Deuteronomy 26:5
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and you are to declare before the LORD your God, “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt few in number and lived there and became a great nation, mighty and numerous.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
With this chapter Moses concludes the particular statutes which he thought fit to give Israel in charge at his parting with them; what follows is by way of sanction and ratification. In this chapter, I. Moses gives them a form of confession to be made by him that offered the basket of his first-fruits (Deu 26:1-11). II. The protestation and prayer to be made after the disposal of the third year's tithe (Deu 26:12-15). III. He binds on all the precepts he had given them, 1. By the divine authority: "Not I, but the Lord thy God has commanded thee to do these statutes" (Deu 26:16). 2. By the mutual covenant between God and them (Deu 26:17, etc.).
Open source ↗26:5 Jacob’s mother (Rebekah) was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26), and Jacob also lived in Aram for many years (Gen 31:41-42). His lifestyle was seminomadic (wandering). • few in number: Jacob and his family totaled only seventy when they went to Egypt (see Gen 46:27; Exod 1:5).
Open source ↗Cross-references
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Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
And with the two sons who had been born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob’s family who went to Egypt were seventy in all.
Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was running away.
Take double the silver with you so that you may return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake.
But that night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and warned him, “Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.”
And there I will provide for you, because there will be five more years of famine. Otherwise, you and your household and everything you own will come to destitution.’
God sent me before you to preserve you as a remnant on the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
but will go to my country and my kindred to take a wife for my son Isaac.”
So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died.
Jacob fled to the land of Aram and Israel worked for a wife— for a wife he tended sheep.