Powtórzonego Prawa 3:23 Komentarz: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Alshekh & Chizkuni

“I pleaded” [3:23]. King Solomon, of blessed memory, said: how great is the reward when somebody gives charity and has compassion on the poor, as the verse says, “he who is generous to the poor makes a loan to the Lord; He will repay him his due” [Proverbs, 19:17]. This means, the one who has compassion for the poor, is like one who has lent the Holy One money and He repays it to the one who has compassion for the poor. It is known that the wealthy person relies greatly on his wealth and little on God. Or, he relies on his friends and on his devotees, since the whole world hates the poor person. Therefore, the poor person places all of his hopes in the Holy One. That is why King Solomon said: because the poor person has few friends and nobody has compassion for him, I will have compassion for him. The Holy One said: whoever will have compassion for the poor person, it is as if he had compassion for Me, and I am obligated to pay him his reward. People bless him, since his attributes and custom is from the Holy One and he blesses the people who serve Him. He freely gives gifts, even to those who do not worship properly Him, since God is only compassion.¹Bahya, Veethanan, Introduction.

Therefore, the verse begins here with “I pleaded” [3:23]. This means, Moses said: I will ask God that he should have compassion on me to accept my prayer, since the righteous, even though they are pious, yet they do not want to hold themselves high and ask the Holy One that He should give them undeserved gifts, and will not ask for the sake of their piety and good deeds. The prayer of Moses was that the Holy One should allow him to go into the land of Israel. Moses said; since I vanquished Sihon and Og, the oath that the Holy One made is abrogated, since I have begun to conquer the land of Sihon and Og, then I will continue to conquer the land of Israel.²Rashi, Deuteronomy, 3:23.

ואתחנן — All forms of the verb חנן signify an ex gratia gift. Although the righteous might make a claim to reward depend Upon their good deeds, yet they solicit from the Omnipresent only an ex gratia gift. [Because He had said to him, (Exodus 33:19) “I will show grace (וחנתי) unto him to whom I will show grace”, he (Moses) when referring to his entreaty of God uses the expression (lit., spoke to Him) "I implored grace (ואתחנן)” (Midrash Tanchuma 5:2:3] — Another explanation is that the idea of an ex gratia gift is not to be stressed; but this is merely one of the ten terms by which prayer is described, as are enumerated in Sifrei Devarim 26:7.