Commentary for Isaiah 7:6

and provoke it Let us provoke them to war.

ונקיצנה Transitive verb, let us cause her to be distressed because of us; the suffix נה her, refers to Jerusalem; the following, Let us make a breach therein, proves the correctness of this interpretation.⁶I. E. seems to derive from this that the suffix נָה refers to a fortified town, as Jerusalem was, and not to the land or people of Judah. Comp. Targum and Rashi ad locum. The son of Tobel. According to some^6*א and ב ,ג and נ ,מ and נ, and so on, are put for each other (אלפא ביתא דאל״בם).

and annex it to us Heb. וְנַבְקִיעֶנָּה. Let us even it out with us like a valley (בִּקְעָה) that is even. And so does Jonathan render: And let us even them with us, that they should be even with the ten tribes under one king.

טבאל is by a certain interchange of letters the same as רמלא, and בן טבאל therefore the same as בן רמליהו; this is nonsense, because Ben Remaliahu is mentioned before, and he says with Aram, Let us set a king in the midst of it, the son of Tobel. Others say that טָבְאַל means טׂב אֵלֵינוּ good for us, but אַל can only be taken as equal to לא, and בן טבאל would then be בן טבלא ═ good for nothing; but I conclude that it is the name of some famous prince in Israel or Aram.

one who is good for us Heb. בֶּן טָבְאַל [a combination of the words: טוֹב אֶל,] good for us; so did Jonathan render it. It is also possible to interpret it as: טוֹב אַל, not good in the eyes of the Omnipresent, and according to the calculation of the letters of ‘al-bam,’ Tov’al is Ramla. ‘Teth’ equals ‘resh’; ‘beth’ equals ‘mem’; ‘aleph’ equals ‘lammed.’ Hence, “ben tov’al” equals ‘ben Ramla.’