Commentary on the Torah

by Richard Elliott Friedman

The Noahic covenant promises the security of the cosmos. The Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 15 and 17) promises the land to Abraham’s descendants and makes YHWH their God. The Israelite (or Sinai, or Mosaic) covenant (Exodus 20; 34; Deuteronomy 5; 7:12–15) promises well-being in the promised land. And the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7; Psalms 89; 132) promises kingship over Jerusalem and Judah to David and his descendants.

Reuben’s failed plan leads Joseph to the pit; Judah’s plan leads him to Egypt. And Abraham’s unions with Hagar and Keturah produced the Ishmaelites and the Midianites, who are now crucial to Joseph’s going from the pit to Egypt! Perhaps the point is how complex and fragile our fate is.

I have made his heart heavy. Earlier the text says that Pharaoh made his heart heavy. Now it says that God claims to have done it. This verse may refer only to the immediate condition; that is, that Pharaoh hardened his own heart before, but now it is God doing it. Or it may suggest dual causation; that is, even when the human (Pharaoh) decides himself, it is still God who is causing this decision. It is in the theme of YHWH’s becoming known that we may find the explanation of the contradiction that has occurred even to little children: why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart against releasing Israel and then plague Egypt for not letting them go?! The fact is that the Torah does not present the plagues as punishment of the Egyptians for enslaving the Israelites, but rather as signs by which YHWH will become known. Thus it pictures God stating unambiguously here: I have made his heart and his servants’ heart heavy for the purpose of my setting these signs of mine among them and for the purpose that you will tell in the ears of your son and your son’s son about how I abused Egypt and about my signs that I set among them, and you will know that I am YHWH. Even more dramatically, YHWH tells Moses to inform the Pharaoh that “And in fact I established you for this purpose, for the purpose of showing you my power—and in order to tell my name in all the earth” (9:16). Dispersed through the account are frequent reminders that this is the purpose of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (7:3...

What is it? Hebrew mn hû!. This is a play on words, because these words can also mean “It is manna.” It thus explains the origin of the word “manna” as coming from their not having a name for something new. The famous comedy routine of “Who’s on first” in English is actually an equivalent that conveys what is happening here. They say, “It’s what?” And people then take this not as a question but as a statement: “It’s ‘What’!” And it is known thereafter as “What.”

you’ll strike the rock, and water will come out of it. Moses, who was drawn from water, and whose name stands for drawing from water, now draws water from the rock. He also met his wife by defending her right to draw water; the first plague he introduced involved turning the waters (from which he had once been drawn) to blood; he initiated the splitting of the sea; and he acted to sweeten the bitter water at Marah. There will be several more incidents involving water in Moses’ life. It seems to be a key element in his destiny, which will culminate in his tragic act when he strikes a rock to get water again at a second Meribah (Numbers 20). For this act he will be forbidden to enter the promised land. His life will end, as it began, at a river, the Jordan, which he will not be permitted to cross.

fight against Amalek. Israel was not sent by way of the Philistines’ land because they would be afraid of war (13:17), but now, just a few chapters later, they are sent to war against the Amalek! And Israel prevails! How do we explain this? Apparently the intervening events have made a change in the Israelites so that now they have the confidence and fortitude to fight. What are the intervening events: Red Sea, Marah, manna, Meribah. They have received four miraculous signs that their God is still with them even after they have left Egypt.

He shall not dominate. Recall that part of the curse on woman in Eden was that “he’ll dominate you” (Gen 3:16). But here we are told of a case in which a man is explicitly not free to dominate a woman. Even in that worldview that recognized male control of women, there was an understanding that this control is not unlimited. This point of respect for women and recognition of a legal right that they possessed was a first small step in the breakdown of that worldview. And this passage teaches that a commandment can change or become limited even within the Torah itself.

plot. The verb zyd elsewhere refers to cooking (e.g., Jacob’s cooking the stew in Gen 25:29). Here it refers to someone’s committing murder with intent, rather than manslaughter. (It also refers to the Egyptians’ scheme to enslave the Israelites in Exod 18:11.) Like the English expression “to cook up,” the Hebrew word has the range of both cooking and plotting.

liberated, for his eye. Even in a system that allows slavery, a master does not own the slave’s body. The master can require work from a slave, but damaging the slave’s eye or tooth steps over the line, and the master no longer owns the slave. This reminds us also of the Egyptian enslavement of Israel. The Egyptians are not criticized for having slaves, but rather for the way they treat the slaves: “They degraded them…. They made them serve with harshness … they made their lives bitter with hard work …” They killed the male infants. The Torah did not bring about the end of slavery by abolishing it. It established principles regarding slaves’ dignity, rights, and treatment. And these gradually contributed to humans’ own rejection of slavery in much (though not yet all) of the world. This is a crucial point itself: that some of the laws of the Torah command things outright, while others lead humans to grow and change themselves.

from a distance. This account has a multitude of parallels to the account of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22): Moses says the same words to the elders that Abraham says to the servant boys: “Sit here … we’ll come back to you.” The Exodus account has servant boys (n‘rîm) as well. Both accounts use the term “from a distance” (mrq). Both use the term “to bow” (hištawôt). Both Moses and Abraham come up a mountain. Both have a burnt offering (ha‘lôt ‘ôlh). The two accounts share a chain of ten verbs: “and he said,” “and he took … and he set,” “and he got up early,” “and he built an altar,” “and he put out his hand,” “and he/it was,” “and he/they got up,” “and he/they came,” “and he/they saw.” All these parallels alert us to the fact that some important connection exists here. The culminating parallels indicate what that connection is: Abraham is rewarded at the end “because you did this thing”; and the people in Exodus promise that “We’ll do all the things.” Abraham is rewarded because “you listened to my voice”; and Exodus reports that “they said with one voice,” and they say, “we’ll listen.” So (1) this is a reminder that the merit of Abraham remains the basis on which all of this now happens. (2) This is a fulfillment of promises made following Abraham’s acts of extraordinary obedience. And (3) Abraham’s obedience is an example for the people to emulate. The contrast is striking as well. Abraham’s obedience is the centerpiece of the first story. In this second story, the pe...

But the wording—“the Tabernacle will be one”—also fits with the centrality of the Tabernacle to Israel’s monotheism. One God, one Tabernacle, one altar, only one place of worship. Later it will be confirmed by divine commandment that Israel may have only one place of sacrifice, and that this one place is in front of the Tabernacle (Leviticus 17). There cannot be more than one place to worship God, because that might suggest that there is more than one God. Or, to put it more essentially: it is inconceivable in the first place in this new religion of a single deity that there could possibly be more than a single sanctuary. Those who claim that Israel’s religion was not a real monotheism until a very late stage (Second Temple) have not appreciated the significance of the commandment of centralization of worship at a single location.

Some have taken the name Bezalel to mean “in the shadow of God” (bl ’l). To me it also intimates “in the image of God” (belem ’lhîm) from the creation story (Gen 1:27). (On the absence of the letter mem, compare the name Noah being related to the root nm, and the name Samuel being related to the root ’l. See the comment on Gen 5:29.) And Bezalel is filled with the “spirit of God,” which also comes from the creation story (1:2). The allusions to creation are attractive because Bezalel, after all, as the great artist of the Torah, is the creative one, who fashions the Tabernacle and its contents, including the ark. Being creative is the ultimate imitatio Dei. And the conclusion of the account of the construction of the Tabernacle uses some of the same language as the conclusion of the creation account. (See the comment on Exod 39:32.)

31:14,15. put to death. The extreme punishment of execution for violation of the Sabbath must be understood in the context of the singular importance of the Sabbath: as sign of the covenant and as imitatio Dei—see the previous comment. Also, as I discussed in my comments on Genesis 1, the special place of the Sabbath in the creation of the universe marks it as having cosmic significance as well as historical significance. Combining the cosmic with history, it sets the history of human events that begins with Genesis 1 in the context of the very nature of the universe. And it makes time holy. Thus this long list of holy objects concludes with this reminder that periods of time are holy as well. The Sabbath is thus so phenomenally important that a violation of the Sabbath bears an extraordinary punishment.

32:4–5. These are your gods.... And Aaron saw … A festival to YHWH tomorrow. So many questions: Why do they use the plural, “These are your gods,” when there is only one calf? What did Aaron see? Why does he proclaim a festival to YHWH in the middle of a pagan heresy? I gave the critical explanation of these problems elsewhere (see Who Wrote the Bible?). Here I want to give a pesat explanation of them as they appear in the text. The plural “gods” does not appear to refer to the calf. In the pagan religions of the ancient Near East, people did not worship animals, and they did not worship idols. They worshiped gods who were represented or honored by statues. The gods were sometimes pictured as enthroned on a platform, and the platform was commonly composed of figures of cherubs or of young bulls. Since there is only one young bull here, together with plural “gods,” we must understand the people to be perceiving the bull as a throne platform for gods whom they will worship. Note that the calf itself is not referred to as an idol. What Aaron sees is this behavior on the people’s part. The text does not reveal what Aaron has in mind when he makes the golden calf: does he mean it as a throne platform for such pagan deities, or as a throne platform for YHWH?! All we know is that, after he sees the people associating it with gods and claiming that these gods brought them out of Egypt, he declares that the worship that is to take place is “A festival to YHWH!” (Indeed, the word fo...

32:7. your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt. The issue of who brought the people out, which came up in v. 1, now has an extraordinary twist. Like a parent who says to one’s spouse about a naughty child, “Guess what your child did today!”—so God now says to Moses, “Your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, has corrupted!” But look at Moses’ words in response. He seeks to appeal to God’s compassion and feelings for the people, and so he turns the pronoun around, saying, “Why should your anger flare at your people, whom you brought out from the land of Egypt? … Relent about the bad to your people.” And the text conveys that Moses’ case is successful, because it concludes: “YHWH relented about the bad that He had spoken, to do to His people”!

32:8. They’ve turned quickly. How could they have committed the golden calf sin so soon after the revelation—within forty days after actually hearing God speak from the sky? It is when God is closest that humans commit the greatest sin. Similarly in the story of Eden, where God walks among humans, they violate a direct command. Similarly through the wilderness period to come, in which the people see miracles daily (manna, column of cloud and fire), they are repeatedly rebellious. It appears that close proximity to divinity—to an all-seeing, all-knowing divine parent who is always watching, commanding, and judging—is barely tolerable for human beings. Like adolescents who love and need their parents but who long for independence, humankind is pictured as longing to be out of the divine shadow. Note that at the end of the Tanak, in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, there are no miracles, angels, or appearances of God. The words “And God spoke to” never occur. And in these books, where God is the least visible, humans are pictured as relatively good, listening to their leaders, changing their ways when criticized, and observing the commandments.

32:19. Moses’ anger flared. God had said, “My anger will flare at them,” but Moses dissuaded God, saying, “Why should your anger flare at your people?” But when Moses himself returns to the people and sees the bull, the text reports that “his anger flared,” the very words for what he persuaded God not to do! He smashes the tablets that he was bringing back to the people, and he calls for a bloody purge of thousands among the people. Quintessentially among prophets, Moses comes to God as a human, pleading the human case; and he comes to the people as a confidant of God, feeling the divine disappointment and anger with humans (albeit apparently still lacking the divine restraint and capacity to relent). It is the curse of the prophet: to God he represents humans, and to humans he represents God.

32:20. he scattered it on the face of the water. What water? It is natural to find streams at the bases of mountains, but in fact the last water mentioned is the water that came out of the crag of Horeb/Sinai. That would add irony: that the water that ended one rebellion now carries off the product of the next rebellion. And, as the people now see the dust of the golden calf on the water, they may be reminded that this water came to them from God and through Moses, whom they have been quick to forget.

Again the story of Moses and the Israelites contains an allusion to a story from the era of the patriarchs, hinting to the reader that there is reason for hope; for if a great man can forgive, certainly God can as well.

33:16. distinguished. This refers to being different from the other peoples in this one respect: that God’s presence is among them. It does not necessarily imply distinction in the sense of being superior in any way.

34:7. on fourth generations. The list covers five generations: from parents to the fourth generation of their offspring (great-great-grandchildren). Why? First, five generations constitutes the likely maximum of living acquaintance. People occasionally live to see their great-great-grandchildren, but great-great-great is practically unheard of. Second, Israelite rock-cut tombs prior to the seventh century were multi chambered, with room for at least four generations of offspring. The ancestral bond was thus thought to go at least that far back. Third, psychologically one can observe traits persevering through that many generations. I have personally observed ongoing dynamics within my family through four generations. This does not mean that an individual’s bad deed will be duplicated by his or her children and grandchildren. But it may recognize that such deeds have consequences, for better or worse (pride or embarrassment, stigmas, reactions, conscious or unconscious imitation), that persist through generations.

34:29. transformed. Coming out of the fiery top of the mountain, and back from his once-in-human-history encounter with God, Moses is transformed in some way that is unfortunately obscured in a difficult Hebrew passage (34:30,35). It has often been understood to mean that Moses’ face beams light, and it has been erroneously visualized in numerous artistic depictions as a horned Moses, the most famous of which is Michelangelo’s Moses. William Propp has argued persuasively that it more probably means that Moses’ face is in some way disfigured (from the fire? from the experience of encountering the deity?). Whatever it is about Moses’ skin, though, it is a marker, from this point on in the narrative, of Moses’ exceptional position. After having beheld God, he has himself become fearful for other humans to behold. For the rest of the narrative in Exodus (and in the next three books of the Hebrew Bible), he is to be pictured wearing a veil. He removes it only when speaking with the deity and when revealing the divine commandments to the people. Moses’ continuing communication with God, moreover, is to take place inside the precincts of the Tabernacle, a place that is forbidden to the lay population. That is, the book of Exodus introduces a series of layers in a channel to God: Moses’ veil, then the Tabernacle, which is a series of tents within tents (the prket, the miškn, the ’hel, the leather cover; see the comment on 26:33) into which Moses enters and from which he returns wi...

When God tells Moses to give this commandment to the people, He commands him to say that anyone who works on the Sabbath shall be “put to death”—using the Hebrew emphatic form môt yûmt (31:14,15). But Moses just says “put to death” (yûmt)—leaving out the emphatic particle môt. That is, Moses softens the wording of the commandment. The convicted person might not feel any different to know that he is just being put to death, and not being put to death! But it is as if Moses cannot bring himself to pronounce the powerful, fearful condemnation.

sons of giants from the Nephilim. The huge creatures known as the Nephilim come up in a chain of references that are spread far apart through several books of the Tanak. Their origin is explained near the beginning of the Torah, in the story of the “sons of God” who have relations with human women who then give birth to giants (Gen 6:1–4). Now in the spies episode, the Israelite spies see the descendants of these giants (Numbers 13). Later, Joshua eliminates the giants from all of the land except from the Philistine cities, including Gath (Josh 11:21–22). And later still, the Philistine giant Goliath comes from Gath (1 Sam 17:4). These widespread references are among the many stitches that bind the Tanak together as a continuing story. Those who see the Bible as a loose collection of stories fail to take proper account of the substantial number of such widely distributed binding elements.

As we have seen in Leviticus, intent is not the issue in the realm of ritual. Rather, actions relating to sacred objects and boundaries bring necessary consequences of themselves. Whether or not Aaron has thought or done anything improper, he is tied to what has happened.

20:11. water came out! Moses is supposed to speak to the rock, but he hits it. So why does the miracle still work?! We might surmise that it means that God makes it happen so as not to humiliate Moses. Or the explanation may be that the miraculous power is in the staff, which is the one that miraculously blossomed. Whatever the reason, though, the fact remains: for the first time in the Bible, a human has changed a miracle. This is an all-important step in a gradual shift in the balance of control of miraculous phenomena in the Tanak. Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Isaac perform no miracles. But Jacob manipulates the coloring of Laban’s flock. Then Joseph interprets dreams. Then Moses and Aaron perform God’s miracles. And now Moses changes a miracle. This shift will continue in the biblical books that follow the Torah, and it is one of the central developments of the Bible: Joshua will call for the sun to stand still in the skies. By calling for a miracle on his own, without direction from God, he goes even further than Moses. Later, Samson has powers implanted in him at birth, so that he is free to use them as he wishes all his life. Later still, Elijah and Elisha use miracles for a variety of personal purposes. It appears that, starting with Moses, God is entrusting humans with ever more responsibility and control of their destiny. By the end of the Tanak, miracles cease. There are no visible miracles in the late books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Humans rather must direct t...

21:5. Why did you bring us up. The word “you” here is plural, further reflecting that the people are, for once, not directing their entire complaint against Moses. They are at least beginning to acknowledge the divine power in what happened in Egypt. Even though it comes in the context of a complaint, this is still a step for the people, who have, all along, been unable to accept the terrifying wonder of the closeness of divinity.

her stomach. Hebrew (qbth), a pun on the word for the enclosure, Hebrew (qubbh). The pun hints that it is an ironic punishment to suit the crime. The word may mean her genital area rather than her stomach. Either way, though, it is a most extraordinary sexual image, as the spear strikes the man and then protrudes from him into her belly or genital area, bizarrely paralleling their sexual intercourse.

Moses spoke to YHWH.

17So now, kill every male among the infants, and kill every woman who has known a man for male intercourse. 31:17. kill every woman … If Moses’ anger over the fact that they have not killed the women and children is difficult to accept, how much more amazing is the fact that the women in question are Midianite—like Moses’ wife! The command to attack the Midianites comes from God, and the text does not state what Moses’ personal reaction is. He must order a war against his wife’s people, with whom he once lived, whose priest was his father-in-law and adviser. He married a Midianite woman, but now he has all the other married Midianite women killed. The lack of any comment about Moses’ thoughts and feelings here is the most powerful silence since the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, in which we were told nothing of Abraham’s heart. The Torah’s way is to leave these things unspoken, and thus to leave us to ponder them. Remarkably, the fearful order to kill the women and children comes from Moses himself. The text does not say whether it originates from God. To conceive of Moses’ thoughts, perhaps we must go back to the point of the Midianite seductions at Baal Peor and start with the question of what Moses might feel when he learns that women of his wife’s people are seducing the Israelites into heresy: shock, embarrassment, betrayal, fury. What conversation can we imagine between Moses and Zipporah? What humiliation might Zipporah suffer from the Israelites in the after...

blood will pollute the land. As conveyed at the beginning of the Torah from the stories of Eden, Cain and Abel, and the flood, the earth’s environment suffers from human wrongdoing: “The ground is cursed on your account.” “You’re cursed from the ground that opened its mouth to take your brother’s blood.” “The earth was corrupted, because all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth.” Human violence and corruption have consequences not only for the immediate victims, and not even only for other humans, but for the condition of the earth and nature. Murder is not only a sin against the victim. It is a sin against the earth.

36:6. they shall become wives to the family of their father’s tribe. The decision on the conflicting claims of Zelophehad’s daughters and the leaders of their tribe (Manasseh) results in a limitation on the rights of women that were established in the original case. If there are no sons, daughters may still inherit their father’s property, but they must then marry only men from their own tribe. If they choose to marry outside their tribe, they lose their legacy, and it passes to their father’s brothers instead. Beside the immediate issues of this case, it teaches a broader principle of law as well. When any law is instituted, there may be situations and consequences later that require a modification of the law. There must be a mechanism for dealing with such situations. In the wilderness Moses can turn directly to God for an answer. But later that is no longer possible. And so we must rely on human judgment on questions of new consequences of laws. This requires turning to those who have both learning and wisdom.

It contains history, law, and great wisdom. In places, especially near its end, it is beautiful—inspired and inspirational. Moses is eloquent. And that is ironic and instructive when we turn back to Moses’ first meeting with God, at the burning bush. There he tries to escape from the assignment to go speak to the Pharaoh by saying, “I’m not a man of words” (Exod 4:10)! Now he has become a man of words. It is interesting, remarkable, ironic, and inspiring to see Moses’ development through all that has happened in forty years into a man of words.

These two verses should always be read together as a unit: “It is eleven days from Horeb … but it was in the fortieth year …” And this juxtaposition cries out for us to consider all the ways of interpreting this fact: the irony, the waste, the necessity, the experience, the growth, the suffering, the need for a new generation who had not known slavery, the inability of humans to outgrow a trauma of mammoth proportions to an entire nation (I write this in the generation after the holocaust, in which the psychological effects of what happened still afflict us).

undertook. This is the word that Abraham uses twice in his attempt to affect God’s decision about the fate of Sodom. He says: “Here I’ve undertaken to speak to my Lord, and I’m dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27,31). That is the first time in the Tanak that a human argues with God. Now the same term is used for Moses’ setting out to convey a message from God to the people. Again it is a reminder of how far humans have come, and it may even hint that such growth was necessary: humans had to rise to that level, at which one (Abraham) could question God, before they could move to the level of receiving the commandments. Humans have to be able to question commandments—even divine commandments, especially divine commandments—in order for there to be any merit in performing them.

the children of Lot. The stories in Genesis now return to mind with yet another layer of significance. Israel is not to be hostile to Edom (because they are Esau’s children) or Moab and Ammon (because they are Lot’s children). So the stories of individuals and families in Genesis now become the stories of nations in Deuteronomy. Ancient Israel understood its neighboring peoples to be relatives. Israel was expected to act out of kinship to them. And hostility from any of them was regarded as betrayal by a family member. This attitude continues past the Torah into the narrative of Israel’s history in its land.

3:8. across the Jordan. This phrase occurs several times in Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy. Ibn Ezra hinted at a secret implied by this and several other matters in the Torah, and he added, “One who understands should keep silent.” But scholars of later centuries no longer kept silent. The issue, presumably, was that the land in question is across the Jordan only from the point of view of someone writing in Israel. Moses, who never set foot in Israel, would not be expected to refer to the place where he was standing as across the Jordan. Of course we might say that Moses says this phrase with a future audience in mind, a people settled in Israel. But Ibn Ezra’s comments are important as being among the first hints that some of the traditional rabbinic commentators questioned whether Moses wrote the Torah.

3:26. cross at me. This is not the usual word for anger. It occurs only here in the Torah. It puns on the preceding verse: Moses says, “Let me cross (Hebrew )” to the land that is “across () the Jordan.” And then God is cross () and says “you shall not cross ().” The pun (in English and in Hebrew) conveys irony as well as the idea that divine punishment in the Bible is often made to fit the crime.

4:19. allocated them to all the peoples. This is doubly extraordinary: (1) God is understood to have provided the pagan deities that the other nations worship. (2) There is no criticism here of the other nations for worshiping them. There is nothing wrong with other people’s following their own faiths. They are only criticized elsewhere in the Torah for specific practices in their religions that are abhorrent to Israelites, such as human sacrifice.

He is God. The Hebrew is written with the definite article (literally, “He is the God,” not just “He is God” or “He is a God”). Grammatically, it excludes the possibility of saying the same thing about any other god as well. That is, it is a purely monotheistic statement. The sentence that follows it in v. 35 confirms this: “There is no other outside of Him.” The sentence that follows it in v. 39 does likewise: “There isn’t another.” And these sentences were written by the seventh century B.C.E. at the very latest. They weigh against the claim of some scholars that monotheism was a late concept in biblical Israel (later than the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C.E.).

watchful. This is the fifth time that Moses uses this word in his speech. Its concentration here calls to mind another element of the beginning of the Torah, where forms of this word are played upon: Humans are placed in the garden of Eden “to watch over it” (Gen 2:15); but when they eat from the forbidden tree they are removed from the garden, and cherubs are placed “to watch over the way to the tree of life” (3:24)—that is, to keep humans away; and in the next episode Cain lies about his brother Abel’s whereabouts by saying “Am I my brother’s watchman?” (4:9). The point of this: The word “watch” marks a gradual descent by humans away from their initial condition of closeness to God. But then the word is used in a new way when God says that the merit of Abraham is that he “kept my watch” (26:5). (This phrase is generally translated “keep my charge” in this work, but I used the word “watch” in Gen 26:5 in order to make known this development in Genesis.) The word thus comes to point the way to a return to harmony with the creator, and thus it resurfaces meaningfully here in the Torah’s final book.

us! We! These! Here! Today! All of us! Living! As I commented above (1:9), Moses mixes past, present, and future. He speaks to the people in front of him as if they had all been at Sinai forty years earlier. Now he says it explicitly, powerfully, unmistakably, with seven different words: Each generation must see themselves as personally standing at Sinai, not just as inheriting their parents’ covenant, but as making the covenant themselves. It is a present, living commitment.

Listen. Forms of this word (Hebrew ma‘) occur about eighty times in Deuteronomy. This emphasis on listening goes together with the title and theme of the book: words, Moses’ speech. The great events of creation, patriarchs, exodus, Sinai, and the wilderness are at an end. What remains now is the words: the story of what happened, and the commandments to be fulfilled. Israel’s task now—and in its future generations—is to listen, to learn the story and to do the commandments. And so this passage, probably the most commonly known and frequently repeated words in the Bible by Jews, begins with the commandment that necessarily precedes all others: Listen.

YHWH is one. In comparing Israel’s monotheism to pagan religion, we must appreciate that the difference between one and many is not the same sort of thing as the difference between two and three or between six and twenty. It is not numerical. It is a different concept of what a god is. A God who is outside of nature, known through acts in history, a creator, unseeable, without a mate, who makes legal covenants with humans, who is one, is a revolution in religious conception.

more numerous and powerful than you. Ironically, these are the words that the Pharaoh who enslaved Israel used to describe the Israelites: “Here, the people of the children of Israel is more numerous and powerful than we” (Exod 1:9). But the situation is reversed. The Pharaoh tells his people that they should fear Israel on account of its great size. But God now tells the Israelites not to fear the Canaanite peoples on account of their size.

10:1. you shall make an ark of wood. It says “you shall make,” but in Exodus it was Bezalel, not Moses, who made the ark. Rashi and Ramban and others therefore say that there must have been two arks. In current critical scholarship, the apparent contradiction would generally be taken to be a result of the fact that this text in Deuteronomy and the text in Exodus were written by two different authors. But, even without raising such solutions that are arrived at through critical approaches, we can understand Moses’ words in Deuteronomy to be a brief account of what happened at Sinai, and so he speaks of himself as making the ark when he means that he directed Bezalel to do it. Likewise, he speaks of the ark as if it were finished and ready when he came down from the mountain when he knows that actually some time passed before the ark was made. J. H. Hertz proposed such an understanding as an alternative to Rashi’s and Ramban’s view even though Hertz harshly rejected literary-critical scholarship. This is important because an almost fundamentalist view of Rashi is growing at present in some communities, wherein it is practically heresy to question Rashi. This gives Rashi a status that I do not think he would have wanted for himself. And certainly the commentators of the generations that followed him, including his own grandson Rashbam, were prepared to question his comments. We respect and admire the great commentators of past generations, but we should never forget to distin...

(Halpern, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel).

Moses has just finished the long speech that takes up nearly all of Deuteronomy. Now he is beginning a much shorter speech, and he is telling them that he is about to reveal to them, in his last message to them, the key to understanding what their experience means. What follows is a speech like no other he has ever made in the Torah. Until now he has focused on facts: points of history, specific laws. But, starting in a few verses, he will turn philosophical, moral, and spiritual—and his message is formulated in some of the most beautiful words in the Torah.

your God has driven you. The word “driven” is ironic here. It has been used three times until now, always referring to persons who would drive Israelites away from their God (Deut 13:6,11,14). But now it describes how YHWH drives Israel away to other lands because of Israel’s apostasy. The term is thus another allusion to the fact of divine punishment to fit the crime, which is to say: there is justice.

to cling to Him.