Deuteronomy 31:6 is Moses’ charge to the whole nation of Israel, delivered on the plains of Moab on the eve of two enormous losses: Moses’ own death and the crossing into a land full of enemies they had feared for forty years. The command is courage, but the ground of the courage is not Israel’s strength, strategy, or numbers — it is the promise that the LORD Himself goes with them and will not let them go. Read in context, the verse is not a pep talk; it is a transfer of confidence from a dying leader to the living God.
What the verse says
The setting is a farewell. Deuteronomy 31 opens with Moses telling Israel plainly what is about to happen: “I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan” (Deuteronomy 31:2). The man who confronted Pharaoh, who stood on Sinai, who carried this people for forty years, is stepping off the stage at the border of the promise.
What fills the gap he leaves? Not Joshua — not first. Verse 3 answers before any successor is named: “The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee” (Deuteronomy 31:3). Only then comes Joshua, and only then the charge of verse 6 to all the people: be strong, fear not, “for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee.” The “them” Israel is told not to fear are the Canaanite nations across the river — the same peoples whose walled cities and giants had broken the previous generation’s nerve at Kadesh (Numbers 13:33).
Then Moses turns and says it again, this time to one man: “And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage” (Deuteronomy 31:7), adding, “the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee” (Deuteronomy 31:8). After Moses dies, God Himself takes up the refrain to Joshua directly: “Be strong and of a good courage… for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9). The same charge travels from Moses to the nation, from Moses to Joshua, from God to Joshua. It is a formula built to be handed on.
What it’s often taken to mean
Lifted onto a locker-room wall, the verse can sound like a general summons to self-confidence: be brave, don’t be afraid, you’ve got this. That reading gets the imperatives right and the logic exactly backwards. Moses does not tell Israel to be strong because they are strong. Everything in the chapter argues the opposite — their greatest leader is about to die, and the enemies ahead are the very ones that terrified them into forty years of wilderness. The courage commanded here has one stated ground, introduced by “for”: the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee.
A second, gentler misreading detaches the verse from any object of fear at all, turning it into a promise against every anxiety. The comfort is real, but the text is more concrete: “fear not, nor be afraid of them” names actual adversaries in an actual campaign. The verse’s honest gift to later readers is not that nothing frightening exists, but that the frightening thing is smaller than the Presence that goes ahead of you. Craigie and Block both observe that Deuteronomy grounds Israel’s courage entirely in God’s character and prior faithfulness — the God who has already carried them, as the book keeps repeating, will not drop them now.
The world behind the verse
Deuteronomy is a book of speeches on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan, where Israel camps at the end of the wilderness years. The whole nation stands at the exact border where their parents’ generation had refused to cross. The memory of that failure hangs over the scene: last time Israel looked at the Canaanites, they saw giants and saw themselves as grasshoppers, and unbelief cost them a generation.
Now the moment has come again — with an added loss. In the ancient world, the death of a founding leader was the most dangerous moment in a people’s life; movements routinely dissolved when the man at the center died. Moses answers that danger by refusing to let Israel’s confidence rest on him. He will not cross the Jordan, but the One who has actually been leading — the LORD who went before them in the wilderness — crosses ahead of them (Deuteronomy 31:3). Leadership passes to Joshua, but the ground of courage does not pass to Joshua. It stays where it always was.
The original language
Four Hebrew expressions carry the verse:
- Chazaq (“be strong”) — a word for firmness and grip: strengthen, harden, hold fast. Paired with the next word, it forms Deuteronomy and Joshua’s signature courage formula.
- Amats (“be of good courage”) — to be bold, resolute, alert. Together chazaq and amats command not a feeling but a settled resolve — the posture of someone who has decided to cross the river.
- Lo yarpekha (“he will not fail thee”) — from raphah, to let drop, let go slack. The image is of a hand that will not loosen its hold. “Fail” in the KJV means “let you fall,” not “make a mistake.”
- Lo ya’azvekka (“nor forsake thee”) — from azav, to abandon, leave behind. The double negative promise — never dropped, never abandoned — is the engine of the whole verse.
How to read it today
The New Testament explicitly picks this promise up and hands it to the church. Hebrews quotes it as the ground of contentment and fearlessness: “for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5), and draws the conclusion Israel was meant to draw at the Jordan: “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear” (Hebrews 13:6). The courage formula that traveled from Moses to Israel to Joshua travels on to believers in Christ.
That means the verse may be honestly applied today — but applied whole. It does not promise that the river will be shallow or the enemies imaginary; Israel still had to cross, and still had to fight. It promises Presence: that the God who goes ahead of His people does not let go halfway across. Courage, in Deuteronomy’s grammar, is never self-belief. It is the practical conclusion you draw when you know who is going with you.
Common questions about Deuteronomy 31:6
Who is speaking in Deuteronomy 31:6, and to whom?
Moses is speaking to all Israel, gathered on the plains of Moab just before the crossing of the Jordan. He has just announced that he is a hundred and twenty years old and will not go over with them (Deuteronomy 31:2). The charge to the whole nation in verse 6 is then repeated to Joshua personally in verses 7–8.
What does "fear not, nor be afraid of them" refer to?
The "them" is the nations of Canaan — the peoples on the far side of the Jordan whom Israel had feared for forty years, ever since the spies reported giants in the land. The verse names a specific, concrete fear, not anxiety in general, and answers it with a specific promise: the LORD Himself goes with you.
Is Deuteronomy 31:6 the same as Joshua 1:9?
They are closely related but distinct. In Deuteronomy 31:6 Moses charges the nation; in Deuteronomy 31:7–8 he charges Joshua; in Joshua 1:9 God Himself repeats the charge to Joshua after Moses has died. The courage formula is deliberately handed down the line — from leader to people, from leader to successor, from God to servant.
Does "he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" apply to Christians?
The New Testament says yes. Hebrews 13:5 quotes the promise — "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" — and applies it to believers in Christ as a reason for contentment and freedom from fear. The original promise was for a nation facing Canaan; Hebrews extends the same divine presence to the church.
Sources
This article draws on the following scholarship. We cite our sources so you can check our work.
- Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) (Eerdmans, 1976).
- Daniel I. Block, Deuteronomy (NIV Application Commentary) (Zondervan, 2012).