Comentário sobre Deuteronômio 8:9

A LAND WHOSE STONES ARE IRON. The meaning thereof is that in the place where you expect stones, you will find iron, for it will be mined from the dust thereof.⁸⁵See Job 28:2. He thus brought them the joyful message that in the Land of Israel there is a quarry of copper and iron which are a great necessity for the inhabitants of the Land, and thou shalt not lack any thing in it. But [the absence of] a source of silver and gold⁸⁶See ibid., Verse 1. is no deficiency in a land. And in the Targum Yerushalmi I have seen it rendered: “a Land whose stones are as bright as iron,” meaning to say that Scripture is praising the Land because in it there will be found quarries of great stones, costly stones,⁸⁷I Kings 5:31. hewn stones with which to build houses, walls, and towers, unlike the land of Egypt and many lands where people dwell in houses of clay⁸⁸Job 4:19. and their houses may become their graves [from excessive rains].⁸⁹Yerushalmi Yoma VI, 4. This was the High Priest’s prayer on the Day of Atonement for the people that live in the flatlands — “that their houses may not become their graves” [from excessive rains]. Ramban uses the expression in the broad sense indicating the advantage of the Land of Israel where homes can be built from rocks that will not endanger the lives of their inhabitants.

תחצוב נחושת, you will mine copper; the Torah’s definition of “good” iron, material that is excellent for either building material, or raw material for a variety of vessels.

ארץ אשר לא במסכנות תאכל בה לחם, "a land in which you will not eat bread out of scarceness;" Moses mentions this as there are people, even wealthy people, who always practice the lifestyle of poor people. They may be motivated by one of two reasons. 1) They are afraid they may lose their wealth and find themselves impoverished, forced to curtail their lifestyle. They prefer not to live in accordance with their wealth so that any eventual forced adjustment would be easy for them as they had never indulged themselves in the first place. 2) They do not want to appear wealthy and arouse envy. Moses says אשר לא במסכנות, "where there is no scarceness," to teach the Israelites that both of the reasons mentioned for adopting the lifestyle of the poor do not apply in ארץ ישראל. The two considerations we mentioned were based on the assumption that the society is divided into "haves" and "have nots." This will not be the case in ארץ ישראל because לא תחסר כל בה, "no one will lack anything therein." If our wealth would derive from sources outside the land of Israel there would be a reason for the considerations we mentioned. Some people would make an effort to get rich, others would not. Accordingly, there would be class distinctions after a while. Seeing the source of wealth is the land of Israel itself, everyone has equal access to it and there is no need to fear becoming impoverished or to attract the envy of the less fortunate. Moses says: כל בה, "it contains all (that anyone desires)."