1“And you shall love YHWH, your God, and keep His charge and His laws and His judgments and His commandments every day.
2And you shall know today that it’s not with your children, who didn’t know and who didn’t see the discipline of YHWH, your God, His greatness and His strong hand and His outstretched arm
3and His signs and His deeds that He did in Egypt to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to all his land,
4and what He did to Egypt’s army and to his horses and his chariots, that He flowed the waters of the Red Sea over their faces when they pursued you so YHWH 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 to Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, that the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households and their tents and all the substance that was at their feet among the children of Israel—
7but it’s your eyes, that saw every great deed of YHWH’s that He did.
8And you shall observe all of the commandment that I command you today so that you’ll be strong and you’ll come and take possession of the land that you’re crossing there to take possession of it,
9and so that you’ll extend days on the land that YHWH swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10“Because the land to which you’re coming to take possession of it: it’s not like the land of Egypt from which you’ve come out, where you plant your seed and water it at your feet like a garden of plants.
11:10. water it at your feet like a garden. Because the Nile’s water is commonly present, the human’s role is simply to get it to the plants, by conveying or irrigation. But in Israel much of the land is dependent on rain as its source of water; it “drinks water by the skies’ showers” (11:11). And so one feels more dependent on God. But, Moses assures the people, God “cares about” the land, and God’s “eyes are always on it” (11:12).
11But the land to which you’re crossing to take possession of it is a land of hills and valleys. It drinks water by the skies’ showers.
12A land that YHWH, your God, cares about; YHWH’s eyes are always on it, from the year’s beginning to year’s end.
13So it will be, if you’ll listen to my commandments that I command you today, to love YHWH, your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14then I’ll give your land’s showers at their time, early rain and late rain, and you’ll gather your grain and your wine and your oil.
11:14. I’ll give. The subject of “I’ll give” must be God, and so Moses has apparently shifted in the middle of his discussion and is now quoting God when until now he has been speaking in his own name and referring to God in third person. It may convey a kind of intimacy in which Moses is now so close to the deity and so used to speaking in God’s name and declaring the commandments that he moves into the divine first-person mode with ease.
15And I’ll give vegetation in your field for your animals, and you’ll eat and be full.
11:14,15. I’ll give. The subject of “I’ll give” must be God, and so Moses has apparently shifted in the middle of his discussion and is now quoting God when until now he has been speaking in his own name and referring to God in third person. It may convey a kind of intimacy in which Moses is now so close to the deity and so used to speaking in God’s name and declaring the commandments that he moves into the divine first-person mode with ease.
16“Watch yourselves in case your heart will be deceived so you’ll turn and serve other gods and bow to them,
17and YHWH’s anger will flare at you, and He’ll hold back the skies, and there won’t be showers, and the earth won’t give its crop, and you’ll perish quickly from the good land that YHWH is giving you.
18So you shall set these words of mine on your heart and on your soul, and you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall become bands between your eyes,
19and you shall teach them to your children, to speak about them when you sit in your house and when you go in the road and when you lie down and when you get up,
20and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and in your gates,
21so that your days and your children’s days will be many on the land that YHWH swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the skies over the earth.
22Because, if you will observe all of this commandment that I command you, to do it, to love YHWH, your God, to go in all His ways and to cling to Him,
23then YHWH will dispossess all these nations in front of you, and you’ll dispossess bigger and more powerful nations than you.
24Every place in which your foot will step shall be yours, from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River, to the far sea shall be your border.
11:24. foot. Hebrew kap regel is often taken to mean “the sole of the foot,” but that is not correct. regel refers to the leg in hebrew (although we often translate it as “foot” in English because of the conventions of usage of the two words “leg” and “foot” in English), and kap regel refers to the portion of the leg from the ankle down, i.e., the foot. See Ezek 1:7, which says: “Their kap regel was like the kap regel of a calf”—which must mean the appearance of a foot and not of the sole of a foot.
The same goes for kap y
d, which is often taken to mean “the palm of the hand,” but which means the portion of the yd (“forearm,” although, again, we often translate it as “hand” because of English usage) from the wrist down, i.e., the hand. See 2 Kings 9:35, where dogs have eaten Jezebel’s body, and nothing can be found but her skull, legs, and kappôt hayydyîm—which must mean “hands” and not “palms.” (See also the comment on Deut 4:34.)
11:24. the far sea. The Mediterranean Sea.
25Not a man will stand up in front of you. YHWH, your God, will put awe of you and fear of you on the face of all the land on which you’ll step, as He spoke to you.
SEE
26“See: I’m putting in front of you today a blessing and a curse:
27the blessing when you’ll listen to the commandments of YHWH, your God, that I command you today,
28and the curse if you won’t listen to the commandments of YHWH, your God, and you’ll turn from the way that I command you today, to go after other gods, whom you haven’t known.
29And it shall be, when YHWH, your God, will bring you to the land to which you’re coming to take possession of it, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.
30Aren’t they across the Jordan, beyond the way of the sun’s setting, in the land of the Canaanite who lives in the plain, opposite Gilgal, near the oaks of Moreh?
11:30. oaks of Moreh. The first place to which Abraham comes when he moves to Canaan is the oak of Moreh (Gen 12:6). There YHWH is said to appear to him for the first time (which is also the first time that God is said to have appeared to anyone in the Bible). There YHWH says for the first time that He will give the land to Abraham’s descendants. And there Abraham builds the first altar to YHWH in Canaan. Now the oaks (or oak; the Septuagint has the singular) of Moreh are mentioned just before a statement that those descendants are now about “to come to take possession of the land.” It is thus another signal that the merit of the ancestors is a source of protection and well-being for Israel many generations later. In this case, because Abraham listened to God’s first command and left his home for a new land, his descendants now come to the land.
31Because you’re crossing the Jordan to come to take possession of the land that YHWH, your God, is giving you; and you shall take possession of it and live in it
32and be watchful to do all the laws and the judgments that I’m putting in front of you today.
