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		Living in Exile     Ki Tavo   (Deut 26:1 - 29:8(9))

D'varim/Deuteronomy 26:5   And you shall respond and you shall say before the L-rd your G-d, "My father was a wandering Aramean ...

View whole verse and interlinear translation ...

This is a well-known text within Judaism, recited as it is every year as part of the Haggadah for Pesach. Jonathan Sacks tells us that "the exposition of these verses constitutes, according to the Mishnah - "[The father] explains [the Scriptures from] A wandering Aramean was my father ... until he complete the whole section" (m. Pesachim 10:4) - the core of the Passover Haggada. Most scholars take the view that this text was chosen because, as part of the first-fruits ceremony, it would have been well known to most Jews in Temple times."¹ Walter Brueggemann sees the chapter as "an oath of allegiance whereby Israel accepts its identity as HaShem's holy people and swears to abide by the statutes and ordinances given."² Perhaps this is our first clue as to the importance of this text in forming and maintaining identity, both for the ancient Israelites and for ourselves as followers of Yeshua today. Jeffrey Tigay identifies the confessional statement that our text starts as an epitome, writing that "epitomes of this sort are prescribed for recitation, usually on religious occasions, in several places in the Torah, in the Psalms and elsewhere. Their frequent appearance is occasioned by the fact that historical experience, especially of the Exodus, forms the basis for Israel's religion."

Our text starts with the verb וְעָוִיתָ - the Qal 2ms form of the root ענה, to answer or respond, with a vav-reversive: and you shall respond - and sparks several comments because there is nothing obvious to which the worshipper should respond. He has just made the first part of his declaration and handed the basket of first-fruits to the priest who has "set it down in front of the altar of the L-RD your G-d" (D'varim 26:4, NJPS). Then he is to make the second part of the declaration. Explaining that not everyone knew what to do or the exact form of words that they were to use, the early sages say that "responding here means in the holy tongue; the priest would say it and the man would repeat it" ( What Is ...

Sifrei: An early composite midrash/commentary on B'Midbar and D'varim; probably composed around the time of the Mishna (200CE); known and referenced in the Talmud; the B'Midbar portion from the school of R. Simeon, the D'varim portion from that of R. Akiva
Sifrei 301). The Who Is ...

Bekhor Shor: Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor; a twelfth century French tosafist, commentator and poet; he lived in Orleans and was a pupil of the Rashbam and Rabbenu Tam; wrote a commentary to the Torah and made contributions to the Talmud commentaries; followed the p'shat method of interpretation in the style of Rashi, to the extent of rationalising many miracles
Bekhor Shor, on the other hand, says that the verb means "you shall declaim, for one praises the Holy One in a loud voice." Don Who Is ...

Abravanel: Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508 CE), Statesman and biblical commentator; born in Lisbon, died in Venice; wrote commentaries on the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures
Abravanel goes even further, claiming that "the verb used here implies declaiming loudly and in song!" Certainly this is not a quiet statement whispered to the priest, but shouted out loud to The Name ...

HaShem: literally, Hebrew for 'The Name' - an allusion used to avoid pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, the so-called 'ineffable' name of G–d
HaShem, witnessed by the priest.

Several commentators point out that the words אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי are alliterative,³ to help the familiarity and memorisation of the phrase. Tigay suggests that "this would keep the memory of Israel's landless beginnings fresh in the farmer's memory." אֹבֵד looks like the Qal ms participle of the root אבד and attracts a wide range of translations form the simple "wandering" to "lost", "poor and destitute", "homeless" and more. אֲרַמִּי is a demonym, describing a person who comes from Aramea. Robert Alter notes that "the surprising use of 'Aramean' as an epithet for a patriarch may reflect the antiquity of this recited formula, since the Arameans later chiefly figured as enemies."⁴ The classical Jewish commentators are divided over whether "my father" refers to Avraham or Ya'akov. Who Is ...

Abraham Ibn Ezra: (1089-1167 CE), born in Tudela, Spain; died in the South of France after wandering all around the shores of the Mediterranean and England; a philosopher, astronomer, doctor, poet and linguist; wrote a Hebrew grammar and a commentary on the Bible
Ibn Ezra claims that it speaks of Ya'akov because the following text refers to going down to Egypt and dwelling there few in number, while Who Is ...

The Rashbam: Rabbi Samuel ben Asher (1085-1174 CE), a grandson of Rashi; lived in Northern France; worked from the plain meaning of the Hebrew text even when this contradicted established rabbinic interpretaton
Rashbam, claims that it was Avraham because of the patriarchs, only Avraham could have been said to be born in Aramea, Ya'akov only lived there for twenty years. We might remember that Avram was the first to be known as an 'Ivri' - "Abram the Hebrew, who was dwelling at the terebinths of Mamre the Amorite" (B'resheet 14:13, NJPS) - the one who had crossed over, so was no longer an Aramean.

At this point, perhaps, we are ready to ask what this is all about? Why does the worshipper make this formal declaration? Doesn't HaShem know this perfectly well? What is the purpose of this liturgical event: the first-fruit gift and confession? Rabbi Who Is ...

Hirsch: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888 CE), German rabbi, author and educator; staunch opponent of the Reform movement in Germany and one of the fathers of Orthodox Judaism
Hirsch says that the worshipper "looks back to that original beginning of the Jewish people and stresses the fact that that at the foundation of the Jewish People, the will of G-d and His Almighty Power alone arranged it and no other factor participated in any way." This makes the words "an early credal statement, cast in celebratory prose,"⁵ as Christopher Wright says, "anchoring grace not just in the blessings of nature but in the facts of history. The Israelite farmer connects together several centuries of history, a theology of election, redemption and land-gift, and personal experience of G-d's blessing."⁶ According to Patrick Miller, in these words the worshipper makes an existential claim: "to be a part of the large story of G-d's redemptive and gracious purposes with this people."⁷ This is not just history, it is my story; the abundance in which I am living is a fulfilment of the promises that HaShem made to our people.

We can see that "these verses (vv. 5-10) preserve Israel's primal liturgical declaration of its identity as HaShem's people ... positioning the community so that the memory shapes the future."⁸ Land, faith and history are all pulled together into one: "Israel's faith was inseparably linked to the territory on which the produce had been grown and elicited from the past a message concerning the nature and purpose of G-d. It was this message that gave assurance, faith and hope for the future. It transforms a simple act of giving into an assertion of the gracious and generous nature of G-d and avers yet again the dependance of the worshipper on G-d for the sustenance that makes life possible."⁹ Both the repetition of the event and the content of the words recited are powerful identity formation mechanisms, helping to forge both the individual and national identity of the Israelites as the covenant people of HaShem: experienced in the redemption of the past, the provision of the present and the hope and promise for the future.

Come with me, if you will, on a little excursion into the world of social identity theory. Paul Ricouer, an influential French philosopher, coined the phrase "narrative identity",¹⁰ by which - in layman's terms - he meant the way that the identity of individuals is shaped and changed by the stories they read, the texts with which they interact. Ricouer talks about the identity the person has before they encounter a text, the way the author constructs a text and the reader interacts with the world and characters in the text, and the way the person's identity changes because of what they have found in the story. In the same way, the identity of a group is formed and reinforced by the common shared narratives and beliefs that they hold. Connecting this to our text and the ideas we have already explored, we can see how the recitation of the narrative in the first-fruits liturgy acts to shape both the individual and the national identity of the Israelites as the people of HaShem, living according to His commands and experiencing His blessing in the Land.

During the history of Israel, Tanakh records that attendance at the Tabernacle and then the Temple fell away; people simply stopped going. As they stopped coming up for the festivals, the steady reinforcement of who they were, of their relationship to HaShem and His land faded and the identity of the Israelites changed. Instead of being and knowing that they were HaShem's special, chosen people, living only by His favour in His Land, they became just one of the other ANE people groups, holding the land where they lived by the strength of their own armies and producing its harvest by the work of their own arm. As their rehearsal and recitation of the texts stopped, they became ever more susceptible to syncretism. The inevitable result was that they fell into idolatry, became shrewd operators on the political stage, bargained away their heritage and were eventually sent into exile. The prophet reminds the shrunk remnant of Judah holding out against the Babylonians in the last days of Jerusalem, "For thus says the L-RD: Your hurt is incurable, and your wound is grievous. There is none to uphold your cause, no medicine for your wound, no healing for you. All your lovers have forgotten you; they care nothing for you; for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy, the punishment of a merciless foe, because your guilt is great, because your sins are flagrant" (Jeremiah 30:12-14, ESV).

As disciples of Yeshua, Jew and Gentile, we always need to be ready to acknowledge who and what we are, where we have come from and our dependence on HaShem. This will shape and strengthen our identity as disciples, helping us to stand together as the One New Man in Yeshua. We can see that the congregations and house-churches that Rav Sha'ul started followed this practice by the liturgy fragments that we find in his letters. For example, Sha'ul reminds the Ephesians, "There is one body and one Spirit ... one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one G-d and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:4-6, ESV), just as they would proclaim it together when they met for study and worship. This echoes the Sh'ma: "Hear, O Israel, the L-rd, our G-d, the L-rd, is One" (D'varim 6:4) and emphasises our common roots and faith in Messiah.

Similarly, in a passage that echoes the prophet Isaiah and bears a resemblance to the Aleinu prayer in the Siddur, we can hear the Philippians lifting their voices and declaiming that Yeshua, "though He was in the form of G-d, did not count equality with G-d a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore G-d has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of G-d the Father" (Philippians 2:6-11, ESV). We need to rediscover the power of liturgy, shared confession of faith and proclamation to shape and grow our identities as disciples of Yeshua in the raucous and noisy society of these days. This will bring G-d's order out of chaos.

1. - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, The Koren Humash, Conrad Morris Edition, (Jerusalem, Koren Publishers, 2025), page 1325.

2. - Walter Brueggemann, Deuteronomy Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), pages 245-246.

3. - That is, they repeat the same sounds at the beginning of a number of consecutive words.

4. - Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, (New York, Norton, 2004), page 705.

5. - Daniel I. Block, Deuteronomy, The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), page 601.

6. - Christopher J. H. Wright, Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2012), page 271.

7. - Patrick D. Miller, Deuteronomy Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), page 180.

8. - Brueggemann, page 246.

9. - Ronald E. Clements, "Deuteronomy" in The New Interpreter's Bible Commentary Vol I, edited by Leander E. Keck, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2015), page 1012.

10. - Paul Ricouer, Time and Narrative, (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1984).

Further Study: Shemot 15:1-18; Jonah 2:2-9; Colossians 1:15-20; 1 Timothy 3:16

Application: Can you find some passages of Scripture that you can learn, embrace and recite with others to affirm your faith and reinforce your identity as a disciple of Yeshua? Ask Him to point you to the glory and truth in His word!

Comment - 11:02 24Aug26 Kate Miller: Grateful for this exhortation and reminder, especially to proclaim ALOUD. In a time of travel with no regular access to a congregation (experiencing the wandering bit!), but the Ruach has reminded me here the great importance of still proclaiming identity aloud, even in simple unison with the Kadosh kadosh kadosh around the throne or with the continual intercession of Yeshua before Abba Father. What a powerful and gentle gift from above "to bring G-d's order out of chaos".

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© Jonathan Allen, 2026

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