Comentário sobre Êxodo 10:7

הטרם תדע means KNOWEST THOU NOT YET that Egypt has perished. (Cf. Rashi on Exodus 9:30.)

?הטרם תדע; do you still not realise that Egypt will be lost by the cumulative effect of these plagues?

עד מתי יהיה זה לנו למוקש, "how long will this one continue to be a snare for us?" Pharaoh's servants were most certainly not prepared to let the Israelites depart for the prophecy G'd had told Moses i.e. that He had hardened both the heart of Pharaoh and that of his servants would contradict such an assumption. All the servants had in mind was to ensure that the Israelites' departure would be such that they would be sure to return after having offered their sacrifices. This is why the servants did not pursue the matter once Moses had made it plain that they would take both their children and their aged with them. Their very words proved that they considered Moses' invoking G'd as the driving force behind the Israelites' demands merely as a snare. They could not believe that the great and powerful G'd whose existence Moses had demonstrated would bother to punish the Egyptians in order to let the Israelites go to the desert for three days. There is no greater denial of G'd than that.

ויצא....ויאמרו עבדי פרעה, “after Moses had left the servants of Pharaoh said, etc.” They waited until Moses had left, as they did not want to challenge their King in Moses’ presence, and they did not want to give Moses the satisfaction to know that they were afraid of him.

עד מתי יהיה זה לנו למוקש, “for how long is this one going to remain a snare for us?” According to the plain meaning of the text the servants said this on account of Moses. This explains the words זה משה האיש, “this man Moses.” (Exodus 32,1) The ערב רב had been well aware that it was Moses who had caused the plagues and that he was the Egyptians’ bane.
It is possible, however, to understand the words as aimed at the cause of the plagues, at G’d whom the Jewish people extolled in the song after the crossing of the sea (15,2) with the words זה א-לי ואנוהו, this is my G’d and I want to build Him a Sanctuary.” According to this version Exodus 13 8 בעבור זה עשה ה' לי, the word זה in that verse would also be a reference to an attribute of G’d. The advisors of Pharaoh would then have revealed their true nature by still denying the supremacy of Hashem.

Did you as yet not realize. Rashi’s view is that טרם means “not yet,” as he explained the verse in Parshas Bereishis (2:5), “The vegetation of the fields had not yet sprouted,” and in Parshas Va’era (Shemos 9:30), “You are not yet in fear.” Thus, טרם should not be explained as “before.” Accordingly, תדע really denotes past tense although it is written in the form of future tense.

V. 7. למוקש. Mosche war ja ganz offen aufgetreten, wie konnten sie ihn denn מוקש nennen? Allein dies bestätigt unsere Auffassung. Hätte Gott eine Plage kommen und andauern lassen, bis sie Israel fortgeschickt, es wäre schon längst frei geworden. Allein, dass die Plage nur immer eine partielle war, auf Pharaos Bitte immer aufhörte, aber nur, um dann in immer steigender Größe und Furchtbarkeit Gottes Macht in einer neuen Plage fühlbar zu machen, dieses התעלל בם, das durch die Pausen Pharaos Herz immer wieder zu neuem Widerstand aufrichtete, dieses הכבד את לבו das konnten sie von ihrem Standpunkte aus nur als eine "Falle" bezeichnen.

ויאמרו עבדי פרעה אליו, (after having heard this threat) “Pharaoh’s servants said to him;” when we had read previously in 9,34 that both Pharaoh as well as his servants (ministers) continued to sin, that referred to the ministers who had advised him now to let only the men go into the desert to offer sacrifices as requested.

הטרם תדע כי אבדה מצרים, "do you not know yet that Egypt is about to be destroyed?" They meant "why wait till after Egypt is destroyed before letting these people go? Let them go now!"

They now questioned Pharaoh’s judgment by asking him if he wanted to wait until the whole of Egypt was ruined? They implied that if Egypt were to be ruined, in the end Pharaoh would have no option but to give in to the Israelites’ demands. Why not give in while Egypt was still a functioning nation?

Why would the servants suddenly agree to take a chance of Egypt being destroyed after Moses had spelled out who was going to the desert? What made them keep their peace when they heard Moses' latest demand? In order to understand this we must first explore what Pharaoh and his servants had thought initially. Is there anyone so foolish that he would risk all the discomforts, pains and even danger of submitting to these plagues? Not only that but these people had endured that their deities were smitten, their livestock killed, their crops ruined, and even they themselves came within an inch of destruction. Ordinarily it would be considered unbelievable that there are people who are so stupid! Nonetheless, these people must have had some plausible reason to act in such a foolish fashion. Their behaviour is all the more strange as G'd had not demanded from Pharaoh that he free the Israelites but only that he should give them a three-day vacation! It is true that I have written (3,18) that Moses had never mentioned the three-day limitation to Pharaoh, that he had only spoken about celebrating in the desert (5,1) not mentioning any time frame, and that the only ones who did mention three days were the people (5,3); this indicated that G'd had not demanded a total release of the Israelites.

I believe that Pharaoh's error was based on these conflicting demands by Moses on the one hand and the Israelites on the other. There could be no question that the word of G'd was the truth. Pharaoh and his servants had to consider two possibilties. 1) G'd did not desire a total departure of the Israelites but only an absence of three days' travel into the desert. 2) At the same time Pharaoh felt that the Israelites' demand for three days was a trick designed to cloak their true intentions never to return to Egypt. If so, this was proof (in the mind of Pharaoh and his servants) that the G'd of the Hebrews was unable to orchestrate an Exodus in the proper sense of the word. He had instructed His messengers to make a lesser demand, one that He was able to perform. Keeping in mind that Pharaoh and company were non believers, they preferred an interpretation which implied that G'd's power was limited. As a result of this they remained obstinate, probing for weakness in G'd's power. When the servants contemplated the fact that they had already endured seven plagues none of which had advanced the Israelites' cause substantially, i.e. they were still enslaved in Egypt though they had not performed slave labour for a while, they had to adopt an attitude concerning the warning of the plague of locusts. The servants swung to the belief that they were not being tricked but that G'd only wanted the Israelites to leave for three days. Hence their question "how long are you going to detain these men?" They added: "send these men so that they can serve their G'd;" what they meant was that it was clear to them that all their G'd wanted was that they should serve him, not that they should leave Egypt for good. The servants attributed great destructive power to G'd and that is why they disagreed with Pharaoh's present policy. On the other hand, they were convinced that if G'd really wanted or had been able to free the Israelites completely, He would not have wasted His time with all these plagues but would have done so at once.

Pharaoh, on the other hand, was wily and had Moses and Aaron brought back to the palace to demonstrate to his servants that they were wrong, that Moses and Aaron intended to lead the whole nation out of Israel once and for all. This is why he asked Moses and Aaron who the people were that would go into the desert to offer sacrifices. When Moses and Aaron replied that everybody would be going, he accused them of bad faith (verse 10). This conversation showed Pharaoh's servants that they had been wrong in their estimate that all that was at stake was a three-day absence from work. They now reversed their previous estimate that G'd could indeed do everything He wanted, else why had Moses and Aaron not announced their true intentions at the beginning? This is the reason we do not hear the servants argue with Pharaoh anymore.