Cytowanie Komentarza do Wyjścia 5:20

ולא אפגע אדם And I shall not accept the intercession of any man.⁶A. V., And I will not meet thee as a man. פגע means to entreat; comp. אל תפגעי בי entreat me not (Ruth 1:16); when פגע is constructed with the preposition ב, then the noun, to which the ב is prefixed, is the object to the verb.⁷I. E. thus distinguishes between פגע governing the accusative, and פגע being followed by the preposition ב; the former has the meaning to accept the prayer of or to be entreated by, the latter: to entreat. In the former case the noun governed by the verb פגע is in reality הפועל, the one that acts (that entreats), in the other case הפעול the object. Some render the meaning of this sentence in the following way: I shall not take vengeance on thee, and I shall not meet a man (comp. ויפגעו and they met, Ex. 5:20) sc. standing in my way, or telling me not to do it, or I shall not meet a man, whom 1 should not cause joy by this.⁸It can hardly be seen, how the reader could supply from the context, or from the signification of the verb פגע to meet, the relative sentence whom I should not cause joy by this, and it is very improbable that the prophet, if he had this sentence in his mind, should have dropped it, leaving it to the sagacity of the reader or hearer to supply it.

If we accept his words we would have to say that the last three of the ten plagues all occurred during the first half of the month of Nissan whereas the previous seven plagues were scattered over a period of eleven months. It would follow then that each of the previous plagues lasted for more than the seven days attributed by the Torah to the first plague, i.e. the river turning into blood. The interval between the plagues then would have been 30 days. [I believe this is a misprint and should read “21 days” as the author stated in his commentary on 7,25. Ed.] On the other hand, from the words: “seven days were completed” (7,15), we learned that the interval between the plagues was seven days. This would have applied to all the plagues so that we could divide the time equally between periods during which there was relief and periods when one of the plagues was in effect. If we were to assume that Moses began his career as a prophet on the 15th of Nissan and that G’d spent seven days persuading him to accept His mission, then these seven days corresponded to the seven days which the Jewish people would celebrate as the Passover holiday after the redemption. [The author had already alluded to these theories in connection in his commentary on 4,10 and 4,18]. Subsequent to the 21st of Nissan, Moses first returned to Midian. He should have proceeded to Egypt immediately, but he had to return to Midian to get permission to be released from his oath to Yitro that he would not leave the country without his permission. This is the reason the Torah had to write (4,18 that Moses returned to Midian and his father-in-law, and having done so that G’d told him in 4,19 to proceed to Egypt.) G’d spoke to him “in Midian,” i.e. He told him “since you swore an oath in Midian you have to be released from that oath in Midian.”
Moses then proceeded to Egypt where both he and Aaron arranged an audience with Pharaoh when the King told them that he did not know Hashem, etc. All the subsequent developments, including the new decree for the Israelites to provide their own straw could have occurred within eight days until the end of the month of Nissan. According to one Midrash, Moses then went into a retreat for 3 months and was not seen by anyone. This brings us to the end of the month of Tammuz. The plague of blood would have covered the first seven days in Av. They were followed by relief until the end of the month. The plague of frogs and subsequent relief occupied the month of Elul. This pattern continued until the month of Adar when the plague of locusts was decreed. The plague of darkness occurred during the first seven days of Nissan followed by only seven days of respite. The plague of the dying of the firstborn occurred on the night of the 14-15th of Nissan so that the period from Moses’ experiencing the revelation at the bush until the Exodus was exactly 12 months. The wording in the Mishnah in Ediot that the judgments against the Egyptians extended over a period of 12 months must not be taken at face value then, but the Mishnah meant that from the time when G’d had decreed for these judgments to occur 12 months elapsed until the redemption.

אשר לא ידע את יוסף, “who had not known Joseph.” Rabbi Yehudah ben Levi understands this line as a parable. There was someone who insulted the picture of the King. Having gotten away with that, the following week he insulted the king himself. The new king began by insulting the Jews, and when successful, proceeded to insult the G–d of the Jews. (Compare Sh’mot 5,20)