하박국 2:19의 인용 해설

Be still. Selah: – His meaning is: “Be silent, and cease to rebel against me;” for “stillness” has the sense of silence of speech and voice, as “They kept still for my counsel” (Job 29:21); “stillness and a voice I heard” (ibid. 4:16). There is also (a stillness) which is (equivalent to) silence of action and movement, as “He turneth the storm to stillness” (Ps. 107:29); “my bowels boil and are not still” (Job 30:27); “and the sun stood still” (Josh. 10:13); “Be still (tarry) until we come unto you” (1 Sam. 14:9); “To the still stone” (Hab. 2:19), and (other instances) similar to these. And of this meaning is (the sentence) Be still: Selah, as though to say: “Cease you from your works.” And the great teacher of righteousness, our master Moses ben Maimon, has explained (Guide for the Perplexed, Bk. 1:50, 59) that this verse commands men of intelligence and reputation to recognise the truth and the praise of God in their hearts, so that no error of speech shall overtake them. But this is not (derived) from the sense of the Psalm.

NOR DO THEY EAT, NOR SMELL. The purport thereof is to state that they [the idols] remain inanimate stones⁹⁸Habakkuk 2:19. as they were to begin with, having no spirit of life at all, not even mortal life, as does man. For at first he said, which neither see, nor hear, meaning that they are not G-d and see not the suffering of their servants, nor hear their prayers, nor save them from their troubles.⁹⁹See Isaiah 46:7. And then he went back and said that they do not even have the inferior [mortal] life of man. Thus the one who makes them is more honored than they. Or perhaps the sense of the verse is in relation to the honor of the Supreme One, the verse thus stating: “which neither see the suffering of their worshippers, nor hear their prayers, nor eat, since no fire ever comes out from before them and consumes their offerings,¹⁰⁰A reference to Leviticus 9:24. The fire from heaven, which descended upon the offerings placed on the altar, indicated that G-d’s Presence was in their midst (see also I Kings 18:38). Such a miracle never occurred among idol-worshippers. nor smell their [offerings’] sweet odors.”¹⁰¹See Leviticus 26:31. Now Scripture adopted the general usage of language, but in fact the idols have none of these senses.