This verse tells how the fortunes of the Israelites will be reversed.

Bring you into the land which your fathers possessed: bring is repetitive and redundant; Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version omit it. You here refers not to the people being addressed that day in Moab, but to their descendants in the distant future who will be taken into exile; and your fathers are the ancestors of those distant descendants, not the ancestors of the people listening to Moses. If readers of the translation are likely to understand that “you” and “your ancestors” mean the people present there that day and their own ancestors, some means must be found to eliminate this misunderstanding, either in the text or else by means of a footnote. See the alternative translation model at the end of the verse for a way to put this in the text.

Possess: see 1.8.

Make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers: that is, the people who return from exile will become more prosperous and numerous than their ancestors who had lived in the land of Israel before the exile. Again you may be translated as “your descendants.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• … so that your descendants may again take possession of the land where their ancestors once lived. He will make your descendants more prosperous and numerous than their ancestors ever were.

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 .