Ulangan 4:24-40
Konteks4:24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; he is a jealous God. 1
4:25 After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, 2 if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind 3 and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him, 4 4:26 I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you 5 today that you will surely and swiftly be removed 6 from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be 7 annihilated. 4:27 Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you 8 among the nations where the Lord will drive you. 4:28 There you will worship gods made by human hands – wood and stone that can neither see, hear, eat, nor smell. 4:29 But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul. 9 4:30 In your distress when all these things happen to you in the latter days, 10 if you return to the Lord your God and obey him 11 4:31 (for he 12 is a merciful God), he will not let you down 13 or destroy you, for he cannot 14 forget the covenant with your ancestors that he confirmed by oath to them.
4:32 Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind 15 on the earth, and ask 16 from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it. 4:33 Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it? 4:34 Or has God 17 ever before tried to deliver 18 a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, 19 signs, wonders, war, strength, power, 20 and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? 4:35 You have been taught that the Lord alone is God – there is no other besides him. 4:36 From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words. 21 4:37 Moreover, because he loved 22 your ancestors, he chose their 23 descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power 4:38 to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you and brought you here this day to give you their land as your property. 24 4:39 Today realize and carefully consider that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below – there is no other! 4:40 Keep his statutes and commandments that I am setting forth 25 today so that it may go well with you and your descendants and that you may enjoy longevity in the land that the Lord your God is about to give you as a permanent possession.
[4:24] 1 tn The juxtaposition of the Hebrew terms אֵשׁ (’esh, “fire”) and קַנָּא (qanna’, “jealous”) is interesting in light of Deut 6:15 where the
[4:25] 2 tn Heb “have grown old in the land,” i.e., been there for a long time.
[4:25] 3 tn Heb “a form of anything.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, TEV “an idol.”
[4:25] 4 tn The infinitive construct is understood here as indicating the result, not the intention, of their actions.
[4:26] 5 sn I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you. This stock formula introduces what is known form-critically as a רִיב (riv) or controversy pattern. It is commonly used in the ancient Near Eastern world in legal contexts and in the OT as a forensic or judicial device to draw attention to Israel’s violation of the
[4:26] 6 tn Or “be destroyed”; KJV “utterly perish”; NLT “will quickly disappear”; CEV “you won’t have long to live.”
[4:26] 7 tn Or “be completely” (so NCV, TEV). It is not certain here if the infinitive absolute indicates the certainty of the following action (cf. NIV) or its degree.
[4:27] 8 tn Heb “you will be left men (i.e., few) of number.”
[4:29] 9 tn Or “mind and being.” See Deut 6:5.
[4:30] 10 sn The phrase is not used here in a technical sense for the eschaton, but rather refers to a future time when Israel will be punished for its sin and experience exile. See Deut 31:29.
[4:30] 11 tn Heb “hear his voice.” The expression is an idiom meaning “obey,” occurring in Deut 8:20; 9:23; 13:18; 21:18, 20; 26:14, 17; 27:10; 28:1-2, 15, 45, 62; 30:2, 8, 10, 20.
[4:31] 12 tn Heb “the
[4:31] 13 tn Heb “he will not drop you,” i.e., “will not abandon you” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
[4:31] 14 tn Or “will not.” The translation understands the imperfect verbal form to have an added nuance of capability here.
[4:32] 15 tn The Hebrew term אָדָם (’adam) may refer either to Adam or, more likely, to “man” in the sense of the human race (“mankind,” “humankind”). The idea here seems more universal in scope than reference to Adam alone would suggest.
[4:32] 16 tn The verb is not present in the Hebrew text but has been supplied in the translation for clarification. The challenge has both temporal and geographical dimensions. The people are challenged to (1) inquire about the entire scope of past history and (2) conduct their investigation on a worldwide scale.
[4:34] 17 tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).
[4:34] 18 tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”
[4:34] 19 tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).
[4:34] 20 tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”
[4:36] 21 tn Heb “and his words you heard from the midst of the fire.”
[4:37] 22 tn The concept of love here is not primarily that of emotional affection but of commitment or devotion. This verse suggests that God chose Israel to be his special people because he loved the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and had promised to bless their descendants. See as well Deut 7:7-9.
[4:37] 23 tc The LXX, Smr, Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate read a third person masculine plural suffix for the MT’s 3rd person masculine singular, “his descendants.” Cf. Deut 10:15. Quite likely the MT should be emended in this instance.
[4:38] 24 tn Heb “(as) an inheritance,” that is, landed property that one can pass on to one’s descendants.
