This verse speaks of the great reversal of fortune, when Yahweh will take his people back to Egypt as slaves.

Bring you back: “take you back” is better in English.

In ships to Egypt: a word that means “sailing ships” or “ships with sails” must be used. The phrase is strange, since people living in Canaan could travel to Egypt by land.

A journey which I promised that you should never make again: this promise is referred to also in 17.16, but the promise itself is not recorded. Here I promised refers to God, not to Moses; see Good News Translation “he said” and “I said” in the footnote as an alternative rendering.

You shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves: this is the ultimate degradation. The Israelites will ask the Egyptians to buy them as slaves, but no one will want them.

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 .