Kommentar zu Dewarim 31:16

נכר הארץ [THIS PEOPLE WILL … GO ASTRAY AFTER THE GODS OF] נכר הארץ — i.e., [after the gods of] the peoples of the land (Onkelos).

THE GODS OF ‘NEICHAR’ OF THE LAND — “the gods of the [foreign] peoples of the Land.” This is Rashi’s language. But it is not correct.²³Ramban understood Rashi’s words to mean that the term neichar (foreign) applies to the peoples — “the gods of the foreign peoples.” Ramban contends that the term “foreign” applies to the gods, as will be explained. Rather, it means “the gods that are foreign to this Land,” for the Glorious Name²⁴Above, 28:58. is called the G-d of the Land, similar to what is stated, because they know not the manner of the G-d of the Land.²⁵II Kings 17:26. Similarly, And they spoke of the G-d of Jerusalem, as concerning the gods of the peoples of the earth²⁶II Chronicles 32:19. and it is further written, They shall not dwell in the Eternal’s Land.²⁷Hosea 9:3. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra mentioned this [here], and I have already explained it.²⁸See Genesis 24:3 (Vol. I, p. 294); Leviticus 18:25. (Vol. III, pp. 268-275).

וקם העם הזה וזנו אחרי אלוהי נכר, "and this nation will arise and stray after idols, etc." How can Moses describe such a deviation as a קימה, "a rising," instead of as a ירידה, "a descent, a degradation?" Perhaps we may relate the description וקמו to 32,15 where Moses described the Israelites as first waxing fat and as a result "kicking." Up until that point Israel had been referred to as "Yeshurun." At this point Moses pointedly speaks about העם, the common people rising. The coarsening of the Jewish people was due to their material blessing which G'd had showered upon the nation deserving of the distinctive appellation "Yeshurun."

אלוהי נכר הארץ, “after the gods of the strangers of the land.” According to Rashi these words are a reference to the local deities. Nachmanides writes, that of course, the Torah does not suggest that these gods have any legitimacy in any other country either, but the Torah stresses that in that land they have even less claim to legitimacy, seeing that only the G’d of Israel has any claim to that, especially in the Israelites’ land. These so-called gods are not even familiar with the customs and mores that govern human conduct in that land. (Compare Kings II 7,26)

The [non-Jewish] nations of the land: [Rashi writes this] so that you should not explain [erroneously] that the word neichar [foreign] refers to their gods. Rather It is as if it said the gods of the foreigners of the land. For if you say that it means foreign gods, it should have said to foreign gods. For we never find the word gods [elohei] modified [i.e., connected] by the word which follows it. The proof-text for this is God of Avraham [Elohei Avraham], etc. (Bereishis 31:42) which means God of Avraham, and the word god is not connected to the word which follows it. Furthermore, if the word gods' was modified by the word foreign it would not have used the phrase of the land. [I found this in the name of Maharitz]. If you ask, what is the reason that the nations of the land are called the strangers of the land,” one can answer that they are considered foreigners in that land, because the land was not theirs, for it had already been decreed that they would be expelled from there.

V. 16. וקם .ויאמר וגו׳: es wird dies nicht heimlich, als etwas zu Scheuendes tun. Es wird darin etwas ganz Berechtigtes finden, das man mit vollem Selbstgefühl in aufgerichteter Haltung üben mag. נכר .אחרי אלהי נכר הארץ (siehe zu Bereschit 35, 2). Sie betrachten die von der palästinensischen Bevölkerung verehrten Gottheiten als zu dem Lande gehörig, als solche, deren Verehrung kein im Lande Wohnender vernachlässigen dürfe, wenn er darin Schutz und Gedeihen finden wolle. In Wahrheit ist es aber ein Unwesen, das dem Lande als jüdisches Land, als Land des Gottesgesetzes fremd bleiben sollte. בקרבו, da ארץ in der Regel weiblich ist, kann sich בקרבו nur auf נכר beziehen. Es meint, in dem Lande, wohin es gekommen, befinde es sich in der Mitte eines lokalen Götterregimes. Daher neigt es sich, zuerst ohne förmlich den Bund mit Gott zu brechen, diesem Götterunwesen zu und bringt Gott seine Opfer im Heiligtum, erfüllt auch noch wohl Vorschriften seines Gesetzes, dient aber zugleich den Landesgöttern auf den Höhen. In Wahrheit aber ועזבני, verlässt es damit Gott, והפר את בריתי und bricht endlich den Bund mit dem Gesetze, zu welchem es sein Bund mit Gott verpflichtet, und von dessen Erfüllung Gott vor seinem Eintritt in das Land seinen Beistand und seinen Segen im Lande abhängig gemacht (Kap. 28, 69 und 29, 8).

אשר הוא בא שמה בקרבו, “to which it (the nation of Israel) goes to be among them.” The words: בקרב הארץ, are treated as in the masculine mode, just as in Genesis 13,6: ולא נשא אותם הארץ, “and the land could not support (both) of them;” or as in Isaiah 9,18: נעתם ארץ, “the earth was shaken.” [The word ארץ, ארצות, “land, lands,” is treated as a feminine noun in the vast majority of instances when it occurs. Ed.]

Another meaning of the verse is that not only the generation Moses describes in our verse will worship idols but also the following generation. We find in Judges 2,11 that after the death of Joshua and his generation, the Israelites began to worship the Baal. This is what G'd had predicted in our verse when He said to Moses that after he would die this people would rise and stray after alien gods.

WHITHER HE GOETH TO BE ‘B’KIRBO’ (AMONG THEM). This means “whither he [the foreign god] goes to be among His people and His servants.” Or b’kirbo may mean “in the midst of the Land,” as in the expressions: and the land was not able to bear them;²⁹Genesis 13:6. This verse shows that, although the word aretz (land) is feminine, Scripture sometimes uses it as the subject of a masculine verb, as in this verse, where the verb nasa (able to bear) is used in connection with ha’aretz instead of the feminine verb nasah. Here, too, b’kirbo [literally: “in the midst of him”] is used with reference to “the Land” instead of the feminine b’kirboh. the land burnt up,³⁰Isaiah 9:18. Here, too, the verb is the masculine ne’tam (burnt up) instead of the feminine ne’tmah. in accordance with the words of Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra.

אלהי נכר הארץ, “after the gods of the foreigners of the land.” The Torah tells us that such gods as had been permitted to the Gentile nations were nonetheless “strangers” in the Holy Land as that land was always under the direct supervision of the Lord, and He had never assigned what goes on there to the supervision of any celestial/planetary forces. This land is G’d’s own “inheritance.” This is also what the sages meant when they said אין מזל לישראל, “the Jewish people are not subject to the horoscopic influences we know as mazal.” They meant that the Jewish people, when in the land of Israel and observing the laws of the Torah, are not subject to such influences. This must be so, as we have a clear statement by these same sages that מזלו גורם, that “his mazal was a causative factor in his fate.” (Yevamot 64, et al) Seeing that the planets, stars, and all other celestial phenomena have been created for the sake of the righteous, how could it possibly be that these same righteous people are suddenly subject to these horoscopic constellations? Each of these horoscopic constellations has been assigned to certain nations, such as the constellation known as scorpion which was assigned to the people of Ishmael, the constellation Sagittarius, the archer, to the people of Persia, etc., etc. This was what the Torah referred to in Deut. 4,19-20 “which He assigned to them, whereas He (personally) took you out of the iron crucible, etc.” Clearly, the supervision of the fates of the other nations by celestial forces has been entrusted to agents of the Lord, i.e. the horoscopic forces, whereas that of the Jewish people is not determined by means of intermediaries. It is noteworthy that nowhere in the Torah does G’d accuse the Gentile nations of idolatry or describe them as being punished for relating to these forces as gods. Only the Jewish people have been warned again and again not to turn to any form of intermediary, and they are being held responsible for observing this commandment in the strictest possible sense. The only time Gentile nations are described as being punished for the practice of idolatry is if they did so in the Holy Land, the land which G’d claimed as His share and inheritance. The best proof of this is found in Kings II 17,26 where the prophet tells us about the Kushites who practiced the cults of their fathers after they had been forcibly transplanted to the areas previously inhabited by the Ten Tribes who had been exiled by King Shalmanesser of Assyria.
The reason that the Torah speaks here of אלוהי נכר הארץ, is that these deities are totally alien to the land of Israel, fulfilling neither a function for the local inhabitants nor for the Israelites. All kinds of idolatry is alien to that country, no intermediary force having been assigned to function in that land. Anyone practicing idolatry in that land is seen as if he were trying to expel the king of that country from his palace. This is one of the ways in which the land of Israel is superior to all other countries. This fact is alluded to in the verse in Job 5,10: הנותן מטר על פני ארץ ושולח מים על פני חוצות, “Who gives rain to the earth, and sends water over the fields.” This verse teaches that G’d’s benevolent supervision of what goes on earth concentrates on the land of Israel and spreads from there to other parts of the globe. These parts are referred to in the verse in Job as חוצות, “outlying areas.” The manner in which this proliferation has been described is שולח, “dispatches,” whereas the rain which falls in the Holy Land is described in this verses as the result of נתינה, “something given directly.” David refers to the areas described as חוצות in Job as אהלי רשע, “the tents of the wicked.” (Psalms 84,11) The whole verse there reads: “Better one day in Your courts than a thousand anywhere else; I would rather stand on the threshold of G’d’s House than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” When compared to Jerusalem, the city of righteousness, other locations do not qualify for a better description than “tents of wickedness.” Our paragraph refers to the period of the first Temple when idolatry was rampant.

אשר הוא בא שמה בקרבו, “in whose midst it is coming.” the reference is not to the people but to the land. This is not the first time that the word ארץ appears as masculine; we have a similar masculine description of the land of Israel in Genesis 13,6.
It is also possible that the word בקרבו is an allusion to the Sanctuary in the land, which is viewed as being in its center. This would be analogous to a statement by our sages in Petichta Rabbah to Lamentations 22: “How long (did they relentlessly introduce more and more idolatry)? Until they introduced idolatry into the Sanctuary itself.” [The Midrash refers to a verse in Jeremiah 11,6 in which the proliferation of idolatry in the towns of Yehudah is described and the word חוצות describes the innermost part of Jerusalem. It adds a verse from Ezekiel 8,5 describing penetration by idolatry of the Sanctuary itself as the ultimate act of rebellion against the Lord. Ed.]