Midrash Tanchuma, brought in Rashi to Devarim 1:5 says:
בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן בְּאֶרֶץ מוֹאָב הוֹאִיל מֹשֶׁה בֵּאֵר אֶת־הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת לֵאמֹר׃ (Moses commenced [and] explained this Law, saying...)
באר את התורה: בְּשִׁבְעִים לָשׁוֹן פֵּרְשָׁהּ לָהֶם explained this Law: He explained it to them in seventy languages.
Hakethav Vehakabbalah explains this to mean that Moses gave them seventy interpretations to every passage. Moshe translated the Torah into 70 languages. Why did he do so?
Answer
The Kesav Sofer answers that there were people who where saying that the Torah is only for when we are amongst ourselves, in the desert, or in Eretz Yisroel. Therefore, before they entered Eretz Yisroel it was written in all the languages, telling the Jews that no matter where you go, and no matter what language you speak, the Torah applies in all of them. The Kedushas Levi points out here that the Torah has many foreign words from the African languages to the Greek language. He says that this is because the source for the foreign nations are on High, and in order for them to exist on the physical plane they must exist on the metaphysical plane in the Torah. He takes the original point one step further, and says the Jews born out of Israel will see that their native language is in the Torah, and this will be a source of encouragement for them, as they will see something to identify with.
The Ksav Vhakabalah has a completely different approach. He says that the Seventy languages taught here are the equivalent of the language of the Gemara of Lishnah Achrinah. That is, a different Pshat that Moshe taught the Jews that there are 70 ways to learn the Torah, and none of them is wrong or right. That was important at this point as he was leaving, and this was an important thing to explain before he left the world.
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