Deuteronomy8:1–20

Where the English smooths the original

• תִּשְׁמְר֣וּן לַעֲשׂ֑וֹת BSB's “carefully follow” compresses two Hebrew verbs into one English adverb-plus-verb. The original is tišmərūn la·ʻăśōwṯ — literally “you shall keep (H8104, shâmar, to guard, hedge about) to do (H6213, ʻâsâh).” The Hebrew names two distinct acts: a watchful guarding and an active doing. Geneva draws the very lesson the doubled verb teaches — that hearing the word is not enough “unless we express it by the example of our lives.”
• הַמִּצְוָ֗ה BSB reads “every commandment,” but the Hebrew has the singular with the article — the commandment (ham·miṣwāh, H4687) — gathered with kāl (“all/whole”). The form is collective: the whole body of the law as one charge. Cambridge flags exactly this: “On all the commandment, see Deuteronomy 5:31.”
• תִּֽחְי֜וּן “that you may live” is flatter than the Hebrew intends. Benson and Poole insist tiḥyūn (H2421) here “signifies more than bare life, namely, happiness and prosperity,” the whole-life flourishing the covenant promises — its opposite, “afflictions and calamities,” being “called death.”
• תִּשְׁמְר֣וּן The verb carries a paragogic nun (the long form tišmərūn rather than tišmərū), a solemn, emphatic plural that English cannot render. The same heightened form returns on “you may live” (tiḥyūn): the charge and its promised reward are both spoken in this weightier register.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְזָכַרְתָּ֣ BSB's “Remember that” reads as a casual aside; the Hebrew wəzāḵartā (H2142, zâkar) is a conjunctive-perfect command — “and you shall remember” — the chapter's hinge verb. The root means “to mark so as to be recognized.” Maclaren built a whole sermon on it: memory must “work under the distinct recognition of divine guidance in every part of the past.”
• לְמַ֨עַן עַנֹּֽתְךָ֜ לְנַסֹּֽתְךָ֗ “so that He might humble you and test you” renders a tight Hebrew triad of infinitives — ləma·ʻan ʻan·nōṯəḵā lənas·sōṯəḵā lā·ḏaʻaṯ (to-humble-you, to-test-you, to-know). Keil & Delitzsch parse the verbs precisely: ʻânâh (H6031) brings them “to feel their need of help and their dependence upon God,” and nâçâh (H5254) proves them “by placing them in such positions… as would drive them to reveal what was in their heart.”
• לָדַ֜עַת “in order to know” risks implying God lacked the knowledge. Ellicott guards it: “‘To know’ is not simply that He might know… but that the knowledge may arise.” God's testing brings to light, by evidence, what omniscience already holds.
• הֹלִֽיכֲךָ֜ hōlîḵăḵā (H1980, Hiphil of hâlak) is causative — God “caused you to walk,” led you the whole way. The wilderness route was not Israel's wandering but God's leading; the verb assigns the agency to Him.

Where the English smooths the original

• הַמָּן֙ BSB's “manna” simply transliterates the Hebrew ham·mān (H4478) — but the word is itself a question. Pulpit Commentary recovers the pun: they “said one to another, Manhoo? (מָן הוּא), What is it? and thenceforward called it man.” The bread's very name preserves Israel's bewilderment before God's provision.
• כָּל־ מוֹצָ֥א פִֽי־ יְהוָ֖ה BSB supplies the noun “word” — “every word that comes from the mouth.” The Hebrew has no “word”: it reads kāl mōwṣā p̄î-Yahweh, literally “every going-forth (H4161, môwṣâʼ) of the mouth of the LORD.” Barnes is explicit: the term “word” is supplied “after the Septuagint, which is followed by Matthew and Luke.” The Hebrew is broader than “word” — it is whatever proceeds, every appointed means.
• וַיַּרְעִבֶךָ֒ “in your hunger” turns God's act into a circumstance. The Hebrew is a causative verb, way·yarʻiḇeḵā (H7456) — “and He made you hunger.” Ellicott: He “might easily have fed them without ‘suffering them to hunger.’” The hunger was deliberate, part of the humbling, not an accident He relieved.
• לֹֽא־ יָדַ֔עְתָּ The doubled “which neither you nor your fathers had known” renders an emphatic Hebrew construction stacking the negative across two generations — the manna was wholly new, outside all prior experience, so that no one could claim it as ordinary provision.

Where the English smooths the original

• בָֽלְתָה֙ מֵֽעָלֶ֔יךָ “did not wear out” is correct but loses the vivid Hebrew picture. ḇāləṯāh mê·ʻāleḵā (H1086, bâlâh, “to fail/fall away” + “from upon you”) means the garment did not fall off you in tatters. Pulpit: “literally, did not fall away, waste away from upon thee” — not that they lacked new clothes, but that what they wore did not fall from them in rags.
• בָצֵ֑קָה “did not swell” renders a word found only here and in Nehemiah 9:21, and its sense is genuinely uncertain. Keil & Delitzsch note bāṣêqāh (H1216) is “certainly connected with bâṣêq (dough), and probably signifies to become soft or to swell.” The LXX read “became callous”; Deuteronomy 29:5 substitutes the worn-out shoe. The translation conceals a real crux.
• שִׂמְלָ֨תְךָ֜ BSB's plural “clothing” flattens a Hebrew singular, śimlāṯəḵā (H8071) — “thy garment,” the single outer mantle. Gill takes the spiritual sense the singular invites: a figure of the righteousness of Christ, “which never waxes old, wears out, or decays.”

Where the English smooths the original

• וְיָדַעְתָּ֖ עִם־ לְבָבֶ֑ךָ BSB's “know in your heart” softens a peculiar Hebrew idiom. wəyāḏaʻtā ʻim-ləḇāḇeḵā reads “know with your heart” (ʻim, H5973). Cambridge: “Lit. know with thy heart; cp. ‘conscire sibi’” — a knowing that is co-witness with the conscience, deeper than mental assent.
• מְיַסְּרֶֽךָּ “disciplines” is good, but the Hebrew yâçar (H3256) is richer than punishment. Pulpit: “The idea is not so much that of punishment or chastisement… as that of severe discipline and training.” The Greek of the LXX is paideuein — to educate; Keil & Delitzsch: “It includes everything belonging to a proper education.”
• כַּאֲשֶׁ֨ר אִישׁ֙... יְיַסֵּ֥ר בְּנ֔וֹ The simile is exact and tender: “just as a man (ʼîš) disciplines his son.” This is the verse Deuteronomy stakes its theology of suffering on. Cambridge calls it “remarkable” that Deut explains adversity “not of His hostility, but of His fatherly providence,” anticipating “the more developed doctrine… of the N.T.”

Where the English smooths the original

• וְשָׁ֣מַרְתָּ֔ “Therefore you shall keep” supplies the “therefore”; the Hebrew is simply wəšāmartā (H8104), “and you shall keep” — the same guarding verb (shâmar) that opened v.1, drawn out as the conclusion of the whole discipline. Cambridge notes the “for” of v.7 “follows more naturally on Deuteronomy 8:6 than on Deuteronomy 8:5.”
• לָלֶ֥כֶת בִּדְרָכָ֖יו “walking in His ways” is an infinitive of purpose — lā·leḵeṯ biḏrāḵāw, “to walk in His ways.” The metaphor of the road (derek, H1870) governs Deuteronomy's ethics: obedience is not static rule-keeping but a way one travels. Keil & Delitzsch: the design of the discipline “was to train them to keep His commandments, that they might walk in His ways and fear Him.”
• וּלְיִרְאָ֥ה אֹתֽוֹ “fearing Him” closes the verse on yir·ʼāh (H3372, yârêʼ) — reverent fear, awe. Gill describes it as “an awe of his majesty, a fear of offending him, and a reverential affection for him, such as children have to a father” — the fear proper to the son just named in v.5.

Where the English smooths the original

• מְבִֽיאֲךָ֖ “is bringing” is right, but the participle məḇî·ʼăḵā (H935, Hiphil of bôwʼ) is vividly imminent — “is about to bring you.” Cambridge: “is about to bring thee.” The good land stands just over Jordan; the verb keeps it on the threshold.
• וּתְהֹמֹ֔ת BSB's “springs” for ū·ṯəhōmōṯ (H8415, tehôm) undersells a freighted word. The same word as the “deep” over which the Spirit hovered in Genesis 1:2 — so Keil & Delitzsch read it: “floods (תּהומות, see Genesis 1:2).” These are the great subterranean deeps bursting up as full rivers.
• בַּבִּקְעָ֖ה וּבָהָֽר “through the valleys and hills” pluralizes and smooths a pointed Hebrew singular: bab·biqʻāh ū·ḇāhār — literally “in the valley and in the mountain.” The springs gush singly, at the foot of the limestone hills.

Where the English smooths the original

• זֵ֥ית שֶׁ֖מֶן BSB's “olive oil” inverts the Hebrew construct zêṯ šemen (H2132 + H8081) — literally “the olive of oil,” the oil-bearing olive tree. Poole: “Heb. of the olive tree of oil, i.e. not of wild and barren, but of fruitful olive trees.” Cambridge: “the cultivated and grafted, as distinguished from the wild, olive.”
• וּדְבָֽשׁ “honey” (ū·ḏəḇāš, H1706) is not necessarily bee-honey. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown: the word “is used often in a loose… sense… to signify a syrup of dates or of grapes, which under the name of dibs is much used.” The English single word hides a real ambiguity.
• אֶ֤רֶץ... אֶֽרֶץ The verse is built on the repeated drumbeat ʼereṣ… ʼereṣ — “a land… a land.” The sevenfold catalog of produce is the deliberate antithesis to the wilderness; the doubled “a land” marks the two clusters, grains and fruits.

Where the English smooths the original

• בְמִסְכֵּנֻת֙ “without scarcity” renders a rare Hebrew noun, ḇə·mis·kênuṯ (H4544), found only here. Cambridge: “The noun is found only here.” Scarcity of bread was the defining curse of the desert nomad; the land's promise is precisely the lifting of that singular dread.
• נְחֹֽשֶׁת BSB's “copper” corrects the older “brass,” and rightly. Barnes: “For brass read copper.” Jamieson, Fausset & Brown: “not the alloy brass, but the ore of copper.” nəḥōšeṯ (H5178) is the native metal; “brass” (a zinc alloy unknown in the period) is an anachronism the Hebrew never carried.
• תַּחְצֹ֥ב “are ready to be mined” paraphrases a plain active verb, taḥṣōḇ (H2672, châtsab) — “you shall hew / dig out.” The land does not merely contain ore; the Israelite is pictured cutting it from the hills with his own hand.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ BSB's “When you eat and are satisfied, you are to bless” turns a chain of three coordinate Hebrew perfects into a subordinate clause. The Hebrew is a flat triad: “and you shall eat, and you shall be satisfied, and you shall bless” (wəʼāḵaltā… wəśāḇāʻtā… ū·ḇêraḵtā). Gratitude is the third equal act, not a mere consequence.
• וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ “bless” (ū·ḇêraḵtā, H1288, bârak) is the verb whose root means “to kneel.” To bless God is to bend before Him in thanks. Geneva sharpens the stakes: “To receive God's benefits and not be thankful, is to despise God in them.” This is the proof-text Judaism took for grace after meals (so Ellicott, Cambridge).
• וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ “are satisfied” (wəśāḇāʻtā, H7646, sâbaʻ) means to be sated, full to plenty. The same fullness becomes the danger in vv.12–14: satisfaction is the soil of either thanksgiving or forgetfulness. The verse sits exactly on that knife-edge.

Where the English smooths the original

• הִשָּׁ֣מֶר לְךָ֔ BSB's “Be careful” renders hiš·šāmer ləḵā — “guard yourself” — built on the same root shâmar (H8104) as “keep the commandments.” The irony is exact: the only thing that keeps you from failing to keep the law is to keep watch over yourself. The reflexive “to yourself” (ləḵā) is dropped in English.
• פֶּן־ תִּשְׁכַּ֖ח “not to forget” renders pen-tiškaḥ (H6435 + H7911) — “lest you forget.” shâkach is the negative pole of the whole chapter, the exact opposite of v.2's “remember” (zâkar). Gill: “Plenty is apt to induce a forgetfulness of God.” Forgetting here is not a memory lapse but a turning of the heart.
• מִצְוֺתָיו֙ וּמִשְׁפָּטָ֣יו וְחֻקֹּתָ֔יו BSB's “commandments and ordinances and statutes” renders the full Deuteronomic triad miṣwōṯāw / mišpāṭāw / ḥuqqōṯāw — commandments, judgments, statutes. To forget the LORD is to stop keeping this whole body of law; the threefold name signals the entire covenant order is at stake.

Where the English smooths the original

• פֶּן־ BSB opens v.12 with “Otherwise,” but the Hebrew pen (H6435) is the “lest” that governs the whole long sentence from v.11 — these verses are not a fresh thought but successive dangers hung on one warning. Ellicott traces the syntax: “Take heed… lest thou forget Jehovah… lest thou eat and be satisfied (while thou buildest, &c.).”
• וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ “are satisfied” repeats v.10's wəśāḇāʻtā (H7646) — and the repetition is the whole point. The same fullness that should produce blessing (v.10) here threatens to produce forgetting. The Hebrew deliberately echoes the earlier verse to show how thin the line is.
• בָתִּ֥ים... וְיָשָֽׁבְתָּ “fine houses in which to dwell” renders bāttîm… wəyāšāḇtā — built houses, and you settle / sit down (yâshab, H3427) in them. Gill sets the contrast: a people “who for forty years had only dwelt in tents.” The settled house, after the moving tent, is itself the test of memory.

Where the English smooths the original

• יִרְבְּיֻ֔ן... יִרְבֶּה־... יִרְבֶּֽה BSB's “grow large… increase… is multiplied” conceals that all three verbs are the same Hebrew root, râbâh (H7235), hammered three times: herds rāḇāh, silver and gold rāḇāh, all you have rāḇāh. The threefold repetition piles up the swelling abundance — and it is the very same verb God used in v.1 of His promise that Israel would “multiply.” The blessing and the snare share one word.
• וְכֶ֥סֶף וְזָהָ֖ב “silver and gold” (wəḵesep̄ wəzāhāḇ, H3701 + H2091) names the portable, hoardable wealth. Cambridge observes how unlike the nomad this is: what such metals “the Beduin possess is nearly always in the form of ornaments… coins are seldom seen with them.” Accumulated treasure is itself a mark of the settled prosperity that tests the heart.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְרָ֖ם לְבָבֶ֑ךָ BSB's “your heart will become proud” names the feeling; the Hebrew wərām ləḇāḇeḵā (H7311, rûm) is a posture — your heart will be “lifted high / exalted.” Poole reads the lifting as a theft of credit: “as if thou didst receive and enjoy these things either by thy own wisdom, and valour, and industry.” Pride is the heart climbing onto God's throne.
• וְשָֽׁכַחְתָּ֙ “you will forget” (wəšāḵaḥtā, H7911, shâkach) is the same forgetting warned of in v.11, now stated as the outcome of pride. The chain is exact: fullness → a lifted heart → forgetting God. Geneva names the mechanism: forgetting “by attributing God's benefits to your own wisdom and labour, or to good fortune.”
• מִבֵּ֥ית עֲבָדִֽים “the house of slavery” renders mib·bêṯ ʻăḇāḏîm — literally “the house of slaves” (H1004 + H5650). The plural concrete noun (“slaves,” not abstract “slavery”) keeps Egypt vivid as the place where Israel were bondmen; to forget God is to forget one was a slave He freed.

Where the English smooths the original

• שָׂרָף֙ נָחָ֤שׁ BSB's “venomous snakes” renders śārāp̄ nāḥāš (H8314 + H5175) — literally “fiery serpent” (a burning serpent), the same pair as the bronze-serpent plague of Numbers 21:6. Cambridge: “If saraph really means burning… it refers to the inflammation produced by the serpent's bite.” These are not generic snakes but the named terror of the wilderness narrative.
• מִצּ֖וּר הַֽחַלָּמִֽישׁ “the rock of flint” renders miṣ·ṣūr ha·ḥal·lāmîš (H6697 + H2496). Ellicott notes challâmîš is the flint proper, the very hardest stone — found in only five verses, one of them (Psalm 114:8) “an allusion to this passage.” That God draws water from flint, not soft rock, is the miracle's whole edge.
• וְצִמָּא֖וֹן אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֵֽין־ מָ֑יִם “a thirsty and waterless land” renders wəṣim·māʼōwn ʼăšer ʼên-māyim — “a thirsty-ground (H6774, a rare word, 3 verses) where there is no water.” The terms are piled in raw apposition, as Keil & Delitzsch note: “attached rhetorically… by simple apposition, without any logically connecting particle.”

Where the English smooths the original

• לְמַ֣עַן עַנֹּֽתְךָ֗ וּלְמַ֙עַן֙ נַסֹּתֶ֔ךָ BSB's “in order to humble you and test you” renders the doubled purpose-clause ləma·ʻan ʻan·nōṯəḵā ū·ləma·ʻan nas·sōṯeḵā — the exact pair of verbs from v.2 (ʻânâh, nâçâh), deliberately repeated. The chapter folds back on itself: the manna's purpose was always to humble and to prove.
• בְּאַחֲרִיתֶֽךָ BSB's “in the end” for bə·ʼaḥărîṯeḵā (H319) is fair, but the older “thy latter end” misleads. Cambridge: “Misleading translation. Lit. thine afterness, thy later years. There is nothing eschatological in the phrase.” It means the time after the testing — life in the land — not the hour of death.
• לְהֵיטִֽבְךָ֖ “cause you to prosper” renders ləhêṭiḇḵā (H3190, yâṭab) — “to do you good.” Keil & Delitzsch: this was “the ultimate intention of all the humiliation and trial.” The whole severe pedagogy bends toward a single gracious end: Israel's good.

Where the English smooths the original

• כֹּחִי֙ וְעֹ֣צֶם יָדִ֔י BSB's “The power and strength of my hands” renders kōḥî wəʻōṣem yāḏî — “my power and the might of my hand.” The Hebrew piles two strength-words, kōaḥ (H3581) and ʻōṣem (H6108, a rare word, 3 verses), and a singular “hand.” The boast is doubly emphatic and wholly first-person — the precise inversion of v.18's “He gives you the power.”
• וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ “You might say in your heart” renders wəʼāmartā bil·ḇāḇeḵā — said in the heart, not aloud. Cambridge: “whether or not thou sayest this expressly with thy lips, thou feelest and practically behavest as if thine own power and might had gotten thee this wealth.” The sin is an inward posture before it is ever a spoken claim.
• הַחַ֥יִל “wealth” for ha·ḥayil (H2428) catches only part of the word, which means force, strength, ability — and so also the wealth such force produces. The same word (ḥayil) returns in v.18 as the thing God gives power to make; the boaster claims as self-made the very ḥayil God grants.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְזָֽכַרְתָּ֙ The verse opens on wəzāḵartā (H2142) — “and you shall remember” — the exact verb that opened v.2 and the antidote to the boast of v.17. The structure is deliberate: not “my power” (v.17) but “remember… He gives the power” (v.18). Memory of the Giver dethrones the self.
• כֹּ֖חַ לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת חָ֑יִל BSB's “the power to gain wealth” renders kōaḥ la·ʻăśōwṯ ḥāyil — “power to make (ʻâsâh) wealth (ḥayil).” The two key words of v.17's boast — kōaḥ and ḥayil — are taken up and reassigned: the power is real, the wealth is real, but God gives the power. Gill: “it is the blessing of God that makes rich.”
• הָקִ֧ים אֶת־ בְּרִית֛וֹ “to confirm His covenant” renders hāqîm ʼeṯ-bərîṯōw (H6965 + H1285) — “to establish / raise up His covenant.” The wealth is not an end but a means: God prospers Israel to keep His sworn word to the fathers. Geneva draws the greater inference: “If things concerning this life proceed only from God's mercy, how much more do spiritual gifts and everlasting life.”

Where the English smooths the original

• שָׁכֹ֤חַ תִּשְׁכַּח֙ BSB's “If you ever forget” renders a Hebrew infinitive-absolute construction, šāḵōaḥ tiškaḥ (H7911 doubled) — “if forgetting you forget,” i.e., “if you utterly / surely forget.” The doubled verb intensifies; this is no momentary lapse but a settled abandonment of God, the climax of the “forget” thread (vv.11, 14).
• הַעִדֹ֤תִי בָכֶם֙ “I testify against you” renders haʻiḏōṯî ḇāḵem (H5749, ʻûwd) — a legal, witness-bearing verb. Geneva glosses the formula: “Or take to witness the heaven and the earth, as in De 4:26.” Moses summons creation itself as witness; the warning has courtroom force. Note too the shift to plural “you” (ḇāḵem), which Cambridge reads as marking these closing verses.
• אָבֹ֖ד תֹּאבֵדֽוּן “you will surely perish” renders another emphatic infinitive-absolute, ʼāḇōḏ tōḇêḏūn (H6 doubled) — “perishing you shall perish.” The same doubled form as “forget”: utter forgetting answered by utter perishing. The verb ʼâbad also describes the nations “destroyed before you” in v.20 — Israel is warned it will share their fate.

Where the English smooths the original

• מַאֲבִ֣יד BSB's past “has destroyed” renders a Hebrew participle, ma·ʼăḇîḏ (H6, Hiphil) — God “is destroying,” ongoing, before their eyes. Cambridge: “is about to, etc. Here the writer is true to the standpoint of the speaker.” The Canaanite judgment is in progress as Moses speaks, a present object-lesson, not a closed fact.
• תֹאבֵד֑וּן “so you will perish” repeats v.19's verb ʼâbad (H6) — the same fate as the nations God “destroys” (also ʼâbad). The wordplay is the verse's whole argument: Israel and the nations are measured by one standard; share their sin, share their ruin.
• עֵ֚קֶב לֹ֣א תִשְׁמְע֔וּן בְּק֖וֹל “if you do not obey” renders ʻêqeḇ lōʼ ṯišməʻūn bəqōwl — literally “as a consequence (ʻêqeb, lit. ‘a heel,’ hence ‘what follows’) you would not hearken to the voice.” To “obey” is to listen to the voice (shâmaʻ bəqôl); Gill ties this to “the voice of the Lord.” Disobedience is, at root, refusing to hear.