Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life.
- KJV And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:
- BSB So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival.
- NKJV Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life.
- NASB So your lives will be hanging in doubt before you; and you will be terrified night and day, and have no assurance of your life.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Their very lives will hang in constant doubt, gripped by fear day and night. Without God's assurance, existence becomes ceaseless insecurity.
Overview
Moses describes a life robbed of all certainty, where survival itself feels precarious. This dread is the opposite of the security God's covenant presence provides. The verse highlights how forsaking God strips away peace and assurance, and it points by contrast to the believer's confidence in Christ, who gives a peace the world cannot take away.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Lam 1:13“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all day long.
- Rev 6:15–17The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.
- Deut 28:67In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see.
- Heb 10:27but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 28:66 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.