ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף דניאל 11:44

Those who first went forth into exile will be the first to return. Some time later, the children of Judah will return. So Isaiah prophesied when he said: “In that day my Lord will apply His hand a second time to redeem the other part of His people from Assyria—as also from Egypt, Pathos, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands” [Isa. 11:11]. The verse specifies “a second time,” for the redemption of the ten tribes will come first. And thus “the other part of His people” who will have remained in Assyria. In the following verse Isaiah lists the two exiles and makes mention of the two acts of redemption, referring to each and every one with its proper name. He says: “He will hold up a signal to the nations and assemble the banished of Israel; and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” [Isa. 11:12]. He refers to the ten tribes as the “banished of Israel” as they dwell together but are banished from their land. The exile of Judah is designated as a dispersion, “and he will gather the dispersed of Judah.” The house of Israel will anoint a Messiah called Messiah ben Joseph; he will conquer lands and kingdoms and go to Jerusalem and rebuild it, as it is written: “The Lord builds Jerusalem, He gathers in the dispersed of Israel” [Ps. 147:2]. But he will die in battle. Of him it states: “In that day, the wailing in Jerusalem shall be great” [Zach. 12:11] and “they shall lament to Me about those who are slain” [Zach. 12:10]. Afterwards, the dispersed and scattered among the nations shall come and appoint a single leader, the Messiah, son of David, who was with them in exile. They will come to the Land of Israel with the permission of the kings of the nations and with their assistance. As it is written: “And out of all of the nations, said the Lord, they shall bring all your brothers on horses, in chariots and drays, on mules and dromedaries to Jerusalem, My holy mountain, as an offering to the Lord” [Isa. 66:20]. This kingdom will continue and never end. This is the meaning of “Thus declares the Lord God, Who gathers the banished of Israel” [Isa. 56:8]: these are the ten tribes. “I will gather still more to those already gathered” [ibid.]: I add yet another gathering to the first, the dispersed of Judah. This is the meaning of “The Lord your God will restore your exile and have mercy upon you. He will return and gather you from among all the nations among whom He scattered you” [Deut. 30:3]. It is possible that there may be a substantial period of time between these two ingatherings. Afterwards they might yet have to be as herdsmen in the wilderness of the nations, in order to separate out and purify the wicked among Israel, and to smelt them just as silver is smelt in the refining furnace, as happened during the Exodus from Egypt….²⁰⁸An eschatological discussion of Zech. 9:9 etc. has been ellipted.

לא יום אחד תאכלון ולא יומים, “You will not only eat it for a single day or two days, etc.” The numbers here are usually doubled up, i.e. not one but two, not five but ten, not ten but twenty. It is as if G’d were saying they will eat as much as they could, employing all the fingers on hands and feet in the process. The final statement “until a full month of days,” suggests that until the moon has come full circle the people will still be busy wolfing down the meat. The words: “until it will come out of your nose,” suggests that until the smell of the meat evaporates seeing that the smell is concentrated in the nose. The words: “it will become nauseating for you,” refer to the fact that that which had previously been the object of your irrepressible desire will instead become something nauseating for you. We find a similar phenomenon after Amnon had raped his half-sister Tamar when his erstwhile love for her turned into an abiding hatred (Samuel II 13,15). The reason the word לזרא is spelled with the letter א at the end instead of the letter ה, is to describe the intense repugnance the people felt for the very meat they had craved so much only a month ago. Every time a word which is normally spelled with the letter ה is spelled with the letter א instead, the idea is to show the intensified measure of what the word represents. Examples are: when Naomi says she should be called the “bitter” one, meaning מרה, the author of the Book of Ruth spelled the word with the letter א at the end to demonstrate the depth of Naomi’s embitteredness. She spelled it out saying המר שדי לי מאד, “G’d has caused me much to be bitter about.” A similar example is found in Daniel 11,44 where the word חמא, for anger or alarm, normally spelled חמה, is spelled with the letter א at the end to describe the profound alarm caused by the news described in that verse. What happened to the Israelites in this instance is only typical of what happens to people who overindulge their lust and craving for physical pleasures. They start out by complaining about physical pleasures denied them and neglect spiritual values in their headlong pursuit of these “apparent” pleasures only to find in the end that their very pleasures are the reason that they die prematurely. Solomon defined such supposedly sweet pleasure as נפת, saying of the seductress נפת תטופנה שפתי זרה וחלק משמן חכה, “her lips drip honey; her mouth is smoother than oil” (Proverbs 5,3). In the verse following Solomon describes the conclusion of that seduction as “in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.”