Commento su Isaia 33:27

Woe To the enemy, that you constantly spoil, but you are not spoiled, and you constantly deal treacherously, but no man deals treacherously with you or spoils you.

הוי Ho!¹See c. i., note 13. Interjection of calling. The prophet addresses Assyria.

when you finish being a spoiler, when you finish your spoiling of those upon whom it was decreed to be spoiled by you, you shall be spoiled.

כהתמך שודד when thou shalt have finished spoiling.

when you finish dealing treacherously (כַּנְּלֹתְךָ) Menahem classified כַּנְלֹתְךָ with (Job 15: 29) “And their destruction (מִנְלָם) shall not fall to the earth,” in one group (Machbereth Menahem, p. 123). In the word מִנְלָם, the first ‘mem’ is a radical which sometimes is absent, like the ‘mem’ of מַאֲמָר, a statement, and of מַדָּע, knowledge, and it is possibly an expression of ending, according to the context.

כהנלותך ═ כנלותך When thou shalt have finished.²A. V., When thou shalt cease to spoil. When thou shalt make an end. Of the same root is מנלם the perfection thereof (Job. 15:29)

כַּנְּלֹתְךָ is an expression of ‘when you finish.’ “And מִנְלָם shall not fall to the earth,” the destruction decreed upon them shall not fall to the earth to become progressively void, but will become progressively stronger.

Be their arm of the spoiled ones in the hand of the spoiler. (Note that we followed other editions of Rashi. Nach Lublin is erroneous in this passage.)

O Lord, etc. This was to be the prayer of the righteous at the time of the invasion of the Assyrian king; the prayer is given here as a prophecy.

every morning Daily, when they are in straits, also You be our salvation in time of trouble.

Their arm. The arm of the soldiers.

From the sound of roaring that emanated from before You, peoples wandered until here when You performed wondrous miracles for us.

The tumult of Assyria.

מרממתך By Thy honour.³A. V., At the lifting up of thyself. The honour which Thou hast given him.

And your booty shall be gathered This refers back to “when you finish dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with you,” and your booty, you, who spoil My people, when your reckoning comes, the remnant of My people shall plunder you and gather your booty like the gathering of locusts, each one of whom gathers grain for himself in summer; here too, each one will plunder for himself.

Your spoil. Those of you that have become a spoil of the nations; the possessive pronoun your refers to the Israelites, of whom the king of Assyria carried a part away into captivity.⁴The possessive pronoun your has here the same meaning as the partitive genitive.

like the roaring of the cisterns Like the sound of the roar of water gathering and falling into the cisterns in the river, so will those coming to plunder and pillage, roar. מַשַּׁק is an expression of roaring. Comp. (Prov. 28:15) “A roaring lion and a growling (שׁוֹקֵק) bear.” Also (Zeph. 2:9), “The noise (מִמְשַׁק) of the thorns.” When the wind blows on the thorns, and they knock against one another, they produce a sound. Comp. also, (Joel 2:9) “In the city they roar (יָשֹׁקּוּ).”

גבים Locusts. Comp. גובא in Chaldee, meaning the same as ארבה locusts in Hebrew.

cisterns (גֵּבִים) like (supra 30: 14) “or to scoop water from a cistern (מִגֶּבֶא).” Our Sages expounded it in the Aggadah of Chapter Chelek (San. 94b) as referring to the booty of Sennacherib’s soldiers.

שוקק Gathering.⁵A. V., Shall he run. They shall jostle.⁵A. V., Shall he run. They shall jostle. Some think that משק the steward (Gen. 15:2) is of the same root. I compare it rather with ישתקשקון they gather themselves (Nah. 2:5), which expression is likewise used of locusts.

for He dwells on high He demonstrated His might, that He is exalted above all, and He has the upper hand.

The Lord, etc. The divine glory, that revealeth itself in Zion.⁶This remark is introduced to explain the anthropomorphism, because in reality the Lord cannot be exalted.

And the faith of your times, etc. And it shall be for you for strength of salvations and for wisdom and knowledge, that you will be faithful to your Creator concerning the times that He set for you for terumoth and tithes at the time of their separation, for gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and the corner of the field in their time, to leave them over for the poor, to keep release years and jubilee years in their time. Another explanation is: faith of your times What you believed in the Holy One, blessed be He, in times that passed over you, and you hoped for salvation, shall become your strength.

Thy times. The pronoun refers to Judah.

fear of the Lord That you shall fear Him - that is a good treasure to open up for you from before Him.

חכמת The wisdom of. Some noun must be supplied.⁷The form חָכְמַת instead of חָכְמָה is perhaps caused by a kind of attraction of the similar form דַעַת which is often used in the absolute state.

His treasure. The treasure of strength of salvation.

Behold [for] their altar they have cried in the street The prophet was prophesying consolations and saying that the retribution had already been completed, and from now I will rise and exalt Myself to redeem them. Behold for their Arel - that is the altar (see above 29:1) - they have already cried and lamented in their streets and in their squares with weeping and wailing.

אראלם According to some their altar; comp. אריאל (29:1); if this were correct, we should have to supply על for, but this explanation is not in accord with the whole context of the chapter. Others say, that אראה להם ═ אראלם I shall see them; this is not probable. I think that it means their messenger, as we may infer from the ambassadors of peace in the second half of the verse. Comp. 2 Sam. 23:20.⁸This proof, based upon 2) אריאל Sam. 23:20), is not convincing, since the plural would be required, if it were, as I. E. believes, a common noun, meaning messenger.—All the messengers of the nations, that are desirous of peace, will weep when Assyria has dominion.

ambassadors of peace And the ambassadors whom they send, who were wont to bring tidings of peace, cry bitterly and say, “Highways have become desolate, the wayfarer has stopped.”

he has abrogated the treaty The enemy has abrogated the treaty he made with Israel.

The highways lie waste. For the king of Assyria will not be faithful to his treaties with other nations.

despised cities He despised in his eyes; no enemy considers any man.

He regardeth no man. He does not esteem any person to be worth anything in comparison with himself.

mourns (אָבֵל) an expression of mourning.

אבל אמללה ארץ The earth mourneth and languisheth. ארץ is sometimes used as a masculine noun; comp. 9:18. This phrase⁹אבל אמללה ארץ both אבל as well as אמללה are predicates to ארץ; nevertheless the first is masculine, the second feminine. overthrows the rule laid down by R. Moses Hakkohen (Job 20:26), that words which can be used both as masculine and feminine nouns, cannot be joined with a feminine attribute, after having been joined with a masculine one in the same phrase.

it was cut off Dried and cut off.

החפיר לבנון¹⁰The Hebrew text has לשון; this gives no sense, and is evidently a corruption of לבנון. He—the king of Assyria—put the Lebanon to shame.¹¹A. V., "Lebanon is ashamed." החפיר is transitive. קמל Till it was hewn down.

became (הָיָה, lit. was.) This is the past tense.

השרון Sharon. Comp. Song 2:1.

the Sharon The name of a region of pasture for animals, as we learned (Men. 87a): Rams from Moab, calves from Sharon.

ונער בשן וכרמל And Bashan and Karmel shake off. Comp. נעור shaken (Neh. 5:13)

like the plain a ruin.

have become emptied (וְנֹעֵר) An expression of shaking out. Comp. (Ex. 14:27): “And the Lord shook (וַיְנַעֵר).”

Now I will rise Because of the many evils the enemy perpetrated against My people, I will no longer restrain Myself; now I will rise, be raised and be exalted.

Now, that he has already destroyed too much, will I rise.

אתרומם═ ארומם will I be exalted. It is Hithpael; the ר should have a Dagesh¹²The ר being subject to the same rule as the gutturals, with regard to the Dagesh, its reduplication is replaced by the change of the short vowel (Segol) into a long one (Zere). to compensate for the omission of the ת, as the נ of אֶנָּשֵׂא has.¹³To compensate for the omission of the אֶנְנָשֵׂא ═ אֶנָּשֵׂא ;נ.

chaff (חֲשַׁשׁ) a kind of chaff, something that is easily ignited.

Ye shall conceive. Assyria is addressed.

your breath is fire From your body shall emanate breath of fire and will consume the chaff and the stubble.

חשש Chaff. The word has the same meaning in Arabic.

רוחכם אש תאכלכם According to some: Your breath, as fire, shall devour you. It is more correctly considered as the continuation of the preceding figure of the chaff and stubble: Your wind, will not lift you up,¹⁴The wind, which will blow for you, will not raise you, as it raises chaff and stubble. but, like fire, utterly destroy you.

severed (כְּסוּחִים) Comp. (Lev. 25:4) “You shall not prune.” Onkelos renders: לָא תִכְסָח.

As the burnings of lime. As if they were burnt by lime.—This refers to the sudden destruction of the Assyrian army through the angel, as is the case with the next simile as thorns cut off, which are burnt¹⁵A. V., Shall they be burnt. in the fire.

you far-off ones Those who believe in Me and do My will from their youth.

Ye, that are near. The Israelites are addressed, as may be inferred from the next verse, The sinners in Zion etc.

you near ones Repentant sinners who have recently drawn near to Me.

Sinners in Zion were afraid How they would find an opening to repent.

The sinners in Zion are afraid. They will be afraid of the Lord, when they see His power displayed in the destruction of the Assyrian army; then will they say: Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire, with the Lord, who is like the devouring fire, that is, in Zion, where the divine glory manifests itself. The prophet replies.

Who will stand up for us against a consuming fire? (lit., Who will live for us a consuming fire?) I.e., who will stand up for us to appease burning wrath? Alternatively, who among us will dwell, i.e., who among us will dwell in Zion with the Rock, Who is a consuming fire? And he replies, “He who walks righteously, etc.”

He who walks righteously Who will be found? One who walks righteously.

He that walketh, etc. בצדקות ═ צדקות In righteousness.

who shakes his hands (eskot in O.F.).

אוטם That stoppeth. Comp. יאטם that stoppeth (Ps. 58:5); although the two words are of two different conjugations.¹⁶עוצם is Kal, ויעצם Piel of אוטם ;עצם Kal, יאטם Hiphil of אטם.¹⁶עוצם is Kal, ויעצם Piel of אוטם ;עצם Kal, יאטם Hiphil of אטם.

closes his ear (אֹטֵם) Comp. (I Kings 6:4) “transparent but closed (אֲטֻמִים).”

ועוצם And shutteth. Comp. ויעצם and he shut, though not of the same conjugation.

and closes (וְעֹצֵם) Comp. (supra 29:10) “And He has closed (וַיְעַצֵּם) your eyes.”

his bread shall be given He will not seek bread, for it will be supplied to him from heaven.

He, who does all this,

his water sure The source of his water will not fail. I.e., his seed will become great, and all his wants will be supplied.

shall dwell on high, etc., shall dwell in Zion in safety, as if he dwelt, etc.

לחמו נתן His bread, bread, sufficient for his sustenance, shall be given him.

נאמנים Sure. Lit. faithful. The water will not deceive his hope, will not fail. He will dwell in peace and be satisfied.

The King in His beauty shall your eyes behold (The Holy One, blessed be He, Who is a King, Him you shall see from a distant land where you are standing. You shall see the miracles and the greatness that I will perform for you, and a people of a strange tongue, of obscure speech, shall not see the Shechinah of the King in His beauty. [This does not appear in many editions.])

Thine eyes shall see the king, etc. The prophet brings these words back to the memory of Judah;¹⁷The Hebrew text has the words אלה דברי הנביא כאומר יזכור יהודה lit., These are the words of the prophet, as if he said, that Judah should remember. The remark of I. E. on ver. 15 begins likewise with the phrase אלה דברי הנביא these are the words of the prophet. This introduction is there an essential part of the explanation, since part of the preceding verse was assigned to the people; but this verse does not require an introduction of this kind. A comparison of this remark with ידבר בנפשו (ver. 18) leads to the suggestion, that instead of הנביא another word, signifying the messenger, or the officer, is to be read, as, e.g., הסופר the secretary, that wrote down how much each had to contribute, and who was to carry the tribute to the king of Assyria; comp. ver. 18 and 22. The words of this verse were, as distinctly stated by I. E., addressed to Judah by the Assyrian officers. when the messengers of the king of Assyria came for the tribute, and Hezekiah, after having delivered up all the treasures of the temple, imposed besides a tax on Judah for that purpose, they said, who of the princes of Hezekiah will come with us, to bring this tribute to the king of Assyria? thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is far off, the land of Assyria, that is far from Jerusalem.

The King in His beauty shall your eyes behold. To you, O righteous man, I say that you shall merit to see the splendor of the Shechinah of the Omnipresent.

they shall see [from] a distant land Jonathan renders: You shall look and see those who go down to the land of Gehinnom.

Your heart shall meditate [in] fear When you see the princes and the savants of the heathens, who ruled during their lifetime, and who are now being judged in Gehinnom, your heart will meditate in terror, and you will say, “Where is the wisdom and the greatness of these men? Where is the one who, during his lifetime, would count and weigh every word of wisdom, for they would ask him every counsel of the kingdom?

Thine heart shall meditate, etc. These are the prophet’s own words.¹⁸The words ידבר בנפשו he speaks his own words, are contrasted with the introductory phrase of the preceding remark, These are the words of the Assyrian officer, which the prophet brings back to the memory of Judah.

Where is he who counts the towers This too is a matter of the kingdom. He is appointed over the houses of the kingdom, how many they are, and how many towers a certain city requires. Comp. (Ps. 48:13) “Encircle Zion and surround it, count its towers,” how many towers it requires.

סופר The scribe who writes down, how much every one shall contribute.

סופר He that counted. Comp. מספר the number, He that counted the towers. They taxed even the towers.

A people of a strange tongue (נוֹעָז) like לוֹעֵז. These are all the heathens, whose language is not the holy tongue. ([Other editions read:] These are Assyria and Babylon, whose language is not the holy tongue.) ([Manuscripts read:] These are all the nations whose language is not the holy tongue.)

נועז We cannot say, whether the נ is radical, or the characteristic prefix of the Niphal; the word is hap. leg.; it means a stranger or a strange man; to consider לועז═נועז speaking a foreign language, is incorrect.

you shall not see You shall not esteem in your heart, for they shall all be dark and humble.

נלעג לשון Mocked for his tongue.¹⁹A. V., Of a stammering tongue. People usually laugh at a language, which they cannot understand.

speech... obscure (שָׂפָה, lit. lip.) Comp. (Gen. 11:1) “And all the land was one speech (שָׂפָה).”

of stammering tongue (נִלְעָג לָשׁוֹן). Comp. (32:4) “The tongue of the stammerers (לְשׁוֹן עִלְּגִים),” (and of obscure speech. All this is a foreign language, for they do not understand the holy tongue.)

See Zion But whom will you see in your heart to be regarded as a kingdom and a ruling power? Zion, which is the city of our meeting place.

Look upon Zion, etc. We need not look at the king of Assyria, we should rather look at Zion.

that shall not fall (יִצְעָן) shall not be lowered. Comp. (Jud. 4:11) “Elon-bezaanannim (אֵלוֹן בְּצַעֲנַנִּים),” which is rendered as: the plain of pits (מִישׁוֹר אַגְנַיָּא), which are pits in the fields, called kombes in O.F. Comp. (Baba Kamma 61b) “The pits of the earth (אַגְנֵי דְאַרְעָא) they are considered,” where water gathers from the mountains and the hills. I believe that the ‘beth’ of the word בְּצַעֲנַנִּים is not radical, but is a prefix.

מועדנו It has here its usual meaning: our solemnities or our sanctuary; comp. מעדי אל The synagogues of God (Ps. 74:8).

whose pegs shall never be moved (יִסַּע) The pegs with which they tie the ropes of the tent he shall not move them from the earth, from the place into which they are thrust. Comp. (I Kings 5:31) “And they quarried (וַיַּסִּעוּ) great stones.” Also (Jud. 16:3), “And he plucked them (וַיִּסּעֵם) together with the bolt,” an expression of uprooting.

כאהל═אהל As a tent.²⁰A. V., A tabernacle.

יצען Hap. leg. It means, shall fall.²¹A. V., Shall be taken down.

יתדותיו ובל יסע Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed.²²The combination of the singular יסע and the plural יתדותיו is explained in this remark, by considering יתד מיתדותיו ═ יתדותיו. See c. ii., note 18. חבליו The cords thereof.

But there ‘But’ refers back to ‘whose pegs shall never be moved,’ and ‘shall not be torn.’ The evil shall not be, only the good. There the Lord shall be mighty for us, and the city shall be a place of rivers and streams, in the manner it is said in Ezekiel (47:4f.): “And He measured a thousand (cubits), and He led me...a stream that I could not cross.” And so did Joel prophesy (4:18) “And a spring shall emanate from the house of the Lord,” that it shall become progressively stronger.

But there, etc. This tent shall not be removed, but God will be there unto us as a stronghold, like a place surrounded by rivers.

a galley with oars a ship that floats on the water.

נהרים יארים Rivers, streams. Asyndeton; comp. שמש ירח sun, moon (Hab. 3:11).

and a great ship (וְצִי אַדִּיר) and a great ship [from Jonathan].

ידים Space.²³רחבי ידים Wide of space, that is, spacious, or broad. A place of broad rivers.²⁴I. E. explains why the plural rivers is used here. A place surrounded on all sides by rivers, בל תלך בו וגו׳ wherein shall go no, etc.²⁵The incongruity of the singular בו with the plural יארים, to which it refers, is explained in the usual way. See c. ii., note 18. None of the rivers will be passed by any ships with oars; the people will have no cause for fear, either from the sea or from the continent. Thus this verse contrasts with the words Thine heart meditates terror (ver. 18)

For the Lord is our judge Our prince and judge.

For the Lord is our judge, etc. There will be no judge to say to this person and that pay so and so much for the tribute, nor will any scribe write down, who shall go to the king with the tribute; for the Lord alone will be our judge, our scribe,²⁶A. V., Lawgiver. and our king.

Your ropes that draw the ship, you sinful city. ([Mss. yield:] you, sinful Rome.)

Thy tacklings. The Assyrian army is adressed.

properly prepared well.

נטשו Are loosed. Comp. ונמשתה thou shalt let it lie still²⁷Lit., And thou shalt let loose of it; that is, thou shalt not take hold of it, to till it, and to do the usual work therein. (Ex. 23:11). The meaning of this figure is: the ship will go down, and her riches will then be thrown out again by the sea.

a sail Heb. נס, the sail of a ship.

תרנם וגו׳ בל יחזקו כן They, that is, the sailors, cannot strengthen their mast, nor spread the sail.²⁸A. V., They could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail. עד שלל The prey of a spoil. Comp. אדמת עפר the dust of the earth (Dan. 12:2).²⁹See c. xxx., note 18. עד Spoil. Comp. Gen. 49:27.

they did not spread out a sail They will not be able to spread the sail that guides the boat.

הרבה ═ מרבה Great. The lame shall take prey. How much more the others.

then plunder [and] booty were divided (עד) related to עֲדָאָה, plunder, in Aramaic.

lame Israel, who were weak until now.

by many Many will divide the plunder of the heathens. ([Mss. yield:] the plunder of Edom.) ([Others:] the nations.) ([Still others:] Sennacherib.)

And the neighbor shall not say (I.e., the neighbor of) Israel.

And the inhabitant of Zion shall not say again, I am sick; for all the people shall be forgiven their iniquity.

“I am sick” Because of this nation, this misfortune has befallen me, for The people Israel, who is called a people, that dwells in Jerusalem, shall be forgiven of sin.