Comentario citado sobre Isaías 19:6

ותשם בסוף AND SHE PUT IT IN THE FLAGS — It (סוף) has the same meaning as אגם. old French rosel. Another example of the word is (Isaiah 19:6) “And reeds and flags (סוף) shall wither”.

and Ethan, and Heman, and Calcol, and Dara They all lived at the time of David and at the time of Solomon, and they were exceedingly wise. Concerning this it says (I Kings 5:11): “And he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol.” Further on, regarding Solomon’s wisdom, the expression is “Darda,” for even though it was called the generation of knowledge (דֵּעָה דּוּר) because of its wisdom, Solomon was wiser than all of them. Now when Scripture says הָאֶזְרָחִי, the “aleph” is superfluous, like הַזַּרְחִי (Num. 26:20), [because] he was descended from Zerah, and in many places, the “aleph” is inserted into the word, and is not pronounced, e.g. (Job. 13:17): “and my speech (וְאַחְוָתִי)” (Isa. 19:6): “And they shall abandon (וְהֶאֶזְנִיחוּ).” And likewise, (Num. 11:4): “וְְהָאסַפְסוּף, and the rabble.” Now sometimes it is completely missing, as (II Sam. 19:14): “תֹמְרוּ, you shall say,” and likewise, (II Chron. 22:5): “... and the Arameans (הָרַמִּים) smote.” [The verse in Kings] is expounded by Pesikta (Peskikta d’Rav Kahana p. 34, Pesikta Rabbathi 14:9): “... than all men this refers to Adam. Ethan is Abraham. Heman is Moses. Calcol is Joseph. Darda is the generation of the desert. Mahol means that He forgave them for making the Calf.”

He will abandon you forever Heb. יַזְנִיחֲךָ. It is not written here: He will forsake you (יַעַזָבְךָ), but He will abandon you (יַזְנִיחֲך), which is [a] harsher [term] like (Isa. 19: 6): “And they will abandon (הֶאֶזְנִיחוּ) the rivers”; (Lam 2:7): “The Lord abandoned (זָנַַח) His altar.”

ים סוף is the same as לים סוף TO THE RED SEA. The word סוף has the meaning of a marshy tract in which reeds grow; examples are: (Exodus 2:3) “She placed him in the reeds (בסוף)”; (Isaiah 19:6) “The flags and the reeds (וסוף) shall wither”.

והמתי I WILL CONFOUND — This is equivalent to וְהָמַמְתִּי (i. e. the root is המם). Its rendering in the Targum is ואשנש “and I will confound”. Similar is every verb the root of which has its last letter doubled (verbs ע"ע): when it is changed (conjugated) to express the idea of “I have done something” (i. e. the first person singular perfect of the Kal; the same really applies to some inflected forms of other conjugations also) there are occasions when one omits the doubled letter (it is actually the first of the two similar letters) and dageshes the remaining letter of these two and vowels it with מלאפום (our חולם). Examples are: וְהַמֹּתִי which is of the same derivation as, (Isaiah 28:28) “and the wheel of his cart makes a confused noise (המם)”; (Ecclesiastes 2:20) וְסַבֹּתִי, “and I turned about” which is of the same derivation as, (I Samuel 7:16) “and he went round (וסבב) to Bethel”; (Psalms 116:6) דַלֹּתִי “I was low”, of the same derivation as, (Isaiah 19:6) “The waters shall become low (דללו) and dried up”; (Isaiah 49:16) “I have graven thee (חַקֹּתִיךְ) upon the palms of my hand”, of the same derivation as, (Judges 5:15) “things engraved (חקקי) in the heart”; (I Samuel 12:3) את מי רַצֹּתִי “whom have I crushed”, of the same derivation as, (Job 20:19) “because he hath crushed (רצץ) and hath forsaken the poor”. He, however, who translates it in the Targum by וְאֶקְטַל , is in error. For if it were derived from the root denoting death (מות), the ה in it would not be vowelled with Patach and its מ would not be dageshed nor vowelled with חולם, but it would read וְהַמַתִּי, as, (Numbers 14:15) “Now if Thou shalt kill (וְהַמַתָּ) this people”, the ת being dageshed because it would come in place of two ת’s, one being a root-letter — for no form of מות can be written without at least one ת (that in the root) — and the other being a servile letter (part of the suffix), just as תִּי in אמר-תי and חמא-תי and עשי-תי. Similarly with נתתי: the second ת is dageshed because it comes in the place of two ת’s — since it (the word) really requires three ת’s, two for the root, as in, (Joshua 10:12) “the day when the Lord giveth (תת)”, and in, (Ecclesiastes 3:13) “it is the gift (מתת) of God”, — and the third as a servile letter.