Cytowanie Komentarza do Wyjścia 9:20

And warn him. [Rashi knows this] because it is written, “ כי (for) I have hardened his heart.” Every כי that appears in Scripture comes to give a reason for what preceded. And if “Go in to Pharaoh” did not mean “and warn him,” how would כי be giving a reason for what preceded? This is what Hashem was saying to Moshe: [It is true that] warning Pharaoh will surely have no effect, since he did not send out the B’nei Yisrael in spite of his confession, “This time I have sinned” (9:27). Thus our verse explains: “For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants.” In other words, the warning is necessary for his servants, whose hearts had not yet hardened [and they rebelled in the plague of hail only because Hashem hardened their hearts]. The reason Hashem did not harden their hearts sooner [but He waited for the plague of hail to do so] is that the verse states there, “he that feared the word of Hashem . . . made his servants and his livestock flee. . .” (9:20). If Hashem had not hardened the servants’ hearts at that time, they would have insisted that Pharaoh release the B’nei Yisrael. Thus He hardened their hearts, “So that I will be able to set these signs in their midst.” Although [with the coming plague of locusts] Pharaoh’s servants said, “Send the men out” (20:7), their repentance was not wholehearted [and they deserved the ensuing punishment]. For they said to send only the men [and not the entire nation], as Pharaoh himself said, “The [adult] men should go.” (20:11) (Nachalas Yaakov, see further elaboration there)

ויקח שש מאות רכב, “He took 600 chariots.” Rashi, basing himself on the Mechilta, in answering the question where Pharaoh took the horses from which pulled these chariots, seeing that all the livestock supposedly had been killed by the fifth plague of pestilence, points out that the Torah had reported that the livestock of the farmers who had heeded Moses’ warning, took their animals indoors, so that they survived that plague. This prompted Rabbi Shimon in Tanchuma Beshalach 8 to coin the phrase that טוב שבגויים הרוג, “that the only good gentile is a dead one.” The Jerusalem Talmud limits the applicability of this proverb to periods when the gentiles are at war with us. The version there is that “the gentiles are considered as irrelevant.” According to this approach, when Rashi commented on our verse (9,20) that “the people who heeded G’d’s warning took their animals indoors,” this is not an appropriate comment, as any animals which at the time had not been outdoors for any reason were also saved, without their owners being rewarded for heeding G’d’s warning. Horses and mules, which are used for transporting humans, are generally kept in stables indoors so as to be at hand when their owners need them, so that the whole question of whence these animals came from appears superfluous.

וכל רכב מצרים signifies AND with these were ALL THE other CHARIOTS OF EGYPT. And whence came all these animals required for the chariots? If you say that they were from the cattle of the Egyptians — but you know it is stated, (Exodus 9:6) “And all the cattle of the Egyptians died”. And if you say that they were from the Israelites’ cattle — but is it not stated, (Exodus 10:26) “Our cattle, also, shall go with us”! Then whose were they? They were of those “who feared the word of the Lord” and saved their cattle by bringing them into their stables (Exodus 9:20). Deriving it from here (on account of this fact) R. Simeon said: The best amongst the Egyptians — kill him (otherwise he will afterwards devise evil against you); the best amongst the serpents — crush its brains (Mekhilta).