Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Hukom 15:14

An angel of Hashem appeared. Moshe’s prophecy was unique and unlike that of the other prophets in the following ways: 1) Other prophets received Hashem’s word in a dream, and Moshe prophesized while fully conscious. 2) The other prophets fell into a trance and trembling and lost control of their body, whereas Moshe was upright and in control of his faculties. 3) The other prophets saw visions influenced by their imagination, but Moshe received prophecy directly to his intellect without interference from the imagination, thus, he saw no visions. 4) The others prophesized in riddles and metaphors that lack clarity, but Moshe prophesized in complete clarity. 5) Other prophets received Hashem’s word by means of an angel, but Moshe spoke to Hashem face to face. However, the vision in this verse demonstrates that Moshe also began his prophecy as the other prophets. For in this first prophecy Hashem spoke to him by means of “an angel;” secondly, he saw a vision influenced by the imagination, for the angel appeared to him as “a blaze of fire from amid the bush;” thirdly, the prophecy was a riddle and a metaphor, for “the bush was burning in the fire but the bush was not consumed”.

AND, BEHOLD, THE BUSH ‘BO’EIR’ (BURNED) WITH FIRE. [The word bo’eir] has the same meaning as doleik (burning),¹⁴¹Ramban’s intent is to solve this difficulty: In the verse before us it says, and, behold, the bush ‘bo’eir’, and in Verse 3 it says that Moses asked, why the bush is not ‘yiv’ar’? Ramban explains that in the first case, bo’eir has the same meaning as doleik (burning), while yiv’ar means “consumed.” i.e., [the bush] was in the midst of a burning fire, and it is like the verse, and the fathers ‘m’va’arim’ the fire,¹⁴²Jeremiah 7:18. meaning, “kindling” and burning the wood with fire. But the expression, why the bush is not ‘yiv’ar’?¹⁴³Verse 3. means, “why is it not consumed and wasted?” Similarly, As flax that was ‘ba’aru’ with fire¹⁴⁴Judges 15:14. means “consumed.” And so is the opinion of Onkelos, who translated the first [bo’eir] as bo’eir (burning), and the second one [yiv’ar] as mitokad, [the Aramaic word for “consumed”]. It may be that yiv’ar has the same meaning as in the verses, ‘Uvi’arta’ (So shalt thou put away) the evil from the midst of thee;¹⁴⁵Deuteronomy 17:7. Then a man useth it ‘l’va’eir’ (for fodder).¹⁴⁶Isaiah 44:15. The expression “for fodder” suggests destruction and annihilation. See R’dak, (mentioned in my Hebrew commentary, p. 288), who so interprets this verse. Here then the sense of the verse would be: “why does the fire not remove or eat up the bush altogether?” Such is the style of the Sacred Language to use [one term in the same instance with two different meanings], as in the verse: They rode on thirty ‘ayarim’ (ass colts) and they had thirty ‘ayarim’ (cities).¹⁴⁷Judges 10:4. Thus the word ayarim has two separate meanings in the same verse. In the instance before us here, the Hebrew root bo’eir is used with two separate meanings: burning, and consuming or removing.

Chains. אֲסוּרִים is] a noun meaning “bonds,” as in, “and his bonds אֱסוּרָיו melted,”⁶²Shoftim 15:14. meaning his bonds, and so did Menachem explain it.