시편 118:10의 인용 해설

והוא ישב ממלי AND THEY ARE STATIONED OPPOSITE ME — ממלי is written deficient in the ו (the full form is ממולי, so that it may be connected with מול “to cut off”) — they are near enough to cut me off. The word is the same as in (Psalms 118:10): “that I shall cut them off (אמילם)” (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 4).

מול heißt aber durchaus nicht allgemein schneiden, beschneiden, kommt vielmehr in diesem Sinne nur in Beziehung zur Mila vor. מול heißt: gegenüber, הוא יושב ממולי (Bamidbar 25, 57); אְַמִילַם (Ps. 118, 10) entgegentreten, "es ist im Namen Gottes, daß ich ihnen entgegentrete": Somit heißt מול als Verbum: entgegentreten, beschränken, und wenn es in Verbindung mit ערלה: abschneiden heißt, wofür ja auch das ותכרת את ערלת בנה (Schmot 4, 25) die Bestätigung gibt, so ist das Schneiden nur das Mittel, Zweck und Absicht ist: der ערלה entgegenzutreten, sie zu beschränken; richtiger vielmehr: dem בשר ערלה durch Abschneiden, Entfernen der ערלה entgegenzutreten, es in die gebührende Schranke zurückzuweisen. Die ערלה wird abgeschnitten, das בשר, das sonst בשר ערלה wäre, wird dadurch מול, beschränkt, ihm wird entgegengetreten. —

ככל הגוים אשר סביבותי, ‘like all the nations around me.” The reason for the word סביבותי, “surrounding me,” is that seeing the land of Israel straddles the “middle” line of the terrestrial, lower world, this means that all the other nations are situated all around that nation. We find a verse expressing a similar thought describing “Jerusalem as amid the nations I have placed it and the nations are all around it” (Ezekiel 5,5). If this is correct then the Jewish nation dwells literally surrounded by the seventy nations which populate the globe. This is why the Torah wrote here ”like all the nations around me.” David also employs such wording in Psalms 118,10: ”all the nations who are around me (threateningly), by the name of the Lord, I will cut them down.” This refers to the fact that both on earth and in the celestial regions Israel is located centrally, surrounded in those regions by the seventy protective angels of those nations who flank the כנסת ישראל from all sides. This reflects a statement by Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer chapter 24 that G’d invited the 70 ministering angels which surround His throne to confuse the language of the various nations. This is the vision (Kings I 22,19) described by the prophet Michayu: “I saw the Lord seated on His throne with all the host of the heaven standing around Him to the right and to the left of Him.” This was a reference to these 70 angels who represent the nations of the world. The ones on the right of the throne represent celestial forces who cite Israel’s merits whereas the ones on the left are perceived as citing demerits. Psalms 89,8 reflects a similar thought when David says: “held in awe all around Him.” Keeping all this in mind David said in Psalms 118, 8-10: “it is better to put one’s trust in the Lord rather than in man; it is better to take refuge in the Lord rather than in the great; all the nations which surround me have beset me; etc.“ The nations besetting me” are these seventy Gentile nations. G’d will cut them all down, i.e. "“in the name of the Lord I will cut them down.”