Genesis 36:31 introduces a list of kings who ruled “before a king ruled in Israel,” ostensibly a reference to Saul. Traditional commentators, committed to the Mosaic authorship of the Torah, have long struggled to reinterpret this phrase against its plain meaning, though some accepted its implications.
In Numbers 20, when the Israelites are without water, God tells Moses to get water from a stone, which he does by striking it, and is punished. Yet in Exodus 17, Moses does the same thing and the story ends positively. What is the relationship between these two accounts? Remarkably, R. Joseph Bekhor Shor says that they are two accounts of the same story.
The Torah describes how, when Jacob blessed Joseph’s two sons, “he placed Ephraim before Manasseh” (Genesis 48:20b). Surprisingly, the late 12th-century sage R. Judah HeḤasid asserts that this refers to Moses placing the tribe of Ephraim before that of Manasseh in the tribal listings (Numbers 2:18–21), leading R. Judah to conclude that the phrase must have been added later and not by Moses.
Thoughts on Torah Min HaShamayim
The Song of the Well, as recorded in Numbers 21:16-18, is only a brief excerpt. While many commentators assume that the song was naturally short, R. Yehudah HeChasid presents a radical suggestion that the song was actually cut from the Torah and placed in the book of Psalms by none other than King David.
“And this is the Torah that Moses Placed Before the Children of Israel” —Numbers 9:23
A medieval non-traditional interpretation of arami oved avi and the push-back against it.
The works of medieval exegetes such as Maimonides, Rashbam and Ibn Ezra demonstrate that Judaism has a long-standing tradition of studying the Torah critically.