{"id":69926,"date":"2020-02-10T17:58:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T15:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69926"},"modified":"2023-09-04T17:42:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T14:42:51","slug":"yet-another-strange-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/yet-another-strange-instruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet Another Strange Instruction\u00a0"},"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":[506,680],"acf":{"old_id":"69926","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"413","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Parable, vision or reality?\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\r\n","content":"

Our chapter is one of several in Tanakh in which God seems to instruct prophets to do strange things, which turn out to be fraught with great symbolism: Isaiah was told to go about \u201cnaked and barefoot\u201d (20:3); Hosea was instructed to marry a harlot (1:2); and Ezekiel was instructed to eat a scroll (3:1). Maimonides (Guide 2:46) regarded all such incidents as occurring only in prophetic visions, following the paradigm of Abraham and the covenant of the pieces (Gen. 15), which is explicitly designated a vision (<\/span>mar\u2019eh<\/span><\/i>). Here, God instructed Jeremiah: \u201cGo buy yourself a loincloth of linen, and put it around your loins, but do not dip it into water\u201d (1) and, then, to hide it in the cleft of a rock (4). Later, he was told to retrieve it, and its deterioration became a symbol of the fate Israel would suffer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shadal* provided his own interpretation:<\/span><\/p>\n

It appears to me that hiding the loincloth and retrieving it were not done publicly but consisted only of what Jeremiah told the people. The intention was that God told him that [Israel] as already dear to Him but that they had deteriorated\u2026 \u201cbut do not dip it into water\u201d at any time so that it should become soaked with sweat and that would hasten its deterioration\u2026 The meaning of this story is clarified below, \u201cFor as the loincloth clings close to the loins of a man, so I brought close to Me the whole House of Israel\u201d (11).<\/span><\/p>\n

Shadal also cited Maimonides\u2019s opinion, which he contrasted with that of two modern scholars (Steudlin and Rosenmiller), who suggested that it was not even a vision but simply a parable\u2014like that of the Prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12. Next, he cited Don Isaac Abrabanel\u00a0 who drew a fine distinction between incidents that are narrated by Scripture (like Isaiah\u2019s going naked and barefoot), which should be presumed to have been actual, and those narrated by the prophets themselves (like Hosea) that could well have been visionary. Shadal observed: \u201cSuch investigation requires considerable analysis, but in our case, there is no reason why it should not have been actual.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*For an explanation of our objectives in studying Shadal\u2019s commentary, <\/span>see our introduction<\/span><\/a> in Jeremiah chapter 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Another Strange Instruction\u00a0","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Parable, vision or reality?\u00a0\u00a0","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":69927,"id":69927,"title":"jer13-prayer","filename":"jer13-prayer.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer13-prayer.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/yet-another-strange-instruction\/jer13-prayer\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer13-prayer","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69926,"date":"2020-02-10 15:58:31","modified":"2022-07-17 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