[Commentary from Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz, the best compilation of Jewish interpreters of their own Hebrew Scriptures; translation is different from our translation of choice, EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1.]
Deuteronomy/Davarim 8
FATHERLY DISCIPLINE OF GOD–THE LESSONS OF THE WILDERNESS
The long wandering in the Wilderness had been designed to teach Israel humility and a self-distrusting reliance on Him. In those years, when the Israelites were wholly dependent upon God, they had lacked nothing that was essential for their. life. Now they were about to take possession of a fertile land; let them take heed not to forget the Divine goodness and guidance.
1 All the commandment that I command you today, you are to take-care to observe, in order that you may live and become-many and enter and possess the land that YHVH swore to your fathers.
all the commandment. Ibn Ezra joins this v. to the one following. ‘If ye desire to keep all the commandments that ye may live, then remember all the way which the LORD . . . commandments or no.’
live and multiply. This is said because of the fate of the preceding generation, which had been doomed to die in the Wilderness (Ehrlich).
2 You are to bear-in-mind the route that YHVH had you go these forty years in the wilderness, in order to afflict you, by testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not.all the way. The spiritual purpose of the long journey in the Wilderness is now expounded to the people, presenting a fresh aspect of Divine Providence.
that He might afflict thee. This is defined in v. 3, 15-16. God brought provisions upon them to teach them how dependent they were upon Him, and how helpless without Him.
to prove thee, i.e. to test thee. It is in adversity that the true nature of a man is seen. When hardships came upon the Israelites, they had stood the test. Although they had murmured and complained, under the restraining influence of Moses they had adhered to God.
3 So he afflicted you and made-you-hungry, and had you eat the mahn which you had not known and which your fathers had not known, in order to make you know that not by bread alone do humans stay-alive, but rather by all that issues at YHVH’S order do humans stay-alive.and He afflicted thee. Better, so He afflicted thee.
man doth not live by bread only. Physical food is not the only thing that ensures man’s existence. Apart from the normal sustenance, there are Divine forces which sustain man in his progress through life. The words in the Text are of wider application than their reference to the manna. They teach that man has a soul as well as a body, and the needs of the spiritual life should not be neglected. This truth is of especial importance in an age when, in so many countries, men are passionately declaring that man can live by bread alone, and that he will.
4 Your garment did not wear out from upon you, your foot did not swell, these forty years.thy raiment waxed not old. ‘There are some who explain this in the manner of a symbol; i.e. the expressions are rhetorical, and not to be understood in their literal sense. They are a vivid metaphor to denote the sustaining Providence of God during the wanderings in the inhospitable desert’ (Ibn Ezra).
5 You are to know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his child, (so) YHVH your God disciplines you.and thou shalt consider in thine heart. Better, and thou shalt know with thine heart: i.e. with the conviction which comes from knowledge—the ‘heart’ being the seat of intelligence (IV,29).
chaseneth his son. Better, disciplineth his son. Even the hunger and hardship during the wanderings in the desert were part of God’s fatherly discipline of His people. Suffering is thus transfigured into what the Rabbis called ‘chastisements of love’. ‘God delivereth the afflicted by His affliction’ (Job XXXVI,15). Especially to the Rabbis is the pathway of suffering the necessary road to the beatitudes of higher life. ‘Beloved is suffering; for only through suffering were the good gifts of the Torah, the Holy Land, and Eternal Life given unto Israel. Those who . . . rejoice in their sufferings, they are the lovers of God’ (Talmud).
6 So you are to keep the commandment of YHVH your God, to walk in his ways and to hold him in awe!7-19. This fatherly discipline of God is necessary to keep vividly in mind: lest, in the plenty of Palestine, God be forgotten.
7 When YHVH your God brings you into a good land, a land of streams of water, springs and Ocean-flows, issuing from valleys and hills;a good land . . . hills. ‘An attractive and faithful description of the Palestinian landscape’ (Driver); III,25.
brooks of water. i.e. wadys.
depths. Heb. tehomoth; the underground waters that feed the rivers and fountains.
8 a land of wheat and barley, (fruit of the) vine, fig, and pomegranate, a land of olives, oil and honey,9 -a land in which you will never eat bread in poverty, you will not lack for anything in it- a land whose stones are iron, and from whose hills you may hew copper:
without scarceness. Among the desert Arabs, ‘some tribes taste bread but once a month, others not so often, and it is regarded as a luxury’ (E. Robinson).
whose stones are iron. i.e., the stones contain, and with treatment yield iron. What is meant is probably the black basalt, a volcanic product, which contains about 1/5th iron, and i still called iron-stone by the Arabs.
brass. Better, copper. Traces of copper works are to be found in Lebanon and Edom.
10 when you eat, and you are satisfied, you are to bless YHVH your God for the good land that he has given you.
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and thou shalt eat. The good things of the world are provided for man’s enjoyment; and, far from teaching that man is doing wrong by finding happiness in them, Judaism desires man to do so.
bless. i.e. thank; thou shalt be moved to praise Him with a grateful heart. The Rabbis understood these words as a command, and based upon them the precept that every meal must be followed by Grace. As ‘the earth is the LORD’s and the fulness thereof’, the Talmud declares, ‘Whoever enjoys any worldly pleasure without uttering a benediction of its Divine Giver, commits a theft against God.’
The Grace consists of four parts: thanksgiving for food, for the land of Israel, for the Temple, and general praise and petition. In the light of Judaism, the table is an altar; and every meal is hallowed by prayer, before and after. The ancient Jewish Mystics added a touch of ecstasy to the statutory Grace by singing gleeful table-hymns, Zemiroth. The unique combination, in these songs, of adoration of God with genial appreciation of good cheer is a product of the Jewish genius, which interweaves the secular with the sacred, and spreads over the ordinary facts of life the rainbow of the Divine. This saintly custom of table-hymns was soon adopted for the Sabbath by the whole house of Israel. In this way, a Sabbath meal became, literally, a service of joy and with joy. To those who sing, and teach their little ones to sing, these beautiful hymns and melodies, the Sabbath day is, as it was to their fathers of old, a foretaste of ‘that Day which is wholly a Sabbath, and rest in life everlasting’.
11 Take-you-care, lest you forget YHVH your God, by not keeping his commandments, his regulations, and his laws that I command you today,12 lest (when) you eat and are satisfied, and build goodly houses and settle (there),
13 and your herds and your flocks become-many and silver and gold become-much for you, with all that belongs to you becoming-much-
14 that your heart become haughty and you forget YHVH your God, the one who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from a house of serfs,
thy heart be lifted up . . . forget the LORD. Wherever there is pride, there is forgetting of God. ‘Of a man dominated by pride, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “I and he cannot dwell in the same universe”‘ (Talmud). ‘Prosperity always tempts man to fretfulness against every idea of restraint. Whenever men forgot God, their whole way of life dropped to a lower level and served baser issues. A reverent and humble recognition of Him and gratitude to Him would prevent their obedience becoming a weariness’ (Welch).
15 the one who had you travel in the wilderness, great and awe-inspiring, (of) burning snakes and scorpions, and thirsty-soil where there is no water; the one who brought forth water for you, from the flinty rock,fiery serpents. See Num. XXI,6.
thirsty ground where was no water. The desert was first of all a place of thirst without shade from the sun, the fierce rays of which cause excessive longing for drink; secondly, the desert was a waterless place.
16 the one who had you eat mahn in the wilderness, which your fathers had not known, in order to afflict you and in order to test you, for it to go-well with you, in your future.at thy latter end. lit. ‘in thy later days’; viz. when Israel is settled in the Land. The hard experience they had been called upon to endure was part of their training for their independent national existence.
17 Now should you say in your heart: My power and the might of my hand have produced all this wealth for me;18 then you must bear-in-mind YHVH your God, that he was the one who gave you the power to produce wealth, in order to establish his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as (is) this (very) day.
but thou shalt remember. God would fulfil the promise He made to the Patriarchs; but the continuance of the good fortune of the Israelites would depend upon their own merit. Hence the warning immediately follows, that forgetfulness of God would change national prosperity of that Covenant.
as it is this day. As the occupation of the Transjordanian lands, and the impending conquest of the Promised Land, are the result of that Covenant.
19 Now it shall be if you forget, yes, forget YHVH your God and walk after other gods, serving them and prostrating yourselves to them, I call-witness against you today that perish, you will perish;other gods . . . forewarn. Local Baals of the Canaanites.
20 like the nations that YHVH is causing to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you did not hearken to the voice of YHVH your God!as the nations . . . perish. Because you will then not be better than those nations.