Moses “Went” or “Finished”? – Deuteronomy 31:1

Thanks are due to my friend Jeffrey Tigay for helpful remarks on this case study.

This word does not appear in MT or SP, but it does appear in the Peshitta (ܟܠܗܘܢ [כלהון]) and Vulgate (omnia) translations.

The Qumran manuscript has only up to the dalet of הדברים, the rest is reconstructed. The LXX, Καὶ συνετέλεσεν Μωυσῆς λαλῶν πάντας τοὺς λόγους τούτους πρὸς πάντας υἱοὺς Ισραηλ, καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, reads like 1QDeut^b; the verb συντελέω, “to finish,” usually reflects the root כ.ל.ה, “to finish.” The same is true of the Old Latin (an ancient translation of the LXX): Et consummavit Moyses omnia verba ista.

Carmel McCarthy even uses the traditional name of the parashah as a supporting argument for her conviction that MT’s וַיֵּלֶךְ embodies the original reading. See Carmel McCarthy, ed., Deuteronomy, Biblia Hebraica Quinta 5 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007), 134*.

A reverse interchange is known from Joshua 19:49, 51 MT ויכלו, LXX καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν (= וילכו).

See discussion of this technique in Zev Farber. “The Resumptive Repetition (Wiederaufnahme),” TheTorah (2013). 

For some speculation on how this text developed, see Tzemah Yoreh, “Moses Wrote Down this Song, Deuteronomy 31:22 - Which Song?” TheTorah (2018).

This possibility was suggested to me by Jeffrey Tigay. This option leaves out the blessings in chapter 33, but maybe MT did not regard these a “speech.”