belt

"They were girded with strength" (Shmuel I 2:4), "and you, gird your loins" (Yirmiyahu 1:17), "girded with a belt at his loins" (Melachim II 1:8). In the heavy form, "I gird you though you did not know Me" (Yeshayahu 45:5), and וַתְּאַזְּרֵנִי חַיִל (Tehillim 18:40), and You girded me with strength, whose proper form is וַתַּֽאַזְּרֵנִי; his father's words on it are at the root זרה, and more is written there. So "girded with might" (Tehillim 65:7); and of girding oneself, "Hashem is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength" (Tehillim 93:1), "gird yourselves and be shattered" (Yeshayahu 8:9). The sense of all of them is girding and bracing.

The thing one girds with is the ezor: "and He binds a belt on their loins" (Iyov 12:18), "and behold, the belt was ruined" (Yirmiyahu 13:7), "nor the belt of his loins undone" (Yeshayahu 5:27).

Another sense: מְאַזְּרֵי זִיקוֹת (Yeshayahu 50:11), whose meaning is disputed. Rabbi Yonah explained it as קודחי אש, kindlers of fire. Some explain it as bringers out of fire, those who carve in wood and in stone and by the force of their carving bring fire out of them. Radak's father explained it from the first sense, which Radak takes to mean gatherers of firebrands.

"And you shall gird them with a sash" (Shemos 29:9). In "the remnant of wrath You shall gird" (Tehillim 76:11) it means You shall gird and bind them so that they do not act on the wrath they had against Yerushalayim, for girding is tying and binding fast.

The mizmor was said in prophecy about the camp of Ashur when it camped against Yerushalayim: "God is known in Yehudah" (Tehillim 76:2), "and His covert was in Shalem" (Tehillim 76:3), which is Yerushalayim, since until Yerushalayim God was not known in those wars, for Ashur had conquered all of Eretz Yisrael; when he came to Yerushalayim and spoke haughtily against Hashem, God was known and His name great, as in "and he struck in the camp of Ashur" (Melachim II 19:35). When You take vengeance on the camp of Ashur, then "the wrath of man shall praise You" (Tehillim 76:11): the one whose wrath was against You and who raged against You will praise You against his will, and his wrath will turn to thanks. Then "the remnant of wrath You shall gird": the kings of the nations who are left, who had wrath against Yerushalayim, will have their wrath girded and bound, for they will fear You from what they hear You did in the camp of Ashur. That is what the end of the mizmor says, "He cuts off the spirit of princes, awesome to the kings of the earth" (Tehillim 76:13): when He cuts off and plucks the spirit of princes, as with "every mighty man of valour and leader and officer in the camp of the king of Ashur" (Divrei HaYamim II 32:21), then He will be awesome to the kings of the earth.

Or "the wrath of man shall praise You" (Tehillim 76:11) may be said of the Mitzrim and the men of Kush who were with Ashur in the camp and who, when they saw that great blow, turned to the faith of the Jews. Of them it is said "the labour of Mitzrayim and the merchandise of Kush" (Yeshayahu 45:14), and of them "an altar to Hashem in the midst of the land of Mitzrayim" (Yeshayahu 19:19) with the whole parsha.

"Your loins girded" (Shemos 12:11), "girded with weapons of war" (Shoftim 18:11), "gird your sword on your thigh, mighty one" (Tehillim 45:4), "wail like a maiden girded in sackcloth" (Yoel 1:8), "and they shall gird on sackcloth" (Yechezkel 7:18).

The adjective is "girded with a belt on their loins" (Yechezkel 23:15), with a cholam. The noun: "she gave a girdle to the merchant" (Mishlei 31:24); with the feminine heh, "and in place of a girdle, a rope" (Yeshayahu 3:24) and "in his girdle that was on his loins" (Melachim I 2:5); the plural, "and they made themselves girdles" (Bereishis 3:7); and on another pattern "a girding of sackcloth" (Yeshayahu 3:24). The sense of all of these is a belt.

"And they shall totter out of their fetters" (Shmuel II 22:46): יתנועעו מכבליהם, they will move from the fetters they are in, that is, they will limp from the weight of their fetters. In the words of Chazal, "they sat on a plank or on a bench when these are מחגירין" (Zavim 3:3), which Radak explains as when they move, for when its legs are uneven, one shorter than another, a man sitting on it moves and sways this way and that like a lame man. Some read the word as a transposition, from the Targum of "and from the chambers, terror" (Devarim 32:25), וּמִתְוָנַיָא חַרְגַת מוֹתָא, and from the rooms the trembling of death, whose חַרְגַת carries the letters of חגר turned about; its sense is then that they shall be afraid from within their strongholds, and so Yonasan rendered it, that they shall tremble from their fortresses.