신명기 31:29의 인용 해설

Now.. is it not written etc. These are unseasoned, lengthy words; by the life of my head, I am tempted to say, they are childish words. Should the Creator say to the perverters: "Why did thou turn aside, I made no mention of thy name, to afford thee the excuse of saying that I decreed it against thee", the perverters will say to Him: "Upon whom then is Thy decree applicable, if on those who did not turn aside, behold, Thy decree was not established". But of, this Verse "And this people will rise up, and go astray after the foreign gods of the land", we long ago suggested that in the subject of the foreknowledge of God there is no connection with predestination, much less can it be utilized here, seeing that even Moses said: "For I know that after my death ye will in any wise deal corruptly" (Deut. 31.29), and preceding this he, moreover, said: "Behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death?". How much more, then could the Creator speak thus without it being a decree? As for the subject of the Egyptians, it is no question at all for two reasons: first, it is a known doctorine that God inflicts no punishment against a wicked man unless it be through a more wicked man than he, whenafter that wicked man will have retribution visited upon him; For, so it is said: "O Ashur, the rod of Mine anger", (Is. 10.5), but, "When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spiled" (Ibid. 33.1); because of thy wickedness, and haughtiness of thy heart, and vain glory against Me. The Egyptians, too, were wicked and it was meet that they receive the plagues; yet, if they had listened to Moses at first and let the children of Irsael go forth, they would neither have been plagued nor drowned in the Red Sea; but the spitefulness of Pharoah, and his insulting words against the Creator in the presence of His messenger caused the punishment to be visited upon him. Second, because the Creator said: "And they shall afflict them" (Gen. 15.13), but they afflicted them with rigour, put some of them to death, and killed others by drowning, as the subject is spoken of saying: "I was but a little angry, but they helped for evil" (Zech. 1.15); they were, therefore, found guilty". ^*Rabbi Abraham De Butin, too, criticises Maimonides for delving into this subject again, after he already gave his opinion that we can not comprehend the foreknowledge of God in the preceding chapter. The RiTBa, in defending Maimonides, here falls in an error regarding the RABD, by attributing to him knowledge of Kabalah, an attribute belonging to RABD I. With all the commentaries silent, it is evident that, as far as this defence of the doctorine of self-will versus predestination is concerned, it must be considered weak. The text of this paragraph, however, lends itself to very strong points. The parallelism herein contained is more than of passing strength. Of course, Maimonides establishes the ultimate point upon Faith; but his arguments are chiefly directed to offset contradictions to the Torah. In this he succeeded. The RABD, too, upholds the doctorine of choice of action as against predestination. C.G.

The word לכן (verse 12) means "on account of this." The word also has the connotation of an oath. G'd foresaw how the Israelites would conduct themselves in the land of Israel many years hence. Even Moses himself had predicted this already in Deut. 31,29. Had He allowed Moses and Aaron to build the Temple, He would have had to vent His anger at the people when the time came that they sinned, seeing they had allowed ideal conditions to go to waste. As it is, the people never lived in the Holy Land under ideal conditions so that G'd could use this as a mitigating circumstance when evaluating their sins.

וקראת שמו, the letter ת at the end is a feminine ending future tense, i.e. "you will call." On the other hand, in Deut. 31,29 the same word וקראת אתכם refers to a third person feminine construction where the letter ת substitutes for the letter ה, the expression meaning: "it will befall you." The reference is to the רעה, evil, a noun that is feminine which follows immediately after the word אתכם.

ואין עמו אל נכר AND THERE WAS NO STRANGE GOD WITH HIM — for not one of the gods of the other peoples possessed the power to display its might and to war with them. — Our Rabbis, however, explained it as a promise referring to the future (cf. Sifrei Devarim 315), and so, too, does Onkelos render it. But I say that they (the statements of this chapter) are words of reproof which he said with the view of calling heaven and earth as witnesses against them, and also in order that this song (cf. Deuteronomy 31:21) should be witness, because He knew (Deuteronomy 31:29) that they would in future prove faithless and would bear in mind neither the past (lit., the first) deeds that He performed for them nor those that would come to pass (lit., that would be born), which at a future time He would do for them. For this reason it is necessary to make the text fit in with this and with that (the past and the future). Indeed, the whole section is to be connected with (v. 7) “Remember the days of old (i.e., the past), consider the years of generation after generation” (the future) (cf. Rashi on that verse): Thus has He done for them and thus will He in the future do for them — all this they ought to bear in mind.