Hi Philip,
Verses 4-5 state that "these things/words" were said when Moses had already defeated Sihon and Og and was encamped in Moab, across the Jordan. In Chapter 31 Moses begins his farewell speech. It is tradition that makes the connection between the two. In my previous post I misquoted from memory. Sorry. Yigal Levin From: Philip [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:43 PM To: Yigal Levin Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Deuteronomy is called "debarim" in the Hebrew Old Testament? Thank you, Yigal. Just for clarification, the phrase you say, BEFORE HIS DEATH is implied in Dt 1.1? or does this occur in some OT versions. I don't seem to see that phrase in the versions i have looked up. Many thanks, Philip. --- On Sat, 3/26/11, Yigal Levin <[email protected]> wrote: From: Yigal Levin <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Deuteronomy is called "debarim" in the Hebrew Old Testament? To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, March 26, 2011, 5:37 PM Hi Philip, While your statement may be true for Deuteronomy, it is slightly misleading, for two reasons: a. Not all of Moses' words to Israel are in Deuteronomy. The previous three books contain a lot of Moses' words as well. What you need to emphasize is the rest of verse 1: "the words which Moses spake unto all Israel...BEFORE HIS DEATH". In Jewish tradition, in fact, the entire book of Deuteronomy was said by Moses on the very day on which he went up to Mount Nebo and died. b. To the uninformed, your explanation might imply that all of the Hebrew titles of the books somehow summarize their content, and this is not true. As Pere wrote, the names of the five books of the Torah are simply the first significant word in the book. In fact, so are the names of all of the 54 weekly "portions". The first portion of Genesis is Bereshit, just like the name of the book. The second portion of Genesis in Noah, not because it tells of the Flood (which it does), but because its first verse (Gen. 6:9) begins "These are the generations ("toldot") of Noah..". Today we read "Shemini" ("eighth"), starting with Lev. 9:1 "And it came to be on the eighth day...". Yigal Levin -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Philip Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 4:11 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Deuteronomy is called "debarim" in the Hebrew Old Testament? Thank you, Barry & Pere. I think you have helped me to say what I wanted to say,namely that the Hebrew title, "Debarim" summarizes reasonably well, the entire book of Deuteronomy as captured in the first verse, "the words which Moses spake unto all Israel..." Deut 1.1, KJV (The title, "Deuteronomy" summarizes the book in another way). Is this a reasonable statement to make? Many thanks, Philip Engmann, _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
