the first 21 is that most of them eat carcasses, i.e., they come into contact with what is dead. Even the last group of swarming insects comes into contact with what is unclean. Among the clean birds are: chickens, pigeons, ducks, geese, ptarmigans, quails, turkeys, etc.] 21You shall not eat anything that has died of itself; you may give it to the stranger who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a stranger, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). You shall not cook a calf in its mother's milk. [This commandment has given rise to today's kosher rules, but it concerns Canaanite occult fertility rites, see .]Tithing
22You shall carefully tithe all your grain, that which grows in your field year after year. 23And you shall eat before the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) in the place which He chooses to make His name dwell there. The tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock, so that you may learn to always revere the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). 24And if the way is too long for you, so that you cannot carry it, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall choose to put his name there, when the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) blesses you, 25then you shall convert it into silver and bind the silver in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall choose. 26And you shall give the silver for whatever your soul desires, for an ox, or for a sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul desires from you, and you shall eat there before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), and you shall rejoice, you and your household. 27And the Levite who is within your gates, you shall not forsake him, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. 28At the end of every third year, even for the current year, you shall bring forth all the tithes of your produce and gather them within your gates. 29And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates, shall come and eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.Be generous to the poor
[Care for the poor, verses 1-18, is the fifth and central part of , which deals with Israel's duty toward the Lord (Yahweh).] 151At the end of every seven years, you shall grant a remission (debt forgiveness – Hebr. shmita). 2And this is what you shall remit. Every lender who has lent to his neighbor shall not demand it from his neighbor or his brother, because the Lord's (Yahweh's) remission (debt forgiveness – Hebr. shmita) has been proclaimed (announced, declared). 3You may demand repayment from a stranger, but whatever is in your brother's hand, you shall forgive. 4For there shall be no needy among you, for the Lord (Yahweh) will richly bless (literally bless, bless) you in the land that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) gives you as an inheritance to possess, 5if only you listen carefully (literally listen, hear) to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), and keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do all these commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebrew tsavah) you today. 6For the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will bless you as he has spoken [promised] to you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow (from anyone), and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. 7If there is a poor man within your gates (in your cities) in the land that the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart and shut your hand (be insensitive) to your poor brother. 8Instead, you must willingly open (literally: "open, open") your hand to him and generously lend (literally: "lend, lend") him what he needs. [The repetition of the verbs reinforces this.] 9Be on your guard (protect and preserve yourself – Hebr. shamar) lest the evil thought come into your heart: "It is now close to the seventh year when all debts are forgiven (remitted)." If your eye is evil (your heart's attitude is wrong) toward your poor brother and you do not lend him anything, then he may cry out to the Lord against you, and sin will rest upon you (you are guilty). [In Jewish teaching, the commandment to lend money is considered greater than giving gifts to charity. The reason is that a loan preserves the dignity of the borrower. In addition to the money, the lender also shows that he has faith that the borrower's situation will change for the better and that he will become self-sufficient. Rabbis also teach that loans should be given in the presence of witnesses or in writing, otherwise there may be an almost unfair temptation to delay payment. See also ; ; ; .] 10You shall give to him generously (willingly), and your heart shall not be sad (painful, reluctant) [a loan so close to the sabbatical year was the same as giving away the money], for because of this, the Lord your God will bless all your work (what you do, your income) and everything you undertake (put your hand to). 11There will never be a lack of poor (needy – Hebr. evion) in the land [; ]. Therefore, I command you to willingly open your hand to your brother who is afflicted (Hebr. ani) and who is in need (evion) in your land. 12If your brother, a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you for six years, and in the seventh year he shall leave you and be free. 13And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14You shall supply him abundantly from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress; from all that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has blessed you with, you shall give him. 15And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) delivered you; therefore I command you these things today. 16And if he says to you, "I will not leave," because he loves you and your house, for he has been treated well by you, 17then you shall take an awl and pierce his earlobe and the door, and he shall be your servant forever. And you shall do the same with your female servant. 18It shall not be hard for you when you let him go free and leave you, for he has worked for you for six years for a double wage, and the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall bless you in all that you do. 19Every firstborn male that is born in your herd and in your flock you shall consecrate to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). You shall not do any work with the firstborn of your oxen or shear the firstborn of your flock. 20You shall eat it before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), year after year, in the place that the Lord (Yahweh) shall choose, you and your household. [The firstborn shall always be sacrificed to the Lord (Yahweh).] 21But if the animal has any defect, if it is lame or blind or has any other defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). 22You shall eat it within the gates, the unclean and the clean together, (in the same way) as the gazelle and the deer. 23You shall only refrain from eating its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.Worship in one place – three times a year
Passover (Pesach) – 14th of Nisan (Lev. 23:4-5)
161Keep (guard, protect, preserve) the month of Aviv [same as Nisan, the first month of spring and the first month of the biblical calendar] and keep (guard, protect, preserve) the Passover (before) the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), for in the month of Aviv the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) brought you out of Egypt by night. 2And you shall sacrifice the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) from the flock and the herd in the place that the Lord (Yahweh) shall choose to have his name dwell there. 3You shall not eat any leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction, for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, so that you may remember the day you came out of Egypt all your life. 4And no leavened bread shall be seen with you within any of your borders for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrificed on the first evening remain until morning. 5You shall not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) gives you [Jesus was sacrificed as a Passover sacrifice outside the city walls of Jerusalem, see ], 6but in a place that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will choose to make his name dwell there, there you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset, at the appointed time (the month of Aviv/Nisan) when you came out of Egypt. 7And you shall roast and eat it in a place that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall choose, and you shall turn around in the morning and go to your tents. 8Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim). Then you shall do no work.The counting of the Omer – 49 days shall be counted (Lev. 23:15-16)
9You shall count seven weeks for yourself; from the time when the sickle is first put to the grain, you shall begin to count seven weeks. [When the first fruits of the barley harvest are gathered.]Pentecost (shavuot) – celebrated for seven days (Lev. 23:17-22)
10And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks (Hebr. Shavuot) to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) according to the measure of your voluntary offerings, which you shall give in accordance with what the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has blessed you with. 11And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite who is within your gates and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, in the place which the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) shall choose to make his name dwell there. 12And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do (obey and act according to) these statutes (literally "things engraved" – Hebr. chukim).Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) – 15th of Tishri and seven days (Lev. 23:33-43, Num. 29:12-39)
13You shall celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles (Hebr. sukkah) for seven days, after you have gathered in your threshing floor and your winepress. 14And you shall rejoice (be glad) at your feasts, you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates. 15Seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) in the place that the Lord (Yahweh) shall choose, because the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will bless you in all your crops and in all the work of your hands, and you shall rejoice (be glad).Summary – three pilgrimage festivals
16Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), in the place which he shall choose [Jerusalem].
At the Feast of Unleavened Bread
and at the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot)
and at the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).
And they shall not appear before the Lord (Yahweh) empty-handed. 17Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you.Judges
18
The gate to the ancient city of Dan. Inside the gate were rooms where the city elders could meet to judge various legal cases and negotiate business deals.
19You shall not pervert (change, adapt, distort) justice (the righteous judgment, decision).
You shall not show partiality (literally: recognize faces).
Neither shall you accept bribes (gifts),
for a bribe blinds the eye of the wise (prudent) and perverts the words of the righteous. 20Justice, righteousness [the repetition reinforces – justice, and nothing but justice] you shall follow, so that you may live long and inherit the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you. [In this passage, singular and plural are mixed: "you shall appoint" and "they shall judge." Throughout the Bible, both individual and collective responsibility are emphasized.]Idolatry
[Treason is the highest crime that can be committed; in a theocracy, it is idolatry. It is the most important responsibility of the judges to prevent this.] 21You shall not plant (erect) an Asherah of any kind of tree [; ] beside the altar of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), which you shall make for yourself.
22You shall not set up an obelisk for yourself, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) hates. 171You shall not sacrifice to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) an ox or a sheep that has any blemish or any other (literally, all or any) evil thing, for that is an abomination to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). [] 2If there is found among you, within your gates [in the cities] which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), in transgression of his covenant, 3and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have commanded you not to do [], 4and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5then you shall bring out that man or woman who has done this evil thing to your gates—that man or woman—and you shall stone them to death with stones. 6On the testimony of two or three witnesses, the person who is to die shall be put to death. On the testimony of one witness, he shall not be put to death. [] 7The hand of the witness shall be the first to kill him (throwing the first stone), and then the hands of all the people [throwing as many stones as necessary to completely kill him]. Thus you shall remove the evil from your midst.
Now comes a section up to and including chapter 19 that deals with Israel's leadership. It follows a chiasm with the degree of holiness: judges, king/prophet, Levites, and centrally the priests:
A The judiciary – more difficult legal cases,
B King – but unlike other nations,
C Levites,
D Priests,
C´ Levites,
B´ Prophets – unlike other nations,
A´ The judicial system – cities of refuge,
The legal system – more difficult cases
8If a case arises that is too difficult for you to judge,
between blood and blood [murder and manslaughter – intentional or accidental, see ],
between claim and claim (where it is one person's word against another's)
and between blows and blows (where someone has struck or spat on another),
as well as controversial issues within your gates.
Then you shall rise and go up to the place that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will show you. [] 9You shall come to the priests and Levites and to the judges who shall be in those days, and you shall ask, and they shall tell you (speak, pronounce) the judgment. 10And you shall do according to the meaning of the judgment (literally: and you shall do the words of the mouth) that they tell you from the place that the Lord (Yahweh) shall choose, and you shall be careful to do in all things according to what they teach you. 11According to the teaching (Hebr. Torah) that they teach you and according to the judgment that they pronounce for you, you shall do. You shall not deviate from the judgment that they tell you (inform you of), neither to the right nor to the left. 12The man who is arrogant (proud) and does not listen to the priest who stands and serves before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), or to the judge, that man shall die, and you shall root out evil from Israel. 13All the people shall hear and fear, and no longer be arrogant (proud).King – five rules
[Here there are several restrictions and an exhortation. This was unique to Israel; other surrounding kingdoms did not have these kinds of restrictions. The king of the Israelites was to be a fellow countryman, not have too much military power (gather many horses), not have many wives, and not accumulate great wealth for himself. The last and fifth point is to make your own personal copy of the Books of Moses and read it daily; this is an exhortation to let God's teaching become personal. Several of these pieces of advice can also be applied to believers today, see .] 14When you come to the land that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has given you, and you take it and settle there, and you say, "I will set a king over me like all the nations around me" [, ], 15then you shall be sure to set a king over you whom the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) chooses. You shall set a king over you from among your own brothers. You shall not set a stranger over you, one who is not your brother. [This points prophetically to Jesus, the Messiah, who will be a king after the line of David, see ; . He is thus a brother.] 16However (this applies), he shall not gather horses for himself in great numbers [], nor cause the people to return to Egypt to get many horses []. As the Lord (Yahweh) has emphatically said to you, "You shall never return this way again." 17Nor shall he take many wives, lest his heart turn away [lose focus on the Lord—here Solomon is a tragic example, see ]. [; ]
Nor shall he gather great quantities of silver and gold for himself []. [It is not the horses, silver, or gold themselves that are the problem, but the abundance of these riches and the risk of trusting in them more than in God, see .] 18
The five books of Moses consist of 304,805 letters. It takes over a year for a trained scribe (Hebr. sofer) to complete a Torah scroll.
[The king of Israel may not dictate his own laws like other kings, but must obey and submit to God's teaching and instructions! This is also a description of Jesus, who does nothing that the Father has not told him, see ; .] The inheritance of the Levites
181The priests, the Levites—all of the tribe of Levi—shall have no inheritance with Israel. They shall eat of the Lord's (Yahweh's) burnt offerings and his inheritance. 2They shall have no inheritance among their brothers [; ; ; ]. The Lord (Yahweh) is their inheritance, as he has told them [; ; ].The priests' inheritance
3This shall be the priests' legal portion from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it be an ox or a sheep, which they shall give to the priest—the shoulder, the two jawbones, and the stomach. 4The first fruits of their grain, of their wine, and of their oil, and the first of the wool of their sheep, they shall give to them. 5For the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has chosen them from all the tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord (Yahweh), him (Levi) and his sons forever [].Freedom of movement for Levites
6And when a Levite comes from any of your gates [your walled cities] throughout Israel where he lives, and comes of his own free will (the desire of his soul) to the place that the Lord (Yahweh) shall choose [], 7then he shall serve in the name of the Lord (Yahweh) his God (Elohim), as all his brothers the Levites do who stand there before the Lord (Yahweh). 8They shall have the same portion (equal shares) to eat, regardless of their fathers' possessions. Prophets—do not do as other nations do
9When you enter the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you, you shall not learn to do according to the abominations (detestable customs) of those nations. 10No one among you shall let his son or daughter pass through the fire [to the idol Molech, see ; ], or anyone who practices divination [; ], or a sorcerer, or a wizard, or a magician. 11No one who practices spiritism, no medium who consults familiar spirits [demons who pretend to be dead people and speak for them], no spiritist (fortune teller), or anyone who calls on dead spirits [1 Sam. 28]. 12Whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord (Yahweh), and because of these abominations, the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will drive them out from before you (from your sight). 13You shall be wholehearted (sincere, perfect) with (together with) the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). [The word for sincere is tamim. The main meaning is to be whole, complete, without any flaw. When the word is used about God, it describes his wholeness and flawlessness. When used about people, it does not describe someone who is completely without sin, but someone who is honest and has integrity, where words and actions are consistent. Someone who is a whole person with all that that entails, with no hidden rooms, ulterior motives, or anything concealed. Here, pnei is not used in front of someone's face, but im, which means together with. The same word is used, for example, in about not being anxious because God "is with you." Here it is implied that it is only in walking with the Lord that this perfect state can be attained, see also .] 14These nations, which you are about to occupy (conquer), listen to diviners and fortune-tellers. But the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has not allowed you to do such things. 15The Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among your people, from your brothers. Listen to him. [Jesus is this prophet; he fulfilled this prophecy 1,500 years later, see ; .] 16This is what you [the people of Israel] asked the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), when you were gathered at [Mount] Horeb (Hebr. Chorev) [Mount Sinai, see ]. You said, "I do not want to hear the voice of the Lord (Yahweh), my God (Elohim), again, and I do not want to see this mighty fire anymore, for then I will die." 17The Lord (Yahweh) said to me, "What they say is right. 18I will raise up a prophet for them from among their brothers, one like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19And it shall come to pass that whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. 20But the prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." 21And if you say in your heart, "How shall I know whether it is a word that the Lord (Yahweh) has not spoken?" 22When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord (Yahweh), if it does not happen and come true, it is something that the Lord (Yahweh) has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.Life and Death (19:1-22:8)
[Three cities of refuge had already been established east of the Jordan River. Now instructions are given concerning three cities: Kedesh, Hebron, and Shechem, see .] 191When the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) destroys (literally cuts down) the nations whose lands the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you, and you then conquer them and settle in their cities and in their houses, 2then you shall set apart three cities in the midst of your land, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you to possess. 3You shall prepare your ways (make them passable) and divide the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you to inherit into three parts with boundaries so that anyone who (accidentally) kills a person may flee there. 4This applies to a manslayer who shall flee there and live [; ; ]. Anyone who happens to kill his neighbor unintentionally (by accident, misfortune) and did not hate him before, 5such as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to chop wood and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree and the axe head comes loose from the handle and hits his neighbor so that he dies, then he shall flee to one of these (three) cities and live. 6So that the avenger of blood (literally: the redeemer of blood – Hebr. gaal ha-adam) should pursue the killer with anger in his heart (when his emotions are running high) and overpower him, because the road is long [to the nearest place of refuge], and strike him a deadly blow [in the heat of the moment, taking the law into his own hands], when he does not deserve to die because there was no hatred toward him [no discord between the murderer and the victim before the accident]. 7Therefore, I command you and say, "You shall set aside three cities for yourself." 8If the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) enlarges your borders, as he swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he has spoken that [he will] give to your fathers, 9if you keep all his commands (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) so that you do them, as I have commanded (Hebr. tsavah) you this day, to love the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) and always walk in his ways, then you shall add (addera) three more cities besides (in addition to) these three cities, 10so that innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you as an inheritance, and the blood will come upon you. 11But if any man hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies, and then flees to one of these cities, 12then the elders of that city shall send and bring him from there and deliver him to the avenger of blood, that he may die. 13Your eyes shall not pity him [no mercy shall be shown to the guilty murderer, because man is the image of God, see ; ], but you shall purge Israel of the guilt of innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.Boundary stones
14You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark that has been there since ancient times in your inheritance [; ; ; ]. It marks what you shall inherit in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you to possess (occupy).Testimony
15A witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin, in whatever he has sinned. By the mouth of two witnesses or by the mouth of three witnesses shall a matter be established (be valid). 16If a false witness stands up against a man to bring false testimony against him, 17then both men who have the controversy between them shall stand before the Lord (Yahweh) in the presence of the priests and judges who are in office at that time. 18The judges shall carefully investigate and see if the witness is a false witness and has testified falsely against his brother, 19then they shall do to him as he had proposed to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from your midst. 20Those who remain shall hear and fear, and shall not do such evil things again in your midst. [They shall take warning from the incident.] 21Your eye shall not pity, life for life (soul for soul), eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. [; ]Laws of War – Distant Enemies
201When you go out to battle against your enemies, and you see horses and chariots and people more numerous than yourself, you shall not be afraid of them. For the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. 2When you approach the battle, the priests shall come forward and speak to the people, 3and say to them: "Hear, O Israel, you are approaching the day of battle against your enemies; do not let your hearts lose courage. Do not fear (do not be afraid), do not be anxious, and do not be terrified of them, 4for the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) is the one who goes with you to fight against your enemies to save (rescue) you." 5And the generals shall speak and say to the people: [Exemption from military service:]
"Which man among you has built a new house,
and has not dedicated it?
Let him turn back and return to his house,
lest he die in battle and another man dedicate it.
6And who among you has planted a vineyard
but has not eaten its fruit?
Let him turn back and go to his house,
lest he die in battle and another man eat its fruit.
7And what man is there among you who has betrothed a woman,
but has not taken her as his wife?
Let him turn back and go to his house,
otherwise he may die in battle and another man take her." [A similar law is found in , which exempts a newlywed man for one year for the sake of his wife.]
[Rabbis teach from this order that a man should first arrange a place to live and have a job (plant a vineyard) before he marries.]
8And the generals shall further speak to the people and say:
"Which man among you is anxious and fearful?
Let him turn back and return to his house,
otherwise the hearts of his brothers may melt (become fearful) like his heart."
9And it shall come to pass, when the generals have finished speaking to the people, that the captains of the army shall be appointed as leaders of the people. 10When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall proclaim peace (shalom) to it. 11If the city responds to you with peace (shalom) and opens its gates to you, then all the people who are there shall become your forced laborers (taxpayers) and they shall serve you. 12If they do not want to make peace with you but want to fight against you, then you shall besiege them. 13When the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives them into your hand, you shall strike every male there with the edge of your sword (kill all the men), 14but the women and the little ones (infants, children) and the livestock and everything in the city, even everything spoiled in it, you shall take as spoil for yourself, and you shall eat what you have plundered from your enemies, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you. 15This is what you shall do to all the cities (fortified cities with walls – Hebr. ir) that are far away from you, which do not belong to the cities of these peoples.Laws of war for the peoples of the land of Canaan
16The inhabitants of these cities, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you as an inheritance, you shall not let anything that breathes live [you shall kill everything that lives, both people and livestock]. 17You shall utterly destroy them:
the Hittites and the Amorites,
the Canaanites and the Perizzites,
the Hivites and the Jebusites
as the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has commanded you [], 18so that they do not teach you to follow all their abominations that they have done with their gods (elohim), so that you sin against the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 19When you besiege a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them, for you shall eat of them [the fruit of the trees], and you shall not cut them down, for are the trees of the field human beings that you should besiege them? 20Only the trees that you know are trees that are not used for food may you destroy and cut down, so that you may build siege works against the city with which you are fighting until it falls.Laws for unsolved murder cases
211If someone is found dead in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you to possess (take), lying in the field, and it is unknown how he was struck down. 2Then the elders and your judges shall come forward and measure the distance to the cities that are around him who was killed. 3And it shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, the elders of that city shall take a heifer from their herd which has not been used for work and has not been yoked. 4The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a deep valley that has not been plowed or sown, and there in the valley they shall break the heifer's neck. 5And the priests, the sons of Levi, whom the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has chosen to serve him, shall come there, and they shall bless the name of the Lord (Yahweh), and according to their word all disputes and all quarrels (conflicts, here a word is used that literally means to be beaten) shall be settled. 6And all the elders of the city, who are nearest to the dead man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck they have broken in the valley. 7And they shall speak and say: "Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it. 8Forgive, Lord (Yahweh), your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not allow [the guilt of] innocent blood to remain among your people Israel." Then the blood shall be forgiven them [in that city]. 9Thus you shall remove [the guilt of] innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh).Marriage to a captive woman
10When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) delivers them into your hands, and you carry them away captive, 11and see a beautiful woman among the captives and are attracted to her, so that you want to take her as your wife, 12then you shall bring her into your house, and she shall shave her head and cut her nails, 13and she shall take off her captive's clothing and remain in your house and mourn her father and mother for a full month (the days of a full lunar cycle). Then you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14And it shall come to pass, if you do not find favor in her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes, but you shall not sell her for money. You shall not treat her as a slave, lest you humiliate her.The right of the firstborn
15If a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated [Hebrew idiom for loving less, in comparison with the other], and both have borne him children, both the loved and the hated, and if the firstborn son belongs to the one he hates, 16then it shall be that when the day comes when his sons shall inherit what he has had, he shall not make the son of the beloved wife the firstborn before the son of the hated [less loved] wife, who is the firstborn. 17He shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double inheritance of all he has, for he is the first fruit of his strength. The birthright (Hebr. bechorah) belongs to him.
Double inheritance – even in language!
The Hebrew language has an interesting detail that also points to a double inheritance. The verb for being the firstborn is Hebr. bachar. The word consists of three letters: Bet, Chet, and Resh. The 22 Hebrew letters (Alef, Bet, Gimel, etc.) are also numerical values (1-9, 10-90, 100, 200, 300, and 400). What is special about this bachar is that each letter's numerical value is twice that of the letter before it in the alphabet. Bet is the second letter of the alphabet and has a numerical value of 2 (the first letter, Alef, has a value of 1). Chet has the value 20 (the preceding letter Yod has the value 10). Resh has the value 200 (the preceding letter Kaf has the value 100). In fact, only three letters meet this criterion, and it is these three letters that form this word!
A rebellious son
18If a man has a rebellious and defiant son who will not listen to his father's voice and his mother's voice [both parents' voices], and who will not listen to them, even though they discipline (train, restrain; are strict with) him, 19then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the city and to its gate (the public place in the city) [; ]. 20They shall say to the elders of the city, "This is our wayward and rebellious son; he will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard." [Exactly the same words used in .] 21And all the men of the city shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear (take warning).Capital punishment – treat the dead body with respect anyway
[After a passage dealing with the death penalty, see verses 18-21, instructions now follow on treating the body with respect.] 22If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, 23his body shall not remain on the tree overnight, but you shall bury him the same day [Jesus' body was taken down from the cross in accordance with this commandment]. For the one who is hanged is a curse (something light, a trifle – Hebr. klala) to God (Elohim). [] You shall not defile your land which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you as an inheritance. [Although klala is the mildest word for curse found in Biblical Hebrew and refers to being envious, looking down on someone, dishonoring them, or taking the whole thing lightly as a trifle, God still considers this a great sin that defiles the land with impurity.]
Miscellaneous laws
221If you see your brother's ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it [do not hide and pretend you do not see it], you shall be eager to (see to) bringing them back to your brother []. 2If your brother is not a close relative and you do not know him, you shall bring them to your house, and they shall remain there until your brother comes and asks for them, then you shall return them to him. 3You shall do the same with his donkey, and you shall do the same with his cloak, and you shall do the same with all your brother's lost belongings that he has lost and you have found; do not ignore it (you must not hide yourself). 4If you see your brother's donkey or ox fall on the road, do not ignore it [do not hide yourself and pretend you do not see it], you shall be eager to (see to) helping him raise it up again. 5A woman shall not wear men's clothing, nor shall a man wear women's clothing, for whoever does this is an abomination to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 6If a bird's nest happens to be in your way, in any tree or on the ground, with young or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the young or on the eggs (has the young under her wings or is brooding on the eggs), you shall not take the mother bird with the young. 7You shall let the mother bird go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may go well with you and you may prolong your days. [Ironically, the commandment to preserve life is mixed with the commandment to take life. In a culture that depended on agriculture and the slaughter of animals for food, killing animals was permitted, see . However, it should be done with wisdom and dignity; the mother bird should live so that she can provide food in the future. The order here is first clean animals (oxen and sheep, ), then the donkey, which was unclean (see verses 3-4), and finally wild birds.] 8When you build a new house, you shall make a railing for your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.
[The houses that were built had flat roofs that were used for rest, work, and prayer, see, for example, ; ; . It was common to spend time on the roof, and therefore important to do what one could to prevent accidents. Structurally, there is a common thread on the theme of life/death from manslaughter (), unwillingness to save lives (), and now negligence leading to death here in verses 4-8. Everything is summarized in the commandment "Thou shalt not murder," see ; .] 9You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of grain (two that should not be mixed – Hebr. kilajim), for then you will lose the distinctiveness of the grain (holiness; i.e., the uniqueness of the grain – Hebr. qadash) that you have sown, along with the growth (the harvest, the yield) in the vineyard. [It was common to grow grain in the vineyard to combat weeds. But when doing so, the same rule applies as in the field, namely not to mix different types of grain in the same field. See also , where the unusual kilajim is also used, again in the dual form. The root comes from the verb kala, which means to hinder. It is also found in the word kele, which means prison/separation. Kilajim seems to be a specific word that prohibits anything that could lead to unwanted or forbidden cross-pollination.] 10You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. [If two animals pull the plow together, they should be either two oxen or two donkeys, not one of each.] 11You shall not wear mixed fabrics, wool and linen together. [When making fabric, it shall be pure wool fabric or pure linen fabric.] 12You shall make tassels on the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.Laws of Marriage
13If a man takes a wife and goes in to her and hates her, 14and accuses her of being a promiscuous woman and calls her nasty names and says, "I took this woman, and when I went in to her, I did not find her signs of virginity," 15then the father of the young woman and her mother shall bring the signs of the young woman's virginity to the elders at the gate of the city. 16The father of the young woman shall say to the elders, "I gave my daughter to this man as his wife, and he hates her, 17and he accuses her of being a promiscuous woman and says, 'I did not find in your daughter her signs of virginity,' but these are the signs of my daughter's virginity," and they shall spread the garments before the elders of the city. 18The elders of the city shall take the man and punish him. 19They shall fine him 100 shekels [1.15 kg] of silver and give them to the maiden's father, because he has called a virgin in Israel a bad name, and she shall be his wife, and he may not divorce her all his days (literally, all his days). 20But if it is true that the young woman is not a virgin, 21then they shall bring the young woman out to the door of her father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by acting like a prostitute in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 22If a man is found lying with a married woman who has a husband, then both of them shall die. The man who lay with the woman and the woman. Thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. [] 23If there is a young woman who is a virgin and is betrothed to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24then both of them shall be brought out to the gate of the city and stoned to death with stones. The young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has humbled his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 25But if the man who finds the betrothed maiden in the field overpowers her and lies with her, then only the rapist (the man who lay with her) shall die. 26You shall do nothing to the young woman, for there is nothing in the young woman worthy of death. But as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, so shall it be in this case, 27because he found her in the field and the betrothed maiden cried out, but there was no one to save her. [No one heard her cry out in the field.] 28If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin and is not betrothed, and overpowers her and lies with her, and they are found, 29then the man who lay with her shall give the maiden's father 50 shekels [575 grams] of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has humiliated her. He may not divorce her all his days (literally, all the days). [] 30A man shall not take his father's [former] wife and shall not uncover his father's nakedness. [; ]Restrictions on God's congregation
[Here, the Hebr. qahal JHVH is used, translated as "God's assembly." In the Greek translation Septuagint, the Gk. ekklesia (assembly) is used. God's assembly here refers to those who gather for feasts, worship services, and teaching.] 231Anyone who is crushed or mutilated in their private parts (genitals) may not enter God's (Yahweh's) assembly. [The Ethiopian financier whom Philip meets was a castrated court eunuch and was only allowed to enter the outer courtyard, see .] 2No one born of forbidden relationships (outside of marriage) [the word is only used here and in about a mixed people who lived in Ashdod] may enter the congregation of the Lord (Yahweh). Until the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord (Yahweh). 3An Ammonite or Moabite may not enter the assembly of God (Yahweh). Until the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord (Yahweh) forever, 4because they did not meet you with bread and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired Balaam, the son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-Naharaim, against you to curse you. [] 5Nevertheless, the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) did not listen to Balaam, but the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) loves you. 6You shall not seek their peace (shalom) or their prosperity in all your days forever. [It is not your business to bless them or seek any kind of fellowship with them. But neither shall you seek their harm, but only leave them alone.] 7You shall not hate an Edomite, for he is your brother (descendants of Esau, brother of Jacob/Israel). You shall not hate an Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land. [In Joseph's time, God's people survived a famine by moving to Egypt, see .] 8Their children who are born in the third generation [after two generations have lived in Israel] may enter the assembly of the Lord (Yahweh). 9When you go out to battle against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every kind of evil. 10If there is any man among you who is not (ritually) clean for reasons that happened to him during the night [], then he shall go outside the camp; he shall not enter the camp. 11But when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water, and after the sun has set, he may enter the camp. 12You shall also have a place outside the camp where you can go. 13And you shall have a shovel among your weapons, and you shall use it when you sit down outside (the camp). You shall dig with it and put back and cover what has come out of you. [The Bible has a clear prescription for hygiene around toilet visits] 14For the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and give your enemies before you. Therefore, your camp shall be holy, so that he does not see anything improper in you and turn away from you.Show kindness to those in need
15You shall not hand over a slave who has fled from his master to you. 16He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in a place that he shall choose within your gates [in your fortified cities], where it suits him best. You shall not treat him badly. 17There shall be no temple prostitute (Hebr. qadesah) among the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be any temple prostitute (Hebr. qadesh) among the sons of Israel. 18You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute or the payment for a dog [a male prostitute] into the house of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) because of any oath, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 19You shall not lend at interest to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that can be lent at interest. 20You may charge interest to a foreigner, but you shall not charge interest to your brother, so that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) may bless you in everything you do with your hands in the land you are going to possess. 21When you make a vow to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), you shall not delay in fulfilling it, for the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will require it of you, and it will be a sin in you. 22 But if you refrain from taking an oath, it will not be a sin in you. 23Whatever has passed your lips (whatever you have said), you shall be careful to do, according to the oath you have freely taken to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), what you have spoken [promised] with your mouth. 24When you come to your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat as much as you want, but you may not put anything in your basket. 25When you come to your neighbor's grain field, you may pick ears of grain with your hand, but you may not use a sickle in your neighbor's grain field. [Jesus referred to this commandment when the disciples picked ears of grain on the Sabbath, see .]Divorce and remarriage
241When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor (undeserved love) in his eyes because he has found something improper (disgusting; literally: nakedness) [exactly what this means is not entirely clear, see ; ] in her and writes her a certificate of divorce (Hebr. sefer kritot), gives it to her, and sends her out of his house, 2and she leaves and goes out of his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, 3and the latter husband hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and gives it to her and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband who took her as his wife dies, 4then her former husband who sent her away shall not take her back as his wife after she has been defiled. It is an abomination before the Lord (Yahweh), and you shall not cause the land to sin, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you as an inheritance. [The word divorce (Hebr. kritot) does not exist in the singular but is in the feminine plural. The reason is that it takes two to make a divorce possible. The root comes from the word karat, which means to cut, chop off, and divide. See also ; .]More statutes
5When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army, nor shall he be engaged in any kind of professional activity. He shall be free for his house (household) for one year and shall devote himself to his wife whom he has taken. [] 6No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone (literally: the rider) as a pledge, for he takes a man's life as a pledge. 7If a man is caught stealing from his brother among the sons of Israel, and he treats him as a slave and sells him, then the thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from your midst. [] 8Pay attention to the disease (plague) of leprosy and listen very carefully and do everything according to what the priests and Levites teach you [], as I have commanded them, you shall observe and do (what the priests say). 9Remember what the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt []. [The Hebrew word leprosy (Hebrew tsaraat) is a general term for various types of skin diseases that spread. It is a type of mold. Most Bible scholars believe that it is not the leprosy that exists today, also known as Hansen's disease. The reason it is often translated as leprosy is that both diseases affect the skin. The rabbis also believe that it is a disease that primarily affects our speech. Miriam was struck with leprosy when she spoke ill of her brother Moses, see .] 10When you lend to your neighbor, whatever kind of loan it may be, you shall not go into his house to take a pledge. 11You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you lend shall come out to you with the pledge. 12If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge, 13you shall be careful to give him the pledge when the sun goes down, so that he may sleep with his cloak and bless you, and it shall be counted to you for righteousness before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 14You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or a stranger who is in your land within your gates. 15On the same day you shall give him his wages [; ], the sun shall not go down on it, for he is poor and sets his heart on it (his trust and hope are in the wages he can get) so that he will not cry out to the Lord (Yahweh) against you, and it will be sin in your life. 16A father shall not be put to death for his child, nor shall a child be put to death for his father. Each shall be put to death for his own sins [; ]. 17You shall not pervert justice for the stranger or the fatherless, nor take a widow's garment as security for a loan [see verses 10-13]. 18Remember that you yourself were once a slave in Egypt and that the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), delivered you from there. Therefore, I command you to do all these things. 19When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall belong to the stranger (immigrant), the fatherless, and the widow. Then the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), will bless you in all your undertakings (all the work of your hands). [] 20When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the branches again. What remains shall belong to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. 21When you gather the grapes in your vineyard, you shall not go over the vines again. What remains shall belong to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. 22Remember that you yourself were once a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I command you to do all these things. [; ; ]
251If there is a dispute between some men and they come to judgment, and the judge judges them by confirming the righteous and condemning the wicked, 2then it shall be that if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall compel him to lie down and be beaten before his (the judge's) face with the number of blows that the wickedness deserves. 3He may give him forty blows, but no more; otherwise, if you give him more and beat him with many blows, your brother will be dishonored before your eyes. 4You shall not muzzle the ox when it threshes your grain. [The ox shall eat of the grain if it wants to, quoted by Paul in and .]Levirate marriage
5If brothers live together and one of them dies and has no children. Then the wife of the dead man shall not be married to anyone who is not of his family. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and fulfill his responsibility as her husband's brother. [This is called levirate marriage and is what Boaz does for Ruth and Naomi in the Book of Ruth; see also with Judah and Tamar.] 6And it shall be, that the firstborn whom she bears shall carry on the name of his brother who died, that his name may not be blotted out from Israel. 7If the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the elders at the gate of the city and say, "My husband's brother refuses to raise up his brother's name in Israel; he does not want to fulfill his responsibility as my husband's brother to me." 8Then the elders of the city shall call him in and speak to him. If he persists and says, "I will not take her," 9then his brother's wife shall come up to him in the presence of the elders, take his shoe off his foot, spit in his face, and answer him, saying, "This is done to the man who will not build up his brother's house." 10His name (nickname) in Israel shall be "the house of him who has lost his shoe."Different groups
[This passage is thematically related to ] 11When two men are fighting with each other and the wife of one of them comes near to rescue her husband from the hand of the other who is beating him, if she reaches out her hand and touches his genitals (literally, that which arouses shame), 12then her hand shall be cut off. Your eyes shall not pity her. 13You shall not have different weights in your bag, a large one and a small one. [Literally: "stone and stone."] 14You shall not have in your house two different measures, a large one and a small one. [Literally: "efa and efa"; an efa was a measure of volume of 22-36 liters.] 15You shall have a perfect and just weight (stone), and you shall have a perfect and just ephah measure, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you. 16For whoever does such things, whoever acts unjustly, is an abomination to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). [; ; ; ; ] 17Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came up from Egypt [], 18how he met you on the way and destroyed the rear guard (attacked you from behind; literally, "cut off the tail"), how he made all the weak and powerless at the end of your train (rear guard; "tail") when you were exhausted, and he did not fear (revere) God (Elohim). 19Therefore, it shall be so: When the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you rest from all your enemies around you in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you as an inheritance to possess (take), then you shall completely erase the memory of Amalek from under heaven (literally: "from under heaven"). Do not forget this! [The eradication of the memory of the Amalekites is described from God's perspective – I will eradicate from under the heavens, see . Saul forgot, see , but the Amalekites (also called the Agagites) met their fate at the end of the Book of Esther, see ; .] 261And it shall come to pass, when thou comest in unto the land which the Lord (Yahweh) thy God (Elohim) giveth thee for an inheritance, and thou possessest it, and dwellest therein, 2you shall take the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you shall reap from the ground that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) shall choose to make his name dwell there, 3and you shall come to the priest who shall be in those days and say to him, "I declare (confess) today before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) that I have come to the land which the Lord (Yahweh) swore to our fathers to give us." 4And the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 5Then you shall speak and say before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim): "A wandering Aramean was my father [Jacob was the progenitor; he lived in Syria for a long time, see ; ] and he went down to Egypt. He stayed there with a small band, and there he became a great and powerful and numerous people. 6The Egyptians treated us badly and tormented us and imposed heavy slave labor on us. 7[Kiasmen's center:]
And we cried out to the Lord (Yahweh), the God (Elohim) of our fathers and the Lord (Yahweh) heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression. 8And the Lord brought us up out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror (the word here is common to myrrh, bitter, and wretched, but also rebellion) and with signs and wonders. 9He has brought us to this place and given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which you, Lord (Yahweh), have given me. And you shall set it down before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), and worship (bow down, assume a humble position) before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim). 11And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you and your house (your household, your family), you and the Levite and the stranger who is in your midst.Tithing every third year
12When you have finished tithing and all the tithes of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your gates [all cities with walls] and be satisfied, 13then you shall say before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim): "I have set aside the holy portion and taken it out of my house and given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that you have commanded (Hebrew: tsavah) me, I have not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them. 14I have not eaten any of it in my grief, nor have I set aside any of it that is (ritually) unclean, nor have I given any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh), my God (Elohim), and I have done according to all that you have commanded me. 15Look down from your holy dwelling place, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey."Follow the Lord's commandments
16On this day, the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) commands you to observe these statutes (literally, "things engraved") and ordinances (binding legal decisions). You shall therefore be careful to do (fulfill, keep) them with all your heart (wholeheartedly) and with all your soul (your whole being). 17Today you have acknowledged that the Lord (Yahweh) is your God (Elohim) and that you shall walk in his ways and keep his statutes (literally "things engraved") and commandments (clear, distinct commands) and decrees (binding legal decisions) and listen to his voice. 18And the Lord (Yahweh) has today acknowledged (confirmed) that you shall be his own precious treasure, as he spoke to [promised] you, that you shall keep all his commandments (clear and distinct commands), 19and he will make you high (great) above all other nations that he has created, in praise, and in name, and in glory, and you shall be a holy people to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) as he has spoken.Blessings and curses (chapters 27-28)
[Chapters 27-34 are the fifth and final major section of the Book of Deuteronomy. Here are the concluding words and exhortations of Moses to the people, ending with his death. It consists of seven sections, the central one being the appeal to obey God, see .] 271Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, "Keep (guard, protect) all the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I have commanded (Hebrew tsavah) you today. 2And on the day you cross the Jordan into the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you, you shall set up large stones for yourselves and whitewash them with lime. [Lime and whitewash are unusual words used here and in , serving as an inclusio for .] 3And you shall write on them all the words of this teaching when you have crossed over, so that you may enter the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord (Yahweh), the God (Elohim) of your fathers, has spoken to [promised] you. 4And it shall be, when you have crossed the Jordan, that you shall set up these stones, which I command you today, on Mount Ebal, and you shall whitewash them with lime. 5And there you shall build an altar to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), an altar of stones. You shall not lift any iron tool over them (do not work the stones with iron). 6You shall build the altar of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) with uncut stones, and you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 7And you shall offer peace offerings [a communal offering that everyone in the family ate together, see ] and eat there, and you shall rejoice before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 8And you shall write on the stones all the words of the teaching very clearly (in easy-to-read writing)." 9And Moses and the priests and the Levites spoke to all Israel and said, "Be quiet and listen, Israel! – Today you have become a people belonging to (owned by) the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 10You shall therefore listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) and do his commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) and his ordinances (literally: things engraved) which I command (Hebr. tsavah) you this day."Curses from Ebal
11And Moses commanded the people that same day, saying: 12
Mount Gerizim is visible on the left and Mount Ebal on the right. Joshua's altar is located on the far right (north). In the depression between the mountains lies the city of Shechem, which in Hebrew means "shoulder," a fitting name since the mountains look like two shoulders.
Simeon (Shimon) and
Levi and
Judah (Jehoda) and
Issachar (Jisashchar) and
Joseph and
Benjamin (Binjamin).
13And these [six tribes] shall stand on Mount Ebal [present-day Imad-el-Deen, to the north] for the curse: Reuben (Hebr. Reoven) [the eldest; Leah's firstborn];
Gad and Asher [whose mother was Zilpah – Leah's maidservant] and
Zebulun (Hebr. Zevolun);
Dan. and Naphtali [whose mother was Bilhah – Rachel's maidservant].
14
View westward from Mount Ebal. Tel Aviv's skyscrapers and the Mediterranean Sea are visible on the horizon.
15"Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast idol, an abomination to the Lord (Yahweh), the work of a craftsman's hand, and sets it up in secret." []
And all the people shall answer and say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
16"Cursed be the man who dishonors his father or his mother." []
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
17"Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone." [; ; ; ]
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
18"Cursed is the man who causes the blind to stray from the road." []
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
19"Cursed is the man who perverts the justice due to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow."
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
20"Cursed is the man who lies with his father's wife [stepmother],
for it is to uncover his father's wing [horn tuft – authority, see ]." [; ]
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
21"Cursed is the man who lies with any kind of animal." [; ; ]
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
22"Cursed is the man who lies with his sister,
his father's daughter or his mother's daughter." [, ; ]
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
23"Cursed is the man who lies with his mother-in-law." [; ]
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (so be it).
24"Cursed is the man who strikes his neighbor in secret."
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so).
25"Cursed is the man who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person." []
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so). 26"Cursed is the man who does not confirm the words of this teaching
by doing (keeping, obeying) them."
And all the people shall say, "Amen" (it is true, let it be so). Blessings
281And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) thy God (Elohim), to observe (keep, guard) all his commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you this day, so that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) may set you high above all the peoples of the earth. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and multiply (multiply) upon you, if you listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim): 3You shall be blessed in the city
and blessed in the field.
[These two places describe economics – trade and agriculture; the blessing applies regardless of occupation.]
4Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb [your children],
and the fruit of your ground
and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your cattle (growth in number)
and the young of your flock (there will be many lambs and kids).
5Blessed shall be your basket and your baking tray. 6Blessed shall you be when you come in (your entrance)
and blessed shall you be when you go out (your exit). [This sixfold blessing has its opposite in verses 16-19.] 7The Lord (Yahweh) will strike down your enemies who rise up against you before you (in front of your face); they will come out against you on one road and flee before you on seven roads (in front of your face). [As, for example, at Jericho, see .] 8The Lord (Yahweh) will command the blessing to be with you in your barns and in everything you put your hand to, and he will bless you in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you. 9The Lord (Yahweh) will establish (found, confirm) you as a holy people unto himself (as his possession), as he has sworn unto you [], if you keep (guard, protect) all the commandments (clear commands – Hebr. mitzvot) of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), and walk in his ways. 10And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord (Yahweh) is proclaimed (proclaimed) over you, and they shall respect (fear, revere, honor) you. 11And the Lord (Yahweh) will make you abundant (let you have in abundance, plentifully, more than can be contained) in all good things, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has sworn to your fathers to give you []. 12The Lord (Yahweh) will open his good treasure house—the heavens—to give you the rain of the land in its season (the right season) and to bless all the work of your hands (labor), and you shall lend to many nations, but you (yourself) shall not borrow from anyone. 13And the Lord (Yahweh) will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall be above and not below, if you listen to the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today, so that you keep (guard, protect) and do (act, perform) them. mitzvot), which I command
(Hebr. tsavah) you today, so that you may keep
(guard, protect) and do
(act, behave) according to them.
14And you shall not turn aside from any (literally from all) of the words that I command you this day, neither to the right nor to the left, and go after other gods and follow them.Curses for disobedience
15This will happen if you do not listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) and keep (guard, protect, preserve) all the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) and statutes (literally "things engraved") that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today, then these curses shall come upon (take over) you: 16Cursed shall you be in the city
and cursed shall you be in the field. 17Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb [your children],
and the fruit of your ground,
the increase of your cattle (no growth in numbers)
and the young of your flock (there will be few lambs and kids).
19Cursed shall you be when you come in (your entrance)
and cursed shall you be when you go out (your exit).
[These six curses are the opposite of the blessings in verses 3-6. The order of the fruit of the ground and the fruit of the womb is reversed, cf. verses 4-5 and 17-18.] 20The Lord (Yahweh) will send these curses upon you, defeat (confusion) [] and punishment (fear, rebuke) in everything you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly because of the evil deeds you do when you forsake me. 21The Lord (Yahweh) will send the pestilence upon you, until it has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22The Lord (Yahweh) will strike you with consumption and fever, and with infections, and with burning heat, and with drought, and with the sword, and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish (go under, perish, be exterminated). 23And the sky above your head shall be copper, and the earth beneath you shall be iron []. 24The Lord (Yahweh) will make the rain of your land into powder and dust, and it will come down on you from the heavens until you are consumed (perish, vanish, be exterminated). 25The Lord (Yahweh) will cause you to be defeated before your enemies [as happened at Ai, see ], you will go out against them on one road and flee before them on seven roads (before their faces), and you will become a horror (a warning example) to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26Your bodies shall be food for all the birds of the air and for all the beasts of the earth, and no one shall drive them away (prevent them from eating the bodies). 27The Lord (Yahweh) will strike you with the open (literally boiling) sores of Egypt and with hemorrhoids (boils, tumors – Hebr. ófel) and with scabies and itching, from which you cannot be cured. 28The Lord (Yahweh) will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. 29And you shall grope at noon as a blind man gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You shall be oppressed and robbed every day, and there shall be no one to save you. 30You will betroth a wife,
but another man will violate her [Hebr. shagal, see ; ].
You shall build a house,
but you shall not dwell in it.
You shall plant a vineyard,
but you shall not eat its fruit. 31Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes,
but you shall not eat of it,
your donkey shall be taken from you by force before your face,
and shall not be returned to you,
your sheep shall be given to your enemies
and you shall have no one to save you. 32Your sons and your daughters shall be given to other peoples, and your eyes shall watch and long for them all day long, but your hands shall be powerless (Hebr. el). 33The fruit of your land and all your labor shall be devoured by a nation you do not know, and you shall be oppressed and despised, 34so that you will go mad from the sights your eyes see. 35The Lord (Yahweh) will strike you on the knees and on the legs with painful (literally boiling) sores, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36The Lord (Yahweh) will take you and the king you will set over you [Saul became the first king, see ] to a nation you do not know, neither you nor your fathers, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone. 37You shall become a horror [a deterrent example], a proverb, and a taunt (a sharp word – Hebr. sheninah) among all the nations where the Lord (Yahweh) will lead you away. [; ] 38You will carry much seed out to the field [sow and plant much], but you will reap little, for locusts will eat it. 39You shall plant vineyards and prune them, but you shall not drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for worms shall eat them. 40You will have olive trees along all your borders, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will fall off (the fruit will fall off before it ripens). 41You shall bear sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. 42All your trees and the fruit of the ground shall be seized by buzzing pests [Hebr. , the same word as cymbal (Hebr. ), can refer to the sound of locusts, crickets, or any other pest that makes noise and destroys trees and crops]. 43The stranger who is in your midst shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall sink lower and lower. 44He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. 45All these curses shall come upon you, and shall pursue you and overtake you (become overwhelming), until you perish (go under, perish, become extinct), because you do not listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God's (Elohim) voice, so that you keep (guard, protect) all his commands (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) and ordinances (literally "things engraved") that I have commanded (Hebrew tsavah) you. 46They shall be a sign and a reminder to you, to your seed (offspring) forever, 47because you did not serve the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) with joy and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of everything. 48Therefore, you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will send against you, in hunger and thirst, and in nakedness, and in longing for all things, and he shall put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you [Jer. 28:14]. 49The Lord (Yahweh) will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, like a vulture swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand [Jer 5:15-17], 50a nation (a people) with a fierce (cruel) countenance, who will not respect old men nor show mercy (favor – Hebr. chanan) to young men. 51And he shall eat the fruit of your cattle and the fruit of your land, until you are consumed (perish, be destroyed, be exterminated), nor shall they leave seed, wine, or oil, the increase of cattle, or the young of your flock, until they have made you perish (go under, perish, be exterminated). 52And he shall besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout your land, and he shall besiege you in all your gates throughout the land that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you. 53And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. 54The man who is tenderhearted among you and very merciful, his eyes shall be evil toward his brother and toward the wife at his bosom and toward the remnant of the children that he has left, 55so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children that he is to eat, because he has nothing left, in the siege and in the distress that your enemy will bring upon you, in all your gates. 56The tenderhearted and compassionate woman among you, who would not risk putting her foot on the ground out of tenderness and compassion, her eyes shall be evil toward her husband at her breast and toward her son and toward her daughter, 57and toward her afterbirth that comes out between her legs, and toward her children that she will bear, for she will eat them in secret for lack of everything, in the siege and in the distress that your enemy will bring upon you in all your gates. [] 58If you do not carefully observe (keep, protect) all the words of instruction written in this book (scroll), so that you revere (respect, honor) this venerable (respectable, weighty, awesome) and glorious (magnificent) name, the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), 59then the Lord (Yahweh) will make your afflictions severe, and the afflictions of your seed, severe afflictions, and they shall be long, and severe sickness, and it shall be long. 60And he shall bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt [the plagues that came upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, see ], which you have feared, and they shall cling to you. 61Even all the diseases and all the plagues that are not written in this book of instruction, the Lord (Yahweh) will bring upon you until you are consumed (perish, be destroyed, be exterminated). 62And only a few shall be left there where you were as the stars of heaven in multitude [; ; ; ], because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). 63And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord (Yahweh) rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord (Yahweh) shall rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to nought, and you shall be plucked up [like weeds] from the land which you are going to possess. 64And the Lord (Yahweh) will scatter you among the nations from one end of the world to the other [; ; ], and there you shall serve other gods, whom you do not know, nor your fathers, even wood and stone. 65And among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord (Yahweh) will give you a trembling heart and failing eyes and a despairing soul. 66Your life will hang by a thread, and you will fear day and night and have no security for your life. 67In the morning you will say, "May it be evening!" and in the evening you will say, "May it be morning!" because of the fear that is in your heart and the dread that is in your soul, and because of the visions that your eyes will see. 68The Lord (Yahweh) will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said, "You shall never see it again," and there you shall sell yourselves as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you. [This happened to about a million Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.]Main points (chapters 29-30)
291These are the provisions of the covenant that the Lord (Yahweh) commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he made with them at Horeb (Hebr. Chorev). [In Hebrew usage, one makes a covenant. This is because all such covenants are blood covenants. In English, we usually use the expression "enter into a covenant," but this is misleading because a covenant that is merely entered into, without blood, is a different kind of covenant than a blood covenant. Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai. The Hebrew name for Horeb shares its root with cherev, which means sword.]A historical review
2And Moses called all Israel and said to them:
You have seen all that the Lord (Yahweh) did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land. 3the great trials that you saw with your own eyes, the signs and the great wonders, 4but the Lord (Yahweh) has not given you a heart that knows (is familiar with, has intimate knowledge), and eyes that see, and ears that hear, until this day. [Spiritual insensitivity is a punishment in itself. It is not that the Lord does not want them to see how his deeds reveal his character and purposes, but that knowledge is only available to those who humble themselves and obey him. Spiritual insight is a gift from God, and is not given to those who oppose God; instead, they are allowed to continue to have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear.] 5I have led you 40 years in the wilderness, your clothes have not worn out on you, and your shoes have not worn out on your feet. 6You have not eaten bread, you have not drunk wine or strong drink, so that you may know (be aware of, have intimate knowledge of) that I am the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). [The Lord had given them manna every day so that they would understand that it was He who provided for them.] 7And when you came to this place [east of the Jordan River], Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, came out against us in battle, and we defeated them []. 8And we took their land and gave it to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. [; ]The Covenant
9Therefore, keep (guard, protect) the words of this covenant and do (act, act upon) them, so that you may prosper in all you do. 10Today you are all standing before the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). Your chiefs (leaders), your tribes, your elders, and your leaders, yes, all the men of Israel, 11your little ones (children), your wives, and your strangers (immigrants) who are in your camp, from the woodcutter to the water carrier, 12to enter into the covenant of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim). And into his oath, which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has cut with you today [a blood covenant], 13that he may make you his own people (his possession) today and he may be a God to you (your possession) as he has spoken to you, and as he has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. [; ] 14Not only (solely) with you do I make this covenant and this oath, 15but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim) and also with him who is not standing here with us today.The consequences of disobedience
16For you know (are familiar with, have intimate knowledge of) how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the nations (the lands of the heathen peoples) when we journeyed through them, 17and you have seen their abominations (disgusting things) [with associated rituals and worship] and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which they had, 18so that there may be no man or woman or family or tribe among you whose heart turns away from the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) to serve the gods of these peoples, lest there be a root among you that bears gall and wormwood. 19And it shall come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart and says, "I shall have peace (shalom) in my heart, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, and the watered shall be swept away with the dry." 20The Lord (Yahweh) will not be willing to forgive him, but the anger of the Lord (Yahweh) and his zeal will be kindled against that man, and all the curses written in this book will be laid upon him, and the Lord (Yahweh) will blot out his name from under heaven (literally: "from under the heavens"). [The destruction on earth is described from God's perspective – I will destroy from under the heavens.] 21And the Lord (Yahweh) will set him apart for evil, from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of instruction. 22And the generations to come, your sons who will rise up after you, and the stranger who will come from afar, will say, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which the Lord (Yahweh) has afflicted it, 23and that the whole land is sulfur and salt and fire, that it is not sown, does not blossom, no grass grows there, it is overturned like Sodom and Gomorrah [], Admah and Zeboiim [; ], which the Lord (Yahweh) overthrew in his wrath and in his anger, 24all nations will say, "Why has the Lord (Yahweh) done this to this land? What does the heat (intensity) of this great wrath mean?" 25Then people will say, "Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord (Yahweh), the God of their fathers (Elohim), which he had made with them when he brought them up out of the land of Egypt, 26and they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and whom he had not permitted them, 27therefore the anger of the Lord (Yahweh) was kindled against this land, to bring upon them all the curses that are written in this book, 28and the Lord (Yahweh) destroyed them from their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation (harm, indignation) and cast them into another land, as it is this day." 29The secrets [that which is not written down] belong (are owned by) the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim), but the things that are revealed [that which is written in the Torah] belong (are owned by) us and our sons forever, so that we may do (act, act according to) the words of this teaching. [Here is an interesting aspect of ownership! Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we can own anything material. Instead, the Hebrew expression is "it belonged to Abraham," "it belonged to David," etc. The Hebrew expression does not mean formal and absolute ownership, even though it is usually translated that way. Instead, it means that someone manages or borrows something. However, there is one exception—God's word has been given to us by the Lord as a true possession! It is part of the blood covenant we have with God.]Repentance and forgiveness
301And it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you—the blessings and the curses that I have set before you—and you shall consider among all the nations, where the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has driven you [; ; ; ], 2and you shall return to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) and listen to his voice, according to all that I have commanded you today, you and your sons, with all your heart and with all your soul. 3Then the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will turn your captivity and have mercy (compassion, pity, grace) on you, and will return and gather you from all the nations to which the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) has scattered you.
This verse is the 5,708th verse in the Torah. An interesting detail is that the Jewish year 5,708 corresponds to the year 1948, the year Israel became a state again after nearly 2,000 years in exile. The five books of Moses consist of 304,805 letters, 79,847 words, and 5,845 verses.
4If any of you are scattered, even to the farthest parts of the heavens, from there the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will gather you and from there he will bring you back. 5The Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it, and he will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers. 6And the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
[Circumcision is a physical sign of participation in the covenant that God made with Abraham and his descendants (). When Moses speaks of circumcising the hearts of the people, of cutting away the hardness around them, he is referring to thoughts, desires, and intentions being brought into the covenant—that is, their desire to be faithful in their relationship with the Lord (Yahweh). (The same idea is expressed in , where Moses literally tells the people to circumcise their hearts, which means that they should commit themselves to the covenant with the Lord, not only outwardly but also inwardly.) The prophets describe the renewed covenant in the same way: a new heart and a new spirit ().] 7And the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you and persecute you. 8And you shall return and listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) and do (act, act upon) all his commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebrew tsavah) you today. 9And the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will make you abundant (let you have in abundance, plentifully, more than can be contained) in all the work of your hands, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your land, for good. For the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) will again rejoice over you for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers, 10if you listen to the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) to keep (guard, protect, preserve) all the commandments (clear, distinct commands) and ordinances (things engraved in words) that are written in this book of instruction, if you turn to the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) with all your heart and with all your soul.Call to obedience – choose life
[This passage, verses 11-20, is the central passage in Moses' last prov (chapters 27-34).] 11For these commands (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today are not too difficult for you and are not too far away. 12They are not in heaven, so that you should say, "Who will ascend for us to heaven and bring it to us and let us hear it, so that we may do (act, obey) it?" 13Nor are they beyond the sea, so that you should say, "Who will cross the sea for us and bring it to us and let us hear it, so that we may do (act, obey) it?" 14But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do (act, behave according to) it. 15See! Today I present [two choices]:
life and good (blessing, success),
death and destruction (failure, evil).
16What I command (Hebr. tsavah) you today is to love the Lord your God,
walk in his ways
and keep his commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot)
and statutes (literally: things engraved)
and ordinances (binding legal decisions).
Then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are about to possess. 17But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and instead are drawn away to worship and serve other gods, 18then I declare to you today that you will be destroyed. You will not live long in the land beyond the Jordan that you are about to enter. 19Today I call heaven and earth as witnesses that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live! [A covenant between two people was always witnessed by a third party. If one person did not live up to the requirements of the covenant, the other person could call on the witnesses to confirm what had been said. Moses calls on heaven and earth to be witnesses.] 20To choose life is to:
love the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim),
hear his voice (obey him),
cling to him.
He is your life, and he will let you live long in the land he promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [; ]
[Loving God and following his commandments is the only way to a good life. Moses' tone is warm but clear; see also Paul's speech to the church leaders in Ephesus, see .]Moses' farewell (chapters 31-34)
Joshua takes over
311Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. 2He said to them: I am now 120 years old, I can no longer lead you. The Lord (Yahweh) has said to me, "You shall not cross this Jordan." [] 3The Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), will go (cross over) before you. He will destroy these peoples for you, and you shall drive them out. Joshua shall go before you [Israel], as the Lord (Yahweh) has spoken [; ; ]. 4The Lord (Yahweh) will do to them [the seven peoples of the land of Canaan] as he did to Shion and Og, kings of the Amorites, when he destroyed them and their land []. 5The Lord (Yahweh) will deliver them into your hands, and you shall do to them according to the commandments (the clear commandments – Hebr. mitzvot) that I have commanded (Hebrew tsavah) you. [Moses now exhorts the people:]
6Be strong (firm, confident, brave)
and courageous (steadfast, alert, bold)!
Do not be afraid [the Hebrew word jare can also be used to mean fearing the Lord, i.e., revering and respecting him]
or terrified (afraid, frightened) of them [your enemies],
for the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim),
himself walks (he is the one who walks) with you [Israel].
He will not leave you (betray you; let you down)
or forsake (abandon; let go of) you []. 7Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of (before the eyes of, within sight of) all Israel:
"Be strong (firm, confident, brave)
and courageous (steadfast, alert, brave),
for you shall go with (lead) this people into the land that the Lord (Yahweh) has sworn (promised) to give to their fathers [sworn with an oath: 'sjuat himself', i.e. used the number of perfection to confirm his promise to their fathers], and you shall make it their property (let them inherit it, let them take it over). 8The Lord (Yahweh) himself (he is the one who goes) goes before you
– he will be with you.
He will not leave you (betray you, let you down)
or forsake (abandon, let go of) you.
Do not be afraid (fear)
or dismayed (distraught, discouraged, dejected)."
[The Lord later repeats these words to Joshua, see , .]Reading of the Torah
9Moses wrote down this teaching (instruction, Torah) and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord [], and to the elders of Israel. 10Moses commanded them, saying:
"At the end of every seven years [in the fall], at the appointed time for the sabbatical year (Hebr. shmita) [when the land lies fallow and debts are forgiven, see ], during the Feast of Tabernacles [; ; ], 11when all Israel comes to assemble before the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), at the place he will choose—then you shall read this teaching (instruction, Torah) before all Israel in their ears (so that they may hear the teaching). 12Gather the people, men, women, and little children, and your strangers who are within your gates, so that they may hear and so that they may learn and fear (revere) the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim), and do (carry out) all the words that are in this teaching (instruction, Torah). 13This is so that their children, who do not know [the teaching], may hear and learn to fear (revere) the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) []. You shall do this as long as you live in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
Sabbatical year
Just as the seventh day of the week is a day of rest for man, the seventh year is a year of rest for the land. During this sabbatical year (shmita year), all cultivated land is left fallow. This is also the year when debts are settled so that people become debt-free, see ; . It is a year when there is more time, and the entire Torah (the five books of Moses) is to be read during the Feast of Tabernacles. Shmita is observed today in Israel, but through a sales contract (Hebr. heter mechira), which rabbis draw up between Jewish landowners and a non-Jew, the land is sold for a period of one year. This technicality means that, strictly speaking, no one owns any land that needs to lie fallow.
Jubilee year
The 49th year is a jubilee year (Hebr. jóvel year). In addition to the land lying fallow, slaves are to be freed and the land returned to its original families, see . This is alluded to in and referred to by Jesus in . The Jubilee Year is a radical adjustment of land ownership, which means that even if someone's parents have failed financially, the next generation gets a new chance. The Jubilee Year has not been celebrated and observed for the past 2,000 years, and perhaps never. Since it says "all inhabitants" in , rabbis have interpreted that this condition is not met since not all 12 tribes live in the land anymore, and thus there has been no need to follow this commandment, which would have far-reaching economic consequences for the whole community.
The Lord calls Moses and Joshua
14The Lord said to Moses, "See, the day is coming when you must die. Call Joshua and position yourselves in the meeting tent (tabernacle) so that I can give him a mission." Moses and Joshua went and positioned themselves in the meeting tent (tabernacle). 15Then the Lord (Yahweh) appeared in the tent (tabernacle) in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the door of the tent (tabernacle). 16 The Lord said to Moses, "Behold, you will soon sleep [an expression for being dead] with your fathers, and this people will rise up and wander after the foreign gods of the land, where they go to be among them. They will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made (entered into) with them. 17Then my anger will be kindled against them on that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured, and great evil and trouble will come upon them. On that day they will say, 'Has not this evil come upon us because our God is not among us? 18I will surely hide my face on that day because of all the evil they have done in turning to other gods. 19Therefore, you shall write this song and teach it to the children of Israel; you shall put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. 20For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey [], and they have eaten their fill and grown fat, and they turn to other gods and serve them and despise me and break my covenant, 21then it shall come to pass, when great evil and trouble come upon them, that this song shall be a witness for them (a witness that testifies). It shall not be forgotten in the mouths of their descendants, for I know their imaginations, how they act even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swore to give them." 22Moses wrote this song on that day and taught it to the sons of Israel. 23He gave Joshua, the son of Nun, a mission and said, "Be strong (firm, confident, brave) and courageous (steadfast, alert, bold) [], for you shall bring the sons of Israel into the land that I have sworn to them, and I will be with you." [See ]. 24When Moses had finished writing all the words of the book of teaching and instruction (Hebr. Torah) and completed the work, 25Moses commanded the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord [], saying, 26"Take this book of instruction and instruction (Hebr. Torah) and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), so that it may be there as a witness against you. 27For I know that they are rebellious (rebellious) and stiff-necked. Behold, while I am still alive among you these days, you have been rebellious against the Lord (Yahweh). How much more so will you be after my death? 28Gather to me all the elders of your tribes and your leaders, that I may speak these words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them. 29For I know that after my death you will act corruptly and turn away from what I have commanded you. And evil will befall you until the end of days, because you will do what is evil in the eyes of the Lord (Yahweh) and provoke (challenge) him with the deeds of your hands."The Song of Moses
30Moses spoke the words of this song from beginning to end within earshot (in the ears) of the entire assembly of Israel:
321Listen (give your ear) to me, heavens, and I will speak!
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. 2My teaching (doctrine – Hebr. leqach) shall drop as rain,
my promise [water] as the dew (fine rain),
as the gentle rain on the greenery (sprouting grass – Hebr. deshe)
and like showers on vegetation (Hebr. esev). 3I want to proclaim (proclaim, shout out) the name of the Lord (Yahweh),
attribute greatness (splendor, magnificence, power) to our God (Elohim).
4The Rock [a name for God]—his works are perfect,
for all his ways are just.
A faithful God (El) without wrongdoing;
he is just and righteous. 5Does the corruption belong to him [worship of the golden calf, see ]?
No! The fault belongs to his sons (children),
a generation that is corrupt, twisted, and perverse. 6Do you treat (do you do this to) the Lord (Yahweh)
you foolish people without wisdom?
Is He not your Father who gave birth to you?
Did He not make (initiate – Hebr. ashah) you and establish you? 7Remember the days of old (from eternity),
consider the years of generations (many generations).
Ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you. 8When the Most High (Elion) gave the nations (the pagan peoples) their inheritance,
when he separated [Hebr. parad – the same word as in ] the children of men (Adam),
then he set the boundaries of the peoples []
according to the number of the sons of God. [The last phrase is literally in the Hebrew Masoretic text benei Yisrael – the sons of Israel. A fragment from Qumran (4QDt, dated to 30-1 BC) has benei elohim – sons of God, and the Greek translation Septuagint (from about 200 BC) has angelon theou – angels of God. These variants are consistent with and , which describe that there is also a spiritual dimension above the nations.] 9The Lord's (Yahweh's) portion is his people,
Jacob is his inheritance. 10He (the Lord) found him (Israel) in a desert land,
on the waste ground in a howling wilderness [where the wind howls or animals cry out in the night].
He enclosed (gave protection to) him,
he took care of (had mercy on) him,
he kept (preserved) him as the apple of his eye (literally: guarded him as the pupil of his own eye).
11Like an eagle stirring its nest,
hovering over its young,
spreading its wings,
taking them and carrying them on its wings. [Here, the image of God is painted as an eagle mother pushing her young out of the nest so that they can learn to fly, see . If the young do not take the step over the edge themselves, the eagle begins to tear apart its nest so that the young are forced to leave. Eagle nests are always built on high cliffs so that the young fall straight down if they do not begin to use their wings and fly. But if they do not succeed right away, the mother eagle is there and dives under her young so that she catches them on her wings before they reach the ground and hurt themselves. Then she flies up to a high altitude and drops them again. This procedure is repeated until the young have learned to fly.] 12The Lord (Yahweh) himself (alone, literally: solitary) led him
and there was no foreign god (Hebr. el) at his side. 13He let him travel to the high places of the earth
and he ate the fruits of the fields.
He let him suck honey from the rock
and oil from the hard stone,
14butter (cheese) from cattle and milk from small livestock,
with the fat of lambs and rams from Bashan's flocks and goats,
with the best of wheat
and from the blood of grapes you drank foaming wine. [Bashan corresponds to the area of the present-day Golan Heights. One of the meanings of the word is "fertile land," which is an apt description of this area north and east of the Sea of Galilee, which is also known for its large, well-fed bulls.] 15But Jeshurun [poetic name for Israel, meaning "the righteous one"] grew fat and kicked [rebelliously kicking wildly around],
you grew fat and you became thick, you became a glutton.
He forgot (abandoned) God (Eloha) [Elohim in the singular – the one God] who created him
and mocked the rock of his salvation.
16They provoked him to jealousy with foreign gods,
with abominable idols they provoked him. 17They sacrificed to demons (evil spirits – Hebr. shed) [] who are not a god (Eloha) –
new [gods] who appeared out of nowhere, whom your fathers did not fear. 18You have been unconcerned for the Rock that gave birth to you
and you have forgotten God (El) who brought you forth. 19The Lord (Yahweh) saw and despised (you),
because of his sons and his daughters who provoked (him).
20He said, "I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse (upside down, twisted, crooked) generation, sons who lack faithfulness (are without loyalty or righteousness). 21They have made me jealous [] with a non-god (Hebr. lo el),
they have provoked me with their vanities.
I will make them jealous with a non-people,
I will provoke them with a detestable nation. 22A fire has been kindled in my nostrils
and burns to the depths of Sheol (the underworld).
It devours the crops of the earth
and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire. [The expression "A fire has been kindled in my nostrils" is a variant of the Hebrew's common way of expressing anger. The root word for anger in Hebrew literally means "burning nose."] 23I will pour out [multiply; increase the degree of] evil upon them,
I will use my arrows against them. 24Wasting away from hunger,
they will be devoured by torment (epidemic, fever)
and bitterly stung [by poisonous animals – disease]
– I will send the teeth of wild animals [wild animals] upon them,
with the poison (wrath) of those [snakes, scorpions, etc.] that crawl in the dust. 25Outdoors, the sword shall slay
and indoors, terror,
they shall slaughter both young men and virgins,
infants and men with gray hair. 26I say, "I will put an end to them,
I will wipe out the memory of them from the human race [Hebr. enósh; describes the mortal human race],
27were it not that I feared the enemy's harassment,
lest their opponents accuse them falsely,
so that they would say, 'Our hand is exalted,
the Lord (Yahweh) has not done all this.'" 28They are a people without counsel,
and there is no knowledge in them.
29If they were wise, they would understand this,
they would care about how things turn out for them in the end.
30How can one (person) defeat a thousand,
and two (people) put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had delivered them (their enemies) to death
and their Lord (Yahweh) had given it to them? []
31Their rock [idol; ideology, human foundation] is not like our Rock [God],
even our enemies will be judged themselves. 32Their wine is the wine of Sodom and the fields of Gomorrah [],
their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.
33Their wine is the poison of serpents
and the cruel (deceptive) venom of vipers. [] 34Is this not stored up with me,
sealed up in my treasury?
35Vengeance is mine [] and retribution
for the time when their foot shall slip.
The day of disaster is here
and what is to come upon them will come swiftly. 36The Lord will judge his people
and repent for his servants,
when he sees that they are gone,
that no hand remains (all strength is gone), neither slave nor free. 37It shall be said, "Where are their gods (elohim) [idols],
the rock in which they trusted (took refuge)?"
38Who (among the idols) ate the fat of their sacrifices []
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let him stand up and help you,
let him be your protector. 39See now that I, I am he,
and there is no other god beside (together with) me.
I kill and I make alive,
I wound and I heal,
and there is no one who can deliver out of my hand (no one who can change what the Lord has determined).
40For I lift up my hand to the heavens and say:
"I live forever. 41If I sharpen my gleaming sword,
and my hand grasps judgment [],
I will execute vengeance on my adversaries,
and I will repay those who hate me.
42I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword will devour flesh,
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the long-haired heads of the enemies." 43Sing aloud (loudly), O lands of his people,
for he avenges the blood of his servants
and takes vengeance on his adversaries
and atones for his people's land. 44And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hosea [Joshua], the son of Nun. [It was Moses who gave Hosea the name Joshua, see , .] 45And when Moses finished speaking (literally: completed) all these words to all Israel, 46he said to them, "Set your hearts on all the words that I have testified to you today, so that you may command your children with them, to keep (guard, protect, preserve) and do (act, live by) all the words of this teaching (Hebr. Torah). 47For it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life, and by these words you shall prolong your days in the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess."Moses blesses the tribes (32:48-33:29)
48The Lord (Yahweh) spoke to Moses on that day (literally: 'on the bone/power of the day') and said: 49"Go up to this mountain of Avarim [mountain range], to Mount [peak] Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel for their possession (property; literally: something to grasp hold of – Hebr. ), 50and die on the mountain which you go up to, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people. []. 51Because you sinned against me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not uphold my holiness in the presence of the Israelites. [] 52You shall see the land from a distance, but you shall not enter it, the land that I give to the sons of Israel." [From Mount Nebo, in present-day Jordan, on a clear day you can see all of Israel from Mount Hermon in the north down to the area south of Beer-Sheva in the Negev desert and all the way to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.] 331This is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed the sons of Israel with before he died. 2He said: "The Lord (Yahweh) came from Sinai
and rose up from Seir [another name for Edom] to them,
he appeared in splendor (shone brightly) from [Mount] Paran,
and he came from myriads of holy ones,
at his right hand was a burning decree. 3Yes, [moreover] he loves the peoples,
all his holy ones [are] in your hand,
and they sit (settle down; scatter; camp) at your foot [can also mean 'follow every step']
and [each one] receives (lifts up – Hebr. nasa) [holds in high esteem] your words.
4Moses commanded us a teaching (Hebr. Torah),
an inheritance for the congregation of Jacob.
5There was a king in Jeshurun [a name for Israel meaning honorable, see ]
when the heads (leaders) of the people were gathered,
the tribes of Israel together." 
Mosaic of the twelve tribes decorating the facade of a synagogue in Jerusalem. From the top right corner: Reuben, Jude, Dan, and Asher; middle row: Simeon, Issachar, Naphtali, and Joseph; bottom row: Levi, Zebulun, Gad, and Benjamin.
Reuben
6"Let Reuben (Hebr. Reoven; meaning: see a son) live, and not die
because his men are few." [Reuben is addressed differently than the other tribes. The wish is that he should live and not die. This is probably because of Jacob's words in .]Judah
7And this to Judah, and he said: "Hear (listen) Lord (Yahweh) the voice of Judah, bring him to his people, his hands shall fight for him, and you shall be a help (Hebr. ezer) against his adversaries."Levi
8And concerning Levi, he said: "Your Tummim and your Urim shall be with your holy ones, whom you tested at Massa, with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah. 9Who said to his father and to his mother, 'I have not seen him,' and to his brothers, 'I do not know them,' and to his sons, 'I do not know them,' for they have kept (guarded, protected, preserved) your word of promise and preserved your covenant. 10They shall teach Jacob your statutes (binding legal decisions) and Israel your teaching (Hebr. Torah), they shall place incense in your nostrils and whole burnt offerings on your altar." 11"Lord (Yahweh), bless his strength and give grace (receive, accept, give conditional grace – Hebr. ratsah) to the work of his hands. Strike (pierce) the hips of those who rise up against him and those who hate him, so that they will not rise again."
[ does not really fit Levi, who did not "crush the lands of his adversaries," and fits better with the tribe of Judah. Here, the "missing" blessing may be for Simeon, whose territory was within the tribe of Judah, see .]Benjamin
12To Benjamin he said: "The beloved of the Lord (Yahweh) shall dwell in safety by him. He shall cover (Hebr. chofaf) him all day long (all days), and he (God) shall dwell between his shoulders." [The word cover is the same word used for the wedding canopy under which the bride and groom stand during the wedding ceremony. That God has his dwelling place between his shoulders refers to the fact that Mount Zion (the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem lies between two other mountains, the Mount of Olives and the Western Mountain. These two mountains belong to Benjamin's territory, while Mount Zion belongs to Judah's territory. This blessing thus prophetically describes how God's dwelling place on earth will be located!]Joseph
13And to Joseph he said, "Blessed of the Lord (Yahweh) is his land. From the precious things of heaven, from the dew, and from the depths that lie beneath, 14and from the precious fruits of the sun, and from the precious harvest of the moons, 15and from the ancient mountain peaks, and from the treasures of the everlasting mountains, 16and from the precious things of the earth and its fullness, and his conditional grace (goodwill, favor – Hebr. ratson) that dwells in nature – let the blessings come upon Joseph's head, and upon the crown of his head, who is prince among his brothers. 17His firstborn, he is majestic, his horns are the horns of a wild ox, with them he shall gore the peoples, all of them to the ends of the earth, they are the ten thousand of Ephraim and the thousand of Manasseh." [Ephraim is the younger, but is mentioned first. Manasseh is the larger tribe, but Ephraim has an army ten times larger.]Zebulun and Issachar
18And to Zebulun he said, "Rejoice (be glad), Zebulun, when you go out, and Issachar in your tents. 19You shall call the people to the mountain, there they shall offer righteous sacrifices, for they shall suckle the abundance of the sea and the hidden riches of the sand."Gad
20And to Gad he said, "Blessed is he who increases Gad; he dwells like a lioness and breaks the bone, yes, the crown of the head. 21And he chooses the best part for himself, for there is a place reserved, and there the princes (leaders) of the people will come. He executes the righteousness of the Lord (Yahweh) and his decrees (binding legal decisions) with Israel."Dan.
22And to Dan he said: "Dan is a young lion leaping forth from Bashan." [Dan's territory was originally in the south, but later they moved and settled in the northernmost part of Bashan, now northern Golan, near Mount Hermon. How they changed territory is described in , which probably took place at the end of the period of the judges when Samson was a judge.]Naphtali
23And to Naphtali he said, "Naphtali, showered with grace (conditional grace, favor, pleasure) and full of the blessings of the Lord (Yahweh), take (occupy) the sea and the south." [This is a strange prophecy, as Naphtali receives his inheritance west and north of the Sea of Galilee, neither by the sea nor in the south of the country. The word translated as south here can also mean south wind. Then it also means to sweep around the whole earth in the same way that the wind can blow long distances. Considering that almost all of Jesus' disciples came from the area of Naphtali, this prophecy can be seen as a prediction of the spread of the gospel throughout the world.]Asher
24And to Asher he said, "Most blessed is Asher among the sons, let him find favor (conditional favor, goodwill, pleasure) with his brothers and dip his foot in oil. 25Iron and bronze [which is an alloy of copper and tin] shall be your bars, and as your days, so shall your strength be."Concluding praise
[Now follows a concluding praise in which all of Israel is blessed. The word Jeshurun comes from the Hebrew word jashar, which means to be upright or a straight path. It describes the ideal image of Israel as a people who follow God's way and live according to His will. God is described as riding on the clouds, which describes how he stands above storms, see Ps. 68:34. In Ugaritic myths, Baal is called the one who "rides on the storm." Moses may have used this wording deliberately to emphasize that it is the God of Israel, not Baal, who is the true God. God controls the weather and harvests and frees his people from their enemies. The word for God here is El, which is the most general word for God and could be translated as divine power. This is how the God of Israel can be perceived by those who do not know him, see ; .] 26"There is none like the God (El) of Jeshurun [Israel],
who rides across the heavens to help (Hebr. ezer) you,
on the clouds in his majesty.
27A dwelling place (safe abode) [in heaven, see ] is the eternal God (God of old, Elohim),
with eternal arms under [heaven, maintaining order on earth].
He drives your enemies from your presence and says, 'Destroy them!'
28Israel shall dwell (camp) [and grow as a people] in safety,
Jacob's spring [figurative for Jacob's descendants, see verses 6-24]
in a land,
with grain and wine,
under a sky dripping with dew. [ forms a chiasm where land is at the center of the Hebrew text, surrounded by human and agricultural life that grows. The Jewish people live in safety and grow in number from Jacob, who is the source. The vegetation has its water source from the dew, which makes the ground green and grow.] 29Happy are you, Israel, who is like you? You are a people who have their salvation in the Lord (Yahweh). He is your protective shield, your glorious sword. Your enemies shall cower before you, and you shall march over their heights.Epilogue
The death of Moses
341
View from the top of Mount Nebo, with the Dead Sea visible on the left of the picture.
[Moses stands in the middle of the eastern edge of the land that will become Israel, and starting from north to south (in a semicircle in a counterclockwise direction), God shows him the whole land.]
Gilead [north along the ridge] all the way to [the city of] Dan. [in the north]
2and all of Naphtali [Galilee in the north]
and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh [in the central northern part]
and all the land of Judah as far as the sea in the west [southern central part to the Mediterranean Sea]
3and the Negev desert [in the south]
and the plain – the valley of Jericho [the Jordan plain], the City of Palms – as far as [the city] Tsoar [south of the Dead Sea]. 4The Lord (Yahweh) said to him, "This is the land that I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give to their descendants. I will let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross over there." 5
Since the 4th century, there has been a Byzantine church on top of Mount Nebo. During renovations in 2008-2019, a memorial stone to Moses was also erected.
Memorial
9And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him, and the house of Israel listened to him and did as the Lord (Yahweh) had commanded Moses. 10And there has never arisen (remained; existed or come) a prophet in Israel like Moses, who knew (had an intimate relationship with) the Lord (Yahweh) face to face [; ], 11in all the signs and wonders (miracles) that the Lord (Yahweh) sent him to do in the land of Egypt,
with (to/against) Pharaoh
and with (to/against) all his servants
and with (to/against) all his land,
12And as for
the mighty hand [the great power]
and the great fear (terror) [the mighty deeds]
that Moses showed before the eyes of all Israel (in the sight of all Israel).
[Refers both to the fear that came upon the Egyptians in the ten plagues that increased in severity (), but also to the receiving of the Torah on Sinai ().]
