Deuteronomy 11:8-12
New English Translation
The Abundance of the Land of Promise
8 Now pay attention to all the commandments[a] I am giving[b] you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed,[c] 9 and that you may enjoy long life in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors[d] and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land where you are headed[e] is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, a land where you planted seed and which you irrigated by hand[f] like a vegetable garden. 11 Instead, the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy[g] is one of hills and valleys, a land that drinks in water from the rains,[h] 12 a land the Lord your God looks after.[i] He is constantly attentive to it[j] from the beginning to the end of the year.[k]
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- Deuteronomy 11:8 tn Heb “the commandment.” The singular מִצְוָה (mitsvah, “commandment”) speaks here as elsewhere of the whole corpus of covenant stipulations in Deuteronomy (cf. 6:1, 25; 7:11; 8:1).
- Deuteronomy 11:8 tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in vv. 13, 27).
- Deuteronomy 11:8 tn Heb “which you are crossing over there to possess it.”
- Deuteronomy 11:9 tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 21).
- Deuteronomy 11:10 tn Heb “you are going there to possess it”; NASB “into which you are about to cross to possess it”; NRSV “that you are crossing over to occupy.”
- Deuteronomy 11:10 tn Heb “with your foot” (so NASB, NLT). There is a two-fold significance to this phrase. First, Egypt had no rain so water supply depended on human efforts at irrigation. Second, the Nile was the source of irrigation waters but those waters sometimes had to be pumped into fields and gardens by foot-power, perhaps the kind of machinery (Arabic shaduf) still used by Egyptian farmers (see C. Aldred, The Egyptians, 181). Nevertheless, the translation uses “by hand,” since that expression is the more common English idiom for an activity performed by manual labor.
- Deuteronomy 11:11 tn Heb “which you are crossing over there to possess it.”
- Deuteronomy 11:11 tn Heb “rain of heaven.”
- Deuteronomy 11:12 tn Heb “seeks.” The statement reflects the ancient belief that God (Baal in Canaanite thinking) directly controlled storms and rainfall.
- Deuteronomy 11:12 tn Heb “the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it” (so NIV); NASB, NRSV “always on it.” sn Constantly attentive to it. This attention to the land by the Lord is understandable in light of the centrality of the land in the Abrahamic covenant (cf. Gen 12:1, 7; 13:15; 15:7, 16, 18; 17:8; 26:3).
- Deuteronomy 11:12 sn From the beginning to the end of the year. This refers to the agricultural year that was marked by the onset of the heavy rains, thus the autumn. See note on the phrase “the former and the latter rains” in v. 14.
Deuteronomy 11:8-12
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 “Keep, then, the entire commandment that I am commanding you today, so that you may have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy(A) 9 and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.(B) 10 For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden. 11 But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys watered by rain from the sky,(C) 12 a land that the Lord your God looks after. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
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