Комментарий о цитате к Дварим 28:49

To your palate a shophar The Shechinah says to the prophet: Let the voice of your palate be heard, and call like a shophar, and say: You enemies! Fly and hasten as the eagle swoops and come to the house of the Lord. To your palate a shophar, it is as though a shophar is placed to your palate. [after Jonathan]

ראה ראיתי, “I have indeed seen, etc.” In this verse we encounter three references to G’d’s awareness of what had been happening to the Jewish people. Each awareness mentioned is more specific and more encompassing than the previous one. G’d begins by speaking about what He has seen; He continues describing what He has heard; finally He describes the result of what He has seen and heard as “I have become intimately aware,” ידעתי את מכאוביו, “I have become intimately familiar with its pains.” According to what we read here the sensation of seeing something is not as powerful a tool to awaken responses as is hearing something. Only a combination of seeing and hearing is a truly powerful tool to arouse compassion. It is a fact that when one observes something without hearing any sound it is difficult to truly understand what the picture means. Similarly, if one hears sounds without seeing what causes these sounds, one also cannot form a coherent idea of what one has heard. One needs to both hear and see something in order to be able to evaluate these phenomena. The Bible uses the expression ראיה or שמיעה on different occasions as substitutes for the word הבנה, understanding. For example, we are told that a people whose language we do not “hear” is one that we do not understand (Deut. 28,49). The same is true of “seeing” unaccompanied by “hearing.” This is what Solomon said in Kohelet 1,16לבי ראה , “my heart has seen.” If someone has understood something only with his heart this is not comparable to someone’s understanding which was based on seeing and hearing it first.

אשר לא ישמעו, that they will not understand. The root שמע is used here as “hearing” with one’s heart, as distinct from hearing with one’s ears. We encounter a parallel use of the root שמע in that sense in Deuteronomy 28,49 אשר לא תשמעו, “if you fail to heed, etc.” Words that come forth from the mouth are described as שפה or לשון, “language.”

He swooped Heb. וידא, He flew, as (in Deut. 28:49), “as the eagle swoops (ידאה).”

תשמע means understanding and paying heed to. Examples are: (42:23) “Joseph (שומע) understood”; (Deuteronomy 28:49) “[a people] whose tongue thou shalt not understand (תשמע)”. old French entendre.