Комментарий к Шмот 8:14

להוציא את הכנים TO BRING FORTH GNATS — to create them and to bring them forth from some other place (not from dust but to turn some other material into gnats).

AND THE MAGICIANS DID SO WITH THEIR SECRET ARTS TO BRING FORTH GNATS. The purport of the expression, and the magicians did so, [when it immediately says afterwards, but they could not], is that they hit the dust of the earth and incanted the demons and performed their secret arts, as they used to do at other times, in order to bring forth the gnats, but they could not. It is possible that the expression, and the magicians did so, teaches that they did indeed do the correct things which do bring forth the gnats, but they were not successful this time, [for G-d thwarted their plans]. The learned magicians knew what they could do and they had tried to do so at other times [and succeeded. Hence they tried to do it now, but they failed “because it was now the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, to remove that power from them henceforth],”¹⁴¹From Ramban’s sermon on Torath Hashem T’mimah. See my Kithvei Haramban, I, p. 146.

ולא יכולו. They were unable to produce anything which could truly move on its own.

ויעשו כן חרטומי מצרים, “the Egyptian sorcerers did likewise.” This does not refer to what they accomplished, but to their copying the manner in which Moses had produced the vermin. They struck the dust and chanted their incantations. Another way of understanding the words ויעשו כן, would be that they do not refer to the sorcerers trying to imitate Moses and Aaron, but to their using their own techniques, hoping to achieve a similar result. After all, on the previous two occasions they had succeeded at least in convincing Pharaoh that they too could produce the phenomena Moses and Aaron had produced. A third possibility of understanding our verse would be that far from wanting to increase the number of vermin, they endeavoured to get rid of them by using their standard methods. When they failed, they had to admit that Moses and Aaron were not mere sorcerers of a more advanced school, but that their art was inspired by Divine assistance.

ויעשו כן החרטמם בלטיהם להוציא את הכנים, “the sorcerers did so with their secret art in order to remove the lice.” Seeing the Torah testifies that they did not succeed, why did the Torah first write ויעשו כן, “they did likewise?” The words refer to the manner in which they wanted to reproduce the plague, i.e. they too struck the dust of the earth with their staffs, similar to what Moses had done (verse 12). Now that we know that ויעשו כן, “they did likewise,” does not necessarily mean that the sorcerers succeeded in duplicating Moses’ and Aaron’s miracles, we may presume that in the previous instance when the Torah wrote this expression (concerning the snake and the blood) the sorcerers also did nothing more than create an allusion. The words ולא יכולו, “they were unable,” applies to all their efforts.
Whereas prior to this the Egyptian sorcerers had been accorded the title חרטומי מצרים, here the word מצרים is missing. It is possible that up until now these sorcerers had been held in high esteem by all the Egyptians. Now, however, they had already lost some of their image in the eyes of the people. By the time the third plague occurred and the sorcerers had to make a public admission that a higher power than they had caused this plague, i.e. אצבע אלו-הים היא, their esteem amongst the people declined further and is reflected In the missing letter י when we encounter the word חרטומם again in 8,16. When someone’s name is spelled defectively this is an allusion to that person’s lack of ability, of power. We find these sorcerers at the nadir of their erstwhile reputation in 9,11 during the plague of “infectious boils” when they are reported as “unable” to make an appearance in the presence of Pharaoh. They were simply ashamed of their impotence. Not only were they unable to protect their fellow citizens but they could not even protect themselves.

“To bring forth lice.” To create them from elsewhere. [Rashi is explaining:] Do not understand להוציא to mean that the sorcerers tried to remove the lice. Rashi knew this because it says “The sorcerers did likewise,” i.e., as Moshe and Aharon did.

V. 14. להוציא, siehe oben V. 4. Nachdem sie dreimal ihre Ohnmacht erprobt hatten, bekannten sie demütig: אצבע אלקי׳ היא, und traten auch nicht wieder auf. — אצבע אלקי׳: wie eine unmittelbar von Gott gesandte Plage נגע, eigentlich: Berührung heißt, so drückt der Satz אצבע א׳ היא dasselbe durch Finger, als das Organ der Berührung aus. Beidem liegt die Anschauung zu Grunde: Gewöhnliche Leiden lässt Gott durch Vermittlung der durch ihn bestehenden Naturordnung eintreten. Er tritt dabei nicht in unmittelbare Berührung mit dem Menschen. נגעים sind eben unmittelbare Berührungen des göttlichen Fingers. Gegen jene, wo direkt nur die Natur waltet, vermeinte die ägyptische Kunst oder gab vor, bewältigend wirken zu können. Vor der unmittelbaren Gottesmacht beugten sie sich ohne Scheu.

להוציא את הכננים, “to remove the lice and vermin;” seeing that the lice had lodged between the feet of the sorcerers and the ground, an area over which sorcery has no control. We have learned about this from something that happened at the time of Shimon ben Shetach (early part of the second Temple period) and the young men lifted these female sorcerers from the ground (Before executing them. Compare Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Chagigah second chapter, halachah 2) The three first plagues were, blood, frogs, and lice, were initiated by Aaron as they affected the earth. The three plagues of hail, locust, and darkness were initiated by Moses, as they originated in the celestial spheres, something over which Moses exercised a degree of control. The three plagues, of roaming beasts invading urban areas, the boils and the plague, were initiated by both G–d, Moses and Aaron jointly. (Tanchuma on this portion, section 14)

ולא יכלו BUT THEY COULD NOT — for the demon (through whose agency this was to be done) is powerless in the case of a creature smaller than a barley corn) (Sanhedrin 67b). Therefore they had to admit,

And there were lice. The Torah repeats these words (from v.13) to inform that they settled on the bodies of people and animals and bit them in the manner of lice, which do not swarm but are attached to the body. This is implied by the Midrash Tanchuma: “They entered the Egyptians’ bodies like arrows”.

ולא יכולו, “but they were unable.” Our sages find in this confirmation that the power of demons does not extend to creatures smaller than a grain of barley. Some commentators believe that the failure of the sorcerers lies in the fact that they are anchored in the habitat ”air, atmosphere,” are not part of the creatures who walk the surface of the earth, whereas the vermin are an integral part of earth itself, being generated inside the crust of the earth. Creatures that cannot walk the earth do not have dominion over creatures that originate within the earth.

ולא יכלו, “but they were unable.” Seeing that all the dust had turned into vermin from where would they produce similar kinds of vermin?A different explanation: seeing that the sorcerers could not duplicate the plague, they tried to get rid of it. But they failed. There would not have been any point in adding to the disaster, anyways. If they had succeeded in getting rid of the vermin, their fellow Egyptians would have been grateful to them and they would have risen in their esteem. Still another exegesis of the words: ולא יכלו; the sorcerers were unable to remain in the proximity of Pharaoh as they had been smitten with vermin also, and they were ashamed of their impotence and withdrew. The same thing happened again when they were struck by the 6th plague, infectious boils on the skin. [It is interesting that both the third and the sixth plague occurred without Moses having forewarned Pharaoh, so that the Egyptians could have denied that it was a plague sent by the G-d of the Israelites. Ed.] According to some opinions, when the sorcerers’ feet were not planted directly on the earth, their power disappeared. If so, this would explain why the Torah wrote “they were powerless,” as the entire surface of the earth was covered with vermin preventing them from standing on the ground. When the sorcerers perceived their inability to get rid of the vermin, they admitted that this must indeed be plague orchestrated by heavenly forces and they said: אצבע אלוהים היא that “this was a finger of G-d.” The reason of their inability could not have been that that their power was limited to creatures larger than a grain of barley as claimed by some, for if it were so, why were they not able to get rid of the fourth plague, the wild beasts roaming and destroying in urban areas at will?

ותהי הכנם באדם ובבהמה, ”and the vermin kept afflicting man and beast.´ The sorcerers themselves were also afflicted by this plague.