Commentaire de citation sur Jérémie 48:7

In the beginning, God created: Many have already been disturbed [about] why there is no proclamation for the creation of the heavens and the earth, and why the creation of the angels is not mentioned. And one should also wonder why the first day is different from the other days of the creation; since every one of them is dedicated to a specific thing or to specific things of one type or one category. But the first day includes a specific thing which is the creation of light, and besides this [also] includes something general - and there is nothing more general than it - and that is the creation of the heavens and the earth. This is something very strange, and it would have been fitting to designate one day for the creation of the heavens and the earth, without attaching to them the creation of something specific - which is the light - on one day. And it appears to me that one answer will suffice for [all] three of the questions, and that is that the heavens and the earth were not created on the first day but before then. And this is according to what is said (Berakhot 25b), "the Torah was not given to the ministering angels" - and [this means] that the story of creation is only coming to tell the beginning of matters of the lower world - which is the habitation of man - and a little of the matters of the upper world, from the angle of that which is relevant to people, which is to say from the angle of that which is useful for us [to know]. And it would not have been possible to explain to people all the matters of the heavens; but [at the same time] it was [also] not His will, may He be blessed, to bring people to believe that nothing exists except that which we see and [empirically] know. Therefore, the Torah tells what was created and made on each one of the six days of creation; and it began the story of the details of creation with one verse that includes a different creation that came before the six days - and its details were not explained in the Torah - in its stating, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," and not stating, "And God said, 'let there be heavens, let there be earth.'" This is to inform that it is not His intention to tell us the details of that creation and that this is just a vague statement which contains many, many statements. And behold, the heavens and the earth mentioned here are not exactly the heavens and the earth mentioned on the second and third day. Rather the heavens mentioned here includes everything above the earth and the heavens mentioned on the second day includes only the portion from them that is known to people. And the earth that is mentioned here includes the earth that is mixed up with water, and upon which was the wind/spirit, [whereas] the earth mentioned on the third day only includes the dry land. That is, in my opinion, the main simple explanation of this verse. And lest someone say that this contradicts what comes in the Ten Commandments, "because in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth;" there is, in fact, no contradiction to my explanation from there, since it does not say, "because in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth," but rather, "because in six days the Lord made;" and the intention [there] is about the making of the firmament and about the separation of the earth from the water. And the words, "and all that there is in it" that are said in [the continuation of] the Ten Commandments include the light and the luminaries and the animals that are upon the earth and in the midst of the seas. And in Parshat Ki Tissa (Exodus 31:17), it shortened it and only mentioned the heavens and the earth, and included in them every thing that is in them. Also the Sages, of blessed memory, said (Pesachim 54a) that the Throne of Glory came before the creation of the world. Bara (created): The verb, bara, in the simple structure and in the passive structure, is never found in any place with reference to human action. And we find that a man is called a doer and a former, but we don't find any place where man is called a creator (boreh). And it appears that this root is used to indicate anything that deviates from that which is the way of the world, as per, "I will make wonders which were not created (nivrau) in all the earth" (Exodus 34:10); "and if the Lord creates (yivra) a creation and the ground opens its mouth" (Numbers 16:30); "I let you hear new things from now... they were created (nivrau) now and not from before" (Isaiah 48:6-7); "because the Lord created (bara) something new on the earth" (Jeremiah 48:7); and here God created (bara) the heavens and the earth, a Godly act which has nothing like it. We find creation from nothing (ex nihilo) explicitly [mentioned] in the Book of Maccabees, Book II 7:28; and also the Samaritans say that the world was created from nothing in their liturgical poems, and it is also [included in] the faith of the Karaites. And Yechezkel, when speaking about the king of Tyre, used the expression, briah about him: "on the day you were created (hibaraecha), they were established" (Ezekiel 28:13); "from the day you were created (hibaraech)" (Ibid., 15). He poetically compared him to Adam, whom God created and placed in the Garden of Eden, which is as it is stated [there], "you were in Eden, the garden of God;" hence, he used the expression briah, as if [to say] that he was not formed through a father and mother; instead he was a creation that God created. And in the intensive (piel) structure, we find the root, bara, indicating chopping and cutting (Joshua 17:15; Ezekiel 23:47); and in the causative, "lehavriachem (to feed yourselves)" (I Samuel 2:29), [to indicate] a matter of health and portliness. And in some [versions] of II Samuel 12:17, we find bara in the simple structure [as follows]: "and you did not create bread," with a [letter,] alef instead of a [letter,] hay. And that was the version [in front of] Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, and it was not the version [in front of] Rabbi David Kimchi. Elohim (God): El and eyal is always an expression of power and strength and elohim is the plural form; and this was [the accepted terminology] of the nations that worshiped idols (Kuzari 4:1). And they would call all of the forces of nature that are the causes of phenomena, [elohim], and they would worship them; and each one of them would be a god for them. However, the Hebrews, who were monotheists, kept this name in the plural to indicate that the God that they were worshiping was not [just] one specific power. As the non-Jews would say, "the Lord is the god of the hills and not the god of the valleys," (I Kings 20:28) but [in fact] He is the collection of all the forces and the Master of every force. (And similar to this is the word, seas [yamim], see below, verse 10). So [too] is He called by the name, 'Hosts,' to say that He, Himself, contains all the powers of all of the hosts of the Heavens which the non-Jews would worship - see my commentary on Isaiah 1:9.

V. 15. אז: sodann, nun aber, wie אז אמרה (Kap. 4, 26). Edoms Führer heißen אלופים, Tausendmänner, wie (Bereschit 36). Edom war ein Militärstaat, seine Fürsten waren Generäle. Von ihnen heißt es: נבהלו (verwandt mit בעל), sie wurden bestürzt, von Schreck bewältigt durch Anblick einer höhern Macht, gegen welche ihr Schwert nicht ausreichte. Moabs Große heißen: אילים, Kraftvolle, Reiche, Moabs Widder. Moab war ein auf den Reichtum seines Bodens machtstolzer, von Kriegsunruhen unbelästigter Staat. (Vergl. Jesaias 15-16 u. Jeremias 48). Seine Reichen und Großen fangen an für ihren Reichtum und ihre Ruhe zu zittern. Die eigentlich mit Vernichtung bedrohten Bewohner Kanaans sind schon ganz aufgelöst. מיי ,מקק ,מכך ,מגג, alles gradativ verschiedene Ausdrücke des Zergehens, Zerfließens.

אוי לך מואב, “woe unto you Moav (the people)!” He cursed it that it should fall into the hands of Sichon. כמוש, a reference to the favorite god of the Moabites. נתן בניו, this is an appeal to the power that be to make fugitives and prisoners out of the Moabites (part of Bileam’s curse at the time).
Alternatively, the words may refer to Kemosh, Moav’s deity. The verse would then tell us that the people of Moav who served the deity Kemosh, built altars for it and had more faith in that deity than any other nation (as we know from Isaiah 16,12), paid the price for their misplaced faith, and the poet writing these lines ridicules the people for having put their trust in that deity. Their deity is the reason that the believers now have to either flee or become prisoners. Malachi 2,11 speaks about the worshippers of idols as his sons and daughters. This is the way Nachmanides explains our verse.