Deuteronomy 31:6
What does Deuteronomy 31:6 mean?
Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or scared of them; for Yahweh your God himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.”
The short answer
Deuteronomy 31:6 is Moses speaking to Israel at the edge of the promised land, just before his own death. The people are about to cross the Jordan and face nations stronger than themselves, and Moses gives them a double command: "Be strong and courageous," and don't be afraid of the enemies ahead. Then he gives the reason: "Yahweh your God himself is who goes with you."
That reason is the heart of the verse. This is not a pep talk asking Israel to summon confidence from within. As Peter Craigie observes in his commentary, the strength being commanded here doesn't come from the people's belief in their own abilities—it comes from confidence in the God marching with them. The battle would be won or lost, in a sense, in the disposition of their minds. An army staring at a threatening enemy loses its nerve; an army whose attention rests on the God who "will not fail you nor forsake you" can hold steady. Courage, on this reading, is less a feeling you manufacture and more a matter of where you fix your attention.
The promise at the end of the verse turned out to have a long afterlife. The letter to the Hebrews picks it up—"I will never leave you or forsake you"—and applies it not to warfare but to money and contentment. Thomas Long points out how surprising that move is: the writer of Hebrews treats our grasping after money not primarily as greed, but as fear of abandonment. If God will never forsake you, you don't have to clutch at wealth for security. So a verse first spoken to soldiers facing a battle becomes, over time, a word for anyone facing the quieter fear of being left alone and unprovided for. The logic is the same in both settings: God's presence is what displaces fear.
What scholars say
Peter Craigie answers the question of where Israel's commanded courage was supposed to come from—not from confidence in their own abilities, but from minds fixed on the God marching with them—while Thomas Long shows how the letter to the Hebrews later applies this same promise to money, reading acquisitiveness as fear of abandonment rather than simple greed.
“They are urged to be strong and be courageous (v. 6 ); the strength and courage would come not from confidence in their own abilities, but from confidence in God, the one marching with you . The strength and courage of the warriors of God would lie in the disposition of their minds during the battle. Though they would be engaged physically in the fighting, their minds would not be focused on the enemy, whose threatening presence could easily undermine confidence, but rather their minds would be fixed on God, who would not fail or forsake them (v. 6b ). With full confidence in the presence of God in their midst, the army of the Lord could not fail to be victorious in the conquest, and soon the land which had been promised so long ago would become their possession in reality.”
“As for money, the Preacher cites two Old Testament references— “I will never leave you or forsake you” (probably a loose paraphrase of Deut. 31:6), and “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid . . .” (Ps. 118:6)—to support his directive to be content with what we have and not be acquisitive. What is inventive about this is, first, the suggestion that the love of money is not so much the product of greed as it is the fear of abandonment, and two, the intriguing theological claim that when Jesus Christ grasps our one hand in love it frees us to open up the clenched other one and let the money go.”
What it means for you
Most of us aren't marching into literal battle, but the anatomy of fear hasn't changed. Fear grows when we stare at the threat—the diagnosis, the layoff, the conflict—and it shrinks when our attention shifts to the God who goes with us. Deuteronomy 31:6 invites that shift: courage as a redirection of the mind, not a performance of confidence.
It also reaches into our relationship with money and security. If the deepest reason we grasp at savings, status, or stuff is a fear of being abandoned, then the promise "he will not fail you nor forsake you" addresses the root, not just the symptom. Held people can open their hands.
Deuteronomy 31 in context
Deuteronomy 31 is a chapter of transition. Moses, now a hundred and twenty years old, tells Israel he will not cross the Jordan with them. Leadership is passing to Joshua, and the people are about to enter the land promised to their ancestors and face its inhabitants. Verse 6 is Moses' charge to the whole nation; in verses 7–8 he turns and gives nearly the same words to Joshua personally. The rest of the chapter deals with the writing down of the law and preparations for Moses' departure—making verse 6 the anchor of assurance in a moment of enormous change.