פרשה: האזינו · עלייה: רביעי (נצח)

כי דור תהפוכות המה, "for they are a generation who have reversed themselves." Inasmuch as G'd had said in the first half of this verse that He would hide His face from them, awaiting what would befall the Israelites, this implies that even if they were to turn penitent -seeing G'd would not observe this as He had stopped watching what the Israelites were doing,- He would not accept such penitence. Moses offers as the reason for such an attitude by G'd that the people have turned already from good to evil; he adds בנים ולא אמון בם, "they are thoroughly faithless children." Even if they were to repent to the point of again qualifying for the description of children (of G'd), such repentance will not endure as they are fickle and do not keep faith. As a result of such considerations G'd hides His face from them.

אמרתי אפאיהם, "I had said 'I will scatter them, etc.'" The meaning of the word אפאיהם is: "I will continue My anger with them until their memory will cease from human memory."

לולא כעס אויב אגור, "If it were not for the fact that I am afraid of the anger of the enemy, etc." The author understands the word אגור in this verse as identical with the same word in Proverbs 6,8, i.e. the ant which gathers in the supplies needed in winter during the preceding summer. G'd also refers to the numerous occasions when the Gentile nations have caused Him to be angry. G'd is saying that He is concerned that by wiping out Israel all the Gentile nations will conclude (gather further evidence) that the Jewish religion had never been the truth as demonstrated by the disappearance of the Jewish people. This is the meaning of ינכרו צרימו, "their tormentor will misinterpret (the course of history)." Furthermore, פן יאמרו ידינו רמה, "lest they would say 'our hand has prevailed.' Not only will they deny the authenticity of the Jewish religion but they will continue to sin by claiming that their religion had been the true religion all along. They will not attribute their wellbeing to G'd's patience with them but to the power of the deities they worship and believe in.

ולא ה׳ פעל כל זאת, "and it was not the Lord who accomplished all this." This is a reference to all the glory the Jewish people had achieved prior to its decline. The nations will claim as proof for their theory that a) the Israelites had not been doing something that they had not been doing for a long time; 2) the Gentile nations gained control over them and destroyed them.

Alternatively, the Gentiles will conclude that what had befallen Israel could only be explained in terms of a combination of both alien gods and the Lord cooperating to bring about the demise of the Jewish people.

כי גוי אבד עצות המה, "for they are a people bereft of counsel;" As distinct from the Gentile neighbours, the Jews do not respond to being disciplined by their G'd and turn penitent. They are inherently unable to learn the lessons of history. ואין בהם תבונה, "and they do not possess discernment." They are unable to draw conclusions through unprejudiced observations. As Moses continues: "if they possessed wisdom they would use it intelligently." They would have understood that the outpouring of G'd's wrath upon them was not a natural disaster, a coincidence, but a warning to repent and to mend their ways. Moses elaborates on a few examples which should have demonstrated to the Israelites that G'd had been their support all along in the past.