Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Exodo 10:22

whatever sprinkles Rabbi Moshe ben Shmu’el Gikatilla HaKohen said that the verb is in the qal form, like “shall bend” [Job 15:29]. When the same verb has a pattaḥ under the yod , it is in the hif‘il form. In both cases the nun of the root disappears. Compare the intransitive “some of her blood sprinkled on the wall” [II Kings 9:33] (with a ḥiriq ) to the causative “he sprinkled” [8:11] (with a pattaḥ ). Although the verb in “some of her blood sprinkled on the wall” has a ḥiriq under the yod , it is still in the qal form, (which normally takes a ṣereh under the yod — as in, “their blood sprinkled” [Isaiah 63:3]). Rabbi Moshe HaKohen was correct in asserting all of the above.

THEY SAW NOT ONE ANOTHER, NEITHER ROSE ANY FROM HIS PLACE. The meaning thereof is that this darkness was not a mere absence of sunlight where the sun set and it was like night. Rather, it was a thick darkness.⁵⁶Verse 22. That is to say, it was a very thick cloud that came down from heaven. It is for this reason that He said, “Stretch out thy hand toward heaven⁵⁷Verse 21. to bring down from there a great darkness which would descend upon them⁵⁸See Genesis 15:12. and which would extinguish every light, just as in all deep caverns and in all extremely dark places where light cannot last [as it is swallowed up in the density of the thick darkness].” Similarly, people who pass through the Mountains of Darkness⁵⁹The name is found in the Talmud (Tamid 32a) in connection with Alexander the Great, who told the Sages of the south: “I wish to go to the country of Africa,” whereupon they answered him, “you cannot go, for the Mountains of Darkness intercede.” It would seem then that these were mountains somewhere in the heart of Africa, a dim knowledge of which reached the outer world. Considering the fact that the heart of central Africa was not penetrated by European explorers till the end of the nineteenth century, it is no wonder that not much was known in Medieval Europe about this region. find that no candle or fire can continue to burn at all. It is for this reason that they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place, for otherwise they would have used the light of fire. This is the intent of the verse, He sent darkness, and it became dark.⁶⁰Psalms 105:28. It was not the usual absence of daylight above but an extraordinary darkness as well. It is possible that it was such a very thick cloud that there was something tangible in it, as our Rabbis have said,⁶¹Shemoth Rabbah 14:1. and as indeed it happens on the Atlantic Ocean, as Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra testified.⁶²“It often happens on the Atlantic Ocean that it is impossible to distinguish day from night, and this sometimes lasts for five days. I have personally experienced it many times” (Ibn Ezra). A native of Spain, Ibn Ezra was born in the city of Tudela in the year 1093. In search of knowledge, he journeyed throughout the European countries and the Near East, where he made the acquaintance of the greatest luminaries of his time. Sometime after 1150, he visited London, where in the course of his journey he most likely experienced the density of fog he describes.

וימלא שבעת ימים, “seven complete days had passed.” According to Rashi, this was the pattern of all the plagues, that a plague lasted for one quarter of the month, whereas the warning that preceded it was in effect for the other three quarters of that month, so that each plague was relevant for a whole month. This interpretation is derived from Psalms 135,9: שלח אותות ומופתים בתוככי מצרים, “He sent signs and miracles against Egypt.” The last two letters in the word בתוככי, whose numerical value is 30 were unnecessary, and are the hint that each plague was relevant for 30 days.Our author raises the point that according to the wording in Rashi, the month had only 28 days then. He suggests as a possible solution, that the Egyptians were given the extra two days after the completion of each plague as a sort of “relief” before the warning of the following plague was issued. A further question is raised concerning the length of the plague of darkness, where the Torah described the most intense portion of that plague as having lasted for three days. (Exodus 10,22-23). He suggests that when we read in Exodus 14,20: ויהי הענן והחושך, “there was both the cloud and the darkness,” (as the beaches of the sea of reeds) the missing days were made up. (Compare Sh’mot Rabbah 14,3.) It is notable that in the Haggadah shel Pesssach, the text we read on the first night of Passover, where Rabbi Yehudah sums us the plagues on an acronym- דצ'ך עד'ש באח'ב, and everyone asks what he contributed to our understanding of those events by doing so, that Rabbi Yitzchok son of Rabbi Asher, who was born on the same calendar date as the death of his father, so that he was given the same name as that of his late father, they applied to him the words of the verse: וזרח השמש ובא השמש, “a new sun began to shine as soon as the sun had set,” (Kohelet 1,8) pointed out that when we place the three acronyms of Rabbi Yehudah one on top of the other like this: דצך, עדש, באחב you will find both at the beginning, the middle and the end the acronym for the three plagues of כנים, שחין, and חשך. [Our author adds that he will not elaborate further, presumably because he had not figured out how this is arrived at by Rabbi Yitzchok. This editor remembers his father of blessed memory explaining to him, that these were the three plagues not preceded by a warning. Ed.] Rabbi Yehudah may have wished to remind the reader that the order in which the plagues occurred was the one listed in the Torah, and not the order in which the plagues are listed in the Book of psalms (chapter 105). The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin, folio 81 [Mishnah] relates that it was customary if people had been administered 39 lashes for having committed sins that qualified for such a penalty, if they sinned repeatedly, to lock them up and feed them a diet of barley until the sinner’s intestines collapsed and he died.