Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Kejadian 4:8

“And a new king arose over Egypt, etc.” The term “arising” we do not find with a king, for it should have said “and a new king reigned over Egypt” — what is meant by “arose”? It seems that the term “arising” applies to someone who rises up against his fellow to harm him, as it is written And Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him (Genesis 4:8). And it is written: For as when a man rises against his neighbor and murders him (Deuteronomy 22:26), similarly this tyrannical king, through the schemes he devised against Israel against the will of God, blessed be He — even though he saw that God was with them in that they were being fruitful and multiplying in an unnatural way, nevertheless he wanted to outsmart the Blessed One. Through this, he caused God to return his schemes upon his own head through the plagues of wrath and anger that God sent upon them, as it is written: Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed? (Exodus 10:7) From this, it seems as if he [the king] arose against them [the Egyptians] to bring all those plagues upon the Egyptians.

לא תרצח. Wherever the term רציחה appears it refers to killing without adequate justification. A deliberate murderer is to be executed as we know from Numbers 35,16-16. Similar verses in Kings I 21,19 when King Achav had framed someone resulting in judicial murder is also included in this definition of לא תרצח, [though he could have claimed that Naval, the victim, could have been found innocent by the judges. Ed.] When the terms הריגה, or מיתה are used to describe killing this means that there was no excuse for the killer to commit his act. (compare Kayin slaying his brother in Genesis 4,8) On the other hand, in Leviticus 20,16 where the Torah decrees והרגת את האשה, this refers to judicial killing for cause. Concerning the use of the word רוצח, murderer, in Deuteronomy 4,42 as applicable to someone who killed inadvertently, the reason why the Torah used this term there was only because in the same context deliberate murder was also discussed. This is my answer to the heretics who have admitted to me that the Latin translation of the Bible describing רציחה “killing,” without distinction as to the reason for the killing, is sloppy, most inaccurate. They were so careless in spit of the fact that in their “own” books such as Deuteronomy 32,39 we have the line אני אמית ואחיה, “it is I Who kill and resurrect,” showing that the Torah uses different expressions describing different kinds of killing.

ואנשי קדש תהיון לי, “and people of holiness shall you be for Me.” Actually we would have expected to find the word קדושים, “holy” in the plural, seeing the subject are אנשים, “men,” in the plural. The verse alludes to the fact that the spiritual concept כנסת ישראל, the community of Israel as a collective unit, is the true strength of Israel. The reason this concept is called קדש, holy, is that it is a direct derivative of the emanation חכמה which has its origin in the letter י of the tetragrammaton, the name י-ה-ו-ה. This is the reason the Torah had to add the word לי, “for Me,” The meaning of the word לי in this verse is similar to the meaning of the word לי in Exodus 25,2 ויקחו לי תרומה, “they shall take a heave-offering for Me,” (i.e. bring contributions for the construction of the Holy Tabernacle.”) Israel are considered as if sanctified for the Holy Name of Hashem. Seeing that their spiritual level is so high, they are not to eat meat of diseased or mutilated animals as that meat is the product of the destructive powers rampant in the universe, the power which opposes sanctity and holiness.
The Torah adds the word בשדה, “in the field,” in order to underline the origin of such treifah meat. Esau’s predominantly evil nature had been described by the Torah as איש שדה, “a man of the field,” i.e. he represented the murderous instincts of Kayin the first murderer, whose evil deed was described by the Torah as occurring בשדה, “in the field” (Genesis 4,8). This is another reason that the dogs are entitled to eat this meat as their characteristic is close to that of Esau’s.