דברים כז:יד - וענו הלוים ואמרו אל כל איש ישראל קול רם.
Devarim 27:11-13 record that Moshe told the people that when they would come into the land of Israel, six tribes, including the tribe of Levi, should go up on Mount Gerizim to bless the people and six tribes should go up on Mount Eval to curse the people. 27:14 then records, ve-anu ha-Leviim… “And all the Levites are to speak up and say to every man of Israel, (with) voice raised," Fox, 1995, p. 973, translation.
This translation (and all that I saw) is based on the idea that the first word of 27:14, ve-anu, is to be understood as being a future (imperfect) verb that the Levites will speak or respond in the future, as opposed to meaning the Levites responded at that time. The apparent basis for this understanding is that a vav before a verb can reverse the tenses of a verb from the past to future when there is a vav with a past verb which comes after a future verb to which the verbs are connected either logically or temporally (a vav ha-hippukh, vav consecutive or vav conversive). This is similar to the usage of the same word in 21:7 and 26:5.
The flipping of the tenses of the word ve-anu to being a future verb makes 27:14 incomprehensible. Why are the Levites being singled out in 27:14, as in 27:11-13 Moshe had told all the people to go up on the mountains? Also, if the Levites are to call out to all the people, then presumably they would be in the middle of the people, but in 27:12, Moshe had said that the Levites were to be on Mount Gerizim and not in the middle of the people. Furthermore, 27:15-26 record that the Levites proclaimed curses, while according to 27:11, they were to bless the people.
The Talmud addresses the problems of 27:14 in two discussions. The Mishnah Sotah 7:5 (quoted by Rashi on 27:14) explains that really the Levites proclaimed both curses and blessings to the people, rather than just curses as recorded in the Torah. According to the Mishnah, for each curse recorded in the Torah, the Levites converted it to a blessing for one who did not violate the prohibition. For example, if 27:15 records “cursed be the one who makes an idol” than the Levites said this curse facing Mount Eval, and they also said “blessed be the person who did not make an idol” facing Mount Gerizim.
The Talmud also endeavors to ascertain where the Levites were located during the ceremony. Talmud Bavli (Sotah 37a) records three possibilities: either all the Levites were below between the mountains, only the elders of the Levites were below and the remainder of the tribe was on Mount Gerizim, or only those Levites who worked in the mishkan/ ohel moed were between the mountains, while the remainder of the tribe was on Mount Gerizim. The Yerushalmi (Sotah 7:4) adds a fourth opinion that all the Levites were on Mount Gerizim, and only the priests were below between the people.
All of these explanations to 27:14 are problematic. The Torah does not mention that the Levites said a corresponding blessing to each curse recorded in 27:15-26. If they really said such a blessing, why did the Torah not record it? Why should the Torah only write the curses and not the blessings? Furthermore, some of the blessings would not make sense. For instance, 27:21 records “cursed be the person who commits bestiality,” so then the corresponding blessing would be blessed be the person who does not commit bestiality. Why should a person who abstains from such an abominable practice be blessed? In addition, the suggestions in the Talmud Bavli with regard to the location of the Levites lack textual support.
Ibn Ezra (on 27:15) suggests a different approach to understanding Moshe’s instructions in 27:11-13. He writes that the simple understanding of 27:11-13 is that Moshe's instructions concerning the blessings and curses that were to be said by the twelve tribes on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval are the blessings and curses recorded in 28:3-6,16-19. When then did the Levites pronounce the curses recorded in 27:15-26?
David Tzvi Hoffmann (1961, pp. 501-506) notes that the verse in the book of Yehoshua (8:34) which mentions the blessings and curses of the ceremony at Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval refers to the blessings and curses of chapter 28 and not to the curses of 27:15-26. Hoffmann follows the Ibn Ezra that 28:3-6 and 28:16-19 are the blessings and curses referred to 27:11-13, and he maintains that 27:12 refers to the tribe of Levi while 27:14 refers just to the priests, as mentioned in the Yerushalmi (Sotah 7:4). He suggests that after the blessings and curses of chapter 28 were said, the Levites descended from the mountain and said the curses recorded in 27:15-26.
Luzzatto (on 27:15) seems to suggest the opposite order, that the curses of 27:15-26 were said prior to the blessings and curses that were said on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval. With this idea, initially the Levites would have been between the two mountains to call out to the people, and then after saying the curses in 27:15-26, they climbed up Mount Gerizim to join the other five tribes who were already on the mountains.
I am not convinced by these explanations. Why should there be a set of blessings and curses and then one set just of curses? It seems odd that for one set of blessings and curses the tribe of Levi should be similar to all the tribes and on the mountain, while for the other set of curses, which occurred almost simultaneously, the tribe should be separate from the other tribes between the mountains. Furthermore, according to Hoffmann and Luzzatto, the Torah should have spelled out the order of the blessings/curses and curses, and explained that the Levites were to go up or down between the blessings/ curses and curses.
To understand 27:14, we have to understand the meaning of the word ve-anu in the beginning of the verse. Is the vav in the word ve-anu a vav consecutive to make the verb anu, respond, change from being a past verb to a future verb? While the rule of vav consecutive exists in numerous cases, it cannot apply in 27:14 due to all the difficulties mentioned above. There is no literary connection either logically or temporally between 27:12,13 and 27:14, and hence 27:14 is an independent verse. This means that the vav of 27:14 does not flip the tenses, and word ve-anu should be understood as a past verb, the Levites responded. This would not be a unique case. For example, on Bereshit 26:10, Siftei Chachamim explains that the vav in the beginning of the word, ve-heveti means a vav that connects words and should be understood in the past tense, as Rashi explains, and not as a vav consecutive. See also Sokolow, 2008, pp. 103, 104 for a brief discussion of this issue in reference to Shemot 18:22,26, where he notes that the same word, ve-shaftu, can refer either to the future or to the present depending on the context.
All translations of 27:14 that I saw are problematic. The JPS translation (in Tigay, 1996, p. 253) skips the word ve-anu. Hertz (1960, p. 864), Fox (above), Silbermann and Rosenbaum (1934, p. 130), create a repetition in the verse by translating the word anu to mean speaking that, “the Levites shall speak and say.” Hirsch (1989, p. 553) translates it “And the Levites shall lift up their voices and say,” which is how Rashi translates the word anu on 26:5 but that does not seem to be the simple sense of the word anu, see our discussion on 26:4,10, “Logistics of the bikkurim ceremony.”
27:14 does not mean that the Levites will respond in the future, but that the Levites responded at that particular time to Moshe's speech. 27:14 means that the “Levites responded (to Moshe) and said to all the people in a raised voice.” This understanding removes any repetition in the verse. The Levites were responding to Moshe's instructions to the tribes to go up on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval when they would come to the land of Israel.
Why would the Levites interrupt Moshe's speech? The answer is that the ceremony on Mount Eval and Mount Gerizim that Moshe was informing the people about was to establish the covenant that was to be sealed with the blessings and curses, 28:69. When the tribes would say the blessings and curses, they would be showing their acceptance of the covenant. This acceptance of the covenant was to occur when the people would enter the land of Israel, a few months later, but the Levites did not want to wait to accept the covenant. Thus, at the moment that Moshe was speaking about how the Jewish people would accept the covenant in the future, the Levites spontaneously shouted out curses, 27:14-26. The Levites could not shout out blessings because only G-d has the power to authorize blessings. In addition, as has been noted by the Ibn Ezra and the Rashbam (both on 27:15), the curses stated by the Levites refer to secret acts because the people were accepting upon themselves not to do even things that ostensibly they could get away with.
27:14 is then recording that the tribe of Levi interrupted Moshe's instructions (27:11-13, chapter 28) about the future ceremony in the land of Israel. The Levites interrupted Moshe by stating twelve curses, 27:15-26, when the people were still on the plains of Moav, and the Levites were in the middle of the people since their encampment was in the middle of the camp. A few months later, the ceremony on Mount Eval and Mount Gerizim would consist of the entire nation including the tribe of the Levites going up on the two mountains. (According to book of Yehoshua, 8:33, only the priests stayed with the aron in between the two mountains, see Yerushalmi Sotah 7:4.) The curses shouted out by the Levites (27:15-26) when Moshe was speaking were not repeated by the ceremony at Mount Eval and Mount Gerizim because these curses were never part of that ceremony.
Fox, Everett, 1995, The Five Books of Moses: A new translation, New York: Schocken Books.
Luzzatto, Shmuel David (Italy, 1800-1865), 1871 (first edition), 1965, Commentary to the Pentateuch, edited by P. Schlesinger, Jerusalem: Horev.
Silbermann, A. M. and M. Rosenbaum, 1985, initial publication 1934, Chumash with Rashi’s commentary, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd, successors to Shapiro Valentine & Co.
Sokolow, Moshe, 2008, Studies in the weekly parashah based on the lessons of Nehama Leibowitz, Jerusalem: Urim Publications.
Tigay, Jeffrey H. 1996, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.
No comments:
Post a Comment