Verses 26-27 are a turning point in the song; from his threats to destroy the people, the LORD turns to a promise to forgive and restore them.

Here Yahweh quotes himself, and this is in a song that Moses is reciting. In verse 20 Moses starts quoting Yahweh—a quotation that goes to the end of verse 42. Here in verse 26 it may be awkward and most unnatural to try to imitate the Hebrew structure, and the translator may choose to bypass the quotation, as Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version do; see also New Revised Standard Version. So verse 26 can begin, with Yahweh as speaker, “I thought I would scatter them…, 27 but I feared provocation….” New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “I might have….” Contemporary English Version has “I wanted to scatter you.”

I would have said: as the context shows, the consequence of his possible declaration keeps Yahweh from saying this; so the meaning is, “I could have said … but I didn’t, because….” See in 9.25-29, where Moses makes the same kind of plea to God. In some languages it will be necessary to state clearly that Yahweh is speaking; for example: Yahweh says, “I might have said, ‘I will scatter…,’ ” or “Yahweh says, ‘I might have scattered….’ ”

I will scatter them afar: there is some doubt about the form of the Hebrew text, but the sense of dispersion is what the Septuagint has (see the same verb in 4.27), and this is what most translations say. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “reduced them to naught,” New Jerusalem Bible has “crush them to dust,” and Good News Translation “destroyed them completely,” the sense of which more closely parallels the next line. It is recommended that translators follow this model.

I will make the remembrance of them cease from among men: see the similar statement in 25.19; see also Num 14.12. God would have destroyed them so completely that in the future people would not even remember that they had existed.

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 .