Zitat Kommentar zu Schir haSchirim 8:6

"The Word of G-d came to Yonah a second time" until the end of the book: Blessed is He Who chose of their [the sages] words, may their memory be a blessing. How deep were their minds, for nothing of anything they said "fell to the ground" [was purposeless; did not accomplish anything]. They said in the Midrash (Mechilta, the beginning of Parshat Bo, page six, first entry) that because Yonah charged for the honor of the son and not the honor of the father, his punishment was that he only received this second prophecy and never got a third prophecy afterwards. And it is already discernible to an attentive student that this [knowledge] is [known] through the interpretive method(דרך דרש) and it is not necessary [to be true] that from the fact that it says "second" [it means] he did not prophesy a third time. But you do find in the Seder Olam that Yonah anointed Yehu ben Nimshi as king over Israel in the year 3072 from the creation of the world, and Yonah lived until Zechariah who ruled in Israel in the year 3174. It emerges from this [fact] that Yonah lived for 102 years after he started receiving prophecy, and since we do not find another prophecy of his in that long time except for these two prophecies that he prophesied about Nineveh, we have [now] known that he ceased to have prophesy because of this thing. And this was fitting to be done, because if he had fled from the prophecy and tried hard to remove it from himself, his punishment should be measure-for-measure- that his ability to prophesy should be flee from him and never being another word of G-d to him, since he had rejected and kicked back at it. This is [the understanding of] their statement: "a second [prophecy] was said to him, [but] a third [prophecy] was not said to him," for their is no ceasing [on the part] of the Giver, but [rather] the receiver is the one who prevents the good from [coming] to himself. And with regards to this prophecy(Yonah 3:2-3), Hashem commanded Yonah to go to Nineveh after he got on dry land and call out and announce in it's midst about the decree Hashem had decree on it, and he said: "Get up, go to Nineveh, the great city, quell [it's fear] in it's ear and say to it that Hashem was concerned about it because it was a large city," like it says that "Nineveh was a great city to G-d"- the meaning is not that its people were pious like Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra said, because it was the land of Assyria, and the people living in it were very much evil and sinners to G-d, but [rather] it is related to G-d because of it's size, in the same way as [the verse] "The mountains of G-d,"(Tehillim 36:7) [or the verse] "A flame of G-d"(Song of Songs 8:6) [do so]. Their comparison [G-d and the city] is because it was so large that in it was a three-day-walk. According [to what he thought was] the simple explanation of the verse, Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra wrote that that journey [Yonah took] was around the city which is a one day walk, but his words are not correct, for the pasuk says: "and Yonah began to come into the city for a one day journey"- this teaches that he had not yet passed the entire journey but just part of it; therefore, it seems [from here] that from one gate to the other gate was three days [of walking].

And the earth was: This verse is connected to the one after it [as follows]: the earth at the beginning was such and such, and therefore, "God said, etc., etc."

And the reason he sealed all the tribes with the name of God [Yah] specifically in this count, is because they were not previously suspected of harlotry until they failed at Shittim with fornication. This [now] gave the nations grounds to say that their end proves their beginning — just as the males went after foreign women, so too in Egypt the women were promiscuous and breached boundaries because the Egyptians had control over their mothers. Therefore it says “HaChanochi, HaPallui” and sealed them with God’s name [Yah] [the two letters of this name coming at the beginning and end of each family’s appellation], because this name mediates between man and woman, indicating that they were all born from a man and woman with God’s name [Yah] between them. The placement of the letter hei before the yod [which spells God’s name backwards] comes to announce the virtue of the women, as the hei is given to the woman and the yod to the man. Indeed, the women were more guarded from sexual immorality than the men, as evidenced by Scripture publicizing only Shelomith daughter of Dibri, which teaches that she alone was immodest while all other women were modest (Leviticus Rabbah 32:5). But the men were “weeping in their families” over the matter of forbidden relationships, and many of them stumbled at Shittim. Therefore the hei of God’s name precedes the yod, because the main point being conveyed is the virtue of the women — that the Egyptians did not have control over their mothers. Furthermore, in every seal the letters are reversed so that they appear in the correct order on the thing being sealed, and Israel is the seal, as it says Place me as a seal upon your heart (Song of Songs 8:6) — when I am the seal, then the name of God [Yah] will be engraved through me.

the arrows of the bow Heb. רשפי. רִשְׁפֵי is not an expression of sparks of fire, because sparks of fire are not appropriate to a bow. Moreover, this word has no “dagesh,” yet רִשְׁפֵּי does have a “dagesh.” Rather, רִשְׁפֵי is an expression of (Deut. 32:24): “fought by demons (רשף),” which is translated as עוֹף, flying creatures, as (Job 5:7): “but flying creatures fly (רשף) upward.” Similarly (below 78:48): “and their cattle to the flying creatures (לרשפים). to the birds. Similarly, בְּנֵי רֶשֶׁף are flying creatures, demons, who fly upward. This one too is an expression of arrows, which fly, as the matter that is stated (below 91:5): “from an arrow that flies by day.” There He broke the arrows (רִשְׁפֵי) of the bow, the arrows that the bow lets fly, and this entire psalm speaks of the downfall of Sennacherib, for we find no enemy falling in Jerusalem but he.