In two sentences in this week, etc., the Torah summarizes the entire relationship between God and the people of Israel.

You have affirmed this day, Eamartah, that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways and observe his laws and commandments and rules and you'll obey him.

And the Lord has affirmed you.

A miracle this day that you are, as he promised you, his treasured people, who shall observe

all his commandments.

He has set out with disarming simplicity is the dual relationship, the reciprocity at the

heart of the covenant.

It's an idea made famous in the form

of two jingles, the first one of William Norman. You are how odd of God to choose the Jews.

And the second, which of course is the Jewish repost, not quite so odd, the Jews chose God. Between God and the people is a mutual bond of love.

The Israelites pledged themselves to be faithful to God in his commands. God pledged himself

to cherish the people as his treasure, for though he is the God of all humanity, he holds

a special place in his affection to speak

anthropomorphically for the descendants of those who first heard and he did his call to the descendants

of Avram and Sarah. That is the whole of Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. The rest is commentary.

The English translation above that I just quoted is that of the Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh.

However, any translation tends to conceal the difficulty in the key verb in the sentences.

He-emir, lehahamir. Now, what is strange is that on one hand, it's a form with the most

common of all biblical words, Lomar, to say. But on the other, the specific form here, the Hifil or

causative form, is unique. Nowhere else does it appear in this form in the Bible and as a result its meaning is

obscure. The JPS translation reads it as affirmed. Arii Kaplan in the Living Terror read it as

declared allegiance to. Robert Alta renders it proclaimed. Other interpretations include Separated to yourself, that's Rashi, chosen, that's the Septuagint, recognized, that's

...