Commentaire de citation sur Samuel 2 15:32

And since these three caused the destruction and removal of the Divine Presence, therefore He commanded to distance them from the camp so they would not defile their camps, because wherever they are present, the Holy One, blessed be He, removes His Divine Presence from there, as the place is “called impure, impure.” A hint to this matter is the letter tet [numerical value nine] in the word tamei [impure], which alludes to bloodshed [shefichut damim] of one who is born after nine months. For this reason there were six cities of refuge, and it is written you shall add three more cities (Deuteronomy 19:9). In total nine, no more, for the reason that has been explained. The letter mem [numerical value 40] in tamei alludes to sexual immorality [giluy arayot], as the flood waters were 40 days because they troubled their Creator to form bastards during the 40 days of fetal formation. The letter alef in tamei alludes to idolatry [avodah zarah], which affects the oneness of the blessed God that is hinted at in the letter alef. Therefore, King David called the evil inclination impure (Sukkah 52b) because it caused him to stumble in all three: sexual immorality with Bathsheba, bloodshed with Uriah the Hittite, and idolatry as they learned (in Sanhedrin 107a) from the verse When David reached the summit (Second Samuel 15:32) — he sought to worship idolatry, etc. And there is also impurity in them, because idolatry defiles like a menstruant woman, as it says You will cast them away like a menstruous cloth (Isaiah 30:22). Therefore, He alluded in the removal of these three impure people to the removal of these three cardinal sins that cause the removal of the Divine Presence. And He connected to this section a man or woman who commits any sin to indicate that the removal of the impure is also because of their sin, as mentioned.

בהמלו בשר ערלתו, if we were to say that the word בהמלו is in a passive mode. We would have to ask how it could conclude with the pronoun ו which introduces an action by him on the flesh of his foreskin. We never find that a passive mode is followed immediately by an active mode. If, on the other hand, we are to understand the word בהמלו as standing on its own, without direct relationship to the words בשר ערלתו, or if the Torah had written בהמול בשר ערלתו without the pronoun ו, we would not have a problem with the text as it is before us. One could perhaps resolve the problem of the text that we have by saying that the expression בהמלו describes a condition Avraham experienced as a result of his foreskin having been circumcised. We encounter a similar construction in Isaiah 1,30 where the word נובלת describes the condition of leaves of the tree described, i.e. they are shriveled or have wilted. The word is an intransitive verb, and the terebinth referred to as the trunk to which these leaves belonged is certainly not subject to wilting or shriveling. One could argue similarly, that Avraham was now considered נמול, (verse 26) circumcised, seeing that the flesh of his foreskin had been removed. In a similar manner we can also understand the words קרועי בגדים in Samuel II 13,31. The clothes of the men (David's servants) were torn, not the men themselves. The same is true of Samuel II 15,32 where the word קרוע does not refer to Chushai but to his tunic which was torn. Jeremiah 41,5 has a similar construction, מגולחי describes the condition of these men after their beards had been shaved off.