Isaiah: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
34:1 KIRVU GOYIM LISHMO'A U LE'UMIM HAKSHIYVU TISHM'A HA ARETS U MELO'AH TEVEL VE CHOL TSE'ETSA'EYHA
קִרְבוּ גוֹיִם לִשְׁמֹעַ וּלְאֻמִּים הַקְשִׁיבוּ תִּשְׁמַע הָאָרֶץ וּמְלֹאָהּ תֵּבֵל וְכָל צֶאֱצָאֶיהָ
KJ: Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.
BN: Approach, you nations, to hear; and pay attention, you peoples. Let the Earth hear, and everything that is in it; the world, and every thing that grows on it.
The start of a new piece, apparently addressing the entire world - and if he is using GOYIM and LE'UMIM as we do today, then specifically the non-Yehudi world. Is this yet another Head of the Guild, bearing the name Yesh'a-Yah to denote his office, or still one of the previous? We need to date it to know. But will the text enable us to do that?
LISHMO'A...HAKSHIYVU: A favourite distinction in Y-Y's world, for which see several previous notes: the difference between happening to hear sound because it is unavoidably there, and actually paying cognitive attention. Aristotle will write entire treatises on this subject, several centuries later; and Bloom will taxonomise it in the 20th century.
LISHMO'A...HAKSHIYVU: A favourite distinction in Y-Y's world, for which see several previous notes: the difference between happening to hear sound because it is unavoidably there, and actually paying cognitive attention. Aristotle will write entire treatises on this subject, several centuries later; and Bloom will taxonomise it in the 20th century.
HA ARETS U MELO'AH TEVEL VE CHOL TSE'ETSA'EYHA: Note that he is also speaking to the crops and the flora and the fauna who can neither hear nor listen: is this, then, poetic language to introduce an explanation of the concepts of YHVH and CHAVAH? We shall see.
34:2 KI KETSEPH LA YHVH AL KOL HA GOYIM VE HEMAH AL KOL TSEVA'AM HECHERIYMAM NETANAM LA TAVACH
כִּי קֶצֶף לַיהוָה עַל כָּל הַגּוֹיִם וְחֵמָה עַל כָּל צְבָאָם הֶחֱרִימָם נְתָנָם לַטָּבַח
BN: For YHVH is seething with anger about all the nations, and furious about their armies. He intends to destroy them. He will hand them over for slaughter.
YHVH is angry with everyone, especially with armies, which is why there are so many dead in war. This merits psychologically deconstructing - is he angry with himself for creating them the way he did, but taking it out on them? Or is he angry with them for failing to live up to his aspirations? The former would be DAVAR, the latter VA YOMER - for an explanation of this difference see, for one of many examples in these pages, my notes at Isaiah 28:17.
TAVACH: Which is either the abattoir or the kitchen, as opposed to SHECHITAH or MIZBE'ACH, which would denote the altar and ceremony of religious sacrifice, as in ZEVACH in verse 6, below. So the first hint that this will be VA YOMER - human beings will slaughter each other, unneeding of divine interference through nature
34:3 VE CHALELEYHEM YUSHLACHU U PHIGREYHEM YA'ALEH VA'SHAM VE NAMASU HARIM MI DAMAH
34:3 VE CHALELEYHEM YUSHLACHU U PHIGREYHEM YA'ALEH VA'SHAM VE NAMASU HARIM MI DAMAH
וְחַלְלֵיהֶם יֻשְׁלָכוּ וּפִגְרֵיהֶם יַעֲלֶה בָאְשָׁם וְנָמַסּוּ הָרִים מִדָּמָם
KJ: Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
BN: Their slain too shall be cast out, and the stench of their carcasses shall rise up, and the mountains shall be rendered sterile by their blood.
CHALELEYHEM: Yes, "slain" (Genesis 34:27). But they were slain in that tale because of their wickedness (the rape of Dinah by Shechem), which makes them "profane", as are the folk in this oracle; and "profane" is how the word is used in, for example, Leviticus 21:7 and 14.
How convenient too, for a poet, especially one who loves playing with that tiny variation between the Hey (ה) and the Chet (ח) - see 33:22 for the most recent of these - that the opposite of "profane", which is "praised", should be HALEL, as in Halelu-Yah.
YA'ALEH: To make aliyah, whether to the land, the city, the Temple! The smoke from the shechitah sacrifices rises to placate the nostrils of the deity. But no, this is just the deep stench of self-annihilated humanity.
To modern Jews (post 70 CE) there is another inference, which Y-Y probably intended, though it isn't formally in the text. This is Selichot, the prayers for forgiveness, and specifically the Selichot of Yom Kippur, a section of liturgy known precisely by this word, Ya'aleh:
May our supplications rise from the evening,
and may our cry come from the morning,
and may our praise find favour by the evening.
For more on this, see my book "Day of Atonement", p64ff.
VA'SHAM: Pronunciation issues! Does that shva beneath the Aleph count as second syllable, and therefore silent, or is VA a prefictual preposition, and the shva therefore first syllable, and pronounced? Normally the answer lies in the root, but on this occasion the root simply perpetuates the problem: some think באש should be pronounced BE'OSH, others BE'ASH. I have gone for the former. The latter would be pronounced VA'OSHAM or VA'ESHAM.
NAMASU: How does KJ get this to mean "melted"? Is it misreading VA'SHAM as an elision of VA ESH SHEL HEM - the fire extruding from them. If they are being burned to death, whether TAVACH or otherwise, there would indeed be flame. It is not an unreasonable alternate reading.
Unfortunately it isn't the reason for the error. As per the link, it is seeing the root as MASAS, which does indeed mean "to melt". But the root is HIMES (המס), and is to do with brushwood and other dry thorns and shrubs, which break of their own accord when the sun is strong, or indeed aid-and-abet wildfires; and presumably this too is Y-Y playing Hey-Chet games, because the opposite of this silent collapse of Nature would be the same by human violence, and human violence in Yehudit is CHAMAS (חמס).
And is this the source for that modern idiom of fedupness, NIMAS LI? (See 2 Samuel 17:10)
34:4 VE NAMAKU KOL TSEVA HA SHAMAYIM VE NAGLU KA SEPHER HA SHAMAYIM VE CHOL TSEVA'AM YIBOL KI NEVOL ALEH MI GEPHEN U CHE NOVELET MI TE'ANEH
34:4 VE NAMAKU KOL TSEVA HA SHAMAYIM VE NAGLU KA SEPHER HA SHAMAYIM VE CHOL TSEVA'AM YIBOL KI NEVOL ALEH MI GEPHEN U CHE NOVELET MI TE'ANEH
וְנָמַקּוּ כָּל צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם וְנָגֹלּוּ כַסֵּפֶר הַשָּׁמָיִם וְכָל צְבָאָם יִבּוֹל כִּנְבֹל עָלֶה מִגֶּפֶן וּכְנֹבֶלֶת מִתְּאֵנָה
BN: And all the Host of the Heavens shall moulder away, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; and all their Host shall wither away, as a leaf withers on a vine, and like a fig withering on a fig-tree.
TSEVA: The "Host" in question being the remainder of YHVH's "Round Table", and its "junior ministers" - the twelve stellar constellations, the planets, comets, moons, black holes, asteroids...
KA SEPHER: For those unfamiliar with a rolled up scroll, see the illustration (this one is a Moroccan Torah scroll, late 18th century).
YIBOL...NEVEL...NOVELET: He made the same play-on-words at 32:5. How foolish of those who did not notice!
34:5 KI RIVTAH VA SHAMAYIM CHARBI HINEH AL EDOM TERED VE AL AM CHERMI LE MISHPAT
כִּי רִוְּתָה בַשָּׁמַיִם חַרְבִּי הִנֵּה עַל אֱדוֹם תֵּרֵד וְעַל עַם חֶרְמִי לְמִשְׁפָּט
BN: For my sword has whetted its blade in the heavens. You will see, it will come down upon Edom, and upon the people for whom I have decreed destruction.
YHVH whetting his blade in heaven (in heaven? Are you sure? Is it not simply "the skies"?).
CHARBI: What would the sword of YHVH in the heavens be anyway? Any connection between YHVH and a CHEREV must always take us first to Genesis 3:24, and from there the reminder that "the flaming sword" was originally a swastika - a suggestion then, perhaps, of the sword here being lightning. But then we need to journey on, full forty years indeed and more, zigzagging as we go, until we reach wherever Mount Chorev might have been, the holy mountain on which Mosheh received the Torah. Yes, the same root, Chet-Reysh-Bet, though it is a connection that has been fastidiously avoided by Jewish scholars down the ages.
EDOM: The traditional first-enemy of Yisra-El.
CHERMI: See my commentary on Exodus 22:19.
34:6 CHEREV LA YHVH MAL'AH DAM HUDASHNAH ME CHELEV MI DAM KARIM VE ATUDIM ME CHELEV KILYOT EYLIM KI ZEVACH LA YHVH BE VATSRAH VE TEVACH GADOL BE ERETS EDOM
CHERMI: See my commentary on Exodus 22:19.
34:6 CHEREV LA YHVH MAL'AH DAM HUDASHNAH ME CHELEV MI DAM KARIM VE ATUDIM ME CHELEV KILYOT EYLIM KI ZEVACH LA YHVH BE VATSRAH VE TEVACH GADOL BE ERETS EDOM
חֶרֶב לַיהוָה מָלְאָה דָם הֻדַּשְׁנָה מֵחֵלֶב מִדַּם כָּרִים וְעַתּוּדִים מֵחֵלֶב כִּלְיוֹת אֵילִים כִּי זֶבַח לַיהוָה בְּבָצְרָה וְטֶבַח גָּדוֹל בְּאֶרֶץ אֱדוֹם
KJ: The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.
BN: The sword of YHVH is filled with blood. It is turned to ashes with sacrificed fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For YHVH has carried out a sacrifice in Batsrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
HUDASHNAH MI CHELEV: There has to be a difference between the two sorts of fat, but I am not expert in this subject. HUDASHNAH comes from DASHEN, and based on Exodus 27:3, Numbers 4:13 and Psalm 20:4, I am taking this to be what happens to the fat on the animal after it has been KURBAN, which is to say completely burned as a sacrifice, and that CHELEV is the living fat. The trouble with that distinction is that it doesn't really work for the KJ translation of our current verse; Deuteronomy 31:20 is much closer to that.
Or is Y-Y returning to the theme of his opening chapters, that the gods are not open to propitiation, and so sacrifice is useless, even worthless; what the gods want is obedience to a set of values, ethics, morals and principles? But this inverts sacrifice rather than opposing it (or inverts it to show how ludicrous it is), with YHVH now the Shochet and the nations as paschal lambs. Again Edom the first victim, and specifically now Batsrah (Bozrah), its capital, whose destruction both Yirme-Yah (Jeremiah 49:13) and Amos (1:12) also prophesied; Y-Y will prophesy (63:1-6) that redemption (GE'ULAH) in the form of the Messiah (MOSHI'A at the end of verse 1, not MASHIYACH) will come from Batsrah; and of course it is already associated with prophesy, as this was the throne-city of Balak ben Tsipor, who hired B'l'am ben Be'or to prophesy against Yisra-El (Numbers 22-24).
ZEVACH...TEVACH: deliberate rhymes, but again making the distinction between a holy act and a mere pieceof barbarism (the outcome, it should be pointed out, is the same for the victims either way).
ZEVACH...TEVACH: deliberate rhymes, but again making the distinction between a holy act and a mere pieceof barbarism (the outcome, it should be pointed out, is the same for the victims either way).
34:7 VE YARDU RE'EMIM IMAM U PHARIM IM AVIYRIM VE RIVTAH ARTSAM MI DAM VA APHARAM ME CHELEV YEDUSHAN
וְיָרְדוּ רְאֵמִים עִמָּם וּפָרִים עִם אַבִּירִים וְרִוְּתָה אַרְצָם מִדָּם וַעֲפָרָם מֵחֵלֶב יְדֻשָּׁן
BN: And the wild-oxen will come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be rendered sterile with blood, and their dust shall be piled even higher with the ashes of the sacrifices.
Wild beasts will do YHVH's work for him (the fact that nothing but DAVAR is ever done by YHVH, but always through an agent, human or otherwise, adds weight to my suggestion that the Yisra-Eli deity was actually perceived as a verb and not a noun)…
RE'EMIM: Psalm 29:6. Definitely not unicorns, though it is amusing to find them in the KJ translation.
RE'EMIM: Psalm 29:6. Definitely not unicorns, though it is amusing to find them in the KJ translation.
RIVTAH: As it was the skies in verse 5, so now the earth.
34:8 KI YOM NAKAM LA YHVH SHENAT SHILUMIM LE RIV TSI'ON
34:8 KI YOM NAKAM LA YHVH SHENAT SHILUMIM LE RIV TSI'ON
כִּי יוֹם נָקָם לַיהוָה שְׁנַת שִׁלּוּמִים לְרִיב צִיּוֹן
BN: For this is YHVH's day of vengeance, his year of recompense for the strife over Tsi'on.
SHILUMIM: From the root that gives SHALOM, which is understood as "peace", but is really about "wholeness", even "perfection". So Yeru-Shala'im, his capital, is implied.
34:9 VE NEHEPHCHU NECHALEYHA LE ZEPHET VA APHARAH LE GAPHRIT VE HAYETAH ARTSAH LE ZEPHET BO'ERAH
וְנֶהֶפְכוּ נְחָלֶיהָ לְזֶפֶת וַעֲפָרָהּ לְגָפְרִית וְהָיְתָה אַרְצָהּ לְזֶפֶת בֹּעֵרָה
BN: And its streams shall be turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone, and its earth shall become burning pitch.
So no need for Hel, or Hell, Dante can meet Eliot above ground! And as to an exemplar for the definition of DAVAR, the "Word" of the deity, none better than this: a holocaust of trees and the non-human as well as the human inhabitants of the land, caused either by wildfires or a volcanic eruption. Natural disaster either way.
ZEPHET: Pitch, which is a kind of asphaltum, which just happens to be what you will find to this day as the sea-bed of the Yam ha Melach, the Dead Sea, which just happens to be where Chorev was located in the Mosaic version of the volcanic eruption (Exodus 13:21 ff), and even more definitely the location of the tale of Lot (Genesis 19)
34:10 LAILAH VE YOMAM LO TICHBEH LE OLAM YA'ALEH ASHANAH MI DOR LA DOR TECHERAV LE NETSACH NETSACHIM EYN OVER BAH
KJ: It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
34:10 LAILAH VE YOMAM LO TICHBEH LE OLAM YA'ALEH ASHANAH MI DOR LA DOR TECHERAV LE NETSACH NETSACHIM EYN OVER BAH
לַיְלָה וְיוֹמָם לֹא תִכְבֶּה לְעוֹלָם יַעֲלֶה עֲשָׁנָהּ מִדּוֹר לָדוֹר תֶּחֱרָב לְנֵצַח נְצָחִים אֵין עֹבֵר בָּהּ
BN: It shall not be quenched either night or day; its smoke shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste: none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
LO TICHBEH: Which choice of vocabulary drives us inexorably to Leviticus 6:5 and 6 (12 and 13 in the KJ), and you can work out why for yourself when you get there (but start at verse 1 to get the full fire and energy and burning force of this). Y-Y at his literary best!
So Eden and Edom become contra-parallels, like Tohu and Bohu. This is of significance to Christianity, because Herod was an Idumean, the name of Edom at the time of Jesus.
And of course it was ever thus, because Edom is the land of Adam, and so is Eden!
Various bits of this verse resurface in liturgy later: Yomam va Lailah (reversed from here), Netsach Netsachim... or was Y-Y himself quoting already extant liturgy?
34:11 VIYRESHU'AH KA'AT VE KIPOD VE YANSHOPH VE OREV YISHKENU VAH VE NATAH ALEYHA KAV TOHU VE AVNEY VOHU
KJ: But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.
Start at the end, with KAV TOHU VE AVNEY VOHU: Are the beasts named here symbolic? Yes, they most certainly are. Tohu and Bohu themselves! Just as I didn't realise I was predicting when I wrote my note to verse 10. (See Genesis 1:2)
34:12 CHOREYHA VE EYN SHAM MELUCHAH YIKRA'U VE CHOL SAREYHA YIHEYU APHES
KJ: They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.
KJ: And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
Various bits of this verse resurface in liturgy later: Yomam va Lailah (reversed from here), Netsach Netsachim... or was Y-Y himself quoting already extant liturgy?
34:11 VIYRESHU'AH KA'AT VE KIPOD VE YANSHOPH VE OREV YISHKENU VAH VE NATAH ALEYHA KAV TOHU VE AVNEY VOHU
וִירֵשׁוּהָ קָאַת וְקִפּוֹד וְיַנְשׁוֹף וְעֹרֵב יִשְׁכְּנוּ בָהּ וְנָטָה עָלֶיהָ קַו תֹהוּ וְאַבְנֵי בֹהוּ
BN: But the pelican and the porcupine shall inherit it, and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein; and he shall stretch over it the line of nullity, and the stones of emptiness.
Start at the end, with KAV TOHU VE AVNEY VOHU: Are the beasts named here symbolic? Yes, they most certainly are. Tohu and Bohu themselves! Just as I didn't realise I was predicting when I wrote my note to verse 10. (See Genesis 1:2)
But they are also real creatures, employed here as metaphors. KA'AT in Aramaic and Arabic has to do with "vomit", and it is known that the pelican plucks sea-shells, eats any meat, and vomits back the remainder (lots more on this here). Much argument over whether the KIPOD is the hedgehog or the porcupine - but what does it matter, since the point is the spikes, and the point of the spikes at that. I have gone for porcupine because it alliterates. YANSHUPH doesn't really exist as a genus-name; but means "unclean", in the Levitical sense - see my note at Leviticus 11:17 and you will understand that better. And as to the OREV (which is also in Leviticus 11, at verse 15), I have so many notes on this and its word-games, I hardly know which one to direct you to. Try Psalm 10:8 and follow its links.
So what are "the line of nullity, and the stones of emptiness"? Probably the only geographical points that will be discernible when the world is reduced to pre-Creation. Roll on global warming!
VIYRESHU'AH: The root (probably the only root left in this burned-out wilderness!) is YARASH (cf Genesis 15:3/4), but the way it is employed here, sound as well as grammar, hints at the ROSH, which is the source of all life, in the beginning (Genesis 1:1, first word, and First Word) especially, but, based on verse 10, throughout eternity as well. So maybe the "line of nullity" is the one that joins, or fails to join, the beginning with the end; and "the stones of emptiness" are what you will fail to find because you have failed to reach it. Genesis 1, reversed!
34:12 CHOREYHA VE EYN SHAM MELUCHAH YIKRA'U VE CHOL SAREYHA YIHEYU APHES
חֹרֶיהָ וְאֵין שָׁם מְלוּכָה יִקְרָאוּ וְכָל שָׂרֶיהָ יִהְיוּ אָפֶס
BN: As for her nobles, none shall be there to be called to the kingdom; and all her princes shall be nothing.
So, after Dante's Inferno and Eliot's Wasteland, we join Shakespeare's King Lear upon the heath. Though the word-order is very strange, the verb (YIKRA'U) coming after the follow-up clause: "her nobles, and there will be none there to be called to provide governance, and the total number of her princes will be zero" is how it should be rendered (except that APHES can't really be rendered as "zero", as that concept won't be invented for several centuries yet - will it?)
34:13 VE ALTAH ARMENOTEYHA SIYRIM KIMOS VA CHO'ACH BE MIVTSAREYHA VE HAYETAH NEVEH TANIM CHATSIR LIVNOT YA'ANAH
34:13 VE ALTAH ARMENOTEYHA SIYRIM KIMOS VA CHO'ACH BE MIVTSAREYHA VE HAYETAH NEVEH TANIM CHATSIR LIVNOT YA'ANAH
וְעָלְתָה אַרְמְנֹתֶיהָ סִירִים קִמּוֹשׂ וָחוֹחַ בְּמִבְצָרֶיהָ וְהָיְתָה נְוֵה תַנִּים חָצִיר לִבְנוֹת יַעֲנָה
BN: And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in their fortresses; and it shall be a habitation of wild-dogs, a courtyard for ostriches.
34:14 U PHAGSHU TSIYIM ET IYIM VE SA'IR AL RE'EHU YIKRA ACH SHAM HIRGIY'AH LIYLIT U MATS'AH LAH MANO'ACH
KJ: The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
KJ: There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.
ALTAH: The only things that will be making ALIYAH from now on! See verse 3.
NAVEH...CHATSIR...YA'ANAH: Y-Y never uses words without being in full control of their ambivalences and ambiguites. So a NAVEH hints homophonously at a NAVI, the CHATSIR reflects the one where the sacrificial altar stood in the Temple, and the BANOT YA'ANAH, according to Job 30:28/29 and especially Micah 1:8, are literally female ostriches, but in fact this was the idiom for the priestesses trained in the art of keening, which is to say the professional wailers and howlers on behalf of the mourners at every funeral - the name presumably echoing the cry of the desert ostrich.
BN (alternate translation): And thorns will be the only creatures left making aliyah, while nettles and thistles occupy the fortresses; and wild-dogs will deliver oracles, and professional keeners will fill the courtyard.
But wait, are those TANIM really "wild dogs"? Click here.
34:14 U PHAGSHU TSIYIM ET IYIM VE SA'IR AL RE'EHU YIKRA ACH SHAM HIRGIY'AH LIYLIT U MATS'AH LAH MANO'ACH
וּפָגְשׁוּ צִיִּים אֶת-אִיִּים וְשָׂעִיר עַל רֵעֵהוּ יִקְרָא אַךְ שָׁם הִרְגִּיעָה לִּילִית וּמָצְאָה לָהּ מָנוֹחַ
KJ: The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
BN: And the wild-cats shall meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry out to his fellow; yea, Lilit herself shall settle there, and find for herself a place to roost.
TSIYIM...IYIM: Rhyme-games on this occasion. And paralleling TOHU with BOHU of course. For the TSIYIM, and confirmation that the KJ's slightly extended translation is spot-on, see Psalm 72:9 and 74:14. And then look at Jeremiah 50:39, where the same confirmation applies - and then wonder who wrote this oracle first, Yesha-Yah, or Yirme-Yah!
LIYLIT: Why is this translator so reluctant to name the names. Like the BANOT YA'ANAH of verse 13, this is indeed a screech owl, but it metaphors the "night spirit" somewhat monstrously, just as those ostriches gave their name to the keening women; nor is this just any old "night monster"; this is Lilit herself, Adam's first wife. And these verses are as close as we will ever get to a detailed portrait of She'ol.
34:15 SHAMAH KINENAH KIPOZ VA TEMALET U VAK'AH VE DAGRAH VE TSILAH ACH SHAM NIKBETSU DAYOT ISHAH RE'UTAH
34:15 SHAMAH KINENAH KIPOZ VA TEMALET U VAK'AH VE DAGRAH VE TSILAH ACH SHAM NIKBETSU DAYOT ISHAH RE'UTAH
שָׁמָּה קִנְּנָה קִפּוֹז וַתְּמַלֵּט וּבָקְעָה וְדָגְרָה בְצִלָּהּ אַךְ שָׁם נִקְבְּצוּ דַיּוֹת אִשָּׁה רְעוּתָהּ
BN: There shall the arrowsnake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and brood under her shadow; there too shall the kites congregate, every one with her mate.
KIPOZ: This is the only occasion in the entire Tanach when the word occurs, and not even a variant to confirm the root. Gesenius makes a case for that root meaning "to contract oneself", and from this draws the conclusion that it is an arrow-snake - follow this link while looking at the illustration, and the why will be self-explanatory from the physics. But do arrow-snakes make nests, and if so, would you use the root KANAH, which is very much about bird-nests, and therefore an endorsement of the KJ's preference for an owl, as are the kites (for which see Deuteronomy 14:13 and then Leviticus 11:4) seeming to roost in the same trees?
34:16 DIRSHU ME'AL SEPHER YHVH U KERA'U ACHAT ME HENAH LO NE'DARAH ISHAH RE'UTAH LO PHAKADO KI PHI HU TSIVAH VE RUCHO HU KIBTSAN
KJ: Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.
TEMALET: See the link, and then please tell me how this gets to be "laying eggs" (though of course it does, because Y-Y is still playing his literal-metaphorical games in every verse)? And indeed, the same applies to VAK'AH, for which see this link. Escape, break out... and then DAGRAH, "re-gather" - see this link - presumably in some safe place - the root TSEL is the protective shadow of the wings of the deity in several Psalms (36:8, 63:8...), and a physical shelter in Genesis 19:8. And finally, they don't just "gather"... they NIKBETSU, and given my notes here, and on the ironic parallels in earlier verses, I think "congregate" is the only viable translation!
And the verse that follows confirms every detail of it: the portrait of the world reduced to nothingness, then reborn as wild, uncultivated Nature, but embracing the deity who created it, and then, from there, building a human world in harmony. Y-Y's idealism and ideology, expressed to perfection.
34:16 DIRSHU ME'AL SEPHER YHVH U KERA'U ACHAT ME HENAH LO NE'DARAH ISHAH RE'UTAH LO PHAKADO KI PHI HU TSIVAH VE RUCHO HU KIBTSAN
דִּרְשׁוּ מֵעַל סֵפֶר יְהוָה וּקְרָאוּ אַחַת מֵהֵנָּה לֹא נֶעְדָּרָה אִשָּׁה רְעוּתָהּ לֹא פָקָדוּ כִּי פִי הוּא צִוָּה וְרוּחוֹ הוּא קִבְּצָן
BN: Seek out in the scroll of YHVH, and read; not one of these shall be lacking, none shall want her mate; for my mouth has commanded it, and its breath has gathered them in.
SEPHER: As always with this word, a "scroll" please, not a "book" - there is even a brief description of it being rolled in verse 4 of this chapter.
KJ: And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.
SEPHER: As always with this word, a "scroll" please, not a "book" - there is even a brief description of it being rolled in verse 4 of this chapter.
But what precisely is this "scroll of the Lord"? Not the full Tanach obviously - that wouldn't be created for another century and more. Torah perhaps. We simply do not know which parts, if any, were written down before the scribe Ezra in the middle of the 5th century BCE, and we don't even have an original copy of that.
KIBTSAN: Yes, as in the modern kibbutz, whether the charedi communities of eastern and central Europe who first used the term, or the socialist collective farms of modern Israel, which adopted and adapted it.
RUCHO: See Genesis 1:2 again - the very same verse that speaks about TOHU and BOHU.
34:17 VE HU HIPIL LAHEN GORAL VE YADO CHILKATAH LAHEM BA KAV AD OLAM YIYRASHU'AH LE DOR VA DOR YISHKENU VAH
34:17 VE HU HIPIL LAHEN GORAL VE YADO CHILKATAH LAHEM BA KAV AD OLAM YIYRASHU'AH LE DOR VA DOR YISHKENU VAH
וְהוּא הִפִּיל לָהֶן גּוֹרָל וְיָדוֹ חִלְּקַתָּה לָהֶם בַּקָּו עַד עוֹלָם יִירָשׁוּהָ לְדוֹר וָדוֹר יִשְׁכְּנוּ בָהּ
BN: And he has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it unto them by line; they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.{S}
GORAL: For which see Leviticus 16:7 ff and Numbers 26:55 and 33:53/54. I do like the idea that the owls will get their portion, and the ostriches theirs - in perfect harmony of course, with the lion happily lying down with the lamb if they are given a shared portion. As to the method of drawing lots, the breastplate of the Kohen Gadol was adorned with the Urim
and Tumim, for which see the link?
Lot-casting also connects to Purim, but Purim is a Judaisation of the Persian Ishtar (Easter) rituals, which they only encountered very much later even than Deutero-Isaiah, so Y-Y cannot be alluding to that.
Isaiah:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55
56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
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