Kommentar zu Schemot 3:9

AND NOW, BEHOLD, THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IS COME UNTO ME. Even though He has already said, and I have heard their cry,¹⁷⁶Verse 7. He says again that it has come unto Me, thus stating that “their cry has come to the Throne of My Glory, and I will no longer pardon¹⁷⁷According to another reading: “permit Pharaoh to enslave.” Pharaoh, for the Egyptians are oppressing them exceedingly.” It is similar in sense to the expression, a rage which hath reached up unto heaven.¹⁷⁸II Chronicles 28:9.
By way of the Truth, [the mystic lore of the Cabala], the cry of the children of Israel is a reference to Knesseth Yisrael,¹⁷⁹“The Congregation of Israel.” Here understood in a Cabalistic sense, an allusion to the attribute of justice. similar to the verse, according to the cry of it which is come unto Me.¹⁸⁰Genesis 18:21. I have alluded to it there.

ועתה, seeing that all this is true. This is the meaning of the word ועתה wherever it appears. G’d said: in view of the fact that the Israelites’ complaints are justified, that they are entitled to complain, and I am aware of their pain, etc.,

ועתה הנה צעקת בני ישראל באה אלי, "And now, the outcry of the children of Israel has reached Me, etc." Why did G'd repeat here something that He had already told Moses in verse seven? Besides, what did G'd mean by the word: "and now?" Why was there a need for the word הנה? The words באה אלי also seem superfluous. G'd again mentioned that He had seen the stress the Jewish people were under. Why the repetition?

וגם ראיתי את הלחץ אשר מצרים לוחצים אותם. The pressure mentioned resulted from the fact that the family of Yaakov who numbered only seventy souls when they came to Egypt and were settled by Joseph in the region of Goshen, increased and multiplied so that this region became far too small to contain them and to offer them a livelihood. It was G’d’s blessing which led to this eventual problem as the Egyptians were not willing to cede additional parts of their land to the Israelites. This phenomenon of artificially forcing a large population into an inadequate amount of land is also described in Judges 1,34, where the Emorite is described as trying to compress the increasing numbers of the tribe of Dan into a mountainous region, not allowing them to take up residence in the plains below.

V. 9. Und nun — vergegenwärtige du dir nur die eine Tatsache, dass das Volk nach Erlösung schreit und Ich es erlösen will, darin liegt dir Aufforderung genug, dich mir als Werkzeug darzubieten.

צעקת בני ישראל באה אלי, “the outcry of the Children of Israel has come to My attention;” if you were to say that their outcry was in vain, I go on record as: וגם ראיתי את הלחץ, “and I have also taken note of their oppression;” i.e. they are fully justified in their complaints.

The meaning of the verse, moreover I have seen the oppression, is that He will punish Pharaoh and his people because by oppressing Israel so exceedingly, they perpetrated more than had been decreed against them, as I have explained in Seder Lech Lecha.¹⁸¹Ibid., 15:13 (Vol. I, pp. 203-8).

הנה צעקת בני ישראל באה אלי, I have accepted their prayer after they truly called on Me, [aware that I could help them. Ed.] They did not merely mouth these prayers to give themselves the illusion of having vented their frustrations (compare Psalms 27,36).

It appears that G'd told Moses that while he was speaking with him the repeated outcry of the Jewish people had again come to His attention.

וגם ראיתי את הלחץ, in view of the excessive pressure brought to bear on them, the ones applying the pressure deserve to be punished. We find a similar construction in Zecharyah 1,15:וקצף גדול אני קוצף על הגוים השאננים אשר אני קצפתי מעט והם עזרו לרעה, “and I am very angry with those nations that are at ease; for I was only angry a little; but they overdid the punishment.”

וגם ראיתי את הלחץ, “and I have also seen the pressure, etc.” Rabbeinu Chananel comments on the word לחץ that this pressure was due to the fact that Joseph at the time had assigned the province of Goshen to a family comprising only 70 souls. He had not realised that the population explosion that was to follow would result in the province of Goshen being far too small to contain all the Israelites and to provide them with a livelihood. At the same time, the Egyptians had not been prepared to make allowance for this and to allocate additional land to the Israelites. The Rabbi supports his view of the meaning of the word לחץ by citing Judges 1,34: וילחצו האמורי את בני דן ההרה כי לא נתנו לרדת לעמק, “the Emorites squeezed the Danites into the hill country; they would not let them come down to the plain.”

G'd said: באה אלי, because the prayers which come to the attention of G'd are not all of the same category. Some prayers are presented to G'd by one of His angels; others are of a calibre that do not need the intervention of any angel as the people who offer them are deserving. G'd now told Moses that some of the prayers of the Jewish people had reached Him without the assistance of any of the angels.

G'd added: "I have also seen the stress that the Egyptians subject the Jewish people to." In the Haggadah shel Pessach the author describes the word לחץ as meaning דחק. This is a detail which had not been mentioned before. This is why G'd had to tell Moses all this. When G'd added the word וראיתי He meant to tell Moses why the matter of commencing the process of redemption had suddenly assumed a degree of urgency. G'd continues in verse 10: ועתה לכה to indicate that the matter had now become urgent.