Deuteronomy 30 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 30:3
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Deuteronomy 30
Personal Relationship with God
Promise of Restoration
Verse 30:1 Different
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:1 When all these things come upon you, the blessing and curse I set before you, and you bring them back to your heart among all the nations where YHWH your God has driven you,
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:1 When all these things come upon you, the blessing and curse I set before you, and you receive them into your heart among all the nations where the Lord scatters you,
Classification & Notes
[Different] Text: Hebrew describes recalling; Greek receiving into the heart. Greek lacks your God and uses scattering rather than driving away.
Verse 30:2 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:2 and you return to YHWH your God and obey Him in everything I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and all your soul,
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him in everything I command you today, with all your heart and all your soul,
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek lacks the explicit phrase you and your children. The omission is retained without supplying it to the Greek column. Greek nevertheless includes the offspring in the heart’s renewal (verse 6) and the promise of life (verse 19); it does not establish that children are excluded from the restored people.
Verse 30:3 Disparate
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:3 then YHWH your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you. He will gather you again from all the peoples among whom YHWH your God scattered you.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:3 then the Lord will heal your sins and have mercy on you. He will gather you again from all the nations among whom the Lord scattered you.
Classification & Notes
[Disparate] Text: Hebrew restoration of fortunes or captivity becomes Greek healing of sins. Greek also lacks both occurrences of your God. Regathering and mercy remain shared.
Verse 30:4 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:4 Even if your outcasts are at heaven’s end, YHWH your God will gather you from there and take you from there.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:4 Even if your dispersion stretches from one end of heaven to the other, the Lord your God will gather you from there, and the Lord your God will take you from there.
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek expands the range to both ends of heaven and repeats the full divine designation in the taking clause. Hebrew speaks of outcasts at the farthest end.
Verse 30:5 Similar
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:5 YHWH your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will possess it. He will do you good and multiply you beyond your fathers.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:5 The Lord your God will bring you into the land your fathers inherited, and you will inherit it. He will do you good and make you more numerous than your fathers.
Classification & Notes
[Similar] Text: Greek emphasizes inheritance; Hebrew possession. The restored land and increased population agree.
Verse 30:6 Different
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:6 YHWH your God will circumcise your heart and your offspring’s heart, so that you love YHWH your God with all your heart and all your soul and may live.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:6 The Lord will thoroughly cleanse your heart and your offspring’s heart, so that you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and may live.
Classification & Notes
[Different] Text: Hebrew uses circumcision for the heart’s transformation; Greek uses thorough cleansing and lacks your God in the opening designation. Both apply the transformation to the people and their offspring, with wholehearted love and life as its purpose. The metaphor changes without establishing a contrary ethical demand.
Rabbinic: Ramban links circumcision of the heart with a messianic transformation in which choosing the good becomes natural. This eschatological exposition remains in commentary. Ramban, Deut. 30:6
Verse 30:7 Similar
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:7 YHWH your God will put all these curses upon your enemies and those who hate and pursued you.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:7 The Lord your God will put these curses upon your enemies and those who hate and pursued you.
Classification & Notes
[Similar] Text: Greek lacks the separate all. The recipients agree.
Verse 30:8 Different
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:8 You will return, obey YHWH, and perform all His commands that I give you today.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:8 You will return, obey the Lord your God, and perform His commands that I give you today.
Classification & Notes
[Different] Text: Greek adds your God but lacks the separate all before commands.
Verse 30:9 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:9 YHWH your God will give you abundant good in all your handiwork, your womb’s fruit, your livestock’s fruit, and your ground’s fruit. YHWH will again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your fathers,
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:9 The Lord your God will care greatly for you in all your handiwork, your womb’s offspring, your land’s produce, and your livestock’s offspring. The Lord your God will again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your fathers,
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek πολυωρέω expresses great care or regard where Hebrew promises abundance. Greek also places land produce before livestock offspring, lacks the first for good and adds your God in the second designation. Both promise renewed divine favor and rejoicing; Greek’s care does not exclude the material restoration expressly promised in verse 5.
Verse 30:10 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:10 if you obey YHWH your God, keeping His commands and statutes written in this book of the law, if you return to YHWH your God with all your heart and all your soul.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:10 if you obey the Lord your God, keeping and performing all His commands, ordinances, and judgments written in this book of the law, if you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek adds performing, all, and judgments to the legal-observance clause.
The Accessibility of the Commandment
Verse 30:11 Different
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:11 For this command that I give you today is not beyond your ability or far away.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:11 For this command that I give you today is not excessively burdensome or far from you.
Classification & Notes
[Different] Text: Hebrew concerns what is extraordinary or beyond reach; Greek what is oversized or excessively burdensome. Both introduce the command’s accessibility.
Verse 30:12 Different
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:12 It is not in heaven, requiring you to say, Who will ascend to heaven for us, fetch it for us, and make us hear it so that we may perform it?
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:12 It is not in heaven above, requiring you to say, Who will ascend to heaven for us and fetch it for us? Then, having heard it, we shall perform it.
Classification & Notes
[Different] Text: Greek adds above and makes hearing our action rather than the messenger’s making us hear. The question’s printed punctuation differs accordingly.
Rabbinic: Rabbi Joshua invokes “not in heaven” during the oven dispute. The passage applies the verse to Torah adjudication; it does not rewrite its immediate exhortation. Bava Metzia 59b
Verse 30:13 Similar
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:13 Nor is it beyond the sea, requiring you to say, Who will cross beyond the sea for us, fetch it for us, and make us hear it so that we may perform it?
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:13 Nor is it beyond the sea, requiring you to say, Who will cross beyond the sea for us and fetch it for us? He will make it audible to us, and we shall perform it.
Classification & Notes
[Similar] Text: Both retain the messenger’s making the command heard in this verse. The Greek punctuation follows Rahlfs–Hanhart; the separate critical-edition note records the relevant Wevers revision.
Verse 30:14 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:14 The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, for you to perform it.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:14 The word is very near you, in your mouth, in your heart, and in your hands, for you to perform it.
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek adds in your hands to mouth and heart. The added bodily image makes action explicit, but both texts already end with performing the word. The addition does not establish that Hebrew requires only inward belief or speech.
Saints: Paul interprets the nearby word through faith in Christ and His resurrection. The sea becomes the abyss in his argument; G’s hands are not included in his cited wording.
The Choice Between Life and Death
Verse 30:15 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:15 Look, today I set before you life and good, death and evil.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:15 Look, today I set before you life and death, good and evil.
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek rearranges the paired terms. Neither omits any of the four.
Verse 30:16 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:16 I command you today to love YHWH your God, walk in His ways, and keep His commands, statutes, and judgments. You will live and multiply, and YHWH your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:16 If you obey the Lord your God’s commands that I give you today—to love the Lord your God, walk in all His ways, and keep His ordinances and judgments—you will live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you throughout the land you are entering to inherit.
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek supplies an explicit if-you-obey introduction absent from Hebrew’s compressed opening, relocates commands and adds all to ways and land. It shifts to plural address in the life-and-population promise. Both connect obedience with life, in contrast to the disobedience and destruction of verses 17–18; the added condition does not make Hebrew’s blessing unconditional.
Verse 30:17 Similar
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:17 But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, and you are drawn away to bow before other gods and serve them,
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:17 But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, and you are led astray to bow before other gods and worship them,
Classification & Notes
[Similar] Text: Both describe the same disloyal worship. Greek explicitly uses a wandering or deception verb.
Verse 30:18 Divergent
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:18 I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not live long on the ground you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:18 I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not live long on the land the Lord your God is giving you, which you are crossing the Jordan to inherit.
Classification & Notes
[Divergent] Text: Greek adds the land-gift clause naming the Lord your God. Both retain emphatic destruction and loss of lengthy residence.
Verse 30:19 Similar
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Choose life, so that you and your offspring may live,
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Choose life, so that you and your offspring may live,
Classification & Notes
[Similar] Text: The content agrees. Hebrew shifts from plural witness-address to singular before you earlier than Greek, which remains plural until choose.
Verse 30:20 Different
Hebrew–English Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
30:20 loving YHWH your God, obeying Him, and holding fast to Him. For He is your life and your length of days, enabling you to dwell on the ground YHWH swore to give your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Greek–English Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
30:20 loving the Lord your God, obeying Him, and holding fast to Him. For this is your life and your length of days, enabling you to dwell on the land the Lord swore to give your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Classification & Notes
[Different] Text: Hebrew הוּא is rendered He, referring to God, but also permits an it construal. Greek τοῦτο is neuter this, naturally referring to the preceding devotion. The grammatical distinction is retained without treating an ambiguous Hebrew pronoun as proof of an opposed theology. Both exhort love, obedience and attachment to God; neither explicitly names Christ here.