Deuteronomy 26:5 – The Aramean

The farmer who brought his first fruits to Jerusalem recited six verses beginning with Deuteronomy 26:5.

Three words of this verse are vague and subject to several different interpretations.

Here’s the verse:

Most of this verse is straight forward.

Four Questions

The words I left in Hebrew are more difficult to explain. Here are the questions we need to answer:

• Who is the “arami” [translation: Aramean]?
• Who is “avi” [translation: my father]?
• What does “oveid” mean?
• Why does the next phrase mention Egypt?

It’s easy to translate 2 of the words. What’s not simple is deciding who is meant.

Context of Deuteronomy 26:5

Deuteronomy 26 begins with the commandment for farmers to bring their first fruits to the Temple.

Here’s how I described it in another article:

“The Jewish farmer places his first fruits in a basket and brings it to Jerusalem… The farmer brings the basket to the Temple and a priest takes it from him. The farmer then recites several verses, Deuteronomy 26:5 – 10. These verses give a brief summary of Jewish history and the goodness that God has done for His people.”

This recitation is known as Vidui Bikkurim or Declaration of First Fruits.

Passover Haggadah

The verses of this Declaration are quoted and explained in the Passover Haggadah.

Let’s look at how the Haggadah introduces these verses.

According to the Haggadah, the Aramean is Laban; “my father” is Jacob; and “oveid” means uproot.

The interpretation in the Haggadah does present some problems. Plus, there are at least 2 other ways to interpret this verse.

Laban the Aramean

The Haggadah, based on a midrash and adopted by Rashi, explains the Hebrew this way:

• arami = Laban
• oveid = destroy
• avi = Jacob

There’s little doubt that Laban wanted to destroy Jacob. When Jacob tried to leave Aram, Laban chased after him and proclaimed:

As Rashi explains, Laban sought to uproot everything when he chased after Jacob. Even though he didn’t do that, God attributes it to Laban as if he destroyed Jacob.

Not everyone accepts this understanding of the verse. They point out that “oveid” is an intransitive verb.

Rashi treats it as if it were transitive and that “my father” [avi] is the direct object of “oveid”. He uses the word “la’akor” [uproot], a transitive verb, to explain oveid.

Maharal (in Gur Aryeh) explains that although “oveid” is a verb form, it can also be a noun: destroyer. Then the translation becomes: an Aramean (Laban) was the destroyer of my father (Jacob).

The other objection to this approach is that Laban had nothing to do with Jacob and his family going down to Egypt.

Rashi explains that “and he went down into Egypt” introduces a new idea. Laban did not cause Jacob to go to Egypt, but, others came against the Jewish people to destroy them. And that happened in Egypt after the events with Laban.

To summarize, here’s how this approach understands Deuteronomy 26:5: And you shall speak and say before the Lord your God, An Aramean (Laban) was the destroyer of my father (Jacob), and he (Jacob) went down into Egypt (where others sought to destroy them), and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

Abraham the Aramean

This is the view of the Rashbam. Here’s how he explains the Hebrew:

• arami = avi = Abraham
• oveid = he wandered from place to place

Based on Rashbam we translate “arami oveid avi” as “my father Abraham was an Aramean, poor and exiled from Aram.”

There is support for Rashbam’s understanding.

Abraham was from Aram but God told him to leave:

Some years later, Abraham told Abimelech the king:

We see from these verses that Abraham was exiled from Aram and wandered because he had no permanent dwelling in Canaan.

Saying that Abraham is the Aramean, takes this recitation of history back to the beginning of the Jewish people.

It helps emphasize the point of the Declaration that our forefathers came from a foreign land to the Land of Israel and God gave it to us.

It’s clear in this approach that the phrase “and he went down into Egypt” is a logical continuation of the history of the Jewish people.

Jacob the Aramean

This is the approach most favored by those who disagree with Rashi, including Ibn Ezra, Chizkuni, and Rabbi Hirsch. Here’s their explanation of the Hebrew:

• arami = avi = Jacob
• oveid = poor

We know that Jacob was poor. When he fled from his brother Esau and arrived in Aram he had nothing. Here’s part of his prayer when he was preparing to meet Esau after many years:

But how does Jacob get the designation Aramean?

Chizkuni explains that we do see instances of a person being called by the name of the place they live, even if they aren’t originally from there.

One advantage to this approach is that it treats “oveid” as an intransitive verb.

Ibn Ezra understands the verse to say either “when my father was in Aram he was poor” or “the poor Aramean was my father.”

Rabbi Hirsch writes that “oveid” a particular category of poverty meaning “going to ruin” or “close to ruin.”

Jacob was forced to leave Aram to escape physical destruction by his father-in-law. In Aram, he was “an Aramean, close to ruin.”

He came to Canaan but had no permanent place there. A few years later, he was forced to leave because of a famine.

He came down to Egypt as an Aramean who was close to ruin to a land that was more foreign than Aram had been.

Following this approach, the mention of Egypt seems natural, since the whole verse is about Jacob and his family.

Netziv – Why Egypt?

God told Abraham that his offspring would be in exile, but did not reveal the place.

The Netziv and Rabbi Sorotzkin ask why Jacob and his family were exiled to Egypt.

Jacob spent 20 years exiled in Aram. Why didn’t God make Aram the land of exile and have Jacob and his family remain there?

But God saw the cruelty of Laban who tried to destroy Jacob. Therefore, God removed him from there and later sent him down to Egypt.

This explains why Egypt is mentioned in the verse along with Laban.

Rabbi Sorotzkin also points out that during the famine in Egypt and Canaan, that Aram was not experiencing famine. That means that Jacob could have sent his sons to Aram for food. But, he didn’t because he was afraid that Laban would still try to destroy them.