In verses 4-6 Moses makes a brief statement of the reason for this charge against the people of Israel.

The Rock: a title for God; the Septuagint, in all places where this title appears in this song (also verses 15, 18, 30), translates “God.” The main idea of the metaphor (as in Psa 18.2) is that of defense, protection. Bible en français courant has “The LORD is a protecting rock,” Contemporary English Version “The LORD is a mighty rock”; but in some languages it may not be satisfactory to use simply a word for “rock.” Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy translate the meaning of the metaphor: “He is our protector”; BÍBLIA para todos Edição Comum has “He is our refuge,” while Revised English Bible has “the Creator,” drawing from verse 18, where God is spoken of as Creator. Good News Translation has “your mighty defender,” using the second person plural pronoun as required by what is coming in verse 5. It is recommended that the meaning be expressed by “strong defender,” “mighty protector,” or the like.

His work is perfect … all his ways are justice: the first two lines of the verse have almost the same meaning; one refers to Yahweh’s actions, the other to his manner of doing things. Good News Translation has “perfect and just in all his ways.”

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity: these final two lines expand on what was said about God in line two. The first quality, faithfulness, describes God as someone who does what he says he will do, who keeps his promise: “a trustworthy God” (New Jerusalem Bible). We may also say “You can always trust what he promises,” or even “He always does what he promises to do.” The second quality, without iniquity, describes him as never doing anything wrong; in this context, however, it may be that New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “A faithful God, never false,” is closer to the meaning, the second term being the negative way of stating what the first one says. Another way to express this is “and never breaks his promises [or, words].”

Just and right: these are very close in meaning, with the sense of “true,” “upright,” “honest,” “fair.”

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 .