Comentários de Citação sobre Isaías 13:20

אל ארץ המוריה, “to the land of Moriah;” the proper spelling should have been האמוריה; it is not unusual for the Torah to omit the consonant aleph, when it would have been silent anyways, one example being Exodus 10,21 וימש חושך instead of .ויאמש חושך [This missing letter א is not unusual, for instance it occurs in Isaiah 13.20] לא יהל ערבי instead of לא יאהל ערבי, “no Arab shall pitch his tent.”

המוריה, same as האמוריה, “the land of the Emorite.” It happens frequently that the letter א is missing, just as in our verse. One such example is found in Exodus 10,21 וימש חשך, where the word וימש should really have been ויאמש חשך, “causing darkness.” Another example of the letter א being missing is found in Isaiah 13,20, where instead of לא יהל we would have expected לא יאהל, “he will pitch his tent.”

I will totally destroy An expression of destruction, as in (Jud. 18:25) “and you will lose your life,” mentioned regarding Micah. The “aleph” is defective in the second word, for it should have been written אֶאֱסֹף There are many [defective alephs] like these, as in (Isa. 13:20) “no Arab shall pitch his tent there,” which is like יֶאֱהַל.

You, who sit upon the mountain in the field Jerusalem that is situated on the mountain of the plain. All around the city is a fielded plain. The structure of הֲרָרִי is like עֲרָבִי, called so because he dwells in the plain (עֲרָבָה) (montanyers in O.F), mountain dwellers (other versions: a mountain dweller).

Even though in his own kingdom. Since he reigned over man, the poor one was born; who was better than he, and who came out of purity, not out of the filth of the womb. So it was expounded in the Midrash. Another explanation: “Better a poor but wise child, etc.” [to be understood] according to its apparent meaning, “[one] who no longer knows to be vigilant,” for he has already aged in his wickedness and foolishness. “Even though he [the child] emerged from prison to be king.” For the poor child; it will ultimately be said about him that he went out to reign from the midst of his affliction and from his prison cell, for the samech of הָסוּרִים is punctuated without a dagesh, which is the equivalent of הָאֲסוּרִים. (Some editions: As in, “And no Arab will pitch יַהֵל his tent there,”²³Yeshayahu 13:20. which is the same as “יַאֲהֵל.”) For so we find that Yoseif reigned following his being freed from prison, and so Dovid, “I have taken you from the sheepcote, from following the flocks.”²⁴II Shmuel 7:8.

וימש means as much as (is a contraction of) ויאמש (a Hiphil form of אמש, evening darkness). We have many words in which an א is omitted; since the sound of the א is not very marked, Scripture is not particular about omitting it. An example is: (Isaiah 13:20) “the Arabian לֹא יַהֵל there”, which is the same as לא יַאֲהֵל, shall not pitch his tent. Similar is, (II Samuel 22:40) “וַתַּזְרֵנִי with strength”, which is the same as וַתְּאַזְרֵנִי “And thou hast girded me” (cf. Psalms 30:12). Onkelos translated it in the sense of removing, from the same root as, (Joshua 1:8) “it shall not depart (ימוש)”, his rendering being, “[and there shall be darkness..] after the darkness of night has departed”, i. e. when the time approaches near to the light of day. But the statement does not then fit with the ו of וימש, because this word is written after ויהי חשך. A Midrashic statement explains it in the sense of (Deuteronomy 28:29) “groping (ממשש feeling) at noon-day”, so that the meaning would be that it was of such a double character and so thick that there was something tangible in it (Exodus Rabbah 14:1-3).