Post: Tomer Devorah is rather excited about all the goings-on in the world of late. It is snowing! This is surely a sign of the apocalypse. So all the more so, current events in Egypt are such a sign:
"...And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they shall war one man against his brother, and a man against his friend,...." (Yeshayahu 19.2)Note the ellipses in this Dowdified quote of the navi. The full pasuk in Yeshaya is:
Violent Scenes As Egyptians Turning On Each Other
Protests in Cairo turned violent on Wednesday afternoon, with protesters throwing large rocks at each other as pro-Mubarak demonstrators tore down anti-Mubarak banners that have decorated Tahrir Square for three days. Tanks on the periphery of the square were starting to move in anticipation of unruly crowds.
Live video broadcast by Al Jazeera showed men on camels and horseback hitting people in the square with whips as they rode through the crowds.
Women and children were hiding behind tanks in the streets as men in suits threw stones at each other. The protests have not been this violent in nearly a week. The army was using tear gas to disperse crowds.
| ב וְסִכְסַכְתִּי מִצְרַיִם בְּמִצְרַיִם, וְנִלְחֲמוּ אִישׁ-בְּאָחִיו וְאִישׁ בְּרֵעֵהוּ, עִיר בְּעִיר, מַמְלָכָה בְּמַמְלָכָה. | 2 And I will spur Egypt against Egypt; and they shall fight every one against his brother, and everyone against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. |
Why not cite the end of the pasuk, city against city and kingdom against kingdom? Easy. Because at the present moment, there is no fulfillment of that part of it. It is not the case that protesters seized one city, and are waging war against another city in Egypt.
If Egypt is a single country, how can it be city against city and kingdom against kingdom? Well, Radak explains:
ונלחמו איש באחיו ממלכה בממלכה אף על פי שמצרים כולו מלכות אחת והיו בהם שרים תחת המלך הגדול, זה מולך במדינה אחת וזה מולך במדינה אחרת, כמו מלכי כנען.
"Even though Egypt is one kingdom, there are many nobles under the one king; this one rules in one province and this one rules in another province, just like the kings of Canaan."
That is one straightfoward interpretation of the pasuk. If I understand Malbim correctly:
ונלחמו איש באחיו -הנה דרך הנהוג בעת ילחמו ממלכה בממלכה, ישלימו כל הערים העומדות תחת פקודת הממלכה ביניהם, ויהיו לאגודה אחת ללחום נגד מתקוממיהם בלב אחד, וכן עת תלחם עיר בעיר, ישלימו בני העיר להיות כאיש אחד נגד העיר העושה עמה מלחמה, וכשילחמו משפחה עם משפחה אחרת, איש ברעו, אז יצטרפו כל האחים והקרובים אשר במשפחה ההיא להיות בקשר אחד. אבל פה תחלה ילחמו איש באחיו, עד שתהיה פירוד בין האחים בני המשפחה, ואח"כ איש ברעהו, אשר אינו ממשפחה אחת, ילחמו משפחה במשפחה, ואח"כ ילחמו עיר בעיר אחרת ואח"כ ממלכה בממלכה אחרת, ובאופן זה תהיה המלחמה עליהם מבית ומחוץ, מלחמה פנימית של האחים והמשפחות והערים, ומלחמה חיצונית של הממלכות.He takes it as war within and war without, that another country will wage war on Egypt. But first, internal civil war including one city against another city.
Metzudat David just says that there were many countries in the land of Egypt. See also how Shadal interprets it, as one district on another district.
I could imagine things shaping up in this manner in the future, e.g. with supporters of Mubaruch vs. Islamic Brotherhood gaining certain areas, and waging war on one another. But this hasn't happened yet.
Now, is this the only civil war in history? No. Isaiah prophesied from around 740 BCE to about 698 BCE. One prominent civil war after that was one in which Pharaoh-Hophra, also known as Apries, had a general named Amasis who declared himself Pharoah. This could well be mamlacha against mamlacha. Some scholars indeed suggest this (and see here):
Necho II had taken the Egyptian empire to beyond the Euphrates, but as the Babylonia Empire grew they were pushed back, Apries tried to protect Jerusalem from the Babylonians but this effort ended in complete failure. When his troops returned to Egypt from Jerusalem they began to revolt. Just as he was putting this insurrection down he suffered another loss on his eastern border where he had attempted to put down an incursion by Greek forces in Libya. His defeated the army on returning from this second failure started a full out civil war. During this civil war Apries’ general Amasis declared himself pharaoh in 570 BC, forcing Apries to flee. With the assistance of the Babylonian army, Apries marched back to Egypt in 567 BC to reclaim his throne. It is believed that he was killed in battle with Amasis’ forces. Amasis managed to push back and hold off the Babylonians, and was fortunate to have died in 526 BC shortly before the Persians attacked. In 525 BC six months after Amasis’ son Psamtik III came to the throne the Persian (the fierce king of vs 4) began their final assault. Egypt became a vassal of the Persian Empire.If I wanted to point to another civil war, supporting one Pharaoh against another, I could point to 48 BCE, in which Cleopatra had her supporters against those who supported her brother/husband Ptolemy XIII. Why assume that present day events are the ones Yeshaya is talking about. Especially as we are not yet at full scale civil war, and other parts of the very same pasuk have not been fulfilled, such that the end of the pasuk needs to be replaced by "..." !
Then, there is the rest of the prophecy. You don't get to take half a sentence out of context from a full chapter. There are many other pesukim in that perek. To be credible, explain to be the relevance and fulfillment of most or all of the other pesukim in that perek. For example,
| ג וְנָבְקָה רוּחַ-מִצְרַיִם בְּקִרְבּוֹ, וַעֲצָתוֹ אֲבַלֵּעַ; וְדָרְשׁוּ אֶל-הָאֱלִילִים וְאֶל-הָאִטִּים, וְאֶל-הָאֹבוֹת וְאֶל-הַיִּדְּעֹנִים. | 3 And the spirit of Egypt shall be made empty within it; and I will make void the counsel thereof; and they shall seek unto the idols, and to the whisperers, and to the ghosts, and to the familiar spirits. |
Perhaps back in Yeshaya's time, or those of Pharaoh-Hophra, they worshiped idols, and consulted whisperers, ghosts, and familiar spirits. Are they doing this nowadays in Egypt? Or is this to be metaphorical? One must account for this very next pasuk.
| ד וְסִכַּרְתִּי, אֶת-מִצְרַיִם, בְּיַד, אֲדֹנִים קָשֶׁה; וּמֶלֶךְ עַז יִמְשָׁל-בָּם, נְאֻם הָאָדוֹן יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת. | 4 And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts. |
Well, we will see what happens next in Egypt, whether a dictator arises.
| ה וְנִשְּׁתוּ-מַיִם, מֵהַיָּם; וְנָהָר, יֶחֱרַב וְיָבֵשׁ. | 5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be drained dry, |
In terms of
| ה וְנִשְּׁתוּ-מַיִם, מֵהַיָּם; וְנָהָר, יֶחֱרַב וְיָבֵשׁ. | 5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be drained dry, |
Radak says that this is metaphor. See inside. But explain to me the whole perek, or else I will just think that this is cherry-picking a quote to match. That would be the Sharpshooter's fallacy. There are enough apocalyptic sources in Tanach, Talmud, Kabbalah, Chassidus, and so on that I could cherry-pick a quote to match almost any situation.
24 comments:
Surely you could have articulated this information without disparaging another Jew? Shame on you!
no, i couldn't.
i will forcefully oppose silliness and apocalyptic madness.
to clarify further, what "information" do you think I was trying to articulate?
(a) that this particular interpretation of a pasuk corresponding to present day events is likely incorrect?
OR
(b) this entire approach of -- "Oh No!!! The sky is falling!! This event, that event, the other event, are signs of the apocalypse, as is clear from my kvetched interpretation of Jewish source X! Let us follow this false mashiach Nir ben Artzi and the people manipulating defenseless autistics" -- is stupid, stupid, stupid. And one shouldn't pay such folly any notice.
I was going for (b), with this post as but an example of the larger point.
Could I have done this, warning not to follow in foolishness, without disparaging another Jew? I doubt I could do that, effectively. People would just take my message to be (a).
kol tuv,
josh
Oppose it all you want. You're smart but you're not very wise if you think naming names and ascribing stupidity to their action won't bring harm upon you from Above. Surely a learned person as yourself has heard: "Don't let your mouth bring guilt upon your flesh." Justify it all you want but you are embarrassing AND speaking lashon hara about a Jew. Maybe you should also study the laws of proper speech before you arrogantly attempt to justify this behavior.
that doesn't mean that the laws of lashon hara stop one from criticizing what is wrong and stupid, and convincing other people not to follow it.
when this blogress is promoting Nir ben Artzi, who is a false mashiach, are you saying that I cannot oppose her?
when she approvingly cites the autistics, and endorses their motzi shem ra about frum Jewish kollel wives who work, saying:
(6) Now you have the yeshivishe world, who are living on the work of their wives. Yes, their wives, who now go to a frum college so they can support their husbands' learning - but frum colleges are not kosher at all and they learn many forbidden things. And then they are sent into the world to earn money so their husbands can learn. Many work in offices, even frum offices, where adultery is common practice, where Tznius is forgotten almost completely. And this money is supposed to support Torah. And every bochur is looking for such a girl.
I did not see you stand up protesting at this slander and lashon hara. Why not? I think that it is more that you yourself buy into this nonsense, and so anything critical of the positions you adopt is lashon hara and verboten.
If you were living in Rambam's time, you would likely be protesting his epistle to Yemen, for lashon hara.
kol tuv,
josh
Moriah, I'm not sure why you think Josh has disparaged anyone. He is merely stating a point of view and in order to do so he needs to quote the source.
I looked at Yeshaya 19 "Egyptian against Egyptian" and also thought it was talking about NOW - until I kept reading, and came to same conclusion as Josh did. The rest of the prophecy does not match up with events now. Although I notice that Yaak also mentioned Yeshaya 19 in his post: http://yeranenyaakov.blogspot.com/2011/01/punishment-of-egypt-in-end-of-days.html - and he links to Abravanel's interpretation of this as being at the end of days, but I can't understand Hebrew well enough to know whether I agree or not.
Josh, maybe you can tell us what Abravanel said and why he thought it refers to the Final Redemption. Or maybe Yaak can.
Anyway, I'm hopeful Devash (and Abravanel) are both right and it is indeed a prophecy of the Final Redemption, but I guess only time will tell.
well, i admittedly did disparage a bit, with my crack about the snow...
i'll have to check out the Abarbanel, but there is a general assumption of end-of-days, especially when we don't know all of world history. radak seems to interpret it as referring to events in the time of Chizkiyahu:
כי חזקיהו התיר כל השבוים שהיו במחנה ממצרים ומכוש ולקח כל הבזה והתיר השבוים ושבו לארצם והגידו נפלאות הבורא, והיו חמש ערים במצרים ששבו לאמונת האל ובנו מזבח והעלו עולות לה', ועל זה נאמר יהיו חמש ערים בארץ מצרים מדברות שפת כנען, רוצה לומר שפת ארץ ישראל שהיא לשון עברי, לפי שהיו הולכים ושבים לארץ ישראל ולומדים מעשיהם ולשונם.
kol tuv,
josh
Josh, see my comment here and my post here - the Abravanel explicitly states that it refers to the End of Days. Not all agree with him, but there are sources for this attribution.
Josh: leaving out Yeshaya 19 and Rabbi Ben Artzi for the moment - don't you think we really are in the End of Days ?
Don't you think all the signs are here?
And if not, why not?
yaak:
firstly, even if Abarbanel is correct, that it refers to the end of days, that does not mean that what we are seeing here is its fulfillment. it could be that this is yet to come in another 50 years!
I started reading this Abarbanel. He begins by explaining that the churban described is one of the Christians destroying Egypt. Recall that he lived from 1437-1508, and that many of the Crusades involved wars against Egypt. For example, " Louis IX of France organized a crusade against Egypt from 1248 to 1254, leaving from the newly constructed port of Aigues-Mortes in southern France."
Nowadays, I don't think that Abarbanel's envisioned scenario, spelled out in his sefer מעיני הישועה is likely to occur. I say this without seeing it inside, but the shape of the world and the power players are very different.
he adopts the idea of sarim of Egypt waging war on one another, as well as war from foreign invaders. so far, this doesn't match present conditions.
kol tuv,
josh
Devorah:
" don't you think we really are in the End of Days ?
Don't you think all the signs are here?
And if not, why not?"
I think that I don't know. Is the economic situation difficult? Yes, but it was worse in the Great Depression, in 1929. The Great Depression didn't only impact the US. It also impacted the entire world, all the way up until WWII.
Are there wars in various places, and upheavals? Yes, but they don't compare to World War II.
Is bird flu, or H1N1 something to worry about? Sure, but nothing compared to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which actually killed approximately 50 million people worldwide. This was contemporary, by the way, with World War I, from 1914-1918.
There is a midrash that Yaakov Avinu saw various exiles, based on how high each angel went up before descending (IIRC). And for Edom, he saw it go up but not down. Because it keeps going and going and going.
History is very long, and we keep convincing ourselves that now, it is so dire, and it is so long, that it must be now.
Another contributing factor is that immediacy and world-wide scope of news. You think there weren't uprisings, or very bad weather all the time back then? Yes, but they weren't immediately reported, and they didn't pile one on top the next on top the next. I think this confluence of bad news has more to do with the reporting power of the Internet than with anything really out of the ordinary (when compared with other times in history) happening.
But it is always possible that I am wrong.
kol tuv,
josh
"But it is always possible that I am wrong."
That in itself is proof that we must be in the "end of days".
heh heh
:)
50 years?!?! ח"ו - I hope not!
You're right that his exact Peshat seems unlikely nowadays. That doesn't mean that it cannot happen in the future.
Also, regardless if the Abravanel's exact Peshat is what's happening now or not, the fact is that Abravanel says that these Pesukim do refer to the End of Days.
Josh, I agree with all your problems with these things. Just thought I would mention one of my own. That is how Psychopathic these people can be. It seems that so many of these people get too excited when bad things happen. They exclaim with glee that moshiach is coming whenever terrible things happen.
yaak:
"the fact is that Abravanel says that these Pesukim do refer to the End of Days."
i will certainly grant you that. however, i will also offer the following counterpoint:
many things go into a comprehensive peshat of end-of-days: the possible implications of the local pesukim; what other end-of-days perakim scattered through TaNaCh inform us; a knowledge of history; and an understanding of the world around us.
If Abarbanel viewed the Crusades, and the power brokers of his days, as an end-of-days scenario, then when he read certain pesukim in TaNaCh, he would be prone to interpret it in that way. (especially if he lacked detailed knowledge of the civil war between Apries and Amasis.)
that doesn't mean that an end-of-days interpretation of this perek is *impossible*, but it *might* make it much less likely, when viewed in terms of modern-day events. Abarbanel, living today, might well re-weigh the evidence and decide that this isn't the likely meaning.
kol tuv,
josh
Ya' know, it always amazes me that some of the same methods used by Christian missionaries are used by fundamentalist Jews. (And the latter decry about the former what they themselves are guilty of.) That is, quote a pasuk out of context, or in part, or use a creative interpretation... It is easy to support just about any belief system, or make some after-the-fact prediction (a la Bible Code-ists) by doing so. Only difference is that we Yidden have a thousand years more practice at it!
Yeshivish, go back to Yeshiva. I guess Ribbi Akiva is a psychopath by laughing at the Shu'al on Har Habayit.
Zach, anyone in the persuasion business use texts creatively. When missionaries do it, it's only because they copied Midrash. When its foundation is solid, we can use texts creatively. When the foundation is weak, the "proof" crumbles.
I did not see you stand up protesting at this slander and lashon hara. Why not?
I never read those words till now.. and I disagree with them.
Yaak,There is a difference. Rabbi Akiva was making the best of the situation. He was not looking at the apocryphal as a positive thing.In fact, the greatness of moshiach coming is the World reaches its perfection. I would like it to come that way and not the way your getting all excited about.
Yeshivish, you are incorrect. Ribbi Akiva was doing exactly what you say he did not do. He was looking at the apocryphal as a positive thing. Read the gemara again.
There are many different scenarios of what will happen and how they will happen. Of course everyone wants the best to happen. We hope the ge'ula comes berahamim. However, whichever way it comes, we bless Hashem for showing us His face again and not keeping it hidden.
Josh, another use of Yeshaya 19:2 for the End of Days is mentioned at the end of the footnote here.
yaak:
i probably should clarify my position here. i don't deny that it COULD be a nevuah for end-times, just as it COULD be a nevuah for past times. nor am i am not saying something parallel to Rabbi Hillel about messianic times and Chizkiyahu.
however:
1) Assuming that it is meant to be end-of-days/messianic, I would expect it to be a convincing fulfillment of the prophecy. Not some half-hearted kvetch. To that end, I gave a bunch of other genuine civil wars in Egypt's history, where someone seeing it could be genuinely convinced that this is a fulfillment. When compared against these, this "civil war" in which it was really citizens overthrowing a dictatorship pales in comparison. Hey, I could kvetch Yeshaya as well, saying that in Egypt, on a car trip, a ten year old was fighting with his six year old brother, so one Egyptian was fighting with his brother; and at the same time across town in a cafe, Achmed was fighting with his friend Machmud about who would pick up the check. Taken in this light, my comparison with previous civil wars in Egypt was not to say that the nevuah already happened, but to ask "REALLY?!!" in an incredulous manner, by putting it into a little perspective.
point (2) in a separate comment...
2) Let us contrast the two possibilities. There are meforshim (a) who take it as end-of-days and there are meforshim (b) who take it as already-fulfilled events. Who is right? I don't know; I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet. But saying that it is end-of-days is different from saying (c) it is end-of-days PLUS these present events are its fulfillment. If we have to choose the most plausible between (b) and (c), I would choose (b), since the past events fit the bill much better. But OF COURSE (a) is still a possibility, that it is end of days whose fulfillment we have not yet seen.
kol tuv,
josh
Post a Comment