This commandment which I command you this day: Moses is speaking, and with the beginning of a new section, he should be reintroduced as the speaker. This commandment means all the laws and teachings that he has given that day (see verse 16, below; see also “all the commandment” in Moses’ second speech, at 5.31). So translators may express this as “These commandments” rather than “This commandment.”

Not too hard for you: not difficult to obey.

Neither is it far off: not hard to understand, since it is right there with them, and not in some distant land. That is what Good News Translation “is not … beyond your reach” intends to say. See Psa 139.6 for a similar use of the idiom.

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• Moses said to the people of Israel: “These commandments that I am giving you today are not too difficult to understand or obey.

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 .