ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף יהושע 5:9

lest one who hears embarrass you Heb. יחסדך (Josh. 5:9) “The reproach of the Egyptians” is rendered: חסודא דמצראי. Lest one who hears embarrass you, and they will call you a slanderer.

ראו כי רעה נגד פניכם Understand this as the Targum takes it: See, the evil you are about to do wilt turn against yourself. I have heard a Midrashic explanation: There is a certain star the name of which is רעה “Evil”. Pharaoh said to them, “By my astrological art I see that star rising towards you in the wilderness whither you wish to proceed. It is an emblem of blood and slaughter”. Consequently, when Israel sinned by worshipping the calf and the Holy One, blessed be He, intended to slay them, Moses said in his prayer, (Exodus 32:12) “Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, He brought them forth together with רעה (i. e. under the influence of the star רעה); this is, indeed, what he (Pharaoh) has already said, “See, the ‘רעה’ is before you”. At once, “the Lord bethought Himself concerning ‘רעה’”, and He changed the blood of which this star was an emblem to the blood of the circumcision because indeed Joshua had them circumcised. This is the meaning of what is said, (Joshua 5:9). “This day have I rolled from off you the reproach of the Egyptians”, for they said to you. “We see blood impending over you in the wilderness. (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 1:392; cf. also Rashi on Joshua 5:9.)

A Midrashic approach quoted by Rashi understands the word רעה as the name of a star or planet (Mars) which is so named as it symbolises bloodshed and war. Pharaoh foresaw in his astrological charts that the Jewish people would suffer a blood bath in the desert. He warned them that their leaving Egypt would prove worse for them than their remaining in Egypt. Esau used to call that star Edom. This is why he referred to מן האדום האדום הזה, when he asked Yaakov to share with him that famous dish of broth (Genesis 25,30 — see our commentary there). The wicked Pharaoh who was an expert astrologer called the star in question רעה. He attributed all misfortune in the world to the influence of that planet. He himself became a victim of that planet’s force as part of G’d’s retribution of measure for measure. When he foresaw a blood bath facing the Jews, he did not realize that this was the reference to the Israelites who would be killed because they served the golden calf. This is what Moses referred to in his prayer after the sin of the golden calf when he said to G’d: “why should the Egyptians who would take note of G’d killing the entire people be able to say (boast) ברעה הוציאם, ‘He took them out under the auspices of the planet (horoscope) רעה, only in order to kill them’” (Exodus 32,12). Moses pointed out that if G’d carried out His intention of killing the people (32,10) He would cause a desecration of His recently established great name by playing into the hands of the Egyptians who had predicted this already here. As a result they would retroactively deny their recently held conviction that G’d had orchestrated the plagues out of His love for the Jewish people. They would henceforth attribute all those plagues to the stars and their respective constellations. When G’d accepted Moses’ argument, i.e. וינחם ה' על הרעה אשר דבר לעשות, “G’d relented concerning the רעה He had said He would do,” (32,14) He decided that the bloodletting would be that when Joshua would perform mass circumcision of the Israelites born in the desert. In Joshua 5,9 we find the expression “to-day I have removed from you the shame (full prediction) of Egypt.”