## Gevia Kesef Chapter 18

###### Gevia Kesef 18:1
[Gevia Kesef 18:1](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Gevia%20Kesef/r/18:1)

אמנם היתיר השאלה הכא׳ הוא כך. אנחנו כבר כתבנו עיקר התיר הכל אשר כתבנו לפנים בביאור המראה הרביעית מאברהם, כ״ש כי מבואר שאברהם אמת שהיה איש נולד ואפשר שקרה לו בחלום כל זה המאורע. ובין היה ובין לא היה הנה היה מחכמה למשה שיכתוב לנו זה הספור כולו כמו שכתבנו לפנים לתכליות עשרה. שכולם הם לתועלתינו אנחנו בני ישראל בכלל מקבלי התורה וההוגים בה תמיד.

**Trans. by Basil Herring, New York, Ktav, 1982:**
This is the solution to the twenty-first question. What I wrote earlier in explaining Abraham’s fourth vision,¹ (contains) the essential solution to all (the doubts in this question). While it is certainly true that Abraham was a man who was born,² there is clearly the possibility that this entire event occurred to him in a dream.³ Whether or not this took place, Moses in his wisdom wrote this entire anecdote for our benefit, in accordance with the ten purposes that I described earlier.⁴ (Those ten) were all for the benefit of us, the children of Israel, we who received the Torah and study it continuously.

footnotes:
¹ 1. The fourth vision, i.e., the binding of Isaac, was dealt with in chap. XIV.
² 2. Cf. above chap. VII, p. 164, and chap. VIII, p. 170.
³ 3. Cf. above chap. XIV, n. 1, which discusses whether or not Kaspi accepted the events of Gen. 22 at face value. In the present chapter, Kaspi appears not to decide either way, i.e., whether they were in a dream or not.
⁴ 4. Kaspi outlined these ten benefits in chap. XIV; see above pp. 218, 232 ff.


###### Gevia Kesef 18:2
[Gevia Kesef 18:2](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Gevia%20Kesef/r/18:2)

מצורף שהכל אמת לפי ההגיון והסכמת לשון העברי.

**Trans. by Basil Herring, New York, Ktav, 1982:**
In addition to this (consideration),⁵ every (expression in the story of the binding of Isaac) is true, and accords with logic and the conventions of the Hebrew language.

footnotes:
⁵ 5. Kaspi now says that even if one accepted the proposition that the events of Gen. 22 only occurred in a dream, one could still explain the terms in that chapter, which indicate that these events happened in a material sense so as to conform to their happening in the dream.


###### Gevia Kesef 18:3
[Gevia Kesef 18:3](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Gevia%20Kesef/r/18:3)

ולכן אמר ״נסה.״ וכן ״כי עתה ידעתי״ על דרך דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם כמו שאמר אבן עזרא בביאור זה על ״וינחם השם כי עשה את האדם״ כי כן מנהג בני אדם לומר על כל איש סותר מה שבנה כי נחם כי בנה. כ״ש מה שצירף לזה המורה בביאור זאת הגזירה. עם מה שהבאתי אם למשל מופלג מה שגלה לנו זה הסוד בכתבו ״ואנשים רדפו אחריהם״ כמו שכתבתי בספר מזרק | כסף.

**Trans. by Basil Herring, New York, Ktav, 1982:**
Thus he said “did prove” and “for now I know” by way of “the Torah speaks in the language of men” in accordance with Ibn Ezra’s explanation of “it repented the Lord that He had made man.”⁶ For it is customary for people to say of a man who destroyed what he built, that “he repented having built …” This is certainly true if we know what Maimonides said in addition when he explained that statement,⁷ I:29, “the interpretation of the verse [that ‘it repented the Lord that he had made man’] would be that God was angry with them.” together with my exposition of the special case in which Joshua revealed the secret when he wrote the words “the men pursued after them,”⁸ which I wrote in the *Mizraḳ | Kesef.*⁹ (AK I 2) Kaspi refers to the doctrine, first found in Ibn Ezra, that the verse should be understood as saying, “the men thought they were pursuing after them,” which is a case of “the Torah speaks in the language of men”; cf. above p. 58.

footnotes:
⁶ 6. Gen. 6:6. The question posed is that “did prove” and “now I know” imply that the events happened in a material sense. Kaspi’s answer is that these expressions were used in accordance with Abraham’s understanding of the matter, i.e., he thought that God was testing him in order to know whether he was God-fearing. Ibn Ezra’s interpretation of “the Torah speaks in the language of men” and Kaspi’s elaboration thereof, is discussed above pp. 57 ff.
⁷ 7. Guide
⁸ 8. Josh. 2:7.
⁹ 9. This work is not extant, but in ’Adnei Kesef


###### Gevia Kesef 18:4
[Gevia Kesef 18:4](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Gevia%20Kesef/r/18:4)

והנה זאת התורה בעבור שנתנה להמון כל, הוכרח כותבה שיכתוב בה שמות וגזירות שיהיו כפי מחשבותם. וגם כפי שהוא נאות לאמונתם ושכלותם וטוב להם. והוא דעת גמור אצלם כי השם מנסה וכי הוא יודע בעתיד מה שלא היה בעבר, כי גם קצת גשמות נאנס כותב התורה לעזוב באמונתם. ויותר הפליג בזה אבן סנה, וחלילה וחס למשה. כ״ש שנכון ״נסה״ ו״עתה ידעתי״ ליחס להש׳ מצד היותו הפועל בכל זה הרחוק, ואם אברהם הוא הקרוב. וזהו אחת מהסבות שאמר ״והאלוקים נסה״ שרמז זה בדיוק אל אברהם עצמו, או לכחו המדמה וטבעו שהוא התחלה וסבה אל שיתנועע כמו שכתוב בגדר הטבע. ובכלל כח טבעי.

**Trans. by Basil Herring, New York, Ktav, 1982:**
Because the Torah was given to the masses at large, its author was forced to write terms and statements that accorded with their thinking, and that were suited to their beliefs and follies, for their own good. Now it is their accepted opinion that the Lord tests, and that He will know at a point in the future what He did not know previously. (Consequently) He who wrote the Torah was forced to permit them to retain some anthropomorphic beliefs. The one who practiced this to an extreme was Avicenna,¹⁰ (AK I 124) he says that Avicenna believed “that it is not proper to reveal to the masses that God is not corporeal.” Kaspi’s own preference is for a position similar to that of Averroës, whom Kaspi understood to have said that one should attempt to impart such truths, but to be most discriminating in the process, lest the masses lose their belief in God altogether. Cf. above p. 29. but not, heaven forbid, Moses. Thus it is certainly correct to write “did prove” and “for now I know” and to attribute this to the Lord, for He was in one sense the distant mover of all this, Abraham being the immediate (mover).¹¹ being the *pi‘el* stem, is to be understood as a causative, i.e., “God caused Abraham to prove.” This was one of the reasons for saying “and God did prove,” for that was a precise allusion to Abraham himself, or to his imaginative faculty and his nature,¹² which was the origin and cause of his action. This accords with the recorded definition of “nature” and “natural force.”¹³ II:48.

footnotes:
¹⁰ 10. Likewise in ’Adnei Kesef
¹¹ 11. He means that by commanding Abraham to do this, God was in effect the distant mover and cause of Abraham’s actions. Accordingly the term nissah,
¹² 12. He means that Abraham was moved by his imaginative and other faculties to respond in the way that he did, whether awake or in a dream. Kaspi singles out the imaginative faculty as motivating Abraham, for as he pointed out in chap. XIV, sacrifice in general, and child-sacrifice in particular, is to be associated with the imaginative faculty, so Abraham, in attempting to fulfill God’s will, was acting in accord with that faculty.
¹³ 13. This might allude to Kaspi’s oft-stated position (see above chap. IX, p. 172) that nature can be viewed as being only an extension of God’s distant causation of events, or else as having an independent causative action. This reflects Maimonides’ position in the Guide


###### Gevia Kesef 18:5
[Gevia Kesef 18:5](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Gevia%20Kesef/r/18:5)

ואולם ״והעלהו שם לעולה״ אין בו ספק מצד שידוע שכל לשון תנועה בלשון עברי, וגם בהגיון, אינו מוכרח תמיד על תכלית התנועה בשלימותה, אבל פעמים בהיות מה שבין ופעמים בהתחלה, ופעמים קודם התחלה אך לקירוב הכח, ופעמים אך לריחוק. באמרינו לנער היולד שהוא כותב ואוכל ונביא וחכם מצד היותו בכח. ובכלל כל תאר וכל פעל, פעם יונח על הכח כמו על הפועל, כי על הכל יאמר שם נמצא והיה, ר״ל על הכח כמו על הפועל. ומה שהוא נמצא בנפש לבד שהוא כמו חוץ לנפש, וכן מה שנמצא בדיבור חיצוני, כמו חוץ לנפש. והעד מה שגלה לנו כותב התורה שאמר על יוסף ״אותי השיב על כני ואותו תלה.״ שהיה זה בדיבור חיצוני לבד. וכתב שאמר ליעקב ״אשר לקחתי מיד האמורי בחרבי ובקשתי״ שהיה זה בכח. וכתוב בירמיה ״והשקית אותם יין״ על הכח הקרוב לפועל. וכתוב על הדיבור החיצוני או הפנימי על ירמיה ״ראה הפקדתיך היום על הגוים ועל הממלכות לנתוש ולנתוץ ולהרוס״ העיירות והבתים בידים ולא לבנות בידים. וכמה מאלה⁶⁰ הדמיונים במקרא. והכל אמת לפי ההגיון האמת. ואלו עקרים הגיונים שכל התורה והנביאים תלוי בהם. ואמנם על יתר עניני זאת המראה כבר הארכתי בם.

footnotes:
⁶⁰ בכתב יד כתוב ״מעלה״ שהוא ודאי בטעות.

**Trans. by Basil Herring, New York, Ktav, 1982:**
As for the phrase “offer him there for a burnt-offering,” there can be no doubt,¹⁴ for in the Hebrew language as well as in logic, every expression of movement does not necessarily refer to the consummation of the act. Sometimes the reference will be to a middle, beginning, or even prior to the beginning, on account of its being a proximate or distant potential.¹⁵ Thus, for example, we can say of “the child that will be born”¹⁶ that it writes, eats, is a prophet, or is wise—by virtue of it’s being in potential. As a rule, every adjective and verb will occasionally modify what exists in potential, as they do what is actual, for the term *nimṣa’* (“exist”) and *hayah* (“be”) are ascribed to everything, whether actual or potential.¹⁷ Furthermore, what exists (in actuality) only in the soul (is to be considered) as if existing outside of it as well. So, too, what exists only as the spoken word, (is to be considered) as if existing outside the soul. Proof are the words of the writer of the Torah, who, when he wrote, “I was restored unto mine office and he was hanged,”¹⁸ revealed (this truth), for that had only existed as the spoken word.¹⁹ MK II 90) that what exists in the mind is no less than what exists outside of it, while speech, too, confers existence upon that of which it speaks. He also wrote that Jacob said, “which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow,”²⁰ (MK II 104) Kaspi says that this verse will be explained in the *Gevia‘ Kesef.* which was (only) potential.²¹ He further wrote, regarding Jeremiah, “and you gave them wine to drink,”²² (even though) it was still in potential and close to realization. In the context of Jeremiah it is written, regarding the unspoken and spoken word, “See, I have set thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root and to pull down, and to destroy and to overthrow; to build and to plant,”²³ i.e., that the villages and the houses (would be destroyed by Jeremiah) by hand, but not rebuilt by (Jeremiah’s) hand.²⁴ There are several such metaphors in Scripture. All this is true in accordance with true logic. These are logical principles upon which the entire Torah and Prophets depend. As for the rest of this vision, I already dealt with those matters at length.

footnotes:
¹⁴ 14. The doubt that is contemplated is that this command of God would appear to be contradicted by the later command to desist, in v. 12, and that if so, there would appear to be a change in God’s words and decree. This would countervene Kaspi’s contention that God’s word is never changed.
¹⁵ 15. Accordingly, the original command was the equivalent of saying, “begin to offer him there for a burnt-offering …” which was indeed fulfilled by Abraham and not countervened by the angel of the Lord.
¹⁶ 16. Judg. 13:8.
¹⁷ 17. A similar point was made by Kaspi earlier in the work (chap. X, p. 200), in reference to the use of future and past tenses in Hebrew, which Kaspi believes reflects the Aristotelian doctrine of actuality and potentiality. Here Kaspi extends his observations to include the injunctive form; i.e., a command to act may only be a command to create the potential for that act. See also above pp. 49 ff.
¹⁸ 18. Gen. 41:13.
¹⁹ 19. What Kaspi means is that the verse implies that the chief butler considered Joseph to have caused the baker to be hung and the butler to be reinstated. Such an opinion is referred to by Ibn Ezra in his comments on this verse. According to such an approach, what existed only in potential was already actualized in Joseph’s mind. This accords with Kaspi’s statement (Maṣref La-Kesef,
²⁰ 20. Gen. 48:22. In the Maṣref La-Kesef
²¹ 21. He means that even though this was only to be realized at some future time, in Jacob’s mind it was realized and actualized already, and for this reason Jacob spoke of it in the past tense. Ibn Ezra’s commentary to that verse records a similar interpretation.
²² 22. Jer. 35:2, which the JPS translation has, “and give them wine to drink,” but in Heb. ve-hishḳita.
²³ 23. Jer. 1:10.
²⁴ 24. He means here too that Jeremiah considered those potential events to be already actualized, even though he would do no more than speak to attain those goals.