Eikev, Ekev, Ekeb, or Eqeb (עֵקֶב — Hebrew for “if [you follow],” the second word, and the first distinctive word, in the parshah) is the 46th weekly Torah portion (parshah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the third in the book of Deuteronomy. It comprises Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25. Jews in the Diaspora generally read it in August.
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Moses told the Israelites that if they obeyed God’s rules, God would faithfully maintain the covenant, would bless them with fertility and agricultural productivity, and would ward off sickness. (Deuteronomy 7:12–15.)
Moses directed the Israelites to destroy all the peoples whom God delivered to them, showing no pity and not worshiping their gods. (Deuteronomy 7:16.) Moses told the Israelites not to fear these nations because they were numerous, for the Israelites had but to recall what God did to Pharaoh and the Egyptians and the wonders by which God liberated them. (Deuteronomy 7:17–19.) God would do the same to the peoples whom they feared, and would send a plague against them, too. (Deuteronomy 7:19–20.) God would dislodge those peoples little by little, so that the wild beasts would not take over the land. (Deuteronomy 7:22.) Moses directed the Israelites to burn the images of their gods, not to covet nor keep the silver and gold on them, nor to bring an abhorrent thing into their houses. (Deuteronomy 7:25–26.)
God made the Israelites travel the long way in the wilderness for 40 years to test them with hardships to learn what was in their hearts and whether they would keep God’s commandments. (Deuteronomy 8:2.) God subjected them to hunger and then gave them manna to teach them that man does not live on bread alone, but on anything that God decrees. (Deuteronomy 8:3.) Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell for 40 years. (Deuteronomy 8:4.) God disciplined them as a man disciplines his son. (Deuteronomy 8:5.)
Moses told the Israelites that God was bringing them into a good land, where they might eat food without end, and thus when they had eaten their fill, they were to give thanks to God for the good land that God had given them. (Deuteronomy 8:7–10.) Moses warned the Israelites not to forget God, not to violate God’s commandments, and not to grow haughty and believe that their own power had won their wealth, but to remember that God gave them the power to prosper. (Deuteronomy 8:11–18.) Moses warned that if they forgot God and followed other gods, then they would certainly perish like the nations that God was going to displace from the land. (Deuteronomy 8:19–20.) Moses warned the Israelites not to believe that God had enabled them to possess the land because of their virtue, for God was dispossessing the land’s current inhabitants because of those nations’ wickedness and to fulfill the oath that God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 9:4–6.)
Moses exhorted the Israelites to remember how they had provoked God to anger in the wilderness from the day that they left Egypt until that day. (Deuteronomy 9:7.) At Horeb they so provoked God that God was angry enough to have destroyed them. (Deuteronomy 9:8.) Moses ascended the mountain, stayed on the mountain 40 days and nights, and ate no bread and drank no water. (Deuteronomy 9:9.) At the end of the 40 days, God gave Moses two stone tablets that God had inscribed with the words and the covenant that God had addressed to the Israelites. (Deuteronomy 9:10–11.) God told Moses to hurry down, for the people whom Moses brought out of Egypt had acted wickedly and had made a molten image. (Deuteronomy 9:12.) God told Moses that God was inclined to destroy them and make of Moses a nation far more numerous than they. (Deuteronomy 9:14.) Moses started down the mountain with the two tablets in his hands, when he saw how the Israelites had made themselves a molten calf. (Deuteronomy 9:15–16.) Moses flung the two tablets away, smashing them before their eyes, and threw himself down before God, fasting another 40 days and nights. (Deuteronomy 9:17–18.) And God gave heed to Moses. (Deuteronomy 9:19.) God was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him, so Moses also interceded for Aaron. (Deuteronomy 9:20.) Moses burned the calf, broke it to bits, ground it into dust, and threw its dust into the brook that came down from the mountain. (Deuteronomy 9:21.)
Moses reminded the Israelites how they provoked God at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. (Deuteronomy 9:22.) And when God sent them from Kadesh-barnea to take possession of the land, they flouted God’s command and did not put their trust in God. (Deuteronomy 9:23.)
When Moses lay prostrate before God those 40 days, because God was determined to destroy the Israelites, Moses prayed to God not to annihilate God’s own people, whom God freed from Egypt, but to give thought to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and ignore the Israelites’ sinfulness, else the Egyptians would say that God was powerless to bring them into the land that God had promised them. (Deuteronomy 9:25–29.) And God agreed not to destroy them. (Deuteronomy 10:10.)
Thereupon God told Moses to carve out two tablets of stone like the first, come up to the mountain, and make an ark of wood. (Deuteronomy 10:1.) God inscribed on the tablets the Ten Commandments that were on the first tablets that Moses had smashed, and Moses came down from the mountain and deposited the tablets in the ark. (Deuteronomy 10:2–5.)
The Israelites marched to Moserah, where Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar became priest in his stead. (Deuteronomy 10:6.) From there they marched to Gudgod, and on to Jotbath. (Deuteronomy 10:7.)
God set apart the Levites to carry the ark of the covenant, to stand in attendance upon the Tabernacle, and to bless in God’s Name, and that was why the Levites were to receive no portion of the land, as God was their portion. (Deuteronomy 10:8–9.)
Moses exhorted the Israelites to revere God, to walk only in God’s paths, to love God, to serve God with all their heart and soul, and to keep God’s commandments. (Deuteronomy 10:12–13.) Moses noted that although heaven and earth belong to God, God was drawn to love their fathers, so that God chose the Israelites from among all peoples. (Deuteronomy 10:14–15.) Moses described God as supreme, great, mighty, and awesome, showing no favor and taking no bribe, but upholding the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriending the stranger. (Deuteronomy 10:17–18.) Moses thus instructed the Israelites to befriend the stranger, for they were strangers in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19.) Moses exhorted the Israelites to revere God, worship only God, and swear only by God’s name, for God was their glory, who wrought for them marvelous deeds, and made them as numerous as the stars. (Deuteronomy 10:20–22.)
Moses exhorted the Israelites to love God and always keep God’s commandments. (Deuteronomy 11:1.) Moses asked the Israelites to note that they themselves witnessed the signs that God performed in Egypt against Pharaoh, what God did to Egypt’s army, how God rolled upon them the waters of the Sea of Reeds, what God did for them in the wilderness, and what God did to Dathan and Abiram when the earth swallowed them. (Deuteronomy 11:2–7.) Moses instructed them therefore to keep all the law so that they might have the strength to enter and possess the land and long endure on that land flowing with milk and honey. (Deuteronomy 11:8–9.) Moses extolled the land as a land of hills and valleys that soaks up its water from the rains, a land that God looks after. (Deuteronomy 11:10–12.)
Then Moses told them words now found in the Shema prayer (Deuteronomy 11:13–21.): If the Israelites obeyed the commandments, loving God and serving God with heart and soul, God would grant the rain in season and they would gather their grain, wine, and oil. (Deuteronomy 11:13–14.) God would provide grass for their cattle and the Israelites would eat their fill. (Deuteronomy 11:15.) Moses warned them not to be lured away to serve other gods, for God’s anger would flare up against them, God would suspend the rain, and they would soon perish. (Deuteronomy 11:16–17.) Moses urged them to impress God’s words upon their heart, bind them as a sign on their hands, let them serve as a symbol on their foreheads, teach them to your children, and recite them when they stayed at home and when they were away, when they lay down and when they got up. (Deuteronomy 11:18–19.) Moses instructed them to inscribe God’s words on the doorposts of their houses and on their gates, so that they and their children might endure in the land that God swore to their fathers as long as there is a heaven over the earth. (Deuteronomy 11:20–21.)
Moses promised that if they faithfully kept all the law, loving God, walking in all God’s ways, and holding fast to God, then God would dislodge the nations then in the land, and every spot on which their feet tread would be theirs, and their territory would extend from the wilderness to Lebanon and from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea. (Deuteronomy 11:22–24.)
Numbers 13:22 and 28 refer to the “children of Anak” (יְלִדֵי הָעֲנָק, yelidei ha-anak), Numbers 13:33 refers to the “sons of Anak” (בְּנֵי עֲנָק, benei anak), and Deuteronomy 1:28, 2:10–11, 2:21, and 9:2 refer to the “Anakim” (עֲנָקִים). John A. Wilson suggested that the Anakim may be related to the Iy-‘anaq geographic region named in Middle Kingdom Egyptian (19th to 18th century BCE) pottery bowls that had been inscribed with the names of enemies and then shattered as a kind of curse. (Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by James B. Pritchard, 328. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. ISBN 0-691-03503-2.)
1 Kings 12:25–33 reports a parallel story of golden calves. King Jeroboam of the northern Kingdom of Israel made two calves of gold out of a desire to prevent the kingdom from returning to allegiance to the house of David and the southern Kingdom of Judah. (1 Kings 12:26–28.) In Exodus 32:4, the people said of the Golden Calf, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Similarly, in 1 Kings 12:28, Jeroboam told the people of his golden calves, “You have gone up long enough to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Jeroboam set up one of the calves in Bethel, and the other in Dan, and the people went to worship before the calf in Dan. (1 Kings 12:29–30.) Jeroboam made houses of high places, and made priests from people who were not Levites. (1 Kings 12:31.) He ordained a feast like Sukkot on the fifteenth day of the eighth month (a month after the real Sukkot), and he went up to the altar at Bethel to sacrifice to the golden calves that he had made, and he installed his priests there. (1 Kings 12:32-33.)
A midrash likened the second word of Deuteronomy 7:12, eikev (“if” or “because”) to the word akeivai (“footsteps”) in Psalm 49:6, which the midrash interpreted to mean: “Why should I fear in the days of evil? The iniquity of my footsteps encompasses me.” The midrash taught that people sometimes fail to observe minor commandments, thus trampling those commandments beneath their heels. The midrash thus taught that the Psalmist feared the day of judgment because he may have trampled minor commandments. (Midrash Tanhuma Devorim Eikev 1.)
Another midrash played on two possible meanings of the second word of Deuteronomy 7:12, eikev, “as a consequence” and “the end.” Israel asked God when God would grant reward for the observance of commandments. God replied that when people observe commandments, they enjoy some fruits now, but God will give them their full reward in the end, after death. (Deuteronomy Rabbah 3:1.)
Another midrash played on two possible meanings of the second word of Deuteronomy 7:12, eikev, “as a consequence” and “heel.” The midrash interpreted the words “upon Edom I cast my shoe” in Psalms 60:10 and 108:10 to mean that God says that when Israel repents, then God will tread with God’s heel, so to speak, on Israel’s enemy Edom. And the midrash taught, in the words of Deuteronomy 7:12, that “it shall come to pass, because (eikev) you hearken.” (Deuteronomy Rabbah 3:2.)
Rabbi Samuel bar Nahmani interpreted the words “that the Lord your God shall keep for you” in Deuteronomy 7:12, teaching that all the good that Israel enjoys in this world results from the blessings with which Balaam blessed Israel, but the blessings with which the Patriarchs blessed Israel are reserved for the time to come, as signified by the words, “that the Lord your God shall keep for you.” (Deuteronomy Rabbah 3:4.)
Rabbi Bibi ben Giddal said that Simeon the Just taught that the law prohibited a Jew from robbing a non-Jew, although a Jew could take possession of a non-Jew’s lost article. Rav Huna read Deuteronomy 7:16 to prohibit a Jew from robbing a non-Jew, because Deuteronomy 7:16 provided that the Israelites were to take from the enemies that God would deliver to them in time of war, thus implying that the Israelites could not take from non-Jews in time of peace, when God had not delivered them into the Israelites’ hands. (Babylonian Talmud Bava Kamma 113b.)
In Exodus 23:28, God promised to “send the hornet (צִּרְעָה) before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you,” and in Deuteronomy 7:20, Moses promised that “the Lord your God will send the hornet (צִּרְעָה) among them.” But a Baraita taught that the hornet did not pass over the Jordan River with the Israelites. Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish reconciled the two sources, explaining that the hornet stood on the eastern bank of the Jordan and shot its venom over the river at the Canaanites. The venom blinded the Canaanites’ eyes above and castrated them below, as Amos 2:9 says, “Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath.” Rav Papa offered an alternative explanation, saying that there were two hornets, one in the time of Moses and the other in the time of Joshua. The former did not pass over the Jordan, but the latter did. (Babylonian Talmud Sotah 36a.)
Chapter 3 of tractate Avodah Zarah in the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, and Babylonian Talmud interpreted the laws of not deriving benefit from idols in Deuteronomy 7:25–26. (Avodah Zarah 3:1–10; Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah ch. 3; Babylonian Talmud Avodah Zarah 40b–49b.)
The Rabbis told the story that God, Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar conspired to keep Daniel out of the fiery furnace. God said: “Let Daniel depart, lest people say that Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were delivered through Daniel’s merit instead of their own.” Daniel said: “Let me go, so that I will not become a fulfillment of the words (in Deuteronomy 7:25), ‘the graven images of their gods you shall burn with fire.’” And Nebuchadnezzar said: “Let Daniel depart, lest people say that the king has burned his god in fire.” (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 93a.)
The Gemara deduced from the command of Deuteronomy 7:26, “you shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you be a cursed thing like it,” that whatever one might bring into being out of an idolatrous thing would have the same cursed status. (Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 58a.)
Rabbi Johanan in the name of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai noted the word “abomination” in common in both Deuteronomy 7:26 and Proverbs 16:5 and deduced that people who are haughty of spirit are as though they worshiped idols. (Babylonian Talmud Sotah 4b.)
The Mishnah taught that first fruits were brought only from the Seven Species (Shiv'at Ha-Minim) that Deuteronomy 8:8 noted to praise the Land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olive-oil, and date-honey. But first fruits could not be brought from dates grown on hills, or from valley-fruits, or from olives that were not of the choice kind. (Mishnah Bikkurim 1:3.)
Rabbi Awira told — sometimes in the name of Rabbi Ammi, and sometimes in the name of Rabbi Assi — that the angels asked God whether God was not showing favor to Israel. And God asked the angels how God could not show favor to Israel, when Deuteronomy 8:10 required them to bless God when they had eaten and were satisfied, but the Israelites bless God even when they have eaten only the quantity of an olive or an egg. (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 20b.)
Rabbi Johanan deduced from Deuteronomy 8:14 that people who are haughty of spirit are as though they had denied the fundamental principle of God’s existence. (Babylonian Talmud Sotah 4b.)
In Deuteronomy 8:14, the heart becomes proud. A midrash catalogued the wide range of additional capabilities of the heart reported in the Hebrew Bible. The heart speaks (Ecclesiastes 1:16), sees (Ecclesiastes 1:16), hears (1 Kings 3:9), walks (2 Kings 5:26), falls (1 Samuel 17:32), stands (Ezekiel 22:14), rejoices (Psalm 16:9), cries (Lamentations 2:18), is comforted (Isaiah 40:2), is troubled (Deuteronomy 15:10), becomes hardened (Exodus 9:12.), grows faint (Deuteronomy 20:3), grieves (Genesis 6:6), fears (Deuteronomy 28:67), can be broken (Psalm 51:19), rebels (Jeremiah 5:23), invents (1 Kings 12:33), cavils (Deuteronomy 29:18), overflows (Psalm 45:2), devises (Proverbs 19:21), desires (Psalm 21:3), goes astray (Proverbs 7:25), lusts (Numbers 15:39), is refreshed (Genesis 18:5), can be stolen (Genesis 31:20), is humbled (Leviticus 26:41), is enticed (Genesis 34:3), errs (Isaiah 21:4), trembles (1 Samuel 4:13), is awakened (Song of Songs 5:2), loves (Deuteronomy 6:5), hates (Leviticus 19:17), envies (Proverbs 23:17), is searched (Jeremiah 17:10), is rent (Joel 2:13), meditates (Psalm 49:4), is like a fire (Jeremiah 20:9), is like a stone (Ezekiel 36:26), turns in repentance (2 Kings 23:25), becomes hot (Deuteronomy 19:6), dies (1 Samuel 25:37), melts (Joshua 7:5), takes in words (Deuteronomy 6:6), is susceptible to fear (Jeremiah 32:40), gives thanks (Psalm 111:1), covets (Proverbs 6:25), becomes hard (Proverbs 28:14), makes merry (Judges 16:25), acts deceitfully (Proverbs 12:20), speaks from out of itself (1 Samuel 1:13), loves bribes (Jeremiah 22:17), writes words (Proverbs 3:3), plans (Proverbs 6:18), receives commandments (Proverbs 10:8), acts with pride (Obadiah 1:3), makes arrangements (Proverbs 16:1), and aggrandizes itself (2 Chronicles 25:19). (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:36.)
In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses foretold that “A prophet will the Lord your God raise up for you . . . like me,” and Rabbi Johanan thus taught that prophets would have to be, like Moses, strong, wealthy, wise, and meek. Strong, for Exodus 40:19 says of Moses, “he spread the tent over the tabernacle,” and a Master taught that Moses himself spread it, and Exodus 26:16 reports, “Ten cubits shall be the length of a board.” Similarly, the strength of Moses can be derived from Deuteronomy 9:17, in which Moses reports, “And I took the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them,” and it was taught that the tablets were six handbreadths in length, six in breadth, and three in thickness. Wealthy, as Exodus 34:1 reports God’s instruction to Moses, “Carve yourself two tablets of stone,” and the Rabbis interpreted the verse to teach that the chips would belong to Moses. Wise, for Rav and Samuel both said that 50 gates of understanding were created in the world, and all but one were given to Moses, for Psalm 8:6 said of Moses, “You have made him a little lower than God.” Meek, for Numbers 12:3 reports, “Now the man Moses was very meek.” (Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 38a.)
Rabbi Tanhuma taught that Moses prostrated himself before the Israelites and said to them the words of Deuteronomy 9:1, “You are to pass over the Jordan,” noting that he would not. Moses gave the Israelites the opportunity to pray for him, but they did not. The midrash compared this to a king who had many children by a noble lady. The lady was undutiful to him and he decided to divorce her. He told her that he was going to marry another wife. She asked who, and he told her. She summoned her children and told them that their father intended to divorce her and marry the other woman, and asked the children if they could bear being subjected to her. She thought that perhaps they would understand what she meant and would intercede with their father on her behalf, but they did not understand. As they did not understand, she commanded them only for their own sake to be mindful of the honor of their father. So it was with Moses. When God told him in Deuteronomy 3:27, “You shall not go over this Jordan,” Moses spoke to the Israelites and stressed the words in Deuteronomy 9:1, “You are to pass over.” (Deuteronomy Rabbah 3:11.)
A Baraita taught that because of God’s displeasure with the Israelites, the north wind did not blow on them in any of the 40 years during which they wandered in the wilderness. Rashi attributed God’s displeasure to the Golden Calf, although the Tosafot attributed it to the incident of the spies in Numbers 13. (Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 72a.)
Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai taught that because the generation of the Flood transgressed the Torah that God gave humanity after Moses had stayed on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights (as reported in Exodus 24:18 and 34:28 and Deuteronomy 9:9–11, 18, 25, and 10:10), God announced in Genesis 7:4 that God would “cause it to rain upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights.” (Genesis Rabbah 32:5.)
A midrash explained why Moses broke the stone tablets. When the Israelites committed the sin of the Golden Calf, God sat in judgment to condemn them, as Deuteronomy 9:14 says, “Let Me alone, that I may destroy them,” but God had not yet condemned them. So Moses took the tablets from God to appease God’s wrath. The midrash compared the act of Moses to that of a king’s marriage-broker. The king sent the broker to secure a wife for the king, but while the broker was on the road, the woman corrupted herself with another man. The broker (who was entirely innocent) took the marriage document that the king had given the broker to seal the marriage and tore it, reasoning that it would be better for the woman to be judged as an unmarried woman than as a wife. (Exodus Rabbah 43:1.)
Reading the words, “which you broke, and you shall put them,” in Deuteronomy 10:2, Rav Joseph noted that the verse employs superfluous words to describe the Tablets. Rav Joseph reasoned that the two mentionings of the Tablets teaches that both the Tablets and the fragments of the Tablets that Moses broke were deposited in the Ark. (Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra 14b; Menachot 99a.) Rav Joseph deduced from this that a scholar who has forgotten his learning through no fault of his own (through old age, sickness, or trouble, but not through willful neglect) is still due respect (by analogy to the broken pieces of the tablets that the Israelites nonetheless treated with sanctity). (Babylonian Talmud Menachot 99a.)
Resh Lakish deduced from the interjection of the apparently parenthetical words, “which you broke,” in Deuteronomy 10:2 that God was thereby saying to Moses that Moses did well to break them. (Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra 14b.)
Rabbi Hanina deduced from Deuteronomy 10:12 that everything is in the hand of Heaven except the fear of Heaven, for Deuteronomy 10:12 says: “What does the Lord your God ask of you, but only to fear the Lord your God.” The Gemara asked whether the fear of Heaven was such a little thing that Deuteronomy 10:12 says “only.” Rabbi Hanina said in the name Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai that God has in God’s treasury nothing but a store of the fear of Heaven, as Isaiah 33:6 says: “The fear of the Lord is His treasure,” and thus the fear of Heaven must be a great thing. The Gemara responded that for Moses, the fear of Heaven was a small thing, for he had it. Rabbi Hanina illustrated with a parable: If a man is asked for a big article and he has it, it seems like a small article to him; if he is asked for a small article and he does not have it, it seems like a big article to him. (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 33b.)
Rav Awira (or some say Rabbi Joshua ben Levi) taught that the Evil Inclination has seven names. God called it “Evil” in Genesis 8:21, saying, “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Moses called it “the Uncircumcised” in Deuteronomy 10:16, saying, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart.” David called it “Unclean” in Psalm 51:12; Solomon called it “the Enemy” in Proverbs 25:21–22; Isaiah called it “the Stumbling-Block” in Isaiah 57:14; Ezekiel called it “Stone” in Ezekiel 36:26; and Joel called it “the Hidden One” in Joel 2:20. (Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 52a.)
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said that the men of the Great Assembly were so called because they restored the crown of the divine attributes — the enumeration of God’s praise — to its ancient completeness. For in Deuteronomy 10:17, Moses called God “the great, the mighty, and the awesome.” Then when Jeremiah saw foreigners despoiling the Temple, he asked where God’s awesome deeds were, and thus in Jeremiah 32:18, he omitted “awesome.” And then when Daniel saw foreigners enslaving the Israelites, he asked where God’s mighty deeds were, and thus in Daniel 9:4, he omitted the word “mighty.” But the men of the Great Assembly came and said that these circumstances showed God’s mighty deeds, because God suppressed God’s wrath, extending longsuffering to the wicked. And these circumstances showed God’s awesome powers, for but for the fear of God, how could the single nation of Israel survive among the many nations. The Gemara asked how Jeremiah and Daniel could alter words established by Moses. Rabbi Eleazar said that since Jeremiah and Daniel knew that God insists on truth, they did not want to ascribe false attributions to God. (Babylonian Talmud Yoma 69b.)
Reading the words, “love the stranger, in giving him food and clothing,” in Deuteronomy 10:18, Akilas the proselyte asked Rabbi Eliezer whether food and clothing constituted all the benefit of conversion to Judaism. Rabbi Eliezer replied that food and clothing are no small things, for in Genesis 28:20, Jacob prayed to God for “bread to eat, and clothing to put on,” while God comes and offers it to the convert on a platter. Akilas then visited Rabbi Joshua, who taught that “bread” refers to the Torah (as in Proverbs 9:5, Wisdom — the Torah — says, “Come, eat of my bread”), while “clothing” means the Torah scholar’s cloak. A person privileged to study the Torah is thus privileged to perform God's precepts. Moreover, converts’ daughters could marry into the priesthood, so that their descendants could offer burnt-offerings on the altar. The midrash offered another interpretation: “Bread” refers to the showbread, while “clothing” refers to the priestly vestments. The midrash offered yet another interpretation: “Bread” refers to challah, while “clothing” refers to the first shearings of the sheep, both of which belong to the priests. (Genesis Rabbah 70:5.)
The Gemara deduced from Deuteronomy 10:20 that it is a positive commandment to fear the Lord. (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 56a.)
A midrash taught that the Israelites were counted on ten occasions: (1) when they went down to Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:22); (2) when they went up out of Egypt (Exodus 12:37); (3) at the first census in Numbers (Numbers 1:1–46); (4) at the second census in Numbers (Numbers 26:1–65); (5) once for the banners; (6) once in the time of Joshua for the division of the land of Israel; (7) once by Saul (1 Samuel 11:8); (8) a second time by Saul (1 Samuel 15:4); (9) once by David (2 Samuel 24:9); and once in the time of Ezra (Ezra 2:64). (Midrash Tanhuma Ki Sisa 9.)
Already at the time of the Mishnah, Deuteronomy 11:13–21 constituted the second part of a standard Shema prayer that the priests recited daily, following Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and preceding Numbers 15:37–41. (Mishnah Tamid 5:1; Babylonian Talmud Tamid 32b.) The first three chapters of tractate Berakhot in the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, and Babylonian Talmud and the first two chapters of tractate Berakhot in the Tosefta interpreted the laws of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21. (Mishnah Berakhot 1:1–3:6; Tosefta Berakhot 1:1–2:21; Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 1a–42b; Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 2a–26a.)
The Gemara reported a number of Rabbis’ reports of how the Land of Israel did indeed flow with “milk and honey,” as described in Exodus 3:8 and 17, 13:5, and 33:3, Leviticus 20:24, Numbers 13:27 and 14:8, and Deuteronomy 6:3, 11:9, 26:9 and 15, 27:3, and 31:20. Once when Rami bar Ezekiel visited Bnei Brak, he saw goats grazing under fig trees while honey was flowing from the figs, and milk dripped from the goats mingling with the fig honey, causing him to remark that it was indeed a land flowing with milk and honey. Rabbi Jacob ben Dostai said that it is about three miles from Lod to Ono, and once he rose up early in the morning and waded all that way up to his ankles in fig honey. Resh Lakish said that he saw the flow of the milk and honey of Sepphoris extend over an area of sixteen miles by sixteen miles. Rabbah bar bar Hana said that he saw the flow of the milk and honey in all the Land of Israel and the total area was equal to an area of twenty-two parasangs by six parasangs. (Babylonian Talmud Ketubot 111b–12a.)
Interpreting the words “to walk in all His ways” in Deuteronomy 11:22, the Sifre taught that to walk in God’s ways means to be (in the words of Exodus 34:6) “merciful and gracious.” (Sifre to Deuteronomy 49:1.) Similarly, Rabbi Hama son of Rabbi Hanina asked what Deuteronomy 13:5 means in the text, “You shall walk after the Lord your God.” How can a human being walk after God, when Deuteronomy 4:24 says, “[T]he Lord your God is a devouring fire”? Rabbi Hama son of Rabbi Hanina explained that the command to walk after God means to walk after the attributes of God. As God clothes the naked — for Genesis 3:21 says, “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin, and clothed them” — so should we also clothe the naked. God visited the sick — for Genesis 18:1 says, “And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre” (after Abraham was circumcised in Genesis 17:26) — so should we also visit the sick. God comforted mourners — for Genesis 25:11 says, “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed Isaac his son” — so should we also comfort mourners. God buried the dead — for Deuteronomy 34:6 says, “And He buried him in the valley” — so should we also bury the dead. (Babylonian Talmud Sotah 14a.)
According to Sefer ha-Chinuch, there are 6 positive and 2 negative commandments in the parshah.
(Sefer HaHinnuch: The Book of [Mitzvah] Education. Translated by Charles Wengrov, 4:304–57. Jerusalem: Feldheim Pub., 1988. ISBN 0-87306-457-7.)
The haftarah for the parshah is Isaiah 49:14–51:3. The haftarah is the second in the cycle of seven haftarot of consolation after Tisha B'Av, leading up to Rosh Hashanah.
In the Blessing after Meals (Birkat Hamazon), Jews sometimes quote Deuteronomy 8:10, the Scriptural basis for the Blessing after Meals, immediately before the invitation (zimun), and quote it again at the close of the second blessing (for the Land of Israel). (Menachem Davis. The Schottenstein Edition Siddur for the Sabbath and Festivals with an Interlinear Translation, 159, 165. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2002. ISBN 1-57819-697-3.)
The opening sentence of the Amidah quotes Moses’s characterization of God in Deuteronomy 10:17 as “the great, the mighty, and the awesome.” (Reuven Hammer. Or Hadash: A Commentary on Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals, 35a–b. New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 2003. ISBN 0-916219-20-8.)
The Passover Haggadah, in the magid section of the Seder, quotes Deteronomy 10:22. (Menachem Davis. The Interlinear Haggadah: The Passover Haggadah, with an Interlinear Translation, Instructions and Comments, 44. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2005. ISBN 1-57819-064-9. Joseph Tabory. JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, 90. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8276-0858-0.)
Deuteronomy 11:13–21 is the second of three blocks of verses in the Shema, a central prayer in Jewish prayer services. Jews combine Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Deuteronomy 11:13–21, and Numbers 15:37–41 to form the core of K’riat Shema, recited in the evening (Ma’ariv) and morning (Shacharit) prayer services. (Hammer, at 30–31, 112–13, 282–83.)
The parshah has parallels or is discussed in these sources:
Tamid 5:1. Land of Israel, circa 200 C.E. Reprinted in, e.g., The Mishnah: A New Translation. Translated by Jacob Neusner, 3–7, 167, 458–59, 662, 664–67, 869. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-300-05022-4.
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