Comentario sobre Génesis 21:15

ויכלו המים AND THE WATER WAS SPENT, because it is the nature of sick people to drink much (Genesis Rabbah 53:13).

AND SHE CAST THE CHILD. Thirst overtook him and he was unable to walk, and so his mother laid him under the tree, cast away and abandoned. It may be that the word vatashleich (and she cast) is similar in sense to the verses: And He cast them into another land;³³³Deuteronomy 29:27. Cast me not away from Thy presence,³³⁴Psalms 51:13. meaning “sending away.”
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said: “And she cast for she had taken him onto her lap when he was weakened by thirst, [and seeing that he was expiring from thirst, she cast him from her].”
Our Rabbis have said³³⁵Bereshith Rabbah 53:17. that he was sick at the time he sent him away, and therefore he put the child on her shoulder. This is the sense of the word vatashleich (and she cast) him: [until that point she had carried him].
All this occurred to Abraham because he had been commanded to do whatever Sarah said, and she commanded that he send him away immediately, and it was at her command that he did not give them silver and gold, servants, and camels to bear them.

Under one of the bushes: To protect against the burning sun and it adding to [his] thirst.

ויכלו, Hagar’s problems became ever more acute. The reason why the Torah writes all this detail, is to teach that if man is confident that G’d will help him overcome his difficulties in the end, then his troubles do not multiply in order to teach him to appeal to G’d for help. The detail here has also been written in order to show how G’d deals with people who love His name. He appeared to Hagar on two separate occasions rescuing her from acute distress, performing miracles on behalf of her son.

ותשלך את הילד, “She threw away the child.” According to the homiletical approach, she threw Ishmael off her shoulder. According to the plain meaning of the text, she dropped him under a tree, the expression being similar to וישליכם אל ארץ אחרת, “He exiled them to another country. (Deuteronomy 29,27) Ibn Ezra understands the word ותשלך to mean that Hagar moved him down to her lap as a result of becoming tired and exhausted from thirst. As to why Avraham gave Hagar only bread and water and no supply of silver or gold or camels to ride on, this was due to his having been commanded by G’d to obey Sarah’s instructions, and she had objected to this.

And she cast (tashlech): [Casting] is about leaving and abandoning, as [in], "for You have picked me up and cast me (tashlicheni)" (Psalms 102:11). And it explains the casting - "and she went and sat across from him." And after she heard there also the voice of the youth yelling out, she sat even further away across from him.

Because the sick drink a great deal. Rashi deduced this because it should have said, The bread and the water were wused up.” For it said before, “He took bread and a skin pouch of water,” and Avraham assumedly gave them food and drink proportionally, so both should have finished together. Thus Rashi explains that Scripture is telling us that Yishmael drank disproportionately to his eating, as the sick drink a great deal, and that is why it says, “The water was used up,” but not the bread. (R. Meir Stern) But it seems to me that Rashi knows this because it does not say, “And they had no more water to drink.” The expression “the water was used up” implies that it happened unexpectedly, ahead of time. (Nachalas Yaakov)

(15-16) Auffallend ist die verschiedene Form חֵמַת, also von חֵמָה, und hier: חֵמֶת und Raw Hirsch on Genesis 21: 19 חֵמֶת. Auch die etymologische Ableitung ist dunkel. Für חמה findet sich Analogie in חומה, Mauer, auch Ausdruck eines bewahrenden Umschließens. —

ויכלו המים, “the water was used up;” Rashi adds that it is the custom of sick people to drink a lot of water, so that the water was not used up as it had been insufficient for the journey to start with. This interpretation is somewhat puzzling, as we have been told in the Talmud, tractate Baba metzia, folio 87, that prior to the report in the Torah about Yaakov falling sick shortly before his death, sickness as we know it did not exist. We would have to conclude therefore that what the Talmud meant that until Yaakov fell sick, for no visible cause, no one fell sick without visible cause. Yishmael’s “sickness” was not a sickness in the accepted meaning of the word but was the result of Sarah having used the “evil eye” to cause this.

And she cast the child: From [the time] when he fainted from thirst, she began to carry him.

ויכלו המים מן החמת, “the water in the hose ran out,” before they reached an inn. Avraham had provided only enough water for them to reach the nearest settlement of human beings and she lost her way in the desert.

ותשלך את הילד, whom she had been carrying, seeing that she had become too tired to carry on. When she saw that she had been unable to locate any water, she threw him from her lap under a shrub. According to Onkelos שיחים are small trees. [it was doubly frustrating to know that there must have been a source of water nearby, how else could these trees exist? Ed.]

Hagars ganzes Benehmen ist höchst charakteristisch und zeichnet die unveredelte chamitische Natur. Eine jüdische Mutter hätte ihr Kind nicht verlassen, und wäre es auch nur, um dem Kinde zuzureden, und wäre es auch nur, um ihm den millionsten Teil einer Sekunde zu erleichtern. Sich untätig entfernen, weil man den "Schmerz nicht mit ansehen kann", ist nicht Mitgefühl, ist grausamer Egoismus einer noch rohen Menschennatur. Im menschlichen Menschen weiß das Pflichtgefühl die stärksten Empfindungen zu meistern, den eigenen Schmerz vergessen und hülfreiche Assistenz leisten zu lassen, und könnte man auch nichts mehr als die Wohltat der teilnehmenden Gegenwart leisten. Daher so tief bedeutsam: obgleich auch Hagar schrie, nicht קול הגר, sondern את קול הנעור hörte Gott (Raw Hirsch on Genesis 21:17); denn aus Egoismus untätig bleibendes Schreien dringt nicht zu Ihm.

ותשלך את הילד, “she abandoned the child,” (by leaving him among some bushes) she did not do so because she could no longer carry him; she did so because he was about to die from thirst; when he first took sick she had carried him for a while.

Ferner: ותשלך, wirft das Kind fort, תחת אחד השיחים, "unter eines der dort Wachsenden", (שיח ist der allgemeinste Ausdruck für Gewächs, verwandt mit שגה, in die Höhe schießen, und daher auch übertragen auf die geistige, innere Gedankenentwicklung), ganz gleichgültig wohin es fällt, vielleicht gar unter Dornen, wo es noch geritzt werden kann und durch die Unvernunft der Mutter noch zum quälenden Durst den unnötigsten Schmerz erhält. Alles dies zeigt die völlig kopflose Schmerzüberwältigung, wie sie keine abrahamitische Mutter in einem solchen Momente sich hätte zu Schulden kommen lassen. —

כִמְטַחֲוֵי קשת wird gewöhnlich mit Bogenschuß übersetzt, eine Bogenschußweite; es kommt dieses Wort allerdings nicht weiter vor und kann dessen Bedeutung nur aus dem Zusammenhange ermittelt werden. Eigentümlich wäre dabei freilich dieser Ausdruck hier, man dürfte geneigt sein zu glauben, er sei schon aus dem künftigen Schützenleben des Ismael genommen. Betrachten wir jedoch die grammatische Form מְטַחְַוֵי, so spricht sie durchaus gegen die Bedeutung: Schuss, sie ist vielmehr das Partizip. aetiRaw Hirsch on Genesis 21: des Piel und weist daher auf die Bezeichnung einer aktiven Persönlichkeit hin, scheint also nicht den Schuss, sondern die Schießenden zu bedeuten. Die Wurzel טחה wäre dann lautverwandt mit דחה, stoßen, und zwar verstärktes דחה .דחה selbst kommt schon als ein in die Ferne jagen und schleudern vor, so: כמוץ לפני רוח ומלאך ד׳ דוחה (Ps. 35), also noch schneller als der Wind. Ebenso: נדחי ישראל. Somit kann טחה füglich: schleudern, schießen heißen. Nun wird freilich nicht der Bogen, sondern vermittelst des Bogens geschossen; allein ganz analog heißt es: רוֹמֵי קשת Bogen- werfer statt Pfeilwerfer. Wir wagen daher zu glauben: הרחק כמטחוי קשת heiße: sie entfernte sich wie Bogenschützen, d. h. wie ein Bogenschütze rückwärts von seinem Ziele bis zu dem äußersten Punkte zurückgeht, von wo aus er es nur noch im Auge behalten kann, so ging Hagar rückwärts von Ismael so weit als möglich fort, um seine Qual nicht zu sehen, und doch nur so weit, dass sie ihn noch im Auge behielt. Es entspricht dies ganz den Gefühlen, die in ihr stritten, wobei der Anhänglichkeit an ihr Kind nur so viel Rechnung getragen wird, als die Rücksicht für das eigene Schmerzgefühl, dieses falsche, täuschende, rohe Mitgefühl noch Raum lässt.