예레미야 37:13의 인용 해설

He who is now thy ally, and will then become thy enemy, will fall.²⁹This explanation seems to be based on the meaning of the two prepositions אתך and את ;עליך with indicates alliance, friendship; על against, enmity and war. I take גור יגור in its usual meaning and explain the verse thus: Can there dwell any stranger with thee in my land, except it be with my will; he who desires to dwell with thee in my land, עליך יפול must surrender to thee.³⁰A. V., Shall fall for thy sake. The verb נפל has here the same meaning as in אל הכשדים אתה נופל thou fallest away to the Chaldӕans (Jer. 37:13); and in על פני כל אחיו נפל he surrendered to all his brethren (Gen. 25:18); namely: to submit to the authority of.³¹In his commentary on Gen. 23:18, I. E. gives three meanings of the verb נפל in the two passages quoted here: 1. His lot or portion fell. 2. He went away. 3. He died. The meaning adopted here to surrender, is not even mentioned there.

ויולד, he called the first one מחויאל with the letters ו and י, whereas the second one he called מחייאל with two letters י. The first one has dagesh in the letter ו and is read with the vowel kametz, whereas the second letter י in מחייאל is not heard. We have a similar example in Jeremiah 37,13. All the names mentioned here are a reminder of certain events in the lives of the fathers naming the sons. This was a very common method of people remembering important occurrences in their lives in former times. Sometimes, the Torah recorded the event in question, other times it did not. In Bereshit Rabbah 23,2 an attempt is made by Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi to see in these names proof of the father’s rebellious attitude. [Basically, according to this line of approach, the names reflected the fact that Chanoch, or the respective father naming his son, wished for the name of G’d to be uprooted from the earth. Ed.]