Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Awit 79:2

Also during the days of Zedekiah towards the end of the period of the destruction of the [First Temple were the Sages spared], as it states in Shemos Rabbah, parasha 24, “Is this the way you repay the Lord, you naval and unwise people?”³⁸Deut. 32:6. This verse refers to the generation of Jeremiah; they were a “naval people” because they produced nevelos, “corpses,” for it says, ‘They have given the dead bodies of Your servants to be food unto the birds of heaven.’³⁹Psalms 79:2. Why? Because their wise were absent, as it says [and should be translated as], “You naval people, lacking wise ones.”

עשה לך תבת עצי גפר. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. In order to understand this verse fully we must refer to Ezekiel 14,14 where the prophet speaks of three men, i.e. Noach, Daniel, and Job who managed to save their own lives due to their personal piety. The prophet there claims that G'd had told him that even if all these three pious men were alive in Jerusalem at that time they could not save the city from disaster though they personally would be saved. The reason all three of these pious men are mentioned is to teach us that even two of them together would not suffice to save themselves at that time in Jerusalem. Some of the earlier commentators wondered that in view of the many pious people who perished during the destruction of the Temple (compare Psalms 79,2 "they have left Your servants' corpses etc."), how was it that if three pious people could have saved themselves that the far more numerous number of pious people who died during the destruction of the city did not manage to save themselves? One of the answers given is that each pious person may have been scattered amongst many sinners, whereas if three pious persons had stuck together they would certainly have been saved by their merits. This may have been the reason that Noach could only be saved after building the ark, i.e. providing a separate environment for himself. As long as he had been surrounded by his compatriots without a מחיצה, dividing wall, he would have been swept away together with them. If Noach had had a few more pious people with him, he and they would have been saved without the need to construct their own environment. Under such circumstances the verse in Psalms 94,15 עד צדק ישוב משפט, that under certain circumstances righteousness could have reversed judgment, would have been applicable. From the fact that Noach was required to build an ark we learn that his sons did not match him in piety. Had they done so, Noach would not have needed to construct the ark but would have been saved in his own habitat. We need to reconcile this with the words of our sages which I have quoted earlier, and according to which Abraham learned from Noach that it was futile to pray for a city with fewer than ten righteous people to be saved. If Noach was the only righteous man in his generation what could Abraham have learned from this? We must therefore assume that though Noach's sons were righteous they were not perfectly righteous people such as their father. When Abraham prayed about righteous people being able to save a town he meant perfectly righteous people, not those whose good deeds barely outweighed their sins. This is the reason that Ezekiel listed the names of outstandingly righteous men such as Noach, Daniel, and Job. He did not refer to three average type צדיקים. We learn from Ezekiel that once the destructive agents have been given permission by G'd to carry out their function, who and under what circumstances someone can restrain them.

האף תספה ולא תשא למקום, he did not mention the people in the place but referred to the place itself. Avraham could not reasonably expect G’d to forgive the sinners, but he felt that the place could be saved. If the guilty would be wiped out the righteous would at least be able to continue living in that town, and would not have to migrate to a new location. Avraham concentrated on the word כלה, “total destruction,” of which G’d had spoken. The prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 22,30 and already in chapter 21, elaborates further on how the impending destruction which overtook Jerusalem in his time could have been stopped. Not only would there have to have been interlocutors such as Avraham, but the sins of the city would have had to be in the main minor sins, i.e. not violence, the sin which provokes G’d’s wrath the most, as we know from the generation of the deluge already. Not only that, but in order for the righteous to be able to save their townsfolk from disaster they must be absolutely righteous, not only barely have more merits than debits in G’d’s ledger of their conduct. In Jeremiah’s time there were righteous people. These were withdrawn, did not mix with the wicked, and did not dare go out into the streets to admonish their countrymen, as they were afraid for their own lives and were not prepared to risk their lives in order to urge their fellow Jews to do penitence. Our author quotes Jeremiah 5,1, Psalms 94,15, 69,12, as well as Ezekiel 14,14 and 14,16 to support his case.