Covenant

After the Golden Calf, Moses refuses to lead Israel unless YHWH remains with the people, and presses further: teach me Your ways. God deflects with a tautology—“I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious”—and only afterwards reveals the divine attributes (Exodus 34:6–7), compassion and grace, faithfulness for a thousand generations, but punishment for sin to the fourth. The list is not a catalogue of divine qualities but an explanation of how YHWH is willing to limit the divine power to engage directly and intimately with the people out of love.

The Decalogue forbids patently reprehensible acts; but the prohibition against coveting is a potentially victimless offense and is the only one that exclusively addresses men. Moreover, this tenth commandment has no clear parallels in ancient Near Eastern law. An anecdote in a fourteenth-century Hittite text, however, suggests that its roots are in treaty tradition.

In Persian Yehud, as Deuteronomy’s covenant with YHWH was championed as the new path to national security and blessing, the book of Ruth countered with a conservative vision—one in which the survival and well-being of two vulnerable widows are secured not through covenantal fidelity, but through traditional values and customary law.

Jubilees, and later the Mekhilta, suggest that the covenant ceremony described after the revelation at Sinai (Exodus 24) actually took place earlier — at the moment when the Israelites declared נַעֲשֶׂה, “we will do” (Exodus 19). According to Rabbi Ishmael, it was then that Moses read Leviticus 25–26 to the people — a section explicitly framed as spoken at Sinai, and which sets out the terms of the covenant.

After Abram expresses doubt that Sarai will have children and questions how he can be sure his descendants will inherit the land, YHWH establishes the Covenant of the Pieces, lasting 400 years, extending through Israel’s time in Egypt up to their entry into the land. Does this covenant hold lasting significance for later generations, or is it replaced by God’s “everlasting” Covenant of Circumcision?

God promises Abram that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of the sky, assumed to be uncountable. In 10^th century Baghdad, scholars were well-versed in Ptolemy’s Greek astronomy, including his official limited count of stars. This challenged the Karaite Jewish exegete Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani to reinterpret the meaning of God’s promise.

In the final blood ceremony formalizing the covenant at Sinai, how informed is Israel about the covenant’s details when they declare, na’aseh v’nishma, “let us do and [then] let us hear”?

YHWH instructs Moses to carve a second set of tablets and come up the mountain (Exodus 34). YHWH then presents a set of laws, including: Don’t intermarry with the Canaanites; don’t make idols; and do observe Matzot, Shabbat, Shavuot, Ingathering, and Passover. What is the nature of this collection of laws?

The blessings and curses formulae in Deuteronomy 27–28 reveal a rich, complex and innovative interaction with ancient Near Eastern and Achaemenid parallels.

In the ancient Near East and the Torah, covenants were enacted with both a written text and a series of ritual actions.

As the Israelites are about to enter the land, Moses presents them with a covenant. Yet, Israel is already subject to YHWH’s commands since the covenant at Horeb and has already been punished for disobedience, so what choice do they really have?

Moses extends the covenant to all of Israel, “from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water” (Deuteronomy 29). The midrash connects this group with the Gibeonites of Joshua 9, creating an anachronism which later rabbinic commentators try to resolve.

Short does not mean simple: Psalm 117 is one of the more difficult psalms. It is only two verses long and exhorts non-Israelites to praise YHWH. Why would such a psalm be written? A look at the worldview of the exilic prophet Deutero-Isaiah provides one answer, while reading this psalm together with the beginning of Psalm 118 provides another.

The second paragraph of Shema (Deuteronomy 11:13-21) has significant overlaps with the first (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), including some identical phrases and core concepts. It was likely written as a later elaboration of the first, a process that may reflect the earliest stages of the Shema becoming a central text.

Deuteronomy has Moses receiving a revelation at Horeb, but only teaching the Israelites its contents decades later in the Land of Moab. This two-step revelatory process, which is presented as two covenants (Deuteronomy 28:69), masks an earlier form of Deuteronomy that had no record of a Horeb revelation.

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).

Ezekiel 36 uses Priestly “purification” imagery similar to that of the red heifer ritual to describe God’s future reconciliation with Israel, inspiring the rabbis to choose this passage as the haftara for Parashat Parah.

Will the gentiles really say that because Israel “forsook the covenant that YHWH, God of their fathers, made with them when He freed them from the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 29:24) that YHWH is punishing them?

A postmodern look at Deuteronomy’s view on God’s role in politics, the challenge of monotheism in biblical times, and the relative positions of Israel and her neighbors in God’s eyes.

Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 are often lumped together, as the two great curses, but their careful comparison reveals some fundamental and surprising differences.

In the 14^th century, R. Nissim of Marseilles suggested that God told Moses only the general command for the Tabernacle and the laws in the Torah, and Moses himself wrote the details and attributed them to God as a way of glorifying God. A close look at many passages in Deuteronomy suggests that this was an early conception of Moses’ role in commanding the mitzvot.

Deuteronomy reflects influence from ancient Wisdom traditions, such as those in the book of Proverbs and in other ancient Near Eastern literature. Yet Deuteronomy presents Torah as Israel’s own Wisdom teaching. This serves both to elevate Torah and to insist that it be in dialogue with the broader, non-Israelite world.

Is the purification ritual or spiritual?

Tracing the tannaitic and biblical sources for the famous claim that God held Mount Sinai over the Israelites and threatened to bury them if they did not accept the Torah.

From the range of responses to women’s sexual offenses in ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, why does Deuteronomy select the harshest options? The scribes who composed these laws drew an analogy between women’s fidelity to their husbands and fathers and Israel’s fidelity to YHWH, viewing both forms of exclusive allegiance as essential to the wholeness of society.

The book of Jubilees is the earliest source to connect Shavuot to the Sinai covenant.

Na’aseh Ve-Nishma

An Explication of Deuteronomy 29:28