Commento su Esodo 15:9

אמר אויב THE ENEMY SAID to his people, when he was persuading them with words (cf. Rashi on 14:6), I WILL PURSUE and I WILL OVERTAKE them and I WILL DIVIDE THE SPOIL with my captains and my subjects.

THE ENEMY SAID. “I.e., to his people, when he [Pharaoh] was persuading them with words: ‘I will pursue them and I will overtake them, and I will divide the spoil with my captains and my servants.’” Thus the language of Rashi. Now I have seen in the Midrash Chazita:¹⁴⁵I have not found this Midrash in Shir Hashirim Rabbah, (see above in Seder Shemoth, Note 317), but in Koheleth Rabbah 1:31 and also in the Mechilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai on the verse here. “Thus did Rabbi Yishmael teach: ‘The enemy said: I will pursue, I will overtake. This should fittingly have been at the beginning of the Song, and why was it not written there? It is because there is no strict chronological order in the narrative of the Torah.’” Now Onkelos is of that opinion, for he translated, “the enemy had said,” referring to the beginning of his plan to pursue after them.
In my opinion, by way of the plain meaning of Scripture, this is to be understood in connection with the preceding verses, [all of them together explaining how the destruction of the enemy came about.] First, Scripture said that they sank in the sea and that they went down into the depths.¹⁴⁶Verse 5. This happened when the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen.¹⁴⁷Above, 14:28. After that, Scripture reverts to tell how this came about. With the blast of Thy nostrils, which is a reference to the strong east wind,¹⁴⁸Ibid., Verse 21. the waters were piled up, and the deeps were congealed¹⁴⁹Verse 8. from the beginning. It was because of this that the enemy thought that he would pursue and overtake them in the sea and divide their spoil, and that his lust would be satisfied upon them. But Thou didst blow¹⁵⁰Verse 10. upon them with Thy wind, and the sea covered them.
Now Moses mentioned this for in this thought of Pharaoh too were discernible the wonderful causation of G-d, Who strengthened the hearts of the Egyptians and turned their counsel into foolishness to come after the Israelites into the sea, as I have explained above.¹⁵¹Above, 14:21. It is for this reason that following that verse, Moses said, Who is like unto Thee, O Eternal, among the mighty,¹⁵²Verse 11. doing great and wondrous things in ways mutually opposed to each other, [such as was done here: with the same hand, He sank the Egyptians and delivered Israel, as mentioned above].

אמר אויב ארדף אשיג, The enemy had said to himself: "I will pursue, I will overtake, etc." The reason that the Israelites repeated what we knew already about the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites was to extol the manner in which G'd performed the miracle at the sea. G'd had succeeded in lulling the Egyptians into a sense of false security so that they did not consider the pursuit into the sea as hazardous.