이사야 59:16의 인용 해설

and I was astounded An expression of keeping silent, and I have already explained it above (57:16): “And He was astounded for there was no intercessor.”

ואשתומם And I wondered. Compare my explanation of וישתומם (59:16)

And after that he said, “Remember the days of old.” You, the stingy and ungenerous one, who finds it difficult to believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, would do something out of generosity without expecting payment in return, Remember the days of old, the days in which the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world. For in this, you must at least acknowledge that the world is built on kindness (Psalms 89:3). For before the world was created, He, blessed be He, was alone, and His existence was self-sufficient, not needing any other being since nothing else existed yet. And if so, in the days of the world’s creation, when He created His world, He certainly did not create it except out of the generosity of His heart and His will, as it is written, the world is built on kindness.
Consider the years of generation after generation. Rashi explains this refers to the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion [Tower of Babel], for in these two generations the deeds of all inhabitants of the world were corrupted. With this, the verse seeks to strengthen what was said: He made you and established you, for if He needed your deeds, how did the Holy One, blessed be He, act during these two corrupted generations who destroyed and made abominable their ways on earth? And God saw that there was no man, etc., and His arm saved for Him, and His righteousness sustained Him (Isaiah 59:16). He received no benefit from any being, and in these generations, the world returned to chaos and void, yet nevertheless, He, blessed be He, made it and established it on its foundation as at the beginning, lacking nothing.
Therefore it says Consider, in response to calling them “unwise children,” wanting to prove their foolishness from He made you and established you. And now He returns to prove that they lack wisdom and understanding, from what is written: Consider the years of generation after generation, for they are not a people of understanding who have not considered the years of generation after generation.

be not discouraged Heb. אַל תִּשְׁתָּע. Let your heart not melt like wax (שַׁעֲוָה). This is the rule: Every word whose first radical is ‘shin,’ when it is used in the reflexive present, past, or future, the ‘tav’ separates it and enters between the first two radicals. Comp. (infra 49:16) “And He was astounded (וַיַּשְׁתּוֹמֵם)”; (Micah 6:16) “For the statutes of Omri shall be observed (וְיִשְׁתַּמֵּר)”; (I Sam. 1: 14) “will you be drunk (תִּשְׁתַּכָּרִין)?”; (Job 30:16) “My soul is poured out (תִּשְׁתַּפֵּךְ).”

משתאה means he was astonished and perplexed, because he saw that what he had said was nearly successful only that he did not know whether she belonged to Abraham’s family or not. Do not be puzzled by the ת in the word משתאה for you will find no word (verb) whose first root letter is ש where, when it is used in the Hithpael, the ת of the Hithpael-prefix does not come between the first two letters of the root, as e.g. משתאה (here) and (Isaiah 59:15) משתולל of the same root as שולל, and (Isaiah 59:16) וישתומם of the same root as שממה and (Micha 6:16) “For the statutes of Omri are kept (וישתמר )” from the same root as וישמר —so, also, here משתאה is of the same root as תשאה. Now, just as you find the expression שמם (which really means waste and desolate) applied to a person who is perplexed and speechless (with amazement) and sunk in deep thought (about what is happening) — e. g., (Job 18:20) “They that come after shall be astonished (נשמו) at his day”, and (Jeremiah 2:12) “Be astonished (שומו) ye heavens”, and (Daniel 4:16) “He was appalled אשתומם for a time” — so too you may explain the expression שאה (which also really means waste and desolate) in all its verbal or noun forms as referring to a person who is perplexed and sunk deep in thought. Onkelos translates it in the sense of lingering — “the man lingered” — i. e. he wailed, standing on one spot, to see “whether God had made his journey prosperous”. But one should not read in the Targum שתי in place of שהי, as the Targum of משתאה, (as evidently some versions of the Targum read), for the word משתאה certainly does not mean drinking, for א has no place in the Hebrew words which mean drinking root (שתה).