Comentario sobre Exodo 8:18

והפליתי means I WILL SEPARATE. Similar is, (Exodus 9:4) “And the Lord will make a separation (והפלה)”; so, also, (Deuteronomy 30:11) “It is not נפלאת from thee״ — that is, “it is not separated and set at a far distance from thee”.

AND I WILL SET APART IN THAT DAY THE LAND OF GOSHEN. Due to the fact that the first plagues were not migratory in nature, it was no wonder that they were confined to the land of Egypt and were not to be in the land of Goshen, [Israel’s habitation].¹⁸⁴Genesis 47:15. But this [plague of swarms] was a migratory plague. Thus when the wild beasts came up from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards,¹⁸⁵Song of Songs 4:8. and brought ruin upon the whole land of Egypt, it was natural that they also come into the land of Goshen, which contained some of the best of the land of Egypt.¹⁸⁶See Genesis 47:6, where the land of Goshen is referred to as the best of the land of Egypt. Therefore it was necessary for Him to say, And I will set apart in that day the land of Goshen, so that it would be completely saved [from the wild beasts] because My people dwell in it, as the majority of its inhabitants were Israelites.
And I will put ‘p’duth’ (a division) between My people and thy people.¹⁸⁷Verse 19. The intent thereof is that even in the land of Egypt, if the beasts will find a certain Jew, they will not harm him. Instead they will devour the Egyptians, as it is written: He sent among them swarms of beasts, which devoured them.¹⁸⁸Psalms 78:45. This is the sense of the word ‘p’duth’ between My people and thy people, which is similar to the verse, I have given Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.¹⁸⁹Isaiah 43:3.

והפלאתי ביום ההוא, seeing that these wild beasts are fleet-footed and would invade any kingdom without regard to international borders once the plague has been released, the Torah had to stress that it would be observed that these animals would respect the unfenced areas in which the Jews were living as if they were physical obstacles. The same phenomenon would be observed when the “natural” disaster which struck the herds under the heading of דבר, the fifth plague, did not infect a single animal owned by the Israelites.

והפלאתי ביום ההוא, “I shall set apart on that day, etc.” There is no doubt that all the other plagues did not afflict the Israelites either. The reason why the Torah mentions that the land of Goshen would not be invaded by the wild beasts, is that once wild beasts are allowed to roam freely, it could have been expected that they would not know how to distinguish between areas inhabited by Egyptians and districts predominately populated by Israelites. The Torah had made a similar comment during the plague of pestilence (#5) stating that not a single Jew became afflicted with that disease. There too, we would have expected the microbes not to have known how to make a detour around the Israelites. In the case of the fourth plague, although there may have been a few Egyptians living in the province of Goshen, the fact that it was populated in the main by Israelites, appears to have protected the few Egyptians there. [this in turn might have stiffened Pharaoh’s attitude, as he was searching desperately for an excuse that these were natural disasters, not vengeance by the Jewish G’d. Ed.]

והפלאתי ביום ההוא , “I shall set apart on that day, etc.” The fact that the first three plagues occurred in the land of Egypt without affecting the province of Goshen was not so remarkable due to the nature of the plagues. The manifestations of those plagues were more or less local in nature. Seeing that the plague of wild beasts originated far from civilized areas of Egypt, it was remarkable that the beasts should distinguish between areas inhabited by Israelites and areas inhabited by Egyptians. It was therefore an act of G’d to redirect the instinct of the beasts so that they ignored Israelites and their dwellings.
אשר עמי עומד עליה, “on which My people are standing.” This means: “in order to enable My people to maintain itself on it.”

V. 18. So werdet ihr ins Exil müssen und gerade die, die ihr als גרים, als die Unberechtigten im Lande behandelt habt, werden auf ihrem Boden unbelästigt bleiben. — פלח ,פלה פלא: scharf und entschieden von allem andern sondern, daher einerseits: spalten, andererseits von Ereignissen: Wunder, das außer allem ursächlichen Zusammenhange, unmittelbar nur durch Gott Geschehende. — בקרב הארץ: du sollst erkennen, dass ich nicht nur über der Erde, etwa nur in unerreichbarer Höhe über die Verhältnisse im allgemeinen gebiete, sondern auch unmittelbar auf Erden die Verhältnisse unterscheide und nach meinem Willen lenke.

למען תדע כי אני ה׳ בקרב הארץ IN ORDER THAT THOU MAYEST KNOW THAT I AM THE ETERNAL IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH — although My Shechina is in the heavens My command is fulfilled amongst mankind (as we might say, “My writ runs on earth also”).

I AM THE ETERNAL IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explained it as being a figure of speech, emblematic of the nature of kings to establish their seat of government in the center of the kingdom in order to be near to the remote comers thereof. This explanation makes no sense. Rather, its intent is to state that He rules and supervises in the midst of the earth, and not, as some think, that thick clouds are a covering to Him, that He seeth not; and He walketh in the circuit of heaven.¹⁹⁰Job 22:14. It is possible that the sense of the expression is similar to the verse, For My name is in him,¹⁹¹Further, 23:21. and the secret thereof is sublime and recondite.¹⁹²See my Hebrew commentary, p. 314, that the allusion here is to the Cabalistic term of “the upper earth.” See Ramban to Genesis 1:5 (Vol. I, pp. 35-38).

כי אני ה' בקרב הארץ, “that I, the Lord, am also G’d in the midst of the land.” Ibn Ezra writes that it was customary in those days that the kings would make their residence in the centre of their land, so as to be equidistant from most of their subjects. They felt that just as man’s heart is located centrally within his body, so the place of a king has to be in the center of his realm.