Levi … his brothers: this is a way of speaking of the tribe of Levi, the people of the tribe of Levi, as compared with the people of the other tribes. So Good News Translation “That is why the tribe of Levi….”

No portion or inheritance: these two nouns mean the same thing. They are variously translated; for example, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “no hereditary portion,” and Revised English Bible “no holding of ancestral land.” This refers to the area of land assigned to each tribe; only the tribe of Levi was not assigned any land. In cultures where tribes or clans still exist, the idea of “ancestral land” will translate naturally. In other languages, however, we must say something like “received no land as the other tribes did” (Good News Translation).

The LORD is his inheritance: instead of supporting themselves from the land that would have been assigned to them, the Levites’ support came from their work as priests of Yahweh (see Good News Translation). Bible en français courant has “the privilege of serving the LORD”; Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje “the right of the men of the tribe of Levi to serve as priests of God.”

As the LORD your God said to him: see Num 18.20, where God said this to Aaron. Here him, meaning Levi, should be translated as a plural pronoun, since it does not mean that God said this to Levi, son of Jacob, but to the Levites as a tribe. For the LORD your God see 1.6.

If verses 6-9 are not treated as two separate sections (see note at verse 6), then this verse should be closed with a parenthesis, and a new paragraph should begin with verse 10.

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 .