Source: https://thetorah.com/the-shemas-second-paragraph-an-inner-biblical-interpretation/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:03:34+00:00

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The second paragraph of Shema (Deut 11:13-21) has significant overlaps with the first (Deut 6:4-9), including some identical phrases and core concepts. It was likely written as a later elaboration of the first, a process that may reflect the earliest stages of the Shema becoming a central text.
By the period of the Mishnah, the twice daily recitation of the Shema prayer, named after its first word (“hear”) and consisting of Deut 6:4-9 and 11:13-21, was a standard practice. Together they comprised the central biblical text in the rabbinic liturgy. The prehistory of this development is unclear. Neither of these units are especially significant in the Bible, and neither is presented as a prayer; each are presented as part of Moses’ long address.
The Nash Papyrus, from the second century B.C.E., which has Deut 6:4-5 following the Decalogue, may reflect the earliest liturgical use of that initial paragraph. Both Philo and Josephus, from the first century C.E., imply the recitation of what now constitutes the first two paragraphs of the Shema; this may suggest that these two paragraphs were part of the liturgy in the late Second Temple period.
These two units are connected in terms of style and content; although this might initially suggest that they are by the same author, I would propose that Deut 11:13-21 was written as an elaboration of Deut 6:4 (or 5-9).
As scholars have long recognized, the D source, comprising the bulk of Deuteronomy, is a complex composition with a long history. It should therefore not be surprising that one unit now found in Deuteronomy may have reworked another unit.
The following chart highlights the overlap between these units; it includes the verses in ch. 11 that contain significant similarities to ch. 6. This overlap is so significant that the Tosefta can imagine a person reciting the paragraphs of the Shema prayer from memory and getting confused between the first and second paragraph.
Deut 6:5 You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6:6 Take to heart these words with which I charge you this day.
6:7 Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.
11:20 and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
6:9 and 11:20 are identical (except for one minor difference in matres lectionis spelling) and contain the concept of writing these things on doorposts and gates, which is found nowhere else in the Bible.
The elements are ordered differently in the two units.
These differences suggest that the two passages are not by the same author.
Biblical books are not arranged in the order in which they were written—late material may be inserted toward the beginning of a book. Thus, it is not immediately obvious which of these two units in Deut 6 and 11 is earlier or later.
In some cases, linguistic evidence may be used to date the relative chronology of two texts, but neither of these units shows obvious signs of being later linguistically than the other. Several other factors, however, point to the priority of 6:5-9. No one of these factors is determinative, but together they suggest that 11:13-21 knows, and is interpreting, 6:5-9.
Later authors are conservative in nature, and thus typically add, but do not delete. Deut 11:13-21 contains two blocks of material not found in 6:5-9, in 11:14-17 and in 11:21. Both of these texts function to explain why the mitzvot must be observed. It makes sense that an author would add this to a text, but it is more difficult to imagine why an author would have deleted this particular material.
When compared side by side, Deut 11 shows two cases of likely simplification.
Changing ושננתם to ולמדתם – Deut 6:7 opens with the difficult word וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם, from the root שׁנן (sh-n-n), typically translated as “impress”; this word is hapax (unique) in this sense. Some believe that it is a biform of the root ש.נ.ה/י, which means “to repeat”; indeed, the sages of the period of the Mishna are called tannaim, “repeaters” (namely “memorizers”), from a related root. Other lexicographers relate it to the usual meaning of the root שׁנן (sh-n-n), “to sharpen,” and thus translate it as NJPS does, “impress.” In any case, the word is difficult.
Deut 11:19 reads instead וְלִמַּדְתֶּם אֹתָם, “and teach,” using a much more common and clear root—one first found in Deuteronomy, which characterizes that book. It is more likely that a later scribe would simplify a difficult word rather than replacing a common word with a difficult one.
Mark 12:30: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
Matthew 22:37: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ – בְּכָל מָמוֹנְךָ. דָּבָר אַחֵר בְּכָל מְאֹדֶךָ, בְּכָל מִדָּה וּמִדָּה שֶׁהוּא מוֹדֵד לְךָ הֱוֵי מוֹדֶה לוֹ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד.
“And with all your might (me’odekha)” – with all of your money. Another interpretation: “With all your might”: with each and every measure (middah) that he measures out for you, thank him very much.
It would make more sense for a scribe to replace a difficult word with a more straightforward one, or omit it completely, than to add in a word with an unclear meaning.
Later scribes often introduce grammatical inconsistencies into the texts they rework, especially when they rework a text into a passage that has a different grammatical form or voice than the original passage. These inconsistencies are not always visible in English, for example, when grammatical gender alternates, or when the 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural, both of which are identical in English, alternate. Also, many translators tend to flatten out Hebrew grammatical inconsistencies to create a smoother translation. Deut 11:13-21 shows two such inconsistencies.
וְנָתַתִּי עֵשֶׂב בְּשָׂדְךָ לִבְהֶמְתֶּךָ, “I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle” (v. 15).
Surely it is YHWH, and not Moses, who will provide the rain and grass! Although the LXX, SP, one Qumran mezuzah (8QMez), and one pair of ancient tefillin (4QPhyla) have an alternative reading here, “he will give” (ונתן, καὶ δώσει), these are likely secondary attempts to smooth over the text. And yet, chapter 11 is framed, like chapter 6, as Moses’ first person discourse, and also refers to YHWH in the third person, such as in v. 13, “loving YHWH your God” (לְאַהֲבָה אֶת יְ-הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם). The inconsistent text is often later—such inconsistencies generally reflect incomplete editorial incorporation of other material.
Deut 11:13 If, then, you [plural] obey the commandments with which I charge you [plural] this day, loving YHWH your [plural] God and serving Him with all your [plural] heart and your [plural] soul.
Deut 11:21 to the end that you [plural] and your [plural] children’s days may be long in the land that YHWH swore to your [plural] fathers to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth.
דברים יא:טו וְנָתַתִּ֛י עֵ֥שֶׂב בְּשָׂדְךָ֖ לִבְהֶמְתֶּ֑ךָ וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָֽעְתָּ.
Deut 11:19 …when you [singular] stay at your [singular] home and when you [singular] are away, when you [singular] lie down and when you [singular] get up.
The second inconsistency is particularly stark, since the first half of this very same verse uses the second person plural: וְלִמַּדְתֶּם אֹתָם אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶם, “and teach [plural] them to your children.” The best explanation for these sudden shifts to second person singular is that the scribe composing this section was copying phrases from other verses which were in the singular—verses found in Deut 6:4-9.
The use of the singular pronouns in 11:19b is both easy to explain and directly relevant to the question of priority: the scribe has slavishly copied over 6:7, and has forgotten in this case to modify the singular suffixes to plural ones. The inconsistency in v. 15 is because, as I will explain below, v. 15 is summarizing and paraphrasing Deut 6:10-19, where Israel is addressed in the singular—that text has been reworked in ch. 11, but the author forgot to change the pronouns from singular to plural. Thus, the inconsistency of 11:13-21 in relation to the perfect consistency of 6:4-9 suggests that 6:4-9 is earlier than, and was used as the source for, 11:13-21.
Why Was Deut 6:5-9 Modified?
Deut 6:15 for YHWH your God in your midst is an impassioned God—lest the anger of YHWH your God blaze forth against you and He wipe you off the face of the earth.
The author of Deut 11:13-21 has taken the gist of these verses, and has added them into his revised text. He does so in two places, in 14-17, which discusses reward and punishment in agricultural terms, and in v. 21, which rewards obedience with land tenure, as in 6:18. He thus makes this unit more complete by stating that covenant obedience results in blessing, and disobedience in being cursed.
Anyone reworking a text is likely to clarify it, resolving lexical or syntactic difficulties. Both of these types of clarification are evident in 11:13-21 in relation to its base text of 6:5-9. Most people who recite the Shema are not aware of these difficulties since it is natural to take the interpretations of ch. 11 as the correct and only meaning of ch. 6.
The two lexical difficulties of ch. 6 that were resolved by the author of ch. 11 were noted above: the omission of lexically difficult וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶךָ, literally, “all your veryness” (v. 5) and the simplification of the hapax וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם, either “you shall recite them” or “you shall impress them” (v. 7) to the more common וְלִמַּדְתֶּם אֹתָם, “you shall teach them” (11:9).
Other lexical issues were also clarified through the rewrite. For example, Deut 6:5 insists that God must be loved—but what does this mean? Is it an abstract love, or what has been called “covenant love,” love expressed through actions? 11:13, by adding the word וּלְעָבְדוֹ, “and to serve him,” after לְאַהֲבָה אֶת־יְ-הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, “loving YHWH your God,” clarifies that the latter is meant—love of God is expressed through divine worship.
Again, these examples of how Deut 11 revises Deut 6 illustrate how later texts typically clarify earlier ones; if the order of the texts’ composition is reversed, and ch. 11 is seen as earlier than 6, these differences are much more difficult to explain.
Instead, the phrase הַיּוֹם עַל־לְבָבֶךָ, “today upon your heart,” may be connected to the immediately preceding words, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ, “which I command you,” namely, “which I command you today upon your heart.” In that case, the verse would mean something very different, and should be rendered as a preamble to the following v. 7; both verses together would them be translated: “You shall teach to your children these things that I am commanding you today upon your heart”—in other words, these things are being implanted into the heart of the wilderness generation, but need to be actively imparted to the next generations.
The paraphrase of this section in ch. 11 disambiguates this syntax when it uses the verb שִׂים, “to place,” in its paraphrase in v. 18: וְשַׂמְתֶּם אֶת־דְּבָרַי אֵלֶּה עַל־לְבַבְכֶם וְעַֽל־נַפְשְׁכֶם, “Therefore impress these My words upon your heart and your soul.” Thus, ch. 11 understands the syntax in the same way as NJPS, or, said more accurately, NJPS follows the understanding of the syntax of 6:6-7 that is evident in 11:18.
In other words, it is uncertain what the time clause introduced with בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ, “when you stay at home” modifies. Does it modify the preceding two words, וְדִבַּרְתָּ בָּם, “recite them,” or the entirety of the first half of the verse, the four words וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם לְבָנֶיךָ וְדִבַּרְתָּ בָּם, “Impress them upon your children and recite them”?
Why does this matter? Because it affects what you need to do “when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up”: recite something, or both teach and recite something. NJPS assumes the former, that the verse refers to two separate activities, of teaching (always) and reciting (at home and away, when lying down or getting up). The second rendition is favored by the Masorah, which puts the etnachta (the sentence divider) under the fourth Hebrew word, suggesting that the verse is referring to a single activity.
The syntax of the first half of 11:19 favors reading impressing and reciting as two related rather than separate activities. The text in ch. 6 is ambiguous because it contains two verbs in the same aspect or “tense”: בָּם וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם וְדִבַּרְתָּ, “impress” “recite.” Deut 11:19, however, replaces the second verb form with a lamed (“to” or “-ing”) and an infinitive: וְלִמַּדְתֶּ֥ם אֹתָ֛ם אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֖ם לְדַבֵּ֣ר בָּ֑ם, “you shall teach your children-reciting them,” (or: “to recite them”) where the second verb, now an infinitive, is clearly modifying the first, and is not a separate, different action.
These various clarifications in 11:13-21 were not the main reason that motivated the paraphrase of 6:4-9—that was, as discussed above, the lack of reward and punishment in the unit. But while reworking the unit, these changes were naturally made along the way.
Is the Earliest Attested Interpretation Always Correct?
It is tempting to assume that the earliest extant interpretation of a passage is the most correct interpretation, especially in a case like this where it is from the biblical period itself; after all, the earliest interpretation is most proximate to the original text. But I would urge caution with regard to this principle.
For example, it is generally acknowledged that Daniel 9:24 is explaining the “seventy years” of Jer 29:10 to mean 490 years; this was not the original sense of the prophecy. Thus, I am uncertain if Deut 11 is always capturing the original intent of Deut 6. I am not at all positive that וְלִמַּדְתֶּם, “you shall teach” is a precise synonym for וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם, “you shall impress/repeat”; it may be the revisor’s paraphrase or guess, based on context. Nor am I certain that 11:19 properly understood the syntax of 6:7, which may indeed refer to two separate activities, as suggested by the NJPS, and against the Masorah.
As discussed in the introduction, we know very little about when and how the Shema became a central Jewish liturgical text. But this survey is of some value in that regard, for it shows that at some point in the biblical period, Deut 6:5-9 was important enough to be reinterpreted and supplemented. 2 Kings 23:25 also reuses the end of Deut 6:5 in relation to one of its heroes, Josiah, as a way of saying that he was fully faithful to (some form of) the Deuteronomic law.
Thus, this exploration of Deut 11:13-21 illustrates the beginning stages that suggest the importance of Deut 6:4-9 as a central text. Later, this central text would become a central prayer.
* I would like to thank the other editors of TheTorah.com, and Professors Bernard Levinson, Reuven Kimelman, Tania Notarius and Jeffrey Stackert, and Mr. Cody David, who offered helpful comments on earlier versions of this piece.
 Num 15:37-41 was added later and even in Mishnaic times it was unclear whether it should be recited twice daily or only in the morning recitation. See m. Berakhot 1:5, t. Berakhot 1:10. Moreover, the connection between the first two paragraphs is much tighter than the connection between them and the third paragraph; the first is explained in terms of accepting מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם, “the kingship of heaven,” namely belief in God, which logically precedes accepting עוֹל מִצְווֹת, “the yoke of the commandments” (m. Ber. 2:2).
 See Naomi G. Cohen, Philo Judaeus: His Universe of Discourse (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995), 129-170.
 For some discussion of this, see, David Frankel, “The Covenant in Moab: Deuteronomy Without Horeb,” TheTorah.com (2018); ibid., “Moses’ Commandments: The Secret of Nissim of Marseilles,”, TheTorah.com (2015); Zev Farber, “Does the Torah Really Want Us to Appoint a King?” TheTorah.com (2016).
 In this chart, the NJPS has been adjusted slightly to follow the Hebrew more exactly, highlighting more clearly the similarities and differences in the two passages.
 The overlap does not extend to Deut 6:4, which is omitted from this discussion.
 I am not the first scholar to see the connection between these two units; in fact, their similarity is responsible for their juxtaposition in the Shema prayer. For previous scholars, see esp. Eckart Otto, Deuteronomium 1–11 (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament; Stuttgart: Herders, 2012), esp. 1059-1060, who acknowledges and discusses the connection between these two units, but offers a different solution, based on his particular understanding of the redaction and history of development of Deuteronomy. See also esp. Reinhard Achenbach, Israel zwischen Verheißung und Gebot: Literarkritische Untersuchungen zu Deuteronomium 5-11 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991), 206-209, and Yitzhaq Bakon, “The First Two Portions of the Recitation of the Shema in the Book of Deuteronomy,” BetM 33 (1987), 355-366 (Heb), whose treatment of these issues is synchronic rather than diachronic. Reuven Kimelman was also kind enough to share sections on the Shema from his forthcoming book on the Jewish liturgy. My treatment uses many insights from all these works, but offers a different understanding of the connection between the two units.
One who recites the Shema and erred, and who does not know where he erred, should go back to the beginning [and recite the whole again]. If he erred in the middle of a paragraph, he should go back to the beginning of that paragraph. If he confused the first mention [of the words] “and you shall write” (Deut 6:9) with the second mention of “and you shall write” (Deut 11:20), [and thereby skipped from the first paragraph to the second], he should go back to the first mention.
 “Headband” is likely a better translation; see Jeffrey H. Tigay, “On the Meaning of ṭōṭāpōt,” JBL 101 (1982), 321-331.
 Genesis is an excellent example of this: The initial chapter is by P, who was later than J, the author of the following Garden of Eden story.
 On the criteria for determining that two texts are related, and the direction of their relation, see Ziony Zevit, ed., Subtle Citation, Allusion, and Translation in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Equinox, 2017).
 For recent literature on inner-biblical interpretation, see the index of the book cited in the previous note, esp. s.v. Fishbane, Leonard, Levinson, and Sommer. For an introduction, see Benjamin D. Sommer, “Inner-biblical Interpretation,” in Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study Bible (2nd edition; NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014), 1835-1841.
 See the comments on biblical redactors in Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Anthology in the Torah and the Question of Deuteronomy,” in David Stern, ed., The Anthology in Jewish Literature (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004), 18-19.
 Compare the two main biblical lexica: HALOT takes the first view, BDB the second.
 The only other exception is in 2 Kings 23:15, which is quoting Deut 6:5.
 The New Testament is a significant source for how the Bible was understood in Jewish circles in the late first-century CE.
 Editors’ note: Double translation is an ancient strategy for unclear words. For a discussion of the LXX’s use of double translation, see Ziporah Talshir, “Double Translations in the Septuagint,” in VI Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Jerusalem 1986 (SCS 23; ed. Claude E. Cox; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 21-63. For a discussion of double translation in the Targumim, see Michael Carasik, “Syntactic Double Translation in the Targumim,” in Aramaic in Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity (eds., E. M. Meyers and P.V.M. Flesher; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 217-231.
 I would like to thank David Steinberg for reminding me of this reference.
 This second interpretation is based on the associative assonance between the words me’od and middah.
 Many examples of this are adduced by Tigay in his book on Gilgamesh cited in the following note.
 For a similar phenomenon, note how the scribe who reworked the Atra-Hasis epic into tablet XI of the standard Gilgamesh epic, once forgot (in line 49) to change the flood story hero’s name from Atra-Hasis to Utanapishtim. For such inconsistencies, see in general, Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed., Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 46-49 and the more complete treatment in his The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982).
 For example, “you walked” may refer to an individual or to a plural entity in English, while Hebrew would distinguish between these— הלכת (masculine singular subject) vs. הלכתם (masculine [or mixed gender] plural subject).
 For an excellent example, see the comments on the secondary Deut 5:9 in Bernard M. Levinson, “Deuteronomy,” in Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds.., The Jewish Study Bible (second edition; NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014), 358.
 This is a classic, well-known problem in Deuteronomy, and is often used to sort out the different levels of the book’s composition. For a summary of some of the older positions, and an idiosyncratic solution, see Duane L. Christensen, “The Numeruswechsel in Deuteronomy 12,” in Duane L. Christensen, ed., A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 394-402.
 This phenomenon has been explored in NT texts by my Duke colleague Mark Goodacre, who gives it the apt name “editorial fatigue.” See his “Fatigue in the Synoptics,” NTS 44 (1998), 45-58. In a soon to be published article, Jeffrey Stackert will explore this phenomenon more broadly.
 It is possible that the different ordering of material in chs 6 and 11 is a case of Seidel’s law, where a later source changes the order of material of this source (chiastically) to show that he is quoting; see Moshe Seidel, “Parallels between Isaiah and Psalms.” Sinai 38 (1955): 149-172, 229-240, 272-280, 335-355 [Hebrew]. Reprinted in: Moshe Seidel, Hiqrei Miqra (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1978), 1-97 [Hebrew]. For another example of Seidel’s law, see Hava Shalom-Guy, “Nehemiah 9: The First Historical Survey in the Bible to Mention Sinai and Torah,” TheTorah.com (2018).
 See Emanuel Tov, “The Nature and Background of Harmonizations in Biblical Manuscripts,” JSOT 31 (1985), 3-20.
 On this common usage, see Joüon-Muraoka, §119 h, l.
 For other indications that these verses are a reworking of earlier ideas, see David Frankel, “The Good Land of Israel,” TheTorah.com (2017).
 It is also possible that Deut 26 influenced our author to add sections on blessings and curses related to covenant obedience and disobedience.
 See Jon Levenson, “The Shema and the Commandment to Love God in Its Ancient Contexts,” TheTorah.com (2016).
 For a discussion of the what “these things” might refer to, see Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of “Monotheism” (FAT21; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 125-128.
 For a similar idea elsewhere in Deuteronomy, see my, “Is Israel’s Repentance a Foregone Conclusion?” TheTorah.com (2016).
 The biblical cantillation marks function not only as musical notes, but as punctuation marks of sorts. The etnachta ֑ divides the verse into two sections.
 This is one of many cases where the NJPS is not true to its claim that it follows MT; see the brief discussion in Emanuel Tov, “Textual Criticism,” Jewish Study Bible (second edition), 2151-152.
 It is also possible that the desire to recast Deut 6:4-9 in terms of communal rather than individual responsibility was another reason behind the revision in 11:13-21.
 See Sommer, “Inner-biblical Interpretation,” 1837-1838.

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