complete verse (Deuteronomy 30:11)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 30:11:

  • Kupsabiny: “This law that I am giving you is not very hard and it it is not too hard for you to keep (it).” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “The command I am giving you now is neither difficult for you nor is it far away.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘These commands that I am giving you (plur.) today is not difficult to understand and perform/do.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “The commands that I am giving to you today are not very difficult for you to obey, and they are not difficult to know.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11

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 .