אֶת־יְהוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ תִּירָ֖א וְאֹת֣וֹ תַעֲבֹ֑ד וּבִשְׁמ֖וֹ תִּשָּׁבֵֽעַ׃
네 하나님 여호와를 경외하며 섬기며 그 이름으로 맹세할 것이니라
HaKtav VeHaKabalah
Elohim. According to Rashi this Name signifies lordship and greatness; according to the Rambam, judgment; according to the Ibn Ezra, kingship; according to the Seforno, eternality. It is in the plural, says the Seforno, to indicate that He is the ultimate eternal form from which all others derive. According to the Tur (Orach Chayim) and the Beis Yosef it signifies strength and domination. To the Ralbag it indicates that all things emanate from and are governed by Him. The Vilna Gaon agrees that it indicates governance, which is why it can be applied to lesser governing beings as well.
Rabbeinu Bahya
In this verse Solomon explains that a multitude of subjects and their presence constitute a king’s honor and pride. The reason that this is so is because among his subjects there may be individuals who can match or even surpass the king in wisdom, in prowess, in wealth or in other characteristics. The king’s superiority over all these people who can compete with him in individual attributes comes to the fore only in his commanding a multitude and in the size of the kingdom he controls. If, for some reason, the people abandon him, this spells the ruin of his glory.
The word רזון comes from רוזנים, rulers. Seeing Solomon had commenced his sentence with the words הדרת מלך, he should by rights have continued the contrast by writing מחתת מלך, instead of מחתת רוזנים. However, Solomon wanted to convey the idea that the absence of the usual multitude so affects the king that even the title מלך can no longer be applied to him. He will be merely like any other “ruler” whose sole distinction consists in the fact that he can impose his will on a number of inferiors. The title מלך is simply not appropriate for someone who does not have a (willing) people at his disposal. It follows that the self-confidence of a king, i.e. his faith is bound up with the people at his command. This is the reason that G’d did not really want that the Jewish people should have a king. If his faith would be placed in the people under him, how could he be faithful to the Lord above him and make Him the focus of his trust?! Not only that! The people too would place their trust and faith in the visible king instead of in the Lord (who remains invisible).
We, the people who are the recipients of the Torah, have been commanded את ה' אלו-היך תירא, “fear the Lord your G’d” (Deut. 6,13). We have also been commanded not to fear the Canaanites (both in Deut. 7,18 and elsewhere). Seeing the Torah has forbidden us to fear mortal man and has commanded each one of us to place our trust and faith exclusively in the Lord it follows that if we truly keep this commandment not only do we have no need for a mortal king, but we will be far better off than if we did have a king of flesh and blood.
However, seeing that G’d foresaw in His wisdom that the time would come when even the Jewish people would demand to be governed by a mortal king just as is the norm among the Gentiles, the Torah forestalled some of the negative fallout of such a phenomenon by stipulating rules both for who could become such a king and how such a king would have to conduct himself. This is the reason for Deut. 17,14-16 writing: “when you will say: ‘I wish to appoint a king for myself similar to the nations around me, you shall certainly appoint a king over yourself.’” Actually, the very demand for a mortal king should have been considered a sin by the people seeing that when G’d took the people out of Egypt He had demonstrated that He could do so much more for the people than any king of flesh and blood.
It would seem logical that He who controls the whole universe should be king. This is especially so when this king has seen fit to manifest His presence among the people in the Temple. No wonder that G’d considered the very demand of the people as an insult directed at Him rather than at the previous leader Samuel (Samuel I 8,7). What could possibly prompt the people to “trade” G’d’s benevolent leadership for a mortal king? The fact that King Shaul eventually fell in battle was a demonstration to the people that they had not done well in demanding a king of flesh and blood as their political leader. Based on such considerations Solomon said in the verse we quoted above that the glory of a king is in the multitude who willingly pay homage to him.
A righteous person who places all his faith in the Lord is on safer ground than if he were to rely on his king, as the king who places his faith in the loyalty of his people will sometimes fall into the hands of his enemies and all his soldiers will not then be able to save him.
Sichon and Og, mighty kings, placed their trust in their armies and it did not help them. They did not realize that in the last analysis success in life does not depend on numbers but on G’d’s decrees. David expressed this clearly in Psalms 33,16: “kings are not delivered by a large force, warriors are not saved by great strength; horses are a false hope for deliverance; for all their great power they provide no escape.” Seeing some of the mightiest kings of their time all fell victim to Moses it is not surprising that Balak was terrified at the approach of the Israelites who had defeated nations far stronger than his own. This is why our portion commences with the words:
The word רזון comes from רוזנים, rulers. Seeing Solomon had commenced his sentence with the words הדרת מלך, he should by rights have continued the contrast by writing מחתת מלך, instead of מחתת רוזנים. However, Solomon wanted to convey the idea that the absence of the usual multitude so affects the king that even the title מלך can no longer be applied to him. He will be merely like any other “ruler” whose sole distinction consists in the fact that he can impose his will on a number of inferiors. The title מלך is simply not appropriate for someone who does not have a (willing) people at his disposal. It follows that the self-confidence of a king, i.e. his faith is bound up with the people at his command. This is the reason that G’d did not really want that the Jewish people should have a king. If his faith would be placed in the people under him, how could he be faithful to the Lord above him and make Him the focus of his trust?! Not only that! The people too would place their trust and faith in the visible king instead of in the Lord (who remains invisible).
We, the people who are the recipients of the Torah, have been commanded את ה' אלו-היך תירא, “fear the Lord your G’d” (Deut. 6,13). We have also been commanded not to fear the Canaanites (both in Deut. 7,18 and elsewhere). Seeing the Torah has forbidden us to fear mortal man and has commanded each one of us to place our trust and faith exclusively in the Lord it follows that if we truly keep this commandment not only do we have no need for a mortal king, but we will be far better off than if we did have a king of flesh and blood.
However, seeing that G’d foresaw in His wisdom that the time would come when even the Jewish people would demand to be governed by a mortal king just as is the norm among the Gentiles, the Torah forestalled some of the negative fallout of such a phenomenon by stipulating rules both for who could become such a king and how such a king would have to conduct himself. This is the reason for Deut. 17,14-16 writing: “when you will say: ‘I wish to appoint a king for myself similar to the nations around me, you shall certainly appoint a king over yourself.’” Actually, the very demand for a mortal king should have been considered a sin by the people seeing that when G’d took the people out of Egypt He had demonstrated that He could do so much more for the people than any king of flesh and blood.
It would seem logical that He who controls the whole universe should be king. This is especially so when this king has seen fit to manifest His presence among the people in the Temple. No wonder that G’d considered the very demand of the people as an insult directed at Him rather than at the previous leader Samuel (Samuel I 8,7). What could possibly prompt the people to “trade” G’d’s benevolent leadership for a mortal king? The fact that King Shaul eventually fell in battle was a demonstration to the people that they had not done well in demanding a king of flesh and blood as their political leader. Based on such considerations Solomon said in the verse we quoted above that the glory of a king is in the multitude who willingly pay homage to him.
A righteous person who places all his faith in the Lord is on safer ground than if he were to rely on his king, as the king who places his faith in the loyalty of his people will sometimes fall into the hands of his enemies and all his soldiers will not then be able to save him.
Sichon and Og, mighty kings, placed their trust in their armies and it did not help them. They did not realize that in the last analysis success in life does not depend on numbers but on G’d’s decrees. David expressed this clearly in Psalms 33,16: “kings are not delivered by a large force, warriors are not saved by great strength; horses are a false hope for deliverance; for all their great power they provide no escape.” Seeing some of the mightiest kings of their time all fell victim to Moses it is not surprising that Balak was terrified at the approach of the Israelites who had defeated nations far stronger than his own. This is why our portion commences with the words:
Rambam
A reward (pras) is what one calls a benefit that is granted to a person by someone who does not gain from him, but [rather] does it by way of kindness and grace. [It is] like when a man tells his servant or his young son or his wife, "Do such and such and I will give you a dinar or two." That is the difference between a reward and a wage (sachar), since a wage is that which is given by [way of an] obligation. And this pious one said that you should not serve God, may He be blessed, in order that He will do good to you and benefit you with kindness and that you should hope for the benefit and serve Him for its sake. Indeed, serve Him like servants that are not hoping for endowment or the giving of kindness. He meant with this that they should serve Him from love, as we said in Chapter Ten of Sanhedrin. And nonetheless, he did not exempt us from fear [of God]. And [so] he said, "Even as you serve from love, do not discard fear completely, 'and may the fear of Heaven be upon you.'" As the commandment of fear has already come in the Torah, and that is its stating (Deuteronomy 6:13), "Fear the Lord, your God." And the sages said (Yerushalmi Berakhot 9:7), "Serve from love, serve from fear," and they said that the one who loves will not forget a thing from that which he was commanded to do, and the one who fears will not do what he was warned from doing - as fear is a great pathway with the negative commandments, and all the more so, with the arational commandments. And this sage had two students - one whose name was Tsadok and one whose name was Beitos. And when they heard him say this statement, they went out from in front of him and one said to his fellow, "Behold, the teacher said explicitly that there is no benefit and punishment for a person and there is no hope at all" - as they did not understand his intention. And one strengthened the hand of his friend and they exited the group and left the Torah. One group connected itself to one and another group to his fellow. And the sages called them Sadducees and Boethusians. But when they could not gather congregations due to that which follows from this belief - as this evil belief disengages the united, all the more so will it not unite the disengaged - they leaned towards belief in the thing which they could not deny among the masses. As if they would put this out of their mouths, [the masses] would have killed them. I mean to say [that this thing is] the words of Torah. And [so] each one said to his party that he believes in the Torah, but disagrees with the transmission [of its oral explanation] - that it is not true. And this was to exempt themselves from the accepted commandments and ordinances and decrees. Since they could not push off everything - the written [Torah] and the received [explanation]. And also [this way], the way of interpretation was broadened for them. Since once the explanation was given to their choice, he was able to be lenient in what he wanted and to be strict in what he wanted. [This is] since he did not believe in the fundamentals at all, yet he sought things that would still be accepted by some people. And these evil groups came out from then. And they are called Karaites in these lands - I mean to say, Egypt. And their names among the sages are Sadducees and Boethusians. And they are the ones that began to question the transmission and to explain all of the verse according to what appears to them without listening to the sage at all, [which is] the opposite of what He, may He be blessed, stated (Deuteronomy 17:11), "You shall act in accordance with the instructions given you and the ruling handed down to you; you must not deviate from the verdict that they announce to you either to the right or to the left."