Commentaire sur Isaïe 59:16

And He saw that there was no man And now, when He repents of the evil to His people, He sees that there is no righteous man to stand in the breach.

וישתומם And wondered. Comp. שממה desolation (1:7).¹⁵שמם to be desolate, so that no word is heard; so he that wonders cannot utter a word in the first moment. Rabbi Menahem connects it with ¹⁶וישתומם is, according to the opinion of R. Menahem, formed from שתם with reduplication of the third radical. I. E. properly rejects this explanation, because the ת is not a radical, but a formative letter, the characteristic of the Hithpael, being placed after the first radical, in accordance with the rule concerning the verbs, whose first radical is a sibilant. R. Menahem is a famous grammarian of the 11th century.שתום (Num. 24:3); but he is wrong; it is improper to form וישבורר from שבר, with reduplication of the third radical.

and He was astounded He was silent to see whether there was an intercessor, and there was no intercessor. וַיִּשְׁתּוֹמֵם is an expression of a man who stands and wonders and remains silent in his wonder, and the ‘tav’ of וַיִּשְׁתּוֹמֵם is like the ‘tav’ of מִשְׁתּוֹלֵל, and both of them serve here as the reflexive, and this is the procedure of the word whose first radical is a ‘shin’ or a ‘samech,’ that when it is converted into the form of מִתְפָּעֵל, the present reflexive, נִתְפָּעֵל, the past reflexive, or יִתְפָּעֵל, the future reflexive, the ‘tav’ comes in the middle of the letters of the radical. The result is that וַיִּשְׁתּוֹמֵם is an expression from the same root as (Jer. 2:12) “Be admonished (שֹׁמּוּ), O ye heavens”; (Ezekiel 3:15) “appalled (מַשְׁמִים) among them”; (Job 18:20) “the later ones will be astonished (נָשַׁמּוּ),” an expression of wonder.