Kommentar zu Dewarim 5:5

לאמר SAYING — This is to be connected with (v. 4), דבר ה' עמכם בהר מתוך האש “[face to face] the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire”, — לאמר, אנכי וגו׳, saying. “I am the Lord, etc.", ואנכי עמד בין ה׳ וביניכם WHILST I STOOD BETWEEN THE LORD AND YOU.

I STOOD BETWEEN THE ETERNAL AND YOU AT THAT TIME, TO DECLARE UNTO YOU THE WORD OF THE ETERNAL. For Moses would go up to the mountain and hear the words of G-d and come down and tell them to the people, until G-d spoke with them face to face.¹²³Verse 4. This is an allusion to all that is mentioned in the section In the third month,¹²⁴Exodus 19:1. beginning with Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob¹²⁵Ibid., Verse 3. [and concluding with] And the Eternal said unto him, Go, get thee down.¹²⁶Ibid., Verse 24. And Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said that this [occurrence referred to in the verse, I stood between the Eternal and you etc.,] happened after the Revelation at Mount Sinai, the purport of the verse being as follows: “He spoke with you face to face¹²³Verse 4. [at the giving of the Ten Commandments], and from that day on I stood between G-d and you.” But it is not correct.
It appears to me that the correct interpretation is that Moses is alluding to what we have explained there¹²⁷Ibid., 20:7 — Vol. II, pp. 305-306. that Israel understood from the mouth of the Almighty only the commandments I am the Eternal thy G-d etc.¹²⁸Ibid., Verse 2. and Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.¹²⁹Ibid., Verse 3. As for the rest of the commandments, it was Moses who declared to them what G-d said. This is the meaning [of the expression here], to declare unto you the word of the Eternal, for he explained to them each and every commandment. And the meaning of the expression (I stood) between the Eternal and you is that, at the time of the giving of the commandments, Moses was nearer than they to the place of the Divine Glory, for they had removed themselves far [from the mountain] as I have explained there.¹³⁰Ibid., Verse 15 — Vol. II, pp. 324-326. This is [the sense of the words] for ye were afraid because of the fire, and went not up into the Mount meaning that you did not approach it [even the part] that was permissible to you [to approach]. Therefore I stood between you and the place of the Glory — in the middle — because it was distant between you and Him, and from there I declared [the rest of] the commandments [to you].

אנכי עומד בין ה׳ וביניכם, "I was standing between the Lord and between you, etc." This verse means that for part of the Ten Commandments G'd spoke with the people face to face, whereas during part of the Ten Commandments He spoke to them through an intermediary. The reason G'd employed an intermediary for part of the Ten Commandments was not His unwillingness to speak to the people directly, but to their fear of dying.

לאמר, this refers to verse 4 in which Moses referred to the פנים אל פנים “face to face” encounter when G’d addressed the Jewish people directly at the revelation on Mount Sinai commencing the Decalogue with the words “I am the Lord your G’d, etc.”

לאמר, פני בפנים דבר ה' עמכם, the word עמכם, “with you,” is used in the sense of אליכם, “to you,” [seeing the Israelites did not respond to G’d with words of their own at that time. Ed.] לאמר אנכי, A explained on Exodus 20,1-2. If so, why did Moses have to stand in a position between that from which G’d’s voice emanated and the people? This was only to tell you the meaning of the words of G’d and to add to the degree of awe with which G’d’s words have to be related to. You yourselves were too sacred to hear G’d’s voice any further. [This is also the reason why you were afraid to ascend the mountain when you saw the fire. Ed.]

אנכי עומד בין ה' וביניכם בעת ההיא, “I was standing between Hashem and between you at that time;” Nachmanides explains this statement as a reference to Moses having ascended the Mountain in order to listen to G’d’s words, words he relayed to the people until the day when Hashem addressed the people personally. (Verse 6) The period covered by Moses began on the first day of Sivan as we read in Exodus Moses had been instructed to relay G’d’s words to the people commencing with the line כה תאמר לבית יעקב, “Thus you shall say to the House of Yaakov” in verse 3 of that chapter. G’d’s instructions continued until He said לך רד ועלית, in Ibn Ezra says that the passage we are reading here was said by Moses after the revelation at Mount Sinai, and that the meaning of the words is that after G’d had spoken to you “face to face,” and you had been unable to endure this and remain alive at the same time, G’d decided to use me as your interpreter as you yourselves had requested. Therefore, from then on I have been standing between you and between Hashem. Nachmanides does not accept this interpretation but prefers the interpretation of our sages, referring to his interpretation on Exodus 20,7 that the Israelites actually only heard and understood the first two of the Ten Commandments from G’d’s own mouth, and that they did not understand the other Commandments though their ears heard them. They had been under far too great an emotional impact. From the third Commandment onwards, Moses was already the interpreter. At any rate, at the time of the revelation, from the point of view of physical proximity, Moses had been asked by G’d to position himself so that he would be closer to the source of these words which appeared to issue forth from the Mountain, than the people who had remained at the foot of the Mountain.

אנכי עומד בין ה’ וביניכם, “I was standing between Hashem and between you.” According to Ibn Ezra this verse speaks about Moses being an intermediary between the Israelites and G’d ever since the revelation at Mount Sinai. However, the correct meaning is that described by Nachmanides, that Moses reverted to describe what happened during that revelation when Moses was speaking to the Israelites translating G’d’s words to them, i.e. making what they had heard intelligible to them. The Israelites had both heard and understood the first two of the Ten Commandments. They heard G’d’s voice saying the remainder but did not understand the words and their meanings. This is the meaning of להגיד לכם את דבר ה’, “to tell you the word of Hashem, i.e. the ones you did not understand.” You had become afraid of the fire and you had not ascended the mountain.

[The word לאמר (saying)] is connected with, “Adonoy spoke etc.” For how could it be that, “Saying,” is connected to the phrase that immediately precedes it, “and did not go up on the mountain saying”? For what did they have to say on the mountain? Rather, the verse interrupts between [the phrases], “from within the fire,” and, “saying.” This is to emphasize that I [Moshe] was the agent between Hashem and you, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up on the mountain.

V. 5. אנכי עמד וגו׳. Meine Stellung zwischen euch und Gott zur Zeit der Gesetzgebung war frei von jeder Spur eines Gesetzgebers, war lediglich die des Gesetzüberbringers. Gott, der Gesetzgeber, war euch gegenwärtig, und wie er unmittelbar an jeden von euch sein Wort richtete, so hörte auch jeder von euch sein an ihn gerichtetes Wort. Wenn ich bei diesem ganzen großen Ereignis und überhaupt בעת ההיא, während der ganzen übrigen Zeit der Gesetzgebung, eine nähere Stellung zu Gott, als ihr, einnahm, zwischen Gott und euch stand, um euch das Wort Gottes zu überbringen: so war dies, weil ihr nicht einmal zur Vernehmung der ersten zehn Fundamentalsätze, so weit es euch gestattet war, hinzutreten wagtet — ולא עליתם בהר לאמר, ihr wagtet nicht, näher den Berg hinanzugehen zum Ausspruch der עשרת הדברות (siehe Schmot 20. 15 — 18).

אנכי עומד בין ה' ובינכם, “I stood between the Lord and between you;” I did so in order to convey the other eight commandments to you.

SAYING. “This [word] refers to [the expression in the preceding verse], the Eternal spoke with you in the Mount out of the midst of the fire¹²³Verse 4. — saying: I am the Eternal thy G-d etc.” This is Rashi’s language. And Rabbi Abraham [ibn Ezra] said: “Pay no attention to the fact that the word saying is far [from the phrase it modifies in the preceding verse], for there are many such cases in Scripture, and the one who spoke [Moses] neither separated his words into verses nor sections.” It would be more correct to connect the word saying with [the preceding phrase in the same verse],¹³¹Ramban disagrees with Rashi and Ibn Ezra, who connect the word leimor (saying) with a phrase in the preceding Verse 4. Ramban holds that if the word leimor is to be interpreted as referring to a preceding phrase in the above text, we need not look for that phrase in the preceding verse, but find a preceding phrase in the same verse. Ramban will, however, continue that the word leimor requires no connection with any preceding verse or phrase. Instead it can be properly interpreted in the natural sequence of the verse as it is written. to declare unto you the word of the Eternal—saying: I am the Eternal thy G-d, similar to the expression, And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying¹³²Exodus 13:8. [in which case the word saying connects itself properly with the preceding and following phrases: saying — It is because of that which the Eternal did for me when I came forth out of Egypt].¹³²Exodus 13:8. But in my opinion there is no need at all [for either interpretation], for its meaning is as follows: “for ye were afraid because of the fire, and went not up into the Mount, saying, ‘We will not go up, for we are afraid because of the fire.’” He is thus mentioning that they told him so clearly, and not that he is saying so from his own assumption.

ולא עליתם בהר לאמור. "and you did not ascend the mountain, saying." This means that G'd forbade you to ascend the mountain because of His wanting to say: אנכי ה׳ אלוקיכם, "I am the Lord your G'd, etc."

לאמור, “to relay by word of mouth.” Rashi says that this refers to repeating the revelation at Mount Sinai, the words G’d had spoken to the people at that time. Nachmanides writes that there is no need for this commentary at all, but that the fact that at the time the people had been so terrified by the accompanying thunder and lightning that they were unable to even properly understand G’d’s words. This had made it necessary that Moses repeat to them what G’d had said on that occasion. Moses was now going to verbalise what the people had remembered only in their minds, i.e their unspoken desire to have him be the go between Hashem and themselves. Nachmanides continues that the part of the Torah known to us all as משנה תורה, “review of the Torah,” commences now with the restatement of the Ten Commandments. Moses did not introduce any changes into the first two of these Commandments, the ones that the people themselves had heard directly from the mouth of G’d. Moses also did not edit in the sense of “expand on” the third Commandment. He began explaining when he substituted the word שמור instead of זכור at the beginning of the fourth Commandment, that of Sabbath observance. He explained that aspect of the Sabbath legislation to them now, their already being familiar with the aspect known as זכור. He informed them that the שמור aspect had been revealed at the same time as the זכור aspect. He added the words:

ולא עליתם בהר לאמר, and you did not ascend the Mountain;” you did not have to ascend the Mountain during the revelation of the Ten Commandments, nor as I did for 40 days thereafter in order to receive the whole Torah. (Ibn Ezra)