Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Hi Philip,

While your statement may be true for Deuteronomy, it is slightly misleading,
for two reasons:

a. Not all of Moses' words to Israel are in Deuteronomy. The previous three
books contain a lot of Moses' words as well. What you need to emphasize is
the rest of verse 1: "the words which Moses spake unto all Israel...BEFORE
HIS DEATH". In Jewish tradition, in fact, the entire book of Deuteronomy was
said by Moses on the very day on which he went up to Mount Nebo and died.

b. To the uninformed, your explanation might imply that all of the Hebrew
titles of the books somehow summarize their content, and this is not true.
As Pere wrote, the names of the five books of the Torah are simply the first
significant word in the book. In fact, so are the names of all of the 54
weekly "portions". The first portion of Genesis is Bereshit, just like the
name of the book. The second portion of Genesis in Noah, not because it
tells of the Flood (which it does), but because its first verse (Gen. 6:9)
begins "These are the generations ("toldot") of Noah..". Today we read
"Shemini" ("eighth"), starting with Lev. 9:1 "And it came to be on the
eighth day...". 


Yigal Levin

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Philip
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 4:11 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Deuteronomy is called "debarim" in the Hebrew
Old Testament?

Thank you, Barry & Pere.

I think you have helped me to say what I wanted to say,namely that the
Hebrew title, "Debarim" summarizes reasonably well, the entire book of
Deuteronomy as captured in the first verse, "the words which Moses spake
unto all Israel..." Deut 1.1, KJV  (The title, "Deuteronomy" summarizes the
book in another way).

Is this a reasonable statement to make?

Many thanks,

Philip Engmann,