Komentaryo sa Isaias 43:24: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Ibn Ezra

“You have not bought Me” [43:24]. You have not bought Me ingredients for the incense had to be purchased from distant lands with silver. The Holy One said: I did not desire too much from Israel, to exhaust them; only a little flour for a meal offering, whatever offering his heart desired to give. Some sages say that there were plenty of spices in the land of Israel, yet the Israelites did not bring offerings of incense.⁴Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah, Remez, 457. The Holy One said: you have made me tired with your sins.

Neither did you purchase cane for Me with money for incense. You did not have to purchase it with money, for it was very common in your land. Said Rabbi Abba: Cinnamon grew in the Land of Israel, and goats and deer would eat of it. In Midrash Eichah (Proem X). ([Some manuscripts read:] Neither did you purchase cane for Me with money for incense, for you failed to offer to Me what you should have, and you were attracted to idolatry.)

קנה בשם═קנה Sweet cane (Ex. 30:23).

But you have burdened Me [lit. you have overworked Me.] You have caused Me to be an attendant to pagans, as Ezekiel envisioned (1:4): “And behold a tempest was coming from the north.” For the chariot of the Shechinah was returning from Babylon, where it had gone to conquer the whole world under the domination of Nebuchadnezzar, lest they say that He delivered His children into the hands of an inferior nation, as is found in Hagigah (13b).