Yeshayahu chapter 18: "Woe, land of buzzing wings, which is beyond the rivers of Kush." The Malbim opens here with a preface. Really he writes this at the end of the chapter, but it will be brought here at the beginning: all the commentators explained this prophecy as a prophecy about Gog and Magog, a prophecy of the future. But the Malbim says, I do not explain like them, and I hold that all the future prophecies began only from the days of Chizkiyahu onward. And here, since we are still speaking before the days of Chizkiyahu, we are not yet speaking about a future prophecy. We are not yet speaking about a prophecy of Gog and Magog and the coming of Mashiach; at this stage we do not yet have prophecies of that sort. Therefore he continues and explains our chapter as a direct continuation of the previous chapter. And as we have already mentioned several times, the division into "capitels" (capitels meaning the chapters) is not a Jewish division. The division into chapters is a Christian division. Therefore one need not often be impressed when seeing that a new chapter begins here; according to the Jewish division there are no chapters at all, the chapters have no significance. So although there is some matter of a new chapter here, according to the Malbim it is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Now he actually comes to explain the parable. He said that there would be a great multitude of many peoples, and this multitude of many peoples the Holy One, blessed be He, would strike. Those same multitudes of many peoples who came and flooded Efrayim, the ten tribes, Hashem would strike them. He asks: who are the multitude of many peoples? This is the land which is beyond the rivers of Kush. He is speaking about the land of Ashur. Why does he say "buzzing wings"? He says it is because there were many birds gathering there, in the way of birds that gather in the warm lands. Or referring to the ships; the ships he calls "buzzing wings." Is "tzeltzal" a kind of locust? No, so they are like locusts or like birds.
"That sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, go, swift messengers, to a nation drawn out and polished, to a people feared from its beginning onward, a nation of line upon line and treading down, whose land the rivers have plundered." I will not ask anyone here to explain, but rather go straight to the Malbim's commentary, since here it seems there is no connection at all between one word and the next, and let us see how the Malbim brings order into this lack of understanding. "That sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus upon the waters." He, the king of Ashur, sent messengers to the people of Yisrael, and he placed them in vessels of papyrus. Vessels of papyrus are boats, reed boats, which travel swiftly upon the waters. What does he say to them? "Go, swift messengers." That is, he sends those same messengers, those same emissaries. Incidentally, the Malbim explains that there is a difference between a "tzir" (envoy) and a "malach" (messenger). "That sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, go, swift messengers." The Malbim asks: what is the difference between a tzir and a malach? The malach is a messenger who is sent to bring you a message. That is a malach. Why is he called a malach? Because he does his task (melacha). Malach is from the language of "melachot," work; he does his work. A messenger who comes to tell you, to give you a message. In contrast, a tzir is one who goes and goes about and is supposed to return to the boss in order to inform him what the answer is. The malach is sent, does his task, and goes home. The tzir must return to the sender in order to tell him what was finally settled, what the answer is. Therefore the word tzir is also connected with a door turning on its hinge (tzir), for it in fact goes and returns again to the same place. Like a tzir who is sent and returns back to the sender in order to tell him the response of the person to whom he was sent. And regarding this it says "a faithful envoy to those who send him." What do you see, faithful to those who send him? Faithful to bring back a reply to those who send him. "And he sends an envoy among the nations."
So, "that sends ambassadors by the sea." He sent the envoys, he says to them, these envoys come to the people of Yisrael and say to them, you, Yisrael, who are a nation whose land was divided by a line, and your inheritance trodden down. They divided your land by a line, the meaning being that the line was a kind of measure, a measuring tape. They took your land and divided it. They took it and said, this one takes this portion, that one takes that portion, they divided your land by a line. And each one established his portion. This is the meaning of "line upon line and treading down." What does "each one established his portion" mean? Like establishing, he took and trod upon and annexed to himself his portion of your land. They all divided your land. "Whose land the rivers have plundered": and they took the rivers of your land, they plundered the rivers of your land. He says to them, Ashur sends to the people of Yisrael, you have no counsel to escape. So what must you do? Send envoys, messengers, messengers who will run swiftly, to whom? To the nation of Ashur. Who is the nation of Ashur? "A nation drawn out and polished." You have no choice in this situation, you are already in my hands. What you must do now is to send me envoys. You must now send me envoys. Who is Ashur? "A nation drawn out and polished." What does "drawn out" mean? The Malbim says it is a large nation, its land is drawn out into the distance. "Polished" means that its sword is a shining sword, polished, a gleaming sword that is as if honed to come and take vengeance on whoever does not do my will.
Now he continues and says, "to a people feared from its beginning onward." The meaning is that this is a people that all people fear, from the place where it dwells and onward, everyone fears it with a mortal fear. Therefore he says you have no choice but to send envoys to me, meaning to send messengers to me, for I have trodden down your land and divided your land and divided your rivers. What must you do? To come and submit yourselves to me. To whom? To a nation drawn out and polished. A nation whose land is drawn out over an enormous stretch of territory, a nation whose sword is honed; to me you must send envoys and in fact submit yourselves before me. Which is precisely what Chizkiyahu was not willing to do; he was not willing to accept the yoke of the king of Ashur upon himself.
"All you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted on the mountains, you shall see, and when a shofar is sounded, you shall hear." The envoys of the king of Ashur come and say: not only must the people of Yisrael surrender to the king of Ashur, but also all the inhabitants of the world, those who are at the ends of the earth, inhabitants of the world, and even dwellers on the earth. "Dwellers on the earth" is the place that is uninhabited; even those who live in some tents, dwelling in some uninhabited places, none of them will escape his hand. Rather, you will all see at the time when a banner is lifted on the mountains, the meaning being that when you see the banner on the mountains. What is the banner (nes)? A nes is a large pole on the top of which the flag is hung. When they go out to war, one can see all sorts of drawings that express the going out to battle in ancient times; you see some man walking at the head of the battle with an enormous, tall pole, and with it the flag, so that they know the direction, so the army knows the direction in which to advance. And you, when a banner is lifted on the mountains you will see the flag of the war. And if that is not enough, when a shofar is sounded you will hear. You will hear all the shofarot that they would sound before the battle; this you will see and hear, and therefore you must all, inhabitants of the world, be subject to me, I the king of Ashur. It emerges, then, that he did not send this mission only to the people of Yisrael, but rather it is a mission sent to all the nations.
"For thus said Hashem to me: I will be still and I will look on in My dwelling place, like clear heat upon the light, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." Now the prophet turns to Ashur. The prophet says to him: Ashur, the thoughts of Hashem, may He be blessed, are not like your thoughts. The plans of Hashem, may He be blessed, are not like your plans. "For thus said Hashem to me." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to me, at first "I will be still." At first I will let you destroy many peoples, I will let you make many conquests, but do not think that I do not see. "And I will look on in My dwelling place." I am in My place, "a dwelling place for Your seat You have made, Hashem"; from the place where I dwell, from there I will look. Yerushalayim, the Beit HaMikdash, I will watch over them so that your evil will not pass there. Your intentions of conquest will be halted there in Yerushalayim. I look on from the height of My abode in My dwelling place, "a dwelling place for Your seat You have made, Hashem, the Mikdash, Hashem, Your hands have established." I watch over My Mikdash that there will be no sword upon it by your hand.
And I will be, Hashem says to him, "like clear heat upon the light." Like the heat that comes to dry up the rain. "Or" (light) here means rain. Just as the heat, after rain has fallen, the heat completely dries up the rain. "And like a cloud, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." And the same thing in reverse. When there is the heat of harvest, there is dryness, rain comes and turns the cloud, the dryness, turns it into moisture. That they should have blessing, that rain should fall, "like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." The Malbim says, note that he grasped here two opposite things. On the one hand how the dryness quells the moisture, this is written "like clear heat" that comes to dry up "the light," the rain. And on the other hand the opposite, how the moisture nullifies the dryness, "like a cloud of dew," clouds that bring down dew, "in the heat of harvest." What does he mean by this? That the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were says to him, I will do two opposite actions. On the one hand I prepare you to chastise the nations, I prepare you to fight them, I prepare you so that you should have strength and might against them all. And on the other hand I protect Chizkiyahu so that he will not be harmed by you. What do you say, these are opposite actions? No. Everything is for one purpose. For if Hashem were to save Chizkiyahu from a weak king, would the might of Hashem be recognized? On the contrary! In that I prepare you and make you such a mighty king, and in the end, with all your greatness and power and might, you will reach Yerushalayim and fall, this is a far greater downfall than if you were a weak king. So in fact both things are intended for one purpose, so that His name should be sanctified in the world. Therefore do not be surprised that on the one hand you see there is a mighty heat that comes to dry up moisture, or a great moisture that comes to wet the heat. He says these are actions that are opposed, on one side strengthening Sancheriv, on one side weakening him. For the strengthening of Sancheriv, on the contrary, is intended in order to weaken him in the end, in order to bring him down in the end. And regarding this it is said "He makes the nations great, and destroys them." When the Holy One, blessed be He, makes the nation great, then the destruction with which He destroys it afterward is far greater.
"For before the harvest, when the blossoming is over and the sour grape ripening becomes a flower, He shall cut off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the branches He shall take away, He shall lop off." In the previous chapter he told us that the children of Efrayim, the tribe of the ten tribes, he reminded us, planted "strange vine shoots." They went and joined together with the peoples, took wives from them, joined, made forbidden mixtures within the vineyard that the Holy One, blessed be He, had designated for Himself, they joined themselves in forbidden mixture with them. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, this people, in the end a flooding torrent will come and flood it, as we saw in the previous chapter. The flowing stream of the camp of Ashur flooded it, left nothing of it, exiled it among the nations. In contrast to this he comes and says, even before the harvest ripens, from this combination that they took and joined here, some strange shoot, even before this ripens, even before there is a flower that has already begun to blossom, and even after the bud has budded and it has already produced fruit, it has not yet fully ripened, then know, "He shall cut off the shoots with pruning hooks." The Holy One, blessed be He, will cut off the shoots. The shoots are the strange vine shoots that came and were joined into the holy planting. These are the nations upon whom the tribe of Efrayim relied, the tribe of Efrayim went and intermarried with them. The Holy One, blessed be He, says these shoots will be cut off. These branches will not have time; "when the blossoming is over and the sour grape ripening becomes a flower, He shall cut off the shoots." The Malbim asks, what does "when the blossoming is over and the sour grape ripening becomes a flower" mean? There are trees whose blossoming is before the tree buds, as in almonds, and as it is written by the staff of Aharon, "and it brought forth a blossom and produced a flower." First the blossoming, afterward it buds. And it is about this that he speaks here. What he says by us, "when the blossoming is over" and afterward there will be budding, first blossoming, afterward budding. And there are such trees that are the reverse, first the bud buds and afterward there is a blossom, as in "Yisrael shall bud and blossom." First it buds and afterward blossoms. What is "sour grape" and "the sour grape ripening becomes"? He says sour grape, the ripening of the sour grape is grapes that have not yet ripened. As in "the fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." The shoots (zalzalim), the Malbim says, is a word that has no parallel in Scripture. There is no word in Scripture like the word zalzalim; it appears uniquely here by us. According to the context, the Malbim says, we understand that it is the foreign branches that came and were slipped into, what did we say, they went and joined, made a grafting, into the vineyard of the House of Yisrael. And they are zalzalim from the language of devouring (zollim) and robbing the moisture of the tree, they suck from it for the vitality of themselves. Or they cause to drip out (mazilim) the sap of the tree, the richness of the tree, as in "water shall flow (yizal) from his buckets." Right? So there too, it is from the language of zalzal, which takes and drips out from within it its richness, the sap that is in the tree, as it were robbing this for itself. So these shoots, Hashem says, I will cut them off, "He shall cut off the shoots with pruning hooks." "And the branches (netishot) He shall take away, He shall lop off." What are the netishot? If you remember we explained that the netishot are the branches that go and spread out and are scattered (netushim) across the field, like a camp that is spread out across the field. They spread out greatly. Who are they? These are the ten tribes. The ten tribes, we said, became like a grafted vine, they mingled among the nations. Hashem will lop it off, He will fling it to another land, Hashem will exile them and remove them from the holy land. "And the branches": you went, you became scattered across the field, you mingled among the nations, I will drive you out among them.
"They shall be left together to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth, and the birds of prey shall summer upon it, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon it." "They shall be left together": they will be abandoned to the birds, to the beasts, in summer and in winter they will be food for them. All year long as food for the birds and the beasts. The bird of prey (ayit), the Malbim says here, is the bird of prey known to us as the eagle. "And to the beasts of the earth," some explain that the meaning is the wild animals of the earth, for it is difficult to explain "behemah" (domestic beast), since domestic beasts do not eat meat, wild animals eat meat. But it is very possible, the Malbim says, that since here we spoke about the shoots, which are the branches of the tribe of Efrayim, that they will be food, since it is speaking about branches as food, who eats branches? Not wild animals, domestic beasts. Therefore he used the example "to the beasts of the earth." Even though when you speak about human beings, food for domestic beasts is not fitting, food for wild animals is fitting. Wild animals eat human beings, but not domestic beasts. Therefore he says no, here we are speaking about the parable. The parable was about branches that the beasts eat; he asks who eats branches? Not wild animals, domestic beasts. Therefore he says "and to the beasts of the earth." "And the birds of prey shall summer upon it," the meaning being that the bird of prey will summer upon it, "and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon it," all the beasts of the earth will go and eat its carcass.
"At that time a gift shall be brought to Hashem of Hosts, a people drawn out and polished, and from a people feared from its beginning onward, a nation of line upon line and treading down, whose land the rivers have plundered, to the place of the name of Hashem of Hosts, Mount Tziyon." After the wicked are cut off from the people of Yisrael, the meaning being the ten tribes, then a gift shall be brought to Hashem of Hosts. Who will bring this gift to Hashem of Hosts? "A people drawn out and polished." Who is that, we said? This is Ashur. Ashur, who is drawn out across all the lands, and whose sword is polished. From where will this gift be brought? "From a people feared." From where? The meaning is from the land of Ashur, from there they will bring a gift to Hashem. What will the gift be? "A nation of line upon line and treading down." The nation upon which they stretched a line, the nation that, as we explained above, was in a state of being trodden down, they trod it down. Who is this? This is the people of Yisrael, the ten tribes. That very one Ashur will bring as a gift to Hashem, may He be blessed. That is, they will return the tribes, the ten tribes, they are destined to return them to the people of Yisrael. Now, if you ask, but the Malbim said that here we are not speaking about future prophecies, we are still only speaking about prophecies that already occurred. The Malbim says: true, in the days of Chizkiyahu it is written that many of the ten tribes returned to Yerushalayim to take shelter in the shadow of Chizkiyahu. That is, Chazal say that Yirmiyahu restored them among the ten tribes. That is to say, in the future Ashur will give permission to the ten tribes to return. And this is what he says, "whose land," "to the place of the name of Hashem of Hosts, Mount Tziyon," there the ten tribes are destined to return, by means of whom? By means of that same people that was drawn out and polished, that was scattered across all the earth, a people that conquered many peoples, whose sword was polished; it will bring a gift to Hashem, may He be blessed, whom? The ten tribes whom He is destined to restore.