Commentaire sur L’Exode 12:42

ליל שמרים IT WAS NIGHT OF WATCHING [UNTO THE LORD] — a night which the Holy One, blessed be He, was watching for and looking forward to, that He might fulfill His promise להוציאם מארץ מצרים TO BRING THEM OUT FROM THE LAND OF EGYPT.

IT WAS A NIGHT OF WATCHING UNTO THE ETERNAL FOR BRINGING THEM OUT FROM THE LAND OF EGYPT. The verse is stating that from the time He decreed the exile upon them, He observed the matter that He bring them out on that night once the end had come, for I will hasten it in its time.³¹⁴Isaiah 60:22. It may be that the verse, It was a night of watching unto the Eternal, means that He was watching and looking forward to the night when He would bring them out from the land of Egypt, for the Holy One, blessed be He, looked forward to the time when they would merit to be brought out therefrom.
Now if we are to say [as Rashi did, quoted in the commentary on Verse 40], that the [period referred to in] the verse, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,²⁹⁹Genesis 15:13. And they shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. begins from the time that Abraham had seed, and that the reckoning [of the four hundred and thirty years] begins from the birth of Isaac, you will find that they stayed in Egypt two hundred and forty years, according to the explanation we mentioned.³¹⁵Thus: Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob and Esau were born (Genesis 25:26). When he stood before Pharaoh, Jacob was one hundred and thirty years old (ibid., 47:9). We thus have one hundred and ninety years since the birth of Isaac. Deduct them from the sum of four hundred and thirty, and you have two hundred and forty years remaining for the stay in Egypt. But this too in my opinion is not correct according to the plain meaning of Scripture, since all the days of Abraham cannot be counted as exile with respect to his seed.
The correct interpretation is that He was saying to Abraham “that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs … four hundred years²⁹⁹Genesis 15:13. And they shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. from this day on.”³¹⁶I.e., from the time of the “covenant between the parts.” According to Ramban, who is now following the simple meaning of Scripture, this covenant took place after Abram had left Haran when he was seventy-five years old or thereabout. Thus at the time of the covenant, Abraham was about eighty years old, and not seventy, as we reasoned before according to Rashi. (See beginning of Verse 40.) The purport thereof was to tell him: “your children will not immediately inherit this land which I give them, but instead they will be strangers like you were, in a land not theirs [for a period of] four hundred years and more. They will not return here till the fourth generation³⁰⁸Genesis 15:16. when four hundred and thirty years will be completed.” But if so, then their stay in Egypt lasted about two hundred and twenty years or thereabouts.³¹⁷According to Ramban’s interpretation, Abraham was about eighty years old at the time of the covenant. (See Note above). It was twenty years from then until Isaac’s birth, since Scripture states that Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac was born. Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob was born, and when Jacob stood before Pharaoh, he was one hundred and thirty. Thus we have two hundred and ten years. Deduct them from four hundred and thirty, and you are left with two hundred and twenty, which is the length of time they stayed in Egypt. Now if the numerical value of the word ‘r’du’ (get you down) thither,³¹⁸Genesis 42:2. These were Jacob’s words to his sons upon sending them to buy food in Egypt. He did not use the word l’chu (go you), but r’du (get you down), because the numerical value of the word r’du is two hundred and ten. There was thus an allusion here to the time the Israelites would stay in Egypt. [which is two hundred and ten], be an established tradition in Israel, it is possible that [Jacob, by using the word r’du], alluded to those who arrived in Egypt that after Jacob’s death they would stay there two hundred and ten years. With the seventeen years that Jacob lived in the land of Egypt,³¹⁹Genesis 47:28. their stay altogether totalled two hundred and twenty-seven years.
And I have already mentioned³²⁰Ibid., 15:13 (in Vol. I, Seder Lech Lecha, p. 203). the explanation of Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra that the expression, that thy seed shall be a stranger, means “in servitude and affliction until the end of a four-hundred year period commencing from this day of the covenant.” And Ibn Ezra further said that the thirty additional years [mentioned here in Verses 40-41] represent the time that elapsed between Abraham’s departure from his country³²¹I.e., his native country, Ur of the Chaldees. From there he went with his father to Haran, where they stayed five years, and then Abraham left for the land of Canaan. He was then seventy-five years old. Twenty-five years later when Isaac was born, the thirty year period, commencing from the time he left Ur of the Chaldees, was thus completed (Ibn Ezra). [and the day of the covenant]. Accordingly, the explanation of the verse here is as follows: “Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt until the end of the period when they and their ancestors were strangers in a land not theirs, was four hundred and thirty years.”
I maintain further that the most lucid explanation of all is that we say that the decree of the four-hundred year period, [as mentioned in Genesis 15:13], is to be reckoned from that day [of the “covenant between the parts],” as we have mentioned, and these thirty additional years — [in Verses 40-41 here] — were due to the sin of that generation. If exile and affliction are decreed upon a person for a year or two because of his sin and he will fully continue to add to his transgressions, exile and visitation of seven times³²²See Leviticus 26:28. the original magnitude will be his lot; his first punishment is no guarantee against his being punished for the additional sin he committed. Now it had been decreed upon Abraham that his children would be strangers in a land not their own [for a period of] four hundred years, and that they will not return until the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.³⁰⁸Genesis 15:16. Abraham was given no assurance [concerning the precise ending of the exile], except in the promise, And afterward they will come out with great substance,³²³Genesis 15:14. and that [“afterward”] could be immediately [after the four-hundred year period] or some subsequent time. Even that promise was given conditionally, as He said, And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance,³²³Genesis 15:14. meaning that He will bring them to judgment to determine whether they did to Israel in accordance with their deeds and as was decreed upon them.³²⁴For fuller explanation of this point, see Vol. I, pp. 204-205. Besides, no assurance is immune to annulment because of subsequent sin unless it is accompanied by an oath. And it is a known fact that the Israelites in Egypt were wicked and exceeding sinners, having also done away with circumcision, as it is written, And they rebelled against Me, and would not hearken unto Me; they did not every man cast away the detestable things of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt; then I said I would pour out My fury upon them in the midst of the land of Egypt.³²⁵Ezekiel 20:8. Again it says, And put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Eternal.³²⁶Joshua 24:14. It was for this reason that He prolonged their exile for thirty years.
In fact, it should have been prolonged even more, but on account of their cries and many prayers, [it was shortened to thirty years]. This is the sense of the verses: And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto G-d;³²⁷Above, 2:23. And G-d heard their groaning,³²⁸Ibid., Verse 24. And now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto Me.³²⁹Ibid., 3:9. And it further states, And we cried unto the Eternal, the G-d of our fathers, and the Eternal heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our toil, and our oppression,³³⁰Deuteronomy 26:7. since they did not deserve to be redeemed on account of the end [of the four-hundred year period], but only because He accepted their cry and their groaning on account of the great agony they were in, as I have explained in Seder V’eileh Shemoth.³³¹Above, 2:25. Why should the earlier scholars — [i.e., Rashi and Ibn Ezra] — find it difficult to explain that their exile was prolonged after the end [of the four-hundred year period] by thirty years, when on account of the sin of the spies their stay in the wilderness was later prolonged forty years!³³²Numbers 14:34. Those forty years were indeed an affliction to them, as Scripture states, And thou shalt remember all the way which the Eternal thy G-d hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that He might afflict thee.³³³Deuteronomy 8:2. And it further says, And He afflicted thee, and suffered thee to hunger.³³⁴Ibid., Verse 4. Thus they were subject [in the wilderness] to complete exile in a land given over to serpents, fiery serpents, and scorpions,³³⁵Ibid., Verse 15. and the promise, And in the fourth generation they shall come back hither,³⁰⁸Genesis 15:16. was not fulfilled in them, since during those forty years, that generation surely passed away after the [fifth] generation was already born. Thus the sins caused all delays.
It is possible that this [delay of the thirty years] was on account of the children of Ephraim who went out [from the land of Egypt] thirty years before the coming of Moses our teacher, and as our Rabbis have mentioned.³³⁶Sanhedrin 92b. They reckoned [the end of the four-hundred year period from the time it was declared to Abraham], and they made no error, but his own iniquities shall ensnare the wicked.³³⁷Proverbs 5:22. In other words, the children of Ephraim were accurate in their reckoning. However, they failed to know that on account of the sins of the generation, thirty years had been added to the length of the bondage. And may the Holy One, blessed be He, forgive us all sin and error.

ליל שמורים הוא לה' להוציאם, the night G’d had been looking forward to, to take the Jews out from there. G’d had not caused the Israelites all this suffering in Egypt out of caprice, just in order to keep to a timetable of His, but He simply had not found them ready and worthy of redemption until that particular night. He had reserved this night for that event because He is so full of loving kindness. This is what our sages meant when they stated that G’d was מחשב את הקץ, He had manipulated history in order to bring about the redemption so much earlier than even the Israelites had thought it would come, based on the prophecy to Avraham. (Haggadah shel Pessach.)

ליל שמורים הוא לה׳ It was a night of vigil for G׳d, etc. The verse refers specifically to those miracles G'd performed at night. 1) In the days of Abraham when the latter defeated the four kings with his 318 men at night (Genesis 14,15); 2) during the Exodus when G'd is reported to have killed the firstborn at midnight (12,29). 3) In the days of Hezekiah when the angel Gabriel smote the army of Sancheriv on that night (Kings II 19,35). 4) In the days of Mordechai and Esther when the king could not sleep (Esther 6,1). 5) The redemption of the Jewish people in the future.

ליל שימורים הוא לה', G’d had been anticipating this night ever since the days of the patriarchs in order to have the opportunity to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. For the Jewish people, on the other hand, this night now became a night to be remembered

A vigil (or “Stored up”) … for all the B’nei Yisrael. Because this was the time of Yisrael’s first redemption it was “stored up” for them for all generations as an auspicious time for deliverance from every type of affliction.

ליל שמורים, “a night of fulfillment of anticipations.” According to Ibn Ezra, G’d stood watch during that night and did not allow the destructive force to enter the homes of the Jews. This is why He commanded that in future the beneficiaries of His standing watch, i.e. His people, should observe that night by observing a special watch. This is the appropriate manner of thanking the Lord and praising Him for what He did for us. Nachmanides queries, saying that the language, i.e. שמורים הוא לה' להוציאם מארץ מצרים, “it is a night of special watch in order to take them out from the land of Egypt,” is not compatible with an interpretation that restricts the verse to saving the lives of the Jews from the destructive forces that abounded on that night. He therefore interprets the word שמורים as a reference to the conclusion of a watch over the fate of the Jewish people from the time when the covenant between the pieces was concluded with Avraham 430 years earlier. It is also possible to understand the word ליל שמורים as summing up all the strenuous efforts G’d had had to make in order to ensure that by that night the Jewish people would be on a spiritual level that would justify their redemption for all time.

It is continuously protected from destructive forces. Rashi is answering the question: What does “this night remains a vigil for all generations” mean? Surely, this actual night of the Exodus does not remain forever. Rashi answers: “It is continuously protected.” I.e., every year when this night comes, it is protected from destructive forces.

(Exodus 12:42) "It is a night of guarding for the L rd … it is this night for the L rd": On it they were redeemed; on it they are destined to be redeemed. These are the words of R. Yehoshua. R. Eliezer says: On it they were redeemed; but they are destined to be redeemed only on Tishrei, as it is written (Psalms 81:4) "Blow the shofar (of redemption) on the month (of Tishrei), (when the moon) is covered, on the day of our festival" (Rosh Hashanah). Why? (Ibid.) "for it is a statute for Israel, etc." And what is the intent of (Exodus , Ibid.) "It is this night for the L rd"? It is this night on which the Holy One Blessed be He said to our father Abraham: "On this night I will redeem your children," and when the time arrived, the Holy One Blessed be He did not delay (to redeem them) even for an instant. "guarded for all the children of Israel": We are hereby taught that all of Israel are destined to be "guarded" upon it (in halachic observance of the Pesach.)

V. 42. שמורים, kommt in dieser Form nur hier vor. Der Piel bezeichnet die intensive, die Pluralform die quantitative Stärke der Hut: Auf diese Nacht war Jahrhunderte lang die sorgfältigste und mannigfaltigste, alle seine צבאות erhaltende und erziehende Waltung Gottes gerichtet, in ihr ein Volk zum Träger seiner Absichten für die Menschheit hervorgehen zu lassen. Diese Nacht wird fortan für Gott diesem Volke überantwortet, auf sie ihre sorgfältigste, mannigfachste Aufmerksamkeit gerichtet zu halten, um die in ihr empfangene Aufgabe mit aller Hingebung alle Folgegeschlechter hindurch zur Verwirklichung zu bringen. Sie war eine ליל שמורים לד׳ und sie wird nun eine ליל שמורים לכל בני ישראל לדורותם, zur Verwirklichung der Gotteszwecke: לד׳!

'ליל שמורים הוא לה, “it is a night of vigil for the Lord;” this is a reference to how G-d protected the Israelites from being harmed by the Destroyer when He struck Egypt. It is also a night of vigil for the Israelites for all future generations, a night on which they should not go to sleep; this is an allusion to the story told in the haggadah about the five scholars in Bney Brak who spent the whole night reminiscing about that night.

'הוא הלילה הזה לה IT IS THIS NIGHT OF THE LORD — it is the night of which He said to Abraham, “On this night will I redeem your children” (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 12:42; cf. Rashi on Genesis 39:11).

THIS SAME NIGHT IS A NIGHT OF WATCHING UNTO THE ETERNAL FOR ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THROUGHOUT THEIR GENERATIONS. The intent of this is “that this night set aside by G-d to bring Israel out of Egypt is unto the Eternal. That is to say, it is to be sanctified to His Name. [It is] a night of watching for all the children of Israel throughout their generations, meaning that they are to observe it by worshipping Him through the eating of the Passover-offering, the remembering of the miracles, and the reciting of praise and thanksgiving to His Name,” just as He said, And thou shalt keep this ordinance.³³⁸Further, 13:10. The Hebrew v’shamarta (and thou shalt keep) is of the same root as shimurim (watching) here. And He further said, Observe the month of Aviv, and keep the Passover.³³⁹Deuteronomy 16:1. Here too the word shamor (observe) is of the same root as shimurim in the verse before us. It thus proves that leil shimurim (a night of watching) means “a night of observance of the Passover service.”
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explained that the intent of the expression, It was a night of watching unto the Eternal, is that G-d watched the Israelites and did not suffer the destroyer to come into their homes. This is not correct, since Scripture continues to state, It was a night of watching… for bringing them out from the land of Egypt.

הוא הלילה הזה לה' שמורים, just as G’d had looked for ways and means to bring the redemption to the Jewish people from their suffering in Egypt, so He is looking for legal ways and means to redeem us from the present exile and to bring on the final redemption. Isaiah phrased this asולכן יחכה ה' לחננכם, “Truly, the Lord is waiting to show you grace.” (Isaiah 3018)

לרורותם, for all their future generations. The expression

הוא הלילה הזה לה' שמורים לכל בני ישראל לדורותם, “this was the night for Hashem of protection for all the Children of Israel throughout their generations.” This night which Hashem had kept His eye on during all these many years, had become sanctified now as associated forever with His name as Hashem.

Concerning the miracle in Abraham's time, the Torah says here "it was a night of vigilance for G'd," because G'd had demonstrated His truth as mentioned in Bereshit Rabbah 42. According to the Midrash there were some people who did not believe that G'd had saved Abraham from Nimrod's furnace in Ur Kasdim at the time. When they heard about how Abraham defeated these four kings, they changed their minds. The verse goes on to say "to take them out of Egypt," a reference to what happened during this night; the words הוא הלילה, are an allusion to the night in the future when G'd would smite the army of Sancheriv. The allusion to what would happen in the time of Mordechai and Esther is contained in the words הזה לה׳, whereas the reference to the redemption of the future is provided by the words שמורים לכל בני ישראל לדרותם, i.e. at the end of the exiles, may it happen soon.

שמורים, the first time this word appears it describes an event awaited that had not yet occurred; the second time it describes commemoration of an event that occurred in the past. An alternate interpretation: the expression: ליל שמורים is a reminder to observe the anniversary of that night, and warns us not to forget to eat the Passover on that night. The root שמר occurs elsewhere in that context also, for instance: תשמרו להקריב לו במועדו, “be mindful to offer it at its appointed time.” (Numbers 28,2, the daily communal offering)

שמרים לכל בני ישראל לדרתם [IT IS A NIGHT] OF PROTECTION FOR ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THROUGHOUT THEIR GENERATIONS — this night is protected, and comes as such from ages past, against all destructive forces, as it is said, (v. 33) “And He will not permit the destroyer [to enter your houses]” (Pesachim 109b; Rosh Hashanah 11b).

לכל בני ישראל לדורותיכם, in accordance with the statement of our sages in Rosh Hashanah 11 “just as the Israelites have been redeemed from Egypt in the month of Nissan, so the final redemption will also occur during the month of Nissan.”

שמורים, represents an element of “waiting for something.” It is used in this sense in Genesis 37,11 ואביו שמר את הדבר, “his father waited to see what would happen in this matter.”