YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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Understanding the haftarot
By Harav Yaakov Medan
The Second of the Seven Haftarot of Consolation – Eikev
Zion speaks: "The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord, He has forgotten me." Can a mother forget her own baby; can she fail to care for the child of her womb? These too may yet forget, but I will not forget you. I have etched you on My palms; your walls are before My eyes always. Your children will run to you; your destroyers, your demolishers, will all be gone from you. Raise your eyes; look around and see: the children all gathered and coming back to you. As I live, so says the Lord, you will wear them all as jewels, which you will bind on like a bride. For your ruins, for your wastelands, for the land of your destruction, for you will be too narrow for your dwellers, while those who would destroy you will be far away from you. You will yet hear the children say, of whom you were bereaved, "The place is too tight for me; make space for me to sit," while you say in your heart, "Who bore these children, mine, to me, bereft and left alone, exiled and expelled; these children – who has raised them? I was left all alone, and these – where are they?" So says the Lord God: Behold: I shall raise My hands to nations, lift My banner toward peoples; they will bring your sons back in the folds of their robes, bearing your daughters upon their shoulders; kings will be your caregivers, their princesses your nursemaids. They will bow to the ground before you and kiss the dust you tread upon, and you will know: I am the Lord, and those who wait for Me will not be shamed. Can a mighty warrior be plundered; can a victor's captives flee? For so says the Lord: The mighty man's captives may yet be taken, the tyrant's plunder flee, but I shall fight against those who fight you, I will save your children. To those who wrong you, I will feed their own flesh; their blood will intoxicate them like wine, and all flesh will know then that I am the Lord, your rescuer, your redeemer, Mighty One of Yaakov. So says the Lord: Where is your mother's bill of divorce with which I banished her? Which one of My creditors have I, then, sold you to? No, it was for your sins that you were sold; for your faithlessness your mother was sent hence. Why is it that I came, and no man was here; I cried out, and no one answered? Does My arm fall short to redeem you; have I not strength to rescue? No – at My rebuke I dry the sea; I turn whole rivers to desert land. Their fish will stink for lack of water, dead of thirst. I will dress the skies in darkness and make mourning sack their covering. The Lord my God made me a learning tongue to sustain the weary with words; morning, early morning, He wakens my ears, He wakes them, like students, to hear. The Lord my God opened my ears, and I did not reject Him; I never shrank back; I gave up my back to beating, my cheeks to those who scratched them. I never hid my face from humiliations, spittle, but the Lord my God will help me, and so no humiliation; I set my face as flint and know I will not be ashamed. He is near who shows me righteous. Who, then, will contend with me? Let us stand up opposing one another. Who has a claim against me? Let him come to me, for the Lord God, He will help me; who then can condemn me? They will wear out like an old cloak; moths will eat them. Who of you reveres the Lord, and listens to His servant's voice? Let one who walked in darkness, nothing shining for him, trust in the Lord's name, and lean on his God. You – you light your fire and gird yourselves with torchlight. Walk by the light of your own fire, by torches that you burn. From My hand, all this came to you; you will lie down in pain.
You who chase righteousness, listen to Me, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock you are hewed from, the quarry from which you were carved; look to your father, Avraham, to Sara who gave you birth, for I called him, one alone, and blessed him, made him many. And the Lord has comforted Zion, brought comfort to all her ruins; He has made her desert like Eden, her arid land like the Lord's garden; celebration, joy are found in her, and thanks, and sounds of song. (Yeshayahu 49:14-51:3)[1]
A. The Unwillingness to Be Rescued from Exile
This haftara, or at least the first part, refers to the ascent to Zion from exile and the revival of the Land of Israel with its children. The prophecy begins a few verses before our haftara, with tidings of events similar to the exodus from Egypt and Israel's wandering in the wilderness:
Thus says the Lord: At a time of favor I answered you; on a day ripe for rescue I was there for your aid. I guarded you and made you a covenant people, ready to build up a land, to take possession of a lost estate, to say to prisoners, "Leave," and to people in darkness, "Come to light." They will graze along the way, with all the hills their pasture. They will know no hunger, know no thirst; searing heat and sun will never harm them, for the One who cares for them will be their guide, leading them by springs of water. I shall make all mountains a path to walk and build up My roads. Here – from far away they come, all of these, from the north, from the west, all of these, from the land of Sinim. Sing out, skies, and land, rejoice; hills, break out in song, for the Lord has brought His people comfort; He will care for the oppressed ones who are His. (Yeshayahu 49:8-13)
Our haftara opens with great disappointment: the people of Israel do not answer the prophet's call to return to their land; they would rather continue wallowing in the mire of exile. They no longer believe in the great call. They feel like any other people who have been exiled from their country and have therefore lost their vitality. They try to assimilate in their new surroundings and start their lives anew there, without a binding connection to their past. The people of Israel differ from others in their commitment to the eternal covenant with God, but they accuse God of having broken that covenant when He abandoned his people in exile:
Zion speaks: "The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord, He has forgotten me." (49:14)
II. The Prophetic Polemic with Zion's Claim
Can a mother forget her own baby; can she fail to care for the child of her womb? These too may yet forget, but I will not forget you. I have etched you on My palms; your walls are before My eyes always. (49:15-16)
Prophets often compare the relationship between God and His people to that of a husband and wife, but here the prophet sees it as similar to the relationship between a mother and daughter.
The Bible most clearly expresses the noble relationship between a mother and child in the account of Hagar and her son Yishmael, when they walked together in the desert of Be'er Sheva and the water in her bottle was used up. Hagar took care of her son to the best of her ability, but the heat of the desert brought her to despair at the last moment; she cast her child away and sat down at a distance, about a bowshot away ("these too may yet forget"). God promises that He will not leave Israel in the desert of the nations, on the way to their redemption, and that He will lead them to their resting place at any price. Like a mother who carries her daughter in her arms, so will He carry the people of Israel.
It is difficult to skip over Chazal's delightful midrash relating to this verse:
She [=Zion, the people of Israel] said: Master of the Universe, since there is no forgetfulness before the throne of Your glory, perhaps You will not forget the sin of the golden calf? He replied: "These too may yet forget."
She said before Him: Master of the Universe, seeing that there is forgetfulness before the Throne of Your glory, perhaps You will forget the event at Sinai [i.e., Israel’s acceptance of the Torah]? He replied to her: "But I will not forget you."
This is what Rabbi Elazar said in the name of Rav Oshaya: What is that which is written: "These too may yet forget"? This is the sin of the golden calf. "But I will not forget You" – This refers to the event at Sinai. (Berakhot 32b)
The midrash compares the sin of the calf ("These [eileh] are your God, O Israel") to the assembly at Sinai [when the people of Israel heard "I [anokhi] am the Lord your God"), based on our verse: "These [eileh] too may yet forget, but I [anokhi] will not forget you," and explains the superiority of the merit of listening to the Ten Commandments, which God will remember, over the stain of the sin of the golden calf, which God will in the future "forget" and pardon.[2]
Perhaps this midrash that describes God as remembering only the good in His covenant with Israel, the sounding of "I am Your God," and forgetting the evil that they did, relies on the following verse:
I am I, who expunge your offenses for My own sake and will not keep your sins in mind. (Yeshayahu 43:25)
In exchange for the promise of "I," as in our haftara and at the beginning of the revelation at Mount Sinai, God expunges Israel's sins and the memory of them, and remembers only that sublime moment of assembly.
III. A Description of the Redemption
Your children will run to you; your destroyers, your demolishers, will all be gone from you. Raise your eyes; look around and see: the children all gathered and coming back to you. As I live, so says the Lord, you will wear them all as jewels, which you will bind on like a bride. For your ruins, for your wastelands, for the land of your destruction, for you will be too narrow for your dwellers, while those who would destroy you will be far away from you. You will yet hear the children say, of whom you were bereaved, "The place is too tight for me; make space for me to sit," while you say in your heart, "Who bore these children, mine, to me, bereft and left alone, exiled and expelled; these children – who has raised them? I was left all alone, and these – where are they?" (49:17-21)
The prophet promises Zion that her enemies will depart from her land upon the return of her children.[3] With the stroke of the prophet's pen, the mother and son (or daughter), previously a metaphor for God and his people, become in this verse a metaphor for the Land of Israel (the mother) and her children (the people of Israel). God becomes a bridegroom whose bride adorns herself with her children, who make her desolation bloom. She asks about her sons "and these – where are they?" – meaning: From where have they arrived?
The prophet continues with a description of the departure from exile as the opposite of the departure from Egypt:
So says the Lord God: Behold: I shall raise My hands to nations, lift My banner toward peoples; they will bring your sons back in the folds of their robes, bearing your daughters upon their shoulders; kings will be your caregivers, their princesses your nursemaids. They will bow to the ground before you and kiss the dust you tread upon, and you will know: I am the Lord, and those who wait for Me will not be shamed. Can a mighty warrior be plundered; can a victor's captives flee? For so says the Lord: The mighty man's captives may yet be taken, the tyrant's plunder flee, but I shall fight against those who fight you, I will save your children. To those who wrong you, I will feed their own flesh; their blood will intoxicate them like wine, and all flesh will know then that I am the Lord, your rescuer, your redeemer, Mighty One of Yaakov. (22-26)
The exodus from Egypt took place despite Egyptian opposition, and because of the ten plagues that Egypt suffered; in contrast, the departure from exile will be with the full assistance of the nations. The prophet will return to this point and detail the process in chapter 60, in the sixth of the seven haftarot of consolation (the haftara for Ki Tavo), and it is also described in the fourth haftara of consolation (the haftara for Shoftim). Indeed, this is what happened at the time of the return to Zion in the days of the Second Temple; the great Persian king and his advisers went out of their way to help Ezra and his people return to the Land of Israel, restore the House of God, and establish Torah law among the people of Israel:
"From Artachshasta, king of kings, to Ezra the priest… And now, I hereby issue an edict that any man in my kingdom who is of the nation of Israel or its priests or Levites who is ready to go to Jerusalem, may go there with you. Whereas, by the order of the king and his seven ministers, you are hereby sent to supervise Yehuda and Jerusalem, in accordance with the law of your God which you uphold. And to transport the silver and gold donated by the king and his ministers to the God of Israel whose Temple is in Jerusalem, along with any silver and gold you may acquire anywhere in the province of Babylonia, as well as the donations of the people and the priests to the House of their God in Jerusalem… The vessels you are hereby entrusted with for the service of the House of your God must be brought undamaged to the God of Jerusalem. Whatever else is needed for the House of your God, that which you are responsible to provide, may be charged to the king’s coffers. I, King Artachshasta, have issued an edict to all Keepers of the Treasures in the province beyond the River, ordering them to diligently grant every request of Ezra, the priest, scribe of the law of the God of the heavens… All that is required by the law of the God of the heavens shall be provided assiduously for the House of the God of the Heavens, so that His rage does not lash out upon the realm of the king and his sons. We also inform you that no priest, Levite, singer, gatekeeper, Natin, or any other person employed at the House of this God shall be subject to the payment of tributes, head taxes, or property taxes. And you, Ezra, use the wisdom of your God to appoint judges and magistrates who will dispense judgment to all the people in the province beyond the River, men with knowledge of the laws of your God; you shall provide instruction to those who do not know them. Anyone who fails to obey the laws of your God and the laws of the king shall be sentenced promptly to death, corporal punishment, fine, or imprisonment."[4]
Blessed is the Lord, God of our ancestors, for turning the king's heart toward the cause of beautifying the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. And for showing me kindness in the eyes of the king and his ministers and all his valiant officers. So, by the grace of the Lord my God, I gathered courage and assembled leaders from Israel to ascend to the land with me. (Ezra 7:12-28)
If there remain enemies who fail to follow this path, God will feed them of their own flesh and give them to drink of their own blood: "To those who wrong you, I will feed their own flesh; their blood will intoxicate them like wine" (49:26).
IV. Continuing the Prophetic Polemic with Zion's Claim
So says the Lord: Where is your mother's bill of divorce with which I banished her? Which one of My creditors have I, then, sold you to? No, it was for your sins that you were sold; for your faithlessness your mother was sent hence. Why is it that I came, and no man was here; I cried out, and no one answered? Does My arm fall short to redeem you; have I not strength to rescue? No – at My rebuke I dry the sea; I turn whole rivers to desert land. Their fish will stink for lack of water, dead of thirst. I will dress the skies in darkness and make mourning sack their covering. (50:1-3)
We return to the description of God as the father of Israel and the husband of Zion. A permanent separation between spouses requires two things: a bill of divorce, and sending the wife away from the husband's house, as the Torah states, "If a man takes a wife and becomes her husband, but begins to dislike her because he finds something indecent in her; if he writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her from his house, she may leave his house and become another man’s wife" (Devarim 24:1). Zion was indeed sent away from the House of God, but she was sent away without a bill of divorce. She is like an aguna whose husband has left her temporarily but has not divorced her forever. On the assumption that the people of Israel are slaves, rather than children – they were never officially sold to another master. Instead, they were forcibly kidnapped after God, because of their sins, stopped protecting them.
The "house" in which Zion lived with her husband and from which she was sent away may be a metaphor for the Land of Israel, and her written covenant with God may be the Torah. Zion was indeed sent away from her husband's house, but the written covenant, the Torah, was not annulled, as there was no bill of divorce. The Torah went down with them to Babylonia, and it will one day go back up with them to the Land of Israel, the home of Zion.
The prophet returns to his first argument: God wants to redeem Israel. He arrives, but there is no one to greet Him. The people have despaired of redemption, claiming that God has left them and forgotten about them; they do not believe they will come to redeem them. The time has arrived, but the people of Israel are not ready. God comes and there is no one; He calls, and there is no answer!
V. Historical Background
In the introduction to the haftarot from the book of Yeshayahu earlier in this series,[5] we dealt extensively with the question of the timeframe of the prophecies from chapter 40 onwards (including our haftara, the haftara of Nachamu discussed in the previous shiur, and all the remaining haftarot of consolation). I suggested two possibilities: 1. The prophecies refer to the time of Menashe son of Chizkiyahu king of Yehuda. If we accept this possibility here, it turns out that the redemption in our haftara is the return of the ten tribes, who were exiled at the beginning of the time of Chizkiyahu, and even a few years earlier, to northeastern Assyria. The prophet calls to them to return in the coming period (as indeed happened in the days of Yoshiyahu son of Amon son of Menashe, who sent Yirmeyahu to return them to the land of Israel). 2. The prophecies refer to the Babylonian exile that was to come, and the return from it is the return to Zion that began in the days of Koresh, king of Persia.
It is important to emphasize that according to both options, the prophet laments that the people do not respond to the tidings of redemption, and choose to remain in exile. This is the case in the haftara of Nachamu in chapter 40, as well as in our haftara in chapters 49-50. The prophet's blunt question, "Why is it that I came, and no man was here," echoes in our ears today as well, as we wait for the final deliverance.
VI. The Suffering of the Prophet
Yeshayahu, especially in the second part of his book (from chapter 40 onward), often speaks about his position as a prophet. He seems to have suffered from the fact that the people did not accept his prophecies, and often did not believe him. According to the assumption that these prophecies are from the days of Menashe, king of Yehuda (whether Yeshayahu was talking about the return of the ten tribes in the days of Yoshiyahu or about the return to Zion in the days of Zerubavel and Yehoshua ben Yehotzedek), Yeshayahu was forced to go underground because Menashe killed the prophets of God. According to Chazal, Menashe also killed Yeshayahu, his grandfather:
[A tanna] taught: Shimon ben Azzai said: I found a roll of genealogical records in Jerusalem… and therein was written: Menashe killed Yeshayahu. (Yevamot 49b)
Yeshayahu's difficulties as a prophet and his hope in God as his support are mentioned in several places – including the beginning of the prophecy from which our haftara is taken (Yeshayahu 49:1-7) and within our haftara itself:
The Lord my God made me a learning tongue to sustain the weary with words; morning, early morning, He wakens my ears, He wakes them, like students, to hear. The Lord my God opened my ears, and I did not reject Him; I never shrank back; I gave up my back to beating, my cheeks to those who scratched them. I never hid my face from humiliations, spittle, but the Lord my God will help me, and so no humiliation; I set my face as flint and know I will not be ashamed. He is near who shows me righteous. Who, then, will contend with me? Let us stand up opposing one another. Who has a claim against me? Let him come to me, for the Lord God, He will help me; who then can condemn me? They will wear out like an old cloak; moths will eat them. Who of you reveres the Lord, and listens to His servant's voice? Let one who walked in darkness, nothing shining for him, trust in the Lord's name, and lean on his God. (50:4-10)
VI. The Mention of Avraham and Sara
You who chase righteousness, listen to Me, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock you are hewed from, the quarry from which you were carved; look to your father, Avraham, to Sara who gave you birth, for I called him, one alone, and blessed him, made him many. And the Lord has comforted Zion, brought comfort to all her ruins; He has made her desert like Eden, her arid land like the Lord's garden; celebration, joy are found in her, and thanks, and sounds of song. (51:1-3)
What is the prophet asking of the people with this mention of Avraham and Sara?
Perhaps we are returning to his argument with the exiles – whether those exiled to Assyria or those exiled to Babylonia. Avraham and Sara were the first "Babylonian exiles," when they lived in Ur Kasdim. God led them to the land of Canaan and they followed Him in complete faith, with no way to test the trustworthiness of God who was bringing them to the chosen land. Their descendants, who look up to them, are asked to do as they did: to leave the land of their exile and follow God's call to the land of Canaan, to receive the blessing there, and to see the consolation of Zion’s ruins and the return of Eden to it.
(Translated by David Strauss)
[1] Unless specified otherwise, all Biblical references are to the book of Yeshayahu.
[2] For more on this, see Maharal, Be'er ha-Gola (be'er 3, chapter 2).
[3] Attention should be paid to the expression used in this verse, the meaning of which is the very opposite of the popular expression mistakenly derived from it. In the popular expression, the destroyers and demolishers will come from within the redeemed people of Israel. In the verse, the destroyers are Israel's enemies, who will be removed from the land.
[4] I have remarked elsewhere that it seems Mordekhai and Esther, who were in the top echelon of the government already in the days of Achashverosh (who preceded Artachshasta), were the ones who influenced Artachshasta's attitude toward the people of Israel and God's Torah, and thus this letter and its contents.
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