Deuteronomy 26:5

And you shall respond, and say before the Lord your God: Our father Jakob went down into Aram Naharia at the beginning, and (Laban) sought to destroy him; but the Word of the Lord saved him out of his hands. And afterwards went he down into Mizraim and sojourned there, a few people; but there did he become a great people, and mighty and many.

you shall reply Apparently the kohanim say something to the effect of, “What is this that you have brought?” — consequently, you shall reply. But the verb can also denote initiating a conversation, as in the first appearance of “Job declared” [Job 3: 2] [cf. comment on Exodus 15: 21].

lost is an intransitive verb. If the Aramean referred to Lavan, then the verb would be in the transitive hif‘il or pi‘el form. Besides, what sense is there to say, “Lavan tried to destroy my forefather, and he went down to Egypt”? Lavan never considered going down to Egypt! The plausible interpretation is that the Aramean refers to Yaaqov, as if Scripture had said, “When my forefather was in Aramea, he was lost” — meaning, he was a pauper, without property. Compare, “give strong drink to him who is lost” [Proverbs 31: 6], where it is immediately followed by, “let him drink, and forget his poverty” [Proverbs 31: 7]. Thus the lost Aramean was my forefather. The intent of this passage is: I did not inherit this land from my forefather, for he was a pauper when he came to Aramea, and he was a stranger in Egypt, where he was few in number. Afterwards, he became a great nation; and you, God , brought us out of slavery, and gave us the good land. Do not object to Yaaqov’s being called an Aramean, since similar apellations can be found. Consider “Yeter the Ishmaelite” [I Chronicles 2: 17], even though he was really an Israelite (for so it is written [II Samuel 17: 25]).

The word folk must be in the construct case, because it never appears in the singular form. In its normal form (e.g., “menfolk” [Deuteronomy 2: 34]) it is a plural noun.

ארמי אובד אבי, as if the Torah had written” my father Avraham was an Aramite, lost, and exiled from his birthplace Aram.” G’d had told him in Genesis 12,1 “go forth for yourself from your homeland, etc.” Later on, Avraham himself relates to Avimelech the king of the Philistines, (Genesis 20,13) that G’d had made him wander, away from his father’s house, etc. The meaning of the word אובד here is similar to תועה, the root Avraham used to describe wandering without specific objective, almost like walking because one is lost. The word occurs clearly in that sense in Psalms 119,176 תעיתי כשה אובד בקש עבדך, “I have strayed like a lost sheep; search for Your servant, etc.!” We also find the word in this connotation in Jeremiah 50,6 עמי רועיהם התעום, “My people were lost sheep; their shepherd led them astray.” In other words, the recital by the farmer goes back to the Jewish people’s origin, the farmer saying: ‘our forefathers came to this land from an alien country and now G’d has given it to us.

ארמי אובד אבי, my father, i.e. Yaakov, who was for a while a wandering lost person without a home of his own, was not at the time able to establish a nation deserving or fit to inherit this land.

וענית ואמרת, “and you will respond by saying, etc.;” the recital of the prayer of thanksgiving must be performed audibly, but the recital of the “confessional” part starting with the words: בערתי את הקודש, “I have cleared out any sacred things, etc.” may be recited in a whisper. The text introduces it with the word: ואמרת, “you will say,” instead of וענית ואמרת