According to Nachmanides, after Moses had completed with the spelling out of the covenant between Israel and Hashem, he proclaimed the קריאת שמע, the declaration of the Jewish faith, once more. He reminded them of their visual experience of Hashem in action. They had not yet departed from that assembly. [We might have thought that the words ויקרא משה אל כל ישראל introduce a new assembly. Ed.]

לחם לא אכלתם ויין ושכר לא שתיתם, “you ate neither bread nor drank wine or other alcoholic drink;” Nachmanides writes that Moses meant that the people, during the last forty years, had not subsisted on the food relied on by ordinary human beings, but they had subsisted exclusively on the manna, the “bread” that came down from heaven.

למען תדעו כי אני ה' אלוקיכם, “in order to convince you beyond any doubt that I am the Lord your G’d.” Moses means that Hashem had kept them alive by miraculous means during all these years. The word לחם in this paragraph is not to be understood in the same way as when Moses told the people that during the forty days he spent on Mount Sinai he had neither eaten לחם nor drunk מים. Moses meant that he had not eaten or drunk anything during his stay on the Mountain, had led an “angel-like” existence. The people of Israel, even while in the desert, had tasted bread on occasion, such as when they had bought flour from some surrounding nation, but they had not needed it for their survival. Moses himself is on record as reminding the people that the Edomites had sold them food and drink. (Deut. 2,28-29) Our sages (Yuma 75) have said that the merchants of the whole region were offering to sell food and drink to the Israelites in the desert. It is also possible that the period when the Israelites subsisted exclusively on a diet of manna began 30 days after the Exodus when the manna fell for the first time, and it continued into the fortieth year when the Edomites sold them food and drink, around the time when they made war against Sichon, after which they possessed normal lands, land on which crops were growing and on which cattle were grazing. At that time G’d had said to Moses: (Deut. 2,4) “command the people you are passing through the territory of your brethren the children of Esau you may buy food from them and you may dig for water in their soil, etc.” In that context the Torah had also written that G’d had blessed them during the forty years they traversed a fearsome desert, etc. From that point onwards the people had enjoyed access to normal food and drink, but presumably in very limited quantities. Whatever normal food they consumed, or the wealthy ones among them consumed, was in the nature of indulging themselves, not something they relied on for survival. Their basic food continued to be the manna until they crossed the river Jordan.

אתם נצבים ....ראשיכם שבטיכם, “You are standing…. The heads of your tribes, etc.” Rashi understands this verse as referring to ”the heads of your tribes,” as if the Torah had written לשבטיכם. Nachmanides interprets the grammatical anomaly differently. The word כלכם, “all of you,” is to be understood as a headline, whereas with the words ראשיכם Moses begins to enumerate the different groups of people that are made up by the term כלכם, “all of you.” He understands the words: זקניכם ושוטריכם as meaning that the elders and the law-enforcers are the ones who constitute the people’s heads. Moses had first referred to as ראשיכם, “your heads.” An elderly, white-haired person is normally considered as the “head” of the community in which he resides, [when there was such a thing as a patriarchal society. Ed.] Moreover, anyone who has been endowed by the people with a degree of administrative power is considered part of the “heads of the people.” Moses adds that the entire people were present down to the youngest members, the טף, and even recent proselytes. The latter were the surviving members of the ערב רב, the mixed multitude that had climbed on the Jewish bandwagon at the Exodus. Moses also divides the people into social strata, that is why he points out that even the lowest social strata, the choppers of wood and the carriers of water, were present on the occasion mentioned. Everyone present was included in the covenant, and, as we shall hear shortly, even the as yet unborn. Quite possibly, Moses considered that the very presence of even the infants ensured that they too received credit for wanting to be included in this covenant, similar to the interpretation by our sages that the reason why the mothers brought their small children was in order to hear the king or the High Priest read the Torah publicly once in seven years on the second day of the Sukkot festival, the occasion known as Hakhel. Our sages, (Tanchuma among others) some of whom feel that there were isolated cases of Canaanites wanting to convert to Judaism even while the Israelites were still in the desert, say that these are the ones described here as hewers of wood and carriers of water. Although Moses did not make a treaty with them, he accepted them as slaves and they had undertaken to observe the seven commandments applicable to all of mankind. The difference between those and the Gibeonites in the days of Joshua, was that the latter deceived the Israelites by misrepresenting their origin. The former simply wanted to make peace with the Jews, as they would have had an opportunity to do prior to an attack on them.

לעברך בברית, “for you to enter the covenant;” Nachmanides writes that the word “covenant” here is another word for “oath.” It is possible, however, (author speaking) that the people now entered a new reciprocal covenant. Such a covenant would have paralleled the one the Jewish people entered into at Mt Sinai. At that time the covenant was sealed by a total offering, sprinkling of its blood on the people, etc. There was no need to spell out these details here.

ואת אשר איננו פה עמנו היום, “as well as those who are not here with us this day.” All these as yet unborn generations of the Jews participating in this assembly are included in this oath/covenant to be undertaken at this time.

כי אתם וגו', “For you know, etc.” Moses reminds the people of the advantages of remaining true and loyal to Hashem, as in the event that some have a feeling of nostalgia for the abominations that they worshipped in Egypt, or the similar abominations that the Moabites and Ammonites worship, it would be appropriate that they recall how either of these attempts to backslide into idolatry ended, i.e. catastrophically for the participants.

איש או אשה, “be it a man or a woman;” Moses does not wish to insult anyone; therefore he speaks of individuals possibly straying, something which might also result in peer-pressure by the other members of the family drawing in the ones who were not originally willing. He mentions the woman only after the man, precisely because women are more easily seduced by false philosophies. By suggesting that a man might be the first to fall into such a trap, Moses preserves the self-respect of the Jewish women.

פן יש בכם...אשר לבבו פונה היום, “lest there be amongst you anyone whose heart will turn away this day, etc.;” this refers to someone whose faith and belief in Hashem has already been undermined, but who has not acted upon it; or,

פן יש בכם שורש פורה ראש ולענה, “lest there be amongst you a root flourishing with gall and wormwood.” This refers to a development in the more distant future, the party concerned not being alive yet and not having been seduced mentally, but belonging to the ones whom Moses described as “not being with us here this day.” When, or if, this occurs, it reflects on the “root”, i.e. forefather of such a person having carried within his seed some of his own spiritual weakness that he involuntarily transmitted to his offspring. He will, however, be under the obligations of this covenant and this curse applicable to non-compliance. [It is important to understand that seeing that membership of the Jewish nation brings with it a multiplicity of advantages, the small price to pay for this, even though this unborn Jew had not given his consent to membership of the Jewish people, still renders being born a Jew a “good deal” on the whole.” Ed.]

למען ספות הרוה את הצמאה, “thereby adding the watered to the thirsty.” Nachmanides explains this turn of phrase as “adding that which is already satisfied to the list of the ones still unsatisfied,” i.e thirsty. The word רוה describes someone sated as in Jeremiah 31,11 והיתה נפשם כגן רוה, “their soul will be like a watered garden.” When applied to the soul, i.e. essence of a human being, it means that the human being is not aware of his lacking anything, desirous of something that has not been granted to him, hence not in need of G’d as the One Who could supply his non-existing needs. On the other hand, Moses describes any person who feels that some of his needs have not been fulfilled, as צמאה, “thirsting after something.” [Nachmanides qualifies the thirst as including a desire for something that, if granted, would prove harmful to him. Ed.] The person who had felt completely fulfilled is at a disadvantage compared to those who have learned to do without on occasion, as when such a person does feel the need for something, he is so eager to satisfy that need that he feels it a great imposition if the laws of the Torah impose restrictions on the manner in which he can satisfy his “need.” If, as a result of this supposed “need,” he forthwith proceeds to satisfy it without due regard to the Torah’s laws, he will henceforth experience more desires more frequently, in line with the psychological axiom of our sages that when one trains oneself to resist improper impulses one will experience ever fewer of them, whereas when one gives in to them easily, one will progressively experience such impulses becoming more and more powerful and frequent. Eventually, one will even experience a burning desire for things from which one had already weaned oneself. Moses describes this process as בשרירות לבי אלך, “I will follow the dictates of my heart.” The word למען in our context does not introduce a reason or purpose of what the “free-spirited” person is thinking, but means something similar to: “as a result of which such and such will occur.” [In this case a gradual but steady spiritual decline. Ed.] Rabbi Yehudah the Spaniard explains the word ספות, as the cutting off of something as in האף תספה, when Avraham asked G’d if He would also cut off the righteous in the process of punishing the Sodomites for their wickedness. (Compare Genesis 18,23) The sinner reasons to himself that he can get away with ignoring, and even make irrelevant the words of the righteous. The righteous, in the scenario painted by Rabbi Yehudah, is the רוה, “watered one”, in our verse. He is compared to the proverbial עץ שתול על מים, “tree planted alongside a steadily flowing well of water”, who, according to our sages is the symbol of the righteous that is unperturbed by the turbulence and poverty surrounding him, as he has the מים חיים, the waters of the living Torah to sustain him come rain or shine. (Compare the simile in Jeremiah 17,8) The wicked person is likened by the prophet to a tree that does not have sound roots and will be dried out by the slightest natural disaster, such as the first month of drought. Moses explains that such people will not experience any help from G’d in withstanding even temporary setbacks, as they have not only given in to the slightest temptation, but considered themselves as smart in riding on the coattails of the righteous expecting to participate in the reward G’d metes out to the vast majority who are Torah-observant. The grammarian Rabbi Yonah, also sees in the word ספות a reference to כריתה, being cut off; he attributes the sinner’s attitude to Torah to the fact that he observes in “real” life that both the righteous and the wicked die the same death of the essential life force, the נפש. He reasons that just as the body dies the same death as the animals, so does the spirit.

יעשן אף ה', “Hashem’s anger will smoke, etc.” Ibn Ezra interprets this metaphor as meaning that G’d’s anger will become so hot that smoke will be observed.

באיש ההוא, “against that man;” the word איש does not literally mean “man,” but “person;” the Torah tells us that G’d will deliberately single out that sinner for His personal attention, regardless of whether he is male or female.

ומחה ה' את שמו, “and Hashem will erase his name, etc.” This is a reference to the sinner’s family, seeing that all family members bear the same name.

והבדילו ה' לרעה, “Hashem will single him out for evil;” a reference to the whole tribe.

מכל שבטי ישראל, “from among all the tribes of Israel.” The remaining ones.

ואמר הדור האחרון וגו', “and the later generation will say, etc.” these words already refer to what follows, i.e. “why has Hashem dealt in such a fashion, etc.?”

ואמרו כל הגויים, “and all the nations will say, etc.” their attention is drawn to the extraordinarily long time that the blight of that land will continue.

אלוהים אשר לא ידעום, “a deity that had been unfamiliar to them.” Nachmanides explains that what is meant is that the people had not had any evidence that this so-called deity possessed and exercised powers that would be helpful for its worshippers.

ולא חלק להם, “and that Hashem had not assigned to Israel as a protective power.” This is a reminder that whereas the fates of nations of the world are guided by angels, assigned by Hashem to each nation, the Jewish people are under His direct supervision so that there is no protective angel assigned to them.

הנסתרות לה' אלוקינו, “The hidden [sins] are for Hashem our G’d, etc.“ Nachmanides writes that all the commentators understand the verse to mean that sins committed in private, unobserved, will be taken care of by Hashem, instead of by a human tribunal, whereas sins committed in public and witnessed, must not be simply left to His discretion to deal with. He adds, that from the plain meaning of the text it would seem that the sins described as הנסתרות, are the ones concealed even from the sinner, i.e. he was not aware of having committed them. Our sages have composed prayers in which we constantly ask G’d to protect us against committing such sins inadvertently committed. (Compare Psalms 19,13) In appreciation of not being made responsible for such sins, Moses says that we will take care of knowingly committed sins, do penance, etc., and ask G’d’s forgiveness and undertake not to be negligent again. The curses Moses has called down on sinners do not apply to people who have sinned unintentionally.