[Avodah] The Malbim on "11 days", and the chapters in chumash

[Zev Sero]

Sefer Devarim starts with a cryptic reference to "achad asar yom".  Rashi
understands this to refer to the time a trip from Chorev to Kadesh Barnea
would normally take, and says Moshe rebuked the people for their lack of
gratitude to Hashem for taking them on that route in only 3 days.

The Malbim has a different approach, and takes this pasuk as a description
of the long speech that Moshe is about to deliver.  He uses it to resolve
the apparent contradiction between the fact that Devarim appears to be Moshe's
own words, and our belief that the whole Torah is Hashem's work.   He says
that over the course of the 38-year journey from Chorev to Kadesh Barnea,
by way of Har Seir, there were 11 days on which Moshe spoke to the Jews,
giving them mussar.  Toward the end of his life, Hashem took those 11
sermons and edited them into one long sermon, which takes up the first
11 chapters of Sefer Devarim, and told him to deliver it to the Jews as
his valedictory.  In other words, the words are all Moshe's, but Hashem
chose them and put them in order; Moshe is the author, but Hashem is the
editor, and that makes it Hashem's work, because it says what He wants it
to say.

This sounds interesting, but from the way the Malbim puts it it seems to
me that he finds it significant that the speech takes up 11 chapters;
I wonder whether he knew that the chapters in Chumash are not of Jewish
origin.   And since we know this, is it a mere coincidence that the
bishop who divided the chumash did assign 11 chapters to this speech?

This is not an earth-shattering question, and even if we dismiss the whole
chapter system the essence of the explanation will remain unscathed, but
it's an interesting point to ponder.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
zev at sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan