In Chapter 27, Yeshayahu addresses the fundamental difference between the Holy One, Blessed be He's conduct with the nations of the world and His conduct with Israel. The chapter opens with "On that day, Hashem will punish with His harsh sword" - the day of reckoning for the nations; continues with the Song of the Vineyard ("On that day, sing of a desirable vineyard") and with the promise of "In the days to come, Yaakov will strike roots"; and from here onward, the prophet comes to explain: the blows suffered by the Jewish people are not of the same nature as the blows received by their oppressors. The blow dealt to the nations is one of total annihilation, whereas the blow dealt to Israel is an affliction meant to bring about atonement and repentance.
הַכְּמַכַּת מַכֵּהוּ הִכָּהוּ אִם כְּהֶרֶג הֲרֻגָיו הֹרָג׃ - Did He strike him as He struck those who struck him, or was he slain as the slaying of his slain?
The verse can be read in two ways. One approach is that the letter hei at the beginning of the word is not an interrogative hei of questioning, but an emphatic demonstrative hei of declaration, similar to "Do you see what they are doing" in Yechezkel - when the Holy One, Blessed be He, took Yechezkel from exile and brought him to Yerushalayim, showing him all the idolatrous images engraved on the walls of the Beis HaMikdash. That was not a query, but a declaration: "Indeed, you see." So too, "Did I reveal Myself" means "Indeed, I revealed Myself." According to this, the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: Behold, I have exacted retribution from them in proportion to the blow they dealt you, and "was he slain as the slaying of his slain" - just as Pharaoh killed Israel, so did I act against him. I exacted retribution from them in accordance with what they did.
The Malbim, however, explains the verse as a question: Did the Holy One, Blessed be He, strike Israel as He struck those who struck Israel? Did He slay the Jewish people as He slew their killers? The answer is obvious. The nations of the world were destroyed by the Holy One, Blessed be He, completely, whereas when He strikes Israel, He "visits their iniquity upon them" with mercy, and He preserves Israel's existence. The Jewish people are never wiped out, whereas for the nations, the blow is one of total eradication.
בְּסַאסְּאָה בְּשַׁלְחָהּ תְּרִיבֶנָּה הָגָה בְּרוּחוֹ הַקָּשָׁה בְּיוֹם קָדִים׃ - In full measure, when You send her away, You contend with her; He removed her with His harsh wind on the day of the east wind.
From this verse, Chazal derived the principle of "measure for measure," and this is the source they cite for it. "Be-sas'ah" comes from se'ah se'ah, and a se'ah is a measure, a dry measure of volume. That is to say: when the Holy One, Blessed be He, exacts retribution from Israel, it is not an unrestrained outpouring of wrath, but a measured and calculated reckoning.
The Radak explains "be-shalchah" as related to fields and orchards, as in "the pool of Shelech by the king's garden," and "your shoots (shelachayich) are an orchard of pomegranates," and like an irrigated field (sedeh beit hashelachin). The Holy One, Blessed be He, sends blight and mildew, locusts and caterpillars upon their fields - meaning He does not exact retribution through bodily destruction, but through financial loss. And so it was throughout the exiles: although Israel was struck physically, many of the afflictions were financial - they were barred from developing economically, they were robbed, plundered, and extorted, and there are countless stories of Jews who were immensely wealthy in the Diaspora only to have all their wealth confiscated or nationalized.
"He removed her with His harsh wind on the day of the east wind" - hagah denotes removal; the Holy One, Blessed be He, removes the fruits from the fields with a harsh wind. There are winds that blow down fruit, and on the day of an east wind, a day when a fierce eastern wind blows, their grain is consumed and their fruit drops. Yet to punish them to the point of complete destruction - never. This aligns with the opening of the passage: "Wrath have I none" - even when I exact retribution from Israel, it is not done in fury, nor is it to the point of complete extinction, but rather unlike the blow of their assailant: from those who struck them I exact harsh retribution, but from the Jewish people I do not exact harsh retribution.
The Radak cites another interpretation in the name of his master and father of blessed memory: "Be-sas'ah" - in the measure that she measured, You chose to contend with her and judge her; and "be-shalchah" is from the language of a sword. We find the word shelach with the meaning of a weapon: "and he made weapons (shelach) and shields," and likewise in Ezra and Nechemyah - half of them did the work and half held the weapons (shelach), on account of those who came to harass and oppress them, where shelach refers to the sword with which they fought. And similarly in Iyov, "before his life perishes by the sword (va-shalach)" - meaning by the sword.
According to this, the verse is interpreted as follows: corresponding to Israel's iniquities, it would have been fitting, measure for measure, that they be judged by fire like Sodom and Gomorrah. But "He removed it with His harsh wind on the day of the east wind" - the Holy One, blessed be He, removed the fire with a fierce east wind. Just as we find in Yechezkel, where glowing coals were already prepared to be cast over the city, and the angel clothed in linen brought them in a vessel, but Gabriel cooled them down. In this manner, as it were, a decree of burning was prepared, but the Holy One, blessed be He, removed it so that there would be no destruction upon the Jewish people. "Hagah" denotes removal, as in "Remove (hago) the dross from the silver" and "Remove (hago) the wicked from before the king."
The Malbim explains: when the measure of their sins grew and multiplied, it would seem fitting to exact retribution from them and execute judgment upon them by the sword - "when He banished her, He contended with her." But then, "hagah" - an expression of speech. The Malbim defines elsewhere that hagah is an intermediate expression between speech and thought, which is why we speak of conceiving or mulling over an idea ("haga ra'ayon") - it is neither fully spoken nor purely thought, but somewhere in between, as in "to meditate (lahagot) in the Torah." That is to say, the Holy One, blessed be He, uttered and spoke with His harsh spirit on the day of the east wind what is stated in the following verse.
The Malbim adds and says: Were I not fearful of introducing new root words, I would interpret it differently. "Be-sa'as'ah" - a new root derived from sas, with a doubled samech, which is a species of moth, as it is written: "Like wool the sas shall eat them." The alef is seemingly extra, as though it were written "be-sasah." Just as there is an individual fish (dag) and the collective species is called dagah, so there is sas and its collective species is called sasah. According to this: the Holy One, blessed be He, sends moths against the nations, and where? "Be-shalchah" - in their grain fields, an irrigated field (sedeh ha-shelachin), as in "Shelachayich pardes rimonim" (your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates). He sends a worm against them to devour their fields.
According to this explanation, "hagah" denotes removal, as in "Remove (hago) the dross from the silver," and "ha-kashah" refers to kash, the straw and stubble. That is to say, the Holy One, blessed be He, removed even its straw with His wind. This is the depth of the parable: the people of Israel are likened to a vineyard, as the prophet said, "Sing to her: a vineyard of fine wine." Even when the vines are pruned, the root remains intact, as it is written, "In days to come, Yaakov shall take root." The pruning is only from above, while the roots remain deep within, and the vineyard is destined to blossom once again and produce blossoms, grapes, and wine. But the nations are likened to a grain field consumed by moths and rot, and a grain field that has been eaten away will never grow again; even the straw, which is the stalk, has dissolved. Therefore, "Did He strike him as He struck those who struck him?" - those who struck them were smitten by the Holy One, blessed be He, with a blow of total annihilation, whereas "you, children of Yaakov, are not consumed"; Israel remains enduring, never uprooted from the root.
לָכֵן בְּזֹאת יְכֻפַּר עֲוֺן יַעֲקֹב וְזֶה כָּל פְּרִי הָסִר חַטָּאתוֹ בְּשׂוּמוֹ כָּל אַבְנֵי מִזְבֵּחַ כְּאַבְנֵי גִר מְנֻפָּצוֹת לֹא יָקֻמוּ אֲשֵׁרִים וְחַמָּנִים׃ - Therefore, by this shall the iniquity of Yaakov be atoned, and this is all the fruit of removing his sin: when he makes all the altar stones like shattered chalkstones, asherim and sun-images shall rise no more.
All the storm and all the wrath directed against Israel were not meant to destroy them as was done to the nations - the grain field - but to rectify them, for they are a vineyard. That harsh wind which the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon them, that tempest and storm, had one ultimate purpose: "Therefore by this shall Yaakov's iniquity be atoned" - through it, they will turn back from their iniquities and their sins will be forgiven.
And why this dual phrasing? "The iniquity (avon) of Yaakov" refers to intentional sins, while "removing his sin (chatato)" - chatat refers to unintentional transgressions. And "fruit" (peri) means the outcome, that which grew out of the event. The Malbim is precise about the distinction between the concept of atonement (kapparah) and the concept of removal (hasarah): in the Holy Tongue, kapparah denotes covering, just as the kapporet served as the cover for the Ark. Therefore, the avon, which is severe, is not completely removed but covered - "yechupar," it shall no longer be visible; whereas the chatat, which is unintentional, will be removed entirely.
And through what? "When he makes all the altar stones like shattered chalkstones" - those altar stones erected for idol worship will become like shattered chalkstones, and the asherim and sun-images will be abolished. This is the purpose of the punishment: to shatter the altar stones of idolatry, and through this their iniquity will be atoned.
We find, then, two differences between the blows struck against Israel and the blows struck against the nations: the blows against the nations bring total destruction, whereas the blows against Israel chastise but do not consume. Furthermore, the blows against the nations serve no constructive purpose, for no benefit will sprout from them; rather, they are meant to exact retribution from them. Israel's blows, by contrast, are so that Yaakov's iniquity may be atoned, that they may repent, whereupon the Holy One, blessed be He, will once again redeem them and renew their days as of old.
כִּי עִיר בְּצוּרָה בָּדָד נָוֶה מְשֻׁלָּח וְנֶעֱזָב כַּמִּדְבָּר שָׁם יִרְעֶה עֵגֶל וְשָׁם יִרְבָּץ וְכִלָּה סְעִפֶיהָ׃ - For a fortified city sits solitary, a habitation forsaken and abandoned like a wilderness; there a calf shall graze, and there it shall lie down, and consume its branches.
Here the prophet returns to the question posed in verse 7 - what is the difference between the blows struck against the nations and those struck against Israel - and describes the severity of the nations' punishment: He struck them mercilessly, leaving no remnant. A city that was once exceedingly fortified and strong has become "solitary": stricken, with no one to come to its aid or support. Not only that, but "a habitation" - the pleasant gardens and orchards - will become "forsaken" (meshulach). This word has two connotations: branches sent sprawling in every direction with no one to tend, prune, or trim them; and also a sense of abandonment, where anyone who wishes may enter those gardens and orchards at will.
Consequently, "there a calf shall graze" - those magnificent places, the gardens and orchards, turn into grazing land for calves. The Malbim adds: "shall graze" refers to an occasional presence, whereas "and there it shall lie down" denotes a permanent dwelling, meaning that because the ruin will endure for so long, the calf will lie there permanently. "And consume its branches" - moreover, all of its boughs will serve as food for that calf, leaving nothing of them behind.
בִּיבֹשׁ קְצִירָהּ תִּשָּׁבַרְנָה נָשִׁים בָּאוֹת מְאִירוֹת אוֹתָהּ כִּי לֹא עַם בִּינוֹת הוּא עַל כֵּן לֹא יְרַחֲמֶנּוּ עֹשֵׂהוּ וְיֹצְרוֹ לֹא יְחֻנֶּנּוּ׃ - When its boughs are withered, they shall be broken off; women come and set them on fire; for it is not a people of understanding; therefore their Maker will not have mercy on them, and their Creator will show them no favor.
The parable continues: what will ultimately become of those gardens and orchards that were turned into pasture for calves that consumed their branches? Their boughs will wither, for there is no one left to look after them and water them, and they will break off on their own. "Women come and set them on fire" - women come to gather the dry branches to illuminate their homes, using them as kindling for the oven. The Malbim adds another interpretation: "me'irot" derives from the language of harvesting or gathering, as in "I have gathered [ariti] my myrrh with my spice" (Shir HaShirim 5:1). Through all this, the prophet conveys the depth of their ruin: the branches are so desiccated that no vitality remains even in the root, and nothing is left of those once-magnificent orchards other than to be burned for fuel and light.
And if you ask: Why does the Holy One, blessed be He, strike the nations with utter destruction, while from Israel He exacts retribution little by little only to bring them to repentance? To this the prophet answers: "For it is not a people of understanding." There is no purpose in rebuking the nations in order to bring them to repentance; there is simply no one to talk to. Had they been a people of understanding, there would have been reason to chastise them so that they might repent and mend their ways. But since they are not a people of understanding, the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that repentance will not avail them, and consequently there is no reason to spare root or branch. The Malbim observes that this description echoes the verse, "and its heart will understand, and it will repent" (Yeshayahu 6:10) - when the heart understands, there is repentance, but when the heart lacks understanding, there is no return.
"Therefore their Maker will not have mercy on them, and their Creator will show them no favor." The Malbim notes the deliberate nuance in this dual phrasing. There is a fundamental difference between mercy (rachamim) and grace or favor (chaninah): one who shows mercy does so because he is in distress; his heart is moved upon seeing something ruined and broken, or he feels pangs of conscience when witnessing suffering. By contrast, one who grants favor does not give out of distress, but because the recipient has found favor in his eyes - a free, unearned gift (matnat chinam). Likewise, there is a distinction between a "maker" (oseh) and a "former" (yotzer): a maker works merely with raw matter, whereas a former endows it with shape and form. If one takes clay powder, adds water, and kneads it, that is called making; once one shapes it into a formed vessel, that is called forming. Handling the raw material itself is asiyah, whereas elevating the material into a distinct form - a higher level - is yetzirah.
Accordingly: "Their Maker will not have mercy on them" - the very fact that a human being's physical body toils and labors ought to awaken mercy, stirring compassion for a weary body; nevertheless, his Maker will not have mercy on him. "And their Creator will show them no favor" - the Holy One, blessed be He, also formed man's spiritual dimension, for even a gentile possesses a soul, and Hashem is the Former of that soul. Seemingly, by virtue of it being a spiritual entity from on high, it should have found favor and merited grace; nevertheless, his Former, the One who shaped his spiritual soul, will show him no favor.
וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יַחְבֹּט ה' מִשִּׁבֹּלֶת הַנָּהָר עַד נַחַל מִצְרָיִם וְאַתֶּם תְּלֻקְּטוּ לְאַחַד אֶחָד בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ - And it shall come to pass on that day, that Hashem will thresh from the channel of the River to the Brook of Egypt, and you shall be gathered one by one, O children of Israel.
"On that day" - the prophet returns to the opening of the chapter: "On that day, the Lord with His sore, great, and strong sword will punish Leviathan the piercing serpent... and He will slay the dragon that is in the sea." That day of redemption for which we yearn, when the Holy One, blessed be He, will settle accounts with the nations. Afterwards, he described the song they will sing on that day - "A vineyard of fine wine, sing to it: I, the Lord, am its keeper" - and now he returns to the theme with which he opened.
What does one beat (thresh)? Grain. And for what purpose? To remove the chaff from the kernels. Thus, the nations among whom Israel is dispersed will undergo beatings, and the goal is to extract Israel from among them. Israel is in the category of the kernel within the straw, and the nations are like the chaff and husks; and when Hashem wishes to gather the dispersed of Israel, He must first separate them.
And why does it say "shall beat out" (yachbot) and not "shall thresh" (yadush)? The Malbim explains: threshing (disha) is done when one threshes a large quantity all at once, whereas beating is done for small amounts. One who does not have an entire threshing floor, but only a small amount of wheat, beats it out. As in the Book of Ruth: "and she beat out that which she had gleaned" - she did not make a threshing floor; rather, she gathered a small amount and beat it out. Furthermore, beating is done with a stick, whereas threshing is done with oxen and donkeys, which is a far larger operation. Therefore it says "shall beat out," indicating that the gathering will proceed little by little, and the entire Jewish people will not enter all at once.
"From the flood of the River to the Brook of Egypt" - He will gather them from the places of their exile: from the current of the Euphrates River, where they were exiled to the lands of Assyria, to the Brook of Egypt, where the people of Israel are located in the land of Sin, as will be explained in the next verse.
"And you shall be gathered one by one" - the Malbim explains that this is the second stage. After the beating, we have kernels and chaff that are no longer attached to one another, but are still intermingled. With large quantities, one would winnow into the air with a pitchfork, and the wind would scatter the chaff while the grain fell to the ground; but here, where the quantities are not large, there is no winnowing by the wind, but rather they are gathered one by one, like someone sorting through rice. So too, after Israel is separated from the nations, they will still need to be gathered one from a city and two from a family, and each family will be assembled and gathered, one to another.
וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִתָּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל וּבָאוּ הָאֹבְדִים בְּאֶרֶץ אַשּׁוּר וְהַנִּדָּחִים בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וְהִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַה' בְּהַר הַקֹּדֶשׁ בִּירוּשָׁלִָם׃ - And it shall come to pass on that day, that a great shofar shall be blown; and they shall come who were lost in the land of Assyria, and they who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall prostrate themselves before the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
This is the third stage. The Radak notes: do not wait for a literal sounding of a shofar, for the phrase "a great shofar shall be blown" is metaphorical - they will gather just as if a great shofar had sounded. Suddenly you will see everyone assembling, as though someone had blown a shofar whose sound reverberated throughout the entire world, and they began gathering, one from a city and two from a family. Anyone who remembers the early waves of immigration around the time the State of Israel was established knows that this is precisely how it was: as if someone had sounded a shofar, and they began arriving from Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Poland, gathering and assembling together.
"And they shall come who were lost in the land of Assyria" - those who were exiled by the king of Assyria and have still not returned to this day. "And they who were outcasts in the land of Egypt" - the remnant of the Jewish people from the Kingdom of Judah; the "outcasts" referring to those whose places of residence are known to us, though they are cast out there. "And they shall prostrate themselves before the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem" - they will come to prostrate themselves before Hashem on the holy mountain, Mount Moriah, the site of the Beit HaMikdash.
In our chapter, the prophet establishes two fundamental differences between Hashem's dealings with the nations and His dealings with Israel: the blow struck against the nations is one of utter destruction, whereas the blow struck against Israel is merely one of chastisement; and the blow struck against the nations is retribution without remedy - "for it is a people of no understanding" - whereas the purpose of the blow struck against Israel is that "by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be expiated," to shatter the stones of the idolatrous altars and bring them to repentance. The nations are compared to a field of grain consumed by moths that will never sprout again, while Israel is compared to a vineyard: even though its vines have been pruned back, its root remains intact, and it is destined to blossom. Finally, the prophet describes three stages in the redemption: beating - the gradual separation of Israel from the nations; gathering - one by one, one from a city and two from a family; and the sounding of a great shofar - the ingathering of the lost and the outcasts, and their prostration before Hashem on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. May Hashem grant us that this ingathering of the exiles take place speedily in our days, Amen.