Ulangan 4:1

The Privileges of the Covenant

4:1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances ¹  I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ²  is giving you.

Nehemia 9:29

9:29 And you solemnly admonished them in order to return them to your law, but they behaved presumptuously and did not obey your commandments. They sinned against your ordinances – those by which an individual, if he obeys them, ³  will live. They boldly turned from you; ⁴  they rebelled ⁵  and did not obey.

Yesaya 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ⁶ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ⁷  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ⁸ 

Yehezkiel 18:9

18:9 and follows my statutes and observes my regulations by carrying them out. ⁹  That man ¹⁰  is righteous; he will certainly live, ¹¹  declares the sovereign Lord.

[4:1]  ¹ tn These technical Hebrew terms (חֻקִּים [khuqqim] and מִשְׁפָּטִים [mishpatim]) occur repeatedly throughout the Book of Deuteronomy to describe the covenant stipulations to which Israel had been called to subscribe (see, in this chapter alone, vv. 1, 5, 6, 8). The word חֻקִּים derives from the verb חֹק (khoq, “to inscribe; to carve”) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim) from שָׁפַט (shafat, “to judge”). They are virtually synonymous and are used interchangeably in Deuteronomy.

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 31, 37).

[9:29]  ³ tn Heb “if a man keep.” See note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

[9:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “they gave a stubborn shoulder.”

[9:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “they stiffened their neck.”

[55:3]  ⁶ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  sn To live here refers to covenantal blessing, primarily material prosperity and national security (see vv. 4-5, 13, and Deut 30:6, 15, 19-20).

[55:3]  ⁷ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”

[18:9]  ⁹ tc The MT reads לַעֲשׂוֹת אֱמֶת (la’asot ’emet, “to do with integrity”), while the LXX reads “to do them,” presupposing לַעֲשׂוֹת אֹתָם (la’asot ’otam). The ם (mem) and ת (tav) have been reversed in the MT. The LXX refelcts the original, supported by similar phrasing in Ezekiel 11:20; 20:19.

[18:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he.”

[18:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “living, he will live.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.