פירוש על שמות 14:24

באשמרת הבקר IN THE MORNING WATCH — The three divisions of the night are each called an אשמורה “a watch” (Berakhot 3b), and that which immediately precedes the morning is called “the morning watch”. I am of opinion that because the night is divided for the watches (משמרות) of the song of the ministering angels — company after company — into three divisions, therefore each division of the night is termed, for all purposes, an אשמרת (another form of משמר the angel’s watch), and this is what Onkelos has in mind when he translates אשמרת by מטרת.

וישקף ה' אל מחנה מצרים בעמוד אש וענן, the two pillars which were moving halfway between the Egyptians and the Israelites, He now brought much closer to the Egyptian camp.

ויהי באשמרת הבקר, It happened during the morning watch, etc. We need to know why G'd chose to perform this act of retribution in the morning and not during the night which is traditionally the time for the attribute of Justice to be active. I have seen in Yalkut Shimoni item 235 that this is exactly what the angel Gabriel argued before G'd. G'd answered him that he should wait until the hour during which the patriarch Abraham started out on the way to offer his son Isaac as an offering to G'd (we read in Genesis 22,3 that this occurred early in the morning). In other words, although the morning is not the time to exact vengeance G'd reversed His usual procedure for the sake of Abraham's descendants just as Abraham at the time had reversed his natural feelings of love and mercy towards his son in favour of obedience to G'd's request. Israel benefited in that G'd performed the miracle personally, to match the fact that Abraham had personally saddled his donkey at the time though he had hundreds of servants at his disposal to perform that task for him. The Torah writes: "G'd looked down on the camp of Egypt; this means that He Himself went into action. The fact that the Egyptians drowned in daylight enabled the Israelites to witness the death of their enemies.

בעמוד אש, at the column of fire as well as at the pillar of cloud accompanied by the sounds of hail and thunder as described in Samuel I 7,10.

וישקף ה' אל מחנה מצרים בעמוד אש וענן, “The Lord looked down at the camp of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and the cloud, etc.” The verse describes the removal of the pillar of fire that manifested itself daily at night in front of the Israelites, and, instead, positioned itself as an ”observer” over the camp of the Israelites, and the cloud was positioned in a manner that served the needs of the Israelites during the day.

It is for this reason that Onkelos translates it: מטרת . This word means waiting.

(Ibid. 24) "And it was in the morning watch": We find that the prayers of the righteous are heard in the morning. The "morning" of Abraham — (Genesis 22:3) "And Abraham rose early in the morning, etc." The "morning" of Isaac — (Ibid. 9) "and both of them went together, etc." — and both had risen early in the morning. The "morning" of Jacob — (Ibid. 28:18) "and Jacob rose early in the morning, etc." The "morning" of Moses — Exodus 34:4) "and Moses rose early in the morning, etc." The "morning" of Joshua — (Joshua 3:1) "And Joshua rose early in the morning and they journeyed from Shittim, etc." The "morning" of Samuel — (I Samuel 15:12) "and Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, etc." The "mornings" of the prophets that were destined to arise (for Israel) — (Psalms 5:4) "O L rd, in the morning shall You hear my voice; in the morning will I order (my prayer) before You, and I will hope." The "morning" of the world to come — |(Eichah 3:23) "New every morning; great is Your faith." And thus do you find that the Holy One Blessed be He is destined to exact punishment of the wicked in the world to come only in the mornings" — (Psalms 101:8) "In the mornings I will cut off all the wicked of the land to cut off from the city of the L rd all the workers of iniquity." Also Jerusalem, in time to come, every morning her judgment will come to light, viz. (Tzefaniah 3:5) "The L rd is righteous in its midst. He will do no wrong. Every morning He will bring His judgment to light. It will not fail. But the churl will not know shame." (Exodus 14:24) "And it was in the morning watch": This occurred at dawn. "and the L rd looked to the camp of Egypt with a pillar of fire and cloud, etc.": The Holy One Blessed be He heals all who enter the world, viz. (Exodus 15:26) "for I am the L rd who heals you", (Jeremiah 17:14) "Heal me, O L rd, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved.", (Ibid. 3:22) "Return, wayward sons; I will heal your waywardness." Come and see that the healing of the Holy One Blessed be He is not like the healing of flesh and blood. The healing of flesh and blood — With what he smites, he does not heal. He smites with a knife and heals with a plaster. Not so the Holy One Blessed be He. With what He smites, He heals. When He smote Iyyov, He smote him with a tempest, viz. (Iyyov 9:11) "He struck me with a tempest and multiplied my wounds in vain." When He healed him, He healed him with a tempest, viz. (Ibid. 38:1) "And the L rd answered Iyyov from the tempest." He answered him from the tempest and He healed him. And when the Holy One Blessed be He exiled Israel, He did so with clouds, viz. (Eichah 2:1) "How the L rd has beclouded in His wrath the daughter of Zion." And when He gathers them in, He does so with clouds, viz. (Isaiah 60:8) "Who are those who fly like a cloud, like doves to their dove-cotes?" When He scatters them, He scatters them like doves, viz. (Ezekiel 7:16) "And their fugitives will flee. They will be in the mountains, all of them moaning like the doves of the valleys, each man in his sin." And when He returns them, He returns them like doves, viz.: "like doves to their dove-cotes." When He blesses Israel, He blesses them with looking, viz. (Devarim 26:15) "Look down from Your holy abode, from the heavens, and bless Your people, Israel." And when He exacted punishment of Egypt, He did so with "looking," viz. "and the L rd looked to the camp of Egypt with a pillar of fire and cloud, and He confounded the camp of Egypt, etc." The pillar of cloud descended and made the sea-bed clay, and the pillar of fire made it so hot that the horses' hooves fell off. "and He confounded the camp of Egypt": He confounded them, He mixed them up, He removed their ensigns and they did not know what they were doing. Variantly: "Confounding" is plague, viz. (Devarim 7:23) "And He will confound them with a great confusion until they are destroyed."

V. 24. אשמרת, auch אשמורָה (Ps. 90, 4) ist eine Abteilung der Nacht. Vielleicht waren es die Zeitabschnitte, in welche die Nacht für die sich ablösenden Wächter geteilt war, ein jeder solcher Wächterzeitabschnitt hieß daher: אשמרת. Nach Berachoth 3 b. war die Nacht in drei oder in vier solcher "Wachen" eingeteilt. Die Morgenwache war der letzte Abschnitt der Nacht. — השקיף ist immer ein von oben Herabschauen. "Durch" eine "Feuer- und Wolkensäule": eine solche Säule war die Botin und Dienerin seines Blickes, sie vollstreckte seinen Willen. Wenn Ps. 77. 18, 19 dieser Übergang als von heftigen, erderschütternden Gewittern begleitet geschildert wird, so dürfte die verwirrende und, wie aus V. 25 ersichtlich, zerstörende Wirkung dieser Feuerwolkensäule vielleicht in jener Schilderung ihren Ausdruck finden. — ויהם, so auch ויהם ד׳ את סיסרא ואת כל הרכב וגו׳ Richter 4, 15) und) והמתי את כל העם (Schmot 23, 27).

באשמורת הבקר, “during the morning watch;” Rashi claims that seeing that the night is divided in accordance with the songs of the angels in heaven, these watches are called אשמורת. This word means “waiting for;” the angels have to be on time so as not to miss the turn allocated to them. We find the root שמר used in this context when Yaakov, hearing Joseph’s last dream is reported to have taken it seriously and he was waiting how that dream would play out. (Compare Genesis 37,11: ואביו שמר את הדבר, “his father kept track of the matter.”)

‎ וישקף means HE LOOKED, as much as to say, He turned towards them to destroy them (cf. Rashi on Genesis 18:16), and its rendering in the Targum, ואסתכי, is also an expression denoting looking, just as he translates (Numbers 23:14), “the field of the watchers (צפים)” by “the field of ,סכותא” which denotes “looking”.

ויהם, by means of a variety of diseases, similar to what G’d did to the Philistines who had captured the Holy Ark in Samuel I 5,9 where these afflictions, especially painful hemorrhoids are detailed. These afflictions are referred to in the Torah as מדוי מצרים הרעים, the terrible sicknesses of Egypt (Deut. 7,15). This was part of the היד הגדולה אשר עשה ה' במצרים, “the great hand which G’d employed against Egypt.” (verse 31 our chapter). In Deuteronomy 28,60 Moses recalls that the Israelites dreaded these illnesses. However, during the 10 plagues the details of which have been listed by the Torah, we find only a single such affliction infecting the bodies of the people seriously, i.e the 6th plague, שחין. The Torah refers separately to שחין מצרים and to מדוי מצרים.

ויהם, as the could not identify the precise nature and source of all these sounds.

ויהם את מחנה מצרים, “He caused confusion in the camp of the Egyptians.” They did not know how to cope with the heat radiated from the pillar of fire.

He gazed. . . [Rashi knows it was to destroy them] because every expression of השקפה in Scripture is for something bad, except for: “Gaze down ( השקיפה ) from Your Holy dwelling place” (Devarim 26:15). [There it is for the good] because giving gifts to the poor has such great power, [that it even changes Hashem’s anger to compassion].

באשמורת הבקר, in our domain: “close to morning.” It was an hour when people already look forward towards morning.

בעמוד אש וענן THROUGH THE PILLAR OF FIRE AND CLOUD — viz., the pillar of cloud descended and made it (the bed of the sea) like clay, and the pillar of fire made it boiling hot so that the horses’ hoofs fell off (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 14:24).

The pillar of fire heated it up. . . [Rashi says this] because in between the divided water standing on both sides was dry land, for B’nei Yisrael crossed the sea on dry land. Therefore, after B’nei Yisrael passed, the pillar of cloud moistened the land within the sea to make it like soft clay. Then the pillar of fire came and heated it up.

בעמוד אש וענן, “through a pillar of fire and cloud;” the time when the pillar of fire made way for the pillar of cloud. At this brief moment the two phenomena appeared as if mixed up with one another in front of the camp of the Egyptians. The Egyptians had not been used to see a pillar of fire, they had only faced darkness up to that moment. As soon as they saw the pillar of fire they took fright and wanted to reverse direction in order to flee. The Israelites meanwhile had no need to stop, so that from that moment on they put more and more distance between themselves and their pursuers. Seeing that the frozen waters on both of their sides were security, they could proceed undisturbed.

ויהם has the meaning of confusion. old French estordison. He cast them into confusion; He took away their ensigns. And we read in the Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi José, the Galilean: Wherever it speaks of מהומה (forms from the root המם) it signifies a thundering sound; and the following passage is the father of all of them (i. e. that from which this meaning is quite evident): (I Samuel 7:10) “And the Lord thundered with a great sound … upon the Philistines and discomfited them (ויהמם)”.

He took away their senses. סגניות means intelligence, as in: “One thought ( סגנון ) is presented to many prophets. . .” (Sanhedrin 89a)