Vaera

 

 

But on tha day I will set apart the region of Goshen, where My people dwell, so that no swarms of insects shall be there, that you may know that I the Lord am in the midst of the land.  An I will make a distinction between My people and your people.  Tomorrow this sign shall come to pass

8:18 - 19

 

It is logical to assume that Pharaoh now started to lighten Israel’s burden.  When he saw that the Lord put a division between Israel and Egypt, he feared to ahrm them.  He now saw the need to send them to offer sacrifices to the Lord.  Don’t you see that he now gave them permission to sacrifice to the Lord in the land of Egypt?

Ibn Ezra (13th Century)

 

So that even the few members of my people who might be in an area infested by the insects would not be molested by these plagues.  The same plagues would harm your people on the same spot.

Sforno (15th Century)

 

God announces that He personally, will initiate this plague as part of the lesson of His special relationship with Israel…the reason why God could not entrust this plague to an angel is simply that angels could not distinguish between who was to be afflicted and who not, i.e. Egyptian and Jew respectively.  This is especially so when the jew is not even discernible externally as being righteous.

Moshe Alshich (16th Century)

 

For Moses’ relation to the Egyptian king is bizarre in the extreme:  adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he is, effectively, grandson to Pharaoh – a dimension of the narrative that is never conspicuous.  For this very reason…because the Torah does not draw attention to this paradoxical intimacy between the major antagonists – we should become alert to what lies just beneath the explicit, conscious level of the narrative.  The fact that Moses finally kills Pharaoh at the Red Sea…

Aviva Zornberg (Contemporary)

 

Parshat Vaera wishes to make a clear distinction between the world of magic and the world of God’s power.  The Bible does not deny the existence of magic; it sees magic as something that is within human capability.  But magic is limited.  It can only go so far and no further.  The magicians of Egypt are able to duplicate some of the feats brought on by Moses and Aaron, but in each case, the Bible shows that the power of the magicians is a lesser power…

Barry Holtz (Contemporary)

 

Before each series of three plagues, God directs Moses to articulate a separate lesson to Pharaoh.  Before the first plague, Moses is to say “Thus says the Lord, ‘by this you shall know that I am the Lord.’  Before the fourth plagues, he is to say, “…’so that you may know that I the Lord am in the midst of the land’”  And before the seventh plague, he is to say, “’ so that you may know that there is none like Me in all the world.

Abravanel (15th Century)