Deuteronomy 30:8

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You shall return and obey the voice of Yahweh, and do all his commandments which I command you this day.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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מִצְוֺתָ֔יו

mitsvâh

H4687

“commandments · his”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 184× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 26:5

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H6680

TWOT: 1887b

commandment - commandment (of man) - the commandment (of God) - commandment (of code of wisdom)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

13: words
13: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
5 nouns
2 pronouns
2 particles

Verb forms

תָשׁ֔וּב Qal · Imperfect
וְשָׁמַעְתָּ֖ Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְעָשִׂ֨יתָ֙ Qal · Sequential Perfect
מְצַוְּךָ֖ Piel · Participle Active

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 20 words from the Hebrew and 26 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 13 Hebrew tokens and 21 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Deuteronomy 30:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Ezekiel 36:27 I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my ordinances, and do them.
Ephesians 2:16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.
Deuteronomy 30:2 and shall return to Yahweh your God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul;
Isaiah 1:25–26 And I will turn my hand on you, Thoroughly purge away your dross, And will take away all your tin.
Jeremiah 31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people:
Jeremiah 32:39–40 and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them:
Ezekiel 11:19–20 I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh;
Ezekiel 37:24 My servant David shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my ordinances, and observe my statutes, and do them.

Philippians 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.
Proverbs 16:1 The plans of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from Yahweh.
Romans 11:26–27 and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, "There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, And he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Deuteronomy 30:8 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְאַתָּ֣ה תָשׁ֔וּב וְשָׁמַעְתָּ֖ בְּק֣וֹל יְהוָ֑ה וְעָשִׂ֨יתָ֙ אֶת כָּל מִצְוֺתָ֔יו אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּֽוֹם

You shall return and obey the voice of Yahweh, and do all his commandments which I command you this day.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 30:8 Septuagint · lemma form

καί σύ ἐπιστρέφω καί εἰςἀκούω ὁ φωνή κύριος ὁ θεός σύ καί ποιέω ὁ ἐντολή αὐτός ὅσος ἐγώ ἐντέλλομαι σύ σήμερον

And you shall return and listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and shall keep his commands, all that I charge you this day.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְאַתְּ תְּתוּב וּתְקַבַּל לְמֵימְרָא דַיְיָ וְתַעְבֵּד יָת כָּל פִּקוּדוֹהִי דִי אֲנָא מְפַקְדָךְ יוֹמָא דֵין

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְאַתּוּן תְּתוּבוּן וּתְקַבְּלוּן לְמֵימְרָא דַיְיָ וְתַעַבְדוּן יַת כָּל פִּקוּדוֹי דַאֲנָא מְפַקֵיד לְכוֹן יוֹמָנָא

But you shall return, and be obedient to the Word of the Lord, and do all His commandments that I command you this day.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Deuteronomy 30:8 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Deu 30:8 And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.

Ver. 8. And thou shalt return.] Come again to thyself, as the prodigal, who had been for some while beside himself.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

Israel would then hearken again to the voice of the Lord and keep His commandments, and would rejoice in consequence in the richest blessing of its God. In the expression, ושׁמעתּ תשׁוּב אתּה ("thou shalt return and hearken"), תּשׁוּב ("thou shalt return") has an adverbial signification. This is evident from the corresponding expression in Deu 30:9, "for Jehovah will again rejoice over thee" (lit., "will return and rejoice"), in which the adverbial signification is placed beyond all doubt.

Deu 30:8-10 contain the general thought, that Israel would then come again into its normal relation to its God, would enter into true and perfect covenant fellowship with the Lord, and enjoy all the blessings of the covenant.

Deu 30:9

Deu 30:9 is a repetition of Deu 28:11. The Lord will rejoice again over Israel, to do them good (vid., Deu 28:63), as He had rejoiced over their fathers. The fathers are not the patriarchs alone, but all the pious ancestors of the people.

Deu 30:10

A renewed enforcement of the indispensable condition of salvation.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

If we will have God to work in us with his holy Spirit, we must turn again to him by repentance.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) And thou shalt return and . . . do all his commandments.—It is as certain as anything can be in this world that the laws of Deuteronomy have never been kept perfectly. The minute observances of the Talmudical system took the heart and spirit out of the law of Moses. Christians do not profess to obey any commandments but those which are called moral. If the Law itself is to be fulfilled, a restoration of Israel would seem to be necessary.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

8. But thou, thyself, shalt, etc.] The emphatic thou is necessary after the intrusion of the previous v.

return] If this be meant in a spiritual sense, the like does not elsewhere occur in Deut.; but is found in Isa_10:21; Isa_19:22, Jer_3:1; Jer_3:7; Jer_3:12; Jer_3:22; Jer_4:1; Jer_15:19; Jer_18:11 (=Jer_35:15), Jer_23:14, Jer_24:7, Jer_36:3, Eze_18:23, etc. For the rest of this verse see above Deu_15:5, Deu_28:1; Deu_28:15.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And thou shall return, and obey the voice of the Lord,.... In the Gospel; obey the form of doctrine delivered to them, embrace the truth of the Gospel cordially, and yield a cheerful subjection to the ordinances of it; or receive the Word of the Lord, as the Targum of Jonathan, Christ, the essential Word, by faith, as the Saviour and Redeemer, Mediator, Prophet, Priest, and King:

and do all his commandments which I command thee this day; the commandment nigh unto them, in their mouths and hearts, even the word of faith, the ministers of Christ preach, Deu 30:11; besides, all the moral precepts and commands of the law, which will then be in force, being eternal and invariable; which faith in Christ, and love to him, will influence and constrain them to observe.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 8, 9. Thou shalt return and obey; i.e. thou shalt again hearken (see ver. 9, where the same expression is thus rendered). These two verses are closely connected, the former expressing the condition on which the aspect expressed in the latter depends. They should be rendered accordingly, If thou shalt return... then the Lord thy God, etc.. (comp. Gen_42:38; Exo_4:23, where a similar construction occurs)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Deuteronomy, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 13 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mitsvâh (“commandment”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “commandment” (mitsvâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Ezekiel 36:27 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «תָשׁ֔וּב» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Keil & Delitzsch read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 21 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
13 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.