Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah
Ibn Ezra on Numbers 31:20/אבן עזרא על במדבר ל״א:כ׳
אוכל מעשה עזים. כאשר פירשתי. והנה הבגד בעבור שנגע בחלל הוא טמא הטעם ועמכם כל בגד עד שתתחטאו או תהיה מלת תתחטאו יוצאה וכן והתאויתם לכם כי הגבול הוא הפעול:
1AND ALL WORK OF GOATS’ HAIR.21. Literally, goats’ work. Hence I.E.’s comments. This is to be interpreted in accordance with my earlier explanation.22 (goats) is to be rendered as goats’ hair.” In other words, “goats’ work” means a garment made out of goats’ hair. Observe, the garment23 is unclean because it touched a corpse. The meaning of our verse is, the garments shall be with you24 (and as to every garment) is, and with you all garments. I.E. reads our verse as follows: And all garments taken in spoil…[shall be with you outside of the camp] until you are purified. I.E. interprets thus because titchate’u is in the hitpa’el. Words in the hitpa’el are reflexive. until you are purified.25 (ye shall purify) as if written ad she-titchatu’e (until you are purified). On the other hand, titchate’u (ye shall purify) might be transitive.26 means ye shall purify, i.e., the garments. Ve-hitavvitem27. lakhem (and ye shall mark out) (Num. 34:10) is similar,28. for gevul (line)29 is the object.30 (and ye shall mark out) is transitive.