Latest Essays

To uphold the covenant, Deuteronomy requires two forms of torah study: Learning the commandments and learning the reasons for keeping them. But what happens if even that fails?

Why can’t a man remarry his wife once she has been married to someone else?

Deuteronomy (23:18) states “Let there be no kadesh among the sons of Israel,” referring to ritualized male prostitution. What does this imply about regular male prostitution?

Deuteronomy gives broad permission to eat your fill from a neighbor’s vineyard and grain field, so long as you don’t gather in a vessel or cut with an implement. Famously, the disciples of Jesus gather grain on the Sabbath, earning the Pharisees’ wrath not for theft but for violating Shabbat. Commentators debate the reason for this law and whether it has any limits.

Deuteronomy envisions a king constantly reading torah and limiting his wealth and resources. Is this how kings are described in the rest of the Bible? What was kingship like in the ancient Near East?

Jewish and Christian tradition ascribes authorship of the Pentateuch to Moses in the 13^th century B.C.E. Is this what the Pentateuch itself implies about who wrote it and when?

Deuteronomy introduces the possibility of future Moses-like prophets who will continue to instruct the Israelites how to follow YHWH’s commandments. At the same time, it makes the existence of such a prophet virtually impossible.

The law of the heifer whose neck is broken, eglah arufah, has puzzled both traditional and modern commentators. What is it meant to accomplish? How does it work?

Deuteronomy commands centralizing worship of YHWH at the Temple once peace is obtained. When was this supposed to occur according to the Deuteronomic History, and when did it happen historically?

But Chicken and Egg Remained Permitted

Malchuyot is a prayer for the coming of God’s exclusive kingship over Israel. In contrast, the psalm of the shofar (Ps 47) offers an alternative approach, to stop waiting for God’s eschatological intervention and start building rapport with other religious groups, all of whom are the “Am Elohei Avraham,” the retinue of the God of Abraham.

Does the Reed Sea pursue the Egyptians?

What are the favorable qualities of the land of Israel, and what is God’s relationship to it?

Today chesed is understood as an altruistic act of kindness. In the Bible, chesed and the parallel term noam refer to a covenantal arrangement between a powerful person or deity and their subject(s).

The Shema has many interpretations, philosophical, eschatological, national, etc. A historical-critical way to understand the Shema is to read it (and Deuteronomy more broadly) against the backdrop of Assyrian domination, when Assyria touted their god Ashur as the supreme master of the world.

Abecedaries uncovered in pre-exilic Israel and Judah suggest that in their Hebrew alphabet, ayin followed pe. This order is attested in a number of biblical acrostics, some of which have been corrected by later scribes to make them fit what eventually became the standard ayin-pe order.

Deuteronomy describes the Israelites camped opposite Suph in the Transjordan. However, the Israelites cross a Yam Suph near Egypt. Moreover, King Solomon builds a fleet of ships on Yam Suph near Eilat. Where is Yam Suph?

In the ancient Near East, laments were written to mourn past destructions or to prevent future destructions. With which type of lament were the authors of Lamentations familiar?

Unlike the other four chapters where the author speaks for the community, the third chapter of Lamentations is written as an individual lament. The chapter begins with “I am the man who has known affliction,” but who is he?

Moses tells the soldiers returning from the Midianite war that they must purify themselves from corpse impurity. Elazar then jumps in with a unique law in Moses’ name about the need to purify metal in fire. Critical and traditional scholars alike—including the scribes of the Samaritan Pentateuch—were troubled by why Elazar and not Moses teaches this law.

The Bible has three different maps of Gad and Reuben’s territory all set in the conquest period: Numbers 32, Joshua 13, and Joshua 21/1 Chronicles 6. How are we to understand these shifting depictions of Israelite Transjordan?

Ancient Jewish interpreters imagined Balaam as the prototypical Gentile seducer. This trope was used by John of Patmos, the author of the book of Revelation and himself a Jew, to polemicize against his rivals among the early Christians.

An ancient quote, preserved in Jephthah’s speech to the King of Ammon, gives us a clue into the methods of the Torah’s redaction and the status of pre-pentateuchal sources.

The Torah describes Moses building a copper serpent to heal the Israelites. According to Kings, Hezekiah destroys it because it was being worshiped. Archaeology and history clarify the religious and political meaning of this image.

And what can we learn by comparing it to another ancient book mentioned in the Bible, Sefer HaYashar (The Book of the Upright)?