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Sedra 11, Ve-Zot Ha-Berachah
Deuteronomy 33:1 – 34:12
Chapter 33
33:1 VE ZOT HA BERACHAH ASHER BERACH MOSHEH ISH HA ELOHIM ET BENEY YISRA-EL LIPHNEY MOTO
Deuteronomy 1 2 3a 3b 4 5 6 7a 7b 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16a 16b 17 18 19 20 21a 21b 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29a 29b 30 31 32 33 34
Deuteronomy 33:1 – 34:12
Chapter 33
33:1 VE ZOT HA BERACHAH ASHER BERACH MOSHEH ISH HA ELOHIM ET BENEY YISRA-EL LIPHNEY MOTO
וְזֹאת הַבְּרָכָה אֲשֶׁר בֵּרַךְ מֹשֶׁה אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִפְנֵי מוֹתוֹ
KJ (King James translation): And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.
BN (BibleNet translation): And this is the blessing with which Mosheh the man of Elohim blessed the Beney Yisra-El before his death.
Just as Genesis ends with Ya'akov blessing each of the tribes, so too does Deuteronomy - we need to make a comparison of the two sets of blessings, both of which are really oracular statements, horoscopes in the strictest sense of that word. My notes on the other version can be found from the start of Genesis 49.
ISH HA ELOHIM: In Deuteronomy 34:5 he will be described as MOSHEH EVED YHVH (מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד יְהוָה), covering both versions thereby. I do wonder though, based on my note at the end of the last chapter (Deuteronomy 32:49)... but that would be a very Hellenic Greek view of the world, and would require us to date the text even later than the Ezraic redaction.
LIPHNEY MOTO: Rashi, the great mediaeval commentator, did not often make jokes. But on this occasion he did, and a cutely clever one as well, borrowing from the founding commentator Rabbi Hillel's famous triplet, by simply asking "And if not now, when?"
33:2 VA YOMAR YHVH MI SINAI BAH VE ZARACH ME SE'IR LAMO HOPHIY'A MEY HAR PA'RAN VE ATAH MEY RIVEVOT KODESH MIYMINO ASHDOT LAMO
KJ: And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.
BN: And he said: "YHVH came out of Sinai to rise over the summit of Mount Seir and shine from the heights above Mount Pa'ran, the vast infinitudes of holy space his source, the cascading elements of life his being".
ISH HA ELOHIM: In Deuteronomy 34:5 he will be described as MOSHEH EVED YHVH (מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד יְהוָה), covering both versions thereby. I do wonder though, based on my note at the end of the last chapter (Deuteronomy 32:49)... but that would be a very Hellenic Greek view of the world, and would require us to date the text even later than the Ezraic redaction.
LIPHNEY MOTO: Rashi, the great mediaeval commentator, did not often make jokes. But on this occasion he did, and a cutely clever one as well, borrowing from the founding commentator Rabbi Hillel's famous triplet, by simply asking "And if not now, when?"
33:2 VA YOMAR YHVH MI SINAI BAH VE ZARACH ME SE'IR LAMO HOPHIY'A MEY HAR PA'RAN VE ATAH MEY RIVEVOT KODESH MIYMINO ASHDOT LAMO
וַיֹּאמַר יְהוָה מִסִּינַי בָּא וְזָרַח מִשֵּׂעִיר לָמוֹ הוֹפִיעַ מֵהַר פָּארָן וְאָתָה מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ מִימִינוֹ אשדת (אֵשׁ דָּת) לָמוֹ
BN: And he said: "YHVH came out of Sinai to rise over the summit of Mount Seir and shine from the heights above Mount Pa'ran, the vast infinitudes of holy space his source, the cascading elements of life his being".
ZARACH: Which is what the sun does every morning and why the east in Yehudit is MIZRACH. HOPHIY'A adds to this picture of YHVH as a sun-god, and the words of the priestly blessing elsewhere, in which YHVH will "turn his face to shine on you" complete the portrait; what started as the local volcano god of the Sinai desert has universalised - which again enables us to date the text, because that did not even begin to happen until the Ezraic redaction.
SE'IR: Yet his geographical rising over Se'ir cannot be separated from his mythological rising (see my note above), and Se'ir is very much the mountain of the rejected first-born son, both Yishma-El and Esav taking matrilocal wives there.
PA'RAN: Also identified with Edom.
LAMO: Note once again the variant grammar that suggests a very late text; normally this would be LAHEM. I am beginning to wonder if this entire chapter wasn't a Hasmonean era addition.
ASHDOT: Doubts over the text go back to the earliest Yehudit versions as well as all later translations. I have chosen ASH'DOT because that is how it is written without Nekudot. ESH DAT is the favoured among Yehudit scholars, though none can defend it grammatically or philologically, because it doesn't actually mean what they argue that it means; the translations then carry on the error; and even if it did mean what they want it to mean, the phrase itself is meaningless, even poetically. An ASH'DAH, on the other hand, is a real word, with ASHDOT as its authentic plural, and it refers to the slope of a waterfall, or the pouring out of water from the hills, is used in Joshua 10:40 and 12:8 for a low place at the foot of a mountain, but much more significantly, ASHDOT HA PISGAH was used (without a caesrura mid-word - אַשְׁדֹּת הַפִּסְגָּה) in Deuteronomy 3:17 and 4:49, and will be used in Joshua 12:3, as a specific place on the very mountain where Mosheh is about to go to die; exactly the sort of mountain shrine where we would expect him to go for a hospice, as discussed at the end of the previous chapter. So Mosheh is being sent to climb up the very slopes of the mountain where we are witnessing the sun-god rise - as though the two are the same. See again my note to ISH HA ELOHIM at verse 2.
RIVEVOT: If I am right about ASHDAH, does this then help us unravel the meaninglessness of the traditional understanding of RIVEVOT. What are "ten thousand saints" anyway, in a pre-Christian world; or the "the myriads holy", as in some Jewish translations? REVAVAH is used to mean "a thousandth part", though this is much an idiom as is "myriad" (forty, in the ancient Egyptian, had the same meaning - which piece of information may impact upon our interpretation of the 40 year journey through the wilderness); it is created from the root REVAH which means four, and is connected, mandala-like, to the four quarters of the universe, so that "myriad" really does mean myriad, in the sense of "an infinite number".
SE'IR: Yet his geographical rising over Se'ir cannot be separated from his mythological rising (see my note above), and Se'ir is very much the mountain of the rejected first-born son, both Yishma-El and Esav taking matrilocal wives there.
PA'RAN: Also identified with Edom.
LAMO: Note once again the variant grammar that suggests a very late text; normally this would be LAHEM. I am beginning to wonder if this entire chapter wasn't a Hasmonean era addition.
ASHDOT: Doubts over the text go back to the earliest Yehudit versions as well as all later translations. I have chosen ASH'DOT because that is how it is written without Nekudot. ESH DAT is the favoured among Yehudit scholars, though none can defend it grammatically or philologically, because it doesn't actually mean what they argue that it means; the translations then carry on the error; and even if it did mean what they want it to mean, the phrase itself is meaningless, even poetically. An ASH'DAH, on the other hand, is a real word, with ASHDOT as its authentic plural, and it refers to the slope of a waterfall, or the pouring out of water from the hills, is used in Joshua 10:40 and 12:8 for a low place at the foot of a mountain, but much more significantly, ASHDOT HA PISGAH was used (without a caesrura mid-word - אַשְׁדֹּת הַפִּסְגָּה) in Deuteronomy 3:17 and 4:49, and will be used in Joshua 12:3, as a specific place on the very mountain where Mosheh is about to go to die; exactly the sort of mountain shrine where we would expect him to go for a hospice, as discussed at the end of the previous chapter. So Mosheh is being sent to climb up the very slopes of the mountain where we are witnessing the sun-god rise - as though the two are the same. See again my note to ISH HA ELOHIM at verse 2.
RIVEVOT: If I am right about ASHDAH, does this then help us unravel the meaninglessness of the traditional understanding of RIVEVOT. What are "ten thousand saints" anyway, in a pre-Christian world; or the "the myriads holy", as in some Jewish translations? REVAVAH is used to mean "a thousandth part", though this is much an idiom as is "myriad" (forty, in the ancient Egyptian, had the same meaning - which piece of information may impact upon our interpretation of the 40 year journey through the wilderness); it is created from the root REVAH which means four, and is connected, mandala-like, to the four quarters of the universe, so that "myriad" really does mean myriad, in the sense of "an infinite number".
Which leaves only one question: why do the religious scholars in all camps prefer the meaningless version? There are two answers, and they may well both be correct. The first is that it paints a picture of YHVH that does not conform to post-70CE dogma. The second is that it allows Mosheh a rather more pleasant dying among the waterfalls and glorious sunrises of a priestly community when the preference is for a Promethean abandonment with his Merivah sins and the devastation of watching his people achieve what is denied him.
33:3 APH CHOVEV AMIM KOL KEDOSHAV BE YADECHA VE HEM TUKU LE RAGLECHA YISA MI DABROTEYCHA
אַף חֹבֵב עַמִּים כָּל קְדֹשָׁיו בְּיָדֶךָ וְהֵם תֻּכּוּ לְרַגְלֶךָ יִשָּׂא מִדַּבְּרֹתֶיךָ
BN: Yea, he loves the peoples, all his holy ones - they are in your hand; and they sit down at your feet, receiving your words.
The previous chapter is presented explicitly as a SHIRAH, a song, or possibly a poem, even though the layout of the text is no different from the remainder of the Torah; long straight lines, unpunctuated, occasionally paragraphed. In Deuteronomy 32 I presented the song as poetry, so that its structure could be clearly seen. Mosheh's blessing is not presented as a song, and yet the rhythms and language of this verse clearly echo those of the SHIRAH in Deuteronomy 32. It feels like it should be written down in the same manner, and that the following verses likewise belong to some ancient epic poem (or they may even belong to the same poem/song as the last chapter), of which we probably only have a fragment here:
אַף חֹבֵב עַמִּים
כָּל קְדֹשָׁיו בְּיָדֶךָ
וְהֵם תֻּכּוּ לְרַגְלֶךָ
יִשָּׂא מִדַּבְּרֹתֶיךָ
KEDOSHAV: As with RIVEVOT KODESH in the previous verse, this is a Christian translation; there are no "saints" in Judaism.
33:4 TORAH TSIVAH LANU MOSHEH MORASHAH KEHILAT YA'AKOV
תּוֹרָה צִוָּה לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִלַּת יַעֲקֹב
BN: Mosheh instructed us in the law, an inheritance for the congregation of Ya'akov.
What is self-evident from this verse being in the 3rd person, and with the reference to "us", is that neither Mosheh nor any version of the deity is writing this.
33:5 VA YEHI VI YESHURUN MELECH BE HITASEPH RASHEY AM YACHAD SHIVTEY YISRA-EL
וַיְהִי בִישֻׁרוּן מֶלֶךְ בְּהִתְאַסֵּף רָאשֵׁי עָם יַחַד שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
BN: And there was a king in Yeshurun, when the heads of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Yisra-El together.
YESHURUN: see the notes at the link. The god-king, like Ar Thur in the original Celtic legends, sat at the head of a Round Table, which was the horoscopal universe, and his twelve favourite disciples, his "merrie men", his knights, his sons, his tribes, each one representing a constellation in the heavens, sat with him to receive their blessing at what will be his Last Supper.
33:6 YECHI RE'U-VEN VE AL YAMOT VIY'CHI METAV MISPAR
יְחִי רְאוּבֵן וְאַל יָמֹת וִיהִי מְתָיו מִסְפָּר
KJ: Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few.
BN: Let Re'u-Ven live, and not die. Let his men become few.
Verse 5 to verse 6 simply makes no sense. The blessings of the tribes begin in verse 6. Is verse 5 an unfinished sentence? Or more likely a surviving stone-scrap or parchment-scrap, some ancient relic of museum importance, which just had to be fitted in somewhere? There needs to be some phrase, echoing my note, "and the king blessed each one in the following words..."
VIYCHI METAV MISPAR is a separate phrase, following after VE AL YAMOT, and it does not contain a negative. The King James, like most translations, has added the negative, wanting the oracle to be positive towards Re'u-Ven. There is no reason for this; oracles are oracles, not wish-fulfillment exercises. The tribe of Re'u-Ven historically became few extremely quickly - his was already the biggest drop, from 46,500, to 43,730, between the first census (Numbers 1:21) and the second (Numbers 26:7) - and had pretty much disappeared into Mo-Av and Amon, Midyan and Edom, by the time the first king was anointed in Yisra-El.
The closing of the book in this manner echoes the construction of the Book of Genesis, where the penultimate chapter is given to Ya'akov for the same purpose of blessing his sons, tribe by tribe, but in a manner that feels more oracular than liturgical. We need to note the order of the blessings, and add it to the many other lists in the essay on the Number Twelve; we also need to note the nature and wording of the blessings, which I have done in the verses that follow here.
VIYCHI METAV MISPAR is a separate phrase, following after VE AL YAMOT, and it does not contain a negative. The King James, like most translations, has added the negative, wanting the oracle to be positive towards Re'u-Ven. There is no reason for this; oracles are oracles, not wish-fulfillment exercises. The tribe of Re'u-Ven historically became few extremely quickly - his was already the biggest drop, from 46,500, to 43,730, between the first census (Numbers 1:21) and the second (Numbers 26:7) - and had pretty much disappeared into Mo-Av and Amon, Midyan and Edom, by the time the first king was anointed in Yisra-El.
The closing of the book in this manner echoes the construction of the Book of Genesis, where the penultimate chapter is given to Ya'akov for the same purpose of blessing his sons, tribe by tribe, but in a manner that feels more oracular than liturgical. We need to note the order of the blessings, and add it to the many other lists in the essay on the Number Twelve; we also need to note the nature and wording of the blessings, which I have done in the verses that follow here.
It is worth considering whether MOSHEH and the King of Yeshurun are not in fact the same person, as the alternative translation of verse 5 above suggests; I imagine the Beney Yisra-El coming to Mount Nevo, ready to cross the Yarden, and going up to the sun-god shrine known as Yeshurun next to the waterfall, to ask the priest-king, the sacred-king, named MOSHEH, to read their fortunes to them in the metaphorical tea-leaves; but before he does so, he also reads to them from the sacred texts of Yeshurun, and leads them in a covenant ceremony by which they accept these sacred texts as their own law from now on... and all the rest is retroactively invented history.
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33:7 VE ZOT LI YEHUDAH VA YOMAR SHEMA YHVH KOL YEHUDAH VE EL AMO TEVIYENU YADAV RAV LO VE EZER MI TSARAV TIHEYEH
KJ: And this is the blessing of Judah: and he said, Hear, LORD, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him; and be thou an help to him from his enemies.
BN: And this for Yehudah. And he said: Hear, YHVH, the voice of Yehudah, and bring him in to his people; his hands shall contend for him, and you shall be a help against his adversaries.
That Re'u-Ven came first was expected - he was the first-born. Where is Shim'on, the second-born - nowhere in this chapter, is the answer. And why Yehudah before Levi, who was Shim'on's twin according to Ya'akov's blessings (Genesis 49:5, but comes third?
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33:7 VE ZOT LI YEHUDAH VA YOMAR SHEMA YHVH KOL YEHUDAH VE EL AMO TEVIYENU YADAV RAV LO VE EZER MI TSARAV TIHEYEH
וְזֹאת לִיהוּדָה וַיֹּאמַר שְׁמַע יְהוָה קוֹל יְהוּדָה וְאֶל עַמּוֹ תְּבִיאֶנּוּ יָדָיו רָב לוֹ וְעֵזֶר מִצָּרָיו תִּהְיֶה
BN: And this for Yehudah. And he said: Hear, YHVH, the voice of Yehudah, and bring him in to his people; his hands shall contend for him, and you shall be a help against his adversaries.
That Re'u-Ven came first was expected - he was the first-born. Where is Shim'on, the second-born - nowhere in this chapter, is the answer. And why Yehudah before Levi, who was Shim'on's twin according to Ya'akov's blessings (Genesis 49:5, but comes third?
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33:8 U LE LEVI AMAR TUMEYCHA VE UREYCHA LE ISH CHASIYDECHA ASHER NISIYTO BE MASAH TERIVEYHU AL MEY MERIVAH
וּלְלֵוִי אָמַר תֻּמֶּיךָ וְאוּרֶיךָ לְאִישׁ חֲסִידֶךָ אֲשֶׁר נִסִּיתוֹ בְּמַסָּה תְּרִיבֵהוּ עַל מֵי מְרִיבָה
BN: And of Levi he said: Your Tumim and your Urim are with your holy one, whom you proved at Masah, with whom you strove at the waters of Merivah.
TUMIM...URIM: The "divining instruments" used by the Kohanim; the twelve jewels, one for each tribe, that formed the breastplate of the Kohan Gadol (Exodus 28).
But how odd, that the sin of Merivah, which was the reason for the rejection of both Aharon and Mosheh, and connected with the death of Mir-Yam (Numbers 20, should turn out to be an occasion of praise for the Leviyim, who were surely equally responsible. Do we need to rethink our understanding of Merivah? Or is Yeshurun being ironic, and even sarcastic here? The next verse suggests that he might well be.
33:9 HA OMER LE AVIV U LE IMO LO RE'IYTIV VE ET ECHAV LO HIKIYR VE ET BANAV LO YADA KI SHAMRU IMRATECHA U VERIYT'CHA YINTSORU
KJ: Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.
BN: Who said to his father, and to his mother: "I have not seen him"; neither did he acknowledge his kinsmen, nor knew his own children; for they have observed your word, and keep your covenant.
LO RE'IYTIV: An allusion to his part in the trafficking of Yoseph in Genesis 37. And an odd moment when we realise it; that whole story is told through male eyes, the kidnapped Yoseph, the brothers, the father; because Yoseph's mother, Rachel, was long dead by that time. How would Le'ah have reacted, given her difficult and jealousy-driven relationship with her younger sister, upon learning that the heir-apparent has disappeared, and nothing to be found except his blood-stained coat of many colours. Apparently, according to this verse, he was asked what he knew, and answered "I have not seen him" - neutral, evasive, disingenuous. When Ya'akov delivers his blessings of his sons, the blessing for Yehudah (Genesis 49:8) confirms him as the head of the tribe - while Yoseph has been disinherited in favour of the grandsons Ephrayim and Menasheh. Yeshurun has predicted the demise of Re'u-Ven and spoken nothing but criticism of Levi.
33:10 YORU MISHPATEYCHA LE YA'AKOV VE TORAT'CHA LE YISRA-EL YASIYMU KETURAH BE APECHA VE CHALIL AL MIZBECHECHA
KJ: They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.
BN: They shall teach Ya'akov your statutes, and Yisra-El your law; they shall put incense before you, and whole burnt-offerings on your altar.
YORU: Confirming the Beney Levi as the priesthood. And in terms of the order of the tribes, the first-born, Re'u-Ven; then Yehudah, the one who will become predominant when Bin-Yamin (who comes next in this list) and Yehudah and Shim'on unite, with Yeru-Shala'im as the nation's capital, even before the civil war that will create two kingdoms, or the invasion of Shalman-Ezer that will destroy the northern of those two kingdoms - all of which dates this Mosaic fragment to at least Solomonic times, possibly to the era immediately after Shelomoh, most probably to post-Babylonian exile. And that latter endorsed by the placing of the Leviyim third - their position as the unique priestly tribe only established after the return from Babylonian exile.
33:9 HA OMER LE AVIV U LE IMO LO RE'IYTIV VE ET ECHAV LO HIKIYR VE ET BANAV LO YADA KI SHAMRU IMRATECHA U VERIYT'CHA YINTSORU
הָאֹמֵר לְאָבִיו וּלְאִמּוֹ לֹא רְאִיתִיו וְאֶת אֶחָיו לֹא הִכִּיר וְאֶת בָּנָו לֹא יָדָע כִּי שָׁמְרוּ אִמְרָתֶךָ וּבְרִיתְךָ יִנְצֹרוּ
BN: Who said to his father, and to his mother: "I have not seen him"; neither did he acknowledge his kinsmen, nor knew his own children; for they have observed your word, and keep your covenant.
LO RE'IYTIV: An allusion to his part in the trafficking of Yoseph in Genesis 37. And an odd moment when we realise it; that whole story is told through male eyes, the kidnapped Yoseph, the brothers, the father; because Yoseph's mother, Rachel, was long dead by that time. How would Le'ah have reacted, given her difficult and jealousy-driven relationship with her younger sister, upon learning that the heir-apparent has disappeared, and nothing to be found except his blood-stained coat of many colours. Apparently, according to this verse, he was asked what he knew, and answered "I have not seen him" - neutral, evasive, disingenuous. When Ya'akov delivers his blessings of his sons, the blessing for Yehudah (Genesis 49:8) confirms him as the head of the tribe - while Yoseph has been disinherited in favour of the grandsons Ephrayim and Menasheh. Yeshurun has predicted the demise of Re'u-Ven and spoken nothing but criticism of Levi.
33:10 YORU MISHPATEYCHA LE YA'AKOV VE TORAT'CHA LE YISRA-EL YASIYMU KETURAH BE APECHA VE CHALIL AL MIZBECHECHA
יוֹרוּ מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ לְיַעֲקֹב וְתוֹרָתְךָ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל יָשִׂימוּ קְטוֹרָה בְּאַפֶּךָ וְכָלִיל עַל מִזְבְּחֶךָ
KJ: They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.
BN: They shall teach Ya'akov your statutes, and Yisra-El your law; they shall put incense before you, and whole burnt-offerings on your altar.
YORU: Confirming the Beney Levi as the priesthood. And in terms of the order of the tribes, the first-born, Re'u-Ven; then Yehudah, the one who will become predominant when Bin-Yamin (who comes next in this list) and Yehudah and Shim'on unite, with Yeru-Shala'im as the nation's capital, even before the civil war that will create two kingdoms, or the invasion of Shalman-Ezer that will destroy the northern of those two kingdoms - all of which dates this Mosaic fragment to at least Solomonic times, possibly to the era immediately after Shelomoh, most probably to post-Babylonian exile. And that latter endorsed by the placing of the Leviyim third - their position as the unique priestly tribe only established after the return from Babylonian exile.
KETURAH: Incense, but don't forget that this was also the name of the wife of Av-Raham's old age, after Sarah died.
33:11 BARECH YHVH CHEYLO U PHO'AL YADAV TIRTSEH MECHATS MATNAYIM KAMAV U MESANAV MIN YEKUMUN
בָּרֵךְ יְהוָה חֵילוֹ וּפֹעַל יָדָיו תִּרְצֶה מְחַץ מָתְנַיִם קָמָיו וּמְשַׂנְאָיו מִן יְקוּמוּן
KJ: Bless, LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.
BN: Bless, YHVH, his substance, and accept the work of his hands; smite through the loins of those who rise up against him, and those who hate him, so that they are unable ever to stand up again.
MECHATS MATNAYIM: And no question that the Yehudit means precisely what it says, though "loins" may be slightly, politely euphemistic. No wonder the human world is so barbaric, if this is the Word of YHVH.
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33:12 LE VIN-YAMIN AMAR YEDIYD YHVH YISHKON LA VETACH ALAV CHOPHEN ALAV KOL HA YOM U VEYN KETEPHAV SHACHEN
לְבִנְיָמִן אָמַר יְדִיד יְהוָה יִשְׁכֹּן לָבֶטַח עָלָיו חֹפֵף עָלָיו כָּל הַיּוֹם וּבֵין כְּתֵפָיו שָׁכֵן
KJ: And of Benjamin he said, The beloved of the LORD shall dwell in safety by him; and the LORD shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders.
BN: Of Bin-Yamin he said: The beloved of YHVH shall dwell in safety by him; he watches him all the day, and he dwells between his shoulders.
Bin-Yamin so early in the list! And Bin-Yamin now YEDITY - "the beloved" - albeit of YHVH, not of Yah, as David and Shelomoh were! Sha'ul would be pleased to read this though - he was chosen because Bin-Yamin was the last-born, and ultimogeniture applied, even in the choice of which tribe should provide the king; and Sha'ul's reckoned to be the last-born within the tribe itself as well. Yeru-Shala'im, chosen to be the nation's capital, was in the tribal territory of Bin-Yamin, so, yet again, we can date the text.
33:13 U LE YOSEPH AMAR MEVORECHET YHVH ARTSO MI MEGED SHAMAYIM MI TAL U MI TEHOM ROVETSET TACHAT
וּלְיוֹסֵף אָמַר מְבֹרֶכֶת יְהוָה אַרְצוֹ מִמֶּגֶד שָׁמַיִם מִטָּל וּמִתְּהוֹם רֹבֶצֶת תָּחַת
BN: And of Yoseph he said: Blessed of YHVH be his land; for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that couches beneath...
Again we have to ask: why Yoseph? Are there perhaps two versions, in one of which Yoseph continues to be a tribe, in the other Ephrayim and Menasheh supplant him? Because Yoseph does not have an inheritance in Yisra-El, other than through his sons, and therefore there is nothing obvious for Yehusurun to bless. Or is there?
TEHOM: There is! And interesting too, given that this is oracular, that Yoseph's realm turns out not simply to be land and trees and sheep, like the other brothers, but his full territory, including Tehom itself, not just "the deep that couches beneath", but the very Chaos of pre-Creation, the blackest of all black holes, and the Creator sun too, here and again in the next verse: universal Yoseph, the role he played in Mitsrayim.
Can we then, as we could with Ya'akov's blessings, and as we will be able to do with Yehoshu'a in his book, deduce the planetary constellations that orbit in Yoseph's Osiric realm, from the words used in each of these blessings?
TAL: And should we look again at Deuteronomy 32:2, and wonder again about the metaphor of the dew?
33:14 U MI MEGED TEVU'OT SHEMESH U MI MEGED GERESH YERACHIM
וּמִמֶּגֶד תְּבוּאֹת שָׁמֶשׁ וּמִמֶּגֶד גֶּרֶשׁ יְרָחִים
BN: And for the precious fruits of the sun, and for the precious yield of the moons...
YERACHIM: Moons in the plural is surprising; but we know from the Arab daughters of al-Lah, and from the ancient Chinese tales that live on as Cinderella and her two step-sisters, and as Cordelia and her two sisters in the pre-Geoffrey of Monmouth rewrite of the Lear myth, that there were understood to be three moons, the virgin waxing moon, the mothering full moon, and the old-crone waning moon. A polytheism of which Yah represents the Madonna, YAH being composed of the letters that spell the number 15, which is the day in thelunar month when the moon is full.
33:15 U ME ROSH HAREREY KEDEM U MI MEGED GIV'OT OLAM
וּמֵרֹאשׁ הַרְרֵי קֶדֶם וּמִמֶּגֶד גִּבְעוֹת עוֹלָם
BN: And for the tops of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the everlasting hills...
ROSH... OLAM: Compare Genesis 49:26.
KEDEM: could as well mean "east" here as "ancient".
33:16 U MI MEGED ERETS U MELO'AH U RETSON SHOCHNEY SENEH TAVOTAH LE ROSH YOSEPH U LE KADKOD NEZIR ECHAV
KJ: And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.
BN: And for the precious things of the Earth and the fullness thereof, and the good will of he who dwelt in the bush; let the blessing come upon the head of Yoseph, and upon the crown of the head of he who is set apart among his brethren.
SHOCHNEY SENEH: The only creature who ever dwelt in a bush, Biblically anyway, was the deity whom Mosheh encountered on Mount Chorev, in Exodus 3:2 ff. Though you might be interested in seeing my note to Exodus 10:4. But the significant verse, with respect to these blessings, is Genesis 49:26, where I have already conducted a cross-comparison with this verse.
NEZIR: the root literally means "separated", and gives us the Nazir, the man who takes himself apart from the community for a fixed period of abstinence and retreat. But a NEZER, spelled exactly the same, is a diadem, one of the symbols of princely status, and many translations render the last part of this verse as "he who is a prince among his brethren".
33:17 BECHOR SHORO HADAR LO VE KARNEY RE'EM KARNAV BEHEM AMIM YENAGACH YACHDAV APHSEY-ARETS VE HEM RIVEVOT EPHRAYIM VE HEM ALEPHEY MENASHEH
KJ: His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
BN: His majesty is implicit in the firstling bullock, as his horns are the horns of the wild-ox with which them he shall gore all the nations, even as far as the ends of the Earth; they are the myriads of Ephrayim, as they are the myriads of Menasheh.
REVAVOT: See my note to verse 2.
KARNEY RE'EM is interesting in the light of paintings of Mosheh in the mediaeval period; usually with horns of light that seem (falsely) to infer the demoniacal.
RIVEVOT EPHRAYIM...ALPHEY MENASHEH: My earlier question about Yoseph v Ephrayim-Menasheh seems to have been answered; one text, but Yoseph superior to his sons; this is not how Genesis presents it, nor the later books of the Tanach, which rather dismiss Yoseph once his story is told.
KEDEM: could as well mean "east" here as "ancient".
33:16 U MI MEGED ERETS U MELO'AH U RETSON SHOCHNEY SENEH TAVOTAH LE ROSH YOSEPH U LE KADKOD NEZIR ECHAV
וּמִמֶּגֶד אֶרֶץ וּמְלֹאָהּ וּרְצוֹן שֹׁכְנִי סְנֶה תָּבוֹאתָה לְרֹאשׁ יוֹסֵף וּלְקָדְקֹד נְזִיר אֶחָיו
BN: And for the precious things of the Earth and the fullness thereof, and the good will of he who dwelt in the bush; let the blessing come upon the head of Yoseph, and upon the crown of the head of he who is set apart among his brethren.
SHOCHNEY SENEH: The only creature who ever dwelt in a bush, Biblically anyway, was the deity whom Mosheh encountered on Mount Chorev, in Exodus 3:2 ff. Though you might be interested in seeing my note to Exodus 10:4. But the significant verse, with respect to these blessings, is Genesis 49:26, where I have already conducted a cross-comparison with this verse.
NEZIR: the root literally means "separated", and gives us the Nazir, the man who takes himself apart from the community for a fixed period of abstinence and retreat. But a NEZER, spelled exactly the same, is a diadem, one of the symbols of princely status, and many translations render the last part of this verse as "he who is a prince among his brethren".
33:17 BECHOR SHORO HADAR LO VE KARNEY RE'EM KARNAV BEHEM AMIM YENAGACH YACHDAV APHSEY-ARETS VE HEM RIVEVOT EPHRAYIM VE HEM ALEPHEY MENASHEH
בְּכוֹר שׁוֹרוֹ הָדָר לוֹ וְקַרְנֵי רְאֵם קַרְנָיו בָּהֶם עַמִּים יְנַגַּח יַחְדָּו אַפְסֵי אָרֶץ וְהֵם רִבְבוֹת אֶפְרַיִם וְהֵם אַלְפֵי מְנַשֶּׁה
BN: His majesty is implicit in the firstling bullock, as his horns are the horns of the wild-ox with which them he shall gore all the nations, even as far as the ends of the Earth; they are the myriads of Ephrayim, as they are the myriads of Menasheh.
REVAVOT: See my note to verse 2.
KARNEY RE'EM is interesting in the light of paintings of Mosheh in the mediaeval period; usually with horns of light that seem (falsely) to infer the demoniacal.
RIVEVOT EPHRAYIM...ALPHEY MENASHEH: My earlier question about Yoseph v Ephrayim-Menasheh seems to have been answered; one text, but Yoseph superior to his sons; this is not how Genesis presents it, nor the later books of the Tanach, which rather dismiss Yoseph once his story is told.
As to the phrase, it seems oddly reminiscent of the chant in 1 Samuel 18:7, deriding King Sha'ul in favour of the boy David: "Sha'ul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands". Yehoshu'a, remember, was from the tribe of Ephrayim (the only obvious candidate for the Menasheh comparison, given that he would have to be from that tribe, and also to have engaged in war, is Gid'on - Gideon - Judges 6).
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33:18 U LE ZEVULUN AMAR SEMACH ZEVULUN BE TSETEM VE YISSACHAR BE OHALEYCHA
וְלִזְבוּלֻן אָמַר שְׂמַח זְבוּלֻן בְּצֵאתֶךָ וְיִשָּׂשכָר בְּאֹהָלֶיךָ
KJ: And of Zebulun he said, Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out; and, Issachar, in thy tents.
BN: And of Zevulun he said: Rejoice, Zevulun, in your going out, and, Yisaschar, in your tents.
And again, why in this order, especially these two, who are generally very minor figures, the ninth and tenth sons, both mothered by Le'ah, both among the disappeared of the northern kingdom later on - yes, but, when the tribes were organised around the Mishkan (Numbers 2, see v16 for a diagram), to provide it with a guard of honour, who led the vanguard? Yehudah, with Zevulun and Yisaschar! So, in fact, they are bound to be next, after the Leviyim, in Mosheh's divine blessing.
And based on this, we can now see why Bin-Yamin was grouped with Ephrayim and Menasheh, not just in the blessing, above, but in the layout of the honour-guard: the family of Rachel, kept as a unit.
Is Mosheh's blessing in any way connected to Ya'akov's? See Genesis 49:13/14
33:19 AMIM HAR YIKRA'U SHAM YIZBECHU ZIVCHEY TSEDEK KI SHEPHA YAMIM YIYNAKU U SEPHUNEY TEMUNEY CHOL
עַמִּים הַר יִקְרָאוּ שָׁם יִזְבְּחוּ זִבְחֵי צֶדֶק כִּי שֶׁפַע יַמִּים יִינָקוּ וּשְׂפֻנֵי טְמוּנֵי חוֹל
KJ: They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
BN: They shall summon nations to the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness; for they shall suck the abundance of the seas, and the hidden treasures of the sand.
33:19 AMIM HAR YIKRA'U SHAM YIZBECHU ZIVCHEY TSEDEK KI SHEPHA YAMIM YIYNAKU U SEPHUNEY TEMUNEY CHOL
KJ: They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
BN: They shall summon nations to the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness; for they shall suck the abundance of the seas, and the hidden treasures of the sand.
Yes, but which mountain? Mosheh is speaking from Mo-Av, from the range that includes mounts Eyval and Gerizim, east of the river Yarden, nowhere near Sinai, or Chorev, nowhere near Yeru-Shala'im, nowhere near the future tribal territories of Zevulun and Yisaschar. And neither of theose tribal territories will be exactly mountainous. So this has to be a metaphorical mountain, like warring nations being summoned to the summit of "Mount Geneva" for peace talks, or the G8 to "Mount Strasbourg" to find a solution to the latest financial crisis. "Sacrifices of righteousness" confirms the metaphor - the expectation that they will, so to speak, "deliver the goods".
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33:20 U LE GAD AMAR BARUCH MARCHIYV GAD KE LAVI SHACHEN VE TARAPH ZERO'A APH KADKOD
וּלְגָד אָמַר בָּרוּךְ מַרְחִיב גָּד כְּלָבִיא שָׁכֵן וְטָרַף זְרוֹעַ אַף קָדְקֹד
BN: And of Gad he said: Blessed be he who enlarges Gad; he dwells as a lioness, and tears the arm, yea, the crown of the head.
Again logical: the first-born, then the leader (at the time of writing this), then the priests, then the Rachelites, because they are the last-born. Then those who accompanied the above at the Mishkan: starting with the leader, and now Gad and the unmentioned Shim'on, who were with Re'u-Ven (see the diagram at Numbers 2:16 again), leaving Dan, Asher and Naphtali at the last, and least, point, which was the northern side, the only side of the Earth where the sun never travels.
Worth looking again at the Re'u-Ven verse, above, and compare the decline there with the increase here. The exact opposite of Ya'akov's blessing (Genesis 49:19), where Gad is overcome and declines - but triumphs at the last.
33:21 VA YAR RESHIYT LO KI SHAM CHELKAT MECHOKEK SAPHUN VA YETU RASHEY AM TSIDKAT YHVH ASAH U MISHPATAV IM YISRA-EL
וַיַּרְא רֵאשִׁית לוֹ כִּי שָׁם חֶלְקַת מְחֹקֵק סָפוּן וַיֵּתֵא רָאשֵׁי עָם צִדְקַת יְהוָה עָשָׂה וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו עִם יִשְׂרָאֵל
KJ: And he provided the first part for himself, because there, in a portion of the lawgiver, was he seated; and he came with the heads of the people, he executed the justice of the LORD, and his judgments with Israel.
BN: And he chose a lead role for himself, for a portion for a ruler was reserved there; and the heads of the people came to him, and he executed the righteousness of YHVH, and his ordinances with Yisra-El.
Isn't this the wrong way round? Shouldn't this be Dan, whose name means "Judge", and who is blessed as such in Genesis 49:16? I will return to this question in one verse time.
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33:22 U LE DAN AMAR DAN GUR ARYEH YEZANEK MIN HA BASHAN
וּלְדָן אָמַר דָּן גּוּר אַרְיֵה יְזַנֵּק מִן הַבָּשָׁן
BN: And of Dan he said: Dan is a lion's whelp, that leaps forth from Bashan.
BASHAN: In Judges 18:1-2, "In those days there was no king in Yisra-El. Now at that time the tribe of the Dani was seeking a place where they could settle, because, until that time, they had not managed to find a place where they could settle, anywhere among the tribes of Yisra-El. And the Beney Dan sent five of their tribesmen from their coasts, all of them trained soldiers, from Tsar'ah, and from Eshta'ol, to explore the land, and to investigate it.". Click here for a map, and you will see that these places are west of Beit Lechem, inside Kena'an, where Bashan is in Mo-Av, east of the Yarden. Judges 18:27 tells us that they went to La'ish, way up in the north-east by Mount Chermon.
The otherly problem with this is that the historical event took place many years after Mosheh's death.
So, now, based on this verse, I am going to offer an alternate speculation. Once upon a time, in Yisra-El, there was a famous song, this song, but also Ya'akov's in Genesis 49, and probably several other versions too, because different people remembered it with variations, and no one could agree which was correct. Why the differences? Because it mentioned all the tribes, and obviously all the tribes wanted their mention to be positive, only, not all the mentions were positive, and at least one of the mentions was the most positive of all positives, and everybody wanted that. So, in Yehudah, say, they sang that "Yehudah was a lion's whelp...and a lioness" (Genesis 49:9) , but in Gad they also sang it, a whelp being the young offspring of the lion (verse 20, above), and now Dan too, in this verse, though really Dan should have the Gad line, and Gad the Dan line - and later on it will be king David, of course, the lion not the whelp or the lioness, (2 Samuel 5:2), and in C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" tales, it will be Aslan - and no, I am not being silly in mentioning him. Aslan is the sun, rising over "Mount Hebrews" in a rather more Christianly theological metaphor; click here.
וּלְנַפְתָּלִי אָמַר נַפְתָּלִי שְׂבַע רָצוֹן וּמָלֵא בִּרְכַּת יְהוָה יָם וְדָרוֹם יְרָשָׁה
KJ: And of Naphtali he said, O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the LORD: possess thou the west and the south.
BN: And of Naphtali he said: O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of YHVH; possess the sea and the south.
KJ: And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
BN: And of Asher he said: Blessed be Asher above sons; let him be the favoured of his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
Lots of thoughts here on what this might mean. To me, it is a confirmation that Asher is the masculine form of Asherah, the fertiity-goddess and the source of all that milk and honey, though I am still undecided whether this also translates into Osher (Osiris), the Earth-god of the Egyptians (Asher and Asherah are both spelled with an Aleph, Osher with an Ayin, but that is not in itself a proving factor).
33:25 BARZEL U NECHOSHET MI NE'ALECHA U CHE YAMEYCHA DAVEYCHA
בַּרְזֶל וּנְחֹשֶׁת מִנְעָלֶךָ וּכְיָמֶיךָ דָּבְאֶךָ
KJ: Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.
BN: Your locks shall be made of iron and brass; and as your days, so shall your strength be.
NE'ALECHA: The previous verse dipped his feet in oil, which is a rather uckie thing to do, unless you are pressing olives in the same way you press grapes; or unless you are using oil to anoint, which then leads us to think of the sacred heel of Achilles, dipped in the river Styx, or the geisha girls of Japan whose feet are bound, like sacred kings all over the world, and in the partridge-dance which was part of the ancient Pesach, the ritual laming by immolation of the sacred-king (see Genesis 41:46 and Deuteronomy 15:21) ...which takes us back to previous speculations as to whether Asher is in fact Osher as well as male Asherah, and whether Yisaschar was in fact Yesheh-Shachur, Black Isis... (which might then lead us to Rashi's other jest, that Asher was the most fertile of all the tribes, and nobody knows why)...
However, the intention here does not seem to be shoes at all, but locks, as in bolts and bars on doors and windows. The root means "lock", and it is because you have to tie shoes with laces, or put the hole in the strip of leather on your sandals into a little metal peg, that NA'ALAYIM became the word for "shoes".
BARZEL: Yet one more indication of the date. The Iron Age is reckoned to have begun... not earlier than 1200 BCE, and probably - this is what we find in the tales of Sha'ul and the Pelishtim in the Book of Samuel - not much before 1000 BCE; either way, post-Mosheh.
BN: There is none like El Yeshurun, who rides upon the heavens as your help, and in his excellency on the clouds.
EL, not YHVH or Elohim. He who rides upon the heavens is the sun, whether in the metaphorical form of Noach's Ark, or Phaethon's Chariot, or Helios' Chariot, or simply as clouds (SHECHAKIM) passing across the skies... So, again, my suggestion that this was not originally a Yisra-Eli song, but at least Kena'ani, if not Hittite...
HASHMED: Rather than NICHRETAH or IBUD, on this occasion. This is natural destruction in the normal order of life-and-death, not human slaughter or the divine acts such as volcanic eruptions and tsunamis and earthquakes.
So, now, based on this verse, I am going to offer an alternate speculation. Once upon a time, in Yisra-El, there was a famous song, this song, but also Ya'akov's in Genesis 49, and probably several other versions too, because different people remembered it with variations, and no one could agree which was correct. Why the differences? Because it mentioned all the tribes, and obviously all the tribes wanted their mention to be positive, only, not all the mentions were positive, and at least one of the mentions was the most positive of all positives, and everybody wanted that. So, in Yehudah, say, they sang that "Yehudah was a lion's whelp...and a lioness" (Genesis 49:9) , but in Gad they also sang it, a whelp being the young offspring of the lion (verse 20, above), and now Dan too, in this verse, though really Dan should have the Gad line, and Gad the Dan line - and later on it will be king David, of course, the lion not the whelp or the lioness, (2 Samuel 5:2), and in C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" tales, it will be Aslan - and no, I am not being silly in mentioning him. Aslan is the sun, rising over "Mount Hebrews" in a rather more Christianly theological metaphor; click here.
33:23 U LE NAPHTALI AMAR NAPHTALI SEVA RATSON U MAL'E BIRKAT YHVH YAM VE DAROM YERASHAH
BN: And of Naphtali he said: O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of YHVH; possess the sea and the south.
Which is a fine blessing, but (as the map clearly shows) his tribal territory was neither the sea nor the south, but land-locked in the north-east - unless you count the tiny (166 sq kms) Sea of Galilee. But what if (one has to speculate!) these blessings were not originally Beney Yisra-El at all, nor the tribes either; but, let us say, Phoenician, from the days of the Hittite Empire, which extended from Anatolia to the Negev desert; that would make Naphtali southern, and the Sea of Galilee is at its eastern border.
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33:24 U LE ASHER AMAR BARUCH MI BANIM ASHER YEHI RETSU'I ECHAV VE TOVEL BA SHEMEN RAGLO
וּלְאָשֵׁר אָמַר בָּרוּךְ מִבָּנִים אָשֵׁר יְהִי רְצוּי אֶחָיו וְטֹבֵל בַּשֶּׁמֶן רַגְלוֹ
BN: And of Asher he said: Blessed be Asher above sons; let him be the favoured of his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
Lots of thoughts here on what this might mean. To me, it is a confirmation that Asher is the masculine form of Asherah, the fertiity-goddess and the source of all that milk and honey, though I am still undecided whether this also translates into Osher (Osiris), the Earth-god of the Egyptians (Asher and Asherah are both spelled with an Aleph, Osher with an Ayin, but that is not in itself a proving factor).
As to the dipping in oil, see my note on this at Deuteronomy 32:13.
33:25 BARZEL U NECHOSHET MI NE'ALECHA U CHE YAMEYCHA DAVEYCHA
בַּרְזֶל וּנְחֹשֶׁת מִנְעָלֶךָ וּכְיָמֶיךָ דָּבְאֶךָ
KJ: Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.
BN: Your locks shall be made of iron and brass; and as your days, so shall your strength be.
NE'ALECHA: The previous verse dipped his feet in oil, which is a rather uckie thing to do, unless you are pressing olives in the same way you press grapes; or unless you are using oil to anoint, which then leads us to think of the sacred heel of Achilles, dipped in the river Styx, or the geisha girls of Japan whose feet are bound, like sacred kings all over the world, and in the partridge-dance which was part of the ancient Pesach, the ritual laming by immolation of the sacred-king (see Genesis 41:46 and Deuteronomy 15:21) ...which takes us back to previous speculations as to whether Asher is in fact Osher as well as male Asherah, and whether Yisaschar was in fact Yesheh-Shachur, Black Isis... (which might then lead us to Rashi's other jest, that Asher was the most fertile of all the tribes, and nobody knows why)...
However, the intention here does not seem to be shoes at all, but locks, as in bolts and bars on doors and windows. The root means "lock", and it is because you have to tie shoes with laces, or put the hole in the strip of leather on your sandals into a little metal peg, that NA'ALAYIM became the word for "shoes".
BARZEL: Yet one more indication of the date. The Iron Age is reckoned to have begun... not earlier than 1200 BCE, and probably - this is what we find in the tales of Sha'ul and the Pelishtim in the Book of Samuel - not much before 1000 BCE; either way, post-Mosheh.
NECHOSHET: As in Nechushtan, Mosheh's banner, which is bother NACHASH (the snake) and NECHOSHET (ade of brass).
33:26 EYN KA EL YESHURUN ROCHEV SHAMAYIM BE EZRECHA U VE GAVAVATO SHECHAKIM
KJ: There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.
אֵין כָּאֵל יְשֻׁרוּן רֹכֵב שָׁמַיִם בְּעֶזְרֶךָ וּבְגַאֲוָתוֹ שְׁחָקִים
KJ: There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.
BN: There is none like El Yeshurun, who rides upon the heavens as your help, and in his excellency on the clouds.
EL, not YHVH or Elohim. He who rides upon the heavens is the sun, whether in the metaphorical form of Noach's Ark, or Phaethon's Chariot, or Helios' Chariot, or simply as clouds (SHECHAKIM) passing across the skies... So, again, my suggestion that this was not originally a Yisra-Eli song, but at least Kena'ani, if not Hittite...
SHECHAKIM: See Psalm 78:23 and 89:7, Job 36:28, Proverbs 3:20...
33:27 ME'ONAH ELOHEY KEDEM U MI TACHAT ZERO'OT OLAM VA YEGARESH MI PANEYCHA OYEV VA YOMER HASHMED
KJ: The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.
BN: The eternal gods are your dwelling-place, and beneath are the eternal sources of the seeds; and he thrust out the enemy from before you, and said: "Destroy".
ZERO'OT OLAM: The point about the Underworld, before it became fantasised into a home for the demons and the human sinners in a Good v Evil world, was that everything that dies rots into the earth, dead animals, dead plants, fallen leaves, buried human bodies, and down there, in the welcoming arms of eternity where the worms without serpent tails and fangs and fiery breath undertake the processes of bodegradation, whatever is dead miraculously comes back to life again, through the process of becoming compost, which manures seeds... so it goes down into the Underworld, and rises again...
33:27 ME'ONAH ELOHEY KEDEM U MI TACHAT ZERO'OT OLAM VA YEGARESH MI PANEYCHA OYEV VA YOMER HASHMED
מְעֹנָה אֱלֹהֵי קֶדֶם וּמִתַּחַת זְרֹעֹת עוֹלָם וַיְגָרֶשׁ מִפָּנֶיךָ אוֹיֵב וַיֹּאמֶר הַשְׁמֵד
BN: The eternal gods are your dwelling-place, and beneath are the eternal sources of the seeds; and he thrust out the enemy from before you, and said: "Destroy".
ZERO'OT OLAM: The point about the Underworld, before it became fantasised into a home for the demons and the human sinners in a Good v Evil world, was that everything that dies rots into the earth, dead animals, dead plants, fallen leaves, buried human bodies, and down there, in the welcoming arms of eternity where the worms without serpent tails and fangs and fiery breath undertake the processes of bodegradation, whatever is dead miraculously comes back to life again, through the process of becoming compost, which manures seeds... so it goes down into the Underworld, and rises again...
HASHMED: Rather than NICHRETAH or IBUD, on this occasion. This is natural destruction in the normal order of life-and-death, not human slaughter or the divine acts such as volcanic eruptions and tsunamis and earthquakes.
33:28 VA YISHKON YISRA-EL BETACH BADAD EYN YA'AKOV EL ERETS DAGAN VE TIROSH APH SHAMAV YA'ARPHU TAL
KJ: Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall beupon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.
BN: And Yisra-El dwells in safety, the fountain of Ya'akov alone, in a land of corn and wine; yea, his heavens drop down dew.
TAL: See verse 13, above, but also Deuteronomy 32:2, where the image of dew opens Mosheh's song. Presumably this is why the Redactor put the two songs together in this manner, beginning and ending with the same image.
33:29 ASHREYCHA YISRA-EL MI CHAMOCHA AM NOSA BA YHVH MAGEN EZRECHA VA ASHER CHEREV GA'AVATECHA VE YIKACHASHU OYEVEYCHA LACH VE ATAH AL BAMOTEYMO TIDROCH
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וַיִּשְׁכֹּן יִשְׂרָאֵל בֶּטַח בָּדָד עֵין יַעֲקֹב אֶל אֶרֶץ דָּגָן וְתִירוֹשׁ אַף שָׁמָיו יַעַרְפוּ טָל
KJ: Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall beupon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.
BN: And Yisra-El dwells in safety, the fountain of Ya'akov alone, in a land of corn and wine; yea, his heavens drop down dew.
TAL: See verse 13, above, but also Deuteronomy 32:2, where the image of dew opens Mosheh's song. Presumably this is why the Redactor put the two songs together in this manner, beginning and ending with the same image.
33:29 ASHREYCHA YISRA-EL MI CHAMOCHA AM NOSA BA YHVH MAGEN EZRECHA VA ASHER CHEREV GA'AVATECHA VE YIKACHASHU OYEVEYCHA LACH VE ATAH AL BAMOTEYMO TIDROCH
אַשְׁרֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל מִי כָמוֹךָ עַם נוֹשַׁע בַּיהוָה מָגֵן עֶזְרֶךָ וַאֲשֶׁר חֶרֶב גַּאֲוָתֶךָ וְיִכָּחֲשׁוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ לָךְ וְאַתָּה עַל בָּמוֹתֵימוֹ תִדְרֹךְ
KJ: Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.
BN: Happy are you, O Yisra-El. Who is like you? A people saved by YHVH, the shield of your help, and that is the sword of your excellency! And your enemies shall dwindle away before you; and you shall tread upon their high places.
ASHREYCHA... MI CHAMOCHA... MAGEN: I have commented previously that this song and blessing by Mosheh appears also to be a compilation of famous phrases, mostly from the Psalms, all of them still in use as liturgy to this day. Three more examples here. Further evidence that Mosheh neither wrote not recited this; but that it belongs to an author many centuries later.
And who should it be that gets the mention, alongside the sky-god and sun-god Yeshurun, but Asherah, the fertility goddess, just as we deduced several verses ago.
BN: Happy are you, O Yisra-El. Who is like you? A people saved by YHVH, the shield of your help, and that is the sword of your excellency! And your enemies shall dwindle away before you; and you shall tread upon their high places.
ASHREYCHA... MI CHAMOCHA... MAGEN: I have commented previously that this song and blessing by Mosheh appears also to be a compilation of famous phrases, mostly from the Psalms, all of them still in use as liturgy to this day. Three more examples here. Further evidence that Mosheh neither wrote not recited this; but that it belongs to an author many centuries later.
And who should it be that gets the mention, alongside the sky-god and sun-god Yeshurun, but Asherah, the fertility goddess, just as we deduced several verses ago.
And clearly, from the necessary mentioning of YHVH in this concluding verse, Yeshurun was not YHVH, but was made to become YHVH, in the same way that Guinevere becomes St Margaret of Antioch wherever she had a shrine in England, and Ar Thur turned out, according to Bishop Geoffrey of Monmouth, to have been a king of England, only we can't find any archive or archeological material to tell us when that was. Cultural conquest.
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Deuteronomy 1 2 3a 3b 4 5 6 7a 7b 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16a 16b 17 18 19 20 21a 21b 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29a 29b 30 31 32 33 34
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