This verse describes the extent of the territory that God tells the Israelites they are to conquer and possess. It includes practically all of modern day Israel, Lebanon, and Syria (see God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 15.18).

Turn and take your journey, and go: New Revised Standard Version is clearer in English, with “Resume your journey, and go” (see also Good News Translation); New International Version has “Break camp, and advance into.” It is not necessary to have three verbs, as though every verb carries a distinct, separate meaning. The first two verbs “turn and start out” go together: “start marching again,” “resume your journey.”

The hill country of the Amorites: here the phrase may have the broader meaning of all the land of Canaan (as in verse 19), and not just a particular region, even though in verse 4 “the Amorites” are people living on the east side of the Jordan. (See also that verse for a comment on Amorites.)

Instead of following Revised Standard Version all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country…, it is better to imitate Good News Translation, “and to all the surrounding regions—to the…” (also New Revised Standard Version “as well as into the neighboring regions—the Arabah…”). Another possible model for the first part of this verse is “Break camp [or, Pack up your tents] and resume your journey. Go into the land that belongs to the Amorites and their neighbors. This includes:….”

The Arabah: see verse 1.

The hill country and … the lowland: or “the hill country and the Shephelah” (New Revised Standard Version; also Revised English Bible). The Shefelah was the low hill country between the mountains of Judah and the plain of Philistia. Another way to express hill country is “an area with many hills.”

The Negeb was the wilderness between the southern hill country and the desert to the south. For a comment on the translation of wilderness, see verse 1.

And by the seacoast: New Revised Standard Version is more natural in English, “and the seacoast”; also Good News Translation, “the Mediterranean coast.” This was the plain along the coast. So we may express by the seacoast as “the flat area along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.”

The land of the Canaanites: or in more natural English, “the land of Canaan.” This phrase may mean the whole country, in which case this is a summary statement, as Revised English Bible translates: “… and on the coast; in short, all Canaan and the Lebanon….” But the phrase may also be used in a more restricted sense to mean Phoenicia, on the coast (as in the New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh footnote). It seems better, however, to take it to mean the whole land of Canaan.

Lebanon: or “the Lebanon Mountains,” since at that time there was no country known as Lebanon.

The great river, the river Euphrates: the Euphrates is sometimes called simply “the River” (Josh 24.3, 14-15). Great here means “large” or “wide.” In some languages this phrase will be expressed as “the great [or, wide] river named Euphrates.”

It may help to give the directions for the Lebanon Mountains and the Euphrates, as follows: “as far north as the Lebanon Mountains, and as far east as the great Euphrates River” (see Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje).

The whole verse may be translated as follows:

• Get moving again, and advance into the land of the Amorites and all the nearby regions: the Jordan Valley, the hill country and the lowlands, the Negeb [or, the southern wilderness], and the Mediterranean coast. That is, move into the whole land of Canaan and the Lebanon Mountains, and advance as far as the mighty Euphrates River.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .