Komentarz do Powtórzonego Prawa 32:27

לולי כעס אויב אגור WERE IT NOT THAT THE WRATH OF THE ENEMY WAS אגור — i.e. were it not that the wrath of the enemy were heaped up (אגור) against them to destroy them, and if he does overpower them and destroy them, he will attribute the greatness to himself and to his god, and he will not attribute it to Me. That is the meaning of what is stated immediately afterwords: פן ינכרו צרימו — i.e. lest they treat the matter as arising from a stranger (ינכרו) by attributing their power to a stranger (נכרי) to whom the greatness, however, does not actually belong, פן יאמרו ידינו רמה וגו׳ LEST THEY SHOULD SAY, OUR HAND IS EXALTED etc.

לולי כעס אויב אגור, that on account of the violent anti-semitism which the gentile nations would unleash against the small remnant of Jewish people so that in order to save themselves from further persecution they would פן ינכרו צרימו, attempt to divest themselves of their Judaism altogether, something the gentiles would hold out to them as a lifesaving gesture,

לולא כעס אויב אגור, "If it were not for the fact that I am afraid of the anger of the enemy, etc." The author understands the word אגור in this verse as identical with the same word in Proverbs 6,8, i.e. the ant which gathers in the supplies needed in winter during the preceding summer. G'd also refers to the numerous occasions when the Gentile nations have caused Him to be angry. G'd is saying that He is concerned that by wiping out Israel all the Gentile nations will conclude (gather further evidence) that the Jewish religion had never been the truth as demonstrated by the disappearance of the Jewish people. This is the meaning of ינכרו צרימו, "their tormentor will misinterpret (the course of history)." Furthermore, פן יאמרו ידינו רמה, "lest they would say 'our hand has prevailed.' Not only will they deny the authenticity of the Jewish religion but they will continue to sin by claiming that their religion had been the true religion all along. They will not attribute their wellbeing to G'd's patience with them but to the power of the deities they worship and believe in.

לולי כעס אויב אגור, “If I had not had to fear that this would be misinterpreted by the Antisemites as their victory over My people, instead of My punishment of My people, etc.” Nachmanides writes that from this verse there is proof that in our present exile the merit of our illustrious forefathers has ceased to be a factor ameliorating our political/social position in the host countries. In this verse Moses describes a scenario in which our continued survival is not credited to G’d remembering the merits of our patriarchs, but is credited only to His concern about His own reputation among the nations of the world. It is not that G’d has a desire to display His power among the nations. There is no point to this, seeing that all these nations combined are completely impotent when compared to Him, so that there would be no contest in which one party would emerge as a victor. G’d’s concern is that seeing that He has created man to inhabit the “lower” regions of the universe, i.e. the earth, it is of importance to Him that these creatures called “man” recognise His existence, and the fact that they are His creatures and that His domain extends to the region of the earth and that man has to be obedient to Him, and that He deals with man on the basis of reward for good behaviour and retribution for rebellious behaviour. Seeing that all the other nations had denied His existence, or His right to interfere with their lifestyle and to make rules by which they have to abide, only the Jewish nation remained and had been wiling to accept His sovereignty on earth. In response G’d had demonstrated by supernatural miracles that He is the supreme authority in this universe, that His power far outranks that attributed to astrological constellations. If G’d were to allow the Jewish nation, the only one that had recognised Him, to perish, He would nullify all that He had meant to accomplish by putting a living human being on earth in the first place.

לולא כעס אויב אגור, “If I were not concerned with provoking the anger of the enemy, etc.” The Hebrew words are to be understood as: לולא שאני מפחד מכעס אויב as explained by Ibn Ezra, as G’d saying that He is conscious of His need to battle the enemies of the Jews who draw the wrong conclusions of history, [such as that the G’d of the Jews has lost His power. Ed]. The word אגור is the same as Deut. 1,17 where Moses told the judges לא תגורו מפני איש: ”do not be afraid of any man.” The meaning of the words פעל כל זאת refers to the שפטים, the judgments, i.e. that the enemy of the Jewish people would not credit G’d with having orchestrated these judgments on His people as a punishment for them.

Were it not that the enemy’s rage, etc. He explains that the word לולי is a combination of lo [with a vav] meaning “if” and lo [with an aleph] meaning “not.” Even though the word is written with a yud, it is vocalized with a tzeirei, and the tzeirei implies an aleph. Rashi adds the two words “against them for destruction,” because without the term “against them” we would not know on whom He is angry, and [also we would not know] the reason for the anger.

לולי כעס אויב אגור, “were it not that I dreaded the enemy’s provocation;” (if I, G–d, had not thought that the gentiles would not attribute their disappearance as an act of punishment by Me.) the word גור occurs in the sense of “fearing” in Deuteronomy 1,17: לא תגורו מפני איש, “do not be afraid of anybody.”

ולא ה' פעל כל זאת, “and that not the Lord had brought all this about.” [Moses is quoting the enemies of the Jewish people. Ed.] They deny that our misfortune was G-d’s way of chastising His people.

פן יאמרו, and lest the gentiles would approach these remnants of the Jewish people saying to them

And if He were to overcome them and destroy them, etc. Rashi adds all this because without this it is not reasonable to say that “our armed might has prevailed, etc.” For if He did not destroy them [what is the meaning] that their armed might has prevailed?

ולא ה׳ פעל כל זאת, "and it was not the Lord who accomplished all this." This is a reference to all the glory the Jewish people had achieved prior to its decline. The nations will claim as proof for their theory that a) the Israelites had not been doing something that they had not been doing for a long time; 2) the Gentile nations gained control over them and destroyed them.

פן ינכרו צרימו, “lest its adversaries would boast over their accomplishment” (in having wiped out the Jewish people)

ידינו רמה, “we have prevailed, we have proven right with our religion, our faith,” and

Alternatively, the Gentiles will conclude that what had befallen Israel could only be explained in terms of a combination of both alien gods and the Lord cooperating to bring about the demise of the Jewish people.

ולא ה' פעל זאת, “this was not what G’d did to you for not obeying Him,” so that you would still have hope to escape your fate by doing teshuvah. G’d scattered you to so many different places on earth that the total oblivion of the people through assimilation by inducements of the gentiles would not be likely. This was what Devorah meant when she said in her song in Judges 5,11 צדקות פרזונו בישראל, G‘d performed righteous deeds when He scattered Israel (instead of sending them to a single country into exile)