Комментарий к Шмот 15:8

וברוח אפיך AND WITH THE BREATH OF THY NOSTRILS — the breath that issues from both nostrils. Scripture speaks — if this were at all possible (i. e. if one may be permitted to speak so of God) of the Shechina (God) in the same manner as it does of a human monarch, in order to make peoples’ ears hear the facts in accordance with what usually happens to that they may understand the matter: when a man is angry the breath issues from his nostrils (and Scripture attributes this to God, also, when He is in anger). A similar idea is: (Psalms 18:9) “Smoke rose up in His nostril”, and also, (Job. 4:9) “By the breath of his nostril they are consumed”. And this is the meaning of what He said, (Isaiah 48:9) “For My name’s sake אאריך I will make long My אף”: when one’s anger subsides his breathing becomes long, whilst when one is in anger his breathing is short (consequently אאריך אפי signifies “I will not be angry”). The text continues ותהלתי אחטם לך which means “for the sake of My praise I will place a nose-ring in My nose to close up the nostrils against the anger and the breath so that they should not issue forth”. The word לך, for thee, in this text, means “for thy sake”, אחטם has the same meaning and root as in “a wild camel with a nose-ring (חֹטֶם)” which occurs in Mishna Treatise Sabbath (Mishnah Shabbat 5:1). Thus does the explanation appear to me. And wherever אף and חרון (i. e. where אף and words formed from the same root as חרון) occur in the Scriptures I say that it has the following sense: In the phrase חרה אף the first word is the same as (Job 30:30) “My bone is חרה with heat”, where חרה denotes burning and glowing, and this metaphor is used because the nostrils become hot and burning in a time of anger. The noun חרון is a derivation of חרה, just as רצון is a derivation of רצה, and therefore signifies “burning”. In the same way, חַמה which also signifies wrath really denotes heat (from a root יחם, not חמם, since the מ of חַמָה has no Dagesh. חַמָה is formed from יחם as עֵדָה, congregation, from יעד). That is why Scripture says, (Esther 1:12) וחמתו בערה בו “his wrath burned in him”, and when one’s wrath subsides one says, “his mind has become cooled” (נתקררה from קר cold).

וברוח אפיך נערמו מים, now Moses speaks of the third war G’d conducted against the multitudes of Egypt; (not the elite) Moses recapitulates the phenomena faced by the Egyptian hordes when the waters which had previously been normal became like towers of frozen water in the midst of the sea.

נערמו מים, גצבו כמו נר, "the waters were piled up, stood upright like a wall." This verse describes three distinct activities performed by G'd when He split the sea. 1) The waters split and remained in one place as a heap so as to make a path available for the Israelites to cross. 2) The waters which would normally replace the newly created vacuum in the centre of the sea did not spill into that vacuum but piled up along the sides forming a veritable wall. 3) As already mentioned in my comments on 14,21 it was not the entire depth of the sea which was split, but the deeper layers of water were frozen so as to enable the Israelites to march through relatively high ground and not to have to descend to what had been the bottom of the sea. The expression קפאו, "were frozen already," reflects what we have said earlier that the freeze of the lower waters in the sea preceded the splitting of the upper levels of the sea. The expression לב ים refers to the lower level of the sea which froze. The reason that the Israelites again used the word תהומות in the plural was that G'd made them travel along twelve separate lanes, each tribe having a lane to itself as we know from Shemot Rabbah 24,1.

וברוח אפיך, by means of the east wind which You made blow all night long. (14,21)

For the sake of My Name I will lengthen My breath”. . . I.e., I will not be angry. For “when one’s anger is calmed, his breath is longer.”

V. 8. V. 3 — 7 besingt die in dem Erlebnis offenbar gewordene Gottesmacht jeder sozialen Macht, V. 8—12 der physischen Naturordnung gegenüber, und beides im Dienste seines freien, richtenden und rettenden Waltens.

[not translated]

נערמו מים, “the waters rose up (like wall);” Onkelos translates these words as “חכימו מים,” the waters acted wisely, etc;” We understand this as the waters cooperating with G-d’s plan to pour the Egyptians into the water. This would conform with what we have read in Deuteronomy 11,4: אשר הציף ה' את מי ים סוף על פניהם ברדפם אחריכם, “how the Lord rolled back upon them the waters of the sea of reeds when they were pursuing you; i.e. the waters were pursuing the Egyptians.”

נערמו מים THE WATERS WERE HEAPED UP — Onkelos translated this in the sense of ערמימות, subtlety (the waters showed themselves clever); (cf. ערום Genesis 3:1); but it is more in accordance with the elegance of Biblical style to take it as the noun of the same root as in (Song 7:3) “a stack of (ערמת) wheat”, and the following words, “the floods placed themselves like a mound”, prove that this is so (cf. Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 15:8:2). נערמו — Through the burning heat of the breath that issued from thy nostrils (וברוח אפיך) the waters were dried up and they became like heaps and piles of gain-stacks (ערמה) which are high.

נערמו, they moved upwards. We know the word as a “pile” from ערימת חטים, “a high heap of wheat.”

I will place a nose-ring in My nose. . . חטם means “nose-ring,” as Rashi continues to explain: “In order to close up My nostrils against. . .”

אף ,רוח אפיך als Zorn mit Pronominalendung kommt nie im Plural vor, immer אפך אפי, in usw., ja wir sind geneigt zu glauben, auch in der Zusammenstellung, in welcher אפיםZorn zu sein scheint, in ארך אפים bedeute es nicht eigentlich Zorn; lange "zürnend" wäre ja wohl das Gegenteil dessen, was mit ארך אפים ausgedrückt werden soll. Wir glauben vielmehr, אפים sei nicht von אנף, zürnen, sondern von אפף, auf etwas mit heftigem Verlangen zugehen, daher die dem frühern einverleibende Partikel: אַף, und das verwandte אב ,אבב, der gierig den Saft trinkende Halm. (vergl. אפים .(מגמת פניהם, גמֶא, גמוא, גַם heißt das verlangende, anstrebende Angesicht (siehe zu בזעת אפיך), und ארך אפים heißt: der lang verlangende, der nicht ungeduldig wird, wenn er lange auf Befriedigung seines Verlangens warten muss. רזח אפיך ist daher: der von deinem verlangenden Angesicht gesendete Wind, der dein Verlangen erfüllende Wind. — ערם, Aufhäufen kleinster Stoffe, Getreide, Staub, hier: der einzelnen Wassertropfen. — נֵד von נוד, von der Stelle weichen. Wenn daher נֵד Mauer bedeutet, so kann dies nicht wie חומה eine den Schutz des innerhalb derselben Liegenden bezweckende Mauer, sondern eine den außer ihr liegenden Raum frei haltende Umzäunung bedeuten: eine scheu zurücktretende, Raum gebende Mauer. Es kommt übrigens nur in einer Schilderung dieses Ereignisses, sowie bei dem ähnlichen Durchzug durch den Jordan vor. — קפא ,קפאו, starr werden, gerinnen, von dem Gerinnen der Milch: jenseits der beiden Wassermauern wallte ,בלב ים — .(Job 10, 10) וכגבינה תקפיאני das Meer in gewöhnlicher Strömung: nur da, wo Gottes Volk die Bahn der Rettung finden sollte, ward die Natur des Wassers umgewandelt.

נערמו, “they had become cunning;” the waters had become crafty, so that they too recited G–d’s praises. This is also how Onkelos translates this line when he wrote: “the waters became smart;”

כמו נד — Render this as the Targum does: like a שור, i. e. a wall.

נד, another word describing height. We find it in connection with the waters of the Jordan river backing up when the Israelites crossed (Joshua 3,16).

אחטם is like נאקה בחטם . . . The Aruch explains: They pierce the animal’s nostrils and insert a ring there. They put a leash through the ring by which they lead the animal. Rashi’s explanation ad loc seems the same.

קפאו תהומות בלב ים, “the deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.” The lower two thirds of the sea had become congealed, whereas the upper third had been split. If all three thirds of the water had been split, the Israelites would not have been able to climb out of it on the opposite bank. This is why the Torah chose the expression בלב ים, “in the heart of the sea,” as the heart of a human being is located at the junction of the upper third of torso and the two lower thirds.

נד is an expression for anything heaped up and gathered together, as, (Isaiah 17:11) “a heap (נד) of boughs in the day of grief”; (Psalms 33:7) “He gathereth as a heap (כַּנֵד) [the waters of the sea]”. It is not written “He gathereth כנאד”, but כנאד”, and if כנד, were the same as כנאד “like a water-skin”, and כונס were an expression for “bringing a thing in”, it should have written: “He gathered in (מכניס and not כונס) the waters of the sea as in a water-skin”, (כבנאד and not כנד), but כונס denotes gathering together and heaping up. And this must also be the meaning of נד in (Joshua 3:16) “[the waters] rose up as one נד”, and (Joshua v. 13) “and they shall stand in one נד”; for the expressions “rising up” and “standing up” cannot be used in reference to water in water-skins but only to water that stands up as walls and heaps (and this must therefore be the meaning of כמו נד in our text also). And, then again, we find the word נֹאד punctuated only with a Melopum (חולם), as, (Psalms 56:9) “Put thou my tears into thy bottle (נֹאדֶךָ)” and (Judges 4:19) “the bottle of (נֹאד) milk”.

קפאו, similar to the hardening of cheese described in Job 10,10 as וכגבינה תקפיאני, “You congealed me like cheese.”

חרון is derived from חרה . . . [First] Rashi proves from Scripture that חרה means “burning”. [Then] Rashi says: if so, חרון also is an expression of “burning,” because חרון is derived from חרה .

קפאו WERE CONGEALED, like (Job 10:10) “thou hast curdled me (תקפיאני) like cheese”; the meaning is that the depths were hardened and became like stones, and the waters cast the Egyptians against the stony wall with force and battled against them with every harsh means (cf. Mekhilta).

בלב ים means IN THE VERY STRENGTH OF THE SEA. It is the way of Scripture-verses to speak thus (to use לב in a metaphorical sense); e. g., (Deuteronomy 4:11) “unto the very midst of (לב) heaven”; (II Samuel 18:14) “in the midst of (בלב) the terebinth”. It is an expression denoting the essence and strength of a thing.