English: “You are standing today, all of you” — all of you are equal before the Omnipresent. And so it says (Iyov 34): “Who shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor.” Why does Scripture mention “your heads, your tribes”? It is a specification after a generalization, to teach that even heads and tribes are all equal in the covenant.
The opening of the covenant assembly is read as an assertion of equality; the subsequent list of ranks is treated as reinforcing rather than limiting that equality.
Type of Learning
Custom (phrase-by-phrase or midrashic expansion of the verse).
What Is Learned
The midrash extracts concrete legal, historical or theological referents from the wording of the passuk, giving the brief biblical language a fuller operational meaning.