רבינו בחיי — אתם נצבים היום

Q — Why is a second covenant being struck in Arvos Moav? Wasn't Sinai enough?

A — Rabbeinu Bachya answers with audacity: Sinai was annulled. The moment Klal Yisrael declared אלה אלהיך ישראל at the egel, the bris of Sinai was procedurally voided. Therefore Moshe convenes everyone here at Arvos Moav as a literal re-do of Sinai: נצבים... לפני ה' אלקיכם matches ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר. Same posture, same audience composition (heads, elders, women, gerim, water-drawers — every category present), same acceptance באלה ובשבועה. RBB then layers a second meaning onto נצבים. After the long tochacha of the preceding parsha — where Israel was warned it would be scattered, hunted, decimated — the word נצבים carries an oath: you will stand, you will not be eradicated, the tochacha will refine you but will not end you. לעולם ה' דברך נצב בשמים — the stem is the same. So the second covenant comes with a guarantee built in: Israel will be the דור אחרון — the nation that, alone among the nations, possesses no termination point.