Deuteronomy 33:6

“Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few.” — KJV

Why This Verse Matters

Moses blesses Reuben with “live and not die” — but everyone dies. If this is just a prayer against tribal extinction, the words “and not die” add nothing beyond “let him live.” The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan saw the redundancy and interpreted what the Hebrew signals:

“Let Reuben live in this world, nor die the second death which the wicked die in the world to come.”

The Targumist recognized that H2421 chayah (to live/revive) paired emphatically with H4191 muth (to die) in a blessing context must point beyond ordinary mortality. The prayer is for exemption from something worse — a different kind of death. This is one of six OT passages where the Targums introduce the phrase “second death,” always meaning permanent death with no return.

For the full analysis of “second death” across Scripture — including the Hebrew Revelation’s use of H312 acher (another kind) rather than H8145 sheni (ordinal second) — see the Revelation 20:14 verse study and the Nature of Hell master study.