פרשת משפטים תשכ"ו - המלאך והצרעה

Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

הנה אנכי שלח מלאך BEHOLD, I SEND A MESSENGER [BEFORE THEE] — Here they were informed that they would once sin and that the Divine Majesty would have to tell them, (Exodus 33:3) “for ‘I’ will not go up among thee” (cf. Exodus Rabbah 32:3).

שולח מלאך, as we know from Joshua 5,14 where the angel introduced himself as having been sent to decisively assist Israel.

Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their doings; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.

And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

I will cause the number of your days to be full. You will die only of old age, not of war or sickness. The normal life span, however, may vary from generation to generation. Thus in King David’s time it was seventy or eighty years.

I will cause the number of your days to be full. You will die only of old age, not of war or sickness. The normal life span, however, may vary from generation to generation. Thus in King David’s time it was seventy or eighty years.

את אימתי, “the fear of Me, etc.” This is the attribute of Justice. The word is the same as in Exodus 15,16 תפול עליהם אימתה ופחד, “may fear and terror befall them.” The צרעה which verse 28 speaks of is a kind of flying insect similar but bigger than a bee. The term צרעה includes many species of a similar type all of which sting people. Just as there were many different kinds of locust during the plague of locust in Egypt, so there are many different kinds of צרעה. The Talmud Sotah 36 claims that this insect injected its poison into the Canaanites who became its victim, blinding them and killing them almost instantly. This insect entered the Holy Land together with Joshua, crossed the Jordan as is reported in Joshua 24,12: “I sent a plague ahead of you.”
The reason that in verse 28 only three of the Canaanite tribes are mentioned as being driven out by this צרעה is that these three tribes were the strongest ones amongst the seven tribes residing in tall fortresses and fortified towns. The Torah wanted to inform us that such mighty warriors in such protected habitats became the victims of such tiny creatures as the hornets. It is an object lesson for us demonstrating that G’d will bring down the strong by using the weakest of His creatures as His agent.

ושלחתי את הצרעה, “I will dispatch the hornets, etc.; according to Rashi, this is a category of stinging wasp which never crossed the river Jordan. Concerning what is written in the Talmud Sotah folio 36, that we read here that G-d will drive out the hornets from the land of the Chivi and the Canaanite, who lives on the West bank of the Jordan, so that they must first have been there or how else could be driven out from there?, The Talmud suggests two different solutions to this apparent contradiction; one that there were two different types of hornets, one in Moses’ time, another in Joshua’s time; (Joshua 24,12). one scholar in the Talmud claims that when the Israelites were on the east bank of the river Jordan ready to cross, the Lord caused the hornets on the other side to become frightened and to leave. Alternately, the entire verse is a simile telling the Jewish people that they will not have to expel the local inhabitants by fighting them with the sword, but that G-d will see to it that they need not worry about sustaining casualties when trying to conquer these lands.