Storyteller and Setting Some commentaries on Devarim

(1) The correct interpretation of These are the words is that the commandments written in the upcoming parashiyyot of Re eh , Shofeṭim , Ki Teṣeh , and Ki Tavo had already been given to the Israelites when they were in the wilderness. In other words, the phrase that Moshe spoke is modified by the entire remainder of the verse, as if Scripture had repeated it, saying: “These are the words that Moshe spoke to all Israel, which Moshe had spoken in the wilderness, and in the desert across the Red Sea…” starting from the day that they left Sinai.

(1) אלה הדברים THESE ARE THE WORDS — Because these are words of reproof and he is enumerating here all the places where they provoked God to anger, therefore he suppresses all mention of the matters in which they sinned and refers to them only by a mere allusion contained in the names of these places out of regard for Israel (cf. Sifrei Devarim 1:1; Onkelos and Targum Jonathan).

(1) אלה הדברים, “these are the words, etc.” wherever a paragraph is introduced with the word: אלה, it is not to be considered as continuation of what preceded it. Up to now we read about commandments involving ritual and social legislation, whereas from here on in we are reading words of admonition and warnings about a dire future for the Jewish people if these warnings should be ignored.

(2) בעבר הירדן, followed by which side of the Jordan this took place on, i.e. (3) במדבר, on the bank of the Jordan facing the desert in which the Israelites had spent the last 40 years, which is know as עבר הירדן, “the far bank of the Jordan” to the people residing west of it. It did not refer to what would be called עבר הירדן near Jerusalem that is also referred to as the far bank of the Jordan by people traveling in the desert through which the Israelites had been traveling all these years.

Since the Israelites were not now in the wilderness, having already entered the land of Moab, Onkelos interprets [the list of place names] as implicit rebukes. One must certainly ask what all these places are doing here. The verse has more place names than a real estate sale.

(3) במדבר IN THE WILDERNESS — They, however,‎‎were not then in the wilderness, but in the plains of Moab (cf. Numbers 36:13 and further on verse 5): What, therefore, is the meaning of במדבר? It does not mean "in the wilderness”, but the meaning is: he reproved them on account of that wherein they had provoked Him to anger in the wilderness — that they said, (Exodus 16:3) “Would that we had died [by the hand of the Lord]” (cf. Sifrei Devarim 1:11; see also Onkelos).

(1) ויהי בארבעים שנה בעשתי עשר חדש באחד לחדש AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE FORTIETH YEAR, IN THE ELEVENTH MONTH, ON THE FIRST OF THE MONTH, [MOSES SPAKE] — This tells us that he reproved them only shortly before his death (Jewish tradition holds that Moses died on the seventh day of the twelfth month; cf. Megillah 13b). From whom did he learn this? From Jacob, who reproved his sons only shortly before his death. He said, “Reuben, my son, I will tell you why I have not reproved you for your unfitial conduct during all these years: it was in order that you should not leave me and go and join Esau, my wicked brother". — And on account of four things one should not reprove a person except shortly before one's death: that one should not reprove him and again have to reprove him; and that his fellow whom he reproves should not. when he afterwards happens to see him, feel ashamed before him, etc...

(1) אחרי הכתו AFTER HE HAD SMITTEN [SIHON] — Moses said: If I reprove them before they enter at least a part of the land, they will say, “What claim has this man upon us? What good has he ever conferred upon us? He only comes to vex us and to discover some pretext for leaving us in the wilderness, for he really has not the power to bring us into the land” On this account he waited until he had defeated Sihon and Og and had given them possession of their land — and only after that did he reprove them (Sifrei Devarim 3:2).

(2) ויאמרו טובה הארץ AND THEY SAID, THE LAND IS GOOD — Who were they who spoke of it being good? Joshua and Caleb (Sifrei Devarim 23:3).

(1) 'כי רק עוג מלך הבשן וגו, because he had survived from the time when giants walked the earth, G’d told Moses not to be afraid of him. (verse 2) (2) הנה ערשו, his crib when he was still growing up; (3) ערש ברזל, he was already so strong when he was still quite young that when he stretched out his bed frame would collapse. As a result, they made an iron bedstead for him. An adult would not have needed this as he would have known how to move around in it without breaking it. (4) הלה היא ברבת עמון, it has still been preserved on the site where he had grown up in order for anyone seeing it to be amazed by it. One does not make a spectacle of the bedstead of an adult in one location as adults move around and sleep in many different beds at different times. (5) באמת איש, of a fully grown man. [the אמה is the length from one’s elbow to the fingertips. Naturally, this differed in length at different times in one’s adolescence. Ed.]

(2) באמת איש AFTER THE CUBIT OF A MAN — i.e. after the cubit of Og.

(1) a man’s cubit i.e., a normal man’s cubit — thus indicating that he was twice an ordinary man’s size (it is implausible that Scripture meant his own cubit, because then Scripture would be telling us nothing about his size — and moreover, it would imply that he was not at all shaped like a human being).