Comentários de Citação sobre Êxodo 10:28

בא אל פרעה, "Go to Pharaoh, etc." You may consider it a rule that whenever G'd told Moses to go to Pharaoh, He meant that Moses should enter Pharaoh's palace without waiting for permission to do so. No doubt Pharaoh had the usual complement of bodyguards at the entrance to his palace. Nonetheless Moses was commanded by G'd to ignore the presence of those guards. We have reason to believe that Moses acted in accordance with these instructions since Yalkut Shimoni item 175 describes that Pharaoh not only had armed guards but also trained lions at his palace gate but that Moses walked in without being challenged. I have found conclusive proof for the opinion expressed in the Yalkut in 10,28 where Pharaoh for the first time warns Moses not to attempt to enter the palace again. Why would Pharaoh have had to warn Moses about entering the palace unless Moses had been in the habit of doing so unchallenged up until then? Clearly, even the trained lions had respected Moses and not challenged his entry, a great miracle indeed. If G'd had to command Moses to enter Pharaoh's palace i.e. בא אל instead לך אל, "go to," the reason was that he assured Moses he would not be challenged by either the palace guards or the lions. On the other hand, whenever G'd told Moses to meet Pharaoh near the river Nile, He used the expression לך אל פרעה as there were no guards near the river Nile where Pharaoh desired privacy. The only reason G'd told Moses to go to Pharaoh there was that Moses would not have done so on his own initiative seeing Pharaoh went there to answer calls of nature, as already explained elsewhere.

“When he sends you away, he will drive you out completely from here.” Rashi explained “he will send all of you.” It seems that the word when he sends you is superfluous. I say that this is the explanation: Moses was distressed because he was humiliated when Pharaoh drove him away twice. In the plague of locusts it is written and he drove them away from before Pharaoh, and in the plague of darkness, Pharaoh said to him, ‘Go away from me.’ The Holy One, blessed be He, responded to him, “Do not be distressed, for this is a bad sign for Pharaoh, as he began to drive you out little by little, until in the end he will drive out all of you.” For at first it says, and he drove them away from before Pharaoh, but it did not say that they should not see his face again. Later, he increased the expulsion by saying, Do not see my face again. But in the end, when he sends you, when the time comes that he will send you, then he will drive all of you out, not like the first time when the expulsion was lighter, for he only drove out Moses and Aaron. But when he sends you, then he will drive you out completely. This is precisely deduced from the word when he sends you.

I believe that we must understand the verse thus: First of all, G'd announces that He would harden Pharaoh's heart as a result of which He would bring many plagues upon him. The plagues would prove counterproductive (initally) and make Pharaoh even more obstinate, adding still more sins to his already considerable culpability. Eventually, he would not even want to listen to what Moses and Aaron had been instructed to tell him. This is in fact what happened in 10,28 when Pharaoh bans Moses and Aaron from appearing again in His presence. G'd announces to Moses already at this point that when that stage will be reached it would be the limit of obstinacy that Pharaoh is allowed. Immediately after that ban G'd brought the final plague of the dying of the Egyptian firstborns upon him, as a result of which he would not only release the Israelites but expel them.

בחרי אף IN FIERCENESS OF WRATH because he (Pharaoh) had said to him, (Exodus 10:28) “Do not again see my face.

Has...forgotten to be gracious Heb. חנות, to be gracious, like עשוֹת, to do; ראוֹת, to see. Another explanation: חנות means gracious acts.