Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.

Gather unto me all the ancients of your tribes, and your doctors, and I will speak these words in their hearing, and will call heaven and earth to witness against them.

Gather to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and take heaven and earth to witness against them.

Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.

'Assemble unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your authorities, and I speak in their ears these words, and cause to testify against them the heavens and the earth,

Get together before me all those who are in authority in your tribes, and your overseers, so that I may say these things in their hearing, and make heaven and earth my witnesses against them.

Gather to me all those greater by birth throughout your tribes, as well as your teachers, and I will speak these words in their hearing, and I will call heaven and earth as witnesses against them.

Congregate ad me omnes seniores tribuum vestrarum, et praefectos vestres, ut loquar in auribus eorum verba ista, et antester contra eos coelum et terram.

Gather to me all the elders of your tribes. Special reference is here made to the Song, which we gather from the last verse to have been alone recited. Moses, indeed, appears to contradict himself when he commands the elders and officers only to be called to listen, whereas he soon afterwards records that he read it to the whole people. But these two things are easily reconciled, when we remember the order which he was accustomed to observe in gathering the multitude together; for it is manifest from many passages that they were not called together promiscuously, but that the heads of tribes, and the princes of the people, each of them led their band; so that the assembling of the elders here mentioned, is so far from excluding the rest of the multitude, that it rather indicates that the whole people were gathered together by their tribes and classes. And this we may infer from the context, for assuredly he did not "call heaven and earth to record against" the officers only; and yet so he seems to signify. Under the leaders, therefore, the whole multitude is included.

Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your (n) officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.
(n) As governors, judges and magistrates.

Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers,.... The heads of the tribes, the princes, and all other inferior magistrates:
that I may speak these words in their ears; not the words of the law, but of the song which he was ordered to write, and is recorded in the following chapter:
and call heaven and earth to record against them; to bear witness of what he delivered to them, and to bear witness against them should they transgress the laws he gave them; and to bear witness that they had been faithfully cautioned against transgressing, and had been severely threatened, and the punishment plainly pointed out that should be inflicted on them in case of disobedience, so that they were left entirely without excuse.

Directly after handing over the book of the law, Moses directed the elders of all the tribes, together with the official persons, to gather round him, that he might rehearse to them the ode which he had written fore the people. The summons, "gather unto me," was addressed to the persons to whom he had given the book of the law. The elders and officers, as the civil authorities of the congregation, were collected together by him to hear the ode, because they were to put it in the mouth of the people, i.e., to take care that all the nation should learn it. The words, "I will call heaven and earth as witnesses against you," refer to the substance of the ode about to be rehearsed, which begins with an appeal to the heaven and the earth (Deuteronomy 32:1). The reason assigned for this in Deuteronomy 31:29 is a brief summary of what the Lord had said to Moses in Deuteronomy 31:16-21, and Moses thought it necessary to communicate to the representatives of the nation. "The work of your hands" refers to the idols (vid., Deuteronomy 4:28).