Had I not feared provocation from the enemy: this verse explains why Yahweh did not destroy his people as he had considered doing. The provocation here, as the rest of the verse shows, would be the enemy’s boast that they, not Yahweh, had defeated the Israelites. So New International Version “but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy” is good, as is New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “… the taunts.” The expression feared, as Yahweh speaks about himself, should not be disregarded (as Good News Translation does). Provocation or “taunt” may also be expressed by something like “the sound of your enemies saying” (Contemporary English Version), or “… your enemies jeering at you, saying.”

Lest their adversaries should judge amiss: the two nouns enemy and adversaries mean exactly the same thing. Lest is rarely used in modern English; the meaning of the construction is that Israel’s enemies would not understand correctly what had happened; so New Revised Standard Version has “for their adversaries might misunderstand.” The first two lines may be combined as follows:

• But I was afraid that your enemies would misunderstand and boast,

Lest they should say: here Yahweh quotes what the enemies of Israel would have said if he had destroyed his people. It is not necessary in translation to keep direct speech, and indirect speech may be better: “and say [or, boast] that they had defeated my people, and not I, the LORD.” But the direct speech is more vivid.

Our hand is triumphant: that is, “we defeated them.”

The LORD has not wrought all this: it was not Yahweh who caused their total destruction—this is what Israel’s enemies would have said. Contemporary English Version has a good model for the final two lines:

• ‘We defeated Israel
with no help from the LORD.’

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 .