BP oil spill

ב''ה

Concerning the Gemara in Sanhedrin 98A that is floating around in reference to the BP oil spill.

Yichezkel 32:14

O.K., first of all lets translate the Gemara properly:

“The descendant of king David will not come until they will search for a fish for the sick and they won’t find…”

“…as it is stated in the scriptures: Then I will sink their waters and will make their rivers flow like oil.”

Rashi: That they will all be congealed, and since they are congealed the fish will not be found on the hook.

This is a drasha in the Gemara and is not the pshat of the pasuk. Perhaps an obvious symptom of this is quoting a later pasuk (in p. 32) before an earlier pasuk (p. 29  - which also talks about mitzrayim) and saying that the earlier one applies later. In addition the perek is referring to Mitzrayim while the drasha is referring to a general state of being “without fish for the sick” without stating who this is happening to (presumably everyone.)

I wonder, why would a sick man need fish, won’t it just gross him out? J

To give a clear picture of the pshat I’ll start with the pasuk beforehand.

32:13

“And I will get rid of all its animals from the many waters and the feet of man will not dirty them anymore and the hoofs of animals will not dirty them.”

32:14 According to Rashi in Yichezkel the pasuk should be translated:

Then I will sink (down the mud of )their waters and will make their rivers flow like oil.”

Rashi:

That the feet of animals will not dirty them and the mud will sink and the waters will be clear and clean like pure oil.

This is the exact opposite of the drasha in the Gemara.

Nonetheless it is still a bad nevua for miztrayim since the pasuk afterwards says:

32:15

“When I place Mitzrayim in ruin…”

It does not matter whether the water is congealed (like oil) and there is no fish or the water is clean (like oil) because no one is there. It still spells doom for Egypt. ;)

There is a loose connection of the water being like oil, but other than that the connection to the oil spill seems out of context. (unless perhaps you want to make a further extrapolation that Mitzrayim here is America…)

Feel free to explain it as you like but I won’t go there man…