Keluaran 13:5

13:5 When ¹  the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, ²  then you will keep ³  this ceremony ⁴  in this month.

Keluaran 33:3

33:3 Go up ⁵  to a land flowing with milk and honey. But ⁶  I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you ⁷  on the way.”

Imamat 20:24

20:24 So I have said to you: You yourselves will possess their land and I myself will give it to you for a possession, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has set you apart from the other peoples. ⁸ 

Bilangan 13:27

13:27 They told Moses, ⁹  “We went to the land where you sent us. ¹⁰  It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, ¹¹  and this is its fruit.

Bilangan 14:8

14:8 If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us – a land that is flowing with milk and honey. ¹² 

Ulangan 6:3

6:3 Pay attention, Israel, and be careful to do this so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in number ¹³  – as the Lord, God of your ancestors, ¹⁴  said to you, you will have a land flowing with milk and honey.

Ulangan 11:9

11:9 and that you may enjoy long life in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors ¹⁵  and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Ulangan 26:9

26:9 Then he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Ulangan 26:15

26:15 Look down from your holy dwelling place in heaven and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us, just as you promised our ancestors – a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Ulangan 27:3

27:3 Then you must inscribe on them all the words of this law when you cross over, so that you may enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ¹⁶  said to you.

Ulangan 31:20

31:20 For after I have brought them ¹⁷  to the land I promised to their ¹⁸  ancestors – one flowing with milk and honey – and they ¹⁹  eat their fill ²⁰  and become fat, then they ²¹  will turn to other gods and worship them; they will reject me and break my covenant.

Ulangan 32:13-14

32:13 He enabled him ²²  to travel over the high terrain of the land,

and he ate of the produce of the fields.

He provided honey for him from the cliffs, ²³ 

and olive oil ²⁴  from the hardest of ²⁵  rocks, ²⁶ 

32:14 butter from the herd

and milk from the flock,

along with the fat of lambs,

rams and goats of Bashan,

along with the best of the kernels of wheat;

and from the juice of grapes you drank wine.

Yosua 5:6

5:6 Indeed, for forty years the Israelites traveled through the desert until all the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt, the ones who had disobeyed the Lord, died off. ²⁷  For the Lord had sworn a solemn oath to them that he would not let them see the land he had sworn on oath to give them, ²⁸  a land rich in ²⁹  milk and honey.

Yeremia 11:5

11:5 Then I will keep the promise I swore on oath to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.” ³⁰  That is the very land that you still live in today.’” ³¹  And I responded, “Amen! Let it be so, ³²  Lord!”

Yeremia 32:22

32:22 You kept the promise that you swore on oath to their ancestors. ³³  You gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. ³⁴ 

[13:5]  ¹ tn Heb “and it will be when.”

[13:5]  ² tn See notes on Exod 3:8.

[13:5]  ³ tn The verb is וְעָבַדְתָּ (vÿ’avadta), the Qal perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive. It is the equivalent of the imperfect tense of instruction or injunction; it forms the main point after the temporal clause – “when Yahweh brings you out…then you will serve.”

[13:5]  ⁴ tn The object is a cognate accusative for emphasis on the meaning of the service – “you will serve this service.” W. C. Kaiser notes how this noun was translated “slavery” and “work” in the book, but “service” or “ceremony” for Yahweh. Israel was saved from slavery to Egypt into service for God as remembered by this ceremony (“Exodus,” EBC 2:383).

[33:3]  ⁵ tn This verse seems to be a continuation of the command to “go up” since it begins with “to a land….” The intervening clauses are therefore parenthetical or relative. But the translation is made simpler by supplying the verb.

[33:3]  ⁶ tn This is a strong adversative here, “but.”

[33:3]  ⁷ tn The clause is “lest I consume you.” It would go with the decision not to accompany them: “I will not go up with you…lest I consume (destroy) you in the way.” The verse is saying that because of the people’s bent to rebellion, Yahweh would not remain in their midst as he had formerly said he would do. Their lives would be at risk if he did.

[20:24]  ⁸ tc Here and with the same phrase in v. 26, the LXX adds “all,” resulting in the reading “all the peoples.”

[13:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “told him and said.” The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:27]  ¹⁰ tn The relative clause modifies “the land.” It is constructed with the relative and the verb: “where you sent us.”

[13:27]  ¹¹ sn This is the common expression for the material abundance of the land (see further, F. C. Fensham, “An Ancient Tradition of the Fertility of Palestine,” PEQ 98 [1966]: 166-67).

[14:8]  ¹² tn The subjective genitives “milk and honey” are symbols of the wealth of the land, second only to bread. Milk was a sign of such abundance (Gen 49:12; Isa 7:21,22). Because of the climate the milk would thicken quickly and become curds, eaten with bread or turned into butter. The honey mentioned here is the wild honey (see Deut 32:13; Judg 14:8-9). It signified sweetness, or the finer things of life (Ezek 3:3).

[6:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “may multiply greatly” (so NASB, NRSV); the words “in number” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 10, 18, 23).

[11:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 21).

[27:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fathers.”

[31:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:20]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “their.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:20]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:20]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and are satisfied.”

[31:20]  ²¹ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[32:13]  ²² tn The form of the suffix on this verbal form indicates that the verb is a preterite, not an imperfect. As such it simply states the action factually. Note as well the preterites with vav (ו) consecutive that follow in the verse.

[32:13]  ²³ tn Heb “he made him suck honey from the rock.”

[32:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “oil,” but this probably refers to olive oil; see note on the word “rock” at the end of this verse.

[32:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “flinty.”

[32:13]  ²⁶ sn Olive oil from rock probably suggests olive trees growing on rocky ledges and yet doing so productively. See E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC), 415; cf. TEV “their olive trees flourished in stony ground.”

[5:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “all the nation, the men of war who went out from Egypt, who did not listen to the voice of the Lord, came to an end.”

[5:6]  ²⁸ tn Some Hebrew mss, as well as the Syriac version, support this reading. Most ancient witnesses read “us.”

[5:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “flowing with.”

[5:6]  sn The word picture a land rich in milk and honey depicts the land as containing many grazing areas (which would produce milk) and flowering plants (which would support the bees that produced honey).

[11:5]  ³⁰ tn The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” is very familiar to readers in the Jewish and Christian traditions as a proverbial description of the agricultural and pastoral abundance of the land of Israel. However, it may not mean too much to readers outside those traditions; an equivalent expression would be “a land of fertile fields and fine pastures.” E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 626) identifies this as a figure of speech called synecdoche where the species is put for the genus, “a region…abounding with pasture and fruits of all kinds.”

[11:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as at this day.” However, the literal reading is too elliptical and would lead to confusion.

[11:5]  ³² tn The words “Let it be so” are not in the text; they are an explanation of the significance of the term “Amen” for those who may not be part of the Christian or Jewish tradition.

[11:5]  sn The word amen is found at the end of each of the curses in Deut 27 where the people express their agreement with the appropriateness of the curse for the offense mentioned.

[32:22]  ³³ tn Heb “fathers.”

[32:22]  ³⁴ tn For an alternative translation of the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” see the translator’s note on 11:5.