Комментарий о цитате к Шмот 10:21

אל ארץ המוריה, “to the land of Moriah;” the proper spelling should have been האמוריה; it is not unusual for the Torah to omit the consonant aleph, when it would have been silent anyways, one example being Exodus 10,21 וימש חושך instead of .ויאמש חושך [This missing letter א is not unusual, for instance it occurs in Isaiah 13.20] לא יהל ערבי instead of לא יאהל ערבי, “no Arab shall pitch his tent.”

המוריה, same as האמוריה, “the land of the Emorite.” It happens frequently that the letter א is missing, just as in our verse. One such example is found in Exodus 10,21 וימש חשך, where the word וימש should really have been ויאמש חשך, “causing darkness.” Another example of the letter א being missing is found in Isaiah 13,20, where instead of לא יהל we would have expected לא יאהל, “he will pitch his tent.”

How We Count the Plagues Mighty hand: two plagues; outstretched arm: two plagues, etc… It makes no sense to suggest that each expression in this verse refers to two plagues just because each one is made up of two words. First, we already know that there were ten plagues so what does this add to our understanding of the plagues; and second, the words in each of these expressions make no sense by themselves. They cannot separate from one another, so how can we say that each word refers to a different plague? The word yad, hand, and the word hazakah, mighty, are interconnected. Rather, each of the five expressions in this verse - mighty hand, outstretched arm, great terror, signs, and wonders - refers to a pair of plagues that have something in common with one another: The first two plagues were performed by a Mighty Hand: Blood and frogs were both performed when Aaron raised his hand. In the case of blood, God told Aaron to raise his hand over the river and to smite it, and, in the case of frogs, he stretched his arm over the land and smote it. An outstretched arm refers to the plagues of hail and darkness. Each of these two plagues took place when an arm was outstretched toward heaven. See Exodus 9:22, and 10:21; in each of these verses the Torah uses the expression “Hold out your hand toward heaven.”

ויהי חשך אפלה … שלשת ימים — there was darkness of gloom when no man saw another during those three days, and there was moreover another period of three days’ darkness twice as thick as this when no man rose from his place: one who happened to be sitting when this second period of darkness began was unable to rise, and one who was then standing was unable to sit down. And why did He bring darkness upon them? Because there were wicked people amongst the Israelites of that generation who had no desire to leave Egypt, and these died during the three days of darkness so that the Egyptians might not see their destruction and say, “These, (the Israelites) too have been stricken as we have”. And a further reason is that the Israelites searched (the darkness came just in order that they might do this) and saw their (the Egyptians’) jewels, and when they were leaving Egypt and asked them for their jewels, and they replied, “We have none at all in our possession”, they answered them, “I have seen it in your house and it is in such and such a place” (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Bo 1; Exodus Rabbah 14:3).