Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Exodo 7:21

Ibn Ezra and Da’at Mikra, though, offer a Peshat (straightforward understanding) approach to resolve the Dag/Dagah issue. They note Shemot 7:21 which records that the “Dagah Asher BaYeor Meitah,” “all of the fish in the Nile died”. Dag refers to an individual fish whereas Dagah refers to fish in general. The terms Dag and Dagah in the context of Yonah, accordingly, are interchangeable without any fundamental difference between the terms.

But the ten miracles that were performed for our ancestors in Egypt are their salvation from the ten plagues and that each of the ten plagues were specifically on the Egyptians and not on Israel. And these are miracles without a doubt. And the language of the Torah in each and every plague is that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought it [only] on the Egyptians. Except for the plague of lice - as [there] it did not make this clear, but it is known that He did not punish Israel. Rather [the lice] were found with [the Israelites as well], but they did not distress them. And so did the sages elucidate. But with the other plagues, the matter was clarified [in the text]. It stated about the blood (Exodus 7:21), "and the Egyptians could not drink water from the river" - a proof that that the damage reached them alone. And it stated with the frogs (Exodus 7:28), "and they will come into your house and into your bedrooms, etc." And it stated with the mixture of animals (Exodus 8:18), "And I will distinguish on that day the Land of Goshen, etc." And it stated about the pestilence (Exodus 9:6), "but of the livestock of the Israelites not one died." And it sated about the boils (Exodus 9:11), "as the boils were upon the magicians and and upon all of Egypt." And it stated with the hail (Exodus 9:26), "Only in the Land of Goshen, where the Israelites were, there was no hail." And it stated with the locusts (Exodus 10:14), "And locusts went up upon all the Land of Egypt." And it stated with darkness (Exodus 10:23), "and for all the children of Israel, there was light in their dwellings." But the ten miracles that were at the Sea is a received tradition. The first is the splitting of the water like the simple understanding of the verse, "and the water split" (Exodus 14:21). The second is that after the sea split, it became like a tent until it turned into a type of roof - and not of beams and not slanted - and the path was as if there was a hole in the water and the water was on the right and on the left and on top. It is [like] the statement of Habakuk 3:14, "You have pierced with his rods, the head of his rulers." The third is that its ground became hard and solid, as it states (Exodus 14:29), "walked on dry land" - and there did not remain any clay and mud like in other rivers. The fourth is that the paths of the Egyptians were in quicksand, and that is its stating (Habakuk 3:14), "the clay of great waters." The fifth is that it split into twelve paths like the number of tribes like a curved bow, as per this drawing. And that is its stating (Psalms 136:13), "To tear the Reed Sea into pieces." The sixth is that the water congealed and became as hard as boulders. And about this, it stated (Psalms 74:13), "you broke the head of the 'sea monsters' upon the waters" - meaning to say that the waters hardened to the point that they went back in such a way that heads would break on them. And the seventh is that it did not congeal like the solidifying of other waters that congeal - meaning to say [into] one piece, but rather [into] many pieces, as if they were [building] stones and they were arranged some on top of others. And that is its stating (Psalms 74:13), "You crumbled the sea with Your power." The eighth is that it congealed like glass or onyx - meaning to say, it was clear to the point that some of [the tribes] would see each other in their crossing it. And this is its stating (Psalms 18:12), "the darkness of the waters, the clouds of the sky," which is to say that the gathering of waters was 'like the essence of the sky in purity' - which is clear. The ninth - that sweet water would flow from it and they would drink it. The tenth is that it would congeal at the time that it flowed, after they took what they drank from it - to the point that it would not fall to the ground. And that is its stating (Exodus 15:8), "they stood up like a flowing stack" - meaning to say the thing that was flowing congealed in the heart of the sea. And in the tradition we found that more plagues came upon the Egyptians at the Sea than the plagues that came upon them in Egypt. And the hint to this is in its stating (I Samuel 4:8), "He is the same God who struck the Egyptians with every plague in the wilderness" - meaning to say in the Wilderness of the Reed Sea. But the ten trials that our ancestors tested the Omnipresent are all words of Scripture. The first is at the Sea in their saying "Are there no graves in Egypt" (Exodus 14:11). And the second is at Marah - that is its stating (Exodus 15:24), "And they complained about Moshe, saying, 'What will we drink?'" And the third is in the Wilderness of Sin when they asked for the manna. And that is its stating (Exodus 16:3), "And who will give that our death be at the hand of God, etc." And the fourth is their leaving manna over until the morning. And that is its stating (Exodus 16:20), "and men left over from it until the morning." And the fifth is their rebellion in seeking manna on the Shabbat day, as it is stated (Exodus 16:27), "And it was on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather." And the sixth is their rebellion at Refidim, also over water. And the seventh is at Chorev with the story of the [golden] calf. And the eighth is at Taverah when they become doubtful at that place with the speaking of the grumblers. And that is its saying (Numbers 11:1), "And the people were like grumblers." And the ninth is at Kivrot HaTaavah (the graves of desire), when they asked for meat - its saying (Numbers 11:4), "And the mixed multitude that was within them desired a desire." And the tenth is in the Wilderness of Paran with the matter of the spies. And there it stated (Numbers 14:22), "and they have tried Me these ten times and they did not listen to My voice."

את הקשואים ואת האבטיחים, “the cucumbers and the melons, etc.” The people spoke in a desultory way of the superior food the Lord had provided, the manna. In order to belittle the manna they compared it unfavorably to such food as is universally considered as inferior such as cucumbers and melons. We know that the land of Egypt produced excellent food, seeing the Torah had described the land of Egypt as “a garden of the Lord” in Genesis 13,10 when describing the fertility of the Jordan valley. In order to emphasize their disdain for the manna the people did not compare it unfavorably with Egypt’s best produce but they compared it to Egypt’s most inferior produce. Moreover, the fact that they mentioned fish was an outright insult against the manna seeing the only kind of fish the Israelites had been given in Egypt were the fish which had already begun to decompose and to stink. They were given only fish which had been caught at least 4 or 5 days previously. This is the reason they spoke about remembering הדגה instead of דגים or הדג, “the fish.” The word הדגה means that these fish were recognizable only as a species not individually. We know that this is an appropriate distinction from Jonah 2,1 where the prophet describes G’d as commanding דג גדול, “a large fish” to swallow Jonah. However, when the Torah refers to the fish in the river Nile at the time the river was turned into blood, the dead fish are described as דגה. The river is described as “stinking with these dead fish.” (Exodus 7,17). When Jonah prayed inside the belly of the fish, that fish is described as דגה, because Jonah describes himself as praying from “Sheol,” i.e. from the grave (Jonah 2,3). If someone sits inside a dead belly he is equivalent to sitting in a grave. If, later on, we read that G’d commanded Jonah to be spewed out and to be swallowed by a second (smaller) fish, this was only because it was not dignified for Jonah to sit inside a dead fish. The second fish was then ordered to spew out Jonah on dry land (Jonah 2,11).
To get back to our main subject: The Israelites expressed their disgust at what was a most valuable gift from G’d. The people were not so much wanting something as expressing their dissatisfaction with what they had. Significantly, throughout this episode the Torah speaks of the people as העם, “the people,” a term describing the lowest common denominator. They are not referred to as either עדה or בני ישראל, which would have pointed at people on a spiritually higher level. Eventually (verse 5) the בני ישראל, the elite of the people, also became infected with this discontent.
The place referred to in verse 34 as קברות התאוה is none other than תבערה which was mentioned in verse 3. The meaning both times is that at the very site where their unjustified desires surfaced they were punished. The “fire” is none other than their “burning desire.” The reason these two paragraphs dealing with תאוה desire, is written adjacent to the story of Miriam making uncalled for comments about Moses and his family life or lack thereof, is because Miriam too made inadmissible comments, just as had the people who had denigrated the manna or who had wanted to stuff themselves on a meat diet. The paragraph reporting Miriam’s inadmissible comments is followed by the one with the spies who also made inadmissible comments about Eretz Yisrael being a country which devours its inhabitants, etc.

of many kinds [Heb. לְמִינָה,] a form of the word to denote a profusion of kinds, as in (Exod. 7:21): “And the fish וְהֲדָּגָה in the river”; (Isa. 21:2): “All sighs (אָנְחָתָה) have I brought to an end.”