The opening verses of this
Parasha reiterate what we have read recently in Parashat Va’yigash; namely, the
names of the sons of Yisrael who had gone down to Egypt Israel
According to Nehama Leibowitz[1], by
their settling and establishing a foothold in Egypt
"The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete”; “yet” (in the
above quote) is "ad heh'na," literally "thus far."
In Vayikra (Leviticus) 18: 25 we read: "For the land is defiled; therefore
I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its
inhabitants." From the time YHVH made this declaration to Avraham, it took
well over 600 years for the Amorites’ (a generic name for the Canaanite people
groups) iniquity to be "sha'lem," “complete.” The 'quota of their iniquity' is only made full
when the Children of Yisrael enter the Land of C’na
Let us return now to the present situation in Egypt Israel Europe ,
which culminated in Hitler’s “final solution”). Interestingly, at the
very end of last week’s Parasha Yoseph charged his brothers concerning taking his
bones back to the land, whenever YHVH would visit (pakod) them
(Gen. 50:25). In the present Parasha, at the very beginning of the book of
Sh’mot (Exodus), we read about the “might” of the People of Yisrael.
Both bone and might share the same root of a.tz.m (ayin, tzadi,
mem). This root lends itself to several significant words, which we will
examine more thoroughly in Parashat B’ha’a’lot’cha (Numbers 8-12, relating to 9:12). Suffice it to say here that Yoseph’s bones
“multiplied” greatly, in accordance with the promise granted to his sons,
although at this point the blessing appeared to be a cause of severe adversity.
Thus, to counter this (hypothetical) threat of a population explosion,
the king, typically, takes a number of measures, all of which are expressed in
verbs denoting suffering, suppression, and servitude, found in chapter 1:11-14.
First they "set over them" - “sa'rey measeem” - tax collecting
princes, to (literally) "afflict
them with suffering." However, "the more they afflicted them, the more they
multiplied and grew” (v. 12). The verb "grew" is "yifrotz,"
of the root p.r.tz. which we examined in Parashat Va’yeshev (Gen. 38:29), where
we noted that it meant "to break forth." This caused the Egyptians "to loath" or "abhore"
(“va’yakutzu”) them, and in turn they made them do rigorous labor (“va'ya'vidu” -
a.v.d. - labor, work; while “eh’ved” is “slave”). "And they
made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar, in brick,
and in all manner of work
in the field. All their work in which they made them work with rigor" (1:14 italics added). In verses 13-14 the root a.v.d
(ayin, vet, dalet) - work, labor, slave - occurs five times, impressing upon
the reader the sense of perpetual toil.
The commentator Benno Jacob [2]
observes that the initiators of the acts of ritual enslavement are always
mentioned (in their acts of harassment) in the plural, whereas the Israelites
are referred to in the singular (in verses 10-12 each reference to the
Israelites reads "he," although not translated that way in English). The
commentator goes on to say, "Israel
The only two
characters singled out here are the midwives (who are mentioned by name). They
were assigned the heinous task of doing away with every Hebrew male newborn.
Their defiance of the king's edict (!:17) results in Yisrael
becoming even more numerous and mighy – rav and atzum
(the same term we looked at above, in verse 20b). These
two Elohim-fearing women are a testimony to the full involvement of Yisrael's
Elohim with His People, even at a time when the Nation was being forced into
conditions of bondage and forgetfulness. However, whereas "am
Yisrael" as a whole was occupied with endless and huge building projects
for their taskmasters, the midwives had Elohim establish their "batim"
– 1:21 literally “homes, houses" and also “families, dynasties”
(translated “households”)!
The subjugating process increasingly gathers momentum; taxing (1:11)
turns into hard labor (v. 11), then to enslavement (v.13, 14), and to 'limited'
infanticide (v. 16), which finally becomes an imposition on the entire Egyptian
nation, compelling it to engage in a full-blown genocide by exterminating every
Hebrew male newborn (v. 22). Thus, in its 22 verses, the first chapter of
Sh'mot spans and recounts a long and eventful period.
The next chapter reports a sudden development. Nehama Leibowitz comments,
"One family, father, mother, and daughter emerge from the gloom of this
faceless mass."[3] The
anonymity is only gradually broken, though, as the protagonists of this first
part of the chapter remain nameless, albeit distinct. The only specific name in
this narrative is the name that Par’oh's daughter gives the infant whom she
finds. It is to be Moshe, "because I drew him out of
the water" (1:10 emphasis added). And as we observed in Parashat Miketz
(Gen. 41-44:17), this name is probably an Egyptian one, as "mes" or
"mesu" in ancient Egyptian mean "child" or "son,"
[4] yet the Hebrew language adapts to foreign
terms by employing puns or a 'play on words' (such as the in the name "Bavel",
Gen. 11:9). There is, however, one other instance in Scripture where the root
m.sh.h (mem, shin, hey) is used:
"He drew me out - yimsheni - of many waters," sings King David (2nd
Sam. 22:17; Ps. 18:16), being an apt description of Moshe’s current condition,
and also of the future predicament of his people, when they too will face a
large body of water. The basket that baby Moshe was put in is called "tey'va,"
the identical word used for Noach's ark! The gigantic structure and the little
basket are both havens of safety and protection, out of which deliverance with
large-scale ramifications was destined to emerge.
It takes the death of the king (2:23) for the Children of Yisrael to
"groan" and "cry out" -"va'yiz'aku"
- and “their cry" - "shava'atam" - goes up
to Elohim. Notice that here the verb “to cry out” is different from the noun
“cry.” In other words, by the time the cry (“za’a’ka”) reaches heaven,
it turns into a "sha'v'a" (sh.v.a. shin, vav, ayin), a noun
which is "akin to deliverance or salvation" (y.sh.a - yod, shin,
ayin) [5]. Thus,
the cry already contains within it the response! And so we read that Elohim
"heard," "remembered," "looked" (or
"saw"), and "acknowledged" (2:24-25).
Chapter
3 elaborates on the implementation of the above verbs, through the person of
Moshe and his mission. It is through Moshe that YHVH is about to reveal Himself
to His People. Moshe spends time in the desert, "midbar,"
"tending the flock of Yitro (Jethro), his father-in-law, “and he led the
flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of Elohim Temple
YHVH reveals Himself to Moshe, talking to Him (typically) in a place of
silence and desolation, thus indicating that His Presence and control are not
limited by what things (also of the root d.v.r - davar = thing) may look
like naturally. The sea, for example, which will be facing the Israelites in
their future escape, will turn into "dry land" which they are
destined to cross. Incidentally, this “dryness” or “parched land” is called
"charava" (Parashat B'shalach, Ex. 14:21), of the root ch.r.v (chet,
resh, bet/vet). The particular desert location referred to here is called “Chorev”
(Horeb, 3:1) and also stems from the root, ch.r.v (chet, resh, vet), which
means “desolation or waste,” forming also the root for
"cherev" - “sword” and “churban” – “destruction.” Not surprisingly,
in this part of the world, where water is scarce, “dryness” and “destruction”
are almost synonymous.
Elohim’s plans for His people may be elicited from some of the terms used
here. He declares that He Himself "will go down" to rescue His people from Mitzrayim (Egypt Egypt
The long
discourse that the reluctant Moshe has with YHVH is about to end when YHVH
tells him: "Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you
what you shall say,"
(4:12). Similar words are repeated in verse 15, with the promise to instruct him
and his brother A’ha’ron (Aaron) as to what they will have to do. It was likewise a totally
submissive Yeshua who expressed a similar idea during His earthly ministry,
"The son can do nothing by himself, he can do only what he sees his Father
doing, because whatever the Father does, the son does also" (John 5:19
ref. also 8:28; 12:49; 14:10).
Moshe and A’ha’ron comply and go to see Par’oh. In 5:4 we read: “And the king of
Egypt
We noted above that, because of their lowly state, the Hebrews were
referred to in singular person. In 4:22 they are referred to once again in this
manner; but this time for an entirely different reason. Here YHVH calls Yisrael
"My first born son." Even though by the end of the Parasha the lot of
the Israelites is made (temporarily) even worse than it had been before Moshe's
audience with Par'oh, the People, who at the beginning of Sh'mot are presented
as a forgotten and maltreated mass, are now the object of YHVH's direct
intervention. It is therefore with these words that our Parasha ends:
"Then YHVH said to Moses, 'Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for
with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will expel
them out of his land'" (6:1).
In Parashat Sh’mot we see
once again the sovereignty of YHVH over the work and intentions of the enemy.
Just as in the case of Yoseph, whose destiny the enemy attempted to disrupt, yet
YHVH used this very scheme to catapult him into the place that He had designed for
him, so is it also true regarding to Moshe (and in an even greater sense to
Yeshua, see 1 Cor. 2:7, 8). The very man, whose command should have brought
about this infant’s death, ended being the one in whose palace this infant was
protected, raised, and groomed for leading the Israelites out and away from
under his despotic and tyrannical control and dominion.
1 New Studies in Shemot, by Nechama Leibowitz, trans.
Aryeh Newman,
Eliner Library, Jerusalem
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 The New Brown, Driver,
Briggs, Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon,
ed. Francis Brown,
Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody ,
Mass.
5 Ibid
6 Ibid
