📜 Daily Chumash & Rashi – Parshas Ha’azinu Chamishi: Hashem’s punishments

Chamishi

• If they were bright, they would understand that it is not possible for one person to chase a thousand, and two people 10,000, unless Hashem has sold them.
• Where are the gods whom they worshiped and trusted in, why did they not save them? I am Hashem and no other god is with Me. I put to death and bring life and I strike down and heal.”

 

Q&A on Rashi

Parsha Bee – Devarim 32:29–39 (Rashi)

1. What would the nations understand if they were wise?
   Answer: That Israel’s suffering comes from Hashem’s judgment, not the nations’ own power.
2. What does “they would reflect upon their fate” mean?
   Answer: They would think carefully about Israel’s future and the true cause of their troubles.
3. What question should the enemy ask according to verse 30?
   Answer: How one person could chase a thousand Israelites.
4. What is the answer to that question?
   Answer: Hashem delivered Israel into their hands.
5. What does “their Rock sold them out” mean?
   Answer: Hashem handed Israel over to their enemies.
6. What does “their rock is not like our Rock” mean?
   Answer: The nations’ gods are not comparable to Hashem.
7. Why should the nations not credit their idols for victory?
   Answer: Their idols never had real power against Hashem.
8. What does צוּר usually mean in Scripture?
   Answer: A rock.
9. Why are the enemies judging Israel?
   Answer: Because Hashem handed Israel over to them.
10. To what is the enemies’ vine compared?
    Answer: The vine of Sodom.
11. To what is their field compared?
    Answer: The field of Gomorrah.
12. What does Rashi connect verse 32 back to?
    Answer: Hashem’s consideration of destroying them because their deeds resemble Sodom’s.
13. What are “grapes of rosh”?
    Answer: Grapes of a bitter herb.
14. What do the bitter clusters symbolize?
    Answer: A punishment matching their deeds.
15. How does Onkelos explain the bitter clusters?
    Answer: Their punishment corresponds to their bitterness.
16. What is “the bitterness of serpents”?
    Answer: A metaphor for their punishment.
17. What does the cup of punishment resemble?
    Answer: The venom of serpents.
18. What does the cobra represent?
    Answer: A cruel enemy carrying out punishment.
19. What does “stored up with Me” mean?
    Answer: Hashem has not forgotten their sins.
20. Where are their deeds kept?
    Answer: In Hashem’s treasuries.
21. What is sealed up before Hashem?
    Answer: The record of their wrongdoing.
22. What is “vengeance is poised with Me”?
    Answer: Punishment is prepared and ready.
23. What does וְשִׁלֵּם mean according to the first explanation?
    Answer: It will repay punishment.
24. What is the second explanation of וְשִׁלֵּם?
    Answer: Recompense.
25. When will vengeance be carried out?
    Answer: At the time their foot stumbles.
26. What does “their foot stumbles” mean according to Rashi?
    Answer: When the merit of their forefathers runs out.
27. Why is the day of reckoning called near?
    Answer: Because it is always ready before Hashem.
28. What does וְחָשׁ mean?
    Answer: It hastens.
29. What change takes place in the song after verse 35?
    Answer: The song shifts from rebuke to comfort.
30. To which earlier promise does Rashi connect this comfort?
    Answer: The promise of redemption in Devarim 30.
31. What does “When Hashem will judge His people” mean?
    Answer: When He punishes and chastises Israel.
32. What does יִתְנֶחָם mean?
    Answer: To reconsider or change one’s mind.
33. What will happen after Hashem judges Israel?
    Answer: He will have mercy on them.
34. What causes Hashem to reconsider concerning His servants?
    Answer: Seeing their suffering and weakness.
35. What does “when the power is increasing” refer to?
    Answer: The enemy becoming stronger against Israel.
36. What does עָצוּר mean?
    Answer: Someone protected by a ruler.
37. What does עָזוּב mean?
    Answer: Someone strengthened or fortified.
38. What will Hashem ask about the idols?
    Answer: “Where is their god?”
39. What does “the rock in which they trusted” refer to?
    Answer: The idols in which they placed their trust.
40. What does Hashem mockingly challenge the idols to do?
    Answer: Rise up and help their worshippers.
41. What does “who ate the fat of their sacrifices” mean?
    Answer: The idols supposedly enjoyed the sacrifices offered to them.
42. What does Hashem say about those idols in the time of trouble?
    Answer: Let them save their worshippers.
43. What is meant by “See now that it is I, I am He”?
    Answer: Hashem alone controls everything.
44. What can no other god do?
    Answer: Stand against Hashem.
45. What does “I cause death and grant life” teach?
    Answer: Hashem alone has power over life and death.
46. What does “I strike, but I heal” teach?
    Answer: The same Hashem who punishes also heals.
47. What can no one do against Hashem’s will?
    Answer: Rescue someone from His Hand.
48. What should Israel learn from both punishment and salvation?
    Answer: That Hashem alone rules over all events.
49. What should the nations have realized all along?
    Answer: That Hashem, not their own power, determined Israel’s fate.
50. What is the central message of verses 29–39?
    Answer: Hashem alone governs history, punishes when necessary, remembers every deed, and ultimately brings redemption and salvation.

Bonus: What powerful declaration summarizes this entire section?

Answer: “See now that it is I! I am the One, and there is no god with Me!”