ואלה שמות, “And these were the names of;” the prefix letter ו in the word ואלה is intended to connect what is written here to what had been written at the end of the Book of Genesis. The connection is with the three generations of Joseph through Menashe that he is reported to have still known before he died (Genesis 50,22). He had witnessed the fulfillment of the descendants of Avraham multiplying while in a land not their own. Rashi points out that when the Jewish people were compared by G-d as “numerous as the stars,” G-d meant that these stars are not just numbers but each one has a name and its coming and going is supervised by its Creator. Similarly, in spite of becoming numerous the Jewish people never were just numbers but each one having a name ensured that he would be treated on an individual basis by G-d. If someone were to ask where it is written that the Jews that Yaakov brought with him to Egypt were numbered by him, the Torah states that not only were they numbered but they were named, i.e.

ואלה שמות “and these were the names.” The Torah informs us that all the people that came down to Egypt with Yaakov also died in that land.

הבאים מצרימה, this construction is most unusual, we would have expected the Torah to write: אשר באו, “who arrived,” not such an indeterminate present tense as הבאים, literally: “Who were arriving.” The fact is that in retrospect, after having been subjected to cruel treatment by the Egyptians, they had forgotten about the good years and felt as if they had only just arrived there.

את יעקב, “with Yaakov.”

איש וביתו, “man and wife.” We know this from Genesis 46,26: מלבד נשי בני יעקב, “in addition to the wives of Yaakov’s sons.” (Genesis 46,26) Yaakov was aware that the Egyptians were deeply involved in promiscuity. He was afraid that his offspring would learn to copy these ways of the Egyptians. He had therefore married them off before they could do so.

Reuven, Shimon; the Torah first mentioned the two oldest sons of Yaakov’s senior wife Leah, before mentioning any of the sons of the concubines; this is why it also mentioned Joseph and Binyamin before the sons of Bilhah, another concubine.

ירך יעקב, “Yaakov’s loins,” it is good manners to describe the sexual organ not directly, but by reference to an organ located close to it instead. (Ibn Ezra) We find this also in the oral Torah when the Mishnah in Megillah 13 writes that the principal organ that a woman is jealous of in her rival is the ירך; the author avoids naming the vagina. On other occasions, the word: רגלים is used as a substitute for the vagina. Compare Samuel II 19,25 ולא עשה רגליו, translated as “he had not pared his toe nails,” which is not really what the prophet had in mind.

יוצאי ירך יעקב, “Yaakov’s descendants;” he himself was not included in the count.

שבעים נפש, “seventy persons.” This verse was written primarily to tell of G-d’s miracles, to remind the reader that whereas only 70 persons of Yaakov’s family migrated to Egypt, after 210 years over 600000 male adults between the ages of 20 and 60 left Egypt, presumably at least two and a half million people in all.

ויוסף היה במצרים, “and Joseph had already been in Egypt. Concerning the Hebrews that came with Yaakov, the expression used by the Torah is “הבאים מצרימה,” (verse 1) whereas concerning Joseph, although he had already been there for years, he was included in the “family”: moving to Egypt.

וכל הדור ההוא, “and that entire generation.” This verse refers to both Israelites and gentiles, as we read immediately afterwards: ויקם מלך חדש על מצרים אשר לא ידע את יוסף, “a new king ascended the throne in Egypt, one who had not known Joseph.”

ובני ישראל פרו וישרצו. “in the interval, the Israelites had been fruitful, and become prolific;” this confirms that G-d’s promise to Yaakov that his family while in Egypt would become numerous and develop into a nation had been fulfilled. (Genesis 46,3)

ותמלא הארץ אותם, and the land became full of them.” The word אותם here must be understood as if the Torah had written: מהם, “filled with them.” Seeing that the root of the word אותם is את, “with,” this is not strange at all. Compare Leviticus: 22,28, אותו ואת בנו, “it and its young.” We also find the word את on occasion as meaning: “from,” as in Exodus9,29, when Moses says: כצאתי את העיר, meaning: “when I go out from the city.” Another example would be: חלה את רגליו, “being sick from his feet and up.” (Kings I 15,23.)

ויקם מלך חדש, “a new king arose.” Some commentators, citing the fact that the death of the previous king has not been reported, claim that the Torah speaks about the same King (body), but that his attitude vis a vis the Israelites underwent such a change that he might as well have been a different king altogether. Examples of the verb קום, “to arise,” being used in this sense can be found in Job 24,14: לאור יקום רוצח, “the murderer arises with the light;” or Psalms 27,12: כי קמו בי עדי שקר, “for false witnesses have taken the stand against me.”

ויאמר אל עמו, “he said to his people: he initiated this new policy. Our sages in tractate Sotah foliol 1, state that there were three advisors of this king who were discussing how to preempt a saviour of the Israelites who would take them out of their land.[We must remember that a “people” who had come to Egypt only about 100 years previously, numbering only twelve families, and who had meanwhile multiplied and not only not assimilated, but had come to be viewed as an existentialist threat to the original Egyptians, were known to have a powerful G-d, and the Egyptians had made a point to know the source of this people’s strength. They had studied the traditions of that “people.” Ed.] The most radical advisor of Pharaoh among the three advisors, Yitro, Job and Bileam, was the latter who advised Pharaoh to commit genocide. Some of you my readers may wonder how Bileam, could have been alive still in the days of Balak when he had already been a senior advisor of Pharaoh, before Moses had been born even? This question is especially relevant in light of the tradition according to which Bileam was thirty three years old? He was still alive when the people killed him in the war against Midian in the 40th year in the desert, at which time Moses was almost 120 years old! According to the Talmud in Sanhedrin folio 106, when a heretic asked a Rabbi how old Bileam was when he was killed he was told that he was 33 or 34 years old, based on the fact that the wicked supposedly do not even reach the halfway mark of a normal lifespan of 70 years. The Rabbi who had given this answer had not been accurate, as he had based himself on the statement by Mar de brey de Ravino to his son, a scholar in the immediate post Talmudic period, according to which although we are asked to report historic events accurately, Bileam is an exception, as if one can find a way to make him look worse even than he was, we have full latitude to do so. There is an opinion according to which the Bileam who was an advisor to Pharaoh was not the same as the one we encounter in the Book of Numbers. The one mentioned here was the grandfather of the one who blessed the Jewish people in Numbers. There is also an opinion according to which there were three men who hatched the plot to seduce the Israelites to engage in sexual relations with the daughters of Moav, but that this had nothing to do with what is reported here.

והיה כי תקראנה מלחמה, “it will be when war will break out, etc.” the word תקראנה refers to an unforeseen and unplanned event. One example in the Bible is Leviticus 10,19 when Aaron refers to the sudden death of two of his sons as such an event. The fact that the plural mode is used here is nothing exceptional, as we also find it again with this word in Numbers 10,9 when the use of the trumpets as a means of giving the alarm is discussed, i.e.וכי תבואו מלחמה, instead of וכי תבא מלחמה, “when war will come.”An alternate exegesis: the Torah here abbreviates instead of writing: כי תקראנה קורות מלחמה, “when warlike events will occur.” We find another verse with such grammatically unusual construction in Proverbs 15,22: וברב יועצים תקום, “when there are numerous counselors they will prevail.” The Hebrew word for “they will prevail is in the singular mode instead of in the plural mode as we would expect. When Bileam refuses to retract the blessings he gave to the Jewish people in Numbers 23,21 we also find such a grammatically puzzling construction. We have to imagine that the wording is: וברך ברכה לא אשיבנה, “a blessing once pronounced I cannot retract.”.

ונוסף גם הוא על שונאנו, “and that in such an event, it (the Israelite nation), would make common cause with our enemies.” The word: שונאנו, literally meaning: “our enemies,” in reality refers to the Egyptians themselves. It is a figure of speech avoiding mentioning oneself in connection with a curse, as doing so is considered a bad omen. Another matter, joining our enemies will result in their leaving Egypt notwithstanding our need to keep them here.

למען ענותו בסבלותם, ‘in order to oppress them with forced labour;” in this instance this is a veiled reference to diminishing the labourers’ ability of engaging in marital intercourse due to being overworked. [The Egyptians’ purpose was to control the Jewish birthrate explosion. Ed.] We find an example of the use of the verb ענה in this context in Genesis 31,50 where Lavan warns Yaakov against denying his daughters marital relations by sleeping with other women instead. Our sages also used this expression in this context when they are quoted as accusing the Egyptians of doing this in the Haggadah of Passover. It is paraphrased there as

פרישות דרך ארץ, “abstention from marital relations.”

כן ירבה וכן יפרוץ, “so it would increase even more and multiply even more.” This was in line with G-d’s promise to Yaakov that his descendants would greatly multiply in Egypt. He told him not to worry about going to Egypt. (Genesis 46,3)

ובכל עבודה בשדה, “in addition to all manner of work in agriculture.” They had to plow, to plant seed, to harvest and prune trees.

את כל עבודתם, in addition with all their other work inside the urban areas, everything was under harsh conditions.

שפרה, פועה, some commentators claim that there were many midwives in Egypt, as it is impossible to believe that the two mentioned here could look after all the wives of 600000 adult males. These two were the supervisors of all the other midwives.

וראיתן על האבנים , you are to closely inspect the birth stools. Pharaoh gave the midwives a sign how to recognise if the approaching birth would be that of a male baby or a female. If a male, the face would be turned downwards and if a female the baby’s face would be looking upwards, as each would do during marital intercourse. [This editor finds it hard to believe that professional midwives needed instruction on this subject from Pharaoh. Ed.]

אם בן הוא והמיתן אותו, “if it is a son, you are to kill him;“ when the Egyptians realised that they could not prevent the Israelites from continuing to increase at an alarming rate, they decided to at least kill their males who might grow up and fight them.

ואם בת היא וחיה, “but if it is a daughter, let her live;” women are not in the habit of fighting during a war. They therefore did not need to be afraid of them.

וייטב אלוהים למילדות, “G-d dealt kindly with the midwives.” How did this “goodness” of G-d become evident? Pharaoh did not suspect that the midwives had deliberately let the boys live, but he figured that the contribution by two midwives to the increase in the Israelite population would not be significant, in light of the many Jewish mothers that were giving birth all the time. Therefore he accepted their explanations at face value.

ויעש להם, “He made for them;” we find in many places in the Torah that the masculine pronoun is used when the subject happens to be feminine. [The word for “for them” should have been: להן, seeing that the subject, the midwives were feminine. Ed.] To quote just two examples of similar occurrences: Genesis 31,9: ויצל אלוקים את מקנה, “G-d saved the livestock of your father,” אביכם where the grammatically correct word should have been: אביכן. Or, Exodus 2,17: ויבאו הרועים ויגרשום, “the male shepherds came and chased them (the daughters of Yitro) away.” The correct word should have been ויגרשון. There are many examples of a similar kind throughout the Holy Scriptures.

בתים, literally, “houses,” but that word is a substitute for “families,” in this instance. The children of human beings are often referred to as בית, as we find in connection with David Samuel II 7,11: והגיד לך ה' כי בית יעשה לך , “the Lord has told you that he will let you have children.” [The author followsthis with more examples. Ed.] Here too, the midwives gave birth to sons, including such people as Moses. A different explanation of our verse: The subject in the verse is not G-d, but Pharaoh, who set apart houses for the midwives from which they were not to depart. Instead of their visiting expectant mothers, these were brought to the midwives for treatment when their due date drew near. This would facilitate male babies being drowned forthwith.

לכל עמו, “to his whole nation;” seeing that Pharaoh saw that the midwives had not cooperated with him, he now ordered every Egyptian to drown each new born Jewish male baby since he thought that in this way no Jewish baby boy would survive. היארה תשליכהו “you shall cast in the river” since his astrologers predicted that one nation would be struck by water in the future (Sh’mot Rabbah 1,18), they suggested to turn this decree against the Jewish people. [According to my version first the King demanded that all pregnant Egyptian mothers be kept under his care for nine months to make sure the intended saviour of the Jewish nation would be killed. When the people refused to believe that an Egyptian could become the saviour of the Jewish people, he reinterpreted the astrologers’ forecast by saying that the saviour of the Jews would save them by means of turning water into their grave. He therefore restricted the decree to apply only to sons born by Jewish mothers.]

וכל הבת תחיון, “and allow all the daughters to live.” This was why only the male Egyptians who pursued them after the Exodus were drowned and not the females.