Ulangan 9:7-9

The History of Israel’s Stubbornness

9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget ¹  – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. ²  9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there ³  forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

Ulangan 9:18-19

9:18 Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him. 9:19 For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger ⁴  that threatened to destroy you. But he ⁵  listened to me this time as well.

¹ tn By juxtaposing the positive זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) with the negative אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (’al-tishÿkakh, “do not forget”), Moses makes a most emphatic plea.

² tn Heb “the Lord” (likewise in the following verse with both “him” and “he”). See note on “he” in 9:3.

³ tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁴ tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” Although many English versions translate as two terms, this construction is a hendiadys which serves to intensify the emotion (cf. NAB, TEV “fierce anger”).

⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.