Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Joel 4:19

ותמלא הארץ חמס, there is a discussion between the sages as to the difference in meaning between the word: חמס (violence) and the word גזל (robbery) when used in the Holy Scriptures. According to Rabbi Chaninah, the difference is m erely in the amount m isappropriated by violent m eans. If the object one robs is worth more than a certain ancient copper coin, known as p’rutah, the term חמס is used, whereas if it is worth less than that, the Torah refers to it as גזל. The people of the generation of the deluge devised a nefarious scheme of avoiding to become guilty of having misappropriated at one time more than the worth of a prutah. When someone brought a basket full of fruit to market offering to sell it, he would be mobbed by people each of whom helped himself to less than the value of that coin. By using this subterfuge, the party helping himself to fruit without paying for it, escaped being cited before a judge, who did not entertain claims below that amount. How did G-d outwit these people? He would deprive them of the excess wealth they had accumulated by such means at the times they died. (This is how Ibn Ezra interprets Job 4,21 which he explains as G-d depriving such “robbers” of the excess money they had accumulated at the time they died, so that they would be punished by not having benefited by Torah knowledge (according to our author).[If I understand the author correctly, he means that when people use their Torah knowledge in order to escape their responsibilities, then instead of getting credit for their Torah studies, they will find that their abuse of Torah had been counterproductive; they will be worse off than if they had not studied Torah. Ed.] Another interpretation understands the word as indulging in sexual misconduct, basing itself on Jeremiah 51,35: חמסי ושארי על בבל, “let the violence done to me and my kindred be visited upon Babylon.”A third interpretation understands the word חמס as an alternate for idolatry, quoting Ezekiel 8,17: כי מלאו את הארץ חמס להכעיסני, “that they must fill the land with the abominations in order to anger Me;” (these have been described in the verses preceding this one)?Lastly, some commentators understand the word חמס as applying to shedding innocent blood, basing itself on Joel 4,19: מחמס בני יהודה אשר שפכו דם נקי בארצם, “from the חמס of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Yehudah who spilled innocent blood in their land.”

ונקם ישיב לצריו AND HE WILL RENDER VENGEANCE TO HIS ADVERSARIES for their robbery and their violence, just as it is stated, (Joel 4:19) “Egypt shall be a desolation and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah …”, and it states in another passage (Obadiah 10) “For the violence against thy brother Jacob [shame shall cover thee]” (cf. Sifrei Devarim 333:3).