And Hashem is the true God, He is the living God and King of the world; at His wrath the earth trembles, and the nations cannot endure His fury. "And Hashem is the true God." Why? Rashi says: because He is the living God and King of the world. That is to say, who can verify his words? One who is eternal. Someone who is not eternal, can he guarantee anything? Today you are here, tomorrow in the grave. How can you guarantee anything? But who can tell you that everything I say to you is completely true? Only one who is eternal. And Hashem is the true God, why? Because He is the living God and King of the world. And since He is King of the world, He can verify His words and it is in His power to fulfill them. The Radak says: the gods they make to worship are false gods and they are dead. There is no spirit of life in them, there is no ability in them. But Hashem is the true God, master over all the gods, and He alone is true. He has power over everything and judges everything. And all the rest, all their powers come only from Him. Even the stars, which in truth, as we said, according to the truth do have powers, astrology and the like, that is something with truth in it, but these powers, where do they come from? They come only from the power of Hashem. Their governance does not depend on another; rather, all others depend on Him.
Well... help, come, if you are two, help one another... help us. Alright, in any case, we see it is a manner of honor, and so it appears among the early authorities, that it is a manner of honor to speak in the plural. So therefore he says "living God," he did not say "living God" in the singular but "living" in the plural, or "holy ones," which is a manner of honor toward the Holy One, blessed be He. And then through this you will understand that at His wrath the earth trembles and the nations cannot endure His fury. Through this you will understand that if there is wrath from Hashem, the whole earth trembles. "And the nations cannot endure His fury" means they will not be able to bear or stand His fury, the fury of the Holy One, blessed be He. When Hashem rages, the nations cannot endure His fury, they will have no possibility of standing before this fury, and the earth trembling is a metaphor for the destruction of the inhabitants of the land through the wrath of the Holy One, blessed be He, and through this you will understand that everything is from Him. And how will you know, says the Radak? Because Hashem announces the calamity even before it comes. This is something no one in the world has the power to do. This, as we said, is the uniqueness in the Torah of Hashem, the Torah of truth, and in the people of Israel. The uniqueness is that among all the nations there is no one who delivers prophecy. There is no power of prophecy among all the nations. There was one, and Moshe Rabbeinu requested "that I and Your people be distinguished," that there no longer be prophecy among the nations. And the Holy One, blessed be He, accepted this from him. And since Bilaam there is no longer prophecy among the nations. And there is no gentile who can tell us anything that will be in the future. And I told you how ridiculous the matter is that the Muslims call Muhammad a prophet, and he never uttered any prophecy. Never. He never said any prophecy. Tell me something he said, something that would come to be, he never said. That man never even claimed to say anything about the future. And also in Christianity there is not a single prophet in all the history of Christianity and in all the history of Islam, and in fact there is no prophet at all, because no one risks saying something that will happen in two hours. No one takes the risk. And however much they may risk various sayings...
Someone once told me that there was some program on one of the channels, they brought people to predict the elections. Astrologers, coffee readers, readers of nonsense, readers of ropes, readers of I don't know what, of your bank accounts, of everything. The main thing is bring money. And each one said this one will be prime minister, that one will be like this, there is going to be an upset, this will happen. Now what was the best part? He tells me that a month after the elections they brought back the whole program. And they saw how this one talked nonsense and that one talked nonsense and this one was off the mark and that one said such and such and this one predicted such and such. Nothing they said was correct. He tells me that they said that statistically, if you had guessed, you would have had a better chance of being right than the one who supposedly knows based on the cards and the coffee and... You understand? The one who is supposed to understand, yes, the one who is supposed to know, so statistically, if you had just guessed heads or tails, you would already have a greater chance of guessing correctly. That is to say, no one can say what will be in two minutes. One person said to me, come, honored Rabbi, there is someone, I tell you Rabbi, he is a great rabbi. What is great about him? He says he tells you everything about yourself. I told him: I don't need him to tell me anything about myself, I know everything about myself. Can he tell me something about the future that will happen? Go find one like that. Find one who will tell you something that will be in the future. Telling you about yourself, he is telling you nonsense. You are a good person. Show me someone who would say it is not true. You like to help others. Show me someone who would say that is a lie. What do they tell you? Compliments. They tell you good things about yourself. You are a good person, you are a positive person, you... you have a lot of energy to do good for people, you... all kinds of things that are pleasant for you to hear, and leave the money, that is the main thing in the end. The main thing is that you leave the money.
So in fact, no one has the ability to say anything about the future. The Radak says: and they will be able to recognize that it is from Him, who announces to them first, before the calamity comes, through His servants the prophets. And there is no such thing in the history of any nation. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says the land will be desolate, and the land is desolate. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says you will be exiled from the land and scattered among all the nations, and they are scattered among all the nations. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says that all the years the land is here, after it is conquered, no one will succeed in settling it. For 2000 years no one succeeded in settling it. Prophecies upon prophecies, the Torah is full of them without end and without limit. And the nations, not a single one, not one prophecy. So He says: behold, see, Hashem is the true God, He is the living God and King of the world; at His wrath the earth trembles, and the nations cannot endure His fury. Hashem in His wrath announces what will make the earth tremble, and behold you see that what He announces comes to pass. So you have no greater proof than this, that in truth everything is in His ability and His dominion.
The Malbim explains: what is the definition of "and Hashem is the true God"? The Malbim says: the definition of truth is the correspondence of what is said about the thing to the reality of the thing itself in actuality. What is the definition of truth? Correspondence between what is said about it and reality. The correspondence of what is said about the thing to the reality of the thing itself in actuality. When you see correspondence, meaning a match, between what is said about the thing and reality, you say this is truth. They told you it is raining outside. You went out, you saw rain. This is truth. The correspondence of what is said about the thing to the actual reality.
The Malbim says: the idols are false, because the attributes you ascribed to them and attributed to them have no correspondence between what is said and reality. We know that there is nothing real in them, they have no power to influence, no power to save, nothing. But in contrast, all the praises and glory with which we praise the Creator of the world, there is correspondence between the attributes and praise and reality. For Hashem is the living God and King of the world. In His own essence He is not like the gods of the nations who are dead carcasses. Like a palm tree that stands, having no power in it. Hashem is the source of life. In terms of His very governance, He is King of the world. King of the world means He reigns, rules, governs, King of the world. And at His wrath the earth trembles, and the nations cannot endure His fury. The Malbim says that apparently the astrologers, those who gazed at the stars who existed in their time, interpreted the signs they saw in the heavens, all kinds of signs. Whoever would see, before the destruction there were all kinds of signs in the heavens that they saw, like a fire or like an arrow being shot, and many other things they saw. There were astrologers who tried to interpret all kinds of signs in the heavens. And as it is written, "Be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens, for the nations are dismayed at them." But there were people there who supposedly understood all these signs and would frighten the people. And there was also an earthquake in several lands. About this the prophet tells them: know that this is not by the power of the celestial signs. No, it is by His power. And if you see the earth trembling, it is from His wrath. So do not relate to the changes in the heavens or to the earthquake as signs, rather it is the speech of Hashem, it is not signs. It is all from Him, blessed be He, it is not powers apart from Him, blessed be He.
Thus shall you say to them: The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. "Thus shall you say to them." What is this verse that enters here in Aramaic in the middle of Sefer Yirmiyahu? This is not Sefer Daniel. How does a verse in Aramaic suddenly enter here, and about whom is he speaking here? So let the speaker of Aramaic come and translate the verse for us from Aramaic to Aramaic. And who is that? It is Targum Yonatan. I will read you the Targum. "This is the text of the letter that Yirmiyahu the prophet sent to the rest of the elders of the exile who were in Bavel." Those who had already been exiled to Bavel, he sent them these words. Yirmiyahu sent this to Yechoniah and those who were in the exile. And he said to them thus: and if the Chaldeans among whom you are should say to you, "House of Israel, worship idolatry." If the Chaldeans among whom you are, there in Bavel, should tell you to worship idolatry. Thus shall you answer and thus shall you say to them. This is what you shall reply and thus shall you say to them: the idols that you worship are idols in which there is no benefit. This is idolatry that has no power. They cannot bring down rain from the heavens. They have no power to bring down rain from the heavens. And from the earth they cannot make fruits grow. This is what he says: the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens. What is "shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens"? They have no power of influence, neither in the heavens nor on the earth. In the heavens they cannot bring down rain, and from the earth they cannot make fruits grow. "They and those who worship them" - they and their worshipers. Shall perish from the earth and be destroyed from under these heavens. They and their worshipers shall perish from the earth and be destroyed from under these heavens. Here in fact was an answer to the Chaldeans who would tell them to worship idolatry. And therefore he told them: thus shall you say to them, this is what you shall say to them and this is what you shall answer them. Why is this written in Aramaic? Because the Chaldeans were Aramaeans. And since he wanted to speak with them in their language, he told them the expressions in Aramaic.
What is not clear is that he should have said "and thus shall you say to them," for this he is saying to us. And then he would say "the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth," and then switch to Aramaic. For after all, he is speaking to us about what to say to them. So he should have told us, "thus shall you say," and after that switch to Aramaic. The Radak says: indeed so. Only in order not to split the verse, half Hebrew and half Aramaic, therefore he did not do so. Since the verse is a single verse, one does not write half the verse in Hebrew and half in Aramaic. One does not write a sentence half of which is Hebrew and half Aramaic. And therefore he wrote it in this language. He makes grammatical notes here: as for what is written "lehom," do not be surprised; although it should have said "lehon," but he says that so we have seen, and so it is also found in Sefer Ezra. And the expression "eleh," this is an expression that is both Aramaic and Hebrew, as it is written "under these heavens." "Eleh" is in Hebrew, and "eleh" is also in Aramaic. And what is "arka"? "Arka" means earth. Chazal say four names were given to it, corresponding to four periods: eretz, tevel, adamah, and arka. And this, "arka," is with a kuf, yes? Kuf and aleph. This is in fact the answer we give them, and we tell them we will not worship idolatry. And the Radak writes: it is true that Israel did not worship idolatry since they were exiled. Ah, but what will you say about bowing to the image in the time of Nevuchadnetzar? They were coerced. And even so, he says, see that in the time of Haman they were held accountable for it. For what? For having bowed to the image. Had God not had mercy on them, as Chazal say: why were the Israel of that generation liable to annihilation? Because they bowed to the image.
The Malbim explains that since they admit that Hashem created the heavens and the earth, then how do you call the idols by the name "gods"? After all, they did not create anything. What kind of god is he? What did he create? You do admit that the Holy One, blessed be He, created heaven and earth. So what kind of god is this god whom you worship, who created nothing? What will you say? Well, not the heavens and the earth, he created other worlds. He says: since they did not make the heavens and the earth, these in which we exist, then they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. That is to say, these they did not make, so what are they doing here? Let them perish from here. These they did not create, let them go dwell in the heavens and the earth that they did create. Why are they here? After all, you admit that this was created by the God of gods, this was created by the Holy One, blessed be He. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, created it, what is this idol doing here? After all, he did not create these heavens and this earth. Or what, he created others? Let him go manage the others. What is he doing here? All of this only comes to show how ridiculous their claims are.
In connection with this verse, thus shall you say to them: the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens, I bring in the book Mishnat HaChalomot a story and an incident that was connected to this verse. And the story there was, it is found in Mishnat HaChalomot on pages 40, 41. There Rav Petaya brings that there are demons called "Jewish demons." So it is brought in the Zohar, Bamidbar 253. And they make themselves out to be prophets, Tannaim, early authorities, judges of Israel, famous Torah scholars, with a great beard and a crown upon their heads, or like tzaddikim and pious ones. And sometimes they say that they are Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, or Eliyahu the prophet and the like. Sometimes a person tells you Avraham appeared to me, Avraham Avinu. Or Eliyahu the prophet, or all kinds of other delusions of this sort. And a person must ask them whether they are truly the forefathers of the world or whether their names are merely like the names of the forefathers. And one must scrutinize their answers. For if they answer something unclear, leaning this way or that, know for certain that they are demons. And then do not be impressed by their words. And then he brings that they can show a person the image of the firmament and the Throne of Glory and the heavenly hosts and so on. He brings proof for this from an incident that happened before him. In the year 5670, in the month of Tammuz, 100 years ago. After the Minchah prayer, the Minchah of Shabbat, they brought before me a child about 11 years old, who said that he speaks with Eliyahu the prophet face to face, in a vision and not in riddles. And whenever he wishes to speak with him, he calls him and immediately Eliyahu comes. Only what? On the condition that there be some special private place and no person standing near him. Eliyahu is willing to have meetings with him only in solitude, in seclusion. He does not, if there is someone else, Eliyahu does not come. I told him, enter this room, and ask him whether you are truly Eliyahu the prophet. And so he did. And he answered him: yes, I am truly Eliyahu. And why does Rabbi Yehuda doubt this? He told him: certainly I am Eliyahu the prophet, why does Rav Petaya doubt this? Thus he answers the child. And pay attention here, this is speaking in a vision and not in riddles, not in a dream.
I told the child: this is nothing but a Jewish demon whose name is Eliyahu, and it is not Eliyahu the prophet. And you are being harmed by Jewish demons. Come and let me pray over your head the prayer for those who are harmed, and through this Eliyahu will flee from you. The child said to me: certainly he is Eliyahu the prophet, and you do whatever you can do, and we will see whose word will stand. After I prayed over him two and three times, the child went to the room to test whether Eliyahu would come, and behold, immediately Eliyahu came as his previous custom. And I was astonished at this matter. And I took the child and went to the sage Rabbi Shimon Aharon Agasi, who was still alive, in order to examine him. After he examined him, he said that this is Eliyahu the prophet and not a demon. And I disagreed with him and told him that he is a demon. And we all agreed to go after the Motzaei Shabbat prayer, this was during the Minchah of Shabbat, to go after the Motzaei Shabbat prayer to the sage Rabbi Yaakov, son of the sage Rabbi Yosef Chaim, of blessed memory. That is, to go to the sage Rabbi Yaakov, son of the Ben Ish Chai, in order to examine him. And after he examined him in several matters, he too said that this is certainly Eliyahu the prophet, may he be remembered for good, and no doubt. And I disagreed with both of them and rejected their words. And I asked them to give me permission to examine him one more time. I told the child: go tell Eliyahu to translate for you the verse mentioned in Yirmiyahu. Thus shall you say to them: the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. And if he translates this verse into Arabic, then it is possible to be uncertain and say perhaps he is Eliyahu the prophet and not a demon. Because the demons know the Aramaic language, and they can translate the verse. For even to those who speak Aramaic they show bad dreams and whisper in their ears in Aramaic. That is to say, you see that even the demons know Aramaic. But this verse, which speaks of their disgrace, they do not want to hear it and translate it into another language. So what is called, he tripped him up. He gave him a verse that the demons do not like, do not want. Certainly they would not be interested in translating it. And then we will see whether it is Eliyahu or not. If it is Eliyahu, what is his problem with translating it, explaining it? And if it is a demon, the matter will not please him. And when the child asked Eliyahu to translate this verse for him, Eliyahu told him: I cannot delay here, because...
I want to go from here to write the merits of Israel and I must go. It is good that he did not tell him I have a brit milah, I must run. Yes? I cannot, I must go to write the merits of Israel, I cannot. When the child gave me this answer, I told him: go back and tell him that the translation of the verse I am asking of you is a great necessity, for it is a test to be sure that you are Eliyahu. And Eliyahu answered him: I already told you that I must go. I told the child: tell Eliyahu, did you not speak several words and stand here for some time, and it is easier to translate the verse than all this lengthy talk. And you could have translated the verse long ago in the time you are lengthening here with words. And now the sages are not satisfied until you translate the verse. When the child said these words to Eliyahu, he became angry and swore: as Hashem lives, I will not appear to you again, since you do not believe in me that I am Eliyahu. And immediately he went and did not return again to appear to the child. That is it, they do not believe in me, I am going. And it was after Eliyahu departed that the aforementioned sages said to me, meaning Rav Agasi and the son of the Ben Ish Chai: it appears to us that this is truly Eliyahu the prophet. For it is his way to swear "as Hashem lives." As it is written, "And Eliyahu the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilad, said to Achav: as Hashem, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I have stood." "And Eliyahu said: as Hashem of hosts lives, before whom I have stood this day." And so on. So you see, he swore the oath customary for him. And our Sages, of blessed memory, already said, "gemiri," meaning it is a received tradition, that demons do not utter the name of Heaven in vain. So if he said "as Hashem lives" and swore, it is a sign that he is the original Eliyahu. It is not an imitation. And I told them that this is a demon. And he did not utter the name of Heaven in vain, for he swore and fulfilled his oath in that he fled and did not appear again. So there is no name of Heaven in vain here. What he swore, he fulfilled, it is not in vain. That is one thing. Second, moreover, from the outset there is no name of Heaven in vain here, since he did not say "as Hashem lives" using the letters of the Tetragrammaton or the name of Lordship. Rather he said "as Hashem lives." If it is a sophisticated demon, this is it. He did not say "as my Lord lives." He said "as Hashem lives," the word "Hashem." Ah, well, that is not the name of Hashem at all. So there is no problem in swearing that way, for it is not an oath at all. And if so, he said, this is nothing but deceiving people. And Rav Agasi and the son of the Ben Ish Chai conceded to his words. It emerges, then, that the conclusion is that it is within the power of demons to mislead a person and to lie. But in any case, what we see here is that this verse not only speaks of the graven images and idols that created nothing and therefore will not be here in this place, meaning they shall perish from the earth, but it also speaks of the demons. Of all the forces of impurity in general, about which it is said here: they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.
Alright, let us continue. He makes the earth with His power, establishes the world with His wisdom, and with His understanding stretched out the heavens. Come and see how the Holy One, blessed be He, in contrast, and with a thousand thousand distinctions between Him and those powerless forces. Hashem makes the earth with His power. He made these heavens and earth with His power and His might. And "tevel," what is the difference between tevel and eretz? He makes the earth with His power, establishes the world with His wisdom. What is the difference between them? "Tevel" is the inhabited part. In contrast, "eretz" refers to the world as a whole. The world as a whole, considerable parts of it are not inhabited at all. The whole world is called "eretz." Only when we speak of the inhabited parts of the world are they called "tevel." So he says, this He established with His wisdom. Why? To create the entire world requires power. In contrast, to create the place fit for human habitation also requires wisdom. Because one needs to know that in this place there will be the factors that enable life in that place. Chiefly water sources and so on in this manner. And if so, this requires wisdom. So Hashem establishes the world with His wisdom. And with His understanding He stretched out the heavens. The heavens He stretched out above them with His understanding. The Malbim says: pay attention that he used the language "makes the earth, establishes the world." He does not say in the past tense, "made the earth with His power, established the world." And this is as Chazal say, that the Holy One, blessed be He, renews each day continually the work of creation, with full providence. And therefore he said "makes the earth," since the Holy One, blessed be He, every day and every single moment makes the earth anew.
At the sound of His giving forth a multitude of waters in the heavens, He raises up clouds from the ends of the earth; He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind from His storehouses. "At the sound of His giving forth a multitude of waters in the heavens." We worship the Holy One, blessed be He, who places waters in the heavens. This is the firmament. And we know that He is the one who gives rain, as it is written, "who gives rain upon the face of the earth." And not the idols. They would worship idols so that the idols would influence them, bring them down rain. As it is written, "Are there among the vanities of the nations any that can bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers?" Meaning, show me the nations that are capable of bringing down rain. Israel would go out, hold a fast, return home, rain falls. But "are there among the vanities of the nations any that can bring rain?" And this, by the way, was also known to the nations. And many times they would decree decrees upon the Jews until it did not rain. They would not remove the decree from the Jews because they knew, the Jews would go stand and pray and rain would fall. So it was in Jerusalem with the governor, so it was in Yemen, endless cases where they would decree upon them. They knew, they go out, pray, return home, and already rain is falling. He says: tell me, do the nations have such a god? Are there among the vanities of the nations any that can bring rain? A god capable of bringing down rain? "Or can the heavens give showers" means, do the heavens give rain of themselves? Is it not You? You are our God. And behold, we Israel, says the Radak, we acknowledge Him, that it is within His power, at the sound of His giving forth a multitude of waters in the heavens. He gives; the waters do not fall of themselves, and they are not there in the heavens of themselves, rather He gives. And how? He raises up clouds from the ends of the earth. He raises up the clouds and vapors from the ends of the earth, as it is written, "and a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." And that is only a mist. He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind from His storehouses. Another wonder, he says, that He makes lightnings for the rain. Before there is rain there is lightning. And these lightnings are a wondrous thing, since lightning is fire, and the waters, the rain, are supposed to extinguish the fire. And behold you see two clouds colliding with one another, and the moment they collide, from these waters and waters, what comes out? Fire. So "He makes lightnings for the rain" is another thing that is a wonder. And all this, "and brings forth the wind from His storehouses." The Malbim explains the meaning of the matter. So first the Malbim says that here he comes to show the wisdom and the individual providence of the Holy One, blessed be He. Earlier we spoke of "He makes the earth with His power, establishes the world with His wisdom." So Hashem establishes the world as a whole and also the inhabited places that require wisdom. But that is still something very general. Now he speaks of something specific. Something specific is what is called on demand according to the need required for that matter. And the thing that most reflects this matter is rain. For rain is according to our needs, according to what we require at that time. This shows individual providence. And behold the Holy One, blessed be He, brings down the rains, gives a multitude of waters in the heavens. What is "waters in the heavens"? The Malbim defines it as the breathing air. This is an expression he mentions many times. It means within the atmosphere. This is the place of the rising of the vapors. And He raises up clouds from the ends of the earth, these are the vapors that reach the place where the clouds are. And they are in fact drops of water. The air is pure and clear, says the Malbim, through the electric and the element of fire that bursts the vapors upon the wings of the wind. "Electric" means electricity. And the element of fire that bursts the vapors upon the wings of the wind. And this is as we said, through lightnings. Immediately after lightning, for what is lightning in fact? There are ions, positive ions and negative ions in the clouds. So when two that are identical, positive and positive, meet, then through this the electrical charge of both sides discharges in the form of lightning. And immediately after we hear thunder and lightning, what does this thing cause? The thing causes the air in fact to go out and the drops to combine, they become heavy and rain falls. Therefore always after lightning and a lightning and thunder storm there is pouring rain. He says: and behold, see, it is from the wisdom of Hashem, for He makes lightnings for the rain. When He wants the rain to fall, He separates the element of fire and the electric, through this the lightning is formed, and through this there is wind. The element of the wind trapped in the vapors, and through this there is rain. So behold, come and see how the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who does everything, He is the one who bestows everything. So it is not from the power of the nations, and this is individual providence of the Holy One, blessed be He, exactly according to the need of the matter and according to the amount we require.