שמואל ב כ״א:כ׳-כ״ב

איש מדון. כתרגומו: גבר דמשחן. שאין עיקר התיבה אלא מ"ם ודלי"ת, כמו (תהלים סה ח) מ'שאון' שי"ן ואל"ף (בראשית יז ד): ומ'המון', ה"א ומ"ם. ובדברי הימים (א יא כג) כתיב: איש מדה, כלומר גבוה מאוד, שאומדין כמה מדתו:

A giant man. As [Yonoson] translated, "A man of [great] measure," the root [portion] of the word are the letters מ and ד.²⁶The ין being a suffix. We find [similarly] from the word שאון²⁷Tehilim 65:8. [roar] the root letters are ש and א and from the word הָמוֹן²⁸Bereishis 17:4. the root letters are ה and מ.²⁹These two words also having ין as a suffix. In Divrei Hayomim³⁰Divrei Hayomim I, 11:23. it is written, "A man of measure"³¹Concerning this same giant refered to in our verse but there the word מִדָּה is used without the suffix ין. i.e., a very tall man who had people measuring his height.

שש ושש וגו'. פירשו רבותינו בבכורות (מה ב) שהוצרך לומר עשרים וארבע, שלא תאמר אצבעות שתי ידיו אינן אלא שש, ואצבעות רגליו אינן אלא שש, לכך נאמר עשרים וארבע ואם כתב עשרים וארבע ולא אמר שש ושש, הייתי אומר שבעה באחת, וחמשה באחת, ומהו 'מספר', שכולן היו נספרות בסדר האצבעות בגב היד:

Numbered six each etc. Our Rabbis explained in Maseches Bechoros³² that the verse had to tell us "twenty-four"³³Despite the fact that given that his two hands and two feet had six digital extremities each, which obviously totals twenty-four. in order that you should not say that the fingers of his two hands only came to a total of six and that the toes of his [two] feet only came to a total of six that is why it is written, "twenty-four." If it had written in our verse only 'twenty-four" and not had said "six each," I would have [mistakeingly] said, there were seven on one [hand or foot] and five on the other. And what is the verse trying to indicate by the word "number"? That all these digital extremities could be counted in the normal arrangement of fingers on a hand.