Comentario citado sobre Isaías 26:18

I think that God is not represented as speaking in these two verses, as is the case in many passages of this book—we need only refer to the preceding chapter, verses 18 and 19¹⁵The peculiarity hinted at in this remark seems to consist in the introduction of the dialogue form; ver. 3 is assigned to God, ver. 4 and 5 to Israel, ver. 6 again to God; similarly 26:18—19 is assigned to the people, ver. 20 again to the Lord.—but the men of Judah,¹⁶The expression איש יהודה the men of Judah, is perhaps used by I. E. instead of Israel, because the second part of this chapter (comp. ver. 7), refers, according to his interpretation, to the kingdom of Israel. after having heard God’s promise, I the Lord will keep it, lest he visit it, are introduced, saying, We do not declare with fury, that if the enemy should come to turn the vineyard into a place of briers and thorns, we should kill ourselves. Comp.¹⁷The passages which follow are instances of the use of the third person instead of the first, as is the case here; through it ═ through myself. And Ezekiel shall be, instead of And I shall be (Ez. 25:24), And Samuel, instead of And myself (1 Sam. 12:11); As he hath done, instead of As I have done (Lev. 8:34); במלחמה in war, is to be joined with מי יתנני who would turn me in this way: If one should come to turn me by war into a place of briers and thorns, etc. או יחזק Or if He would strengthen my stronghold, etc., to give me the strengthening promise that He will be in peace with me, and so should the enemy be, then Jacob would take root, etc. I am compelled to explain in this way by the phrase, He will make peace unto me, because it is God alone that maketh peace.¹⁸I. E. is not the author of the first opinion, which attributes to God the words, He will make peace unto me, since, as he says, he is compelled to assume, that they are to be assigned to the men of Judah. It is often the case in the commentaries of I. E., that an anonymous opinion, which is supposed to be generally adopted, is followed by the commentator’s own explanation, introduced by a phrase like ואני אומר ,ולפי דעתי but I think, but I say. In this verse the first explanation is perhaps to be assigned to those whose opinion is introduced at the beginning of verse 4, with the words, some say.

You shall cast the slackers Since he stated (v. 18) “Neither do the inhabitants of the world fall,” he repeats, “You cast them down, for our merits do not suffice to cast them down.”

נעשה אדם, “let us make Man.” After the waters had been given the power to produce living creatures which swarmed in the ocean and, in the case of earth, it had been given the power to produce mammals, the Torah had used such expressions as ישרצו המים, or תוצא הארץ in the case of the mammals, when it comes to describing the creation of man the Torah speaks of “let us make.” According to the plain meaning of the text the subjects of the words “let us make” are G’d together with the earth which had been the subject of verse twenty four. Earth would contribute the body of Man just as it had contributed the bodies of the animals, whereas G’d would contribute the soul. We have confirmation of this in Genesis 2,7 where the Torah reports וייצר ה’ אלוקים את האדם עפר מן האדמה ויפח באפיו נשמת רוח חיים.”G’d formed man dust from the earth and He blew into his nostrils a living soul. Thereupon man became a human being.” What G’d “blew” into man’s nostrils was a soul which originated in the celestial region. The word בצלמנו in our verse describes an attribute, such as in Daniel 3,19 וצלם אנפוהי אשתני, ”and the form of his face was contorted.” Another verse in which the word צלם describes an attribute is Psalms 39,7 אך בצלם יתהלך איש, ”man walks as a mere shadow.”
The word כדמותנו on the other hand, describes the image of the form seeing that things which are similar to one another are described in Hebrew as דומים זה לזה. The thrust of the verse is to inform us that man was to resemble the celestial beings as much as possible while at the same time resembling the creatures in the “lower” world. He would resemble the celestial beings by sharing some of their attributes while he would he would resemble the creatures in the “lower” world by his outer appearance, i.e. that his body would appear to be made from earth (This is what Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman wrote quoting Rabbi David Kimchi.)
Other commentators see in the word נעשה, i.e. the plural “we will make,” a pluralis majestatis, a form of expression used by superior beings such as kings when they really only refer to themselves. They use this mode of expression to suggest that though they are only individuals they act on behalf of a multitude. Even a relatively unimportant individual such as Lavan arrogated to himself such importance when he said to Yaakov (Genesis 29,27) ונתנה לך גם את זאת, “and we shall give you also this one (Rachel).” We find another example of this mode of speech when Balak told Bileam (Numbers 22,7) אולי נכה בו ואגרשנו “perhaps we can defeat it (the Israelites) and I will expel them.” Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, quoting unnamed sources, sees in the word נעשה a form of the intransitive passive form similar to what we find in Isaiah 26,18 ישועות בל-נעשה ארץ “no salvation (victories) were performed on earth.” I do not think there is a need for such contrived explanations.