Comentario sobre Exodo 1:1

ואלה שמות בני ישראל NOW THESE ARE THE NAMES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL — Although scripture has already enumerated them by name whilst they were living, when they went down into Egypt (Genesis 46:8-27), it again enumerates them when it tells us of their death, thus showing how dear they were to God — that they are compared to the stars which also God brings out and brings in by number and name when they cease to shine, as it is said, (Isaiah 40:26) “He bringeth out their host by number, He calleth them all by name” (Exodus Rabbah 1:3; Tanchuma Yashan 1:1:2).

AND THESE ARE THE NAMES OF …. The meaning [of the connective vav — v’eileh, (‘and’ these are) — when it would have sufficed to say, “These are the names of …,”] is that Scripture desires to reckon the subject of the exile from the time they went down to Egypt. It was then that they were the first of the exiles to go into exile,¹⁶Amos 6:7. as I have explained.¹⁷See Note 7 above. It is for this reason that He returns to the beginning of the subject [stated in the Book of Genesis], which is the verse, And all his seed he [Jacob] brought with him into Egypt.¹⁸Genesis 46:7. There it is written afterward, And these are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, etc.¹⁹Ibid., Verse 8. This is the very same verse that He repeats here. Even though they are two separate books, the narrative is connected with subjects which follow one another successively. Here, once He mentioned the children of Jacob, He adopted a concise approach to his children’s children and all of his seed [and did not mention them by name as He had done in the Book of Genesis]. Rather, He alluded to them only generally, just as He had said there, All the souls of the house of Jacob, that came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.²⁰Ibid., Verse 27. In the same way He said here in Verse 5: And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls.
A similar case is found in the Book of Chronicles and the Book of Ezra. The Book of Chronicles finishes with the verse: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Eternal by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Eternal stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying: Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, etc.²¹II Chronicles 36:22-23. The author repeated the very language of these two verses at the beginning of the Book of Ezra in order to connect the narrative. However, since they were indeed two books, he completed the first book, [i.e., the Book of Chronicles], with the events that transpired before the building of the Second Sanctuary, and he devoted the second book, [i.e., the Book of Ezra], to the events that happened from the time of the building [of that Sanctuary].²²Ramban’s thesis apparently is that Ezra himself completely authored the two books, Chronicles and Ezra. See, however, Baba Bathra 15a, where it is stated, “Ezra wrote his book and the genealogy of Chronicles up to himself.” This would seem to indicate that only the first chapters of the Book of Chronicles, which deal with the genealogical tables, were written by Ezra, but not the other parts of the book. The key to the understanding of Ramban’s words must lie therefore in grasping his intent, i.e., that Ezra connected the Book of Chronicles with his own book by using the restoration-edict of Cyrus as the linking material, with the object of bringing out the continuity of the events during the two Sanctuaries. The same thing occurs in these two books, Bereshith and V’eileh Shemoth.

ואלה שמות, seeing that the Torah wanted to let us know how the Israelites had increased and multiplied (verse 3) it became necessary to repeat that when they had arrived in Egypt they had numbered only 70 souls. The dramatic increase in numbers of Israelites began only with the death of the generation that had moved there from the land of Canaan. As a result, when a new king came to the throne in Egypt, he wanted to diminish their numbers and did not succeed in doing so.