Commentaire de citation sur Isaïe 33:23

Then the lame shall skip like a hart, etc. Israel, who are now lame and weak. We find that he calls the weak with an expression of ‘lame,’ as the matter is stated (above 33:23): “The lame take the prey.”

spread out on the camels This is an expression of plundering plunder according to their custom that as long as they are walking, they stick together and walk stealthily lest people recognize them and drive the cattle away. When they reach the place of the cattle, they spread out in the width of the herd, one on each side, in order to gather the cattle. Now these messengers were messengers of the Adversary, and in order to provoke him [Job] and cause him to sin, they first informed him of a small loss and later of a larger one. So is the sequence of all of them.

ושאלה אשה משכנתה, there can be no question that G’d would condone deceiving people into thinking that one borrows from them while not intending to return the “borrowed” objects. The meaning of the word ושאלה is not “she shall borrow,” but “she shall request as a gift.” We find the root שאל used in that sense in Judges 8,24 when Gideon asks the people who wanted to appoint him as king for something else instead. I quote: אשאלה מכם שאלה ותנו לי איש נזם שללו, “I request from you only one thing, that each one of you give me one nose-ring of the loot you captured, etc.” We also find the word שאל used as a request for a gift when Bat Shva relates this request to her son King Solomon in the name of Adoniah, Solomon’s half brother in Kings I 2,20-21. She said:שאלה אחת קטנה אנכי שואלת מאתך, יותן את אבישג השונמית וגו', “I have a small request from you; Avishag the Shunamite be given as a wife etc.” [clearly this woman was not going to be “on loan” to Adoniah. Ed.] The reason the Torah phrased it as ושאלה אשה משכנתה, when it could have written in general terms ושאל איש מאת מצרי, “let everyone request from an Egyptian, etc.,” was simply that if even the women would give gifts to the departing Israelites there was no need to mention that the men would do likewise. This sort of reasoning is found in Isaiah 33,23 where the lame are mentioned as helping themselves to loot. Need the prophet add that the healthy people did the same?

בבקר יאכל עד IN THE MORNING HE EATETH HIS PREY — עד is an Aramaic word synonymous with the Hebrew words בזה and שלל, prey, which are rendered in the Targum by עדאה; and there is another example of its use in the Hebrew text of the Bible: (Isaiah 33:23) “Then is the prey of great spoil (עד שלל) divided”. He (Jacob) says this (“in the morning eateth his prey”) with reference to Saul who rose as Israel’s champion in the period when Israel began to flourish and shine (i.e. in the morning of his history; indeed some editions have “בקרן”, at the morning-dawn of Israel, instead of פריחתן) (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 14).