Shabbat Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei - 5786

Shabbat Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei - 5786

Rabbi Hal Miller

  And Moshe assembled the entire assembly of the children of Israel and said to

  them, these are the things that God commanded to do them [Shemot 35:1]

  Moshe said to the entire assembly of the children of Israel saying, this is the

  word that God commanded saying [Shemot 35:4]

These two verses seem to be nearly duplicates. Why do we need both?

Most commentators, based on Shabbat [70a, 97], derive from the first verse the thirty-nine melachot, the acts of 'work', that are prohibited on Shabbat. While this does not answer our question, it does point out a difference between the two verses. In the first, the word is ha'devarim, and in the second ha'davar. Whatever we translate those to mean, the first is plural and the second is singular. The key to our question is to understand what davar means in the context of these two verses. The most common translations, depending on context, are word, thing or matter. Those are pretty generic, so what do they mean here?

In the first verse, we could read it "these are the words", but the end of the verse indicates that it means things or matters when it says "that God commanded to do them" since one would not "do" words. In the second verse, Rashi explains it as 'word' by writing "this is the word that God commanded me to say to you."

So what is the word and what are the things involved here? Are they the same, and only differ in number? Or are these two verses speaking of completely different subject matter and merely happen to be written in similar language? According to Rashi, the two instances of davar have different meanings and the verses have different subject matter, merely using similar language in different contexts. But not everybody agrees.

The last word in our second verse, 'saying', could indicate that davar in that verse should be translated as 'word', but while a valid reading, this is not a necessary conclusion. Verse 5 and on is a commandment, a 'thing' to do. We can still read davar as either 'word' or 'thing' and the last word 'saying' does not clarify.

Ramban says that the first usage, "these are the things that God commanded to do" refers to "the construction of the Mishkan and all its vessels and all its work" and the interruption in verses 35:2 and 3 that discuss Shabbat was to teach that these "things" were to be done only on the six other days. In the portion Emor [Vayikra 23:3] Ramban explains that the change in plurality in our verses is because the first use includes both the Mishkan and Shabbat, and that our second verse only covers the Mishkan. Rav Soloveitchik explains Ramban as "these are the things" and "this is the thing", thus the word davar means the same except for number.

Rav Hirsch has a different approach. The words "la'asot otam" at the end of the first verse can legitimately mean either "to do them" or "to make them", which allows for the word ha'devarim to refer to either words or things. In our first verse Rav Hirsch understands "these are the objects that God commanded that they be made", referring to the Mishkan and its vessels rather than to commandments to be performed. In our second verse, he considers the entire Mishkan as a completed work, with all its parts subsidiary to the whole, and is thus also a 'thing', but in the singular.