Essay su Deuteronomio 10:78

Continuing the argument of the last chapter—that Israel should take great care to remember who it was that led them—Moshe makes pointed reference to the great rebellion that took place at the foot of Sinai itself: the incident of the Golden (“Molten”) Calf in Ex. 32–34. In this he is recapitulating the rhetoric of the opening chapters of the book, as well as of the great poem in Chap. 32, which utilize the past to inform the future. The calf incident, in fact, paves the way for the passages that immediately follow.

To conclude his long introduction to the laws, Moshe returns to the theme of YHWH’s love for Israel, expanding it to include Israel’s duty to love the stranger and also to love God. Once again the past is invoked, especially those parts of it that focus on God’s might. The intimate connection between people and land is stressed through Moshe’s wonderful description of Canaan (vv.11–12), and the polarity of blessing and curse rounds out his plea—just as a long blessing/curse cycle will round out the whole book in Chaps. 29 and 30. In fact, Chap. 11, both in its beginning (“you are to keep his charge, his laws, his regulations and his commandments”) and its ending (“you are to take-care to observe all the laws and the regulations that I place before you today”), form a fitting lead-in to the long sequence of laws that is about to commence.