(יז) כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר ה' בְּזֹ֣את תֵּדַ֔ע כִּ֖י אֲנִ֣י ה' הִנֵּ֨ה אָנֹכִ֜י מַכֶּ֣ה ׀ בַּמַּטֶּ֣ה אֲשֶׁר־בְּיָדִ֗י עַל־הַמַּ֛יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר בַּיְאֹ֖ר וְנֶהֶפְכ֥וּ לְדָֽם׃
(17) Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD.” See, I shall strike the water in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood;
With this you will know: You Pharaoh will know and NOT all of Egypt,.. As a country they would all not know it until they saw it at the Red Sea.
Egypt will know: This relates to the masses of Egyptians which were left over when they saw with their very own eyes this wonder, they will recognise and know the following: I am G-d who does it all in Egypt. Until now, it only says so that you will know in the singular. This is because only Pharaoh saw the creation of the plagues in front of his own eyes, and through the prayers of Moshe they dissappeared. Through this Pharaoh knew that G-d does what he desires to do.
However, the Egyptians did not know any of this. They only saw the plagues coming and going. Even the harshness of the plagues did not have any power over Egypt as it did over Pharoah and his servants and his servants. It is because of this that now (as the Bnei Yisrael were crossing the sea of reeds, that also the Egyptians would know about Hashem, and this is why it mentions again and Egypt will know that I am G-d.
The language of "with this you shall know that I am G-d" is mentioned in the first three plagues. The language of "So you should know that I am G-d in the midst of the land is mentioned in the middle three plagues, while in the last four plagues, the language used is "So you should know that there is none like me in the whole world.
The Abarbanel has picked up on this explanation and explained that Pharaoh disagreed with three thing:
1. The existance of the Almighty. He contradicted G-d and said "I don't know G-d". It is for this reason that in the first 3 plagues he is told "So you should know that I am G-d".
2. Pharaoh thought that even if you admit there is a G-d, nonetheless he doesn't take cognisance of the small creatures of this world. therefore G-d says "I am G-d in the midst of the land.
3. Pharaoh disagreed with G-d's ability to change nature at all. G-d therefore says "There is none like me in all the land" meaning to say, that He can do as he wills.
Don't think that I just look over the Jewish people because they are my people, and therefore I am "in the midst of the Jewish people" (only) but I have no control over the other nations of the world. This is what the nations of the world believed in previous generations.
G-d therefore anounces that I am G-d and my control of the entire earth, independent of the Jewish people. Therefore, know that at the moment that Israel stands in Goshen my control is over the entire world.
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There are also three levels of faith:
The faith of the mind , the heart, and the bones.
- The faith of the mind: The individual intellectually understands the concept of G-d's existence in the world
- The faith of the heart: The person feels this existence.
- The faith of the bones: Even the bones themselves - our muscle memories feel that the world has a ruler, who knows all the acts of man, and all of his thoughts.
Now it is known that in the merit of faith that our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt. There were therefore 10 plagues to entrench this faith on all of these levels, and that is so that we should know this eternal matter (i.e. faith) in those ways.
The question of the Ba'al Shem Tov is known: What does the verse mean when it states: "And the Egyptians will know that I am G-d". Is it just so that Egypt should know about G-d's greatness that the worlds natural status was changed? He answers that the "Egyptians will know" relates to the Egyptian part of a Jews heart. It is because of this that G-d changed nature... that G-d opened an entrance that will enable clarity of faith on all of these three levels.
Indeed , if the Almighty had merely desired to redeem Israel because of His special relationship with them, He could have simply airlifted the Israelites from Egypt without having to upset all of nature with the ten cataclysimic and fantastic plagus, and then with the sensational splitting of the Reed Sea. The Almighty was rather attempting to teach a crucial lesson to Pharaoh, and to all subsequent despotic and totalitarian rulers in world history: slavery is a rank evil. No human being has the power to lord it over another human being. Every human being is created in the divine image, and therefore every human being has the inalienable right to be free!
It is largely from this perspective that the book of Exodus emerges from, and is baded upon, the book of Genesis. You will remember that the Sabbath day, the seventh day wherein all manner of physical work is forbidden and in which the human being has the ability to exercise his existential freedom under G-d, has two distinct but intertwined bibilical significances: first, the Lord Creator creates because "in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the seas and everything which is in them, and rested on the Sabbath day.... and second, the Lord Redeemer: "you shall remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God too you out from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm (Deut 5:16). Clearly the second reason emanates from the first: the G-d who created every individual in His own divine image deries and abhors the enslavement of one human image of the divine over another human image of the divine. Every human being has the right to be free. Hence the second Decalogue includes the additional message of the Sabbath: " In order that your gentile manservantand your gentile maidservant may rest like you".
(Riskin, 2009)
(1) ואני אקשה, seeing that G’d is interested in the sinner’s repentance rather than his death (as we know from Ezekiel 33,11 חי אני, נאום ה', אם אחפוץ במות הרשע כי אם בשובו מדרכו וחיה, “by My life, I do not want the death of the wicked but that he return from his wicked path and live”), G’d told Moses that He would bring on numerous plagues, all in order to increase the chances that Pharaoh would finally see the light and become a genuine penitent. He hoped that by demonstrating His greatness and His power this would eventually cause the Egyptians to recognise all this. At the same time, G’d also spelled out a similar thought in 9,16 but aimed at the Israelites, when He said: “that the only reason He had not yet killed Pharaoh was so that in the course of more plagues you, the Jewish people, would come to recognise both G’d’s greatness and His patience.“ He also wanted the Jewish people to learn how to both love and revere Him when they witnessed and thought about the meaning of all these plagues. There can be no question that without G’d stiffening Pharaoh’s attitude from time to time, he would have collapsed much sooner and would have sent the Israelites on their desired journey. However, this would not have been the result of his repentance and humbling himself before the Lord, involving genuine regret about his previous errors, but the result of his impotence to withstand the pressure applied to him. He would have acted out of terror of what the next plague would do to him and to his country. If we needed confirmation of this, all we have to do is look at what his servants said to him when Moses threatened with the plague of locust. They said to him: “how long will you be obstinate, do you not see that Egypt will go down the drain?!” There was not a single word of regret of past errors, no word of recognition that G’d could have killed them all long before this and that He must therefore be very patient, and kind, but mere terror forced them to utter these words. (10,7) Keeping all this in mind, it is foolish to ask how G’d could punish Pharaoh after he Himself had interfered with his decision-making process by “stiffening his heart,” ואני אקשה את לב פרעה, I will stiffen the heart of Pharaoh, etc.” not in order to punish him but in order to finally trigger repentance in his heart. The operative clause is “in order that I can demonstrate all these miracles of Mine in his midst” (10,1), the purpose being to bring about his humbling himself in repentance and genuine contrition. If that wish of G’d would indeed materialise, the Jewish people also would tell of G’d’s greatness, (למען ספר את שמי, having observed at first hand how the mightiest secular power on earth turned into G’d fearing human beings.) They would tell their children and children’s children the lesson they had learned that G’d’s apparent cruelty is actually an act of loving kindness as it results in His creatures coming to love and to revere Him. [Noach, who had survived the destruction of mankind by a deliberate act of G’d’s kindness to him and his family, had not been able to relate to his children what G’d hoped that the Israelites would be able to relate to their children. Ed.] The basic lesson in ethics we derive from all this is that when suffering an affliction we must first and foremost examine our past actions to find out where we went wrong, and try to find out what these afflictions are intended to trigger in our memory so that we can improve our conduct both vis-à-vis G’d and our fellow man.
"Get up early in the morning and stand in front of Pharaoh" - and it was also when he went out to the water. As the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted the locusts and the hail to be in the eyes of all the people; for when the king went out to the water, most of the people would go behind him. And behold, He warned him in front of their eyes - maybe they would yell out to their master to repent from his evil way. But if they did not do that, they would be liable for punishment. But with the other plagues, it was enough to [only] warn the king. Hence regarding them, it states, "Come to Pharaoh" (7:26; 9:1; 10:1) - such that [Moses] go to his chamber. And it does not state this with lice and boils because Aaron needed to hit dirt, whereas the chamber of the king has no dirt, but rather 'floors of alabaster and marble.' And Moses likewise needed to throw the soot to the skies [to begin the boils]. And behold they did these two in front of Pharaoh when he was in the courtyard of the royal palace garden, or something similar to it.