Deuteronomy 32:17

They sacrificed to idols, resembling devils, in whom there is no profit, to idols which they had not known, new gods lately made, with which your fathers had nothing to do;

to demons See my commentary on “to the satyrs after which they stray” [comment on Leviticus 17 7]. Similarly, Rabbi Yiṣḥaq ben Sha ul — may his soul dwell in Paradise — relates the word trembled before them [Hebrew: s̀earum] to the word “to the satyrs” [Hebrew: las̀s̀eirim] [Leviticus 17: 7]. He also claims that the lamed (“to”) in the word to demons takes a delayed object in addition to its immediate object, rendering the verse “to demons, and to a non-power…”. In my opinion, however, none of this is necessary. The verse reads, “to demons, who have no power…”. They are called “demons” on account of the terror felt toward them, causing minds to become demented.

gods whom they did not know How can they think that they are gods? They know it neither from their personal experience (thus, they did not know), nor from tradition (thus, before whom your fathers did not tremble).

new ones that arose of late from recent, not from ancient, times — even your fathers did not know them.

trembled before them From “shall come against him like a storm” [Daniel 11: 40], and also “it made the hair of my flesh bristle up” [Job 4: 15] — meaning, they did not fear them (although there is a pronomial suffix, the preposition before is implied; cf. “my children have gone out from me” [Jeremiah 10: 20], and “you are stronger than I, and have prevailed” [Jeremiah 20: 7]). The word is related to “tempest” [Hebrew: searah] [Ezekiel 1: 4] even though the latter word is spelled with a samekh.

THEY SACRIFICED UNTO THE DEMONS, NO-GODS. I have [already] explained this.

ולא שערום, related to the demons known as שעירים, of whom we heard in Leviticus 17,7 that the Israelites whored after, as possessing some divine powers, capable of foretelling the future.

לשדים לא אלוה, forces which are not enduring; our sages in Chagigah 16 already taught us that these demons known as שדים are as mortal as is man himself.

אלוהים לא ידעום, חדשים מקרוב באו, whenever they discover a phenomenon not previously known to them they thought that this must be an ancient power and proceeded promptly to worship it.

יזבחו לשדים, “they sacrificed to demons.” This is one of the most abhorrent forms of idolatry.

לא אלוה, “no-gods;” these demons possess no power whatsoever. Compare Ezekiel 17,13: ואת אילי הארץ לקח, “and the ‘mighty’ of the land he took away. [Nebuchadnezzar carried away those who had thought of themselves as ‘mighty.’ Ed.] Onkelos translates our verse as meaning that they are useless. (the demons) If they had any value at all Moses would not condemn worshipping them with such vehemence as he does here. A certain Roman said to Rabbi Shimon, wondering about Exodus 20,5 where Hashem is described as a “jealous” G–d, why this G–d would be jealous of a “nobody.” A truly powerful person is jealous only of another powerful person, not of someone clearly inferior. Why does Moses describe G–d’s jealousy as having been aroused by a “no-god” so that he retaliates by arousing the jealousy of His people by a “no-people?” Rabbi Shimon answered him by using a parable to illustrate his point. A man had married an extremely attractive looking wife. After a while he took a second wife who was ugly in the extreme. His first wife became extremely angry at her husband, saying to him that she could have understood it if he had married another attractive woman who would have been competition to her. The fact that he married an ugly woman, she felt was a deliberate insult, suggesting that she was just as ugly as the second wife he had taken. (Compare Talmud, tractate Avodah zarah, folio 55.) Moses is telling the people that although G–d would be angry at them for worshipping the sun, which appears powerful and a source of life to them, instead of worshipping Him Who had created the sun; but to worship something that is totally useless to them was an additional insult which He resents accordingly with great anger.

אלהים לא ידעום, “a deity they had never heard of.” They had heard of it, but had never heard that it possessed any power. Rabbi Joseph Kara explains the reason why Moses chose this expression as being that we have a verse in Exodus 3,7: where G–d tells Moses that He is well aware of the people’s pains, כי ידעתי את מכאוביו, that the deities His people turned to were ones which had no such knowledge. How could such deities help when they were completely unaware of the problems its worshippers faced?

חדשים מקרוב באו, “new gods that came up of late.” These so called deities had never been considered as deities by anyone.