Ulangan 4:26-27

4:26 I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ¹  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ²  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ³  annihilated. 4:27 Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you ⁴  among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

Ulangan 28:36

28:36 The Lord will force you and your king ⁵  whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there.

Ulangan 28:64-68

28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. ⁶  28:67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Ulangan 29:28

29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

[4:26]  ¹ 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 Lord’s covenant with them (see Deut 30:19; Isa 1:2; 3:13; Jer 2:9). Since court proceedings required the testimony of witnesses, the Lord here summons heaven and earth (that is, all creation) to testify to his faithfulness, Israel’s disobedience, and the threat of judgment.

[4:26]  ² tn Or “be destroyed”; KJV “utterly perish”; NLT “will quickly disappear”; CEV “you won’t have long to live.”

[4:26]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “you will be left men (i.e., few) of number.”

[28:36]  ⁵ tc The LXX reads the plural “kings.”

[28:66]  ⁶ tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.