Isaiah 21

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21:1 MAS'A MIDBAR-YAM KE SUPHOT BA NEGEV LACHALOPH MI MIDBAR BA ME ERETS NORA'AH


מַשָּׂא מִדְבַּר יָם כְּסוּפוֹת בַּנֶּגֶב לַחֲלֹף מִמִּדְבָּר בָּא מֵאֶרֶץ נוֹרָאָה

KJ (King James translation): The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.

BN (BibleNet translation): The pronouncement on Midbar-Yam. Whereas sandstorms in the south sweep on, coming from the desert, coming from a dreadful land.


Our context shifts again, now to the "Wilderness of the Sea", wherever that may have been: a desert with storms? some distant point of the Cosmos? a crater on the moon? the land of the Pelishtim? or simply the name of a town?

And which sea? "Desert" in Kena'an means the entire south, at its west the Mediterranean below the five cities of the Pelishtim, then along the Azah Strip into Mitsrayim (Egypt); but at the southernmost point, at Eilat and Aqaba, it becomes the Edomite Sea (Red Sea).

However - I am thinking ahead to other words in this verse, and other verses in this chapter - the desert by the Yam ha Melach (Dead Sea) is the one that David went down into (I am phrasing it that way deliberately) when he was pursued into the Underworld (She'ol) by King Sha'ul (Saul) - 1 Samuel 19 onwards. David, in full Yedid-Yah, "the beloved of the full-moon goddess", is the representation in epic of the corn-god; so we need to read on and see, but it may be that this "oracle" is connected in some way to the corn-harvest, whether at the spring equinox setting up of the scarecrow on its T-shaped pole, or the burning of the no-longer-needed scarecrow after the harvest festival at the autumn equinox.

Is he still walking barefoot and loin-clothed? This isn't where he was walking in the previous chapter. (And was that always a metaphor anyway?)

SUPHOT: See my page on Yoseph (Joseph), especially the paragraph about the "
prefictual Yud". No, better to quote that here, and let you read the rest of the commentary on this chapter before you go back to the Yoseph page to understand the context of the comment there:
If the prefictual Yud (י) is really Yah (יה), then do we have here Yah Suph (יה סוף)? It would be very interesting if we did. A Suph is a rush or reed, and particularly (Exodus 2:3Isaiah 19:6) those that grow in the River Nile, and which are the vegetation most associated with Osher (Osiris), the Egyptian god whose story echoes Yoseph's in almost every aspect, and to whom Yoseph was high priest. Traditionally the waters of the Arabian Gulf, including the Red Sea itself and the many inland wadis of the Arabian Peninsula, are known collectively as Yam Suph (ים-סוף), but this is incorrect. The Reed Sea, which is what Yam Suph means, was the delta of the River Nile, where it breaks into the Mediterranean in the north of Egypt, precisely in the land of Goshen where Ya'akov settled, and from where Mosheh led the Beney Yisra-El into the Wilderness. Osher also represented the tempest or the whirlwind, as did his Babylonian equivalent Tammuz, and Suphah (סופה), the feminine form of Suph, is used for this throughout the Book of Job (21:1827:2037:9) as well as in Proverbs 10:25Isaiah 17:13Hosea 8:7 has a variation, Suphatah (סוּפָ֣תָה), with the same meaning. In later Yehudit this destructive power of the flooding Nile and the whirlwind gave rise to the verb Suph (סוף) = "to end" or, in the Hiphil form, "to destroy".

Is this storm then travelling eastwards from the Nile - where the last oracles were located - and recounting the local variations of the life of the corn-god as it travels? Is Y-Y trying to tell us that Osher, and David, and Philistine Hera-Kles, and Babylonian (but also, remember, Bethlehemite) Tammuz, are all the same deity (and if so, we should add Jesus to the list, but also Robin Hood and Guy Fawkes as the spring and autumn ends of the same epic)?


21:2 CHAZUT KASHAH HUGAD LI HA BOGED BOGED VE HA SHODED SHODED ALI EYLAM TSURI MADAI KOL ANCHATAH HISHBATI

חָזוּת קָשָׁה הֻגַּד לִי הַבּוֹגֵד בּוֹגֵד וְהַשּׁוֹדֵד שׁוֹדֵד עֲלִי עֵילָם צוּרִי מָדַי כָּל אַנְחָתָה הִשְׁבַּתִּי

KJ: A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.

BN: A distressing vision has been revealed to me. The treacherous dealer deals treacherously, and the spoiler spoils. Go up, Eylam! Lay siege, Madai! I have put all of its sighing on hold.



Eylam and Madai (possibly Medea) suggest Persia.

ANCHATAH: Allusions, alongside word-games, sometimes both at once, are the favoured methodology of our author, and especially when he chooses words that do not often get chosen. So with ANCHAH here. What, then, might he be alluding to? Exodus 2:23 seems the most plausible, given the last few chapters. The only other options, Ezekiel 21:12 and Psalm 31:11, are far too nebulously generalised to merit the alluding, and Joel 1:18 is a much later text.


21:3 AL KEN MAL'U MATNAI CHALCHALAH TSIYRIM ACHAZUNI KE TSIYREY YOLEDAH NA'AVEYTI MI SHEMO'A NIVHALTI ME RE'OT

עַל כֵּן מָלְאוּ מָתְנַי חַלְחָלָה צִירִים אֲחָזוּנִי כְּצִירֵי יוֹלֵדָה נַעֲוֵיתִי מִשְּׁמֹעַ נִבְהַלְתִּי מֵרְאוֹת

KJ: Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.

BN: That is what has got my stomach churning with convulsions. Pangs have taken hold upon me, like the pangs of a woman in labour. I am doubled over from hearing it, trembling from the sight of it.


A new kind of imagery. Y-Y is physically affected by what he is hearing is taking place… but he is also talking about himself, which he has only done once before, describing in chapter 6 how he came to leave the regular priesthood and join the Guild of Prophets. In general the personal, the ego, does not play a role in the act of Prophetcy.

MAL'U MATNAI CHALCHALAH: KJ has the translation correct literally, but this is an idiom, and we do not use this idiom in this way today.

CHALCHALAH: KALKALAH (קלקלה) with two Kuphs means "rotten" in the sense of "despicable", and it is only ever used once in the entire Tanach, at Numbers 21:5; and the rest of that verse makes for quite a coincidence with this one. KALKALAH with two KAPHS (כלכלה) woAmidahuld be "economics" in today's world, but then meant "sustenance" in general, though specifically foodstuffs, including but not only corn. These oracles would have been delivered orally, so which of the three any member of the audience would have heard is difficult to say.
   Or maybe they would have heard an allusion from that third option, the double KAPHS, if they were regular attendees at the Temple, and accustomed to reciting the Standing Prayer, the Amidah. The second blessing, Gevurot, which states that the deity "mechalchel chayim be chesed - מְכַלְכֵּ֨ל חַיִּ֜ים בְּחֶ֗סֶד"... "You sustain the living with kindness... support the fallen, heal the sick, release the confined, and maintain your faith even in those who sleep in the dust."

ACHAZUNI: Pangs, as in labour. Kings, as in bad ones, the sort from whom Y-Y withdraws semicha and puts his son on the sacred throne in his place. Achaz, the father of Chizki-Yah. A modern equivalent might be a description of oneself as "completely thatchered", or simply "bushwhacked".



21:4 TA'AH LEVAVI PALATSUT BI'ATATNI ET NESHEPH HISHKI SAM LI LA CHARADAH

תָּעָה לְבָבִי פַּלָּצוּת בִּעֲתָתְנִי אֵת נֶשֶׁף חִשְׁקִי שָׂם לִי לַחֲרָדָה

KJ: My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.

BN: My heart is skipping beats; the horror of this has left me trembling; the cool breeze that I longed for has been turned against me as a violent storm.


TA'AH: Literally "to make mistakes".

PALATSUT: Used in Psalm 55:6, but virtually nowhere else. Rather more "horror", in the sense of "nightmare-causing", than "terror", which in today's world has a very different, though equally fear-inducing, connotation.

NESHEPH...CHARADAH: Yes, NESHEPH is used for the twilight period, both dawn and dusk, but that is because they are the times when the cooler wind blows, and the root is about the blowing, not the time of day. This is confirmed by CHARADAH, which root is all about the cause and not the impact, in this case the wind itself, not the consequences for the person blown by it.


21:5 AROCH HA SHULCHAN TSAPHO HA TSAPHIT ACHOL SHATOH KUMU HA SARIM MISHCHU MAGEN

עָרֹךְ הַשֻּׁלְחָן צָפֹה הַצָּפִית אָכוֹל שָׁתֹה קוּמוּ הַשָּׂרִים מִשְׁחוּ מָגֵן

KJ: Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.

BN: Prepare the table, lay out the tablecloth, eat, drink. Rise up, you princes, anoint the shield. {S}


AROCH HA SHULCHAN: Rabbi Joseph Caro would do this, though not until the 16th century CE. Click here for the full text. See also my note at Psalm 78:19, which is clearly in need of updating based on this verse.

TSAPHO HA TSAPHIT: How on earth does KJ get this to be about "watchtowers" - and if it is that, then cf Ezekiel's watchman (Ezekiel 33:1-6), though his dates are later. The answer is twofold:

i) The root TSAPHAH has to do with looking out over long views, as in Song of Songs 7:5, or the person doing so, as in 1 Samuel 14:16. But people who look out over great distances and report back on what they see may be tower-guards, or they may be the Heads of the Guilds of Prophets - see Jeremiah 6:17 where he makes precisely this play-on-words. So, yes, it is a legitimate translation, but what does it mean in the context? Whereas:

ii) See Exodus 25:24, where the table in question is not just any table, but precisely the Table of Values that inspired Joseph Caro's naming of his book.

And I said the answer is twofold, not that it may be one or the other. As per the very next verse, it is both.

MISHCHU MAGEN: And then, how and why does one anoint a shield? Anointing is the ordination of a priest or Prophet (the calling of him, even, to serve as a watchman!), or the equivalent of crowning for a sacred king. So perhaps, surmounted above this particular Law Code, to show that it is Yehudi, it is only a "shield" in one sense of that word: a Magen David, a Shield of David.


21:6 KI CHOH AMAR ELAI ADONAI LECH HA'AMED HA METSAPEH ASHER YIR'EH YAGID

כִּי כֹה אָמַר אֵלַי אֲדֹנָי לֵךְ הַעֲמֵד הַמְצַפֶּה אֲשֶׁר יִרְאֶה יַגִּיד

KJ: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

BN: For thus has my Lord said to me: Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he sees!


ADONAI: Not YHVH on this occasion, so "the Lord" could as well be his king as his god.

So it is indeed the watchman who sees, but a watchman needs a Table of Values to enable him to describe meaningfully what he sees. I have given the Ezekiel lionk above, but let me quoting it in full here anyway:
"Man, say to your fellow-countrymen, When I set armies in motion against a land, its people must choose one from among themselves to be a watchman. When he sees the enemy approaching and blows his trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone does not heed the warning and is overtaken by the enemy, he is responsible for his own fate. He is responsible because, when he heard the alarm, he paid no heed to it; had he paid heed, he would have escaped. But if the watchman does not blow his trumpet to warn the people when he sees the enemy approaching, then any man who is killed is caught with all his sins upon him; but I will hold the watchman answerable for his death."
And we have asked previously, was one of the roles of the Prophet, as it most certainly was of the Temple and local shrine priests and priestesses, to make constant observation of the heavens, and report back on the changes, movements, diurnations? Or maybe I should rephrase the question: we know the role of the clergy in this, but they only observed, and were not expected to do more, unless the High Priest with the Urim and Tumim: but for the rest, pure astronomy; were the Prophets then the astrologers, and what we are reading is simply Biblical horoscopes? This is not the conclusion we have been drawing up until this point, but it is the way that the Prophets have been traditionally understood over the past two thousand years.

Or is the role of watchman not to observe the heavens at all, but to observe the behaviour of human beings, both at home and abroad, and to pass observation on it from within the Table of Values reflected from the overlay on the Shield of David?


21:7 VE RA'AH RECHEV TSEMED PARASHIM RECHEV CHAMOR RECHEV GAMAL VE HIKSHIV KESHEV RAV KASHEV

וְרָאָה רֶכֶב צֶמֶד פָּרָשִׁים רֶכֶב חֲמוֹר רֶכֶב גָּמָל וְהִקְשִׁיב קֶשֶׁב רַב קָשֶׁב

KJ: And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:

BN: And when he sees a chariot, with a pair of horsemen, or a donkey-cart, or a camel dragging a trailer, he shall not just watch it carefully, but very, very carefully.


VE RA'AH: Is Y-Y talking about himself in the 3rd person, himself this "watchman", or about another with that role? The question is significant anyway, but specifically so here, because VE RA'AH is in the past tense, whereas the previous verse ordered the calling of the watchman in the past, but set it for the future; have we then jumped into that future? This would be more straightforward if the text said VA YIR'EH, using the Vav Consecutive... but it doesn't. I have gone for the future in my translation, but only as a means of showing the alternative to the KJ usage of the past: either could be correct.

The point being the methodologies used by the unscrupulous: what looks like a donkey-cart may turn out to be a Trojan Horse.


21:8 VA YIKRA ARYEH AL MITSPEH ADONAI ANOCHI OMED TAMID YOMAM VE AL MISHMARTI ANOCHI NITSAV KOL HA LEILOT

וַיִּקְרָא אַרְיֵה עַל מִצְפֶּה אֲדֹנָי אָנֹכִי עֹמֵד תָּמִיד יוֹמָם וְעַל מִשְׁמַרְתִּי אָנֹכִי נִצָּב כָּל הַלֵּילוֹת

KJ: And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:

BN: And he will call out: "I can see something! My Lord, I stand on the watch-tower throughout the day, and I am regularly on the duty-roster for night-shift ...


ARYEH: a lion indeed, but surely it is not an actual, physical lion that he has seen, unless this whole analogy is "oracular" in the most mystical of senses, the liuon beiong the emblem of Yehudah... but wait. Y-Y did not write this down. One of his disciples wrote this down. The watchman is in the tower, and about to tell what he has seen. RA'AH in the previous verse, and a question of past or future tense. How do you say "I will see" in Yehudit? ANI ER'EH (
אני אראה) - yes, with an Aleph not a Yud, but if the scribe misunderstood...

ADONAI: Again not YHVH, though of course the ambiguity is intentional: the watchman is both the physical and the spiritual city-guard.



21:9 VE HINEH ZEH VA RECHEV ISH TSEMED PARASHIM VA YA'AN VA YOMER NAPHLAH NAPHLAH BAVEL VE CHOL PESIYLEI ELOHEYHA SHIBAR LA ARETS

וְהִנֵּה זֶה בָא רֶכֶב אִישׁ צֶמֶד פָּרָשִׁים וַיַּעַן וַיֹּאמֶר נָפְלָה נָפְלָה בָּבֶל וְכָל פְּסִילֵי אֱלֹהֶיהָ שִׁבַּר לָאָרֶץ

KJ: And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.

BN: "And can you believe it, this chariot comes along, a man, a pair of horsemen. And he answered me, he said, 'Fallen. Bavel is fallen. Every one of its statues to its gods lie broken on the ground.'"


VE HINEH... I have the distinct impression that Y-Y is trying to do the voice of the watchman, decidedly Cockney in its, yer know, not exactly being grammatical.

VA YA'AN: A piece of text is missing here: "So I called down to him, and said, oi you, what you doing 'ere..." after which VA YA'AN, "and he answered".

If I were a Moslem reading this verse, I would be intrigued to know if Muhammad was also familiar with it! The conquest of Mecca, December 629 by today's calendar, January 630 by the then Julian, 10th to the 20th of Ramadan 8 AH in the Moslem. 


21:10 MEDUSHATI U VEN GARNI ASHER SHAMA'TI ME ET YHVH TSEVA'OT ELOHEY YISRA-EL HIGADETI LACHEM

מְדֻשָׁתִי וּבֶן גָּרְנִי אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתִּי מֵאֵת יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הִגַּדְתִּי לָכֶם

KJ: O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

BN: And you, my threshed corn, and you, the product of the winnowing, that which I have heard from YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, the god of Yisra-El, I have reported to you. {P}


MEDUSHATI: I am assuming that the "man" from Bavel has finished speaking, and the tower-guard too has finished speaking, that this is once again Y-Y, wrapping up his oracle. He uses Tammuz images - the corn-god born on the threshing-floor at Sol Invictus, the reaped harvest - but they feel incomplete, and then the text shifts to a completely separate oracle - I suspect that something in the original writing down may be missing or in error here, perhaps what should have been two shorter chapters were erroneously fused as one. Check the Qumran version to see if it is the same there; but Qumran is much later and could have picked up the error, as Septuagint and Latin translations clearly do.

What follows next is clearly a new chapter, but not presented as such. Perhaps because the same happens more than once - see verse 13. (And of course the original Yehudit text didn't do chapters anyway, they are a later, Christian, emendation).



21:11 MASA DUMAH ELAI KOR'E MI SE'IR SHOMER MAH MI LAILAH SHOMER MA MI LEYL

מַשָּׂא דּוּמָה אֵלַי קֹרֵא מִשֵּׂעִיר שֹׁמֵר מַה מִּלַּיְלָה שֹׁמֵר מַה מִּלֵּיל

KJ: The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?

BN 
(option a): A pronouncement on Dumah. One calls to me from Se'ir: "Watchman, what did you see this night? Watchman, what do you see at nighttime?"


Shifts now to Dumah, but Dumah ("silence") is not an actual place, it is a poetic name for She'ol, the Underworld. So we have witnessed the corn god in his spring and autumn equinox manifestations, and now, after being winnowed in verse 10, he descends into the Winter phase in verse 11. These things do not happen in poetry or Prophetic oracles by randomness, accident or chance. And now look at Psalm 22, which is, as per my note at the link to Dumah: "the Psalm of the journey of the Earth-god through the Underworld, which in this case is the night sky, emerging at Ayalet ha Shachar, which is the dawn."

But if DUMAH is not a place, should we not read this as:

BN (option b): An oracle: Silence calls to me from Se'ir. "Watchman, what did you see this night? Watchman, what do you see at nighttime?"

Word-order and phrasing makes this a much more plausible reading.

Se'ir, also mentioned here, is a geographical reality, linked inexorably with Edom through Kayin (Cain), Esav (Esau) and Yishma-El (Ishmael); so again we are oracling foreign realms who have been Yisra-El's traditional enemies. And again the watchman (which may explain why two separate texts became linked), who reports cryptically in 21:12.

But if DUMAH is not a place, maybe SE'IR isn't either, or at least its mythological side renders it something different from a mere place. Go to my link on the name, above, and you will see that Se'ir served as a Kena'ani equivalent of Egyptian Set, the goat-god sent down into the Underworld, carrying human sins upon its back.

MI LALAH... 
MI LEYL: It looks at first like a textual error, but it is what the original Yehudit text says. LAILAH is the generality of night-time, which of course is another occasion of the Netherworld, alongside Winter and Death. But the Jewish day begins in the evening ("and there was evening, and then morning", as per Genesis 1), with the moon, and not in the morning with the sun. So, for example, when Jews today speak of LEYL SHABAT, they mean specifically the Friday evening, rather than any part of the Saturday. So DUMAH (see my note, above) reflects the night journey, as SE'IR (see my note, above) reflects the night journey. And then...


21:12 AMAR SHOMER ATAH BOKER VE GAM LAILAH IM TIV'AYUN BE'AYU SHUVU ETAYU

אָמַר שֹׁמֵר אָתָה בֹקֶר וְגַם לָיְלָה אִם תִּבְעָיוּן בְּעָיוּ שֻׁבוּ אֵתָיוּ

KJ: The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.

BN: The watchman said: "Now is morning, but also night - if you must ask, do so. Ask, go home, come back, ask again." {P}


Once again that "darkness at noon" that we encountered in 16:3

ATAH: Means now. This is not a suggestion that "darkness at noon" is coming, as in the KJ. It is here, right now. Which is why I have slightly extended my translation of the last three words, to emphasise that it is now, and it is not going to change later on.

Once again this feels like an incomplete piece, perhaps two verses fragmented from something larger, elsewhere in the book, or not even included in the book.


21:13 MASA BA ERAV BA YA'AR BA ERAV TALIYNU ORCHOT DEDANIM

מַשָּׂא בַּעְרָב בַּיַּעַר בַּעְרַב תָּלִינוּ אֹרְחוֹת דְּדָנִים

KJ: The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim.

BN: The pronouncement on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall you lodge, you lawyers of the Dedanim.


And then another change, not of chapter, but of the subject of Y-Y's visions, this time to Arabia, which ties in with Se'ir and 21:2. The Dedanim appeared in the Genesis Toldot, once as an error for Rodanim, once as themselves. If I am right about the Davidic links, then we are in fact tracing the Tammuz route back to its source: the Aravah first, then across Mount Se'ir into the Jordanian desert, and now east into Arabia.

ERAV: But couldn't that just as easily be a pronouncement on the evening - HA EREV (עֶרֶב)? The word-play is unavoidable, though the verse will need to be placed before DUMAH, not after it, as here, to make chronological sense. Or have we already completed the day, and this is the evening of the second day?

ORCHOT: So too with this word we have to read both of its meanings: 

i) CARAVANS, from the root ARACH, "to go", which is usually LALECHET, so here understood as wandering, though there is also LENADNED for that (see the next verse). Genesis 37:25 makes it a travelling company, Judges 19:17 a wayfarer... and  many others.

ii) EDICTS, ADVICE, JUDGEMENT, from the root ARACH, spelled exactly the same, though it does rather overlap with ARACH spelled with an Ayin, from which we get the term for a "lawyer" - ORECH DIN (ערך דין). And is that not rather more what this is about, than wandering caravans? ARUCHAH, from this root, is used today to mean "a meal", but in its original usage it was not just any meal at any time, but a fixed diet at a fixed time; or indeed anything arranged by edict, medical prescription, prison rules etc. See 2 Kings 25:30.


21:14 LIKRA'T TSAM'E TEHAYU MAYIM YOSHVEY ERETS TEYMA BE LACHMO KIDMU NODED

לִקְרַאת צָמֵא הֵתָיוּ מָיִם יֹשְׁבֵי אֶרֶץ תֵּימָא בְּלַחְמוֹ קִדְּמוּ נֹדֵד

KJ: The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled.

BN: Bring water for he who is thirsty! The inhabitants of the land of Teyma brought bread for the wanderers.


Is Teyma a variation of Teman, which is the Yemen? Which of course is on the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, so it fits with verse 1 and the names above.

NODED: "Him that fled", as in the KJ translation, could mean somebody running from the law, but verse 15 rejects that: these are people who have either deserted, or been sent flying in all directions, by the swords of war. I raise this only because the traditional undersandiong of the root NOD is that Arabia was "the Land of Nod" in which Kayin wandered after killing Havel. That myth is intended to explain why some people are sedentary and others nomadic, and therefore LENADNED, the verb, means "to wander" (cf Psalm 55:8), and all these branches relate to the nomadic life of the Arabian Bedou. Yet the next verse definitely has them fleeing.

So we do what we always do in circumstances such as these, which is to track down other usages in the Tanach. And how curious, that the first place to occur with the other meaning, "fleeing", should be Psalm 31:12, the very next verse after our previous unusually used word: ANCHATAH at verse 2. Or look at Psalm 68:13, or Job 18:18, several others. So apparently this word did acquire a second meaning, and it is that meaning which is in use here.

And is he predicting the downfall of all these regions of Arabia, or is the journey into night an account of the journey of the exiles into Arabia, either in 722 or, more likely as far south as this, of 586 BCE? If so, "refugees" is definitely not appropriate, and "fugitives" becomes even less so.
 I am sticking to "wanderers" nonetheless, and hope to resolve the context eventually. Perhaps the next verse will help.


21:15 KI MI PENEY CHARAVOT NADADU MI PENEY CHEREV NETUSHAH U MI PENEY KESHET DERUCHAH U MI PENEY KOVED MILCHAMAH

כִּי מִפְּנֵי חֲרָבוֹת נָדָדוּ מִפְּנֵי חֶרֶב נְטוּשָׁה וּמִפְּנֵי קֶשֶׁת דְּרוּכָה וּמִפְּנֵי כֹּבֶד מִלְחָמָה

KJ: For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.

BN: For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the sheer brutality of war. {S}


NETUSHAH: at first sight, an instrument of war named a Netushah... but then, on second hearing, the rockets fired out of southern Lebanon in the early 1980s were Katyushah, with a Yud, and I think that Tet (ט) was a Tav (ת)...

This is definitely not the captive Yehudim en route to exile.


21:16 KI CHOH AMAR ADONAI ELAI BE OD SHANAH KI SHENEY SACHIR VE CHALAH KOL KEVOD KEDAR

כִּי כֹה אָמַר אֲדֹנָי אֵלָי בְּעוֹד שָׁנָה כִּשְׁנֵי שָׂכִיר וְכָלָה כָּל כְּבוֹד קֵדָר

KJ: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail:

BN: For thus did the Lord say to me: "Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail;


ADONAI: Several times in recent passages it has been unclear whether ADONAI meant "Sire", and was addressed to the king, or "Lord", and was addressed to YHVH. Clearly YHVH here.

Kedar is found in Canticles 1:5. Y-Y mentions it again in 42:11 and 60:7. Interesting choice though, for a piece that appears to be all about darkness, blackness, winter and night-time: that Canticles verse describes the colour of the lover's skin as being "black as the tents of Kedar". Arabian black rather than African black, but black is black is black.


21:17 U SHE'AR MISPAR KESHET GIBOREY VENEY KEDAR YIM'ATU KI YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL DIBER

וּשְׁאָר מִסְפַּר קֶשֶׁת גִּבּוֹרֵי בְנֵי קֵדָר יִמְעָטוּ כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל דִּבֵּר

KJ: And the residue of the number of archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the LORD God of Israel hath spoken it.

BN: And those remaining of the archers, of the soldiers of the Beney Kedar, they shall be reduced to very few; for YHVH, the god of Yisra-El, has declared it. {S}


DIBER: See my previous notes on this.


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 


Copyright © 2022 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press

Isaiah 20

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 



BOOK THREE


20:1 BISHNAT BO TARTAN ASHDODAH BISHLO'ACH OTO SARGON MELECH ASHUR VA YILACHEM BE ASHDOD VA YILKEDAH


בִּשְׁנַת בֹּא תַרְתָּן אַשְׁדּוֹדָה בִּשְׁלֹחַ אֹתוֹ סַרְגוֹן מֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר וַיִּלָּחֶם בְּאַשְׁדּוֹד וַיִּלְכְּדָהּ

KJ (King James translation) : In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;

BN (BibleNet translation): In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Ashur sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it


New section, new point in time: the year that Sargon of Ashur (Assyria) sent Tartan to take Ashdod. https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/biblical-archaeology-16-sargon-ii-inscriptions/ tells us that Ashdod of the Pelishtim rebelled against Ashur in 713 BCE, and was subdued two years later. The Sargon in question is II of that name, ruled 722-705, not from Nineveh like his predecessors, but from Dur Sharrukin, modern Khorsabad in Iraq. The date tells us that we are after the conquest and destruction of the Ten Tribes, which took place in 722, immediately before Sargon II came to the throne.

And if the Book of Yesha-Yah is in correct chronological order (we have no way of knowing if this is the case), and these are oracles of the future, then we have to rethink our reading of the second book, because the Y-Y of our current chapter must be First Y-Y. However, if, as I have suggested in the last chapter, these were never oracles at all, in the sense of predictions of the future, but in fact theological commentaries on the past as a means of preaching the needs of the present....

And then we look up Tartan, and find him at 2 Kings 18:17 (see below), and guess what, this is the reign of Chizki-Yah (Hezekiah), First Y-Y's chosen king, First Y-Y's model king, and what do we find him doing in the 16 verses before Tartan's appearance in the Kings chapter but all the things that Y-Y has said will happen in the previous three chapters: right down to the serpent-rod that Mosheh and Aharon used in Mitsrayim (Exodus 4 for the original rod, Numbers 21:8 for Nechushtan, but click this link for my detailed notes on this):
And he did what was right in the eyes of YHVH, according to all that David his ancestor had done. He removed the high places, and broke up the pillars, and cut down the Asherah; and he broke in pieces the brass serpent that Mosheh had made; for right up until his time the Beney Yisra-El had carried on making offerings to it; and it was called Nechushtan. He trusted in YHVH, the god of Yisra-El; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Yehudah, nor among them that were before him. For he wasw loyal to YHVH, and never ceased following him, but kept his commandments, which YHVH had instructed Mosheh. And YHVH was with him: wherever he went he prospered; and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and refused to serve him.
That last the principal subject-matter of the opening chapters of this book: Y-Y telling King Achaz (Chizki-Yah's father), and then the nation as a whole, do not passively comply, do not collaborate in your own victimhood, fight back, defend yourselves...

And one final note: even this is clearly an account of history: "after him there was none like him among all the kings of Yehudah, nor among them that were before him..." which by self-definition must be at least three kings, because two would say "both", not "all"; and probably a good deal more than three. So this may be about events in 713 BCE, but they are not being "oracled" until decades and possibly centuries later.

I noted the absence of PELISHTIM at the end of the last chapter; and here we are in ASHDOD, which was one of the 5 great cities of the Pelishtim.

The presence of Sargon here is significant, not just to the contemporary, but also to the previous; because it is reckoned that Sargon was either the model for, or allegorised in, the brief picture we get of Nimrod in Genesis 10.


BI SHENAT... BI SHELO'ACH: Another of those complex elisions.


20:2 BA ET HA HI DIBER YHVH BE YAD YESH'A-YAHU VEN AMOTS LEMOR LECH U PHITACHTA HA SAK ME AL MATNEYCHA VE NA'ALCHA TACHALOTS ME AL RAGLECHA VA YA'AS KEN HALOCH AROM VE YACHEPH

בָּעֵת הַהִיא דִּבֶּר יְהוָה בְּיַד יְשַׁעְיָהוּ בֶן אָמוֹץ לֵאמֹר לֵךְ וּפִתַּחְתָּ הַשַּׂק מֵעַל מָתְנֶיךָ וְנַעַלְךָ תַחֲלֹץ מֵעַל רַגְלֶךָ וַיַּעַשׂ כֵּן הָלֹךְ עָרוֹם וְיָחֵף

KJ: At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

BN: At that time YHVH spoke through Yesh'a-Yah ben Amots, saying: "Go, and loose the sackcloth from off your loins, and take your shoe off your foot." And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. {S}


BA ET HA HI: See my notes on this at 19:3. There I thought he might have been playing his usual word-games, though it wasn't obvious why. Now, from this usage, can we deduce that the King always called his Prophet for wise counsel on New Moon, High Holiday and other ITIM, and therefore the Egyptian "oracle" was such an occasion, and the word-play entirely deliberate?

BE YAD: Through the hand of: remember that YHVH himself always acted BE YAD (Deuteronomy 26:8, Psalm 136:12, many others), in his case usually with the adjective... oh yes, that adjective, CHAZAKAH, just like the name of the king he is addressing!...  added; meaning "strong", as does the AMOTS part of Y-Y's own hand. Mutual self-esteeming; the king will have enjoyed this. 
   Just as a side-note, YAD HA CHAZAKAH, is also the alternative name for Moses Maimonides' "Mishneh Torah", his compilation and explanation of the Mosaic Law Code.

Once again in the 3rd person - this is told about Yesh'a-Yah, not by him, but we have no idea who the scribe might have been.

Y-Y is told (by the deity) to get out of sackcloth and take off his sandals. The former is straightforward; sackcloth is worn for mourning, and while this could have been personal mourning, such would not have made its way into a public oracle, so we can assume with confidence that he is, or has been, mourning the loss of the Ten Tribes, and is being told the Avelut is done, get back to life - I wonder if the summons to Court to deliver this oracle wasn't a part of that transition.
   Interesting to examine this instruction to the Prophet in a contemporary light: the continuing abandonment of music within Jewish liturgy, which is one of the key differences between orthodox and Reform practice. Orthodoxy banished music from prayer because it is mourning the loss of the Temple; Reform says it is time to move on and start living again. Not wishing to take denominational sides, but orthodoxy is actually wrong here, from its own orthodox standpoint: Jews in mourning are forbidden to extend the period of mourning beyond twelve months, and actively encouraged to begin to emerge at the end of eleven months.

As to the sandals, the text here tells us that he walked "naked and barefoot", though we can presume that "naked" allowed at least a loin-cloth (see 1 Samuel 2:18 and then click here), and hopefully some sort of a head-covering, in the hot summers of that part of the world where the bernous is normal. 

Walking barefoot thus becomes an act of ascetic masochism, a kind of self-flagellation of the feet, much as I have described in detail the pilgrimage of ibn Mehmet from Sousse to Keirouan in "The Persian Fire"; the principle behind it is the act of, or state of holiness; Moslems to this day remove their sandals (or whatever shoes they are wearing) before they enter the mosque for prayer, and we can assume that the Beney Yisra-El did the same, though actually I am not aware of any text that confirms this. On his Ghandiesque walking-tour of Yisra-El that is now about to start here, Yesh'a-Yah does indeed do the same.


20:3 VA YOMER YHVH KA ASHER HALACH AVDI YESH'A-YAHU AROM VE YACHEPH SHALOSH SHANIM OT U MOPHET AL MITSRAYIM VE AL KUSH

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה כַּאֲשֶׁר הָלַךְ עַבְדִּי יְשַׁעְיָהוּ עָרוֹם וְיָחֵף שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים אוֹת וּמוֹפֵת עַל מִצְרַיִם וְעַל כּוּשׁ

KJ: And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;

BN: And YHVH said: "Just as my servant Yesh'a-Yah walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a wonder for Mitsrayim and for Kush.


The inference seems to be that he spent Book Two doing this, going around Mitsrayim and Kush with the oracles that are given in that section (chapters 13-19); and that he did this for three years, though we are not told his precise itinerary. Shrine to shrine presumably, or village to village, which may have been the same thing as every village is likely to have had its shrine. Or did he simply go where the mood and the inspiration and the rumours of unrighteousness took him? 

The alternative explanation is that he is being sent on these journeys now, as a sign against Mitsrayim (Egypt) and and Kush (either Ethiopia or Mesopotamian Kush - see my notes on this at 18:1). But what has this to do with Ashdod, which was Philistine, let alone Yehudah?


20:4 KEN YINHAG MELECH ASHUR ET SHEVI MITSRAYIM VE ET GALUT KUSH NE'ARIM U ZEKENIM AROM VE YACHEPH VA CHASUPHAI SHET ERVAT MITSRAYIM

כֵּן יִנְהַג מֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר אֶת שְׁבִי מִצְרַיִם וְאֶת גָּלוּת כּוּשׁ נְעָרִים וּזְקֵנִים עָרוֹם וְיָחֵף וַחֲשׂוּפַי שֵׁת עֶרְוַת מִצְרָיִם

KJ: So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

BN: So shall the king of Ashur lead away the captives of Mitsrayim, and the exiles of Kush, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Mitsrayim.


KEN YINHAG: Unusual methodology, but, again, think of Mahatma Gandhi... or better still, read the article at this link … the intention here is to illustrate the condition of Ashur's captives, which seems to suggest that Ashdod was under Egyptian rule, while Egypt was under Ethiopian – or Arabian Kushite. And we can also assume that this was how the Yisra-Elim went into captivity in 722, and probably the same for the captives of 586 as well.

GALUT: Two words for the status of the Jews around the world between the Roman conquest of Yehudah and the founding of the modern State of Israel, the choice depending on your politics: "Galut" if you regarded it as "exile", and were hoping one day to return, "Diaspora" if you regarded the spreading-out across the world as permanent. The oddity is that both words are still in use today, in Israel as much as in the Galut-Diaspora.


20:5 VE CHATU VA VOSHU MI KUSH MABATAM U MIN MITSRAYIM TIPH'ARTAM

וְחַתּוּ וָבֹשׁוּ מִכּוּשׁ מַבָּטָם וּמִן מִצְרַיִם תִּפְאַרְתָּם

KJ: And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

BN: And they shall be dismayed and ashamed, equally by their expectation of Kush, and the might of Mitsrayim.


So we can say that the oracles against Kush and Mitsrayim in the immediately previous chapters were prologues and prefaces to this, reminding his listeners of the whats and whys of the past, readying them for the impending threats of the present. And the actual oracle? We know from history what both of those lands are like, and what will happen to us if they conquer us. We have resisted the equally barbaric Ashurim, and we need to go on doing the same. We know what happened to us in Mitsrayim; we have to insist "Never Again", and work to make that motto a reality.
   The knowledgeable reader will recognise my contemporary comparison in the way I have phrased this. If not, click here.


20:6 VE AMAR YOSHEV HA IY HA ZEH BA YOM HA HU HINEH CHOH MABATENU ASHER NASNU SHAM LE EZRAH LEHINATSEL MI PENEY MELECH ASHUR VE EYCH NIMALET ANACHNU

וְאָמַר יֹשֵׁב הָאִי הַזֶּה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא הִנֵּה כֹה מַבָּטֵנוּ אֲשֶׁר נַסְנוּ שָׁם לְעֶזְרָה לְהִנָּצֵל מִפְּנֵי מֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר וְאֵיךְ נִמָּלֵט אֲנָחְנוּ


KJ: And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?

BN: And the inhabitant of this coast-land shall say on that day: "Yes, this is indeed our expectation, though we fled here for help, to be delivered from the king of Ashur; and how shall we escape?" {P}


Out of the gas-chamber into the.... no, I shall not continue with that sentence. But it is the explanation of Israeli politics throughout the past seventy-five years (I am writing this in 2023).

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 

Copyright © 2022 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press

Isaiah 19

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 



19:1 MAS'A MITSRAYIM HINEH YHVH ROCHEV AL AV KAL U VA MITSRAYIM VE NA'U ELIYLEY MITSRAYIM MI PANAV U LEVAV MITSRAYIM YIMAS BE KIRBO


מַשָּׂא מִצְרָיִם הִנֵּה יְהוָה רֹכֵב עַל עָב קַל וּבָא מִצְרַיִם וְנָעוּ אֱלִילֵי מִצְרַיִם מִפָּנָיו וּלְבַב מִצְרַיִם יִמַּס בְּקִרְבּוֹ

KJ (King James translation): The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.

BN (BibleNet translation): The pronouncement concerning Mitsrayim. Behold, YHVH rides upon a swift cloud, and is coming to Mitsrayim; and the idols of Mitsrayim shall be removed from his presence, and the heart of Mitsrayim shall melt within it.



The text now switches to Mitsrayim (Egypt), the deity's next target – which appears, alongside Mo-Av and Damasek (Damascus), to suggest that another significant change is taking place within the Isaiac text, worth exploring to see if the other Prophets follow the same line: previously Hebrewism, and today Judaism, were introspective cults, focused inwardly, opposed to proselytisation, making conversion a challenge in order to ensure that it was sincere; and with a clear separation between the Mosaic and the No'achic Codes, the expectations on Yisra-El and those on the Gentiles. But this is now a globalised cult, demanding the same "righteousness" of the Beney Mo-Av and the Aramim and Mitsrim, and threatening the same punishments. We can witness the same change in Islam from the Isra to the conquest of Mecca; Christianity, by contrast, started out as global.

AL AV KAL: Y-Y's constant word-games fascinate me. AV with an Aleph (אב) is "father", as in Av-Ram and Av-Raham, the dialect variants on the name of the Great Father before he was reduced to the status of a mere tribal sheikh. But the true Great Father (Ar Thor in Celtic, Jupiter in Latin...) is the deity of Creation, Brahma by yet another dialect variation, regarded as the Sun, and therefore, on certain weather-days, visible riding on the clouds. But isn't the Yehudit word for "cloud" ANAN 
(ענן)? Yes, it is. But generally that would be cumulus, and when it darkens into nimbus or nimbostratus, when rain is likely and tyhe sky is darkening, then Yehudit goes for AV, with an Ayin, as here. So the Aleph-Av rides on the Ayin-Av...
   Though we should also remember that he is writing about Mitsrayim (Egypt), where the key tales of the sun-god Ra by day are the early versions of those of Phaeton and Helios in later Greece: the journey of the sun by day across the sky on an imaginary chariot (the Mesopotamian, No'ach and Utnapishtim, use a boat), and his return journey through the gates of the Am-Tuat, overnight, by boat.
   And then see yet another play on the word AV at verse 3 - presumably the real reason for the word-play here.

ROCHEV: Comes before AL AV KAL in the verse, but needs to come after it in these notes, because it only becomes meaningful after the above note. ROCHEV is the Yehudit word for riding, specifically a horse or a chariot. But, again, we are in Mitsrayim, and every Beney Yisra-El will have known the "Song of Moses at Yam Suph", Exodus 15:1, its opening phrase, especially.

LEVAV: Yes, heart, but there is the LEV, which is the subjective-feeling heart, and there is the LEVAV, which is the objective-thinking heart, the one that we today misplace in the brain.


19:2 VE SICHSACHTI MITSRAYIM BE MITSRAYIM VE NILCHAMU ISH BE ACHAV VE ISH BE RE'EHU IR BE IR MAMLACHAH BE MAMLACHAH

וְסִכְסַכְתִּי מִצְרַיִם בְּמִצְרַיִם וְנִלְחֲמוּ אִישׁ בְּאָחִיו וְאִישׁ בְּרֵעֵהוּ עִיר בְּעִיר מַמְלָכָה בְּמַמְלָכָה

KJ: And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

BN: And I will spur Mitsrayim against Mitsrayim; and they shall fight, every one against his brother, and everyone against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.


SICHSACHTI: After a while I find myself looking up the roots and etymologies of words, because I am assuming that Y-Y is playing word-games, and has chosen this one rather than any other deliberately. A word as poetical as SICHSACHTI even more so, because there is that level of his self-amusement too. But in fact the root is not SACH, and then he has doubled it to make this, though there is a root SACH, and it means "a thicket of trees", and it provides the word for temporary houses made from the branches of those trees, namely SUKOT, which just happens to be where Mosheh was, at Exodus 15, when he recited the "Song at Yam Suph". But this is not that. Or probably it is, but this is not only that ("my horse chestnut is going to choke your sapling oak, and then my conker will defeat your acorn": something punning of that sort). For there is a root SACHACH (סָכַךְ), and it doesn't really "spur" or "set against" at all: what it does is what growing nimbo-stratus clouds do to a sunny sky: it "overshadows" them, it "covers" them, it puts up a "screen" to obscure them (click here if you don't believe me, and then, while you are there, see where the verb is most often used: for the Mercy Seat: entirely deliberate these allusions and interconnections).

It occurs to me that MITSRAYIM is a multiple plural; what was the METSER? Answer at the link, and it is worth seeing in relation to what is happening in this oracle.

The method of achieving this, however, is not evangelism but war, here specifically civil war; the problem being…


19:3 VE NAVKAH RU'ACH MITSRAYIM BE KIRBO VA ATSATO AVALE'A VE DARSHU EL HA ELIYLIM VE EL HA ITIM VE EL HA OVOT VE EL HA YID'ONIM

וְנָבְקָה רוּחַ מִצְרַיִם בְּקִרְבּוֹ וַעֲצָתוֹ אֲבַלֵּעַ וְדָרְשׁוּ אֶל הָאֱלִילִים וְאֶל הָאִטִּים וְאֶל הָאֹבוֹת וְאֶל הַיִּדְּעֹנִים

KJ: And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.

BN: And the spirit of Mitsrayim shall be made empty within it; and I will render its counsel void; so they shall seek among the idols, and among  the soothsayers, and among the mediums, and among the necromancers.


NAVKAH: Most scholars assume the root here is BAKAK (בָּקַק), but why would the Prophet drop that second Kuph, when the double-letter, and the doubling of letters and words, are amongst his favourite games for the articulation of his deepest ideas? And anyway, the meaning of BAKAK is ambiguous (see the link): it really means "luxuriant" (which is definitely not the intention here); and this is how it is used in Hosea 10:1. Y-Y uses it both with (24:1) and without (24:3) that second Kuph, and only two verses apart, which makes me even more certain that there must be two different roots, as with SACH and SACHACH in the previous verse. But what is the second root?

i) "Dust" in Yehudit is AVAK (אָבָק), and there are obvious games to play with this: ANI A'AVEK as "I will reduce... to dust" would work splendidly here (even conquering my conker!). But he doesn't, so it can't be that. 

ii) Sefaria renders this as "Egypt shall be drained of spirit", for which see Gesenius' explanation of the etymology of BAKAK; but while you are there, take a look at his explanation of BAKBUK, which is the word for "a bottle". I am ready to hypothesise that one was an Egyptian word, borrowed into Yehudit, the other a Babylonian word, likewise borrowed, and the two became confused as one over time, the Babylonian BAKBUK getting its mouldy contents emptied, so to speak, over the luxuriant Egyptian. Though whether Y-Y was himself playing with this is difficult to know.

And then there are the fakirs, or should that, in Y-Y's reading, be spelled with an "e" rather than an "i"? Four different types though:

ELIYLIM: Are the idols themselves, carved figures of the deities, though how exactly they are distinguished from the Teraphim is not obvious: probably Teraphim was the description of the Ding-in-Sich, the actual artefact, where Eliylim described how they are regarded by those who idolise them.

ITIM: Homonyms and homophones. Aleph-Tet (אט) here, but there is also Ayin-Tav (עת), and see my notes on this word-play at verse 1. An ET with an Ayin-Tav is an "appointed time" (cf Genesis 1:14), which is any date designated by the deity for a feast, a fast or a festival, the three "pilgrim festivals" in particular, which of course include Sukot (this is a different link): so ITIM sounds like people who try to read the future by means of astrology, of which astronomer Y-Y heartily disapporves. But in fact it is not that. Here, ITIM comes with an Aleph and a Tet, which is understood to mean "gentle murmuring", but used specifically for the sort of gentle murmuring engaged in by mediums when they conduct seances and ventriloquise in the voice of the dead.

AVOT: Again see my note to AV at verse 1; the AVOT here are spelled the same as "fathers" there, and is in fact the word that becomes Abbot in English... no, I apologise, and withdraw that error with unreserved apologies. It is not AVOT at all. I read the text in its unpointed version, but now that I have checked the Masoretic, they have added for clarification a cholam chaser, a small dot above the Aleph, to indicate that this is OVOT, plural of the Ba'alat Ov who were prohibited at Leviticus 19:31, alongside, and how convenient for us, the next word in Y-Y's list, which is

YIDONIM: From the root YAD'A, which means "to know", but this is people who claim to know, but whose knowledge may be of an unverifiable nature. See also Leviticus 20:6 and 27.

But I need to point out, as I have done before, that this is really disingenuous, or do I mean hypocritical, because belief in any deity, including this one, is a superstition, and the Kepler argument applies to Prophets just as much as it does to necromancers. To paraphrase him, the situation is comparable with the distinction made today between a terrorist and a freedom fighter, that it is determined by whether you are their supporter or their opponent.

My speculation that the Guild of Yesh'a-Yah may have been the authors of The Book of Shemot (Exodus) does not come from verses like this one (the evidence is inside Exodus, but based on this book), but it is interesting to re-read some of Exodus, in the light of this conjecture: when Mosheh and Aharon arrived at Pharaoh's palace, upon the former's return from Midyan, they are carrying a divining stick and go into competition with the shamans of the court: Exodus 7:9 ff (verse 11 especially; and then see Numbers 17:23)


19:4 VE SIKARTI ET MITSRAYIM BE YAD ADONIM KASHEH U MELECH AZ YIMSHAL BAM NE'UM HA ADON YHVH TSEVA'OT

וְסִכַּרְתִּי אֶת מִצְרַיִם בְּיַד אֲדֹנִים קָשֶׁה וּמֶלֶךְ עַז יִמְשָׁל בָּם נְאֻם הָאָדוֹן יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת

KJ: And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.

BN: And I will subdue the Mitsrim, in the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens.


Egypt will be conquered and oppressed – which makes the text contradictory, for conquest is external but civil war is internal. There is also a problem with the notion of oppression; most of the Mosaic Code is written in the teeth of oppression, and self-consciously so, "because we were slaves in Egypt", and the social contract that Isaiah promulgates throughout cannot easily accommodate oppression amongst its virtues. The clash between the deity's uncontrolled anger, leading to vengeance in the most brutal manner, and his theoretical ethos of philanthropy, is never better demonstrated than here.

ADONIM: is actually plural, so why is it translated in the singular? To which the answer is: because it is not ADON, as in the deity, who will have "mastery" over them, but some autocratic overlord: same root, but an adjective rather than a noun, placed idiomatically in the plural. The description, of course, sums up life for the Habiru under the Pharaohs at the time of Mosheh.

Given what we know of Daniel (its being an analogy in the manner of Sartre's "Les Mouches"); is it possible that Isaiah actually wrote Exodus as an allegorical fiction? Even the language of the next verse(s) seems to hint at it.


One of the problems of this oracle is that Egypt was very rarely conquered during its history, though it often underwent civil war. The Macedonians under Alexander, and the Romans under Caesar, later on; but in the epoch of the Bible, the only significant conquest was by the Hyksos, and that is most likely the tale told through Yoseph in the latter part of the Book of Genesis, with the final defeat and expulsion of the Hyksos by Ach-Mousa told through the Mosheh and Yehoshu'a stories.


19:5 VE NISHTU MAYIM ME HA YAM VE NAHAR YECHERAV VE YAVESH

וְנִשְּׁתוּ מַיִם מֵהַיָּם וְנָהָר יֶחֱרַב וְיָבֵשׁ

KJ: And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.

BN: And the water in the sea shall dry up, and the rivers shall become parches and dry...


And after the conquest and the oppression, drought…


19:6 VE HE'EZNIYCHU NEHAROT DALELU VE CHARVU YE'OREY MATSOR KANEH VA SUPH KAMELU

וְהֶאֶזְנִיחוּ נְהָרוֹת דָּלְלוּ וְחָרְבוּ יְאֹרֵי מָצוֹר קָנֶה וָסוּף קָמֵלוּ

KJ: And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.

BN: And the rivers shall turn into sewers, the streams of Mitsrayim shall become shrunken and nebulous; the reeds and rushes shall wither.


SUPH: Note that it is translated here, entirely correctly, as "reeds"; confirming that Yam Suph was never the Red Sea, which has a coral sea-bed and therefore cannot produce reeds, but the Nile Delta in Goshen, on the Mediterranean coast.


19:7 AROT AL YE'OR AL PI YE'OR VE CHOL MIZR'A YE'OR YIYVASH NIDAPH VE EYNENU

עָרוֹת עַל יְאוֹר עַל פִּי יְאוֹר וְכֹל מִזְרַע יְאוֹר יִיבַשׁ נִדַּף וְאֵינֶנּוּ

KJ: The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.

BN: The mosses by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile, shall become dry, be driven away, and be no more.


…desertification… and endorsement of that confirmation


19:8 VE ANU HA DAYAGIM VE AVLU KOL MASHLIYCHEI VA YE'OR CHAKAH U PHORSEY MICHMORET AL PENEY MAYIM UMLALU

וְאָנוּ הַדַּיָּגִים וְאָבְלוּ כָּל מַשְׁלִיכֵי בַיְאוֹר חַכָּה וּפֹרְשֵׂי מִכְמֹרֶת עַל פְּנֵי מַיִם אֻמְלָלוּ

KJ: The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.

BN: The fishermen too shall lament, and all those who cast their rods into the Nile shall mourn, and those who spread their nets on the waters shall suffer from famine.


What Y-Y does not tell us is how YHVH intends to achieve these things: by drought, by famine, by volcanic eruption, by disease, by sending an army, by magic? Or, rather, he does, but they do not interconnect: at one point it is an autocratic ruler who will conquer and enslave them, at another it is famine caused by drought. Autocratic rulers cannot cause droughts, though they can create the conditions from which the drought leads to famine. This, Y-Y, needs greater clarification!


19:9 U VOSHU OVDEY PHISHTIM SERIYKOT VE ORGIM CHORAI

וּבֹשׁוּ עֹבְדֵי פִשְׁתִּים שְׂרִיקוֹת וְאֹרְגִים חוֹרָי

KJ: Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.

BN: Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave cotton, shall be dejected.


…the failure of both the flax and the fabrics industries (i.e. economic collapse)… but how? boom and bust economics, leading to crash, which would be a result of human activity, or drought/flood, which would be a divine DAVAR?

BOSHU: The word is normally used to mean "ashamed", but self-evidently that is not the intention here. Judges 3:25 is closer to the intention here.


19:10 VE HAYU SHATOTEYHA MEDUKA'IM KOL OSEY SECHER AGMEY NAPHESH

וְהָיוּ שָׁתֹתֶיהָ מְדֻכָּאִים כָּל עֹשֵׂי שֶׂכֶר אַגְמֵי נָפֶשׁ

KJ: And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.

BN: And those who were its foundations shall be crushed, every man who has a living to earn will grieve in his soul.


OSEH SECHER: I have no ides where KJ gets its "sluices and ponds" from. OSEH means "do" or "make", and SECHER are "wages"… this is about mass unemployment because the economy has collapsed.


19:11 ACH EVILIM SAREY TSO'AN CHACHMEY YO'ATSEY PHAR'OH ETSAH NIV'ARAH EYCH TOMRU EL PAR'OH BEN CHACHAMIM ANI BEN MALCHEY KEDEM

אַךְ אֱוִלִים שָׂרֵי צֹעַן חַכְמֵי יֹעֲצֵי פַרְעֹה עֵצָה נִבְעָרָה אֵיךְ תֹּאמְרוּ אֶל פַּרְעֹה בֶּן חֲכָמִים אֲנִי בֶּן מַלְכֵי קֶדֶם

KJ: Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?

BN: Are the princes of Tso'an not the most complete fools, the so-called wise men of Pharaoh abjectly incapable? How can you say to Pharaoh: "I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings"?

Who are the "princes of Tso'an" anyway? Numbers 13:22 has a strangely disconnected parenthesis which informs us that "Chevron was built seven years before Tso'an in Mitsrayim". Psalm 78:12 and 43 specifically identifies the "field of Tso'an" as the place YHVH parted the waters for the Beney Yisra-El to cross, though this is not mentioned in the Exodus story. But the way Tso'an is described in that Psalm suggests rather more than a field - an entire expanse of land indeed, covering the full range of the desert wanderings, almost as if Tso'an were a synonym for the "wilderness" itself. This is reinforced by the meaning of the root, TSA'AN, which is the verb used for moving tents when nomads resume their wanderings. Y-Y mentions Tso'an again in chapter 30 (verse 4), and uses the root again (YITS'AN), with precisely that meaning, in chapter 33, verse 20.

Presumably, based on this, "the foolish princes of Tso'an" were the ones whose serpent-rods got eaten up by Aharon's, and who then advised Pharaoh to pursue the Beney Yisra-El across the turned-back waters.

If by Tso'an a specific site is intended, can we assume, as Gesenius does, as Indiana Jones does, that it must have been Tanis - click here for the National Geographic article about it (you can look up the Indiana Jones for yourself), which is in the north-eastern corner of the Nile Delta, just before it reaches the Mediterranean: and it was once the capital of all Egypt, which adds another good reason for Y-Y mentioning it. Do we then have yet further confirmation that the Mosaic route out of Mitsrayim was along the northern Nile Delta and not through the southern Red Sea?


19:12 AYAM EPHO CHACHAMEYCHA VE YAGIYDU NA LACH VE YED'U MAH YA'ATS YHVH TSEVA'OT AL MITSRAYIM

אַיָּם אֵפוֹא חֲכָמֶיךָ וְיַגִּידוּ נָא לָךְ וְיֵדְעוּ מַה יָּעַץ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת עַל מִצְרָיִם

KJ: Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.

BN: Where are they, then, your wise men? And let them advise you now; and let them know what YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, has purposed concerning Mitsrayim.


19:13 NO'ALU SAREY TSO'AN NISH'U SAREY NOPH HIT'U ET MITSRAYIM PINAT SHEVATEYHA

נוֹאֲלוּ שָׂרֵי צֹעַן נִשְּׁאוּ שָׂרֵי נֹף הִתְעוּ אֶת מִצְרַיִם פִּנַּת שְׁבָטֶיהָ

KJ: The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.

BN: The princes of Tso'an have become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have caused Egypt to go astray, they who should have been the pillars of her tribes.


Repeating verse 11.

NOPH: a Noph is usually a beach, which is actually quite strange in itself, because the root, NUPH, means "to wave" or "wobble", or sometimes, more strongly, to "agitate". Y-Y used it in 10:15 (MENIYPHO) for a man working energetically with a saw; and again (HENIYPH) in 11:15 for YHVH shaking his hand over the river in order to smite it; and he will use it again in 30:28 (HANAPHAH), when he will "sift the nations with the sieve of destruction"; there are dozens of other usages of the root, with similar meaning, throughout the Tanach. But there is also the Arabic NUPH, which means "an elevation", something like Geb in the Egyptian, and which appears in Psalm 48:3 (48:2 in some versions). But in the end I suspect that it is neither of these, and NOPH is simply a Yehudit mis-spelling of MOPH, the other royal city of Mitsrayim: Tso'an for Lower Egypt, until it was transferred to On (Heliopolis), Memphis for Upper Egypt.

PINAT SHEVATEYHA goes with HAYU SHATOTEYHA
 in verse 10, the one the "foundations" of the economy, the other the "pillars" of the community. But PINAH also has a secondary level with this allusion, because "EVEN MA'ASU HA BONIM HAYETAH LE ROSH PINAH at Psalm 118:22: "
The [foundation] stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner-stone [of the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im]". One of the best-known and most-often sung of all the Psalms, so nobody was going to miss that triumphalist allusion.


19:14 YHVH MASACH BE KIRBAH RU'ACH IV'IM VE HIT'U ET MITSRAYIM BE CHOL MA'ASEHU KE HITA'OT SHIKOR BE KI'O

יְהוָה מָסַךְ בְּקִרְבָּהּ רוּחַ עִוְעִים וְהִתְעוּ אֶת מִצְרַיִם בְּכָל מַעֲשֵׂהוּ כְּהִתָּעוֹת שִׁכּוֹר בְּקִיאוֹ

KJ: The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.

BN: YHVH has mixed within her a cocktail of dizzifiers; and they have caused Mitsrayim to stagger in every one of her works, like a drunken man staggering in his vomit.


So it is the deity's interference which is causing this. See my note at verse 9.

MASACH: A sense of "spiked drinks" - Proverbs 9:2 is my starting-point for that simile, though really I went there because I wanted to pick up the "pillars" once more (AMUDEYHA - עַמּוּדֶיהָ - there, which is even stronger than the PINAT, the next stage of building once you have put in the cornerstone), and see again the difference Y-Y is describing: theirs are collapsing, ours are leading us to Wisdom. Actually the whole of Proverbs 9 provides a paraphrase and commentary on this chapter in Y-Y.


19:15 VE LO YIHEYEH LE MITSRAYIM MA'ASEH ASHER YA'ASEH ROSH VE ZANAV KIPAH VE AGMON

וְלֹא יִהְיֶה לְמִצְרַיִם מַעֲשֶׂה אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה רֹאשׁ וְזָנָב כִּפָּה וְאַגְמוֹן

KJ: Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.

BN: Neither shall there be for Mitsrayim any work, which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, may do.


This verse is a slightly varied repetition of 9:13 (9:14 in some translations):
"VA YACHRET YHVH MI YISRA-EL ROSH VE ZANAV KIPAH VE AGMON YOM ECHAD - Therefore YHVH will cut Yisra-El off from head to tail, palm-branch and bulrush, on day one." See my note on ZANAV when you get to the link - it surely cannot be a coincidence in the light of the Mosheh-Aharon v "wise men" verses in this chapter.

And the repetition is interesting at another level too: it means that YHVH does not discriminate, one punishment for Yisra-El and a different one for the Goyim! Mind you, being a universal deity, being, that is to say, a metaphorical explanation of the workings of the Kosmos, how could there be differences?

KIPAH: This too has a note at 9:13.


19:16 BA YOM HA HU YIHEYEH MITSRAYIM KA NASHIM VE CHARAD U PACHAD MI PENEY TENUPHAT YAD YHVH TSEVA'OT ASHER HU MENIPH ALAV

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה מִצְרַיִם כַּנָּשִׁים וְחָרַד וּפָחַד מִפְּנֵי תְּנוּפַת יַד יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֲשֶׁר הוּא מֵנִיף עָלָיו

KJ: In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it.

BN: On that day Mitsrayim will be like women; and it will tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, which he will shake over it.


KA NASHIM: I think we have to take this, sadly, as misogynistic, that he sees Egypt reduced to weeping and grovelling, stripped of the macho spirit of the alpha male which is always heroic etc etc. Taken without the context of traditional patriarchal self-delusion, the words could just as well mean "the land will become fertile, intelligence will prevail, and the great womb-words, Mercy and Compassion, will become predominant." But I'm sorry to say that it doesn't mean that.

TENUPHAT: That root NUPH again; see verse 13. 


19:17 VE HAYETAH ADMAT YEHUDAH LE MITSRAYIM LE CHAG'A KOL ASHER YAZKIR OTAH ELAV YIPHCHAD MI PENEI ATSAT YHVH TSEVA'OT ASHER HU YO'ETS ALAV

וְהָיְתָה אַדְמַת יְהוּדָה לְמִצְרַיִם לְחָגָּא כֹּל אֲשֶׁר יַזְכִּיר אֹתָהּ אֵלָיו יִפְחָד מִפְּנֵי עֲצַת יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֲשֶׁר הוּא יוֹעֵץ עָלָיו

KJ: And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that maketh mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the LORD of hosts, which he hath determined against it.

BN: And the land of Yehudah shall become a cause of terror to Mitsrayim; just reminding people of its name shall induce deep fear, because of the intentions of YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, which he preparing against it. {S}


The methodology, as above, will be DAVAR, but the fulfillment of the covenant with YHVH, by Yisra-El, will bring it such rewards that the Mitsrim will only be abke to look up from their desolation in deep envy; so in effect the cause of all this is Yehudah, but it will only happen if Yehudah becomes that nation that believes and is righteous; which is to say, Y-Y is using theology as a weapon of propaganda against his own people, though the ostensible object of his oracle is someone else. 

But this is now a post-mythological world, as per my commentaries in the opening chapters of this book. Propitiation is to be replaced by a Charter of Rights and Responsibilities. Where belief once brought fertility, now it brings something that we might call "messianic", though Y-Y would not have used the term. The argument is very simple (or would be, if he were making it to the Yehudim, rather than pronouncing against the Mitsrim): if Yehudah becomes righteous to the level that the deity requires, then the deity will act on Yisra-El's behalf to bring the rest of the world to the same state of righteousness, and they will honour Yehudah as the reason for their own ensuing wealth and comfort and peace and justice and general perfection as a society. So it becomes less a matter of "virtue per se" than of "vested interest" to be righteous. The same argument, of course, was used by Christianity during its imperialist phase, by Communism throughout the 20th century, and is used today by proponents of "Democracy" and "The American Dream", as it was of the "Land of Hope and Glory" that was the British Empire.

ADMAT YEHUDAH: Not Erets, definitely not Medinat, which is a modern idea. ADAMAH is the red earth from whose clay the first Human was modelled in Genesis 2 - see verse 5 especially. 

CHAGA: Scholars have struggled with this word, because this is its only occurrence in this form, and because that Aleph ending suggests an Aramaic source, rather than Yehudit. Some versions of the text even change that Aleph to a Heh (חגה), and assume that the intention is some sort of a CHAG, which is a religious festival or pilgrimage, or even both (see Exodus 5:1 - we seem to be going back endlessly to Exodus 5 in this oracle, and it probably is not by chance or by coincidence! - and Leviticus 23:41): the inference then being that Egypt serves as the sacrifical beast. Alternately this is yet another of those double-letter words that Y-Y keeps on playing with, a CHAGAG (חגג) being a circle dance, the HORA in today's world; though of course dancing, and especially these circle dances, were a major element of the CHAGIM, as per Psalm 42:5, so perhaps the two are just dialect variations of the same word, and the scribe writing this down used the Aramaic, where Y-Y would have used the Hebrew (as I have just said Hebrew, where TheBibleNet would usually say Yehudit).

BUT: we must not forget that the deity has metaphorically spiked the drinks, and people are reeeling and staggering in their own vomit (verse 14). So now look at Psalm 107:27.


19:18 BA YOM HA HU YIHEYU CHAMESH ARIM BE ERETS MITSRAYIM MEDABROT SEPHAT KENA'AN VE NISHBA'OT LA YHVH TSEVA'OT IR HA HERES YE'AMER LE ECHAT

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיוּ חָמֵשׁ עָרִים בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מְדַבְּרוֹת שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן וְנִשְׁבָּעוֹת לַיהוָה צְבָאוֹת עִיר הַהֶרֶס יֵאָמֵר לְאֶחָת

KJ: In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.

BN: In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Mitsrayim that speak the language of Kena'an, and swear to YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens; one shall be called the city of destruction.{S}


And it really does mean empire: Yehudit, or probably Hurrian, will become Mitsrayim's official language, and the deity their god; one city will be named "City of Destruction", with…

But it also confirms what we suspected when the Torah was written down by Mosheh, that Egypt spoke Egyptian and Canaan spoke Canaanite, and the two languages are fundamentally different, so what Mosheh would have written down would have been Egyptian hieroglyphs, not Hebrew print-or-cursive (even if Hebrew print-and-cursive yet existed, which they didn't, and wouldn't for at least another three hundred years!).


HERES: Should that not be CHERES(חרס), with a Chet rather than a Hey? Gesenius is particularly interesting on this: look up both roots in his Lexicon for the full account, but in brief: there are as many codices of this chapter which prefer CHERES as there are for HERES, so take your pick. If it is HERES, then it would mean "the destroyed city"; if it is CHERES, then it would mean "the preserved city". Again, take your pick. 
   There is also the a question: which city might it have been? Those who favour HERES, despite having no root to go by, believe it was the city known by the Mitsrim as IKEN, by the Greeks as Leontopolis. Those who favour CHERES recognise a link from the root to the idea of things being kept warm, or becoming warm (whence preserved"), and thence deduce IR HA SHEMESH, the "sun-city", which the Mitsrim called On, but the Greeks Heliopolis (see verse 13). And for a third time, take your pick.


19:19 BA YOM HA HU YIHEYEH MIZBE'ACH LA YHVH BETOCH ERETS MITSRAYIM U MATSEVAH ETSEL GEVULAH LA YHVH

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה מִזְבֵּחַ לַיהוָה בְּתוֹךְ אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וּמַצֵּבָה אֵצֶל גְּבוּלָהּ לַיהוָה

KJ: In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD.

BN: On that day shall there be an altar to YHVH in the midst of the land of Mitsrayim, and a pillar on its border to YHVH.


MIZBE'ACH: see the link.

MATSEVAH: an altar and a pillar! The pillar is particularly interesting given that pillars in Yisra-El/Kena'an were generally either Asherim, which is to say sculpted ikons, or Ashterot, which is to say totem poles, or Tsi'unim, as in the one that David tore down when he conquered Yevus, all of them regarded as graven images by the Mosaic Code, and as such anathema.

But that only explains what, not why. I am inclined to look again at the tale of the the two-and-a-half tribes, in Joshua 22:10, though you will need to read the previous 9 verses, and then follow the episode through to its conclusion at verse 29, but even better keep going to verse 34, to understand both it and the relevance here. Verse 20 below seems to endorse this explanation, especially the word "ED".


19:20 VE HAYAH LE OT U LE ED LA YHVH TSEVA'OT BE ERETS MITSRAYIM KI YITS'AKU EL YHVH MIPNEI LOCHATSIM VE YISHLACH LAHEM MOSHI'A VA RAV VE HITSIYLAM

וְהָיָה לְאוֹת וּלְעֵד לַיהוָה צְבָאוֹת בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם כִּי יִצְעֲקוּ אֶל יְהוָה מִפְּנֵי לֹחֲצִים וְיִשְׁלַח לָהֶם מוֹשִׁיעַ וָרָב וְהִצִּילָם

KJ: And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.

BN: And it shall be for a sign and for a witness to YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, in the land of Mitsrayim; for they shall cry out to YHVH because of those who are oppressing them, and he will send them a saviour, and a defender, who will deliver them.


The only obvious historical episode that this could be describing, as I have noted already, was the invasion and conquest of Mitsrayim by the Hyksos, which gets converted in later Yehudit folklore into the tale of Yoseph, and then the tale of Mosheh. My notes on this extend through the latter chapters of Genesis until the end of the Book of Joshua, so far too lengthy to repeat here, but it does sound, from these Y-Y chapters, as if he was perfectly aware that the Habiru, both Josephite and Jacobite, were Hyksos, and that the "saviour, and a defender, who will deliver them" was not Yehudit Mosheh, nor even Habiru Mosheh, but Egyptian Ach-Mousa.


19:21 VE NOD'A YHVH LE MITSRAYIM VE YAD'U MITSRAYIM ET YHVH BA YOM HA HU VE AVDU ZEVACH U MINCHAH VE NADRU NEDER LA YHVH VE SHILEMU

וְנוֹדַע יְהוָה לְמִצְרַיִם וְיָדְעוּ מִצְרַיִם אֶת יְהוָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא וְעָבְדוּ זֶבַח וּמִנְחָה וְנָדְרוּ נֵדֶר לַיהוָה וְשִׁלֵּמוּ

KJ: And the LORD shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the LORD, and perform it.

BN: Then YHVH will make himself known in Mitsrayim, and the Mitsrim will know YHVH on that day; indeed, they shall worship with sacrifice and offering, and shall vow a vow unto YHVH, and shall perform it.


…Egypt will offer sacrifices to YHVH, which is odd, because "YHVH doesn't want your sacrifices" (1:13 actually calls them "futile sacrifices"). Nonetheless.

NADRU NEDER: The difference between a vow and a pledge lies precisely in the fulfilling of it. The word provides the opening ceremony of the fast of Yom Kippur, the ceremony of the annulment of all vows, KOL NIDRE.


19:22 VE NAGAPH YHVH ET MITSRAYIM NAGOPH VE RAPH'O VE SHAVU AD YHVH VE NE'TAR LAHEM U REPHA'AM

וְנָגַף יְהוָה אֶת מִצְרַיִם נָגֹף וְרָפוֹא וְשָׁבוּ עַד יְהוָה וְנֶעְתַּר לָהֶם וּרְפָאָם

KJ: And the LORD shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the LORD, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.

BN: Then YHVH will smite Mitsrayim, smiting and healing; and they shall return to YHVH, and he will be entreated by them, and will heal them. {S}


NAGAPH: Mosheh and Aharon with their serpent-staves, the Hyksos, the seven years of drought, the Josephite feudalism... we should by now be anticipating what comes next. The plagues, surely? See Exodus 7:27 (8:2 in the KJ), then 12:23, 32:35. So is this an "oracle" predicting repetition in the future, or is he reciting the "pronouncements" of the past, as a means of recounting history? If we go back through the preceding chapters, the same question over dating has come up again and again, and it never makes sense to call it predictions of the future, but always appears to be accounts of the past. Or should that latter be: theologically driven [re]interpretations of history?


19:23 BA YOM HA HU TIHEYEH MESILAH MI MITSRAYIM ASHURAH U VA ASHUR BE MITSRAYIM U MITSRAYIM BE ASHUR VE AVDU MITSRAYIM ET ASHUR

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא תִּהְיֶה מְסִלָּה מִמִּצְרַיִם אַשּׁוּרָה וּבָא אַשּׁוּר בְּמִצְרַיִם וּמִצְרַיִם בְּאַשּׁוּר וְעָבְדוּ מִצְרַיִם אֶת אַשּׁוּר

KJ: In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.

BN: On that day shall there be a highway out of Mistrayim to Ashur, and Ashur will come into Mitsrayim, and Mitsrayim will go to Ashur; and Mitsrayim will worship with Ashur. {S}


A great highway – a kind of Schengen Highway? – will unite Egypt, Assyria and Judah; which actually it already did, and had for many centuries; and not just one highway, but two major trading routes that joined Africa to Arabia and the East, both by way of Egypt. The paragraph below is from my novel about King David, "City Of Peace":

The Derech Ha Yam, the Highway of the Sea, which comes up from Lower Mitsrayim through the lands of the Bene Pelet; along the coast via Aza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Yafo and then inland through Aphek and along the Plain of Sharon, where it bifurcates; one route along the Valley of Yazar-El, and over the River Yarden into Ammon, and then on to Damasek and the great empire of Bav-El of the Bene Kessed beyond; the second fork continuing northwards through the Plain of Carm-El into the kingdoms of Tsur and Tsidon, into Aram and Ashur. Some of the most beautiful countryside in all the kingdom; some of the finest oases anywhere in the world. And the Derech Ha Melech, the King’s Highway, less beautiful but just as important, over the highlands of Gil-Yad, Ammon and Mo-Av, through the tribal lands of Menasheh and Gad and Re’u-Ven, all the way from Damasek in the north to Aqaba in the south by way of Ramot Gil-Yad, Gerasa, Rabat-Ammon, Dibbon, Sela...

AVDU: Here translated as worship, but why not as slavery: "Mitsrayim will be enslaved by Ashur"?


19:24 BA YOM HA HU YIHEYEH YISRA-EL SHELIYSHIYAH LE MITSRAYIM U LE ASHUR BERACHAH BE KEREV HA ARETS

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה יִשְׂרָאֵל שְׁלִישִׁיָּה לְמִצְרַיִם וּלְאַשּׁוּר בְּרָכָה בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ

KJ: In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:

BN: On that day Yisra-El shall be the third party with Mitsrayim and Ashur, a blessing in the midst of the Earth;


BA YOM HA HU: I have waited for this last occasion of this phrase to make this observation, though probably I should have made it on the first occasion. No matter. Zechar-Yah, one of the great Prophets of the return from exile after 586 BCE, long after the very last of the Yesha-Yahs who make up this book. In the final chapter of his book, chapter 14, verse 9 to be precise, a line that must surely be a reference to Yesha-Yah, but which is the one that entered Jewish liturgy, and remains there till this day, the closing phrase indeed of every synagogue service, the closing lines of the Aleynu, and the unstated message to the Yehudim throughout this chapter of Yesha-Yah:

14:9 VE HAYAH YHVH LE MELECH AL KOL HA ARETS BA YOM HA HU YIHEYEH YHVH ECHAD U SHEMO ECHAD
 בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה יְהוָה אֶחָד וּשְׁמוֹ אֶחָד

KJ: And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.


BN: Then YHVH shall be king over all the Earth. On that day YHVH shall be One, and his name shall be One.
Though that "One" was not yet the theology of Y-Y's day; he still followed the many, with YHVH simply as the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, as in the next verse.


19:25 ASHER BERCHO YHVH TSEVA'OT LEMOR BARUCH AMI MITSRAYIM U MA'ASEH YADAI ASHUR VE NACHALATI YISRA-EL

אֲשֶׁר בֵּרְכוֹ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת לֵאמֹר בָּרוּךְ עַמִּי מִצְרַיִם וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדַי אַשּׁוּר וְנַחֲלָתִי יִשְׂרָאֵל

KJ: Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

BN: For YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, will bless him, saying: "Blessed be Mitsrayim, my people, and Ashur, the work of my hands, and Yisra-El, my inheritance." {S}


AMI MITSRAYIM: Why is Egypt YHVH's people, but Yisra-El only his inheritance? See my commentaries on this throughout the Book of Exodus. Presumably because, as noted above, the "original" Mosheh was an Egyptian, and his taking the Habiru to Sinai to witness the volcanic eruption, and then to celebrate the covenant renewal ceremony, was an aspect of the Egyptian religion. Only when YHVH was taken in his Mishkan to Kena'an did he become the god of Yisra-El, and apparently he has missed his home in Egypt and is looking forward to this reunion as an opportunity for a nostalgic return.

But note that there is no mention of the Pelishtim in this new world order, and presumably all the other tribes, clans, cults, sects etc of Kena'an will also be absorbed (annexed?).



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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