The first part of this treatise deals with some questions raised by the law-giving on Sinai. First, why was it given in the desert? Four reasons are suggested: because of the vanity and idolatry rampant in cities, because solitude promotes repentance, because it was well that laws needed for civic life should begin before the era of that life began, or that the divine origin of the laws should be attested by the miraculous supply of food in the barren wilderness.