Kommentar zu Schemot 3:22

ומגרת ביתה means from that woman with whom she sojourneth in one house.

ושאלה אשה משכנתה, as an outright gift. After all, G’d had encouraged the people to ask for these gifts, the Torah telling us in verse 21 that G’d would make the people favourably disposed towards the Israelites so that they would not refuse such requests. The expression שאל in the same sense as here occurs also in Psalms 2,8 שאל ממני ואתנה גוים נחלתך, “Ask it of me, and I will make the nations your domain.” This is the principal meaning of the verse and it effectively silences the heretics who speak of the Jews borrowing and not giving back these trinkets.

ונצלתם את מצרים. Even though all that they will give you will be on loan and you will be obligated to return these items. The status of these “borrowed” articles underwent a legal change when these same Egyptians turned into pursuers of the departing Israelites with intent to kill them. From that moment on what had previously been on loan now became legitimate booty of war. Not only that, but the previous owners had died in a war fought against them by G’d Himself when the pursuers had become the pursued, something which happens in many wars.

ונצלתם את מצרים, "you will empty Egypt." Here the Torah alludes to the fact that a person may rescue his possessions from someone who robbed him by force. Alternatively, our verse may be a preview of what caused the Egyptians to drown in the sea, i.e. the combination of the Israelites' demand to borrow their silver trinkets and their declared intention to travel a distance of three days into the desert. The two demands eventually prompted the Egyptians to pursue the Jews believing their leader Moses had overstepped his authority. As a result G'd drowned them in the sea.

ושאלה אשה משכנתה, “Each woman will request from her neighbour, etc.” even though the Torah had used the masculine mode when speaking of the actual event, i.e. (Exodus 112, and 12,35) implying that both the males and the females would request valuables from their Egyptian neighbours, the reason that a feminine mode was chosen by the Torah here is that it is usually women who borrow from their neighbours, not men.

ושאלה אשה משכנתה, “each woman will ask her neighbor, etc.” There can be no question of G’d permitting the Israelites to engage in deception by giving the impression that what they asked for would only be borrowed whereas they did not intend to return it. The word ושאלה means “she will request (as a gift).” We find the word שאל used as the request for gifts in connection with Gideon (Judges 8,24) אשאלה מכם שאלה, “I have a request to make from you; each one of you give me the earring he has received as booty.” Clearly, Gideon did not mean to “borrow” thousands of earrings. Another occasion when the word שאל is used as a request for outright possession is Kings I 2,20 שאלה אחת קטנה אני שואלת ממך, Bat Sheva speaking to her son King Solomon: “I have a small request to make from you” [that Adoniah be permitted to marry Avishag the concubine of David] Clearly the word שאלה did not refer to something or somebody which would merely be borrowed. In other words, the word שאל as applicable to the request of a gift is not unique, and this is what G’d had in mind when he told Moses what the Israelites would do prior to the Exodus.
As to the peculiar wording “a woman will request from her neighbor” instead of “a man will request from an Egyptian,” the Torah merely wanted to indicate that if even the Egyptian women would give gifts to their Jewish neighbors how much more so would the men give gifts to the male Israelites. We find a parallel for this in Isaiah 33,23 פסחים בזזו בז, “the lame shall seize booty.” If even the lame seized booty, how much more booty must have been seized by the able-bodied! (compare commentary by Rabbeinu Chananel).

Menachem places it ( ונצלתם ) in the Machberes . . . Rashi is explaining that Menachem categorizes ונצלתם (you will divest) with the words that have צ as the first letter of their root. Thus the root is צל , and the נ is not a root letter.

ושאלה אשה משכנתה, there can be no question that G’d would condone deceiving people into thinking that one borrows from them while not intending to return the “borrowed” objects. The meaning of the word ושאלה is not “she shall borrow,” but “she shall request as a gift.” We find the root שאל used in that sense in Judges 8,24 when Gideon asks the people who wanted to appoint him as king for something else instead. I quote: אשאלה מכם שאלה ותנו לי איש נזם שללו, “I request from you only one thing, that each one of you give me one nose-ring of the loot you captured, etc.” We also find the word שאל used as a request for a gift when Bat Shva relates this request to her son King Solomon in the name of Adoniah, Solomon’s half brother in Kings I 2,20-21. She said:שאלה אחת קטנה אנכי שואלת מאתך, יותן את אבישג השונמית וגו', “I have a small request from you; Avishag the Shunamite be given as a wife etc.” [clearly this woman was not going to be “on loan” to Adoniah. Ed.] The reason the Torah phrased it as ושאלה אשה משכנתה, when it could have written in general terms ושאל איש מאת מצרי, “let everyone request from an Egyptian, etc.,” was simply that if even the women would give gifts to the departing Israelites there was no need to mention that the men would do likewise. This sort of reasoning is found in Isaiah 33,23 where the lame are mentioned as helping themselves to loot. Need the prophet add that the healthy people did the same?

V. 22. שאל .ושאלה, dieses Wort hat eine unglückliche Geschichte. Es kommt mindestens ein paar hundert Mal in תנ׳׳ך vor und heißt da immer: fordern, er¬ bitten, nie: borgen. Nur ein einziges Mal kommt es als borgen, anleihen vor: וכי ישאל איש מעם רעהו Schmot 22, 13 und dieses eine Mal, weil es eben ein gesetzliches Verhältnis bestimmt und dafür den Begriff שואל geläufig machte, hat veranlasst, in dem Ausdruck שאל wesentlich und zunächst anleihen, borgen erblicken zu lassen. Allein man hat dabei einen konstanten Sprachgebrauch völlig übersehen. überall, wo שאל: fordern, sich erbitten heißt, wo somit der geforderte oder erbetene Gegenstand völlig außer fernerer Beziehung zu dem bisherigen Eigentümer treten soll, wird שאל immer mit מאת oder מ־ konstruiert; er wird von der Person getrennt. In dem einen Falle jedoch, wo es borgen, anleihen heißt, steht es mit מעִם. Es ist nicht mehr bei ihm, aber gehört ihm noch, obgleich es sich jetzt bei dem andern befindet. Als Channa sich ein Kind von Gott erbat, heißt es daher wiederholt: שאלה מעמו, was sie sich von Gott erbeten, blieb noch in ihrer Hand Gottes. Sie hatte sich von ihm eine Knospe seiner unsterblichen Geister erbeten, um sie ihm als sein Kind zu erziehen. Ebenso was Gott von uns fordert, das bleibt erst recht unser, indem wir es Gott weihen, daher: מה ד׳ א׳ שואל מעמך. (Dewarim 10, 12). Hier aber steht ausdrücklich: ושאלה אשה משכנתה, ebenso Kap. 11, 2 'וישאלו איש מאת רעהו וגו. Es heißt somit entschieden: fordern, sich erbitten und in keiner Weise bloß: borgen, anleihen. —

ושאלה , the meaning of the word שאל here, is not “to borrow” but a request to be given as a gift.” The word occurs in this sense also in Psalms 2,8 "שאל ממני ואתנה", “just ask it of Me and I shall give it.” When the Egyptians would be in a hurry to send the Hebrews out of the country as they were afraid of dying, they did not think of receiving these trinkets back again. They gave all of them willingly.

ושאלה אשה, and a woman will ask for, etc.;” the Torah does not use the word ושאלה here as “a loan,” [as misunderstood by all the gentiles reading a translated text of the Torah Ed.] but they will ask for this as an outright gift. Another example of the word שאל being used to describe an outright gift is found in Psalms 2,8: שאל ממני ואתנה, “ask it of Me and I will grant (it).”

ונצלתם render it as the Targum does: and ye shall empty out Egypt. Similar are: (Exodus 12:36) “And they emptied out (וינצלו) Egypt”; (Exodus 33:6) “And the children of Israel stripped themselves (ויתנצלו) of their ornaments” The נ in it is a root-letter. Menachem ben Seruk placed it (this word ויתנצלו) in section צ (taking the root as צל not as נצל) together with, (Genesis 31:9) “And God took away (ויצל) your father’s cattle”, and with, (Genesis 31:16) “which God hath taken away (הציל) from our father”, but his view cannot be sustained. For if the נ is not a root-letter, then seeing that it (the word ונצלתם) is vowelled with Chirik, it cannot be used in the sense of “and ye shall do something” (the active voice, which is required here since את מצרים can only be the object of the verb), but in the sense of “and ye shall have something done to you” (the passive — “Niphal”), as (Deuteronomy 28:63) “And ye shall be plucked up (וְנִסַּחְתֶּם) from off your land”; (Leviticus 26:25) “and ye shall be given (וְנִתַּתֶּם) into the hand of the enemy”; (Leviticus 17) “And ye shall be smitten (וְנִגַּפְתָּם) before your enemies”; (Ezekiel 22:21) “And ye shall be melted (וְנִתַּכְתָּם) in the midst thereof”; (Jeremiah 7:10) “And ye say, נִצַּלְנוּ” — which expresses the idea “we have had something done to us” (the Niphal: we have been delivered). Then again, every נ which sometimes appears in a word and sometimes is omitted, as e. g. the נ of נוגף and נושא and נותן and נושך, when the word expresses the sense “and ye shall do something” (the Kal), it is pointed with vocal Sheva (חטף a “snatched” sound), as, for instance, (Genesis 45:19) “and ye shall bear (וּנְשָׂאתָם) your father”; (Numbers 32:29) “And ye shall give (וּנְתַתֶּם) them the land of Gilead”; (Genesis 17:11) “And ye shall circumcise (וּנְמַלְתֶּם) the flesh of your foreskin”. Consequently I am of the opinion that this letter נ which is vowelled with a Chirik is one of the root letters, and the grammatical form of the noun of the same root is נִצּוּל which is of the strong (dageshed) forms, just as דִּבּוּר and כִּפּוּר and לִמּוּד. When, in the case of verbs formed from these roots one expresses the idea of “and ye shall do something” (active voice) the נ has the vowel Chirik (i. e. it is the Piel conjugation), as (Numbers 20:8) “And ye shall speak (וְדִבַּרְתֶּם) unto the rock”; (Ezekiel 45:20) “And ye shall atone (וְכִּפַּרְתֶּם) for the house”; (Deuteronomy 11:19) “And ye shall teach (וְלִמַּדְתָּם) them unto your children”.

כלי כסף וכלי זהב, ornaments in honour of the festival that they would celebrate in the desert. ושמתם על בניכם, same as ושמתם אותם על בניכם “you will garb your children with them.”

Whereas, every letter נ which sometimes appears in a word . . . Rashi is offering an additional proof that the נ of וינצלו [and of ונצלתם ] is a root letter.

נצל .ונצלתם wie נשל: sich von etwas entkleiden, התנצל: sich etwas ausziehen. נַ ֵצל: machen, dass jemand sich von etwas entkleide. Ihr werdet eine solche Stellung den Mizrim gegenüber erhalten, daß man in Übermaß eurer bittenden Forderung gewähren wird. Sie werden mehr als ihr erwartet hergeben, teils, um eurer los zu werden, teils aus menschlichem Mitgefühl.

ושאלה אשה, the men would also demand valuables; the reason that the Torah emphasizes the women doing so, is simply that for women it is more customary to ask for jewelry, etc; this is also why the Torah when speaking of witchcraft mentions a witch, מכשפה, in Exodus 22,17 as having to be put to death, although a male engaging in witchcraft is, of course, subject to the same penalty. It is simply a fact that women engage in that activity far more often than men.

E.g. “ ונשאתם (you shall carry) your father.” Surely the נ of נִצלתם , which sometimes is omitted entirely according to Menachem who says it is not a root letter, should be vocalized here with a [mere] shva. Yet, it is vocalized with a chirik. Thus Rashi concludes: “I, therefore, say . . . is part of the root.”

כלי כסף וכלי זהב ושמלות, “silver and golden trinkets, as well as garments They claimed that they needed these in order to celebrate their religious holiday in style.”

ונצלתם את מצרים, “as a result of which you will strip Egypt bare.” These “gifts” would compensate the people for the many years they had performed slave labour without compensation.