창세기 21:16의 주석

מנגד means some distance away.

ותלך, after she had thrown Ishmael under one of the small trees, she went away a distance and sat down.

And she went to sit across from him: A second time, to indicate that she distanced herself more than a bowshot, since she wanted to cry out loud. But she did not want the child to hear her crying; as this is hard for a sick person - whether he will recover or whether he will die. Hence she distanced herself further and she raised her voice and cried.

From afar. Here, נגד does not follow its simple meaning (“in front of”) for if so, why would Scripture need to tell us this? But it is understandable if it means “from afar,” because the verse goes on to give a reason: “She said, ‘Let me not see the lad die.’” We find נגד meaning “in front of,” as in (Tehillim 16:8): “I have placed Hashem in front of me (לנגדי) constantly,” where it has the connotation of closeness. Yet in our verse, following נגד comes the word הרחק, meaning “distant,” one term contradicting the other. Therefore, Rashi explains that מִנגד means the opposite of נגד. It is like saying מִן נגד, the prefix מִ is like מִן. It conveys that she did not sit close, in front of the child. She sat from afar, about two bow-shots away.

כמטחוי קשת AS IT WERE A BOWSHOT — about two bowshots (since the first word is really plural) (Genesis Rabbah 53:13). The word signifies shooting an arrow — we find it so used in the Mishna (Sanhedrin 46a). If you say that it should have been written כמטחי קשת (since the root is טחה) then I say that it is quite regular for a ו to be inserted in these forms as (Song 2:14) “in the clefts (בחנוי) of the rock”, where בחנוי is of the same derivation as חנא in (Isaiah 19:17) “And the land of Judah shall become a breach (לחנא) to Egypt” and of the same derivation as יחונו in (Psalms 107:27) “They reeled (וחונו) to and fro and staggered like a drunken man”. Similar, also, is (Psalms 65:6) “The ends of (קצוי) the earth” which is of the same derivation as ,קצה, end.

הרחק, the word is in the infinitive instead of in the past tense, the reason being that while she did distance herself she wanted not to be so far away that she would be totally unaware of what happened to Ishmael.

ותשב מנגד SHE SAT AT A DISTANCE — (this is the second time that it is so said) — now that he came nearer to death she moved further away from him.

כמטחוי קשת, the root of the word is טחוה, the construction being a combination participle and something especially emphasised, such as by means of a dagesh. The meaning is the distance a bow can be tensed for the arrow to be shot to the furthest point of its range. Possibly, the word כמטחוי is a noun.