פירוש על שמות 9:31

והפשתה והשערה נכתה AND THE FLAX AND THE BARLEY נכתה — i. e. were broken; it has the same meaning as in, (2 Kings 23:29) “Pharaoh-Necho (נכה)”, which denotes Pharaoh the lame i. e. broken in so far as the power of his legs is concerned (cf. II Samuel 9:3); (Isaiah 16:7) “brocken (נכאים)”, and so too לא נכו (v. 32), “they were not broken”. It would not be correct to explain that it is connected in meaning with the word that signifies “smiting”, הכאה, for a נ cannot take the place of a ה that one may explain נֻכָּתָה as being equivalent to הֻכָּתָה, and נֻכּוּ to הֻכּוּ, but the נ is a root-letter in the verb, and the word נֻכּוּ is of the same grammatical form as the verb in, (Job. 33:21) “and all his bones are laid bare” שֻׁפּוּ (i. e. Pual of כי השערה אביב

AND THE FLAX AND THE BARLEY WERE SMITTEN, etc. Scripture narrates what happened, but I do not know why these two verses were entered in this place before the subject of Moses’ prayer and the removal of the hail was completed. In the name of Rav Saadia Gaon,²³⁰Mentioned by Ibn Ezra here. One of the greatest Jewish personalities of all times, Rav Saadia (892 or 882-942) was Gaon of the Academy of Sura. He wrote extensively on every aspect of Jewish learning: Bible, Talmud, grammar, philology, philosophy, polemics against the Karaites, etc. His work, Ha’emunoth Vehadei’oth, the first of its kind in the field of Jewish religious philosophy, exercised a great influence on Jewish thought. He translated the Scriptures into Arabic and wrote extensive commentaries in Arabic on the books of the Bible, which influenced the later commentators. Ramban’s knowledge of his commentaries, as indicated here, seems to have been mainly through a secondary source. See, however, Note 224 in Seder Shemoth that there is some proof indicating that Ramban may have seen the Gaon’s commentary in the original Arabic. the commentators have said that these [two verses are also part of] Moses’ words to Pharaoh. He said to him: “Before you had feared G-d and said, The Eternal is the righteous One,²³¹Verse 27. the flax and the barley were already smitten and these can no longer be saved. But the wheat and the spelt were not smitten yet, and henceforth you will no longer suffer damage.”
I find no sense in this explanation. The hail smote every herb of the field²³²Verse 25. and broke every tree,²³²Verse 25. and the wheat and the spelt were saved only because they had not sprouted at all or because they were so tender that they were not destroyed completely by the hail since they could sprout again. That being the case, even if the hail had continued for days more to come down upon them, there would not be a loss. There was thus no need for Moses to inform Pharaoh of what he lost and what he did not lose, for when the hail will be removed, he will himself see!
In my opinion, these are Moses’ words to Pharaoh. Moses said to him: “I know that before the plagues are removed, you fear G-d, and afterward you repeat your folly.²³³See Proverbs 26:11. Now the flax and the barley were smitten while the wheat and the spelt which are your livelihood were not smitten in this plague, but it is within G-d’s power to destroy them if you return and sin again before Him.” Thus Moses alluded to them that which G-d said later [of the locust], And they shall eat the residue of that which escaped.²³⁴Further, 10:5.
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והפשתה והשעורה, even though both the flax crop and the barley crop had been wiped out by the hail, something which caused tremendous damage to the Egyptian economy.

והפשתה והשעורה נכתה, both the flax and the barley were smitten, etc. Why did the Torah tell us of this detail before describing Moses as concluding his prayer? According to normal practice the Torah should have reported that Moses did as he had said, namely that he prayed to G'd for the plague to stop.

הפשתה והשעורה נוכתה, “the flax crop and the barley crop had been destroyed;” Nachmanides writes that he does not understand why these verses have been inserted here, at a point when Moses had not yet completed his prayer. According to Rabbi Saadyah gaon these comments are not part of the Torah, but are a Torah recording of what Moses had thought at the time. Nonetheless he himself is unhappy with this interpretation, seeing that the Torah had stated that the hail struck all the grass in the field (verse 25), i.e. even underdeveloped grain seedlings. [we must remember that we do not possess an original manuscript of Rabbi Saadyah gaon on this, but only Ibn Ezra’s quote. Ed.] In light of this, how could the wheat and the spelt have escaped serious damage by the hail? We must therefore assume that the comments which we find disturbing were part of Moses telling Pharaoh that he knew that his posture of penitence while under the influence of the destruction all around him, may have been sincere, but it would not last as not all the crops have been destroyed, and that is why as soon as he would experience relief he would promptly forget about his having acknowledged that G’d was righteous and that he was the sinner. [When one looks at the plagues with the benefit of hindsight as we do, Pharaoh’s continued obstinacy appears foolish and self-destructive in the extreme. When one tries to put oneself into the realities of his time, one can appreciate that he felt that any G’d who does not kill a rebellious creature, as does a mortal king with a rebellious subject, probably does not have the power to kill. The plagues were tools at his disposal, but sooner or later he must run out of such tools, and the survivor of God’s plagues would stand tall as a hero. Ed.] Moses explains that the reason that the wheat and spelt crop was undamaged had nothing to do with G’d’s inability to ruin them, but was an integral part of their developing later in the season, and remaining pliable even after lengthy exposure to hail and rain. Moses may have presented these words as an inspiration he had received from G’d, although he had not been told specifically to reveal this to Pharaoh. It is an implied warning not to renege on his penitence as G’d has other means at His disposal to also ruin these crops without which the Egyptians could not sustain any meaningful standard of living.

And is the same form as ושפו עצמותיו . Rashi is answering the question: Since the נ [of נכתה ] is part of the root, the verb is incomplete and is missing the ה of the הפעל form, and it should have been written הנכתה . Therefore Rashi explains: “And is the same form as שפו .” In other words, since it is vocalized with a shuruk, it is considered as if it were written with a ה .

V. 31 u. 32. Diese beiden Verse scheinen den Schluss von Mosches Rede zu bilden. Sie enthalten den Grund, weshalb Pharao und seine Diener noch fern davon sind, Gott zu fürchten. Ihr wisst sehr wohl, sagt Mosche, dass, wenngleich Flachs und Gerste — allerdings wichtige Produkte des ägyptischen Landbaues, jenes der Stoff zum Byssus, dieses zum ägyptischen Bier זיתום המצרי — vernichtet sind, so hat doch gerade das wichtigste Erzeugnis der ägyptischen Fruchtbarkeit, Weizen und Spelt, nichts gelitten. Ihr glaubt, unser Gott hätte sich geirrt, hätte den Hagel einige Wochen später eintreten lassen müssen. Und darum, weil euch das Wichtigste geblieben, seid ihr noch fern davon, in Wahrheit Gottes Macht zu fürchten. —

נוכתה, “had been ruined;” the word is in the plural mode, as we also find in Exodus 17,12: ויהי ידיו אמונה “his hands were steadfast;” not ויהיו [as we might have expected; Ed.] or Samuel I 4,15 where after Eli’s sudden inability to see, his eyes are described as: עיניו קמה, not קמו or similar examples.

כי השערה אביב FOR THE BARLEY WAS IN THE EAR — it had produced its first ears and it stood on its stalks; these were therefore broken and fell. So, too, the flax had already grown and had become hard enough to stand in its capsules.

Perhaps the Torah wanted to provide us with a reason why the Egyptians had not really become penitent. Whereas the hail had destroyed the flax crop and the barley crop, it had not caused more than minimal damage to the wheat and the spelt which ripened at a later date. According to Midrash Tanchuma the reason that the Torah uses the letter ו in front of the word הפשתה where it could not possibly be understood as a conjunctive is that a miracle within a miracle happened so that only these two crops were smitten. Had nature taken its course, both the wheat and the spelt should also have succumbed to the hail. Basing themselves on the strange phenomenon that the wheat and spelt had escaped unharmed, Pharaoh and his servants concluded that G'd's authority did not include the wheat and the spelt. This encouraged them to continue in their obstinate ways. This is why Moses was able to say that he realised that Pharaoh had not yet come to fear G'd truly. He cited as the reason what happened to the wheat, or rather, what did not happen to the wheat. G'd had spared the wheat in order to encourage Pharaoh to remain obstinate.

אבב ,אביב, scheint verwandt mit אפף, etwas gierig anstreben (wovon die Partikel אף, auch, und אַפַיִם, das strebende Angesicht; vergl. גַם, auch, und גמה, gierig trinken und גמא, Halm), davon אֵב: der die Fruchtnahrung aus dem Boden trinkende und der Frucht zuführende Halm. אָבִיב: die Zeit und der Zustand der vollendeten Halmbildung. —

כי השעורה אביב, “for barley grows in spring;” what is missing here are words referring to the linking together the flax and the barley as the Torah linked the wheat and the spelt. The reason is that the farmers’ crops no matter when they were planted, will not ripen until later in the season. This is why the flax is mentioned separately. When wheat and spelt were sown at the same time, they will also ripen at the same time.

השערה אביב means [THE BARLEY] STOOD IN RIPE STATE, similar in meaning to, (Song 6:11) “[to look at] the ripe plants (באבי] of the valley”.

גבעול. Wortbildungen wie ברזל von ברז: bohren, ערפל von ערף: triefen, קרסול von קרס: sich beugen, knien, lassen für גבעול auch die Wurzel גבע als Stamm vermuten. גבע, verwandt mit קבע ,קוה ,גוע ,גוה ,גבה ,גבא, Grundbedeutung: ein Sammeln, Konzentrieren von Stoffen, so auch כפה: zusammenzwängen, zwingen vergl. כבש). Davon scheint גבעול den festen, harten Stengel zu bedeuten. So wie auch עץ undאוץ : drängen. — אפילות spät reif: wahrscheinlich von אפל, dunkel: Pflanzen, die nicht so leicht vom Licht hervorgelockt werden, länger im Dunkel bleiben.

והפשתה גבעול, “but the flax ripens later; if not for that fact it would have been ruined by the hail also. The Torah needed to spell this out as it had written that the hail struck “ail the grass in the field.” (verse 25)