page_title: Eikev
section_title: Deuteronomy chapter 8
hierarchical_section_title: Eikev / In medieval Jewish interpretation / Deuteronomy chapter 8
caption_attribution_description: English: A scene of Ibn Ezra practicing Astrology with an Arabic manuscripts being held by the men that flank him to either side.
context_page_description: Eikev, Ekev, Ekeb, Aikev, or Eqeb is the 46th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the third in the Book of Deuteronomy. It comprises Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25. The parashah tells of the blessings of obedience to God, the dangers of forgetting God, and directions for taking the Land of Israel. Moses recalls the making and re-making of the Tablets of Stone, the incident of the Golden Calf, Aaron's death, the Levites' duties, and exhortations to serve God.
  The parashah is made up of 6,865 Hebrew letters, 1,747 Hebrew words, 111 verses, and 232 lines in a Torah Scroll. Jews generally read it in August or on rare occasion in late July.
context_section_description: Rashi read the words of Deuteronomy 8:2, “whether you would keep His commandments,” to indicate that God was testing whether the Israelites would suspect God or question God's ways.
  Reading the words of Deuteronomy 8:2, “in order to afflict you,” Rashbam noted that it is a form of affliction when one has no bread in one's basket, and one's life is dependent on bread arriving miraculously from heaven every day.
  Baḥya ibn Paquda read Deuteronomy 8:3, "That He might make known to you that man does not live by bread alone," to teach that those who trust in God have their sustenance assured by any of the means available in the world.
  Abraham ibn Ezra offered that the words of Deuteronomy 8:3, “and suffered you to hunger,” might refer to before the coming of the manna, or, alternatively, that the manna itself afflicted the Israelites, because it was light and did not satisfy their desires. But Ibn Ezra rejected this explanation, arguing that the verse most probably refers to other desires that the Israelites could not fulfill in the wilderness.
  Ibn Ezra read Deuteronomy 8:5 to promise that God would reward the Israelites by bringing them into the Land, because they obeyed God, even though in order to chasten them, God afflicted them with thirst and hunger.
  Reading “so the Lord your God chastens you” in Deuteronomy 8:5, Nachmanides suggested that God afflicted the Israelites at first with the wilderness and the trial of the manna so that later the goodness of the Land and its fruits would be pleasing to them.
  Saadia Gaon read the words of Deuteronomy 8:13–14, "And your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God," to teach that if all goes well and runs smoothly for those engaged in the accumulation of money, then they are apt to put their entire trust in money and forget to make mention of their Master and deny their Provider. Reading Deuteronomy 8:14, Hezekiah ben Manoah (the Hizkuni) lamented that the phenomenon of becoming haughty is tragically all too common. Reading Deuteronomy 8:14, Bahya ben Asher taught that pride is the principal cause of forgetting essentials. Due to the abundance of affluence, peace, and tranquility, a person's heart can become haughty and smug, and the evil urge (יֵצֶר הַרַע, yetzer hara) can find it easy to provoke a person to follow the heart without restraint. When that happens, Heaven's concerns become marginal. In Deuteronomy 8:17, "and you say in your heart: ‘My strength and the power of my hand has gotten me this wealth,'" Bahya ben Asher read Moses to warn of the possibility that arrogance can lead one to ascribe affluence to one's own lucky stars. And reading Deuteronomy 8:18, "you shall remember the Lord your God," Bahya ben Asher taught that God alone is the Source of good fortune, because God has given people the strength to perform deeds of valor, and has handed people the power to overcome bad fortune in their stars. Abraham ibn Ezra read Moses to warn the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8:14 that they might forget that they were slaves with downcast hearts, forget the affliction and the hunger that they experienced in the wilderness, and forget that God sustained them nonetheless. But Ibn Ezra read the words "But you shall remember" in Deuteronomy 8:18 to teach that if the thought "My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth" should enter one's mind, then one should remember the One Who gives one power.
  Baḥya ibn Paquda read the words of Deuteronomy 8:16, "to benefit you in your end," to refer to the promise of compensation in the World To Come. Baḥya suggested that this principle, in turn, might provide one possible reason for why some righteous people are prevented from obtaining their livelihood without effort and must instead exert themselves for it and be tested by it.
  Reading the words of Deuteronomy 8:18, "But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you strength to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your forefathers, as it is
caption: Ibn Ezra (with astrolabe)
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