TO CHOOSE — an ordinary verb of picking one thing over another, carrying the full weight of the Bible's most famous imperative: u-vacharta ba-chayim, ‘so choose life’ (30:19). ⚠ The choosing is framed as genuinely open — life and death, blessing and curse, are set before the hearer as two real options — even though three verses earlier the same speech has already said that a heart to know, to see, to hear was ‘not given’ until now (29:4, already on these pages). This translation leaves the two claims standing side by side rather than resolving one into the other. ⭐ The same root names Israel's own election — Jehovah has ‘chosen’ a place for his name (12:5, 14, and repeatedly through this book) and chosen this people for himself (7:6) — so the verb runs both directions in Deuteronomy: God choosing a people, and now a person commanded to choose in return. The shelf is close to unanimous on the bare word — KJV, ASV and NWT all print ‘choose’ — the real variation is in what surrounds it; see the chapter's own note. → first discussed at Deut 30:19