Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 2:1-5

  

This chapter commences a new prophecy, but not without connection with the preceding. Zion will now be saved from the hands of Sennacherib [his is the subject of the first chapter; the second begins with describing the salvation of Israel, which will be effected in the distant future.], and she will besides be highly distinguished in the future. This will take place, as the prophet says, “In the last of the days.” That is, in the days of Messiah, which are the last of the days of the world. [By “The last of the days of the world” Ibn Ezra points to the furthermost period of time, the period of the highest degree of perfection and salvation, which will undergo no fresh change, nor suffer any relapse into former imperfections. Such a period, Ibn Ezra says, has not yet come, because war has not yet ceased.] Those days have not yet come; for since the days of Isaiah there has never been a period free from war. We learn from Josephus, and the literature of the Persians and Medes,[ Another reading for ומדי is רומי “and Romans.”] that during the whole time of the second temple in Jerusalem war had never ceased. Moreover, [The meaning is, “Even if the records here referred to were not trustworthy, and if for a certain period war had really ceased, it has been resumed again; while the period of Messiah requires ‘that war should not be learnt any more.’ ”] the prophet distinctly declares, “Neither shall they learn war any more.”

 

2. And shall be exalted. We know that the mount of the temple will not be physically raised; but what the phrase means is, that it will be established in such a way that people will hasten up to it from the four corners of the earth, as if it were higher than all hills. ונהרו And they will flow. Root, נהר ‘to flow’; comp. נהר “river,” which is so called on account of its flowing motion.

 

4. And he shall judge. He, who is the judge, the Messiah, shall judge (comp. Numb. 26:59). [The passage referred to is אֲשָׁר יָלְדָה אֹתָהּ, ‘whom she bare’: no noun precedes the phrase, whose substitute the pronoun “she” should be. In this and similar elliptical cases, Ibn Ezra usually supplies a participle or a verbal noun from the verb; as, for instance, חיולדת ‘the mother,’ implied in the verb יָלְדָח, or הֵשֹׁפֵט implied in the verb וְשָׁפֵט; sometimes he completes the elliptical phrase from the context; comp. ver. 8.] לְאִתִּים Into plowshares. Comp. אֵתוֹ “his plowshare” (1 Sam. 13:20); the Dagesh of the ת compensates for the omitted silent letter י; the same purpose is served by the long vowel Zere under א in the word אֵתוֹ. למזמרות Pruning-hooks. Instruments for pruning the vineyards.

 

5. O house of Jacob, etc. With these words the prophet rebukes Israel, as if he said, “Since Zion will now, as you are well aware, be redeemed for her justice, and a time, besides, will come for her great salvation, we all owe obedience to the words of the prophecies, which are true as the light.” The prophet includes himself in this rebuke, by using the first person plural, pro formâ, as Moses did when he prayed, “forgive our iniquity;” or because he grew up among the people and acquired something of their mode of speaking, as I shall explain (6:5). (Abraham Ibn Ezra, The Commentary of IBN Ezra on Isaiah, 3 vols. [ed. . M. Friedländer; London: Trübner & Co., 1873], 1:13-15)