כל המצוה, “All the instruction, etc.” our author understands the word כל in our verse not so much as “all,” i.e. each and every, but as “the whole commandment.” Once you have begun to fulfill a commandment you must complete what you have undertaken. This rule has been spelled out specifically in the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Rosh Hashanah, chapter 1, halachah 8. The text is: when someone has commenced to perform a commandment he is told to complete it. If someone has commenced to perform a commandment and it is completed by someone else, the last person gets the credit for having performed it. The source of this ruling is traced to Moses who had commenced the commandment of transferring Joseph’s remains to the land of Israel, (Exodus 13,19) but who could not complete it as he never crossed the Jordan. The credit for burying his remains in the land of Israel is therefore given to the Jewish people, as we know from Joshua 24,32: “and the Children of Israel buried Joseph’s remains which they had brought with them from Egypt, and they were interred in the city of Sh’chem on a plot of land which his father Yaakov had acquired for the price of 1000 kessito as spelled out in Genesis 37,27. This plot became an ancestral heritage to the tribe of Joseph.” (Compare Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sotah) folio 13. Rabbi Sh’muel bar Nachmani is quoted in the Talmud, tractate Sotah folio 13, as saying that if someone commences to fulfill a commandment but fails to complete it (not by circumstances beyond his control), he will wind up burying his wife and his children. He adds that we know this from Yehudah (Yaakov’s son) compare Genesis 37,26, who said: “what profit is there in killing our brother Joseph.” Yehudah, of course buried both his wife and two of his sons, as we read in Genesis 38, 7-12. Some scholars add that this was why the brothers demoted him as we know from the beginning of that chapter. Instead of saving Joseph, the brothers sat down to eat their meal, and in the interval Joseph was taken out of the pit by Ishmaelites and sold as a slave. Yehudah said that they could not pronounce benedictions of G–d while planning to commit murder of their brother. They therefore interrupted, and sold Joseph, before they sat down again to eat. Yehudah is perceived as having begun to save Joseph from death but not having brought him back safely to his father. The Torah had testified that the brothers listened to him, so that it could be assumed that they would also have agreed to bring him back to his father. At any rate, this is the meaning of Moses referring to כל מצוה, “the whole commandment.”

וזכרת את כל הדרך, “you will remember the whole way, etc.” This refers to Moses having told the people not to lust after silver and gold, (Deut. 7.25) as they had managed without any of that for forty years in the desert. [It is not silver and gold that keeps us alive. Ed.]

ויענך, “He afflicted you, etc.” a reference to the tedium of the journey. Compare Psalms 102,24: ענה בדרך כוחי קצר ימי, “He drained my strength while on the way; He shortened my days.”

וירעיבך, “He starved you;” by giving you only enough food for the same day. This is the meaning of the term רעבון; our sages formulated it thus: “one cannot compare a person with bread in his pocket to a person who has nothing in his pocket.” [One can’t have more than one day’s supply in one’s pocket. Ed.] (Compare Talmud tractate Yuma folio 74.)

למען הודיעך כי לא על הלחם לבדו יחיה האדם, “in order to make you realise that man does not live by bread alone.” כי על כל מוצא פי ה' יחיה האדם, “but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord, does man live.” All His decrees and commandments emanating from Him are what enable man to live. They enable you to live on earth and in your afterlife.

ארץ נחלי מים, “a land of brooks and water.” The word ארץ appears no fewer than seven times in this verse. It refers to the seven Canaanite nations that the Israelites would inherit as their ancestral land.