Yahweh didn’t make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh didn’t make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.
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The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.
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The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Deuteronomy 5:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 29:10-15 All of you stand today in the presence of Yahweh your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the foreigners who are in the middle of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water, that you may enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God, and into his oath, which Yahweh your God makes with you today, that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he spoke to you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Neither do I make this covenant and this oath with you only, but with those who stand here with us today before Yahweh our God, and also with those who are not here with us today
- Genesis 17:7 I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you.
- Genesis 17:21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this set time next year.”
- Psalms 105:8-10 He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, the covenant which he made with Abraham, his oath to Isaac, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute; to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
- Jeremiah 32:38-40 Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their good, and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.
- Matthew 13:17 For most certainly I tell you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and didn’t see them; and to hear the things which you hear, and didn’t hear them.
- Galatians 3:17-21 Now I say this: A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by promise. Then why is there the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise has been made. It was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not between one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could make alive, most certainly righteousness would have been of the law.
- Hebrews 8:8-9 For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days come”, says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Some read, God made not this covenant, that is,…
Some read, God made not this covenant, that is, in such ample forth and with such signs and wonders.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Deu 5:3 The LORD made not this covenant with…
Deu 5:3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, [even] us, who [are] all of us here alive this day.
Ver. 3. With our fathers,] i.e., With our fathers only. Or if it be understood of all the foregoing patriarchs, then it is to be expounded by Gal 3:17.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain With our fathers; either,
With our fathers; either,
1. Not only with them, the word only being here understood, as it is Gen 32:28; 35:10; 1Sa 8:7; Jer 7:19; 31:34; Mat 9:13. Or,
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2. Not at all with them. But then the word covenant is not here to be taken for the covenant of grace in general, for so it was made with their fathers, Exo 2:24, but for this particular and mixed dispensation of the covenant at Sinai, as appears both by the foregoing and following words.
All of us here alive this day: he saith not, that all who made that covenant at Sinai are now alive, for many of them were dead, but that this covenant was made with all that are now alive, which is most true, for it was made with the elder sort of them in their own persons, and with the rest in their parents, who did covenant for them; for this phrase,
with us, is put exclusively as to their fathers, but not as to their posterity, as is evident from the nature of the covenant, Act 2:39, and course of the story.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The Lord talked with you face to face in…
The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount,.... Meaning, not in that free, friendly, and familiar manner, in which he sometimes talked with Moses, of whom this phrase is used, Exo 33:11, but publicly, audibly, clearly, and distinctly, or without the interposition of another; he did not speak to them by Moses, but to them themselves; he talked to them without a middle person between them, as Aben Ezra expresses it: without making use of one to relate to them what he said; but he talked to them directly, personally:
out of the midst of the fire; in which he descended, and with which the mountain was burning all the time he was speaking; which made it very awful and terrible, and pointed at the terrors of the legal dispensation.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Not with our fathers - Only: but with us,…
Not with our fathers - Only: but with us, who are all alive - He saith not, that all who made the covenant at Sinai are now alive, but this covenant was made with all that are now alive; which is most true, for it was made with the elders in their persons, and with the rest in their parents, who covenanted for them.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. The Lord made not this covenant with…
Verse 3. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers (only) but with us (also.)
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Deu 5:3. The Lord made not this covenant with…
Deu 5:3. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers — That is, with our remote progenitors, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but with us, their descendants: or if it be understood as spoken of their immediate parents, it means, according to the Hebrew idiom, Not with our fathers only, but with us also, as Gen 32:28, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; that is, not only Jacob, but Israel, or Israel preferably to Jacob. Moses might truly say, God made this covenant with them then present before him; for a great part of them, even all who were under twenty years of age, when God gave the law on mount Sinai, were at Horeb; and, as God foreknew that their parents would die in the wilderness for their unbelief and murmuring, and would have comparatively little profit from that covenant, he especially intended it for those who should enter Canaan, and who, with their posterity, should be governed and benefited by it from generation to generation.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The “fathers” are, as in Deu 4:37, the patriarchs,…
The “fathers” are, as in Deu 4:37, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With them God did indeed make a covenant, but not the particular covenant now in question. The responsibilites of this later covenant, made at Sinai by the nation as a nation, attached in their day and generation to those whom Moses was addressing.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Fathers, the ancient patriarchs, who were not favoured in…
Fathers, the ancient patriarchs, who were not favoured in such a signal manner. (Menochius) --- Though many of those who had heard the words of God at Horeb, were dead, and had not enjoyed the full benefit of the covenant, some still remained, and the children of the deceased were about to enter the land which had been there promised. (Haydock) --- God did not make a covenant with the Patriarchs only, but also with their posterity at Horeb. (Du Hamel)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers,…
The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us--The meaning is, "not with our fathers" only, "but with us" also, assuming it to be "a covenant" of grace. It may mean "not with our fathers" at all, if the reference is to the peculiar establishment of the covenant of Sinai; a law was not given to them as to us, nor was the covenant ratified in the same public manner and by the same solemn sanctions. Or, finally, the meaning may be "not with our fathers" who died in the wilderness, in consequence of their rebellion, and to whom God did not give the rewards promised only to the faithful; but "with us," who alone, strictly speaking, shall enjoy the benefits of this covenant by entering on the possession of the promised land.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 3. Not… with our fathers — Not with Abraham,…
3. Not… with our fathers — Not with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the covenant of which Moses speaks made, but with their descendants who came up out of the land of bondage. A covenant had been made with their fathers, but this covenant was made at Sinai, and, though nearly forty years had passed, there were those among the hearers who could recall the scenes connected with its announcement.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 3. not … with our fathers] Rather, forefathers, i.e.…
3. not … with our fathers] Rather, forefathers, i.e. the Patriarchs—‘those great Grandfathers of thy Church1[119]—with whom, however, D recognises a previous covenant, Deu_4:31, Deu_7:12, Deu_8:18. The immediate fathers of the generation had all passed away before the entry into Moab, according to Deu_2:14 f. Here it is said emphatically that those with whom the covenant at Ḥoreb had been made were still all—us, all of us—alive here this day. Dillmann meets the contradiction by taking Deu_2:14 f. as a later gloss. Others find in it a proof of the difference of authorship between the first discourses Deu_1:6 to Deu_4:49 and the present series; but this still leaves unsolved the difference within the former between Deu_1:30 and Deu_2:14 f. A more probable explanation is that the speaker is made to ignore the tradition of the death of those who had been adults at Ḥoreb (of which the author cannot well have been ignorant) for rhetorical purposes: (1) to emphasise the contrast between the Patriarchs and Israel after the Exodus; and (2) to emphasise the new responsibility which the Ḥoreb covenant had laid on the latter, in all its successive generations. What Dillmann on Deu_1:30 says of the previous discourse is true of this one (cp. Deu_11:2-7): ‘In the whole discourse Moses conceives the present generation as identical with the previous one.’
[119] Donne, The Litanie, vii.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (3) Not . . . with our fathers, but…
(3) Not . . . with our fathers, but with us.—That is, according to the usage of the Hebrew language in drawing contrasts, not only with our fathers (who actually heard it), but with us also, who were in the loins of our fathers, and for whom the covenant was intended no less than for them; and, in fact, every man who was above forty-two at the time of this discourse might actually remember the day at Sinai.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.