Torah Study - Deuteronomy 32:40-43 February 4, 2017

Verse 40

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God’s original concept of a Jewish people ‎populating earth, before the universe was even ‎created, is referred to in this verse as ‎חי אנכי לעולם‎, an ‎attribute of ‎חירות‎ “unlimited freedom.,” and the purpose ‎of raising His hand to the heavens is in order to ‎activate the attribute of largesse, ‎שפע‎ which is ‎dispensed by means of the attribute ‎יד‎ in this case ‎ידי‎, ‎‎“My hand.” We must remember that the attribute from ‎which God’s largesse emanates is neither the one called ‎חי‎ nor the one called ‎חירות‎, as “life” [in the ‎sense of what is needed to support life, Ed.] is hanging constantly in balance, so that ‎when deserving God’s largesse for such people will ‎insure that they remain alive, whereas if lacking basic ‎merits, none of God’s largesse will reach them so that ‎they will die.‎ (Kedushat Levi)
I raise my hand to heaven.

• Raising the hand heavenward is a gesture that accompanies invoking God in an oath. Here, with God Himself the speaker, it is simply and idiom meaning "I swear." (JPS)
• ...as do human beings in order to ensure that the people present will listen to them. (Chizkuni)

as I live forever.

• In human oaths, declaring "As the Lord lives" is a verbal counterpart to raising the hand heavenward. When God swears, He...[uses] the pronoun "I" instead of His own name. (JPS)
• I used the fact that I live forever as the guarantee that I can keep My oath. (Sforno)

Verse 41

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whet My flashing blade.

• God is pictured as a warrior preparing for battle. (JPS)
• IF I SHALL WHET THE BLADE OF MY SWORD, so that it shall have a flash (ברק); splendeur in old French (Rashi)
• even though I had sharpened the blade of My sword against the Jewish people during the time of their exile, את ברק חרבי, this was only the flashing appearance, not the פי החרב, the lethal part of the sword. (Sforno)

judgment.

• In the light of the parallel term "blade" (lit., "sword") and the parallelism "arrows...sword" in the next verse, mishpat must mean a weapon of judgment, an instrument of punishment. The Mekhilta interprets it as an arrow, serving as a metaphor for a decree of punishment. (JPS)
• i.e., on strict justice, relinquishing (i.e. withdrawing) My attribute of mercy from My enemies who have done so much evil unto you,... but My hand shall grasp the attribute of justice to hold fast to it in order to take vengeance. (Rashi)

My foes. The enemy, although used by God as an agent for punishing Israel, is His foe. The Bible implicitly assumes that God uses evil nations to punish Israel and that they, too, will ultimately be punished. (JPS)
wreak...deal. Literally, "return...pay back." The enemy's punishment will be merited. (JPS)

Verse 42

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I will make my arrows drunk with blood.

• The enemy will go down to a bloody defeat. The image of the devouring sword is a common one; that of arrows drinking is unique. (JPS)
• Now the warrior God turns His ferocity from Israel to its enemies. It is a commonplace of biblical figurative language that arrows drink blood, the sword consumes flesh. (Alter)
• how is it possible for arrows to become drunk with blood? The meaning is that G-d will make others drunk when they see what His arrows have accomplished. (Sifri)

My sword devours flesh. How is it possible for a sword to devour flesh? It means that G-d will arrange for others to be fed with meat as a result of what My sword has accomplished. (Sifri)
blood of the...captive. This refers either to the blood of the wounded captives or to prisoners killed after capture. (JPS)
long-haired...chiefs.

• The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain. Since pera means head-hair (possibly uncut or disheveled) the phrase could mean "the hairy heads of the enemy," with "heads" meant either literally or as "chiefs." Par'ot also appears in the opening phrase of the Song of Deborah, which the NJPS renders "When locks go untrimmed" (Judg. 5:1). Both passages have been explained as referring to a practice of warriors like Samson letting their hair grow long, either out of a belief that the strength resides in their hair or as a mark of nazarite dedication to the deity. However, there is little evidence that warriors normally did this in the ancient Near East. (JPS)
• The Masoretic Text says, very literally, "from the head of the long hair [or unbound hair] of the foe." This reading raises two problem: if the long hair is the object of the sword, not much blood would be involved; and "head" makes an odd parallel to "blood" in the preceding verses. This translation adopts a proposed emendation that simply reverses the order of consonants of "head," rosh, yielding she'er, "flesh." (Alter)

Verse 43

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Coda: Celebration of God's Deliverance of Israel (JPS)
According to the Masoretic Text, the poem concludes with a final invocation calling upon the nations to acclaim God's deliverance of Israel and punishment of the enemy. This invitation implies that God's salvation of Israel has importance for the world at large. Rashbam explains that this is implicitly an invitation to the nations to revere the Lord as Israel does and a promise that if they do so, He will treat them as He does Israel (when it is meritorious). This explanation brings us back to God's original purpose in electing Israel: to make it a model nation so that all can see how He treats those who acknowledge Him.
The Song of Moses concludes with a glorious promise: God will take vengeance on Israel's enemies, causing God's holy nation to rejoice in God's holy land. Yet a variant reading of Deut. 32:43 suggests that the Land of Israel is itself imbued with enough holiness to make expiation for those who seek it. (Elaine Rose Glickman, 1999)
acclaim.

• Literally, "gladden," meaning congratulate Israel on its deliverance and on having such a God. (JPS)
• SING ALOUD. At that time (when I shall take vengeance on them) the nations will praise Israel: “See, how praiseworthy is this people, — that they have cleaved to the Holy One, blessed be He, amidst all the troubles which have passed over them, and have not forsaken Him, for they had constantly experienced His goodness and His excellence” (Rashi)
  

He'll avenge the blood of His servants.

• The use of the verb "avenge" may be due to the fact that in this part of the poem Israel is no longer described as God's children by as His "servants" (v. 36). "Redeem" is used when the avenger is a relative, whereas "avenge" is used when it is God or human authorities. (JPS)
• Or "exact retribution from." (Fox)

cleanse the land of His people.

• That is, cleanse His people's land. According to Rashbam, by spilling the enemy's blood God will cleanse the land of the Israelite blood shed by the enemy.... The NJPS translators imply that admato may be a scribal error for udma'ot, "tears." a variant (known from Ugaritic) of the Hebrew word for tears, dema'ot, and that the clause means that God "will wipe away His people's tears." (JPS)
• He will appease His land and His people for the miseries that have passed over them and for that which the enemy has caused them. (Rashi)
  
• an expression denoting appeasing and calming (Rashi)
  
• for the soil of the Land of Israel having been desolate and barren while its people were in exile and for what had occurred on that soil in the interval. (Sforno)
  
• His people will also have to atone for all the wrongs they did during the long years they had been in exile. The purpose of this dual atonement by both the soil and the people is to bring back the Shechinah, G’d’s benevolent presence to the Land of Israel (Sforno)
  
• “He will grant atonement to His land and for His people.” According to some commentators mentioned by Ibn Ezra, the word עמו should really have the letter ו in front of it, so that the meaning of the phrase would be: “He will provide atonement for its land and for its people.” An allegorical approach taken by the Midrash is that the land is seen as atoning of behalf of its people. [The idea is that the land, for many years neglected, serves as the scapegoat for the Jewish people who had neglected to observe the laws of sh’mittah. Ed.] Ibn Ezra personally, understands the phrase as a promise that in due course, the gentiles who had shed so much innocent Jewish blood on that land, will at that time atone for all this when the Jews will take their vengeance on them. The retribution for innocent blood spilled must be undertaken by the victimized party or their offspring, (their blood avengers), whose blood had been shed, so that in the war preceding the redemption, Jews will kill their adversaries, the ones who had contaminated the soil of the Holy Land in former years. Ibn Ezra quotes Job 14:19 and Ezekiel 43:20as verses in which such concepts also appear. Yet another interpretation of our phrase understands the word as meaning the same as וטהר, “it will purify, cleanse.” Israel, when the time comes, will cleanse its soil from all kinds of contaminations it had been exposed to in the interval since its people went into exile. (Tur HaAroch)