Commentaire de citation sur Les Nombres 17:27

And in the ninth year, [that] of He who scatters [mazreh, alluding to Jeremiah 31:10, which has a numerical equivalent of that year] Israel: The king of Spain conquered the entire kingdom of Grenada and Grenada the great city of many people, the princess among the states [alluding to Lamentations 1:1]. And in his power and the haughtiness of his heart, his spirit changed and incurred guilt, ascribing his might to his god [alluding to Habakkuk 1:11]. And Esau said in his heart [alluding to Genesis 27:41], “How will I find favor to my god, who girded me with might [alluding to Psalms 18:33]? With what shall I begin towards my master, he gave this city into my hands? Should it not be in bringing the people walking in the dark, the lost sheep, Israel, under his wings and to bring back the wild daughter to his his religion and to his faith? Or [otherwise] to send them away from before me to another land, that they should never return to my land and be established in front of my eyes.” Therefore the command and decree of the king [alluding to Esther 4:3] went out like the decree of Medea and Persia, and the herald proclaimed in a loud voice, “You are commanded [alluding to Daniel 3:4], all you families of the House of Israel, when you pass through the water [to be baptized], you shall pray and bow to the god of the nations, so you shall eat the bounty of the land like us today and you will settle in the land and trade in it [alluding to Genesis 34:10]. But if you refuse and rebel and not utter the name of my god and you do not bring prayers to my god, get up and get out from amidst my people, from the lands of Spain, Sicily, Majorca, and Sardinia, which are under my power. And in three months, there will not be a footprint of someone called by the name Jacob and referred to by the name Israel in all the states of my kingdom!” When I was there in the courtyard of the kings’s house, I became weary with calling out; my throat dried up [alluding to Psalms 69:4]. I spoke with the king twice and three times; with my mouth did I beseech him, saying, “Will the king save [us]? Why are you doing this to your servants? Increase greatly the dowry and the gift upon us [alluding to Genesis 34:12], gold and silver and everything that each man from the house of Israel has he will give to his land.” I called my friends, the king’s confidantes, to request [help] for my people. And princes take counsel together [alluding to Psalms 2:2] to speak to the king with great force, to reverse the decrees of anger and fury and the plan that he had thought against the Jews to destroy them [alluding to Esther 9:25]. He was like a deaf viper that stops its ears [alluding to Psalms 58:5]; he responded to no one. And the queen stood at his right to mislead him; she swayed him with her eloquence [alluding to Proverbs 7:21], to fulfill his plan from start to finish. We exerted ourselves and did not rest, I had no repose, no quiet, no rest, yet trouble came [alluding to Job 3:26]. And the people heard this evil thing, and they mourned, and in every place to which the command and the decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews [alluding to Esther 4:3]. And there was a great harsh and overcoming trembling. the likes of which had not been seen since the day of Judah’s exile from its soil to foreign soil. But everyone said to one another, “Let us be strong for the sake of our religion and for the sake of our God’s Torah, against the voice of the curser and the blasphemer, from the enemy and the avenger. If he will let us live, we shall live, and if he kills us, we shall die. We shall not profane our covenant, nor shall we let our hearts go backward. We will walk in the name of the Lord, our God. And they went with no strength, 300,000 people on foot, I being among them, from youths to the elderly, babies and women in one day [alluding to Esther 3:13] from all of the states of the king. They walked to where the wind took them, and their King went out before them, and the Lord was in front of them. One shall say, “I am the Lord’s,” another shall mark his arm “of the Lord” [alluding to Isaiah 44:5]. Some of them went to the kingdom of Portugal and to the kingdom of Narbonne, which were close to them. But behold, it was distress and darkness and outspread thick darkness [alluding to Isaiah 8:22]. And they were met with frequent and bad distress [alluding to Psalms 71:20], wreck and ruin, famine and the sword [alluding to Isaiah 51:19]. And there were some of them who made a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters [alluding to Isaiah 43:16]. But the hand of the Lord was also upon them to confound them and to destroy them. Since many of the children of the forsaken one [alluding to Isaiah 54:1] were sold as slaves and maidservants [alluding to Esther 7:4] in all the provinces of the nations. And many drowned in the Red Sea, they sank like lead in the majestic waters [alluding to Exodus 15:10). And some also were put through fire and water – since ships burnt down, and the great fire of the Lord consumed them [alluding to Numbers 11:1]. The end of the matter is that not a man was spared from His difficult judgments, some for the sword, some for captivity, and the Lord [also] placed pestilence upon them. And they became a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth [alluding to Deuteronomy 28:25) until they were wholly swept away by terrors [alluding to Psalms 73:19]. And only a few of the many remained. And it is like the statement of our ancestors: Lo, we perish; we are lost, all of us lost! (Numbers 17:27). May the name of the Lord be blessed. I have also chosen their way, the way of the ship in the heart of the seas. And I am amidst the exile, I have come with all of my household, the children are my children, the sheep are my sheep [alluding to Genesis 31:43], here in the praised city of Naples, whose kings are kings of kindness. This year, the year of you have been sojourners [gerim, alluding to Exodus 22:20, which has a numerical equivalent of that year], I spoke to my heart, “That which I have vowed will I fulfill, to write a commentary on the book of Kings, which I have not done until now.” Also because it is a time to act for the Lord, to remember the destruction of our holy and splendorous Temple and the exiles that have come over our people that are written in this book, and as I will explain, with the grace of God. Behold, if so, Hiel the Bethelite, in building Jericho, laid its foundations with his first-born and set its gates in place with his youngest [alluding to I Kings 16:34] – I am a man who has seen my poverty in the youngest of the exiles, and the expulsion that came over me, and that was my personal exile that I had from the Kingdom of Portugal. I then made the foundation and began the commentary on these four books. And in the most senior of the exiles and the saddest of them, which is this bitter hasty expulsion and this great and terrible persecution, which devoured us and discomfited us [alluding to Jeremiah 51:34] and expelled us from having a share in Spain [alluding to I Samuel 26:19] that both ears of anyone who hears about it will tingle [alluding to I Samuel 3:11], I have put the gates of the commentary of this book in place and have completed it. And I have seen fit to begin this book with two general and comprehensive prefaces about its stories.

AND THE ETERNAL SPOKE UNTO MOSES ‘LEIMOR’ (SAYING). The commentators⁴⁹R’dak in his Book of Roots, under the root amar (saying). said that throughout the entire Torah, the word leimor means “saying to Israel,” the purport thereof being that G-d said to Moses, “Say these, My words, to Israel.” Here the word leimor means “saying to Pharaoh.” But the verse stating [Laban’s words to Jacob], The G-d of your father spoke unto me yesternight ‘leimor’ (saying): Take heed to thyself that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad,⁵⁰Genesis 31:29. does not fit in correctly with this explanation [since Laban was not commanded to relate these words to Jacob]. Similarly, there are many cases in Scripture where the term “saying” is repeated, [and it is not correct to say that it means “saying it to others”]. Thus: And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them;⁵¹Leviticus 18:1-2. And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them;⁵²Numbers 15:37-8. And they [Moses and Aaron] spoke unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying;⁵³Ibid., 14:7. Here the word “saying” could not mean “saying it to others,” since Moses and Aaron were already speaking directly to the people. And the children of Israel spoke unto Moses, saying: Behold we perish;⁵⁴Ibid., 17:27. And I spoke unto you at that time, saying.⁵⁵Deuteronomy 1:9. There are many other such verses. Likewise in this seder⁵⁶The portion of the Torah assigned for reading on a particular Sabbath. See Vol. I, p. 15. we find: And the Eternal spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying: When Pharaoh will speak unto you, saying,⁵⁷Further, 7:8-9. and the word “saying” cannot correctly mean “saying it to others.”
The correct interpretation appears to me to be that in all places the word leimor indicates the clarification of a subject. The verse, And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying, means really explicitly, free from doubt or uncertainty. This is why this expression always appears in the Torah, for of Moses’ prophecy it was said, Mouth to mouth do I speak with him, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches.⁵⁸Numbers 12:8. And Laban also said to Jacob: “Yesternight G-d spoke unto me, saying⁵⁰Genesis 31:29. clearly that I should not harm you; except for that, I would have done you evil.” Similarly, the verse, And the children of Israel spoke unto Moses, saying: Behold, we perish,⁵⁴Ibid., 17:27. means that they said so explicitly to Moses and Aaron, shouting to them brazenly. [In Hebrew], the infinitive is used for clarification of a subject. Occasionally, it comes before the verb,⁵⁹Such as sachor s’charticha (I have surely hired thee), in Genesis 30:16. Here the infinitive sachor is written before the verb s’charticha. and sometimes it comes after the verb, such as: ‘omrim amor’ (they surely say) unto them that despise Me.⁶⁰Jeremiah 23:17. Here the infinitive amor is written after the verb omrim.

We have not perished. תָמְנוּ is] the same as תַמּוּ [ended].²¹I.e., in ‘the third person’ meaning ‘they have not perished.’ But according to Rashi’s second explanation, תמנו is in the ‘second person’ meaning ‘we have not perished.’ (Sifsei Chachomim) And some explain כִּי לֹא תָמְנוּ as in, “Will we ever stop תַּמְנוּ dying?”²²Bamidbar 17:28. It is the kindnesses of God that we were not annihilated, that we have not perished because of our sins.