시편 84:11의 인용 해설

דורי My dwelling.¹²A. V., Mine age. Comp. מדור from dwelling (Ps. 39:5); the word is frequent in Chaldee;¹³Comp. דירה dwelling, דיורין occupants of a house (Talm. Bab. Sukka ix.) דור generation (13:20) is perhaps to be derived from the same root;¹⁴דור A generation, that is, the average time a man dwells upon the earth. comp. for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner (Ps. 39:13).

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.

ויאמר לא תוכל לראות, He said: "you are not able to see, etc." G'd meant that it was not He who withheld visual insights from Moses, it was simply that being a mortal human being, a composite of flesh and spirit, made such a thing impossible. This is why G'd added the word וחי, "and remain alive," to explain to Moses that because G'd wanted Moses to remain alive He could not grant his wish at this time. This would correspond to the thoughts expressed by the Psalmist when he said: (Psalms 84,11) "better a day in Your courtyard than a thousand (days in Your palace)."