אל תאמר בלבבך, “do not say, even in your heart, etc.” Rashi says that the meaning of the verse is that you may be tempted when you observe how G’d puts all these people to flight before you to credit your success to a combination of your righteousness and their wickedness. Moses warns you not to credit anything to your righteousness, but that only their wickedness caused them to lose their land. Nachmanides does not agree with this interpretation, i.e. that the Israelites’ righteousness did not have any bearing on their success. Moses is telling the people that whether righteous in deed, or even righteous in their hearts, this could not have been a reason for G’d to dispossess another nation of their heritage. It was only their wickedness that is due to their suffering the fate that will unfold in another few weeks after Moses’ death. He underlines,

לא בצדקתך, “not on account of your righteousness;” as mentioned before, be it in deed or even also in thought; the only reason these people will lose their land and lives is their confirmed wickedness. An additional reason why they lose their lands to you, and not to another nation, is the oath Hashem had sworn to your forefathers to give this land in due course to their descendants. In the event that someone might counter that we have a specific verse in the Torah stating that G’d had chosen us because we are beloved by Him, and how could this be unless we had been righteous? Surely, G’d does not love a wicked rebellious people, and if so our righteousness must have played a role in our being victorious in our assault on the Canaanites! The answer is that our sins cannot annul an oath sworn by G’d to our forefathers, seeing that He had given the gift of this land to them reinforced by an oath. Hashem does not only love the good people, so that one could claim that they had had a share in receiving this land as a reward for their goodness. Besides, Moses reminds the people that whereas previous generations of Israelites might have been good, this present generation had been rebellious from the word “go!” How could they even dream that their goodness had played a role in their receiving the gift of this land! Moses now proceeds to illustrate the point he has just made.

ובחורב הקצפתם, “already at Mount Sinai you angered, etc.” Nachmanides writes that at the beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy, before embarking on elaborating on a substantial part of the Torah, Moses had taken the people to task for collectively committed sins that had not yet been forgiven, such as the sin of the spies and the sin at the מי מריבה, the waters of strife. Following that, he had explained the Ten Commandments in somewhat greater detail. He had especially dwelled on the unique nature of G’d the Creator, and guardian of Israel, and on the eternal bond between Him and the Jewish people. Moses issued specific warnings regarding all manner of idolatry, and he issued general warnings regarding observance of the Torah’s command-ments. Now he begins to zero in on specific commandments, but before beginning to single them out individually he once more recalls the people’s sins committed by them even after they had received the Torah in an act of revelation by Hashem. He did not admonish them on the various acts of insubordination in and around the sea prior to their receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. The reason is that ever since their acceptance of the Torah at Mount Sinai their obligation to keep the commandments had become far greater than before they had entered into a covenant with Hashem. This is why he now prefaces his words by saying: ”already while at the Mountain you angered G’d.”

ואפן וארד מן ההר, “I turned and descended from the Mountain;” Nachmanides writes that he has already explained that Moses had prayed on behalf on the people before beginning his descent from the Mountain, as we know from Exodus At the conclusion of that particular prayer G’d had already assured him that He had reconsidered His original intent to wipe out the whole nation. Moses, at this time, does not even refer to that prayer as he is intent on describing the 40 days of continuous pleading on behalf of the people, and even on behalf of Aaron, that he had spent on his return to the Mountain after he had shattered the Tablets 9,17, ואתפוש בשני הלוחות, “I grasped the two Tablets;” this too is part of the admonition, i.e. Moses described that he was unable to refrain from smashing the Tablets. He mentioned this as he wants to elaborate on the second set of Tablets, and what had occasioned the need for such a second set. It is also possible that he hinted at the favour he had done for the people at that time when he had risked immediate death by destroying G’d’s handiwork deliberately. He had done so for the sake of the people, as our sages explain in Shemot Rabbah 46 it is better to be convicted of infidelity while still only betrothed, than to be convicted after already being properly married. As long as the people had not received the Tablets, the final step in the nuptials between G’d and the people begun on the day of the revelation had not yet been taken.

ואתפוש בשני הלוחות, “I grasped the two Tablets;” this too is part of the admonition, i.e. Moses described that he was unable to refrain from smashing the Tablets. He mentioned this as he wants to elaborate on the second set of Tablets, and what had occasioned the need for such a second set. It is also possible that he hinted at the favour he had done for the people at that time when he had risked immediate death by destroying G’d’s handiwork deliberately. He had done so for the sake of the people, as our sages explain in Shemot Rabbah 46 it is better to be convicted of infidelity while still only betrothed, than to be convicted after already being properly married. As long as the people had not received the Tablets, the final step in the nuptials between G’d and the people begun on the day of the revelation had not yet been taken.

כי יגורתי, וגו', “for I was terrified, etc.;” on account G’d displaying His anger at you in so many ways. First I was afraid that He would destroy you utterly as He had threatened to do; my fear had not yet abated as even the anger described as קצף, is still a great threat to the object of that anger. True, that G’d had relented somewhat, and no longer wanted to wipe all of you out with one fell swoop, but if I spent forty days and nights prostrate on the Mountain praying on your behalf I did so with good reason, until at the end of that period G’d accepted my plea, finally. I also had to pray on account of Aaron. I prostrated myself on that occasion, as I could not do so before. Moses describes the gold dust of the burned golden calf as having been “thrown: into the brook at the foot of Mount Sinai,” instead of mentioning that the people had been made to drink from it as reported in Exodus He omitted this detail out of sensitivity for their feelings. He did not want them to feel like a Sotah, a wife suspected of marital infidelity. Such a woman is made to drink from the water in which the ash of the red heifer has been dissolved.

ובתבערה, ובמסה, ובקברות התאוה, Ibn Ezra says that תבערה, is the name of a place, and that the people never made camp there for longer than a single day. This is the reason why this place has not been listed in the stopovers in Parshat Massey. The reason why Moses lumped together Taveyrah and Massa, is because at both of these locations the people had been guilty of complaining and putting G’d on trial, testing Him. Before the incident at Massa nothing had happened to the people at all. Some scholar says that the attack by Amalek was triggered by the people’s conduct at Massa, and that although Amalek had attacked the rearguard or stragglers of the people, Moses described G’d’s anger as “burning,” concentrating on the more serious sins of the people.

ואתנפל לפני ה', “I threw myself down before Hashem;” Nachmanides interprets these words as “I was forced to throw myself down on your behalf for forty days and forty nights on account of the terrible sin you had committed,” for initially, Hashem had threatened to destroy you all together, until I had completed my prayers.

ואמר אד-ני אלוקים...אל תשחת עמך, I said: “Lord, G’d, do not destroy, etc.” This had been Moses’ prayer before he descended from the Mountain, a prayer that had been responded to by G’d with the words: “I have reconsidered the evil that I said I would bring upon My people.” Moses did not mention the content of the prayers he offered during his forty days on the mountain after he had destroyed the golden calf, and executed the people most guilty of dancing around that calf for, in the words of Job 11,9, “its measure is longer than the earth,” [it would have been beyond the common people’s ability to comprehend. Ed.]

מבלי יכולת ה' להביאם אל הארץ, “beyond G’d’s ability to bring them to the land, etc.” Nachmanides points out that in Moses’ prayer to G’d after the debacle with the spies he uses the expression מבלתי יכולת ה' אל הארץ אשר דבר להם ומשנאתו אותם הוציאם להמיתם במדבר, instead of the words used here, i.e מבלתי יכולת ה' להביא את העם הזה אל הארץ אשר נשבע להם וישחטם במדבר.. Why, did Moses mention G’d’s oath to bring the people to the Holy Land in Numbers 14,16, whereas he did not mention a word about G’d having hated this people already in Egypt, and the orchestration of the Exodus only being a preamble to mask G’d’s inability to keep His promise? At the sin of the golden calf he only mentioned that G’d had “said” that He would bring them there? Nachmanides reminds us that the supposed argument by the nations Moses presents to G’d, must be understood in terms of how matters appear to these nations. If G’d had made the people perish after only a few weeks away from Egypt, the surviving Egyptians would have interpreted this as proof that G’d had never intended the people to get to Canaan, but had wanted to kill them where no one would be a witness to His inability, but in fact G’d had already hated the people in Egypt, and that is why He had allowed them to suffer so long. The Canaanites could not have used quite the same argument after the people had survived and prospered in the desert for a year and a half. They, and the surrounding nations, would have concluded that the Jewish G’d, though willing to bring the people to Canaan, had found out that after all this was beyond His power, and rather than have witnesses to His failure, He had killed His own people.