Thursday, July 27, 2006

Inyana d'Yoma: Without Comment

I haven't seen this Mishnah cited concerning Inyana d'Yoma - the Artscroll translation, plus some of the two notes, are below. One additional note: The Rishon l'Tziyon on the mishnah notes that in Yehoshua 13:6 23 find Eretz HaGavli, and he takes that as the Gavlan. The Da'as Mikrah identifies that as Jbail - modern day Byblos in Lebanon - but perhaps Bint Jbail...?

In the period which will precede the coming of Moshiach... and the Galilee will be destroyed and the Gavlan* desolated, and the people who dwell on the borders will wander about from town to town,** but they will not be succored.

* The name of a place (Rashi to Sanhedrin ibid.). Psalms 83:8 mentions Geval among the lands that border Eretz Yisrael to the south...

** The borders will be attacked intermittently at various points, so that the inhabitants of border towns will be driven from town to town. Maharsha to Sanhedrin ibid. suggests an alternative translation: the people of the provinces. The term is often applied to Eretz Yisrael outside of Jerusalem. [Thus, the northern and southern environs of Eretz Yisrael will be utterly barren, while the inhabitants remaining in the inland area will wander as exiles in their own Land.]

2 comments:

  1. I've discussed this a bit here:

    http://balashon.blogspot.com/2006/07/bint.html

    and

    http://balashon.blogspot.com/2006/06/bible.html

    From this map ( http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/lebanon_pol_2002.jpg ) we can see that Jbail/Byblos is quite far from Bint Jbail. I'm pretty sure that the Daat Mikra was referring to the former...

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  2. Of course the Da'as Mikrah is refering to Byblos, and I realized the extension to Bint Jbail is a big stretch. Still...

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