Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Ezekiel 43:20

וכפר אדמתו עמו, “He will grant atonement to His land and for His people.” According to some commentators mentioned by Ibn Ezra, the word עמו should really have the letter ו in front of it, so that the meaning of the phrase would be: “He will provide atonement for its land and for its people.” An allegorical approach taken by the Midrash is that the land is seen as atoning of behalf of its people. [The idea is that the land, for many years neglected, serves as the scapegoat for the Jewish people who had neglected to observe the laws of sh’mittah. Ed.] Ibn Ezra personally, understands the phrase as a promise that in due course, the gentiles who had shed so much innocent Jewish blood on that land, will at that time atone for all this when the Jews will take their vengeance on them. The retribution for innocent blood spilled must be undertaken by the victimized party or their offspring, (their blood avengers), whose blood had been shed, so that in the war preceding the redemption, Jews will kill their adversaries, the ones who had contaminated the soil of the Holy Land in former years. Ibn Ezra quotes Job 14,19 and Ezekiel 43,20 as verses in which such concepts also appear. Yet another interpretation of our phrase understands the word as meaning the same as וטהר, “it will purify, cleanse.” Israel, when the time comes, will cleanse its soil from all kinds of contaminations it had been exposed to in the interval since its people went into exile.

and atone for His land, His people Some say that this passage is missing a vav , and should be understood as if it read, “atone for His land, and for His people”. There is also a homiletical explanation [Palestinian Talmud Kil’ayyim 9: 4 (32d)] that the land atones for His people. Although this idea is correct, it does not fit into the context of the verse, and, moreover, “land” is a feminine noun (as definitively evidenced by the terminal heh , even though here a tav takes its place), whereas the verse does not employ “atone” in its feminine form. The correct explanation, in my opinion, is that the nation will atone for the land, reversing the order of the subject and the object of the verb, as we find in “water wears away stones” [Job 14: 19]. There are other cases where “atonement” appears without the preposition “for” (e.g., “you shall purify it and make atonement [for] it” [Ezekiel 43: 20]). The sense of the verse is that Israel shall exact vengeance against the nations, and thereby atone for the land of Israel, on account of the blood that had been spilled there (as in, “the land will not receive atonement” [Numbers 36: 33]). This fits in with the context of the verse. Another explanation is that “atone” is used here in the sense of “purify”, as in “make atonement [for] it” [Ezekiel 43: 20]; similarly Ezekiel says, concerning the final war, “they will cleanse the land” [Ezekiel 39: 16], referring to Israel.

וכפר אדמתו עמו; this means that the Jewish people will purify their land of the corpses of the enemies (Ibn Ezra). The word וכפר therefore has to be understood in the sense of וטהר, “and it purifies.” The word also appears in that sense in Ezekiel 39,16 וחטאת אותו וכפרתהו. Ezekiel speaks specifically of וטהרו הארץ, “they (the Israelites) will cleanse the earth” ‎(of these bodies of the slain pagans who were killed during the final confrontation with Gog and Magog preceding the messianic age).
ואין אלוהים עמדי, “and there is no other deity with Me.” (verse 39). G’d says this versus the pagans who had taunted the Israelites to ask their deities to help them. Seeing the nations had spoken of deities in the plural, G’d had to emphasize the uniqueness of His being in the singular, having no assistants or junior partners. When G’d said: “I kill and I revive,” He specifically referred to the Jews whom He had killed, (allowed to be killed) pointing out that He would revive them. [since that is so, even their “death” was not a regular death. Ed.] Our sages in Sanhedrin 91 claim that here we have incontrovertible proof from the Torah that there will be a resurrection. They said further that just as when the Torah speaks about G’d being a Healer, this is demonstrated by someone who had first been afflicted with disease or injury, so describing Himself as someone who brings to life also implies that the person brought to life had first died.
This is made plain in Samuel I, 2,6 where Chanah speaks about G’d being ממית ומחיה, מוריד שאול ויעל, “killing and reviving,”’ consigning to the grave (nether regions), and to raise up again.
The reason that the sages felt called upon to spell out that the Torah speaks about one and the same person being killed and revived, is that from the words מחצתי ואני ארפא, “I have struck with injury and I will heal,” (32,38) the impression could have been formed that G’d speaks about two different individuals; the sages wanted to make clear that this is not the case. Seeing that G’d employs the past tense in that verse, it is clear that He speaks about the same person He had first struck down being healed again.