Note 372 — Chapter X
Reading edition
A problematical rendering. מגמה is found only here, and probably means direction. Hitzig translates desire, effort, striving. קדימה, towards the front or forward; but elsewhere it means only eastward: קדים, the east wind. Cf. Judg. v. 21, נחל קדומים נחל קישון, a river of spates or rushes is the river Kishon (Hist. Geog., p. 395). Perhaps we should change פניהים to a singular suffix, as in the clauses before and after, and this would leave מ to form with קדימה a participle from הקדים (cf. Amos ix. 10).