(2) I say that the meaning of the words מן הוא is simply: “whose is it?” Seeing that this is an Egyptian expression, and in that tongue the meaning of מן is the same as the meaning of מה “what,” in Hebrew, the reason why Moses used the Egyptian term is simply because there was no comparable Hebrew word for that phenomenon. It is not so out of character for the Torah when quoting people, to describe what they said in the language in which it was said. Examples are: Genesis 31,47 where the words יגר שהדותא for the monument erected by Lavan and called Galed by Yaakov, is repeated verbatim in the local language Lavan spoke. When, in the Book of Esther 3,7 we read about a פור, which means “lots” in English, but is the Persian equivalent, this reflects what was familiar to people in that region and at that time. Esther and Mordechai did not have to use this Persian term at all. All they had to write was what they did write in explaining the meaning of the word, i.e. הוא הגורל, “that is the lot.” After all, the entire Book of Esther with the exception of a couple of words is written in Hebrew. However, if the Book of Esther had not first mentioned the word פור we would not have understood why the festival was called פורים. The word מן therefore is quite understandable in light of the circumstances.