Komentarz do Wyjścia 6:28

And it came to pass on the day that the Lord spoke unto Moses in the land of Egypt: [This is connected with the following verse]

AND IT CAME TO PASS ON THE DAY WHEN THE ETERNAL SPOKE UNTO MOSES IN THE LAND OF EGYPT. It is possible to explain that the verse refers to the one above.⁹¹Rashi and Ibn Ezra explain that Verse 28 here is connected with the following Verses 29-30: And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying…. Ramban finds this difficult to accept since the plain meaning would seem to indicate that Verses 29-30 constitute an independent section not connected with the preceding verse. Therefore he interprets Verse 28 as being connected with the preceding verse, as explained in the text. Scripture is thus stating: “And it came to pass that it was they — [Moses and Aaron] — who spoke to Pharaoh, king of Egypt⁹²Verse 27. at the time when the Eternal spoke unto Moses in the land of Egypt.” For since Scripture said, These are that Aaron and Moses, to whom the Eternal said: Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,⁹³Verse 26. it might have appeared that the communication came to both of them equally. Therefore it now explains [in Verse 28] that the communication came to Moses, and the command to bring them forth from Egypt was to both of them. This is why Scripture closed the chapter [of the genealogy of Moses and Aaron with this subject].

ויהי ביום דבר ה' אל משה, when G’d spoke to Moses that he should speak to Pharaoh and he answered G’d that Pharaoh would not listen to him, i.e. after G’d had already appointed Moses and Aaron as the leading authorities over Israel as well as over Pharaoh, as reported, G’d explained that He had not intended to give both Moses and Aaron equal status, but that Moses would be an authority, G’d like, for Pharaoh, whereas Aaron would be his mouthpiece, his interpreter.

ויהי ביום דבר ה׳ אל משה, It was on the day that G'd spoke to Moses. The Torah here wants to correct any mistaken impression that the equality of Moses and Aaron had already existed on the day G'd told Moses while still in Midian (Exodus 4,14) that his brother Aaron was on the way to met him. This is why the Torah adds here: "On the day G'd spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt," as if to say: "on that day Moses and Aaron were of equal stature."

ויהי ביום דבר, “It was on the day Hashem spoke, etc.” According to Ibn Ezra this verse is directly linked to what follows, i.e. verse 29 ויהי ביום דבר ה', “it was on the day that Hashem spoke,etc.” Nachmanides claims that it is possible to understand verse 28 as referring to what had preceded it, i.e. to verse 26 where Moses and Aaron are described as the ones who had been commanded by G’d to take the Israelites out of Egypt. Seeing that once we have a verse in which Moses is mentioned first, and another in which Aaron is mentioned first, the meaning may well be that the commandment to take the Israelites out of Egypt applied to both of them in equal measure. The Torah now clarifies that the word of G’d was issued to Moses, but that the commandment to carry it out applied to both of them in equal measure. This is the reason why this paragraph was split into two sections.

To be joined. . . For if this were not so, it would not be possible to explain “It was the day when Adonoy spoke. . .” [We are not told what happened on that day. Rather, [this verse] must be joined [to the following verse].

The Torah therefore had good reason to repeat that G'd told Moses: "I am the G'd י־ה־ו־ה, speak sternly to Pharaoh." The repetition was meant to reassure Moses that he could rely on what G'd had told him. He was to go and speak to Pharaoh personally. In other words, nothing had changed since the first time G'd had identified Himself to Moses as the tetragram at the beginning of our portion. I explained that at that point G'd had not yet appointed Aaron to be Moses' mouthpiece except when Moses wanted to say something to the Israelites. What happened in the meantime was that Moses repeated his argument that he had a speech defect and was not suited to speak in public after G'd had told him to speak to Pharaoh. Hence G'd authorised Aaron to speak to Pharaoh also in 7,1. As a result Aaron had become Moses' equal concerning what they had to tell Pharaoh. Inasmuch as Moses had not previously complained about his not being fit to speak to Pharaoh there had been no need for G'd to appoint Aaron as His spokesman.

All the above shows G'd's concern to employ Moses as His exclusive messenger. He had co-opted Aaron only when Moses had raised repeated objections. Perhaps the reason that our verse employs the word ויהי, which always reflects something regrettable, is to let us know how much G'd regretted the necessity of having Aaron share what was originally meant to be Moses' exclusive mission. The word ויהי may therefore suggest that if Moses had indeed remained G'd's sole messenger the quality of the redemption might have been different; some of the side-effects of the incomplete redemption which led to such disasters as the golden calf episode might never have occurred, for instance.

Perhaps the reason that the editor of this paragraph in the Torah saw fit to write our verse as a paragraph by itself and not as the beginning of chapter seven or even before verse eight in chapter seven was, that he wanted us to know that G'd was saddened by the fact that He had to appoint someone to share Moses' mission with him. Had Moses been the only one, he himself might have entered the Holy Land as leader of the people as had been G'd's original intention. He might have lived to participate in the building of the Holy Temple which Solomon built over 400 years after Moses' death. That Temple might then have endured forever.

It is also possible that the Torah made a special paragraph out of this single verse in order to tell us that Aaron's status was equal to Moses as of that day in Egypt, and that even previously when G'd had announced to Moses that he would be Moses' spokesman, this did not imply equal status. When Aaron would speak alone G'd describes his position as "he will be your prophet," or similarly when the Torah states: "he will speak to Pharaoh."