Parashah 44: D’varim (Words) 1:1–3:22

1 These are the words Moshe spoke to all Isra’el on the far side of the Yarden River, in the desert, in the ‘Aravah, across from Suf, between Pa’ran and Tofel, Lavan, Hatzerot and Di-Zahav. ² It is eleven days’ journey from Horev to Kadesh-Barnea by way of Mount Se‘ir.

³ On the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year, Moshe spoke to the people of Isra’el, reviewing everything Adonai had ordered him to tell them. ⁴ This was after he had defeated Sichon, king of the Emori, who lived in Heshbon, and ‘Og, king of Bashan, who lived in ‘Ashtarot, at Edre‘i. ⁵ There, beyond the Yarden, in the land of Mo’av, Moshe took it upon himself to expound this Torah and said:

⁶ “Adonai spoke to us in Horev. He said, ‘You have lived long enough by this mountain. ⁷ Turn, get moving and go to the hill-country of the Emori and all the places near there in the ‘Aravah, the hill-country, the Sh’felah, the Negev and by the seashore — the land of the Kena‘ani, and the L’vanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates River. ⁸ I have set the land before you! Go in, and take possession of the land Adonai swore to give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, and their descendants after them.’

⁹ “At that time I told you, ‘You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone. ¹⁰ Adonai your God has multiplied your numbers, so that there are as many of you today as there are stars in the sky. ¹¹ May Adonai, the God of your ancestors, increase you yet a thousandfold and bless you, as he has promised you! (ii) ¹² But you are burdensome, bothersome and quarrelsome! How can I bear it by myself alone? ¹³ Pick for yourselves from each of your tribes men who are wise, understanding and knowledgeable; and I will make them heads over you.’

¹⁴ “You answered me, ‘What you have said would be a good thing for us to do.’ ¹⁵ So I took the heads of your tribes, men wise and knowledgable, and made them heads over you — leaders in charge of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers, tribe by tribe. ¹⁶ At that time I commissioned your judges, ‘Hear the cases that arise between your brothers; and judge fairly between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is with him. ¹⁷ You are not to show favoritism when judging, but give equal attention to the small and to the great. No matter how a person presents himself, don’t be afraid of him; because the decision is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me and I will hear it.’ ¹⁸ I also gave you orders at that time concerning all the things you were to do.

¹⁹ “So we left Horev and went through all that vast and fearsome desert which you saw on the way to the hill-country of the Emori, as Adonai our God ordered us; and we arrived at Kadesh-Barnea. ²⁰ There I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill-country of the Emori, which Adonai our God is giving to us. ²¹ Look! Adonai your God has placed the land before you. Go up, take possession, as Adonai, the God of your ancestors, has told you. Don’t be afraid, don’t be dismayed.’

(iii) ²² “You approached me, every one of you, and said, ‘Let’s send men ahead of us to explore the country for us and bring back word concerning what route we should use in going up and what the cities we will encounter are like.’ ²³ The idea seemed good to me, so I took twelve of your men, one from each tribe; ²⁴ and they set out, went up into the hills, came to the Eshkol Valley and reconnoitered it. ²⁵ They took some of the produce of the land and brought it down to us; they also brought back word to us — ‘The land Adonai our God is giving to us is good.’

²⁶ “But you would not go up. Instead you rebelled against the order of Adonai your God; ²⁷ and in your tents you complained, ‘It’s because Adonai hated us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, only to hand us over to the Emori to destroy us. ²⁸ What sort of place is it that we’re heading for? Our brothers made our courage fail when they said, “The people are bigger and taller than we are; the cities are great and fortified up to the sky; and finally, we have seen ‘Anakim there.”’

²⁹ “I answered you, ‘Don’t be fearful, don’t be afraid of them. ³⁰ Adonai your God, who is going ahead of you, will fight on your behalf, just as he accomplished all those things for you in Egypt before your eyes, ³¹ and likewise in the desert, where you saw how Adonai your God carried you, like a man carries his child, along the entire way you traveled until you arrived at this place. ³² Yet in this matter you don’t trust Adonai your God, ³³ even though he went ahead of you, seeking out places for you to pitch your tents and showing you which way to go, by fire at night and by a cloud during the day.’

³⁴ “Adonai heard what you were saying, became angry and swore, ³⁵ ‘Not a single one of these people, this whole evil generation, will see the good land I swore to give to your ancestors, ³⁶ except Kalev the son of Y’funeh — he will see it; I will give him and his descendants the land he walked on, because he has fully followed Adonai.’

³⁷ “Also, because of you Adonai was angry with me and said, ‘You too will not go in there. ³⁸ Y’hoshua the son of Nun, your assistant — he will go in there. So encourage him, because he will enable Isra’el to take possession of it. (iv) ³⁹ Moreover, your little ones, who you said would be taken as booty, and your children who don’t yet know good from bad — they will go in there; I will give it to them, and they will have possession of it. ⁴⁰ But as for yourselves, turn around and head into the desert by the road to the Sea of Suf.’

⁴¹ “Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against Adonai. Now we will go up and fight, in accordance with everything Adonai our God ordered us.’ And every man among you put on his arms, considering it an easy matter to go up into the hill-country. ⁴² But Adonai said to me, ‘Tell them, “Don’t go up, and don’t fight, because I am not there with you; if you do, your enemies will defeat you.”’ ⁴³ So I told you, but you wouldn’t listen. Instead, you rebelled against Adonai’s order, took matters into your own hands and went up into the hill-country; ⁴⁴ where the Emori living in that hill-country came out against you like bees, defeated you in Se‘ir and chased you back all the way to Hormah. ⁴⁵ You returned and cried before Adonai, but Adonai neither listened to what you said nor paid you any attention. ⁴⁶ This is why you had to stay in Kadesh as long as you did.

2 “Then we turned and began traveling into the desert along the road to the Sea of Suf, as Adonai had said to me; and we skirted Mount Se‘ir for a long time. (v) ² Finally Adonai said to me, ³ ‘You have been going around this mountain long enough! Head north, ⁴ and give this order to the people: “You are to pass through the territory of your kinsmen the descendants of ‘Esav who live in Se‘ir. They will be afraid of you, so be very cautious, ⁵ and don’t get into disputes with them; for I am not going to give you any of their land, no, not even enough for one foot to stand on; inasmuch as I have given Mount Se‘ir to ‘Esav as his possession. ⁶ Pay them money for the food you eat, and pay them money for the water you drink. ⁷ For Adonai your God has blessed you in everything your hands have produced. He knows that you have been traveling through this vast desert; these forty years Adonai your God has been with you; and you have lacked nothing.’

⁸ “So we went on past our kinsmen the descendants of ‘Esav living in Se‘ir, left the road through the ‘Aravah from Eilat and ‘Etzyon-Gever, and turned to pass along the road through the desert of Mo’av. ⁹ Adonai said to me, ‘Don’t be hostile toward Mo’av or fight with them, because I will not give you any of their land to possess, since I have already given ‘Ar to the descendants of Lot as their territory.’” ¹⁰ (The Emim used to live there, a great and numerous people as tall as the ‘Anakim. ¹¹ They are also considered Refa’im, as are the ‘Anakim, but the Mo’avim call them Emim. ¹² In Se‘ir the Horim used to live, but the descendants of ‘Esav dispossessed and destroyed them, settling in their place. Isra’el did similarly in the land it came to possess, which Adonai gave to them.) ¹³ “‘Now get going, and cross Vadi Zered!’

“So we crossed Vadi Zered. ¹⁴ The time between our leaving Kadesh-Barnea and our crossing Vadi Zered was thirty-eight years — until the whole generation of men capable of bearing arms had been eliminated from the camp, as Adonai had sworn they would be. ¹⁵ Moreover, Adonai’s hand was against them to root them out of the camp until the last of them was gone. ¹⁶ When all the men who were able to bear arms had died and were no longer part of the people, ¹⁷ Adonai said to me, ¹⁸ ‘Today you are to cross the border of Mo’av at ‘Ar. ¹⁹ When you approach the descendants of ‘Amon, don’t bother them or fight with them, for I will not give you any of the territory of the people of ‘Amon to possess, since I have given it to the descendants of Lot as their territory.’”

²⁰ (This too is considered a land of the Refa’im: Refa’im, whom the Emori call Zamzumim, used to live there. ²¹ They were a large, numerous people, as tall as the ‘Anakim; but Adonai destroyed them as the people of ‘Amon advanced and settled in their place — ²² just as he destroyed the Horim as descendants of ‘Esav advanced into Se‘ir and settled in their place, where they live to this day. ²³ It was the same with the ‘Avim, who lived in villages as far away as ‘Azah — the Kaftorim, coming from Kaftor, destroyed them and settled in their place.)

²⁴ “‘Get up, get moving, and cross the Arnon Valley! Here, I have put in your hands Sichon the Emori, king of Heshbon, and his land; commence the conquest, begin the battle! ²⁵ Today I will start putting the fear and dread of you into all the peoples under heaven, so that the mere mention of your name will make them quake and tremble before you.’

²⁶ “I sent envoys from the K’demot Desert to Sichon king of Heshbon with a peaceable message, ²⁷ ‘Let me pass through your land. I will keep to the road, turning neither right nor left. ²⁸ You will sell me food to eat for money and give me water to drink for money. I only want to pass through. ²⁹ Do as the people of ‘Esav living in Se‘ir and the Mo’avim living in ‘Ar did with me, until I cross the Yarden into the land Adonai our God is giving us.’

³⁰ “But Sichon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through his territory, because Adonai your God had hardened his spirit and made him stubborn, so that he could hand him over to you, as is the case today. (vi) ³¹ Adonai said to me, ‘See, I have begun handing over Sichon and his territory before you; start taking possession of his land.’ ³² Then Sichon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Yahatz; ³³ and Adonai our God handed him over to us, so that we defeated him, his sons and all his people. ³⁴ At that time we captured all his cities and completely destroyed every city — men, women, little ones — we left none of them. ³⁵ As booty for ourselves we took only the cattle, along with the spoil from the cities we had captured. ³⁶ From ‘Aro‘er, on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the city in the valley, all the way to Gil‘ad, there was not one city too well fortified for us to capture — Adonai our God gave all of them to us. ³⁷ The only land you didn’t approach was that of the descendants of ‘Amon — the region around the Yabok River, the cities in the hills and wherever else Adonai our God forbade us to go.

12 Yeshua began speaking to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the wine press and built a tower; then he rented it to tenant-farmers and left. ² When harvest-time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the crop from the vineyard. ³ But they took him, beat him up and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ So he sent another servant; this one they punched in the head and insulted. ⁵ He sent another one, and him they killed; and so with many others — some they beat up, others they killed. ⁶ He had still one person left, a son whom he loved; in the end, he sent him to them, saying, ‘My son they will respect.’ ⁷ But the tenants said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ ⁸ So they seized him, killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others! ¹⁰ Haven’t you read the passage in the Tanakh that says,

¹² They set about to arrest him, for they recognized that he had told the parable with reference to themselves. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.

¹³ Next they sent some P’rushim and some members of Herod’s party to him in order to trap him with a sh’eilah. ¹⁴ They came and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you tell the truth and are not concerned with what people think about you, since you pay no attention to a person’s status but really teach what God’s way is. Does Torah say that taxes are to be paid to the Roman Emperor, or not?” ¹⁵ But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a denarius so I can look at it.” ¹⁶ They brought one; and he asked them, “Whose name and picture are these?” “The Emperor’s,” they replied. ¹⁷ Yeshua said, “Give the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor. And give to God what belongs to God!” And they were amazed at him.

¹⁸ Then some Tz’dukim came to him. They are the ones who say there is no such thing as resurrection, so they put to him a sh’eilah: ¹⁹ “Rabbi, Moshe wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and have children to preserve the man’s family line.^{[b] 20} There were seven brothers. The first one took a wife, and when he died, he left no children. ²¹ Then the second one took her and died without leaving children, and the third likewise, ²² and none of the seven left children. Last of all, the woman also died. ²³ In the Resurrection, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”

²⁴ Yeshua said to them, “Isn’t this the reason that you go astray? because you are ignorant both of the Tanakh and of the power of God? ²⁵ For when people rise from the dead, neither men nor women marry — they are like angels in heaven. ²⁶ And as for the dead being raised, haven’t you read in the book of Moshe, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov’?^{[c] 27} He is God not of the dead, but of the living! You are going far astray!”

²⁸ One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?” ²⁹ Yeshua answered, “The most important is,

³¹ The second is this:

There is no other mitzvah greater than these.” ³² The Torah-teacher said to him, “Well said, Rabbi; you speak the truth when you say that he is one, and that there is no other besides him; ³³ and that loving him with all one’s heart, understanding and strength, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself, mean more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴ When Yeshua saw that he responded sensibly, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared put to him another sh’eilah.

³⁵ As Yeshua was teaching in the Temple, he asked, “How is it that the Torah-teachers say the Messiah is the Son of David? ³⁶ David himself, inspired by the Ruach HaKodesh, said,

³⁷ David himself calls him ‘Lord’; so how is he his son?”

The great crowd listened eagerly to him. ³⁸ As he taught them, he said, “Watch out for the kind of Torah-teachers who like to walk around in robes and be greeted deferentially in the marketplaces, ³⁹ who like to have the best seats in the synagogues and take the places of honor at banquets, ⁴⁰ who like to swallow up widows’ houses while making a show of davvening at great length. Their punishment will be all the worse!”

⁴¹ Then Yeshua sat down opposite the Temple treasury and watched the crowd as they put money into the offering-boxes. Many rich people put in large sums, ⁴² but a poor widow came and put in two small coins. ⁴³ He called his talmidim to him and said to them, “Yes! I tell you, this poor widow has put more in the offering-box than all the others making donations. ⁴⁴ For all of them, out of their wealth, have contributed money they can easily spare; but she, out of her poverty, has given everything she had to live on.”