{"id":66236,"date":"2019-11-26T14:04:41","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T12:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=66236"},"modified":"2023-06-19T17:01:54","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T14:01:54","slug":"swallowing-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/swallowing-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Swallowing Death"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[383,375,798],"acf":{"old_id":"66236","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"359","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"But what if it is death that does the swallowing?","content":"

In 2003, a book on the importance of punctuation entitled \u201cEats, Shoots & Leaves\u201d was published. The point of the title is that shoots and leaves can be either verbs\u2014the intended first impression\u2014or nouns, which they were meant to be without the comma. (If I had mentioned that the cover features a panda bear, would you have recognized shoots and leaves as its diet?) A comparable instance of syntactic ambiguity occurs in our chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Arguably, the most striking verse in this chapter is v. 8, employed frequently in eulogies: \u201cHe will destroy death forever. My Lord GOD will wipe the tears away from all faces and will put an end to the reproach of His people over all the earth\u2014 for it is the LORD who has spoken.\u201d Under this reading, God is the subject and death is the object of the verb \u201cdestroy\u201d (or literally, \u201cswallow\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the Hebrew (<\/span>bila` hamavet<\/span><\/i> lanetzach<\/span><\/i>) allows for a completely different translation: Death shall destroy forever. Indeed, this is implicit in the commentary of Ibn Ezra and explicit in Malbim.*<\/span><\/p>\n

Who will swallow these false faiths? Death. The soldiers of Gog who were besieging Mt. Zion will die and [death] will swallow false faith forever. By witnessing the downfall of Gog and the plague with which God will strike the enemies of Jerusalem, they will return to believe in God and recognize the true faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

The false faiths\u2014alluded to in the verse 7\u2014are typically categorized by Malbim as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Peoples who profess a faith and are not idolaters. They lack only a recognition of the true religion because their misleading beliefs place a mask over their faces and prevent them from seeing the light of truth\u2014which would be simple because they already believe in many of the genuine religious truths such as reward and punishment, providence, etc., and they are called peoples (`<\/em><\/span>amim<\/span><\/em>), which is a higher status than nations (<\/span>goyim<\/span><\/em>). God will swallow\/remove the mask that covers their faces, i.e., the false faith, and they will automatically recognize the true religion.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Nations that do not yet have any faith, who are still idolaters, such as the ancients and the people of China, Japan, and the like. They are of the lower status of nations (<\/span>goyim<\/span><\/em>) of whom it says that God will remove the mask of idolatry that conceals them and that they have adopted as a religion and after which they are led astray.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Eventually, as Isaiah himself put it,<\/span> \u201cthe earth will be as saturated with knowledge of God as water covers the seas\u201d (11:9).<\/span><\/p>\n

    *For the significance of Malbim\u2019s commentary to the Book of Isaiah,<\/span> see our introduction to chapter 1.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":66240,"id":66240,"title":"is25-death","filename":"is25-death.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/swallowing-death\/is25-death\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is25-death","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":66236,"date":"2019-11-26 12:04:29","modified":"2022-08-11 13:44:37","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1280,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1280,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death-1200x800.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":800,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is25-death-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Swallowing Death","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"But what if it is death that does the swallowing? 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