Exodus · Chapter 1

And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each man and the people of his household came.

ואלה שמות בני ישראל NOW THESE ARE THE NAMES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL — Although scripture has already enumerated them by name whilst they were living, when they went down into Egypt (Genesis 46:8-27), it again enumerates them when it tells us of their death, thus showing how dear they were to God — that they are compared to the stars which also God brings out and brings in by number and name when they cease to shine, as it is said, (Isaiah 40:26) “He bringeth out their host by number, He calleth them all by name” (Exodus Rabbah 1:3; Tanchuma Yashan 1:1:2).

AND THESE ARE THE NAMES OF …. The meaning [of the connective vav — v’eileh, (‘and’ these are) — when it would have sufficed to say, “These are the names of …,”] is that Scripture desires to reckon the subject of the exile from the time they went down to Egypt. It was then that they were the first of the exiles to go into exile, as I have explained. It is for this reason that He returns to the beginning of the subject [stated in the Book of Genesis], which is the verse, And all his seed he [Jacob] brought with him into Egypt. There it is written afterward, And these are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, etc. This is the very same verse that He repeats here. Even though they are two separate books, the narrative is connected with subjects which follow one another successively. Here, once He mentioned the children of Jacob, He adopted a concise approach to his children’s children and all of his seed [and did not mention them by name as He had done in the Book of Genesis]. Rather, He alluded to them only generally, just as He had said there, All the souls of the house of Jacob, that came into Egypt, were threescore and ten. A similar case is found in the Book of Chronicles and the Book of Ezra. The Book of Chronicles finishes with the verse: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Eternal by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Eternal stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying: Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, etc. The author repeated the very language of these two verses at the beginning of the Book of Ezra in order to connect the narrative. However, since they were indeed two books, he completed the first book, [i.e., the Book of Chronicles], with the events that transpired before the building of the Second Sanctuary, and he devoted the second book, [i.e., the Book of Ezra], to the events that happened from the time of the building [of that Sanctuary]. The same thing occurs in these two books, Bereshith and V’eileh Shemoth. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said that because He mentioned at the end of Bereshith [50:23] that Joseph saw children of the third generation to his children, this is why He mentioned [here in the second book] that his brethren likewise were at first few and then were fruitful and multiplied. But this is not correct. Rashi wrote: “Although Scripture had already enumerated them whilst they were living, it again enumerates them by name, following their death, in order to show how they were beloved by G-d. They are compared to the stars which G-d also brings out by number and brings in by number, as it is said, He bringeth out their host by number, He calleth them all by name.” These are words of homiletic exposition, and insofar as they indicate the love of G-d for the tribes — how the Holy One, blessed be He, loves them and repeats their names always — they are words of truth....

The book "And these are the names" — a work by Abraham, completed in the year 4913. It is precious (יְקָר), just as the other books beginning with "And these are" (וְאֵלֶּה) are. The reason for the vav is that, since the first book ended with "Joseph saw his sons' children to the third generation" (Gen. 50:22), he notes that when his brothers came down they were few, yet they multiplied and increased. The word אֵלֶּה [these], even defective (without the final ה), is the same for masculine and feminine; as it is written, "for all the abominations הָאֵל" (Lev. 18:27) and afterward, "from all these (הָאֵלֶּה) abominations" (ibid. v. 29); "these men (הָאֵל)" (Gen. 19:8); "these were born to ha-Raphah" (2 Sam. 21:22); "what shall I do with these (אֵלֶּה)?" (Gen. 31:43). Similarly the word לָז: "the Shunammite woman הַלָּז" (2 Kings 4:25); "this young man הַלָּז" (Zech. 2:5). Because the word אֵלֶּה is stressed on the penult [mil'el], the ה is added, like the ה of לַיְלָה [night] (Gen. 1:5) and נַחֲלָה מִצְרַיִם (Num. 34:5). The noun שְׁמוֹת [names] is masculine and plural, because the tav can be a sign of both plural masculine and plural feminine, like מְקוֹמוֹת [places] and אָבוֹת [fathers]; so too the mem is a sign of both masculine and feminine, like נָשִׁים [women] and פִּילַגְשִׁים [concubines]; and some nouns occur with both mem and tav endings, e.g. נְפָשִׁים (Ezek. 13:20) and נְפָשׁוֹת (ibid. v. 18), לְבָבוֹת (1 Chron. 28:9) and לְבָבִים, as in עַל לְבָבֶהָן (Nah. 2:5). The ה of מִצְרַיְמָה [toward Egypt] stands in place of the word אֶל [to], as in נֵלְכָה דֹּתַיְנָה [let us go toward Dothan] (Gen. 37:17) and וַתָּבֵא אֹתִי יְרוּשָׁלַיְמָה [and she brought me toward Jerusalem] (Ezek. 8:3). "אֶת יַעֲקֹב" — with Jacob, as in "Hashem cut [a covenant] אֶת אַבְרָם" (Gen. 15:18). "אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ" — his own offspring; nowhere in Scripture does בַּיִת refer to a wife. The evidence is "each man and his household (אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ) came" — for the wives of the tribes were not counted in the seventy. And do not be troubled by "and he shall make atonement for himself and for his house (בֵּיתוֹ)" (Lev. 16:6, 11), because in its plain sense it means his father's household; for there were three confessions, and the High Priest's wife was aided by him on her own behalf, being included with him — for the man and his wife together constitute the full person (הָאָדָם).

אלה, the ones mentioned here were deserving to be mentioned with their names. The reason is that each one of them possessed sufficient individuality to give meaning to his name. They were all of them an inspiration to their children as not one of them abandoned his family tradition. However, after the death of that generation even the relatively righteous ones among them did not rate so highly in the eyes of G’d or man so that the Torah deemed it necessary to tell us their names.

ואלה שמות בני ישראל, And these are the names of the children of Israel, etc. The reason that the Book of Exodus commences with the conjunctive letter ו is to teach that all these people were righteous, just like their parents. The word ואלה also is employed to show continuity with the people who had preceded them. In this instance the preceding people were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all of whom were outstandingly righteous. The generation mentioned at the opening of the Book of Exodus too were righteous people. Another reason for the letter ו in this instance is to remind us that the years of exile of the Jewish people were computed as having already begun during the time of Abraham, not merely after the arrival of Jacob in Egypt (compare Tanchuma Shemot 4). Still another reason for the Torah writing that letter is to tell us that just as the earlier generations perceived that they were in exile and accepted their fate without resentment, so the generation of which we read here also accepted their destiny without complaint. Perhaps this will help us understand why the Torah bothered to list the names of the tribes when we have been well aware of their names since the Book of Genesis, and particularly since the list of the seventy people who descended to Egypt with Jacob. While Rashi claims that the Torah's repeating these names after their deaths is evidence of how fond G'd was of them, this is hardly more than a homiletical explanation. Besides, if Rashi were correct then the Torah should have recorded these names after verse six in which we heard that the members of that generation had all died. Verse seven should then have commenced with the words: ואלה שמות בני ישראל. According to our approach the Torah informs us of the reason why the names appear once more, i.e. that they had all willingly accepted their destiny to endure exile as distinct from Esau who had decided to leave the land of Canaan by moving to Mount Seir (Genesis 36,8). Bereshit Rabbah 82,13, attributes Esau's move to the decree of G'd mentioned to Abraham in Genesis 15,13 that Abraham's descendants would become strangers in a foreign land. Esau wanted to escape that obligation and that is why he moved away voluntarily at that time. הבאים מצרימה, who arrived in Egypt; they came in order to endure exile; את יעקב, together with Jacob; "with Jacob," i.e. in the same spirit as Jacob, to discharge their duty to become exiles. The Torah wants to prove that the Israelites did not move to Egypt for other reasons and that is why it writes that they came איש וביתו, everyone with his respective family, i.e. they prepared for a lengthy stay; otherwise they would have left their families in the land of Canaan. באו, they had come. The Torah draws our attention to the difference between הבאים, and באו. We have explained already in Genesis 46,7 that not all of Jacob's family were of one mind about the timing of the descent to Egypt. Some volunteered, others had to be more or less coerced. The...

ואלה שמות, “And these were the names of;” the prefix letter ו in the word ואלה is intended to connect what is written here to what had been written at the end of the Book of Genesis. The connection is with the three generations of Joseph through Menashe that he is reported to have still known before he died (Genesis 50,22). He had witnessed the fulfillment of the descendants of Avraham multiplying while in a land not their own. Rashi points out that when the Jewish people were compared by G-d as “numerous as the stars,” G-d meant that these stars are not just numbers but each one has a name and its coming and going is supervised by its Creator. Similarly, in spite of becoming numerous the Jewish people never were just numbers but each one having a name ensured that he would be treated on an individual basis by G-d. If someone were to ask where it is written that the Jews that Yaakov brought with him to Egypt were numbered by him, the Torah states that not only were they numbered but they were named, i.e. ואלה שמות “and these were the names.” The Torah informs us that all the people that came down to Egypt with Yaakov also died in that land. הבאים מצרימה, this construction is most unusual, we would have expected the Torah to write: אשר באו, “who arrived,” not such an indeterminate present tense as הבאים, literally: “Who were arriving.” The fact is that in retrospect, after having been subjected to cruel treatment by the Egyptians, they had forgotten about the good years and felt as if they had only just arrived there. את יעקב, “with Yaakov.” איש וביתו, “man and wife.” We know this from Genesis 46,26: מלבד נשי בני יעקב, “in addition to the wives of Yaakov’s sons.” (Genesis 46,26) Yaakov was aware that the Egyptians were deeply involved in promiscuity. He was afraid that his offspring would learn to copy these ways of the Egyptians. He had therefore married them off before they could do so.

Like a ring of gold, a golden ornament Is a wise person's reproof in a receptive ear. (Proverbs 25:12) ... In this verse, King Solomon, of blessed memory, teaches the virtue of accepting reproof and criticism. Torah depends on one’s ability to accept reproof. The highest virtue is found in the one who accepts criticism and listens to the one who rebukes him. It is the basis for the fulfillment of the Torah. One who rejects reproof is marked by a repulsive virtue containing the worst evils. To reject criticism causes one to reject the yoke of the commandments. Regarding this, Solomon wrote: "Discipline is worse than the one who abandons God's way; he who hates rebuke will die." (Prov. 15:10) This means that one who rejects reproof is worse than the person who abandons the observance of Torah since such a person is guilty of denying the yoke of commandments. A person who abandons the path of Torah may face punishment but he is not condemned to death. One who rejects reproof is not pardoned through suffering but is sentenced to death. This is what King Solomon meant when he said, "He who hates rebuke will die." It is not enough for him to face painful suffering as a judgment…Conversely, Solomon explains that reproof is like a thing of beauty just as earrings are adornments to the body. When a wise person presents criticism to a person who is receptive to the criticism, the criticism is compared to an earring or an adornment which beautifies the soul of the individual. There are two types of people with regard to reproof: those whom we are obligated to criticize and those whom we should avoid criticizing. There are three types of people whom one is obligated to criticize: the wise, the simple and the youth. There are three types of people to whom one should avoid offering reproof: scoffers, fools and the wicked. Regarding scoffers, we are taught, "Do not rebuke the scoffer for he will hate you." (Prov. 9:8) … Regarding fools, it is written, "Do not speak to the fool for he will disdain your sensible words." (Prov. 23:9) The scoffer hates the person who criticizes him while the fool makes light of the words of reproof and mocks the person who is wiser than they are. Regarding the wicked, it is stated, "…to rebuke the wicked person for his blemish is to call down abuse on oneself." (Prov. 9:7) This means that when one criticizes the wicked and points out his blemish, the wicked responds by casting his own blemish back on the one who rebuked him. The people to whom one should offer reproof include the wise. It is written, "Reprove the wise person and he will love you." (Prov. 9:8) Sometimes a wise person needs to be criticized when he accidently sins or does so by chance. Regarding the simple, it is written, "Endow the simple with shrewdness." (Prov. 1:4) Regarding the young, Scripture states "(He endows) the young with knowledge and foresight." (ibid) The most important type of reproof is the criticism offered to the young since their intellect is not fully developed and they lived under the domination of the evil inclination for the thirteen years when their thoughts and understanding were completely focused on worldly pleasures of the body. While they are still adolescents and their nature is malleable, young people are in need of criticism to rein in their behavior and to help them come under the control of their good inclination. They gain this by listening to the person who reproves them and by paying attention to words of Torah which is entirely reproof. It is written, "The way to life is the rebuke that disciplines." (Prov. 6:23) If a person was allowed to follow his basic nature, whether good or bad, he would not be able to separate himself from his youthful behavior when he reached the full maturity, as it is written, "Train a lad in the way he ought to go; he will not swerve from it even in his old age." (Prov. 22:6) Thus, a person acquires great benefit and merit for himself (by accepting criticism when he is young.) Because of this Solomon advises us to offer reproof to a young person with 'the rod of discipline,' "if folly settles in the heart of a lad, the rod of discipline will remove it." (Prov. 22:15) This means that even if the folly has attached itself to his heart and he has become accustomed to acting in this fashion for many years, do not despair and say, 'There is no way to make him improve,' for as long as he is a lad and the rod of discipline is used, he can remove it. By disciplining him little by little, the reproof will eventually enter his heart. When the word of the disciplinarian is soft so and offered with constancy it will eventually make an impression on the one who is disciplined just as drops of water which are soft and pleasing eventually leave a hole in a rock (upon which the water drips). But if a person despairs and does not try to offer a young person reproof, it is as if he hates him, as it is stated: "He who spares the rod, hates his son; but he who loves him disciplines him early," (Prov. 14:23) The Midrash interprets this verse: "He who spares the rod, hates his son," refers to King David, while "He who loves him, disciplines him early," refers to Jacob, teaching that one who withholds discipline in the end will cause his children to follow evil company. We find this to be the case with Abraham who spoiled Ishmael and eventually he followed evil company…similarly Isaac spoiled Esau so that he left his father to follow evil company… David spoiled Adoniyah and Abshalom causing them to follow evil company… "He who loves him disciplines him early" refers to Abraham in the case of Isaac and Isaac in the case of Jacob. Similarly because Jacob disciplined his sons, there was no unworthy sons among them. Because he was a wise disciplinarian and the sons were attentive to him they became like refined gold made into earrings and they were truly the children of their father's legacy.

And these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt. The Torah added the letter “vav” [meaning “and”] to the word “ve’eleh” [“and these”], and also initially said “haba’im” [“who are coming”] in the present tense, but then said “ish uveito ba’u” [“each man and his household came”] in the past tense. This is because it was said above: and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt (Genesis 50:26). After Joseph’s death, the Egyptians were no longer favorably disposed toward Israel as before, and they then felt their coming to Egypt as if they had just arrived in Egypt at that moment. Therefore it says “ve’eleh” [“and these”], adding to the previous matter, because due to Joseph’s death, it was as if they were now arriving. Nevertheless, although Joseph died, Jacob did not die. Therefore it says “et Ya’akov” [“with Jacob”], because they were still with Jacob, and Jacob’s merit protected them. [They were protected] by the merit of their being fenced off from sexual immorality, as they did not want to marry Egyptian women who were steeped in lewdness, and they all married wives before coming to Egypt. This is what it means by saying “ish uveito ba’u” [“each man and his household came”]. And the commentators (Rabbeinu Bachya 1) have said: A man and his household came — “a man” refers to the Holy One, Blessed be He, [as it says:] A man of war, and “his household” refers to His court [beit din], as it is written: And the Lord went before them (Exodus 13:21) — He and His court (Zohar page 46). What is the relevance of His court here? It appears that this comes to assure them that the promise, and also the nation whom they shall serve, I will judge (Genesis 15:14), would be fulfilled for them. Therefore, the Holy One, Blessed be He, and His court came with them to assure them that the Lord fights for them against Egypt. And these are the names of the children of Israel. Rashi explains that this is to make known their preciousness as they are compared to stars, etc. Some say that just as a star, even though it is not visible during the day, nevertheless exists during the day, so too the righteous person in the World to Come, which is compared to day, has existence although they are not seen, and are only lost to their generation. And some say the opposite, that just as a star is only visible at night, so too the light of the righteous shines after their sun sets, as it is said: Before the sun darkens, etc. (Ecclesiastes 12:2). And it appears to me that the main good name of a person is only recognized after their death, because during their lifetime it is not known whether they will remain in their righteousness, as it is written: And I praise the dead (Ecclesiastes 4:2), because during their lifetime there is no place to tell their praise, for who knows if they will remain in their righteousness. And this is what is meant by And Joseph was in Egypt — Rashi explains that this comes to make known his righteousness, that he remained righteous from beginning to end. For at the end of all matters, everything is heard, therefore his praise is told after he was placed in a coffin in Egypt. And in this they are compared to stars which are visible after the setting of the sun; similarly, after a person’s sun sets, their righteousness is visible if it remained with them until their end. And this is what is written: And those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:3). For one who leads many to righteousness will not come to sin, so that they should not be in Gehenna while their students are in the Garden of Eden (Yoma 87a). And for such a person, it is definite that their light will shine like the stars forever and ever, even after their death. But one who does not lead many to righteousness — it is not definite that they will remain in their righteousness forever. And as our Sages of blessed memory said (see Exodus Rabbah 1:3) that they [the Israelites] were compared to stars that are brought in and taken out by count, there is a hint to this from what is said “haba’im” [those who are coming] in present tense, and it is written each man and his household came in past tense, because it speaks of two entries: one when they came to Egypt with Jacob — each man and his household came — that first entry was with Jacob, and each man came with his household, his wife. But now as it wishes to speak of their deaths, for this is also called an “entry” and it is as if they are now entering [Egypt] again after they died and they would remain there, and this is a second entry in the present tense. But not with Jacob, for they died and Jacob did not die. Also, this entry is not each man and his household together, because one’s wife and children only accompany him to the grave, as is found in the parable in Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (Chapter 34). Therefore this is not each man and his household. So from this there is proof that it speaks of entry and exit, for both are called “entry.” And the matter of the number is, to make known their stature, because every important thing has a number, as will be explained with God’s help in the portion of Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:12). And regarding the stature of the righteous person who died, it is written: You have counted my wanderings, put my tears in Your flask, are they not in Your accounting? (Psalms 56:9). And this verse was expounded by our Sages (Shabbat 105b) regarding one who sheds tears over a worthy person. Nevertheless, what is said: are they not in Your accounting? requires explanation. And it appears that [the Psalmist] wanted to bring proof of the stature of the righteous person who died, that he is not a lost thing and has substance, and he said: are they not in Your accounting? because You bring them in by number, therefore I ask that You also count my wanderings and place my tears in Your flask for safekeeping.

ואלה שמות בני ישראל, “and these were the names of the Children of Israel, etc.” According to Ibn Ezra the reason why the Torah decided to repeat the names of the sons of Yaakov here once more is because at the end of the last portion of the Book of Bereshit the Torah described how Joseph lived to see grandchildren and great grandchildren and how they multiplied. The Torah now wants us to know that the other sons of Yaakov experienced a similar blessing after arriving in Egypt. Nachmanides explains that the mention of the names here is designed to impress upon the reader that the exile in Egypt did not begin with the suppression of the Jews by the new Pharaoh, but that it commenced with Yaakov’ and his family’s descent to Egypt some 93 years earlier. The report helps to establish the fact that the Book of Exodus is a direct continuation of the Book of Genesis. The Torah abbreviates here, mentioning only “the sons of Yaakov, his family totaling 70 souls,” instead of listing their names again as in chapter 46 of the Book of Genesis.

ואלה שמות, seeing that the Torah wanted to let us know how the Israelites had increased and multiplied (verse 3) it became necessary to repeat that when they had arrived in Egypt they had numbered only 70 souls. The dramatic increase in numbers of Israelites began only with the death of the generation that had moved there from the land of Canaan. As a result, when a new king came to the throne in Egypt, he wanted to diminish their numbers and did not succeed in doing so.

ואלה שמות וגו....הבאים, “and these are the names, etc........who arrived in Egypt ” why is that verse written in the present tense, seeing that it was quite some time since Yaakov and his sons had arrived in Egypt? They had been there long before the death of Joseph. The reason that they are referred to as new arrivals was that as long as Joseph was alive they did not have to pay any taxes. As soon as he had died they became subject to normal taxation. Therefore they considered that day as if it was the day that they had arrived there. (Sh’mot Rabbah 1,4)

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;

"Reuben" — and "Judah": any [name] whose [last consonant before a suffix] is mobile, like the zayin of זְבוּלֻן, when one of the letters בוכ"ל [ב, ו, כ, ל] is prefixed to it, those service letters ought by rule to take a sheva mobile. But the language cannot pronounce two consecutive mobile shevas, so they placed a ḥireq under the prefixed letter: thus if ב is prefixed, one says בִּזְבוּלֻן; if כ or ל, then כִּזְבוּלֻן, לִזְבוּלֻן; and if ו is prefixed, they place a shuruq in place of the ḥireq — so that the vav reads as though it were alef — giving וּזְבוּלֻן, since the word then appears as if beginning with alef. If the first letter is a yod, as in יְהוּדָה — since yod is one of the quiescent letters — they suppress it, as in נַעֲלֶה בִיהוּדָה [let us go up against Judah] (Isa. 7:6); כִּיהוּדָה, לִיהוּדָה נַחְשׁוֹן (Num. 1:7), where the yod is now quiescent and no longer felt on the lips; and similarly with the vav prefix: וִיהוּדָה. The tribes are listed here in their birth order.

Reuven, Shimon; the Torah first mentioned the two oldest sons of Yaakov’s senior wife Leah, before mentioning any of the sons of the concubines; this is why it also mentioned Joseph and Binyamin before the sons of Bilhah, another concubine.

Reuben Simon Levi and Judah Issachar Zebulun and Benjamin. The first six, are the sons of Leah according to their birth order, and it was appropriate to mention Benjamin last of all his brothers since he was the youngest among them - and further he was mentioned last because the lower world is divided into seven climes, and the seventh clime is the Land of Israel, which is the middle of civilization, and it is the point that is colder and hotter than the rest of the countries because it is at the center of the furthest reaches; and therefore it was written “Benjamin was the seventh” to allude to the temple in the seventh clime which is in the portion [of the tribe of Benjamin's] and even though the wise scholars who ordered the climes wrote in some of their essays that the Land of Israel is in the fourth clime, "everything goes to one place" [Eccles. 3:20] since the Land [of Israel] is the [central] point and there are three climes from here and three climes from here, it is the fourth to each group of three; it is simultaneously the middle and the seventh; this is similar to the Sabbath day which is the middle of the days of the week and is the seventh day and our Rabbis of blessed memory did not need to inform us that the lights (e.g. Sun and Moon) were created on the fourth day except to publicize the superiority of the Shabbat.

Reuben, Simeon, etc. Here, their names are detailed according to the Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 32:5): “Our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt on account of four merits: they did not change their names, they did not change their language, they were fenced off from sexual immorality, and there were no informers among them, etc.” The reason for this matter is explained in the Yalkut on this portion: All the names of the tribes were called in reference to the redemption. “Reuben” relates to I have surely seen the affliction of My people. “Simeon” relates to God heard their groaning, and similarly for all of them. According to this, if they had changed their names, they would have lost their connection to the redemption and would not have been worthy of being redeemed, as they would have exchanged their names which indicated redemption and called themselves by new names that had no indication of redemption. Or perhaps, the changing of their names would have caused them to despair of redemption, and they would not have sought the face of God regarding redemption and transformation. Similarly, if they had changed their language, even though they had not changed their names, nevertheless their names would not have indicated the redemption. For specifically in the holy language [Hebrew], the name Reuben points to I have surely seen the affliction of my people, and Simeon to God has heard, but in another language, the name Reuben would not indicate “I have seen,” and likewise for all of them. Because they were fenced in from immorality, they were not fit to be among the Egyptians who were steeped in lewdness, as it says about them: whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses (Ezekiel 23:20). And because there was no evil speech among them, and they kept hidden let every woman ask of her neighbor, therefore they were redeemed. For if this matter had not been kept hidden, the Egyptians would not have lent them anything, and then it would not have been possible to redeem them, lest that elder [Abraham] say: They will serve them and they will afflict them was fulfilled, but afterward they will go out with great wealth was not fulfilled. Therefore it says: These are the names of the children of Israel, for even though Joseph had died and the bondage was about to begin, nevertheless the impression of redemption remained intact, because these names came with them previously, and with them they are coming also now, for their names did not change. And this is proof that they also did not change their language, otherwise there would be no significance to the fact that they did not change their names. “Each man and his household came,” for they were fenced off from sexual immorality, as each one clung to his wife and not to another. Furthermore, they took wives before they came to Egypt so that they would not take wives from the Egyptians who were steeped in lewdness. And afterward, the Torah specifies Reuben, Simeon, etc., because these names indicate redemption.

Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

"Issachar" (יִשָּׂשכָר): because two שׁ sounds come together, one is dropped in pronunciation — as in מְחַצְצְרִים (1 Chron. 15:24), which is read מְחַצְרִים — and there is no other shin like it in Scripture. It is the custom of the Hebrews that when the vav [conjunction] is prefixed to a word beginning with one of the labial letters [במ"פ], the labials being companions of the vav, an additional alef is sounded in the reading and the vav takes a shuruq, as in וּפְרוּ וּרְבוּ (Jer. 23:3) and וּמָלְאוּ בָּתֵּי מִצְרַיִם (below, 8:17). So too וּבִנְיָמִן [and Benjamin]. Benjamin is mentioned before the sons of the handmaids because he was the son of the mistress.

Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

"Dan" — regarding the joining together of names, there are six patterns: (1) as in "Elam and Asshur and Arphaxad" (Gen. 10:22); (2) as in "beryl, purple, embroidered work, and fine linen" (Ezek. 27:16); (3) as in "ruby, topaz, and emerald" (below, 28:17); (4) as in "Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher"; (5) as in "myrrh and aloes and cassia" (Ps. 45:9); (6) as in "Adam, Seth, Enosh" (1 Chron. 1:1).

And all the souls who issued from the loins of Jacob were seventy souls, and Joseph, who was already in Egypt.

ויוסף היה במצרים lit., AND JOSEPH WAS IN EGYPT — But were not he and his sons included in the seventy? What, then, is this statement intended to tell us? Do we not know that he was in Egypt? But its purpose is to inform you of Joseph’s righteousness: this is the same Joseph who tended his father’s sheep; this is the same Joseph who was in Egypt and became king there, and yet he remained steadfast in his righteousness, and the change from a humble position to exalted rank in Egypt caused no deterioration in his character (cf. Sifrei האזינו; Exodus Rabbah 1:7).

"וַיְהִי" — the form יְהִי ought to have been [vocalized] like יִרֵב (2 Chron. 24:27); but because ה is a guttural, the first yod of יְהִי takes a small qamats [i.e., segol: יֶהִי], and the second yod should have taken a silent sheva as the bet does in יִרֵב. By rights it should be read יְהִי, but that is difficult on the tongue, so they suppressed the yod and pointed the ה with ḥireq — hence "לוּ יֶהִי" (Gen. 30:34) and "כִּי הוּא אָמַר וַיֶהִי" (Ps. 33:9). Because this word is used very frequently, they shifted the stress back [to the penult] and gave the yod a mobile sheva: יְהִי כֵן ה' (below, 10:10). Therefore there is no verb in the qal stem where the service letter bears a sheva — except for this root and the root of וַיְחִי יַעֲקֹב (Gen. 47:28). This is because both of those roots [היה and חיה] have their two root letters among the quiescent letters — yod and ה — and since these two letters are quiescent, they sometimes disappear at the end of a word, allowing the service letter (the yod prefix) to come upon them with a sheva; this is not the case with other roots in the qal. "יֹצְאֵי יָרֵךְ" [those who came forth from the thigh] — an allusion to the generative organ in its vicinity, as in "to cover his feet" (1 Sam. 24:4). There were sixty-nine in all, but Jacob is counted first; that is why it says "Jacob" at the outset, as we explained above. The first parashah, Vayiggash, is written "Jacob and his sons" (Gen. 46:8), and together with Jacob there were all the souls of his sons and daughters: thirty-three (ibid. v. 15). The proof is: "your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons" (Deut. 10:22) — for Jacob himself was one soul; and Joseph, who was already in Egypt, is counted together with his two sons.

ויהי כל נפש…ויוסף היה במצרים. And the total number of persons…plus Joseph who was in Egypt already." Why does the Torah introduce this paragraph with the word ויהי which always introduces a painful experience? If the Torah refers to the exile, this was not the place to mention this seeing that the negative aspects of the exile did not commence till over 90 years later. Furthermore, why does the Torah have to tell us again that Joseph was already in Egypt? Perhaps we have here an oblique reference to the comment in Sotah 36 that it had been planned originally that Joseph would become the founding father of twelve tribes and that it was only due to the attempts of Potiphar's wife that he forfeited this opportunity as per Genesis 49,24. We know already that but for that unfortunate circumstance Joseph himself would have founded twelve tribes. The Torah expresses regret over that missed opportunity and that as a result the number of Israelites who descended to Egypt were only 70. Had Joseph become the founding father by fathering twelve tribes in the land of Canaan, many more Israelites would have been the basis of what was to become the Jewish nation. The Torah streses ויוסף היה, "and Joseph was already in Egypt," i.e. prematurely, before he could complete the task assigned to him as founder of the nation. Perhaps the Torah wants to put Joseph and family on a par with the other members of Jacob's family who descended to Egypt at the invitation of Pharaoh and Joseph by phrasing it thus: כל נפש…ויוסף היה במצרים, "all the persons …including Joseph who happened to be in Egypt already at that time." They were all righteous though some had been born in Egypt, etc. The Torah uses the word נפש for persons in the singular to show that they all formed a single spiritual unit. This is a tremendous compliment for Joseph whose life-experience was so totally different from that of his brothers and who had been mistreated by them. The Torah testified that Joseph was in no way less of an Israelite or part of the common heritage than his brothers who had remained in the land of Canaan all these years. If anything, Joseph was the prime example that given the proper strength of character, one could maintain one's spiritual integrity even after having lived in Egypt for many years and having occupied a position of power and prominence in that society. I have already mentioned this aspect of Joseph when I explained why Jacob was willing to die happy the moment he had made visual contact with Joseph in Genesis 46,30.

ירך יעקב, “Yaakov’s loins,” it is good manners to describe the sexual organ not directly, but by reference to an organ located close to it instead. (Ibn Ezra) We find this also in the oral Torah when the Mishnah in Megillah 13 writes that the principal organ that a woman is jealous of in her rival is the ירך; the author avoids naming the vagina. On other occasions, the word: רגלים is used as a substitute for the vagina. Compare Samuel II 19,25 ולא עשה רגליו, translated as “he had not pared his toe nails,” which is not really what the prophet had in mind. יוצאי ירך יעקב, “Yaakov’s descendants;” he himself was not included in the count. שבעים נפש, “seventy persons.” This verse was written primarily to tell of G-d’s miracles, to remind the reader that whereas only 70 persons of Yaakov’s family migrated to Egypt, after 210 years over 600000 male adults between the ages of 20 and 60 left Egypt, presumably at least two and a half million people in all. ויוסף היה במצרים, “and Joseph had already been in Egypt. Concerning the Hebrews that came with Yaakov, the expression used by the Torah is “הבאים מצרימה,” (verse 1) whereas concerning Joseph, although he had already been there for years, he was included in the “family”: moving to Egypt.

“And there was all one soul.” The verse calls the seventy souls a single soul, to hint that there was peace among them because there was no evil speech or slander among them. They were like one person whose heart does not reveal to his mouth, so was the matter kept secret among them for a full twelve months. And perhaps for this reason it also states: those who came out of Jacob’s thigh, to tell you that just as the thigh is in private, so too the matter was kept private among them.

'ויהי כל נפש וגו, “the total number of people, etc;” the number seventy includes Joseph who had already been in Egypt. When you accept this explanation, you do not need to consider Yocheved as having been conceived in the land of Canaan and having been born at the crossing point into Egypt. (Attributed to Rabbi Shlomoh ben Parchon) This is also the reason why their number is repeated here although the Torah had given details already when it described Yaakov’s departure for Egypt in Genesis chapter 46. The purpose of repeating it here is to demonstrate the phenomenal increase in the numbers of Hebrews beginning with their arrival there. Forty male Hebrews who had arrived there increased to over 600000 in the space of 210 years. (Sh’mot Rabbah 1,7)

And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.

"And Joseph died" — a father and his son are two generations; the proof is that Job lived after his captivity one hundred and forty years (Job 42:16) and saw four generations. Our sages of blessed memory said: ten generations from Adam to Noah, and ten from Noah to Abraham — yet the number of years in those [earlier] generations is not like those in the latter. The meaning of "and Joseph died" is that he died while still in his greatness; moreover, his brothers did not live to see days of hardship. The meaning of "and all that generation" refers to the Egyptians, leading into the statement of one who did not know Joseph.

וכל הדור ההוא, all of these 70 souls. None of the members of this group of migrants had assimilated to the Egyptian culture during their lifetime.

-8. וימת יוסף…ובני ישראל פרו, And Joseph died…and the Israelites were fruitful, etc. Why did the Torah have to repeat again that Joseph died? We have heard this at the end of פרשת ויחי. Why do we have to be told that all the other brothers and that whole generation of Israelites who had come to Egypt died? What is the connection between the respective deaths of the brothers and that of the generation and the proliferation of the בני ישראל in the next verse? If this was only a description of the manner in which the Jewish population explosion in Egypt occurred, the Torah should have written: ויפרו וישרצו בני ישראל, instead of ובני ישראל פרו וישרצו. The grammar is wrong here. Actually, the two verses must be read in conjunction as describing the beginning of Jewish servitude and its causes. There were a total of four causes that brought about the enslavement of the Jewish people. The first cause was Joseph's death. Had Joseph lived on for some time the Egyptians would never have ruled over his countrymen. The Torah therefore informs us that as long as Joseph was alive the Israelites lived a serene and comfortable life. The second cause leading to enslavement of the Jewish people was the death of Joseph's brothers. As long as even a single one of these brothers remained alive the Egyptians honoured them as our sages derive in Sotah 13 from Genesis 50,14 which hints that after the Egyptians had become aware of the honour paid by Canaanite kings to Jacob's bier, they began to honour all of Jacob's' sons, something they had not done previously. The third cause leading to enslavement of the Jewish people was the death of the entire generation of Jewish immigrants, the sixty-six persons who had been born in the land of Canaan. All of these people were regarded as invited guests by the Egyptians, and there was no question of discriminating against them legally. This may also have been due to their being perceived as more intelligent than the local population so that they could outwit anyone planning to take advantage of them. The fourth and final cause leading to the enslavement of the Jewish population was their unusual fertility. Any of the causes that had restrained the Egyptians from planning some way of keeping the Jewish population increase at bay had now been removed. When we keep this in mind we understand why the Torah wrote: "and the children of Israel had already been fruitful, etc." The Torah did not want to inform us of this detail but to indicate that it now served as a cause of the process of enslavement. A further cause, one that did not have to do with Joseph, the brothers, or the first generation of Jewish immigrants to Egypt, was the fact that a new Pharaoh arose in Egypt. Even according to the view expressed in Sotah 11 that the word "new" only referred to new legislation designed to subdue the Jewish population, the absence of the four causes already mentioned which had held up discrimination against the Jews also helped to shape P...

וכל הדור ההוא, “and that entire generation.” This verse refers to both Israelites and gentiles, as we read immediately afterwards: ויקם מלך חדש על מצרים אשר לא ידע את יוסף, “a new king ascended the throne in Egypt, one who had not known Joseph.”

And Yosef died, and all his brothers and all that generation. Reuven was born on the 12th of Kislev and died at 125. Shim'on was born on the 21st of Tevet and died at 120. Levi was born on the 16th of Nisan and died at 137, Yehuda was born on the 15th of Nisan and died at 119, Dan was born on the 9th of Elul and died at 125 years, Naftali was born on the 5th of Tishrei and died at 133, Gad was born on the 10th of Marcheshvan and died at 125, Asher was born on the 20th of Shevat and died at 123, Yisaschar was born on the 10th of Av and died at 122, Zevulun was born on the 7th of Tishrei and died at 114, Yosef was born on the 1st of Tammuz and died at 110, Binyamin was born on the 11th of Marcheshvan and died at 109 years. In Adar and Iyyar no-one was born, and those were left for Efrayim and Menashe, I found this in "Midrash Tedashe" [תדשא]. And Yosef died, and all his brothers and all of that generation. Our rabbis of blessed memory explained: even though Yosef died, their God exists, as it says And Yosef died and juxtaposed to it and the children of Yisrael were fruitful and teemed and grew and became very very mighty (Shemot 1:7). The verse teaches you that before the subjugation this blessing of teeming and might was sent among them, and after the subjugation began, they left off [lit. "breathed out from"] teeming and might, but fruitfulness and growth remained among them, and this is what it means as it says, "and as they oppressed them, so they multiplied and so they spread out" (Shemot 1:12) And a midrash: "The children of Yisrael were fruitful and teemed" (Shemot 1:7). "were fruitful" - what was their growth? The Torah says, "and they teemed" - six in one belly, as these teeming things. Perhaps they were low like teeming things? The Torah says "and grew" - they were tall. Perhaps they were weak? The Torah says "and became mighty". "Very very" - "very" in this world and "very" in the next, as it says "And you shall say to yourself, who birthed me these?" (Yeshayahu 49:21)

וימת יוסף וכל הדור ההוא, “Joseph and his whole generation died.” Ibn Ezra feels that the line וכל הדור ההוא, “and that whole generation,” refers to what follows, i.e. the connection with the following verse that introduces a new ruler in Egypt.

וכל הדור ההוא, the seventy souls mentioned.

And the children of Israel teemed and multiplied and increased and became exceedingly, exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them.

That there women did not miscarry and did not die when they were young. וישרצו AND THEY INCREASED ABUNDANTLY (more lit., they swarmed, a word used of the prolificness of reptiles) — they bore six children at one birth (the six words from פרו to מאד suggest or imply the number six) (Midrash Tanchuma, Shemot 5).

"And the children of Israel were fruitful (פָרוּ)" — they gave birth like a tree yielding its fruit. "And they swarmed (וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ)" — as in "the waters shall bring forth swarms (יִשְׁרְצוּ)" (Gen. 1:20); however, there are two kinds of verb: (1) the intransitive, which stands on its own, like הָלַךְ [walked], יָשַׁב [sat], עָמַד [stood], שָׁכַב [lay]; and (2) the transitive, which depends on another object, like אָכַל [ate], שָׁמַר [kept], שָׂכַר [hired]: אָכַל אֶת הַלֶּחֶם [ate the bread], שָׁמַר אֶת הַדָּבָר [kept the thing], שָׂכַר אֶת הַחֲמוֹר [hired the donkey] — these are called transitive verbs. Now, "the waters shall bring forth swarms" (Gen. 1:20) is transitive, whereas this second וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ is intransitive. This root [שׁרץ] is like the root of שָב: sometimes intransitive, as in "He will restore and gather you" (Deut. 30:3), and sometimes transitive, as in "Hashem your God will restore your captivity" (ibid.). Perhaps וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ alludes to the women giving birth to twins or more; I myself have seen one woman who gave birth to four children, and physicians give reasons [why] up to seven may be contained in one womb. "And they multiplied (וַיִּרְבּוּ)" — they were not dying as a large people normally would. "And they became very strong (וַיַּעַצְמוּ)" — they were robust and powerful. The phrase "very, very greatly (בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד)" means they could not have increased more; and the בְּ of בִּמְאֹד is like the בְּ of "and they journeyed first (בָּרִאשֹׁנָה)" (Num. 10:13), corresponding to "they that were first shall journey (רִאשׁוֹנָה)" (ibid. 2:9). "And the land was filled" — that is, the land of Goshen. "רַעְמְסֵס" — with a silent sheva under the ayin: the first sheva, under the ayin which is joined to the resh, is silent, while the second, under the mem, is mobile, as it begins a new syllable.

פרו וישרצו, after the last of the original 70 migrants had died, their whole lifestyle became more like that of creeping insects, creatures headed for destruction. This is why when ויקם מלך חדש על מצרים אשר לא ידע את יוסף, although there can be no question that in the annals of Egyptian history the 80 year reign of Joseph and his legislation saving Egypt from the famine was duly recorded, as well as how he legislated that the whole land would belong to Pharaoh and the farmers would become his tenants, it did not occur to anyone to associate the Hebrews of his time with the family of Joseph who had been so highly esteemed. The idea that the present day Hebrews deserved special consideration on account of their illustrious forbears did not occur to anyone observing the way these Hebrews behaved at that time.

ובני ישראל פרו וישרצו. “in the interval, the Israelites had been fruitful, and become prolific;” this confirms that G-d’s promise to Yaakov that his family while in Egypt would become numerous and develop into a nation had been fulfilled. (Genesis 46,3) ותמלא הארץ אותם, and the land became full of them.” The word אותם here must be understood as if the Torah had written: מהם, “filled with them.” Seeing that the root of the word אותם is את, “with,” this is not strange at all. Compare Leviticus: 22,28, אותו ואת בנו, “it and its young.” We also find the word את on occasion as meaning: “from,” as in Exodus9,29, when Moses says: כצאתי את העיר, meaning: “when I go out from the city.” Another example would be: חלה את רגליו, “being sick from his feet and up.” (Kings I 15,23.)

And the children of Israel were fruitful and multiplied abundantly. Since the text had already mentioned that Joseph died along with all his brothers and that entire generation, but it did not mention the death of Jacob because Jacob did not truly die, and this merit — that they were the children of Israel — remained forever. Therefore it says: And the children of Israel, by virtue of being the sons of Israel, were fruitful and multiplied abundantly, etc. And the reason it says, “children of Israel” and not “children of Jacob” is because the name Jacob represents the physical, while Israel represents the spiritual, as the materiality had already been removed from Jacob. “And they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.” It should have said, “very very” [instead of “exceedingly”]. What is meant by “bemeod” [with might]? Rather, it wants to teach that they became wealthy also in possessions, which is called “meod” [might/wealth], as it is written and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:5). This is what it means: “and they grew strong with might [bemeod]” — meaning with possessions that are called “might,” and with that “might” they grew very strong. Therefore, Pharaoh planned to bring them to poverty, as it is written: and they placed tax collectors over them, because through the taxes they would pay, they would come to poverty. And for this Pharaoh was punished, because the building caused him to become poor, as it says: and he built storage cities for Pharaoh, and as our Sages of blessed memory said, (Yevamot 63a) One who engages in building becomes impoverished. “And the land was filled with them.” It should have said, “and the land was filled from them.” What does “them” [in this context] mean? Rather, the land caused them to be fruitful and multiply, as we explained above on the verse and may they proliferate abundantly like fish within the land (Genesis 48:16) — literally within it, as our Sages said (Shemot Rabbah 1:12): The Egyptians sought to kill them, but a miracle occurred and they were absorbed into the ground, and [the Egyptians] would plow over them. Afterwards, they would sprout and rise up, as it is said: (Ezekiel 16:7): I made you as numerous as the plants of the field, etc. According to this, if the land had not covered them, they would not have multiplied so greatly. Thus, the land caused them to be so numerous. Therefore, it does not say that they filled the land, but rather that the land filled them. We can further interpret the term “vayishretzu” [they swarmed] to mean that after Joseph died, along with all his brothers and that entire generation of righteous people who had protected them, from then on they became as lowly as creeping things of the dust in the eyes of the Egyptians. Therefore it says, “vayishretzu” [they swarmed].

ובני ישראל פרו, “and the Children of Israel were fruitful;” in spite of the fact that the Egyptians oppressed them in order to limit their natural increase. Not only did they keep increasing in numbers, but they increased disproportionately, as do vermin. וירבו, “they multiplied,” they did not die in the manner other people die, i.e. leaving replacements for themselves, but they left behind far more than that. ויעצמו, “they became powerful;” they were all physically exceptionally strong specimens, in spite of the fact that most were born as twins. במאד מאד, “very greatly indeed.” They had reached their full physical potential.

פרו, the number of pregnancies; וירבו, the number of births. All the infants born grew up healthy, there were no deaths of children as could normally be expected. ויעצמו, they did not even die in early adulthood, but they were all healthy specimens. במאד מאד, until the whole country became full of them, ותמלא הארץ אותם. The Torah describes a perception of fullness, much as Ezekiel 10,4 describing והחצר מלאה את נוגה כבוד ה', “the inner courtyard was filled with the glow of the Glory of Hashem.” This was a perception, not something tangible. Similarly, Isaiah 6,1 ושוליו מלאים את ההיכל, “and its skirts filled the Sanctuary.”

'ובני ישראל וגו, and the children of Israel multiplied etc.” according to Sh’mot Rabbah 1,8 this is a hint that Jewish women gave birth to sixtuplets, [or according to a different interpretation of that Midrash, that they became pregnant in much more frequent cycles so that they gave birth six times within a nine month period. Ed.] The six words in the verse all relating to multiplying are understood as a hint of this. If you were to think that many of these infants did not survive, the Torah writes: “they multiplied,” i.e. they all grew up normally.

And a new king arose over Egypt, who did not uphold the decree of Joseph.

ויקם מלך חדש NOW THERE AROSE A NEW KING — Rab and Samuel (two Amoraim or Talmudical teachers) differed in their interpretation of these words. One said that he was really a new king; the other said that it was the same king but he made new edicts (Sotah 11a). אשר לא ידע WHO KNEW NOT [JOSEPH] — he comported himself as though he did not know him (Sotah 11a).

"And a new king arose" — the plain meaning is as it reads, with no addition: he was not of royal lineage, which is why it says וַיָּקָם [arose/came to power], as in "because your son has set up (הֵקִים) my servant" (1 Sam. 22:5).

A NEW KING AROSE OVER EGYPT, ETC. Even though there was certainly a recording of this in the royal chronicles, specifically with respect to the new legislation that he enacted, the possibility did not occur to the new king of his being from this people, or that it would be appropriate to accord recognition to his people on his account.

ויקם מלך חדש, “a new king arose.” Some commentators, citing the fact that the death of the previous king has not been reported, claim that the Torah speaks about the same King (body), but that his attitude vis a vis the Israelites underwent such a change that he might as well have been a different king altogether. Examples of the verb קום, “to arise,” being used in this sense can be found in Job 24,14: לאור יקום רוצח, “the murderer arises with the light;” or Psalms 27,12: כי קמו בי עדי שקר, “for false witnesses have taken the stand against me.”

“And a new king arose over Egypt, etc.” The term “arising” we do not find with a king, for it should have said “and a new king reigned over Egypt” — what is meant by “arose”? It seems that the term “arising” applies to someone who rises up against his fellow to harm him, as it is written And Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him (Genesis 4:8). And it is written: For as when a man rises against his neighbor and murders him (Deuteronomy 22:26), similarly this tyrannical king, through the schemes he devised against Israel against the will of God, blessed be He — even though he saw that God was with them in that they were being fruitful and multiplying in an unnatural way, nevertheless he wanted to outsmart the Blessed One. Through this, he caused God to return his schemes upon his own head through the plagues of wrath and anger that God sent upon them, as it is written: Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed? (Exodus 10:7) From this, it seems as if he [the king] arose against them [the Egyptians] to bring all those plagues upon the Egyptians. And he said, “who did not know Joseph,” meaning he did not know what happened to Joseph, that his brothers tried with all their might to destroy him and nullify his dreams, but all their schemes were unsuccessful, because God’s will was with Joseph to elevate him, and the word of our God stands forever. Similarly, Pharaoh said, lest they multiply against the will of God who had said, so shall they multiply, and he devised plans against them but did not succeed, just as Joseph’s brothers did not succeed. And in every way that he rose up against Israel, that very rising up came back upon the Egyptians, and His wrath descended upon their heads.

ויקם מלך חדש, “a new king arose.” According to Ibn Ezra the way the Torah introduces the new king is proof that he did not belong to the dynasty that had ruled Egypt up to that point. A similar phrase is used in Samuel I 22,8 הקים בני את עבדי עלי, “my own son has set my servant in ambush against me.”

ויקם מלך חדש, “a new king (dynasty) arose;” this was the first Pharaoh. The Egyptians suggested to him to join the Hebrews politically. The king said to them, how can we do this, seeing that thus far we have prospered thanks to them? The Egyptians did not like this and removed this new king from the throne for a period of three months. After the three months had elapsed, the king told the people that he was willing to change his attitude on the subject and to oppose the Hebrews. This is why the Torah wrote the word ויקם מלך חדש, “a new king;” The Torah did not report that the old king had died, as is customary.(Sh’mot Rabbah 1,8) אשר לא ידע את יוסף, “who had not known Joseph.” Rabbi Yehudah ben Levi understands this line as a parable. There was someone who insulted the picture of the King. Having gotten away with that, the following week he insulted the king himself. The new king began by insulting the Jews, and when successful, proceeded to insult the G–d of the Jews. (Compare Sh’mot 5,20)

And he said to his people: Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and mightier than we.

"And he said to his people" — the Egyptians. "Behold, the people" — the word עַם [people] is not in construct state; rather, "the children of Israel" is its explanation and elaboration, as in "I AM WHAT I AM (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה)" (below, 3:14) and "before whom my fathers walked, Abraham and Isaac" (Gen. 48:15). "מִמֶּנּוּ" — in every word of this form in the books of Eastern scribes, the nun is raphé [soft] as the rule requires, to distinguish it from מִמֶּנּוּ פִּנָּה (Zech. 10:4), which is third-person singular and has a dagesh as required. In all books of Western scribes, both are dagesh — whether first-person singular or third-person plural. As for מִמֶּנִּי in the first person, it has a dagesh, contrary to the usual pattern, since the word אֲנִי has a raphé; and so too נַחֲנִי ה' (Gen. 24:27). The word מִן is doubled [when suffixed], so the nun of מִמֶּנִּי takes a dagesh to compensate for the missing second nun — as though it were מִמֶּנְנִי — for the first nun goes with the mem as if it were מִן, and the נִי is the first-person suffix. Therefore אִישׁ מִמֶּנּוּ (Gen. 23:6), which is third-person plural, is as though it were מִמֶּנְנוּ; and the dagesh of the nun in מִמֶּנּוּ compensates for the elided ה, since one may say מֵן יִשְׁמֹר — [as in] יִשְׁמְרוּ, אֲשֶׁר יִקְרְאוֹ (Jer. 23:6), אִיּוֹב יִרְדְּפוֹ (Hos. 8:3) — this [short form] is rare; the common form is יִשְׁמְרֶהוּ (Ps. 41:3), shortened to יִשְׁמְרוּ, like וְהִנֵּהוּ עֹשֶׂה מְלָאכָה (Jer. 18:3), which is like וְהִנֵּה הוּא, and וְהִנֵּה נִצָּב (Num. 23:6). Sometimes the nun is added: יְשַׁחֲרוּנַּנִי וְלֹא יִמְצָאוּנַּנִי (Prov. 1:28), תְּבָרְכַנִּי נַפְשְׁךָ (Gen. 27:19 — meaning תְּבָרְכְנַנִּי), זֹבֵחַ תּוֹדָה יְכַבְּדָנַּנִי (Ps. 50:23), יְסֹבְבֶנְהוּ, יְבוֹנְנֶהוּ, יִצְּרֶנְהוּ (Deut. 32:10); and sometimes the ה is absorbed into the nun, as in וְלֹא יִשְׁמְרֶנּוּ בְּעָלָיו (below, 21:29).

ויאמר אל עמו הנה עם בני ישראל, He said to his people: "here we have the nation of the children of Israel, etc." The expression הנה in this verse may be understood once we remember the interpretation of Genesis 34,30 where Jacob censured his sons saying עכרתם אותי, "you have made my image clouded" (as opposed to clearly transparent). Bereshit Rabbah 80,12 states that Jacob and the Canaanites had a long standing tradition that the Jews would overpower the Canaanites. This was supposed to take place after the Jews numbered at least 600.000. Now that Shimon and Levi had jumped the gun by destroying the inhabitants of Shechem, Jacob was afraid that such a premature action would backfire. Pharaoh, king of Egypt referred to this ancient prediction that the Jewish people would display such military strength, when he observed how the Jews constantly gained in numbers and vigour. הנה, i.e. the time has arrived of which the prophecy foretold. הבה נתחכמה לו פן ירבה, "let us outsmart them before they become more numerous, etc." If we do not put a stop to their population explosion they will do exactly what the prophecy had forecast, namely ועלה מן הארץ, "they will move back to the land of Canaan and destroy our Canaanite brothers." Egypt's first decree against such a possibility had been a ban on Jews leaving the country. The word הנה may also be understood as follows: הנה עם, "this here nation," i.e. they are a people different from any other. Every other nation is an amalgamation of a number of different peoples. Not so the Jewish people. They are monolithic, like a single block. When Pharaoh added the words רב ועצום, he explained that the strength of the Jewish nation lay in its singlemindedness and unity of purpose. Because of this they represented a danger totally disproportionate to their actual numbers. Most military commanders are familiar with the phenomenon of a small, elite, but highly motivated force. There is another aspect of the words רב ועצום. They are רב, i.e. they multiply at an unnatural rate; ועצום, although it is well known that multiple births usually result in the children being below average weight, physique, etc., in the case of the Jewish people this was not so. Not only did they multiply at a phenomenal rate, but they were all physically healthy specimens. In fact each individual Jew, though in most instances the product of a multiple birth, was ועצום ממנו, physically stronger than any of us Egyptians. As a result, the only way to counter their physical predominance was to outsmart them. The word ממנו would then refer only to the word עצום, and not to the word רב. Yet another way of understanding the sequence רב ועצום ממנו, is that the king stated that the fact that the Jews had developed as they did was by taking something that should have belonged to the Egyptians, ממנו, "from us." He wanted to forestall any argument by his countrymen who would protest the injustice of suddenly declaring part of their citizenry as inferior, as ...

ויאמר אל עמו, “he said to his people: he initiated this new policy. Our sages in tractate Sotah foliol 1, state that there were three advisors of this king who were discussing how to preempt a saviour of the Israelites who would take them out of their land.[We must remember that a “people” who had come to Egypt only about 100 years previously, numbering only twelve families, and who had meanwhile multiplied and not only not assimilated, but had come to be viewed as an existentialist threat to the original Egyptians, were known to have a powerful G-d, and the Egyptians had made a point to know the source of this people’s strength. They had studied the traditions of that “people.” Ed.] The most radical advisor of Pharaoh among the three advisors, Yitro, Job and Bileam, was the latter who advised Pharaoh to commit genocide. Some of you my readers may wonder how Bileam, could have been alive still in the days of Balak when he had already been a senior advisor of Pharaoh, before Moses had been born even? This question is especially relevant in light of the tradition according to which Bileam was thirty three years old? He was still alive when the people killed him in the war against Midian in the 40th year in the desert, at which time Moses was almost 120 years old! According to the Talmud in Sanhedrin folio 106, when a heretic asked a Rabbi how old Bileam was when he was killed he was told that he was 33 or 34 years old, based on the fact that the wicked supposedly do not even reach the halfway mark of a normal lifespan of 70 years. The Rabbi who had given this answer had not been accurate, as he had based himself on the statement by Mar de brey de Ravino to his son, a scholar in the immediate post Talmudic period, according to which although we are asked to report historic events accurately, Bileam is an exception, as if one can find a way to make him look worse even than he was, we have full latitude to do so. There is an opinion according to which the Bileam who was an advisor to Pharaoh was not the same as the one we encounter in the Book of Numbers. The one mentioned here was the grandfather of the one who blessed the Jewish people in Numbers. There is also an opinion according to which there were three men who hatched the plot to seduce the Israelites to engage in sexual relations with the daughters of Moav, but that this had nothing to do with what is reported here.

“Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we.” He added the word “people” because he should have [just] said “Behold, the children of Israel.” Also, why does it say, and he said to his people — did he speak to all the people? It should have said “and he said to his officers and his wise men.” Rather, Pharaoh said to them that it is not proper for two opposing nations to dwell in one country. Therefore, it says, “and he said to his people” for the sake of his people, meaning to say that “you are a unique people in the land, but behold, the people of the children of Israel” — for the children of Israel have also become a people themselves. In a short time, they became numerous, and even though they are not yet more numerous than us, nevertheless they are stronger than us; they are naturally mighty. For all twins tend to be naturally weak, but here six were born in one womb and nevertheless they are naturally stronger than we are. Therefore, “let us deal wisely with him lest he multiply” — for in addition to their natural strength, they might also become more numerous than us. And even though with the word “multiply” it is not yet clear that they would be more numerous than them, nevertheless he continued and clarified his words afterward and said, “and it will happen that when war occurs, they will add to our enemies.” It is as if he said “and he will also add against us,” meaning they are already stronger than us, and if they multiply further, then they will also increase against us. And the word “also” refers to [being beside] their strength. And that which he said “against our enemies” is like one who attributes his curse to his enemies, saying they will become numerous against our enemies, though his main intention is to say they will become numerous against us. And he did not want to say “against us” to attribute the curse to himself, so he attributed it to his enemies, saying they will be numerous and additional against our enemies. Even though regarding strength he attributed it to himself, saying “stronger than us” because this was already the case, but the multiplication that was to occur in the future he did not want to attribute to himself. And according to what our Rabbis of blessed memory expounded, (Shemot Rabbah 1:9) Come, let us deal wisely with him, [refers to] the Savior of Israel. It seems appropriate to explain that the word “than us” [mimenu] also refers to the Holy One, Blessed be He, similar to how they interpreted (Sotah 35a) the verse for he is stronger than us (Numbers 13:31) — as if even the master of the house cannot remove his vessels from there. Similarly, “and mightier than us” refers to the Holy One, Blessed be He, with the letter nun in “mimenu” vowelized with a cholam [mimeno, which means, “than/from Him”]. The meaning is that all of Israel’s strength is drawn to them from Him, blessed be He, namely from the source of Israel. Therefore, Come, let us deal wisely with him/Him [refers to] their source, namely their Savior. Or it may say “and mightier than Him” literally. For they are mightier than Him, blessed be He, as our Sages said (Moed Katan 16b): “The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: ‘I rule over everything, but who rules over Me? The righteous person,’ as it is said Righteous, ruling in the fear of God (2 Samuel 23:3):, [meaning] that I decree a decree and the righteous person cancels it.” And certainly their main strength and might is because they cling to His commandments and observe His laws. Therefore, let us deal wisely with them — to create space between what clings together, for by making them evil and sinful to God, their strength will depart. As the commentators explained on the verse And the Egyptians treated us badly and afflicted us (Deuteronomy 26:6), for it should have said “the Egyptians acted badly to us” [with the preposition “to us” rather than “us” as a direct object]. Rather, it uses “us” [as a direct object] to say that the Egyptians made us evil and sinful to God, and through this, “they afflicted us.” And behold, the words of the commentators are true, that the Israelites in Egypt were wicked and sinful as it says in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:5-7) And I made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, etc. Let each man cast away the detestable things of his eyes, etc. However, in the Torah we do not find a hint at the time of the event to this. Therefore, it seems to me that this verse which says, Come, let us deal wisely with them refers to the cunning they used against them, to cause them to sin. And they put taskmasters over them to oppress them with their burdens — to levy a tax for the priests of idolatry, which is similar to actually worshiping idolatry, as Rashi explained in the portion of Ki Tavo on the verse And there you shall serve other gods (Deuteronomy 28:64). Therefore it says, in order to afflict him with their burdens, which is very similar to what is said: And the Egyptians treated us badly and afflicted us, meaning that by making us wicked and sinful, they found a way to afflict us because then they could overpower us. So it says here, And they put tax officers over him to give taxes to idolatry in order to afflict him, because from this it followed that they were able to afflict them with their burdens, since their divine protection was removed when they turned away from following God. And perhaps this is what is meant by And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. For this entire verse seems superfluous. It could be that it hints that by imposing tax officers over them, it was as if they made them serve idolatry. Therefore it says, And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor [be-farech] — that they made them serve idolatry at first with a soft mouth [pe rach] through incitement and enticement, and afterwards with rigor [be-farech] for actual service through compulsion. Therefore they made their lives bitter, for regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, it says, For He is your life, etc. (Deuteronomy 30:20). And because they turned away from following God, they made their lives bitter with hard work [avodah kashah], meaning with idolatry which is difficult [kashah] and evil. And afterwards with mortar and with bricks, and with all manner of work in the field — thus general work in the field is mentioned, and afterwards it says, all their work, meaning also work in the city. So how do I interpret they made their lives bitter with hard work? Rather, it hints that they defiled them with their idols through strange and difficult forms of worship, as mentioned. And because they were among those who cause the masses to sin, for whom no opportunity is provided to repent, therefore God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and his servants. And with this, the question which the early commentators struggled with regarding the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is resolved.

Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it shall come to pass that if war should encounter us, they too will join our enemies and make war against us and go up from the land.

הבה נתחכמה COME ON, LET US DEAL WISELY — Wherever הבה is used it has the meaning of preparing oneself and making oneself ready to do a particular matter; it signifies as much as: get yourself ready for this (cf. Rashi on Genesis 11:4 and Rashi on Genesis 38:16). נתחכמה לו LET US DEAL WISELY WITH THEM (לו more lit., with him) — i. e. with the people (the word לו, which is singular, refers to עם used in the preceding verse in the phrase עם בני ישראל): let us consider wisely what to do to them. Our Rabbis, however, explained that the singular לו refers to God, and that the words mean: “let us use our wisdom against Him who would show Himself Israel’s deliverer, by sentencing them to death by water, since He has already sworn that He will not bring another flood upon the world, and He will therefore be unable to punish us ‘measure for measure’, as is His way.”) ועלה מן הארץ AND HE WILL GO UP OUT OF THE LAND, against our will. Our Rabbis explained that they spoke like a person who is pronouncing a curse against himself but attaches the curse to others (because he does not wish to use an ominous expression of himself), so that it is as though Scripture wrote “and we shall have to go up out of the land” and they will take possession of it (Sotah 11a).

COME, LET US DEAL WISELY WITH HIM. Pharaoh and his wise counsellors did not see fit to slay them by the sword, for it would have been a gross treachery to smite without reason a people that had come into the land by command of a former king. The people of the country also would not give the king consent to commit such perfidy since he took counsel with them, and all the more so since the children of Israel were a numerous and mighty people and would wage a great war against them. Rather, Pharaoh said he would do it wisely so that the Israelites would not feel that it was done in enmity against them. It is for this reason that he placed a levy upon them, as it was customary that strangers in a country contribute a levy to the king, as it is mentioned in the case of King Solomon. Afterwards he secretly commanded the midwives to kill the male children upon the birthstool so that even the mothers should not know it. Following that, he charged all his people, Every son that is born, ye — yourselves — shall cast into the river. Essentially, Pharaoh did not want to charge his executioners to slay them by the decree of the king or to cast them into the river. Rather, he said to the people that whoever would find a Jewish child should throw him into the river. Should the child’s father complain to the king or to the master of the city, they would tell him to bring witnesses and then they will exact vengeance [for the crime]. Now once the king’s restriction was removed, the Egyptians would search the houses, entering them at night, and indifferent [to the cries of the parents], would remove the children therefrom. It is therefore said, And when she could no longer hide him. It appears that this [decree to drown the Israelite children] lasted but a short time, for when Aaron was born [three years before Moses], the decree was not yet in existence, and when [shortly after] Moses was born, it appears that the decree was revoked. Perhaps it was through Pharaoh’s daughter, who, in her compassion for the child Moses, said to her father that he should not act in that way. It may be that when it became known that this decree was enacted by the king, he revoked it, or again it may be that it was revoked on account of the astrologers, as is the opinion of the Rabbis, since it was all done dexterously by them in order that the crime not be known. This is the meaning of the complaint made to Moses our teacher [by the officers of the children of Israel], Ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us, meaning, “Now they will increase their hatred of us and find justification for saying that we rebel against the government, and they will then openly slay us by the sword without the necessity of doing it slyly.” AND HE WILL GO UP ‘MIN’ (OUT OF) THE LAND. “I.e., ‘against our will.’ Our Rabbis explained that they spoke like a person who is pronouncing a curse against himself but assi...

"הָבָה" — "Bring me (הָבָה) my wife" (Gen. 29:21) is masculine, which is the correct form; the feminine is הָבִי הַמִּטְפַּחַת [bring the cloak] (Ruth 3:15), לְכִי וּבֹאִי [go and come] (1 Kings 1:13). Because these words are used so very frequently, one says הָבָה נֵרְדָה [come, let us go down] (Gen. 11:7), and for the feminine, הָבָה נָּא אָבֹוא אֵלַיִךְ [please let me come to you] (ibid. 38:16), just as one says לְכָה נִשְׁקֶה אֶת אָבִינוּ יַיִן [come, let us make our father drink wine] (ibid. 19:32). "נִתְחַכְּמָה" — let us devise a wise course to prevent their increase. "לוֹ" — on its account, as in "say of me (לִי), 'he is my brother'" (ibid. 20:13). Know that all past or future [finite] verbs [implicitly] carry the verbal noun (שֵׁם הַפֹּעֵל) in their force — meaning the nominal form derived from the verb is heard implicitly in the power of those verbs — as in "you have indeed blessed (בָּרֵךְ בֵּרַכְתָּ)" (Num. 23:11) and "he has blessed, and I cannot reverse it (וּבָרֵךְ וְלֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנָּה)" (ibid. v. 20), meaning "he has uttered a blessing"; and so too "but in the multitude of counselors (יוֹעֲצִים) it stands" (Prov. 15:22), the full form being: the counsel (עֵצָה) of counselors shall stand. So too כִּי תִקְרֶאנָּה קוֹרְאֹת מִלְחָמָה [when they call out a calling of war]. Rabbi Marinus held that the meaning of וְעָלָה מִן הָאָרֶץ is equivalent to "and they will come up against us (וְעָלֵינוּ)", and that the text speaks this way [euphemistically] so that the Adversary not have cause to open its mouth against them. In my view, however, there is no need for this.

הבה נתחכמה לו, let us not confront them frontally but let us outflank them. ועלה מן הארץ, of their own volition, without our having to expel them. If we do not have adequate reason to expel them we would become pariahs among our neighbours. If we were to do that, פן ירבה והיה כי תקראנה מלחמה, so that no additional problems would beset us, such as a war (compare Samuel II 13,39 ותכל דוד המלך, the king pined away), These words should be understood as a parenthesis. ונוסף גם הוא על שונאינו, at such a time they may display their hatred of us seeing that they have remained culturally incompatible with us both in practicing circumcision of their males, language, and in such practices as the way they eat meat only after the blood has been removed, etc. (compare Genesis 43,32). Let us therefore induce them to leave our country before it comes to this.

והיה כי תקראנה מלחמה, “it will be when war will break out, etc.” the word תקראנה refers to an unforeseen and unplanned event. One example in the Bible is Leviticus 10,19 when Aaron refers to the sudden death of two of his sons as such an event. The fact that the plural mode is used here is nothing exceptional, as we also find it again with this word in Numbers 10,9 when the use of the trumpets as a means of giving the alarm is discussed, i.e.וכי תבואו מלחמה, instead of וכי תבא מלחמה, “when war will come.”An alternate exegesis: the Torah here abbreviates instead of writing: כי תקראנה קורות מלחמה, “when warlike events will occur.” We find another verse with such grammatically unusual construction in Proverbs 15,22: וברב יועצים תקום, “when there are numerous counselors they will prevail.” The Hebrew word for “they will prevail is in the singular mode instead of in the plural mode as we would expect. When Bileam refuses to retract the blessings he gave to the Jewish people in Numbers 23,21 we also find such a grammatically puzzling construction. We have to imagine that the wording is: וברך ברכה לא אשיבנה, “a blessing once pronounced I cannot retract.”. ונוסף גם הוא על שונאנו, “and that in such an event, it (the Israelite nation), would make common cause with our enemies.” The word: שונאנו, literally meaning: “our enemies,” in reality refers to the Egyptians themselves. It is a figure of speech avoiding mentioning oneself in connection with a curse, as doing so is considered a bad omen. Another matter, joining our enemies will result in their leaving Egypt notwithstanding our need to keep them here.

הבה נתחכמה לו, “come on let us outsmart it!” Neither Pharaoh nor his servants wanted to do violence to the Israelites, as it would have been a major act of betrayal to commit genocide against an innocent nation that had settled in Egypt at the request of the previous king. He was afraid that even if he were to give an order to destroy these people his subjects would not obey that order. Moreover, the descendants of Ephrayim and Menashe possessed considerable influence in the highest governmental circles, and the very number of the Israelites would have made open warfare against them a highly dangerous undertaking. The Israelites would surely resist any attack upon them by violent means. Therefore, he imposed a form of taxation upon that nation, a common practice in those days. When this did not have the desired effect, he resorted to instructing the midwives who assisted the Jewish women at birth, to kill the male babies before the mothers had held them in their arms. This was done clandestinely, so that even the mothers were unaware that they had given birth to a male baby. When this proved impossible to carry out, he issued the decree to drown all male babies. Instead of the government killing the babies, the population was encouraged to drown Jewish babies when found, and if the father would protest he would be invited to prove his allegation in court by producing witnesses to that murder. He would be assured that if the murderer would be found he would be duly punished for what he had done. As the restrictions the king had imposed upon himself were gradually loosened, many of his people would enter Jewish homes at night, misrepresenting themselves, searching for recently born boy babies. They would snatch these babies. This is why the Torah reports that Yocheved, after Moses was three months old, no longer risked hiding him at home. This situation was in effect for a relatively short period, as 3 years earlier, when Aaron had been born, this decree had not yet been in force. It appears to have been cancelled shortly after Moses’ birth, perhaps due to the intervention of the daughter of Pharaoh who had been audacious enough to save Moses’ life. It is also possible that the decree had been inspired by the astrologers who had predicted the birth of a saviour of the Jewish people on a certain day or in a certain month, as mentioned by our sages. This may also have been at the root of the overseers saying to Moses (and Aaron) 80 years later (Exodus 5,21) הבאשתם את ריחנו, “you have made our very scent abhorrent in the eyes of Pharaoh, etc.” They meant that until these “so called saviours” had given the Egyptians an excuse to deal harshly with the Jewish people, they had at least had to use subterfuge when applying discriminatory legislation. Now they felt entitled to repress the Jews with all their might openly. ועלה מן הארץ, “and go up from the land.” Rashi views this simile as similar to people who are superstitious enough not to mention possible disaster in the same breath as themselves, so what the Egyptians were really afraid of was not the emigration of the Jews, but their own expulsion from Egypt by the Israelites. It is also possible to explain these words at face value, i.e. that they were afraid that the Israelites would emigrate to the land of Canaan, taking with them all the chattels of the Egyptians.

נתחכמה לו, so that they will not increase further. In the event that they would continue to multiply and a war should break out between us and our enemies. The construction here is just as in Judges 5,26 ידה ליתד תשלחנה, “her left hand reached for the tent pin”. The word תשלחנה is in the plural mode although Devorah speaks of Yael using a single hand to do this. In our verse too the word תקראנה is unaccountably in the plural mode. כי תקראנה, as if the Torah had written כי תארענה, “if it were to happen.” ונלחם בנו ועלה מן הארץ, in order to return to the land of their ancestors. It would be disastrous for us to lose this source of cheap manpower. If that were to happen my kingdom would be an emaciated kingdom. [Pharaoh speaking of his loss of “face,” if he would allow the Jews to escape although they were also a great source of frustration. Ed.]

הבה נתחכמה לו, “let us try to outwit it” (the Jewish nation). The numerical value of the letters in the word הבה, is 12. What the king meant was to outsmart the twelve tribes of the Jewish people. According to Rashi, what the king meant was to outsmart the deity of the Jewish people. How did he think to accomplish this? Seeing that G–d had promised never to bring another deluge, and His method is to match the punishment to the crime, he thought that by drowning Jews in water, G–d would not be able to punish him appropriately. (Talmud, tractate Sotah, folio11). Our sages say that the king had three advisors who helped him figure out how to deal with the ever increasing number of Israelites. They were: Bileam, Job, and Yitro. Bileam was killed for having given the advice the king accepted. Job was subjected to severe afflictions. He had not disagreed, but kept silent on the king’s proposal. Yitro who left that meeting and decided to flee, was rewarded by some of his descendants eventually being able to make their home near the Temple. (Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 106, quoting Chronicles I 2,55.) According to the Talmud there, Bileam was only thirty three years old when Pinchas killed him during the punitive campaign against Midian reported in Numbers chapter 31. Our author, not surprisingly, questions the statement in the Talmud, seeing that if Bileam had been an advisor to the Pharaoh of whom the Torah speaks here, as that conversation took place before Moses was born and Moses was 119 years old when the campaign against Midian was fought. This is why Rabbi Menachem interprets the statement that when Bileam said to Balak in Numbers 24,14 before taking his leave: לכה איעצך, “I will now give you an advice,” and the Torah does not spell out what the advice was, but writes only what the Israelites will do to the Moabites in the distant future, that what he told him was that seeing the G–d of the Jewish most detests sexual promiscuity, he should arrange for the men of the Israelites to be seduced. (Compare Sanhedrin folio 106) As to the question raised by Rabbi Moshe that this advice of Bileam has been spelled out in the history of Moses’ life and been attributed there to the sorcerer Bileam, (compare a text quoted by Ibn Ezra on Exodus,2,22 and described by him as unreliable. Ed) Rabbi Menachem, quotes the Talmud tractate Zevachim folio 116 that at the time when G–d was ready to give the Torah to the Jewish people, all the gentile nations assembled around Bileam, fearful that another deluge was in the offing. They based themselves on the overwhelming sounds emanating from Mount Sinai at that time, as described in Exodus 19,16. Even if you were to assume that at that time Bileam was no older than twenty years of age, and that he was killed 40 years later during the campaign against Midian, i.e. when he was 60 years old, he clearly had not yet been born when the Pharaoh in our chapter of the Torah consulted how to stop the expansion of the Israelites in Egypt. There are books in which it is claimed that the gentile nations assembled around a person known as Kemuel, whom they asked about the imminence of another deluge. This interpretation is also not plausible, seeing that Kemuel was the founding father of the nation of Aram (Genesis 22, 21, who was a contemporary of Avraham and would have been over 500 years old at his death. Besides, according to B’reshit Rabbah, near the end of paragraph 57, this Kemuel is identified with Lavan, also identical with Kushan Rishatayim, i.e. Bileam. The reason given why he was also known as Kemuel, is that he rebelled against G–d his Creator. This comment is also listed in Sanhedrin folio 105. Why was Bileam’s father called בעור? This was because he had sexual relations with his she-ass, i.e. בעירו. He was also identical with Lavan, who was also known as כושן רשעתים, having been guilty of two sins, one in the days of Yaakov and one in the era of the Judges. From all this it is clear that he was תפל, someone of no value. This is the meaning of Job 30,11 כי יתרי פתח ויענני, “for the Lord has humbled me.” In the version by the Massoretes, the word יתרי is spelled יתרו, a reference to Moses’ father-in-law who had been present when Pharaoh consulted with his advisers how to deal with what he considered the danger of the multiplying Hebrews. Supposedly, he was the first to respond to Pharaoh’s question. This is difficult, as Job never fled, so how can we interpret the beginning of that verse in Job as applying to Yitro? We may have to answer that at that time Yitro was the most respected personage and he could have protested Pharaoh’s murderous intentions, but instead he was content to simply flee Pharaoh’s presence. This is why in the verse quoted Job accuses him of having failed.

And they appointed over them cruel officers in order to afflict them with their labor; and they built store cities for Pharaoh — Pithom and Rameses.

עליו [THEREFORE THEY DID SET] OVER THEM (עליו over him) i. e. over the people. מסים has the meaning of tribute (מס), a forced levy of labour, so that שרי מסים are the officers who exact the tribute of labour from them. And what was this tribute? That they should build store-cities for Pharaoh. למען ענותו בסבלותם TO AFFLICT THEM WITH THEIR BURDENS — i. e. the burdens of the Egyptians. ערי מסכנות — Translate this as the Targum does: CITIES WHICH ARE PLACES FOR TREASURES; similarly we have, (Isaiah 22:15) “Go, get thes unto this steward (הסוכן)” — the treasurer appointed over the stores (Exodus Rabbah 2:1). את פתם ואת רעמסס PITHOM AND RAMESES — These cities already existed but were not adapted originally for this purpose; now they strengthened them and fortified them to serve as store-cities.

SAREI MISIM’ (OFFICERS OF THE TRIBUTE) TO AFFLICT THEM. Pharaoh imposed a tribute upon the Israelite people to take men from them for the king’s projects. He appointed Egyptian officers over the tribute to take men at will in turns to serve for a month or more in the royal building-projects and the rest of the days [they remained] at home. These officers commanded the Israelites to build cities for Pharaoh, and the people built storage-cities for Pharaoh through this levy. When the Egyptians saw that this forced labor did not harm the Israelites, they were in dread for their own lives on account of them. They decreed that all Egyptians force the Israelites to serve them, so that any Egyptian who needed work done had the authority to take from them men to do his work. This is the meaning of the verse, And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. They furthermore decreed against them that they do hard work in mortar and in brick. Whereas at first the officers would give them the bricks and the men of the forced labor would erect the buildings, they now conscripted the entire Israelite people into the work, commanding them to bring the earth, make the mortar with their hands and feet while only the straw was given to them from the king’s house, and give the bricks to the men of the forced labor engaged in the construction of the buildings. Every other manner of hard service in the field for Pharaoh and the Egyptians — such as excavations and the removal of dung — were all imposed upon them. In addition, they subjugated them, pressing them not to rest while beating and cursing them. This is the sense of the expression, in all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigor. The king supported them with sparing bread, as is customary for those who work in his service. This is the purport of those lusting persons who said, We remember the fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, etc. Fish are very abundant in Egypt, and by command of the king, the Israelites would obtain them from those who caught them. They would also take cucumbers and melons from the vegetable-gardens, no one putting them to shame, for such was the king’s command. But our Rabbis have said: “The Israelites were servants to kings, but not servants to servants.” If so, the verse, And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, alludes to Pharaoh’s officers of the tribute, [mentioned above in Verse 11].

"מִסִּים" [forced levies] — the singular is מַס, like פִּתִּים (Lev. 2:6) whose singular is פַּת (Gen. 18:5); these come from verbs of the doubled-root type. The purpose of afflicting them was to dry up the male seed. "מִסְכְּנוֹת" [store-cities] — treasuries, as in "to the steward (הַסֹּכֵן)" (Isa. 22:15) and "there was a young woman who was the king's attendant (סֹכֶנֶת)" (1 Kings 1:4), a keeper of the treasury, one whose lying in one's bosom was not known. "רַעַמְסֵס" — with a patah under the ayin; and this was not in the territory of Israel.

למען ענותו, so that as an alternative they will agree to emigrate from our land. ויבן ערי מסכנות, they volunteered to accept as a form of taxation to build these storage cities for Pharaoh to prove their loyalty to Egypt.

וישימו עליו שרי מסים, They set taskmasters over them, etc. Where was the superior intelligence in applying brute force to the Jewish people? This was not an act of wisdom! Besides, why did the Jews appear to have accepted this procedure without protest? Why did the people who were famed for employing their brains suddenly become bricklayers? The sages in Sotah 11 describe the enslavement of the Jewish population as having occurred progressively; they were sweet-talked into volunteering their services for patritotic reasons until they suddenly found their labour not only as being taken for granted but they could not withdraw it from their superiors. This whole process must have started somewhow. We must assume therefore that before appointing taskmasters, the Egyptians appealed to the Israelites to demonstrate patriotism in return for all the good the Egyptians had done for them during the previous century. The plain meaning of the verse, however, seems to be that force was used to make the Israelites become bricklayers. The words: "let us outsmart them" must therefore not be applied to the details of the enslavement but to the drowning of Israelite babies in the sea as discussed by the Midrash. At first glance, the words "in order to oppress them" seem superfluous; the intent was clear without these words. We must also analyse why the Torah needed to add the word בסבלותם, "during their forced labour." What precisely is this word meant to exclude? Perhaps the shrewdness of the Egyptians can be understood thus: Pharaoh no doubt had a team of engineers and builders who were civil servants employed in the construction of towns, etc. Such engineers were known as Mass. The word occurs in that context in Kings I 5,27. The 30.000 people described there as מס were the ones appointed over the total work force of over 150.000 described as doing the preparatory work for building the Holy Temple. Pharaoh appointed such people to guide the inexperienced Israelites in their labours. The Israelites were not able to object to this as the fact that they were being bossed by qualified engineers was not demeaning seeing they themselves were novices in that field. The Torah adds that the intention of the Egyptians in appointing these engineers as taskmasters was not because of their superior skills as the Israelites assumed, but to assert progressively harsher pressures and discipline on the Israelite labourers. The Egyptians withheld vital data from the Israelites without which the tasks allotted to the Israelite labourers could not be successfully completed. The Israelites therefore depended on the help of these engineers which gradually turned from help to oppression. This is what our sages had in mind when they spoke about the Egyptians sweet-talking the Israelites into forced labour, i.e. פה דך turned in to פרך.

למען ענותו בסבלותם, ‘in order to oppress them with forced labour;” in this instance this is a veiled reference to diminishing the labourers’ ability of engaging in marital intercourse due to being overworked. [The Egyptians’ purpose was to control the Jewish birthrate explosion. Ed.] We find an example of the use of the verb ענה in this context in Genesis 31,50 where Lavan warns Yaakov against denying his daughters marital relations by sleeping with other women instead. Our sages also used this expression in this context when they are quoted as accusing the Egyptians of doing this in the Haggadah of Passover. It is paraphrased there as פרישות דרך ארץ, “abstention from marital relations.”

שרי מסים, “taskmasters;” Jewish officials who would select men from among their people whom they considered as fit to perform hard physical labour at the command of the King. In turn, Pharaoh appointed officials of his own to supervise the activities of these Jewish taskmasters. The taskmasters would designate what precisely these servants were to do and where, in this case that they were to build fortified cities by means of laying the bricks for the buildings involved. When the Egyptian overseers became aware that this stratagem did not slow down the birth rate of the Israelites, they decreed that Egyptians generally were allowed to impose all kinds of menial labour on Israelites whom they chose for that purpose. This is why the Torah speaks of the Egyptians generally enslaving the Israelites, i.e.ויעבידו מצרים את בני ישראל בפרך, “the Egyptians (man in the street) enslaved the Israelites imposing harsh conditions.” They added a new element to the hardship by not only making the Israelites build with bricks supplied by them, but by expecting them to also make the bricks themselves. An additional hardship imposed was that they were made to perform labour in the fields, something the Israelites had not been trained to do. This was not constructive work such as sowing and planting, but digging canals, reservoirs, etc. The Torah emphasizes that the conditions under which all these tasks were performed were quite intolerable, and the food supplied by the king for these labourers was minimal and unappetizing. We can understand how ungrateful the Israelites who had been redeemed from such conditions must have been when they longingly looked back on that period in Numbers 11,5 implying that the only redeeming feature of the fish that Pharaoh had supplied had been that they did not have to catch the fish or pay for them. Similarly, gourds, melons, garlic and other low ranking produce they had been able to help themselves to as their staple diet in the fields in which they had been made to work. Our sages view the word לפרעה, “for Pharaoh,” in our verse as meaning that they consoled themselves by being slaves of Pharaoh, instead of slaves of Pharaoh’s slaves. If so, we must understand the line ויעבידו מצרים את בני ישראל as referring back to the phrase וישימו עליו שרי מסים, “they imposed taskmasters upon them.”

מיסים, typically one of the words with double consonants, the singular being מס and the plural requiring a dagesh in the letter ס to show there really ought to have been two letters ס in the middle. Similar examples are found in Leviticus 2,6 where the line פתות אותה פתים is spelled with the dagesh in the letter ת of the word פתים as being derived from פת it would require two such consonants in the plural. מסכנות, storages. You find the word as סוכן in the singular mode, in the same sense in Isaiah 22,15.

ערי מסכנות, “cities for storing goods.” In the Talmud, tractate Sotah folio 11, there are two opinions offered concerning the word מסכנות, One derives it from סכנה, hazard, danger, and accordingly concludes that anyone engaging in building something endangers himself. The other opinion derives it from מסכן, a poor person, suggesting that Pharaoh’s objective was to impoverish the Hebrews by making them do this kind of labour. פיתום, name of one of the cities the Hebrews built; according to the Talmud there, so named as it was built near an abyss, threatening to bury its builders. רעמסס, name of the second city, symbolising the fact that the first city they had built had completely collapsed. Our author has difficulty in understanding this interpretation, seeing that the Torah had described the building of having been the result of פרך, understood as an acronym for פה רך, ‘with a soft tongue,’ i.e. Pharaoh having lured the Hebrews to volunteer to build fortifications, appealing to their patriotism, etc., before gradually becoming far more demanding. At the beginning he paid for each brick made, so that the Hebrews stood in line to participate in the project.

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they grew strong; and the Egyptians were distressed because of the children of Israel.

וכאשר יענו אתו AND AS THEY AFFLICTED THEM — In whatsoever matter it was that they set their hearts upon afflicting them so was the heart of the Holy One, blessed be He, set upon multiplying them and making them grow apace. כן ירבה signifies: so they multiplied and so they grew apace (i. e. God’s determination was carried out, the imperfect tenses of the verbs denoting the continuance of the increase and growth). This is the real meaning; but there is a Midrashic explanation of these imperfect tenses: The Holy spirit (God) said this: You say פן ירבה, “lest they increase”, but “I” say כן ירבה, “thus will they assuredly increase” (Sotah 11a). ויקצו the word means, THEY WERE WEARY OF THEIR LIVES. Our Rabbis explained that it means that they were as thorns (קוצים) in their eyes (cf. Sotah 11a).

"And as they afflicted him" — even with the affliction, he continued to increase, as in the days when they were not afflicted. "יִפְרֹץ" — they burst beyond the limit in being fruitful and multiplying, as in "and one who breaks through a fence (פֹּרֵץ גָּדֵר)" (Eccl. 10:8).

וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה, The more they oppressed them the more they increased. There is a beautiful explanation by the Zohar second volume page 95 on Kohelet 8,9. Solomon says that "there is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment." The Zohar explains that when one has to endure persecution and troubles, the good [which may have been mixed with the evil. Ed.] is distilled from the evil joining other areas which are totally good; by the same token the evil of that mixture joins other areas of pure evil. These two details are hinted at when Solomon speaks of לרע לו. Similarly, the Torah here tells us the same thing. The more persecution the Israelites suffered the more "good" was released from what had been only a mixture of good and evil previously. With the release of that "good", i.e. good qualities, the Israelite families merited having more and more children. Hence the Torah adds the words וכן יפרץ in the sense of ופרצת ימה וקדמה, "You will burst forth to the West and to the East, etc." Alternatively, the word may mean "it achieved a breaking forth" i.e. a separation from an environment in which the good had been forced to mix with the evil. The evil was now released and separated. This resulted in the famous "iron crucible" in which the character of the Israelite people was forged in Egypt. The plain meaning of the verse is that for every unjustified act of cruelty by the Egyptians, G'd compensated the Jewish people with a commensurate increase in the number of babies that were born to them. Additional hands enabled the parents to meet the work quota imposed upon them by the Egyptians. The words כן ירבה, "so they would multiply," would then mean that the additional number of children made up for the reduced performance by their weakened parents in proportion to the emasculating effect of the hard labour. This became a vicious circle as the Egyptians kept increasing the workload.

כן ירבה וכן יפרוץ, “so it would increase even more and multiply even more.” This was in line with G-d’s promise to Yaakov that his descendants would greatly multiply in Egypt. He told him not to worry about going to Egypt. (Genesis 46,3)

“And they were disgusted [vayakutzu] because of the children of Israel.” Rashi explains that [the Israelites] were like thorns [kotzim] in their eyes. He means to say that Israel appeared in their eyes like a painful thorn and a grievous brier. However, the language does not imply this, because it says: because of the children of Israel, so how were the Israelites like thorns because of the children of Israel? Furthermore, “vayakutzu” [with a shuruk] is in the passive form, which suggests it refers to the Egyptians and not to Israel. And if it meant to say that it was as if thorns had entered their bodies, it should have said “vayakutzu min bnei Yisrael” [from the children of Israel]. Therefore, it seems to me that the Egyptians appeared in their own eyes as thorns, because it is the way of the world to uproot thorns from a field in order to plant in their place a superior planting. As it is written: You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out nations and planted it. You cleared a place before it, and it took root and filled the land (Psalms 80:9-10). The Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to plant in the land of Israel a superior planting, namely Israel, which is a vineyard of red wine (Isaiah 27:2), and to uproot from there the nations who are compared to thorns. This is what the Egyptians thought after they saw God’s will that the people of Israel be fruitful and multiply exceedingly — surely it is God’s will that Israel be planted in the land of Egypt, and they [the Egyptians] would be like thorns cast yonder from the land. As it says: and he shall go up from the land — it should have said “and we shall go up,” but they attached their curse to others. And this is the meaning of vayakutzu mipnei bnei Yisrael — that the Egyptians appeared in their own eyes like thorns cast out from the land because of the children of Israel who would be planted in their place. Another explanation, And they felt a repugnance toward the children of Israel — as explained in the Midrash Rabbah on this portion (2:5): Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, reveal Himself to Moses in a thornbush? Rabbi Yosi says: Just as the thornbush is harsher than all other trees, and any bird that enters into it cannot exit safely, etc. Therefore it says vayakutzu [they felt a repugnance/were disgusted] because the Egyptians were compared to these thorns [kotzim]. When a bird enters into them, it enters easily, but when it wants to leave, it cannot because of the pricks of the thorns. Similarly, the Egyptians brought them [the Israelites] into servitude easily, with soft speech [bepeh rakh], and afterward with rigor [befarekh], for they did not allow them to leave from the servitude. Therefore, the verse vayakutzu is made adjacent to the term befarekh mentioned twice in the passage, because they are directly related to the meaning of vayakutzu — the Egyptians were compared to thorns cut down because of what they did to the children of Israel. That is why it says “because of the children of Israel.”

וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה, “they would continue to multiply in direct ratio to the degree of greater hardships imposed upon them.” This means that they maintained their birthrate at the same level as when they had been free men. וכן יפרוץ, “and they would proliferate ever more.” The term is borrowed from פורץ גדר, “making a breach in a fence,” (both literally and figuratively speaking, in this case making the efforts of the Egyptians to contain their birthrate ineffective). According to the commentators specializing in allegorical approaches, מדרש, the more the Egyptians tried to control the Jewish birthrate the more G’d blessed them by making them ever more fruitful.” This was most noticeable in the much smaller birthrate of the tribe of Levite, a tribe that remained exempt from performing slave labour. When the people were counted at the beginning of the Book of Numbers, the males of the tribe of Levi, even though they were counted already from one month up and not from twenty years up as the rest of the people, amounted to approximately 30-50% of the other tribes.

כן ירבה; the measures the Egyptians took to slow down the Jewish birthrate not only did not work but backfired. ויקוצו, they became frustrated with their own lives when watching the development of the Israelites. This expression for frustration with one’s own life has already been used when Rivkah could not bear thinking about Yaakov marrying a Canaanite girl. (Genesis 27,46) It also occurs in a similar sense in Isaiah 7,16.

And the Egyptians made the children of Israel toil with harshness.

בפרך means with hard service which crushes (מפרכת) the body and shatters it (cf. Sotah 11b).

"And they made them work (וַיַּעֲבִידוּ)" — he inflicted upon them many new evils: at first, to do his work; but when he saw this did not reduce their numbers, he gave the Egyptians and their officers authority to work them harder than the statute for [ordinary] slaves — that is בְּפָרֶךְ — and this is as the Aramaic translation renders it. To say in rhyme that פָּרֶךְ means «crushed work» is entirely incorrect. And when he saw that this too availed nothing, he summoned the midwives — who were the overseers of all the midwives — and commanded them to kill every male infant born.

ויעבידו, once the Egyptians observed how the Israelites debased themselves by performing menial labour they decided to enslave them. They did this by heaping sin upon sin, thereby defeating their plan and they went from bad to worse.

בפרך. An expression related to breaking something, The treatment of the Israelites was intended to break them mentally and physically. In the Talmud the term is used to describe the cracking of the outer shell of walnuts. (Beytzah 12)

And they embittered their lives with hard labor — with mortar and with bricks and with every kind of labor in the field; all the toil with which they made them toil was with harshness.

"And they made their lives bitter (וַיְמָרְרוּ)" — it is well known that the tav ending is mostly a sign of feminine [plural] and the mem ending a sign of masculine, as מוֹעֲדוֹת (2 Chron. 8:13) and מוֹעֲדִים (Gen. 1:14). The way of the Spanish grammarians [is to say] that the verbal stems are fixed and no letter of the root is lost; but this is not so — only nominal forms [i.e., nouns and adjectives] are attested as they are found, because the singular of מוֹעֲדוֹת is מוֹעֵד, not מוֹעֵדָה, as that wise man in his own eyes would say: from מָקוֹם [place] one would say מְקוֹמִים, and from מְקוֹמוֹת a singular מְקוֹמָה — perhaps he will open his eyes and see that from בְּכוֹר [firstborn] one says בְּכוֹרִים, as in "who struck Egypt in their firstborn (בִּבְכוֹרֵיהֶם)" (Ps. 136:10), and there is also וּבְכֹרֹת בְּקַרְךָ (Deut. 14:23), which would make the singular בְּכוֹרָה; likewise לְבֵנִים [bricks], whose singular would be לְבֵנָה, not לְבֵן. The meaning of "with mortar and with bricks" is: to build houses and fences, also to plow and harvest, to prune and to pick — this is "all work in the field" — and then he summarized it as "all their work" for their own needs. "אֲשֶׁר עָבְדוּ בָהֶם" — they served them on account of [their position as] workers; they worked them in them with crushing labor. The root עָבַד without the following ב denotes the labor of a slave, as in "I served you (עֲבַדְתִּיךָ)" (Gen. 30:26); with the following ב it has two meanings: (1) on account of, as in "Israel served for a wife (בְּאִשָּׁה)" (Hos. 12:13); and (2) as in לֹא תַעֲבֹד בוֹ בְּפָרֶךְ [you shall not work him with crushing labor], in the manner of "in which was never worked (אֲשֶׁר לֹא עֻבַּד בָּהּ)" (Deut. 21:3), and likewise אֲשֶׁר לֹא יַעֲבֹד בּוֹ (ibid. v. 4), for it is written "and the desolate land shall be tilled (תֵּעָבֵד)" (Ezek. 36:34) — and on this pattern, "as the lender is, so the borrower (כַּנֹּשֶׁה כַּאֲשֶׁר נָשָׁה בוֹ)" (Isa. 24:2).

וימררו את חייהם, they ruined their own lives not only by improper deeds, but also by succumbing to alien philosophies. This is described in Ezekiel 20,8 “and they rebelled against Me and did not want to listen to Me. No Man!- the idols of their eyes they did not cast out and the idols of Egypt, they did not forsake.”

וימררו את חייהם, They made their lives bitter, etc. The Torah speaks of עבודה קשה, to describe work which was very difficult by its very nature without it being performed under intolerable conditions. What was the nature of this work? The making of clay bricks or working in the fields. The Torah adds the words את כל עבודתם "with all their labours," meaning that you should not think that the Egyptians at any time relaxed their demands on these Jewish labourers. On the contrary, they added new tasks to the existing daily quota of bricks that they demanded to be delivered. The Egyptians' argument was that as long as the Jews had been inexperienced they had supplied them with the building materials. As the Jews became more experienced and faster they were no longer given the building materials but had to provide it themselves. This was all part of the Egyptians' shrewdness to prevent an increase in the number of Jews. None of this helped them. This is why the king resorted to an order to kill all male Jewish babies.

ובכל עבודה בשדה, “in addition to all manner of work in agriculture.” They had to plow, to plant seed, to harvest and prune trees. את כל עבודתם, in addition with all their other work inside the urban areas, everything was under harsh conditions.

ובכל עבודה בשדה, ploughing and harvesting. את כל עבודתם, in addition to all their other work. אשר עבדו בהם, inside the city בפרך, all of it under the most intolerable conditions.

וימררו, “they embittered” (the lives of the Hebrews) during that period Miriam was born, her name commemorating that period. בחמר, “with mortar;” at the beginning only this aspect of the labour was conducted with pressure; eventually, everything the Hebrews had to do was done under constant pressure by taskmasters.

And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the first was Shiphrah and the name of the second was Puah;

למילדת (the Piel participle) — This is synonymous with מולידות (the Hiphil participle, and both denote the women who assist the mother in bringing the child to birth). But some verbs are used in forms of a light conjugation (i. e. one which has no strong Dagesh as a characteristic) or in forms of a strong conjugation (one that has such a Dagesh), as e. g., שׁוֹבֵר (Kal) and מְשַׁבֵּר (Piel); דּוֹבֵר (Kal) and מְדַבֵּר (Piel). both having the same meaning; similarly here we may have מוליד (the Hiphil — without a strong Dagesh) or מְיַלֵּד (the Piel), both signifying one who helps to bring to birth. שפרה SHIPHRAH — This was Jochebed; she bore this additional name because she used to put the babe after its birth into good physical condition (משפרת) by the care she bestowed upon it (Sotah 11b). פועה PUAH — This was Miriam, and she bore this additional name because she used to Call aloud and speak and croon to the babe just as women do who soothe a child when it is crying (Sotah 11b). פועה has the meaning of crying aloud, as (Isaiah 42:14) “I will cry (אפעה) like a travailing woman”.

"And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives" — they were overseers set over all the midwives, for there is no doubt that there were more than five hundred midwives; rather, these two were the superintendents over them, appointed to collect a tax for the king from the wages — I have seen this very arrangement in many places today. And that the mother and daughter [were both midwives] was according to an oral tradition, which is correct.

למילדות העבריות, to the midwives resident in the capital. It was obviously impossible for such a large number of people residing in so many different parts of Egypt, to all be serviced by only two midwives. However, after the midwives in the capital, though Egyptian, betrayed the instructions by their king and explained to their king why they had done so, the king did not bother to rely on midwives anywhere else either, and the scheme was abandoned.

ויאמר מלך מצרים למילדות, The king of Egypt said to the midwives, etc. So far the Torah had described everything that happened in the plural, i.e. "they imposed taskmasters," "they enslaved them," etc. The king enjoyed a consensus of his people for his action (perhaps because the discrimination against the Jews had not yet been enshrined in law, but was "merely" a clever ruse to disenfranchise part of the population). Now, however, the king alone resorted to a measure which would not become public knowledge and would not run the risk of the Jewish mothers trying to hide the fact that they were pregnant so as to mislead the midwives. I will go into details later. למילדות העבריות, to the Hebrew midwives, etc.. It is interesting to surmise what exactly the king said to these midwives the first time. [remember that the Torah credits the king with a second אמירה in the next verse. Ed.] Perhaps the Torah has clued us in with the words: "the name of one was Shifrah, whereas the name of the other one was Puah." No doubt there had been numerous midwives who attended the Jewish women. The king did not bother to know any of them by name except those whom he entrusted with a specific task. The Torah tells us that the king spoke to them by name, thus selecting them to perform a Royal command. By calling them by name, the king elevated them to the status of "midwives -in-chief." He had to commence his instructions by saying: "when you deliver the Hebrew women, etc." meaning that the order he was giving applied not only to those two but to all the Hebrew midwives. He instructed them directly as a sign of promoting them over their colleagues. We encounter the expression אמירה as one which describes appointing someone to a high position in Deut. 26, 17-18 where Israel and G'd each elevate the other to an exclusively superior status. Israel had appointed G'd as its only G'd, and in return G'd appointed Israel as His chosen people. Perhaps the fact that the midwives risked the displeasure of Pharaoh as well as being demoted or worse is reflected in the reward G'd gave them as reported by the Torah in verse 21.

שפרה, פועה, some commentators claim that there were many midwives in Egypt, as it is impossible to believe that the two mentioned here could look after all the wives of 600000 adult males. These two were the supervisors of all the other midwives.

And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, etc. Some say that the midwives were Egyptian, as if it said “to the midwives for the Hebrews,” for otherwise, what is the significance of saying “and the midwives feared God”? And our Rabbis said (Sotah 11b) that Shifrah was Yocheved and Puah was Miriam, etc. One should contemplate: Perhaps it’s the opposite, that Puah was Yocheved and Shifrah was Miriam? And what is the Torah telling us by changing their names? It seems to me that “Puah” is related to speech, which clearly indicates Miriam, who was a prophetess, as our Rabbis taught (Megillah 14a) on the verse Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron. She prophesied, “My mother is destined to give birth to a son who will save Israel.” And in Parshat Vaera (Exodus 7:1), Rashi explains that prophecy [nevuah] is related to speech, derived from the expression “creating the utterance of lips” [borei niv sefatayim]. Yocheved is Shifrah, named because she returned to her beauty [shufrah] and youthfulness despite being 130 years old, as her beauty then resembled that of her youth, similar to what happened with Sarah. This miracle was also a sign that a son who would save Israel would be born from her, for this miracle was not performed for her in vain. Therefore, the verse informs us to show how the counsel of Pharaoh and all his magicians was foolish, for he called upon midwives who were named Shifrah and Puah — names that indicated the redeemer who would come from them. They themselves were the bearers of the redeemer, so how could they kill their own children? Pharaoh did not notice the significance of these names to say, “Is this not significant?”Furthermore, the verse tells us their names because they indicate that they had no doubts about the redemption, although they had reason to doubt, as it says in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:8): I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them, to spend My anger upon them in the midst of the land of Egypt. These names indicate the birth of the redeemer, and for this reason, they did not do as Pharaoh had told them. For if they had doubted, they might have agreed to Pharaoh’s decree, thinking it better for the children to die young than to be born for naught and for trouble, living all their days in distress and servitude. And regarding what [the verse] states, and if it is a daughter, she shall live. It appears to be superfluous. It seems [the phrase is included] so that they would not interpret “if it is a son” in the sense of “even though,” as in [the verse] and if it will be the Jubilee, which is interpreted as “even if it will be the Jubilee.” Similarly, they could interpret the phrase “if it is a son” to mean “even though it is a son” who is needed for labor, nevertheless “you shall kill him,” and all the more so a daughter. Therefore, the text specifies and if it is a daughter, she shall live.

למילדות העבריות; the ones who were Jewish.

למילדת “to the midwife;” there is a disagreement in the Talmud regarding the identity of these two women. According to one opinion they were Yocheved and her daughter Miriam. According to the second opinion, they were mother-in- law Yocheved, and her daughter-in-law. Elisheva, wife of Aaron. (Talmud Sotah, folio 11) An alternate interpretation: this interpretation takes its cue from the fact that the Torah spelled the word מילדת in the singular mode instead of with the letter ו, seeing that there were two women. According to the spelling there was only a single midwife, Yocheved. Miriam was a teenager not capable yet of acting as a midwife, rather she acted as a bleater, to help the infant cry while still inside its mother’s womb encouraging it to emerge from the womb as fast as possible.

and he said: When you attend to the Hebrew women in childbirth and you observe upon the birthstool — if it is a boy, you shall kill him, but if it is a girl, she shall live.

בילדכן WHEN YE DO THE OFFICE OF A MIDWIFE — This word (the Piel) has the same force as בהולידכן (the Hiphil): when you assist them to give birth. על האבנים UPON THE STOOLS — the seat for the woman in the act of childbirth; in another passage (Isaiah 37:3) Scripture terms it מַשְׁבֵּר. Similar is, (Jeremiah 18:3) “He was at work on the אבנים" — the place of the vessels of (being produced by) the craftsmanship of the potter. אם בן הוא וגו IF IT BE A SON etc. — He was particular only about the male children because his astrologers had told him that there was to be born to a Hebrew woman a son who would become their deliverer (Exodus Rabbah 1:18). וחיה has the same meaning as ותחיה THEN SHE SHALL LIVE.

"And he said: when you deliver the Hebrew women" — anyone from the family of Eber is called a Hebrew, and on account of his faith he is called Hebrew; hence "the father of all the children of Eber" (Gen. 10:21) — the one who came from beyond (עֵבֶר) the river; "Eber the river" from its two sides. Ben Qorish [Judah ibn Quraysh] said that the alef of אָבְנַיִם [birthing stones] is a prosthetic letter added to a root meaning «sons» (בָּנִים), and the meaning is the birth-stool, as in מַיִם אֶפֶס [water to the ankles] (Ezek. 47:3). The correct view is that it means «on the stones (בָּאֲבָנִים)» and the alef is part of the root. "וְהַמַּתֶּן אֹתוֹ" — in secret, so the matter would not be known, for he was committing an act of violence. The word וָחָיָה [and she shall live] is very difficult grammatically and is unusual; the proper form would be וָחָיְתָה, because the ה of the root חיה is regularly replaced by a tav in the construct form, as in "every living creature (חַיַּת) of the earth" (Gen. 1:30). This happened because ה and תּ are similar in writing — the only difference between them is the lengthening of the mark within the ה — though not in pronunciation, since with the ה there is a bolt [separation] between them and with the תּ there is not. In writing, the ה is first read, and when the mark is extended it becomes a תּ. This is evidence that the script in our hands is the Hebrew script. In general, the word חַי, and even חַיִּים, is ambiguous, because the grammarians agree that וְאַרְפַּכְשַׁד חַי (Gen. 11:12) belongs to the double-root verb class [i.e., חיי], as does כִּי אִם תַּם הַכֶּסֶף (Gen. 47:18) from תָּמַם. And חַיֵּי [life of], like רַבִּים חַיִּים, is in my view a strange root; for if it were not so, let [the grammarians] show us that as אֶחוֹג יָחוֹג לָחוֹג, one should say אֶחְוֶה יִחְוֶה לִחְוֹת, or, like שׁוּב — סוֹבוּ צִיּוֹן (Ps. 48:13), סֹבִּי עִיר (Isa. 23:16) — for the verb חיה belonging to verbs whose last letter is ה: since we do not find a single paradigm form from the root חַי of any conjugation we have mentioned, this is evidence that it belongs to the ה-final verb class. For we find the forms אֶחְיֶה, נִחְיֶה, יִחְיֶה, תִּחְיֶה — just as one says from היה: נִהְיֶה, אֶהְיֶה, תִּהְיֶה, יִהְיֶה — and therefore it belongs to the root חָיָה, like הָיָה. Even though we find וְאַרְפַּכְשַׁד חַי in the past tense, we need not be troubled by all this, even though it appears to be from a doubled root. I was compelled to say all this because I saw that nowhere in Scripture does vav appear as a root letter in word-final position. And do not object to me from the word שַׁלְוֵי (Job 16:12), for there the vav stands in place of ה, since the letters א, ה, ו, י alternate with one another — the proof being "שַׁלְוֵי כָּל בּוֹגְדֵי בָגֶד" (Jer. 12:1), which is from שָׁלָה. Let me explain why a root vav cannot appear in word-final position: it is because vav at the end of a word serves as a suffix for the third-person singular absent [antecedent], as in עַבְדּוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ (below, 20:17), and as a sign of the plural, as in פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ (Gen. 1:22), and there is also an added vav, as in בֶּן בְּעוֹר (Num. 24:3). Had vav been a root letter, it would become confused with one of these three uses — singular suffix, plural marker, or added vav — and the word would be unrecognizable. Similarly I tell you that yod cannot be a root letter in final position: it serves as the first-person singular possessive, יָדִי (Gen. 42:37) and יָדַי (Deut. 9:15); as a plural sign in construct, יְדֵי נָשִׁים רַחֲמָנִיּוֹת (Lam. 4:10); as a feminine marker, דְּעִי וּרְאִי (1 Sam. 25:17); as the yod of relation (יוֹד הַיִּחוּס), as in הָעִבְרִי / הָעִבְרִיָּה (Deut. 15:12); and as a prosthetic yod in verbs, הַמַּגְבִּיהִי (Ps. 113:5), לְהוֹשִׁיבִי (ibid.); and in nouns, as in בְּנֵי אֲתֹנוֹ (Gen. 49:11); and in adverbial particles, זוּלָתִי (Deut. 1:36), מִנִּי אֶפְרַיִם (Judg. 5:14). For all these reasons, a root yod in final position is not admissible, lest the word be confused with any of these. Therefore I say that the word וָחָיָה is unusual, but it is as though it were וָחָיְתָה, and it belongs to the ה-final verb class, as I have explained.

ויאמר…וראיתן על האבנים, He said: "look at the birthstool, etc." Why did Pharaoh have to instruct the midwives to look at the birthstool? Was it not enough to instruct them to kill male babies? It is true that our sages in Sotah 11 say that Pharaoh gave the midwives a sign which would alert them to the approaching birth of a male baby i.e. if the head of the baby was facing downwards, whereas if the head faced upwards this was an indication that a baby girl was about to be born. I have never understood why the midwives would need to be told such a sign [After all they were supposed to be the experts, not Pharaoh. Ed.]. Another thing we have to know is why Pharaoh did not decree death on all Jewish babies. It is most unlikely that he was motivated by a desire to ensure that some Jews would survive. Why did he not command the midwives simply: "kill them," without suggesting that they do something first which would eventually result in the death of these boy babies? What is the precise meaning of "If it turns out to be a daughter, let her live?" If Pharaoh himself had only decreed death on the males, why would the midwives need to be told to let the girls live? Surely midwives would not murder voluntarily! We must assume that Pharaoh wanted to ensure that his plan would succeed. Which expectant mother would expose her unborn child to be killed by inviting the midwife? Pharaoh therefore told the midwives to behave in a manner which could not arouse any suspicion. By having a look at the birthstool to determine if a girl or a boy was about to be born, they would be able to kill the baby prior to its being born and tell the mother that the baby had been stillborn. The midwives would announce this before the baby had left the mother's womb. How did the midwives know all this? This is where the sign mentioned in the Talmud comes in. Pharaoh told the midwives how to make sure beforehand. When he said והמתן אותו "and you shall kill it," the extra letter ו indicates that they should only kill after first having made sure that it was a male baby. The baby was to be killed before it could be heard at the moment of birth. The words אם בת היא mean that Pharaoh was anxious to avoid having the mothers think that the midwives were implicated in murder; therefore as long as the mothers felt that some of their babies survived birth they would not grow suspicious of the midwives. Presumably the midwives were not even to reveal that the stillborn baby had been a boy. In this fashion suspicions could be long delayed. Pharaoh displayed a double portion of shrewdness since it was also his objective to prevent the Jews from emigrating. As the proportion of females would increase they would be forced to look for Egyptian husbands due to the dearth of eligible Jewish males. Once the two peoples began to merge through intermarriage there was no longer any fear that they would try to emigrate. Moreover, from a mystical point of view, intermarriage results in holy souls beco...

וראיתן על האבנים , you are to closely inspect the birth stools. Pharaoh gave the midwives a sign how to recognise if the approaching birth would be that of a male baby or a female. If a male, the face would be turned downwards and if a female the baby’s face would be looking upwards, as each would do during marital intercourse. [This editor finds it hard to believe that professional midwives needed instruction on this subject from Pharaoh. Ed.] אם בן הוא והמיתן אותו, “if it is a son, you are to kill him;“ when the Egyptians realised that they could not prevent the Israelites from continuing to increase at an alarming rate, they decided to at least kill their males who might grow up and fight them. ואם בת היא וחיה, “but if it is a daughter, let her live;” women are not in the habit of fighting during a war. They therefore did not need to be afraid of them.

על האבנים; on the birth-chair. We encounter this expression משבר meaning birth-chair in Kings II 19,3 באו בנים עד המשבר, “the babes have reached the birth-stool.” The expression אבנים also occurs in Jeremiah 18,3 where it describes a tool similar to round millstones. וחיה. The stress is on the first syllable, just as in shavah from shav. We encounter the use of this term in Genesis 11,12 where the Torah, when telling us about the age of Arpachshad when he sired children, writes: ארפכשד חי, ”Arpachshad had lived, etc.” The parallel construction in the feminine mode is chayah. However, in a verse in Kohelet 6,6 אילו חיה אלף שנים, “if he were to live for 1000 years,” the stress is on the last syllable of the word chayah and is in the masculine mode, just like עשה or עלה, which being verbal modes are in the masculine mode, the letter ה at the end notwithstanding.

But the midwives feared before Hashem and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, and they kept the boys alive.

ותחיין את הילדים This may mean THEY MAINTAINED THE CHILDREN IN LIFE — they provided them with food (Sotah 11b). The Targum renders ותחיין the first time it occurs (i. e. in this verse) by וקימא (which means, “and they — the women — preserved the babes”). and the second time (Exodus 1:18) by וקימתן (which means, “and ye women have preserved etc.”) The Targum is able to distinguish between the two meanings of this word, but this cannot be done in Hebrew because in the Hebrew language in the case of fem. plur. this word and similar forms (ending in נָה or ןָ) are used in the sense of “they did something” (3rd person) and in the sense of “ye did something” (2nd person). For example: (Exodus 2:19) “And they (the daughters of Jethro) said, (וַתֹּאמַרְןָ) “An Egyptian man etc.”, which is the past tense (the Rashi text must read here לשון עָבַר) (imperf. with Vau conv.), just as one would use וַיֹאמְרוּ if one were speaking of men; (Jeremiah 54:25) “Ye women have spoken (ותדברנה) with your mouths”, having the same meaning as דברתן, and corresponding to ותדברו when used of men; (Ezekiel 13:19) “And ye (women) have profaned Me (ותחללנה) among My people” which is a past tense, the same as חללתן corresponding to ותחללו when used of men.

"וַתִּירֶאןָ" — they suppressed the alef [of יָרֵא] so the word would not be confused with the root רָאָה [to see]. "וַתְּחַיֶּינָה" — they kept them alive with all their strength, beyond what the ordinary procedure would be — for what need would there have been to go to such lengths [otherwise]?

ותיראן המילדות את האלוקים, The midwives were G'd-fearing, etc." Why did the Torah repeat that: 1) "they did not do what the king had told them to do," 2) "they kept the children alive?" According to Sotah 11 they supplied food and water for these boy babies. If so, why had they not been doing this before the king's decree came into effect? Perhaps all the Torah wanted to tell us is that they did not stop to provide these services at their own expense. The Torah therefore would describe the level of the midwives' fear of G'd. They did what they could to keep these babies alive; they most certainly did not kill the babies. It is also possible that as long as everything was normal they never even thought about providing food and water for the babies. Once Pharaoh had decreed that the boy babies should be killed, the midwives feared that if by chance one of those children should die they would be blamed for the death. They now began to provide food and water for these babies in order to deflect such suspicions. Perhaps this is the reason for the word את when the Torah describes the midwives as G'd-fearing. They also wanted to be seen as G'd-fearing in the eyes of man. כאשר דבר, as he had said. The letter כ which precedes the word אשר is a Kaf hadimyon describing a comparison, a similarity. The Torah tells us that not only did the midwives not do what the king had ordered them to do, but that they did not even do anything similar to what the king had demanded of them. The Torah could also be telling us something about the general fate of Royal decrees. Normally, when a powerful king issues a decree it is observed by his subjects due to fear. As people notice that not every violation is followed by severe penalties, more and more people begin to ignore irksome decrees. In this instance the Torah tells us that the decree was not even observed when it was still new. The midwives לא עשו, never carried out, כאשר דבר, as soon as he had said it. The word כאשר may be understood as "as soon as," just as in Genesis 27,30: "as soon as Isaac finished speaking."

“And the midwives feared God.” As it is written: I counsel you to keep the king’s command, and that in regard to the oath of God (Ecclesiastes 8:2). This means you should observe the king’s decree only when it does not contradict the oath of God, which He has earnestly sworn us to keep all His commandments. So the midwives feared God and put their lives in danger, because killing is one of the three transgressions for which one should die rather than transgress, for “who says your blood is redder [than another’s]?” (Pesachim 25b). According to our Sages who said (Sotah 11b) that Shifrah [was called so] because she beautified [meshaperet] the infant, and Puah [which is an expression of speech] [was called so since she spoke] to the child, it seems to me that this explains how they easily evaded Pharaoh’s order by saying, Because the Hebrew women are lively and give birth before the midwife comes to them. One might question: If so, what purpose did midwives serve if the Hebrew women didn’t need them? To this, the verse explains that they claimed they didn’t actually deliver the Hebrew babies because the women were robust, but their main work was to beautify the child and to cry out to it after it was already born. Pharaoh had commanded when you deliver the Hebrew women, and from this they found room for an excuse, saying “We don’t actually deliver them.” They deliberately remained silent and did not answer Pharaoh at first, to prevent him from appointing other midwives, so he deceived himself. Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very strong. This was a benefit to them because in the multitude of people is the king’s honor, and from them would come kings and priests, as Rashi explains on the verse He made them houses. It was also beneficial for the priests and Levites, because with a larger population, more gifts would be given to the priests and Levites.

ותיראנה, meaning “they feared, revered.” If the word had been spelled without the letter י it would be a derivative of ראה, to see. It appears in that mode in Exodus 2,6. ותחיין, there is no difference in meaning if the form of the past tense as a future with the letter ו in front is used or if the Torah had used a regular past tense such as והחיו את הילדים.

And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them: Why have you done this thing and kept the boys alive?

"And he called [them]" — the correct [reading is that the king said to them:] you deserve death, for you have overturned my commandment. And there is no difference between וַתֹּאמַרְנָה [and they said] in the past tense — like וַתֹּאכַלְנָה הַפָּרוֹת (Gen. 41:4) — and [a verb] speaking of them directly to their faces when the vav with patah is prefixed; and so too: "why have you done this and kept the children alive (וַתְּחַיֶּינָה)?" [is a direct accusation].

מדוע עשיתם, “why did you betray my trust?” After all, when I gave you these instructions you did not refuse the task, making me believe that you would indeed cause the death of these boy babies. “My trust has been betrayed.” ותחיינה את הילדים, not only did you not kill these babies, but you were actively involved in ensuring their survival!

מדוע לא עשיתם…זתחיינן את הילדים? "Why did you not do…and you kept these children alive?" What did the king refer to when he asked the midwives: "why did you do, etc?" Their crime was what they had not done! Not killing the babies surely is not described as an activity! The king should have asked: "why did you not do etc.?" Furthermore, what did the king mean when he accused the midwives of keeping the children alive? If he referred to the fact that they supplied food and water, how did the midwives' answer satisfy him? Their answer would be equivalent to rebellion against the king's command! Perhaps Pharaoh was not really sure that they had been supplying food to these babies as they certainly would not do this while other Egyptians were looking on. One could certainly not accuse any Israelites as reporting such a thing to the king. Basing itself on Exodus 3,22 where the Israelites were told 12 months before the Exodus that at that time women would "borrow" silver trinkets from their neighbours, Vayikra Rabbah 32,5 points out that not a single Israelite revealed this information to Pharaoh or to any other Egyptian. Israelites did not snitch on one another during that time. It must be assumed therefore that Egyptians did observe the midwives bringing victuals to the houses of pregnant Israelite women. These Egyptians also became aware that boy babies were being born and raised. Pharaoh therefore referred to the food the midwives were bringing to the pregnant mothers when he asked: "why did you do this?" Unless the midwives kept the boy babies alive, Pharaoh would have attributed their actions as designed to help the baby girls stay alive. Under the circumstances, i.e. the appearance of live baby boys, he had to assume that their existence was due to the midwives' action. Pharaoh simply used his powers of imagination. He had no proof of any sort that the midwives had contravened his orders.

And the midwives said to Pharaoh: Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are skilled — before the midwife has come to them, they have already given birth.

כי חיות הנה signifies they are just as skilful as midwives. The Aramaic for מילדות, midwives, is חיתא (hence the term חיות in this verse). Our Rabbis, however, (taking this word in the sense of animals) gave the following explanation (Sotah 11b): they have been compared to the beasts of the field which do not require the help of midwives. And where are they compared to animals? (Genesis 49:9) “Judah is a young lion”; (Genesis 27) “Benjamin is a wolf that leareth”; (Deuteronomy 33:17) “Joseph is the firstling of his ox”; (Genesis 49:21) “Naphtali is a hind sent forth”. As for the ancestors of those tribes about whom such a comparison is not expressly written Scripture implicitly includes them in the several blessings bestowed upon their brothers, (and thus they also are compared, as their brothers, to animals), for Scripture states, (Genesis 49:28) “And he blessed them etc.” (cf. Rashi on these words). Then, again, it is written, (Ezekiel 19:2) “How was thy mother a lioness!” (The prophet is addressing the princes of Israel as the representatives of the people, and by the term “thy mother” means the progenitors of the nation; the chapter proceeds to speak of the mother’s offspring as “whelps”).

"And they said" — we have not transgressed your command, for the Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women: they have abundant life-force and give birth before [we can arrive]. The yod [of כִּי חַיּוֹת] comes without dagesh [raphé], from the word חַיּוֹת [lively], and this is correct — like דַּוֹּת רְוֹות עֹלוֹת עָלַי (Gen. 33:13). But the yod takes a dagesh in the word חַיִּים when it is used as an attributive adjective, as in "and they took them alive (חַיִּים)" (2 Kings 7:12) — like the yod in "God of the Hebrews (אֱלֹהֵי הָעִבְרִיִּים)" (below, 3:18). And so חַיִּים as a noun [takes dagesh], as in עֵץ חַיִּים (Prov. 3:18) and וּפְטוּרֵי צִצִּים (1 Kings 6:18). "וְיָלָדוּ" — feminine [subject], past tense — for it is the same [form] for both masculine and feminine: טָווּ (below, 35:25), צָבְאוּ (ibid. 38:8).

כי חיות הנה, they themselves are expert in the art of midwifery. If we were to attempt to do anything contrary to accepted practice or even to speak to them in a suspicious manner they would notice this immediately and would not ask any of us again to assist when they were due to give birth. They argued that it is not worth the king’s while to have only a few babies killed.

כי לא כנשים המצריות העבריות, "the Hebrew women are unlike the Egyptian women, etc." Why did the midwives use such cumbersome language? All they had to say was לא כמצריות העבריות. Besides, how does their answer address Pharaoh's accusation that they supplied food to keep the babies alive? It appears that Pharaoh was satisfied with their answer! Another difficulty is the word וילדו; why did they not say ויולדות, "and they proceeded to give birth?" The expression נשים מצריות mentioned by the midwives refers to the elite of the Egyptian women. The midwives explained to Pharaoh that the Hebrew women were superior even to the elite of the Egyptian women in that they either did not need the services of a midwife at all, or were חיות, knowledgeable in that art, and helped each other without reference to outside professionals. Perhaps the midwives hinted that the Jewish women possessed a) the superior skills with which they were born, b) the skills possessed by the natural born Egyptian women which they had acquired during the years they had lived in Egypt. They combined the best skills of both categories of women. If Pharaoh wanted to know why they had not assisted in the births as emissaries of the king, the Hebrew women had always given birth already before the midwife could arrive; the Hebrew women had misled them concerning when a birth would be due. All of this is part of the meaning of their being חיות. The word וילדו means the birth had already taken place by the time the midwives arrived. If they had visited these expectant women bringing with them food and water it was in order to win these women's confidence so that when the time to give birth arrived they would trust them and let them assist. However, all this had been in vain. If, after finding that these women had already had their babies, the midwives would have taken the food away they would only have aroused suspicion that the food had not been intended as a friendly gift at all. In this manner the midwives satisfied Pharaoh while admitting that what the Egyptian women had reported to him was absolutely true, but the conclusions they had drawn did not fit the facts.

כי חיות הנה, “healthy, alert and the birthing process proceeds smoothly and quickly.”

And Hashem dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty.

וַיֵּיטָב means HE DID GOOD TO THEM. — The following is the difference between certain forms in a word (verb) whose root is two letters when one prefixes ו and י to them: when it intends to express the meaning “and he caused someone or something to do a particular action” (i. e. the 3rd masc. sing, imperf. Hiphil with Vau conversive), the י has the vowel Tzéré which is what we call Kametz Katan, as, (in this verse) “And God dealt well (וַיֶּיטָב) with the midwives” (to Rashi the root it טב; we take it as יטב); (Lamentations 2:5) “וַיָרָב for the daughter of Judah [mourning]” i. e. He increased (made great) the mourning; (root רֹב; we take it as רבה). Similarly (II Chronicles 36:20) “וַיָּגָל the remnant” which occurs in connection with Nebuzaradon, i. e. he caused the remnant to be exiled; (Judges 15:4) וַיָּפָן tail to tail”, i. e. he turned the tails one towards the other (more lit., he caused one tail to turn to the other) — all these express the meaning “he caused others to do something” (i. e. they are of the Hiphil conjugation). When, however, it speaks in the sense of “and he did something” (3rd masc. sing, imperf. Kal with Vau conv.), the י has the vowel Chirik. For example, (Leviticus 10:20) “וַיִיטַב in his eyes” — this means, “it was good”. Similarly (in this verse) the people”, i. e. the people became many; (2 Kings 25:21) “וַיִגָל Judah”, i. e. Judah became an exile; (2:12) “וַיִפֵן this way and that way”, i. e. he turned this way and that way. Do not answer me (do not raise an objection) by quoting the words וַיֵּלֶךְ and וַיֵּשֶׁב and וַיַרֶד and וַיֵּצֵא (saying that these verbal forms also have ו and י prefixed and the י has the vowel Tzéré and yet they are Kal, not Hiphil forms), because these are not of the same class of verbs as those above-mentioned, for the י is part of the root in them — in יֵלֵךְ and יֵשֵׁב and יֵרֵד and יֵצֵא, the י is a third root letter in each of these. וייטב אלהים למילדת THEREFORE GOD DEALT WELL WITH THE MIDWIVES — What was the good He dealt out to them? The next verse gives the reply to this —

"וַיֵּיטֶב" — verbs with initial yod: sometimes the yod is retained, as here, and sometimes it is replaced by a vav, as in "and hungry people came to settle there (וַיּוֹשַׁב שָׁם רְעֵבִים)" (Ps. 107:36), which is from the root יָשַׁב, just as וַיֵּיטֶב is from the root יָטַב. This good thing [that God did for them] is what is mentioned afterward: "He made them houses (וַיַּעַשׂ לָהֶם בָּתִּים)" — as in "Hashem will make a house for you (כִּי בַיִת יַעֲשֶׂה לְךָ ה')" (2 Sam. 7:11).

וייטב אלוקים למילדות, G'd dealt well with the midwives, etc. We are entitled to know what precisely were the favours G'd did for the midwives. Perhaps the verse alludes to the houses that are described in the next verse. If that were so, however, there would have been no point in interrupting this sequence by stating that "the people increased and became very powerful." It appears rather that the verse explains the cause of the increase in the numbers of Israelites. The very food and water which the midwives provided resulted in G'd dealing well with the midwives. G'd enabled the midwives to continue their economically expensive efforts to feed the many newly born babies. Had G'd not helped them economically, they would not have had the wherewithal to supply all that food which resulted in the increase of the numbers of Israelites. The Torah reports the reward G'd provided for the midwives themselves only in the next verse where we are told that He built houses for them. The Torah may also have hinted that when G'd realised the degree of piety demonstrated by the midwives, He decided to reward them by providing them with unlimited opportunities to continue their good work. The word וייטב is followed by וירב העם to show cause and effect. The "good" G'd did for the midwives was that they saw their efforts rewarded by an increase in the Israelite population. Who knows if leaders such as Moshe and Aaron were not provided by G'd for Israel as a direct reward for the selfless efforts of Yocheved and Miriam (the two midwives)? From a mystical dimension, Moses is perceived as a soul embracing all of Israel, i.e. our souls are "branches" of Moses' soul as per Isaiah 63,11 where Moses is equated with G'd's people Israel. According to Rashi who describes the "good" G'd did for the midwives as the houses G'd is reported to have provided for them as mentioned in the next verse, we could say that the Torah first had to mention that the people kept increasing as providing a caste of Priests as well as Royalty, would not make much sense unless there were a sufficient number of Israelites to warrant all this.

וייטב אלוהים למילדות, “G-d dealt kindly with the midwives.” How did this “goodness” of G-d become evident? Pharaoh did not suspect that the midwives had deliberately let the boys live, but he figured that the contribution by two midwives to the increase in the Israelite population would not be significant, in light of the many Jewish mothers that were giving birth all the time. Therefore he accepted their explanations at face value.

וייטב אלוקים, “G–d dealt well, etc.” Rashi explains this as a reference to the “houses” that G–d built for the midwife. This does not sound plausible, seeing that there is a whole verse between that statement and this verse. We must understand this statement as referring to something in our verse, i.e. the continued increase in the number of Hebrews. When the midwife(es) had told Pharaoh that the Jewish women were so lively that they had no need for midwives to assist them, Pharaoh had called them liars. When Pharaoh realised this, he was forced to agree that a single or even two midwives would not be able to suppress the increase of the Jews in Egypt.

And it came to pass, because the midwives feared before Hashem, that He made for them households.

ויעש להם בתים HE MADE THEM HOUSES — houses (dynasties) of the priesthood and the Levites and of royalty which are all termed בתים, “houses”, as it is said, (1 Kings 9:1) “and Solomon built the house of the Lord and the house of the king”: “the house of the Lord” i. e. a dynasty of priests and Levites — from Jochebed (Shifrah); and “the house of the king”, i. e. a royal dynasty — from Miriam (Puah), just as it is stated in Treatise Sotah 11b.

"And it came to pass, because they feared" — because they did not fear the king of Egypt but feared Hashem, He dealt well with them. Know that this word [יָרֵא, «to fear»] belongs neither to the intransitive nor to the transitive verbs, because it describes the reception of fear from another; therefore יָרְאוּ מֵאֵת ה' [they feared Hashem] is the correct form. [Scripture] took the shorter route and said יָרֵא אֶת ה' (1 Kings 18:12). Therefore the word נוֹרָא does not belong to the nif'al stem in the way that נוֹלַד (1 Chron. 2:3) and נִשְׁבָּר וְנִדְכָּה (Ps. 51:19) do; and the one who is discerning will understand.

ויעש להם, “He made for them;” we find in many places in the Torah that the masculine pronoun is used when the subject happens to be feminine. [The word for “for them” should have been: להן, seeing that the subject, the midwives were feminine. Ed.] To quote just two examples of similar occurrences: Genesis 31,9: ויצל אלוקים את מקנה, “G-d saved the livestock of your father,” אביכם where the grammatically correct word should have been: אביכן. Or, Exodus 2,17: ויבאו הרועים ויגרשום, “the male shepherds came and chased them (the daughters of Yitro) away.” The correct word should have been ויגרשון. There are many examples of a similar kind throughout the Holy Scriptures. בתים, literally, “houses,” but that word is a substitute for “families,” in this instance. The children of human beings are often referred to as בית, as we find in connection with David Samuel II 7,11: והגיד לך ה' כי בית יעשה לך , “the Lord has told you that he will let you have children.” [The author followsthis with more examples. Ed.] Here too, the midwives gave birth to sons, including such people as Moses. A different explanation of our verse: The subject in the verse is not G-d, but Pharaoh, who set apart houses for the midwives from which they were not to depart. Instead of their visiting expectant mothers, these were brought to the midwives for treatment when their due date drew near. This would facilitate male babies being drowned forthwith.

ויעש להם בתים, He made houses for them.” This means that G’d made these midwives especially fruitful and people would refer to these offspring as “the children of Shifrah and Puah.” [instead of their fathers being mentioned as the progenitors. Ed.] The expression בתים, i.e. plural of בית is used in lieu of the word בנים, children, as for instance in Samuel II 7,11 בית יעשה לך ה' “for He will establish a dynasty for you.” Other commentators understand this as relating to the line ויהי כאשר יראו המילדות את האלוקים ויעש להם בתים, “when, due to the midwives being in awe of G’d, and Pharaoh’s decree therefore becoming futile, Pharaoh placed pregnant Jewish women in houses surrounded by Egyptians so that their neighbours would know when they would be likely to give birth.” These women were forbidden to give birth anywhere else but in these houses. Still a third way of interpreting this verse is that the “houses” were jails in which the midwives would henceforth be kept. The word בית does appear in this sense in Genesis 40,14 Joseph saying to the chief of the cupbearers והוצאתני מן הבית הזה, “so that you will bring me out of this jail (the jail being called a house).”

ויעש להם בתים. A form of house arrest, to prevent them from attending Jewish women about to give birth.

ויהי כי יראו המילדות, “as a result of the midwives displaying that they were G–d fearing, etc. instead of obeying Pharaoh’s commands, he established houses where they had to check in and report on their activities.

And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying: Every boy that is born to the Hebrews — into the river you shall cast him; but every girl you shall let live.

לכל עמו This may be translated AND PHARAOH GAVE COMMAND REGARDING ALL (לכל) HIS PEOPLE — Regarding them, too, he made a decree (Sotah 12a). For on the day when Moses was born his astrologers said to him, “To-day their deliverer has been born, but we know not whether he is born of an Egyptian father or of an Israelite; but we see by our astrological art that he will ultimately suffer misfortune through water”. Pharaoh therefore made a decree that day regarding the Egyptians also, as it is said here, “Every son that is born [ye shall cast into the river]”, and it is not stated “[every son] who is born to the Hebrews”. They (the astrologers), however, were not aware that Moses was ultimately to suffer misfortune through the waters of Meribah and not through the waters of the Nile (Exodus Rabbah 1:18; Sotah 12a; cf. also Rashi on Numbers 20:13).

"And he commanded" — every one who sits on the throne of Egypt is called in the Egyptian language «Pharaoh»; Scripture does not record his [personal] name — unlike "Pharaoh Necho" (Jer. 46:2), whose name is given in his people's tongue; and similarly "Pharaoh Hophra" (Jer. 44:30). "הַיִּלּוֹד" [every boy who is born] — an attributive noun, like גִּבּוֹר [mighty man] and שִׁכּוֹר [drunkard].

ויצו פרעה לכל עמו, Pharaoh commanded his entire nation, etc. Whereas originally Pharaoh's command to the midwives to kill new born boy babies was a secret deal between him and the midwives, something the Hebrew women did not know about, now, in view of the failure of that plan, he resorted to a public announcement; he believed that in view of the continued expansion of the Israelite population he would have popular support for such a draconian measure. An additional factor forcing Pharaoh's hand to go public with the decree to drown all boy babies may have been that according to astrologers Pharaoh foresaw that the redeemer of the Israelites would be born and would end his career prematurely due to water (Sanhedrin 101). Pharaoh mobilised every Egyptian to participate in this decree in order to precipitate this event. The Torah says לאמור, i.e. not every Egyptian should personally commit such a murder but that he should tell the Hebrew parent to drown his child seeing it was a Royal decree. Pharaoh's interpretation of what the astrologers had told him was that Moses would find a premature death by water at the hand of an Israelite. This is why he insisted that the Israelites themselves kill the children. The fact that Yocheved herself exposed Moses to a watery death is proof that the Egyptians themselves did not drown the children. It is also possible that the meaning of the word לאמור at this point is that only the neighbours of the Israelites were to be involved in this, not the entire population. Some of our rabbis felt (Sotah 12) that Pharaoh commanded that all boy babies (Egyptian as well as Jewish) born on a certain day should be drowned as he believed that this was the day on which the Jewish redeemer was to be born. Such an exegesis is homiletics. The plain meaning is that the decree concerned only Jewish boy babies. Had it been in effect for only a single day, why did Yocheved feel she had to hide Moses for three months? Surely the decree was in effect for an indefinite period during the time Moses was born. The words לכל עמו simply mean that "his entire people be acquainted with this decree."

לכל עמו, “to his whole nation;” seeing that Pharaoh saw that the midwives had not cooperated with him, he now ordered every Egyptian to drown each new born Jewish male baby since he thought that in this way no Jewish baby boy would survive. היארה תשליכהו “you shall cast in the river” since his astrologers predicted that one nation would be struck by water in the future (Sh’mot Rabbah 1,18), they suggested to turn this decree against the Jewish people. [According to my version first the King demanded that all pregnant Egyptian mothers be kept under his care for nine months to make sure the intended saviour of the Jewish nation would be killed. When the people refused to believe that an Egyptian could become the saviour of the Jewish people, he reinterpreted the astrologers’ forecast by saying that the saviour of the Jews would save them by means of turning water into their grave. He therefore restricted the decree to apply only to sons born by Jewish mothers.] וכל הבת תחיון, “and allow all the daughters to live.” This was why only the male Egyptians who pursued them after the Exodus were drowned and not the females.

And Pharaoh commanded all his people, etc. The Rabbis said (Sotah 12) that because the Egyptian astrologers were uncertain whether the redeemer would be born from Hebrew women or from Egyptian women, therefore he commanded all his people. This uncertainty came to them because in truth he [Moses] was born from Hebrew women, but it is said of Pharaoh’s daughter and he became a son to her. Therefore, they thought that perhaps he would actually be the son of some Egyptian woman, similar to the sun and moon in Joseph’s dream where the matters extended to Bilhah.

ויצו פרעה לכל עמו לאמר, the meaning of the line is: “and this is what he said to them.” Every time the word לאמר occurs in the Torah it implies a repetition of words spoken which had been introduced either with the word ויצו or ויקרא, or וידבר, or ויאמר as we explained in connection with Genesis 8,15.