Near the end of Va'etchanan, so inconspicuously that we can sometimes miss it, is a statement with such far-reaching implications that it challenges the impression that has prevailed thus far in the Torah, giving an entirely new complexion to the biblical image of the people of Israel:
The L-rd did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you are the fewest of all peoples.
This is not what we have heard thus far. In Genesis, G-d promises the patriarchs that their descendants will be like the stars of the heaven, the sand on the seashore and the dust of the earth, uncountable. Abraham will be the father not just of one nation, but of many. At the beginning of Exodus we read of how the covenantal family, numbering a mere seventy when they went down to Egypt, were "fertile and prolific, and their population increased. They became so numerous that the land was filled with them."