למתי אעתיר לך?, “for when shall I pray on your behalf?” Rashi comments: ”if the Torah had written מתי אעתיר, the meaning would have been: “when shall I pray?” Seeing the Torah wrote למתי, the meaning is: “concerning which time, i.e. which day shall I pray for the plague to be removed?” You find a parallel wording when Pharaoh asked for the plague of wild beasts to be removed from his land. There too the wild beasts were removed the next day (8,25-26). Although Moses prayed for the removal of the plague as soon as he left the presence of Pharaoh, the plague was not removed until the following day. The wording there confirms Rashi’s approach here. I am surprised at the comments by Nachmanides who claims that Moses delayed praying until the following day. He claims that the letter ל in the word למתי is similar to the letter ל in the words למן היום אשר יצאת מארץ מצרים, “ever since the day you departed from the land of Egypt” (Deut. 9,7). In other words, the letter ל is integral to the word מתי, and is not a prefix. The argument of Nachmanides is that if Moses had prayed on the same day that the frogs be removed only on the morrow, then the Torah would have added the word ממחרת, “on the following day,” to its report in verse 9 that the frogs did die and would have written: “G’d did as Moses had said and the frogs died on the morrow.” Seeing that the Torah did not do so it is clear that the frogs perished immediately after Moses prayed. Seeing Pharaoh did not want them to die or retreat until the following day this leaves us with no choice but to assume that Moses held off with his prayer until the following day. Thus far Nachmanides. I feel that if that were so the Torah would have mentioned in connection with the plague of wild beasts that Moses delayed his prayer.

Seeing that the Torah did not do so this is proof that Rashi is correct. Moses never said that he would pray only on the morrow. Seeing that already during the plague of frogs Pharaoh acted as if time were not of the essence to him and he wanted the frogs dead or removed only on the following day, Moses took a cue from this when he announced in future that the plagues he would orchestrate would occur on the following day, such as in 8,19. The same occurred again with the plague of hail which Moses also announced as about to occur on the day following his announcement (9,18). The same was true of the plague of pestilence when Moses gave a full day’s warning for the G’d-fearing people to bring their livestock to safety (9,5). The same occurred again when Moses announced the plague of the locusts (10,4). The reason why Pharaoh did not ask for the frogs to die or disappear immediately was that he thought that the plague had run its course and that by waiting a day he could show up Moses as not having had anything to do with the cessation of that plague. When Moses demonstrated that the frogs would leave when he wanted, he showed that the plague fulfilled the purpose of showing למען תדע כי אין כה' אלוקינו, “so that you’ll know there is no one like the Lord our G’d.”

ויצעק משה אל ה' על דבר הצפרדעים, “Moses cried out to the Lord on account of the frogs.” You will not encounter the expression “he cried out” in connection with any other plague which Moses asked G’d to stop. The Torah then reported only the normal ויעתר משה, “Moses pleaded,” or “Moses spread out his hands,” or similar expressions.

It is possible to explain the words על דבר הצפרדעים as something necessary in view of the fact that G’d had announced that the frogs would “ascend from the river.” G’d had also spoken of ושרץ, that the river would produce a swarm of frogs each time these frogs were reported as having arisen from the river, making it sound like a natural occurrence. Seeing Moses was interested in making sure the Egyptians would not forget the supernatural element of this plague, he spoke of the דבר הצפרדעים, “the whole subject of the frogs,” i.e. their arrival and their departure. Moses wanted the manner in which the frogs would disappear to reflect that their appearance too had been due to supernatural causes. Even the words אשר שם לפרעה, “which He had inflicted on Pharaoh,” were not superfluous in Moses’ prayer. He stressed at every turn the divine origin of what had happened.

ויעשו כן החרטמם בלטיהם להוציא את הכנים, “the sorcerers did so with their secret art in order to remove the lice.” Seeing the Torah testifies that they did not succeed, why did the Torah first write ויעשו כן, “they did likewise?” The words refer to the manner in which they wanted to reproduce the plague, i.e. they too struck the dust of the earth with their staffs, similar to what Moses had done (verse 12). Now that we know that ויעשו כן, “they did likewise,” does not necessarily mean that the sorcerers succeeded in duplicating Moses’ and Aaron’s miracles, we may presume that in the previous instance when the Torah wrote this expression (concerning the snake and the blood) the sorcerers also did nothing more than create an allusion. The words ולא יכולו, “they were unable,” applies to all their efforts. Whereas prior to this the Egyptian sorcerers had been accorded the title חרטומי מצרים, here the word מצרים is missing. It is possible that up until now these sorcerers had been held in high esteem by all the Egyptians. Now, however, they had already lost some of their image in the eyes of the people. By the time the third plague occurred and the sorcerers had to make a public admission that a higher power than they had caused this plague, i.e. אצבע אלו-הים היא, their esteem amongst the people declined further and is reflected In the missing letter י when we encounter the word חרטומם again in 8,16. When someone’s name is spelled defectively this is an allusion to that person’s lack of ability, of power. We find these sorcerers at the nadir of their erstwhile reputation in 9,11 during the plague of “infectious boils” when they are reported as “unable” to make an appearance in the presence of Pharaoh. They were simply ashamed of their impotence. Not only were they unable to protect their fellow citizens but they could not even protect themselves.

ויאמרו החרטומם אל פרעה, “the sorcerers said to Pharaoh.” Up until this point the word חרטומים had always been spelled with the letter י. Now that they had been forced to admit their incompetence that letter was dropped. According to Kidushin 40 the absence of the letter י is an allusion to the proverb that of the ten units of magic G’d had allocated to the creatures on earth, nine had been appropriated by the Egyptians, whereas the remaining unit was dispersed all over the globe.

אצבע אלו-הים היא, “it is a finger of G’d (His power).” Once the sorcerers saw that they could neither duplicate nor remove the lice they admitted that that plague was a manifestation of the power of the Lord and this is why Pharaoh did not continue to demand from them that they try and prove their abilities. They wanted to minimise the significance of that plague and that is why they attributed it to elohim instead of to Hashem. They dared not mention that name seeing Pharaoh had not yet acknowledged His existence. Pharaoh and his servants had mentioned that name only in their conversations with Moses and Aaron. This is the view of Nachmanides.

However, the scholar Avraham Ibn Ezra wrote that the words “a finger of G’d” did not mean that they admitted that what Aaron had done was a miracle by G’d. They only meant to say that this plague was not supernatural, had nothing to do with the powers of either Moses or Aaron but was a natural phenomenon that could have been foreseen by the astrologers. This is the reason they referred to elohim, i.e. the attribute of G’d by means of which He allows laws of nature to operate. One of the proofs for the reasoning of the sorcerers, according to Ibn Ezra, was the fact that there had been no warning of this plague as opposed to the warnings which had been issued prior to the plague of blood and the plague of the frogs. This proved to them that even Moses had not known ahead of time that this plague would strike Egypt.

Nachmanides makes an additional point that the first two plagues did not involve the creation of new creatures, seeing that the frogs had their habitat in or near the river and all that happened was that they left their habitat in great numbers. In the case of the river turning into blood, this too did not involve creation of a new species but merely a role-reversal of the life-giving content of the river-bed into a life-killing content, i.e. blood. Blood, under other circumstances is for man or the mammals what water is for the fish. In the case of the “lice” however, the Torah speaks of ויהיו, “there came into existence.” Suddenly insects were created out of the dust. The expression ויהי, and ויהיו, is found primarily during the story of creation at the beginning of Genesis. Only Hashem possesses the power to create something at the stage of בריאה. The power of water and earth to produce is restricted to the level of יצירה and onwards. In Psalms 8,4 David describes “when I behold Your heavens the work of Your fingers,” he makes the point that creation of a whole planetary systems is no more effort for G’d than the creation of the smallest insect. Rabbi Saadyah Gaon makes a similar point when he points out that the word אצבע, finger, occurs in the Bible in three contexts. It occurs here with the plague of insect, כנים; it occurs in Psalms as we just quoted in connection with the creation of the planetary systems, and it occurs in connection with the Tablets (Ten Commandments) which are attributed to having been written with the finger of elohim (Exodus 31,18). Although there seems little common ground between these three domains, i.e. the planetary system, the insects, and the Tablets which, though inferior in size to the planetary system are superior in their spiritual significance, the common denominator between all of these is G’d’s ability to create. According to Shemot Rabbah 10,7 however, all that the sorcerers admitted was that their craft did not extend to mastery over creatures smaller than a lentil. When the Torah said לא יכולו, “they were unable,” this meant only that they were unable to compete on that level. If they were unable to even collect such insects how much less able were they to produce them!

הנני משליח בך..את הערוב, “I will unleash against you...the wild beasts.” You will not find that any of the other plagues was introduced with the letter ה as a form of definitive article except here. We would have expected the Torah to write here הנני משליח בך ערוב. We must remember that these wild beasts were not newly formed creatures. They already existed but the new element was that they invaded man’s habitat, something uncharacteristic. We find something similar when other kinds of disasters are mentioned in the Bible, for instance Leviticus 26,22. The Torah writes in that context והשלחתי בכם את-חית השדה ושכלה אתכם, “I will dispatch against you the wild beasts of the field and they will leave you bereft of your children.” In connection with the plague of frogs the Torah did write: “all your territory with frogs,” and the frogs were also not a new creation but simply emerged from their habitat the Nile. This is the reason that the vowel patach is under the letter ב in the word בצפרדעים (verse 27). It was to show that these frogs already existed but merely left their habitat, the Nile and its banks.

According to Shemot Rabbah 9,9 (on 7,17) the difference between G’d striking man and man striking his fellow man is that when man attacks someone he is anxious to do so suddenly so as to preserve the advantage of surprise. Not so G’d. G’d gives fair warning to enable man to fall in with His wishes before he is taught a painful lesson. G’d warned Pharaoh in seven out of the ten plagues in order to afford him an opportunity to escape the plague by releasing the Israelites. Job 36,22 testifies to this attribute of G’d when Elihu proclaimed: “See, G’d is beyond reach in His power, who governs like Him?” The author meant that although G’d does not have any need to do so, He affords every sinner the opportunity to return to Him in penitence before punishing him. Only if the sinner fails to avail himself of such an opportunity does G’d carry out His threat as we know from Job 36,11-12: “if they serve obediently they will spend their days in happiness, their years in delight; but if they are not obedient, they shall perish by the sword.”

והפלאתי ביום ההוא , “I shall set apart on that day, etc.” The fact that the first three plagues occurred in the land of Egypt without affecting the province of Goshen was not so remarkable due to the nature of the plagues. The manifestations of those plagues were more or less local in nature. Seeing that the plague of wild beasts originated far from civilized areas of Egypt, it was remarkable that the beasts should distinguish between areas inhabited by Israelites and areas inhabited by Egyptians. It was therefore an act of G’d to redirect the instinct of the beasts so that they ignored Israelites and their dwellings. אשר עמי עומד עליה, “on which My people are standing.” This means: “in order to enable My people to maintain itself on it.”

למען תדע כי אני ה' בקרב הארץ, “so that you will appreciate that I am Hashem right in the midst of the earth.” G’d meant that He exercises control right on earth, punishing sinners and rewarding and saving those who put their trust in Him. The line was designed to provide a striking contrast with Pharaoh’s declared philosophy that there was no such thing as providential guidance of the earth by a divine force.

Ramban writes that כי אני ה' בקרב הארץ can possibly be compared to כי שמי בקרבו "for my name is within him" (23,21) — this is a deep and sublime concept.

ושמתי פדת בין עמי ובין עמך, “I will make a distinction between My people and between your people.” G’d (Moses) had already mentioned that He would make a distinction between Goshen and the rest of the country. The additional information in this verse meant that even within Egypt proper the wild beasts would not attack the Israelites or their belongings. We have confirmation of this in Psalms 78,48 where Assaph (a contemporary of the event) said: ”He inflicted upon them swarms of wild beasts to devour them.” The word פדות is also related to “ransom.” Isaiah 43,3 speaks about G’d giving a “ransom” to Egypt (in return for releasing the Jewish people). The word is spelled defective in our verse, i.e. without the letter ו, indicating that the redemption from Egypt was not a total redemption as it was followed by other periods of enslavement of the Jewish people. When Psalms 111,9 speaks about פדות שלח לעמו, “He has sent redemption to His people,” the word פדות is spelled plene indicating that David speaks about the redemption of the future.

וסר הערוב מפרעה, “and the wild beasts will depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people to-morrow.” Moses told Pharaoh this in order that he should not assume that the plague was bound to stop on that day and that Moses knew this based on his astrological calculations. Just as with the plague of frogs Pharaoh had asked that it not be stopped until the following day as he had hoped to embarrass Moses, Moses now turned the tables on him using the delay in arranging relief to prove the same point. Both arrival and cessation of the plagues were announced on the day following their being announced.

ויסר הערוב “the wild beasts departed.” The Torah pointedly did not mention that these animals died as it had done with the frogs. In this instance G’d’s intention in bringing on this plague had been to make the lives of the Egyptians miserable; they were not to derive any benefit from these animals. The frogs were killed by G’d in order to produce the stench which discomfited the people. Had the wild beasts been allowed to die the Egyptians would have used their carcasses as food. G’d did not want this to happen.

גם בפעם הזאת, “also on this occasion.” During the first three plagues, which were summarized by Rabbi Yehudah as דצ'ך, the sorcerers appeared before Pharaoh each time. Their presence had exerted a psychological pressure on Pharaoh to remain steadfast in his refusal. This time he remained obstinate without the presence of his sorcerers exerting such pressure on him. They had already concluded that they were up against a higher power when they could not reproduce the lice. Seeing that on this occasion Pharaoh was politically isolated, the Torah wrote the words “also on this occasion,” in order to draw our attention to the fact that this occasion was different from previous ones.