Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 4:34
Or has any god tried to take as his own a nation out of another nation—by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors—as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, before your eyes?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses addresses the generation standing in the plains of Moab, not the one who left Egypt, as part of a three-verse rhetorical challenge (vv. 33–35) comparing Israel's experience to any other nation's.
The words — נִסָּה (ni.Sah, H5254) means "to try, test, attempt," implying a deliberate experiment rather than a chance event; the doubled גוֹי (goy, H1471) "nation out of a nation" marks the act as extraction from within, not conquest of a land.
The thread — The same cluster—mighty hand, outstretched arm, great terror, signs, wonders—appears in Deuteronomy 26:8 and 5:15, and the hand/arm formula recurs in Exodus 6:6; it is a fixed liturgical formula for the Exodus.
Why it lands — The rhetorical question has no open answer; v. 35 closes the circuit by stating the purpose: to know the LORD is God and there is no other. The reader is asked to stop treating the Exodus as one event among many and to accept the claim of uniqueness on its own terms.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 26:8 Then the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, signs, and wonders.
- Deuteronomy 5:15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. That is why the LORD your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
- Exodus 6:6 Therefore tell the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
- Deuteronomy 7:19 the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.
- Deuteronomy 7:8 But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
- Jeremiah 32:21 You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.
- Deuteronomy 6:21 then you are to tell him, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
- Exodus 13:3 So Moses told the people, “Remember this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; for the LORD brought you out of it by the strength of His hand. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.
- Psalms 78:48 He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.
- Exodus 3:17 And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’