Comentario sobre Exodo 9:28

ורב AND IT IS ENOUGH — let it suffice Him with what He has brought down already.

ורב מהיות קולות אלו-הים וברד, “there has been plenty of heavenly thunder and hail.” The word רב is an entreaty or allusion to the One who is “great” in providing salvation, i.e. G’d. Onkelos also translates the word in that way, i.e. וסגי קדמוהי רווחא. The meaning of the words העתירו אל ה' are an introduction, i.e. “entreat Hashem who is capable of providing such great relief.” It is noteworthy that while Pharaoh asked Moses and Aaron to plead with Hashem, he attributed the thunder to elohim, a different attribute of G’d. This may have been because the sound of this thunder inspires fear and leaves a palpable effect on one’s body. Our sages (Berachot 59) said that thunder was created in order to break the crookedness of the heart.
Pharaoh mentioned the thunder before the hail seeing that in verse 23 when the plague first began, the thunder was the first manifestation of what was to come. After the people had become suitably frightened the hail began to fall and man and beast who were outside died. You will find the same sequence occurring after Moses’ prayer to G’d to stop the plague (compare verse 33). That which had come first also ceased first. According to this principle we would have expected the Torah to write: וירא פרעה כי חדלו הקולות והברד והמטר ויוסף לחטוא, “when Pharaoh saw that the thunder, the hail and the rain had stopped, he continued to sin.” The fact is that the Torah writes the verse in such a way that the words “he continued to sin” are adjacent to the word “thunder.” This shows that the only factor which had caused him previously to agree to dismiss the Jewish people was the fear which the thunder had inspired in him. This testifies to the obstinacy of Pharaoh. Even the damage caused by the hail would not budge him; the only thing which he responded to was personal fear inspired by the sound of the thunder. As soon as this fear evaporated as a result of the cessation of the thunder, he continued to sin.

V. 28. ורב kann wohl nicht füglich heißen: es ist zu viel, nachdem er gestanden, dass ד׳ הצדיק. Es scheint vielmehr Substantiv zu sein, wie רב מחולל כל (Prov. 26, 10). ורב מושיע Jes. 19, 20). Er ist allein derjenige, der diese Donner und Hagel) meistern kann.

קולות אלוהים, heavenly thunder; he acknowledged that there is a G-d (in heaven). Seeing that he had not acknowledged the existence of Hashem, Moses stressed that when he would pray for the plague to end, he would not address his prayer to elohim, but to the tetragram, i.e. to Hashem. (compare verse 30) When Moses, at the end of verse 30, combines the two names of G-d, he wants Pharaoh to know that these two attributes are not two separate deities, but that there is only one “elohim,” i.e. Hashem. You cannot argue by citing Avraham, who in Genesis 15,2 had asked: ה׳ אלוהים מה תתן לי, “o Lord, G-d what can You give me?” and a few more such examples, that there appear to be two separate deities. In all such examples the reading of the word for elohim is the word adonay.