Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Deuteronomio 5:25

Response: "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Carve for yourself' ... and Moses carved two tablets of stone." The opinion of all authentic scholars is that Moses stood upon the mountain three times, forty days and forty night each time, for a total of four months and two days, with two additional days of descent in the interim. For on the day that Moses initially descended, he destroyed the tablets, and the verse (Exodus 32) then states, "On the following day, Moses said to the nation, 'You have sinned" ... and now I will ascend to the Lord and will stand and pray there forty more days until your sins are forgiven." On his second descent, the verse states, "Moses awoke in the morning," it was four months and four days from the sixth day of Sivan (the date of Moses' first ascent) to Yom Kippur, which was on the tenth day of Tishrei. And the order of the verses here supports this timeline. Additionally, we have the verse from Deuteronomy (5:15) where Moses recounts three times that he stood upon Mt. Sinai, forty days each time, as it states, "As I ascended to the mountain ... and I stayed upon the mountain forty days and forty nights." And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, and this is the first stay upon the mountain. Afterwards, the verse states, "I prostrated before the Lord as I did the first time, forty days and forty nights ... for all of your sins," and this is the second stay upon the mountain (and with respect to this, Moses also said, "I prostrated myself before the Lord forty days and forty nights that I prostrated ..." which are the days of the second ascent, which is recounted again so that Moses could share the prayer that he prayed at that time. Afterwards he said, "At that time, the Lord said to me, 'Carve for yourself two tablets of stone similar to the first ones' ... and I stood upon the mountain as I did the first time, for forty days and forty nights. And this was the third stay upon the mountain. "And He answered," and with this answer the forgiveness was completed... And God said to Moses, "Carve for yourself," to inform him that he would not merit the complete vision of the testimony except through the Torah which was given by his hands, for without this Moses would not have achieved this level of spiritual greatness. And the reason for the word "yourself" was to warn Moses that he himself, and no other, should carve the tablets. For the word "yourself" connotes isolation, as it was written [with respect to Abraham], "Go yourself from your land ..." that Abraham should go without his father or relatives (as explained there). Similarly [with respect to the spies sent to Canaan], "Send for yourself men ..." that Moses should send them alone, apart from the rest of the nation. And here, God saw that the tablets encompassed two miraculous qualities. The first was that the workmanship was divine work, done in a miraculous fashion, and the second was the inscription, which was divinely written. When Moses shattered the tablets, the workmanship and form was lost, but the words inscribed were not destroyed or lost. Therefore, God commanded Moses to carve the stone to make new tablets, ready to be inscribed, for it was Moses' obligation since he destroyed the first set of tablets. However, He said the inscription would not be written by Moses, because he did not destroy

AND MOSES CAME AND TOLD THE PEOPLE ALL THE WORDS OF THE ETERNAL. At the time that this whole commandment mentioned here was given, Moses was at the place where he drew near unto the thick darkness where G-d was,⁵⁰⁸Above, 20:18. and now he came to that “far off” place where the people had been at the time of the Revelation,⁵⁰⁸Above, 20:18. and told them all that he had been commanded [i.e., beginning with Ye yourselves have seen — above 20:19 — up to the end of all the commandments and ordinances, 23:33], and they listened to his voice. Scripture does not say here: “and he came down from the mountain,” for they were all then at the lower part of the mountain,⁵⁰⁹Ibid., 19:17. and not at the top where the Glory of G-d was; [the difference] was only that Moses was near the place of the thick darkness, whilst the people stood from afar at the time of the giving of the commandments, as I have explained.⁵¹⁰Ibid., 19:19, and 20:15. When Moses left his place and began coming towards the people, all the heads of their tribes and their elders came up to the place where the priests that come near to the Eternal⁵¹¹Ibid., 19:22. stood, and said to him, Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us;⁵¹²Deuteronomy 5:22. Go thou near, and hear etc.,⁵¹³Ibid., Verse 24. for they thought that the Revered G-d Himself would tell them all the commandments of the Torah just as He had told them the Ten Commandments. Then Moses came together with the heads of the tribes and the elders to the place where the people were standing and told all of them all the words of G-d, and they said, “We will do all that He has commanded us in the Ten Commandments, and we will hearken⁵¹⁴Verse 7. to your voice in everything that you have commanded, or will command in His Name, exalted be He.” When Moses went back afterwards to the edge of the mountain with the elders, as G-d had commanded him,⁵⁰⁶Above, Verse 1. then G-d said to him again, Come up to Me into the mountain, and be there.⁵¹⁵Verse 12. It was at that time that He informed him, I have heard the voice of the words of the people, which they have spoken unto thee; they have well said all that they have spoken,⁵¹⁶Deuteronomy 5:25. and He commanded him: Go say to them: Return ye to your tents. But as for thee, stand thou here by Me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which thou shalt teach them.⁵¹⁷Ibid., Verses 27-28. It is with reference to this that He said here, And I will give thee the Tablets of stone, and the law and the commandment,⁵¹⁸Verse 12. See Vol. I, p. 7 for Ramban’s interpretation of each term mentioned. meaning, that to you alone I will give the law and the commandments which you will teach them, and they will keep them as they have undertaken to do.

VAYASHEV MOSHEH’ THE WORDS OF THE PEOPLE UNTO THE ETERNAL. This means that Moses returned¹⁷⁹Ramban thus interprets the word vayashev in the sense of “returning,” and not of “reporting”: “he returned to G-d with the words of the people.” “And there was no need to mention that ‘he went up to the mountain,’ since Scripture speaks here briefly” (Ibn Ezra). before Him to the mountain with the people’s answer. Now everything is revealed to Him, and He did not inquire of him, “What did this people answer you?” It is similar in meaning to the verse: And the Eternal heard the voice of your words, when ye spoke unto me.¹⁸⁰Deuteronomy 5:25. And when Moses came before Him, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee forever.¹⁸¹Verse 9. Then Moses said before Him,¹⁸²This is the sense of the conclusion of Verse 9: and Moses told the words of the people unto the Eternal, i.e., the words they had said, “Master of the universe, etc.” On the significance of this interpretation of Ramban, see further, Note 186. “Master of the universe, your children are people of faith, and they accept upon themselves whatever You will speak.”
The above usage [of the word vayashev as meaning “returning” or “coming back”] is also found in the verse, ‘vayashivu’ unto them word… and they showed them the fruit of the Land,¹⁸³Numbers 13:26. which means: “They [i.e., the spies] came back to them with the things which they saw.” [It cannot mean that “they reported” to them], for afterwards Scripture says there, And they told him, and said.¹⁸⁴Ibid., Verse 27. [Hence, vayashivu in the preceding verse must mean that “they came back” with the things they had seen.]¹⁸⁵Similarly, vayashev Mosheh here means that “Moses came back” with the words of the people to G-d. Actually, however, as Ramban continues to explain, he did not report them, as everything was revealed to Him. This differs with Ibn Ezra’s interpretation, as explained in the following note. There is thus no need for Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra’s interpretation on this point.¹⁸⁶Ibn Ezra asks the following question: Since it says in Verse 8, ‘vayashev Mosheh’ the words of the people unto the Eternal, why does it say again at the end of Verse 9, and Moses told the words of the people unto the Eternal? To remove this difficulty, Ibn Ezra said that vayageid Mosheh (and Moses told) in Verse 9 means that “Moses had already told the words of the people to G-d.” It is thus clear that Ibn Ezra explained vayashev Mosheh in Verse 8 as meaning that Moses “reported” the words of the people to G-d. Hence, Ibn Ezra’s difficulty and his forced solution. Ramban, however, explains vayashev Mosheh as meaning that Moses returned to G-d to report these words. Actually, there was no need to report them, as explained above. Then G-d said to him, Lo, I come unto thee, etc. (Verse 9), and finally vayageid Mosheh: Moses told these words to G-d, i.e., that His children are men of faith and that they accept upon themselves whatever He will speak. “There is thus no need for Ibn Ezra’s interpretation on this point,” as Ramban succinctly puts it.