עתה תראה, “now you will see;” according to Rashi the word “now” means that whereas Moses would witness the redemption from Egypt, he would not witness the entry of the people into the Holy Land. Both the accusation Moses leveled against G’d that He had worsened the fate of the people, and the failure to speak to the rock instead of hitting it in Numbers 20, 5-14, combined to his not being allowed to witness conquest of the land of Canaan.

וידבר אלוקים....וארא אל אברהם, “G’d said….I have appeared to Avraham, etc.” Rashi explains that instead of writing הודעתי, “I have made known,” the Torah wrote a passive mode לא נודעתי, “I have not become well known.” This means that G’d’s attribute of Hashem had not become properly known, familiar, to the patriarchs. Seeing that this attribute reveals more of G’d’s essence than such attributes as shaddai, or elokim, the element of G’d’s fulfilling commitments He made of a long term nature, such as the promise to Avraham that his descendants would survive 400 years of exile and enslavement and proceed to the land of Canaan and take it over as their ancestral homeland, this attribute would from now on become better known. G’d implies that seeing that the time frame after which the redemption was supposed to occur had not yet been completed, the fact that this attribute of G’d had not yet been appreciated was not a reflection of G’d having withheld important information. Rashi also quotes an alternate commentary which suggests that the people should have inquired after this attribute of G’d, [why He had failed to keep His promises, the ones made to the patriarchs, Ed.] and that G’d now explains the reason why He had not yet seen fit to do so. Rashi rejects such a commentary saying that the time for G’d fulfilling His promises had not arrived yet, so that such a complaint would have been inappropriate. The problem with such interpretations is that already during the very first revelation of G’d to Avraham at the covenant between the pieces (Genesis chapter 15), the Torah clearly states that “the word of Hashem came to Avram,” In other words, G’d introduced Himself to Avram not as shaddai or as elokim, but by His name Hashem.” He had added further that His claim on Avraham’s obedience was based on His having saved him from the furnace Nimrod had thrown him into in Ur Casdim. Rashi’s rejecting לא נודעתי as meaning “I have not made known,” is based on this appearance of G’d precisely as the attribute of Mercy, an essential attribute, as Avraham had not had a claim to being saved at the time, seeing he had voluntarily submitted to that test of his faith. [my words based on Rabbi Yitzchok Arama. Ed.] The question is why did G’d have to tell Moses: “I am Hashem,” seeing that He had been known as such to the patriarchs. I believe that the answer is simple. G’d tells Moses that although He had been known in His capacity as Hashem to the patriarchs, [compare how Avraham describes Mount Moriah after the binding of Yitzchok, as compared to the opening lines of that chapter (Genesis 22) Ed.] He had not appeared in that guise to the Jewish people as yet. The problem was that the people had not enquired as to the difference between these various attributes of G’d, i.e. when He would prefer to relate to them under one heading (attribute), and when He would prefer to relate to them under a different heading (attribute). Knowing all this, we can better understand Moses’ question to G’d in 3,13 “which of Your attributes (name) shall I say to them is the one which will orchestrate the redemption?” According to the interpretation of לא נודעתי להם, “I have not been known to them,” Moses’ question at that time should have been: “when they ask me what shall I tell them?” Rashi’s explanation that the entire paragraph contains a criticism of Moses who had questioned G’d’s handling of the situation since He had appointed him as leader, was to contrast his behaviour with that of the patriarchs who, even when faced with what appeared G’d’s inexplicable behaviour, had not questioned this. [I find all this somewhat strange. Avraham, when having to come to terms with G’d’s treatment of others, such as the people of Sodom had questioned G’d’s judgment, though he had never questioned it when it concerned his own fate. Moses too, questions why his people are suffering more; he does not question his own image being tarnished. Ed.] At any rate, we must not mistakenly understand G’d as saying that He had not been known as possessing the attribute of Hashem, but as explaining that only now had the time come to guide the fate of the Jewish people under that heading. Ibn Ezra writes that the letter ב in the word בא-ל, suggests that it applies also to an additional factor, i.e. meaning ”with.” [as in “and in addition to”, i.e. ובשמי ה', “and with My additional name, etc.” Ed.] Accordingly, we are to understand the line וארא אל אברהם ואל יצחק ואל יעקב בא-ל שדי ובשמי ה' לא נודעתי להם, “My task in appearing to the patriarchs as the attribute shaddai, i.e. the attribute which governs My power to control nature, the sun, moon, etc., was different from My task at this time when I have to demonstrate My power on earth, a domain basically assigned to man. [some of these words are my own, though I trust they reflect that of the author quoted. Ed.] The patriarchs had been taught that their experience when G’d saved them from famine, from the sword during war, etc., that these were phenomena not related to their specific good deeds, but to G’d exercising His השגחה, benevolent providence, as part of the השגחה כללית, supervision of the universe as a whole. [When directing phenomena devoid of free will such as nature, G’d employs a different attribute from that which He has to employ when facing opposing forces equipped with a free will, such as man. Ed.] During His guidance of the universe at the time of the patriarchs, He did not confront man’s free will. The blessings and curses promised in the Torah are not addressed to the conduct of individuals but to the conduct of mankind as a whole or the Jewish people as a whole, [although G’d warns individuals not to use the people as a whole as an umbrella to hide their individual misdeeds (Deuteronomy 29,17-20) Ed.] The real reward in this life for observing the Torah’s commandments is something known only to G’d, the lawgiver, it is in the nature of a נס נסתר, “a hidden miracle,” i.e. when it does occur no one can pinpoint it as something unnatural. [the concept is familiar from the string of “natural” coincidences and their timing which combine to make up the Purim story. Ed.] These apparent coincidences are actually part of the process of reward and punishment, except that they are not recognized by us as such at the time. The reason why the sages tell us that astronomical influences, i.e. mazzal, do not govern the lives of the Israelites is that the same G’d Who runs nature, also interferes in an invisible manner in what astrologers believed was a forecast of their fates in the stars. This does not mean that astrology is “for the birds,” on the contrary, it means that the Creator can manipulate the events forecast by astrology in a manner which changes their impact on the individuals whom He chooses to be so impacted. Such intervention enabled Rivkah to become pregnant and have children, and it resulted in the Jewish people surviving a bloody encounter forecast by the stars, by the blood in question becoming the blood of the mass circumcision performed by Joshua, instead of becoming the loss of their lifeblood. Moses had actually posed two questions to G’d. 1) Why did you send me on this mission at all? 2) Why have you so far failed to save the Jewish people from their misery? Concerning his second question G’d answered him: “now you are going to see why I sent you. You will witness what I am about to do to Pharaoh.” Concerning Moses’ first question G’d said: “I am Hashem.” G’d told him that He had used the patriarchs to demonstrate His stature as shaddai, the G’d controlling events from the heavenly throne, whereas now He would employ Moses to demonstrate how He organized events on earth, by Moses being as it were “His hand and His outstretched arm.” It is your task to make My attribute of Hashem familiar both to the Israelites and to the Egyptians, i.e. the rest of mankind.

וגם הקימותי, “moreover, I have established;” I have also sent you in order for you to be the instrument through which I will keep My covenant with the patriarchs, if they are like them, to give them the land of Canaan

וגם אני שמעתי, “moreover, I have heard, etc.” an additional reason why I have sent you is that I have heard the groaning of the people, i.e. that they have repented their ways and seen fit to appeal to Me. Hence, just as I endure forever, so My promise will be in effect until carried out. I will demonstrate this with My outstretched arm. Concerning the opening line in our paragraph ושמי ה' לא נודעתי, something which we might have expected to have employed the same verb, i.e. ראה, for instance וארא אל אברהם...ושמי הי לא נראתי, “I have appeared to Avraham, but My name Hashem has not appeared, etc.” the reason for this is that, generally speaking, visions granted to the patriarchs occurred during the night, while they were asleep, whereas the manifestations of G’d you and your people will experience will all occur while you are fully awake. In other words, you will become privy to revelations of far greater dimensions than the ones granted to the patriarchs.

והוצאתי אתכם מתחת סבלות מצרים, “I will take you out from under the slave labour of Egypt.” This is G’d’s promise that He would take them out of the land of Egypt and that they would not again experience having to perform slave labour. Seeing that this promise still left open the possibility that after leaving Egypt the Israelites would be subjected to heavy taxation in their host country, G’d added:

והצלתי אתכם, “I will save you,” i.e. you will not be subjugated to some other government at all.

וגאלתי אתכם, “and I will liberate you.” I will perform so many judgments on the Egyptians that they will liberate you altogether in preference to enduring more plagues. The word גאולה is used here in the same sense as “selling,” i.e. setting free. The meaning of the words בזרוע נטויה, is that G’d will twist their arm until they release the Israelites.

ולקחתי אתכם לי לעם, “I will acquire you to be My people.” This will take place when you come to Mount Sinai and accept the Torah.

וידעתם כי אני ה' אלוקיכם המוציא אתכם, “then you will know that it is I, your G’d, Who is taking you out, etc.” Ibn Ezra says that according to astrology, the Israelites would have remained in exile still longer. G’d declared that He will supersede what is written in the stars concerning their fate. Nachmanides feels that this explanation does not conform to the tenor of the whole portion. He therefore suggests that the meaning is that when you will observe the brute force used by the Lord to bring you out of Egypt, and this will be witnessed by all the surrounding nations, you will realize that He is really your G’d, and that He has orchestrated all this on your account and for your benefit.

ונתתי אותה לכם מורשה, “and I will give it to you as an ancestral heritage.” G’d did not speak about ירושה “an inheritance;” this means that the people leaving Egypt during the Exodus would not be the ones inheriting that land, but their offspring would.

וידבר ה' אל משה לאמור, “the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, etc.” Nachmanides writes that some commentators claim that whenever the word לאמור appears in the Torah in the context of something being addressed to Israel, it means that G’d instructed Moses to address the text following to the Children of Israel, whereas in this verse there is an exception and the words of G’d were to be relayed to Pharaoh Such an approach is flawed, for when Lavan related to Yaakov that G’d had addressed him during a dream on the night before, warning him that he was not to harm Yaakov even by word of mouth, he quoted G’d as prefacing His remarks to him with the word לאמור, (Genesis 31,29). The same difficulty is obvious in all the instances when the Torah wrote וידבר ה' אל משה למור, followed by the words דבר אל בני ישראל וגו', “speak to the Children of Israel, etc.” If the wordלאמור had already meant that Moses was to relate what follows to the Israelites, why would we need the words דבר אל בני ישראל, “say to the people of Israel,” at all? He believes therefore that the word לאמור precedes the instruction to Moses to be precise in his instructions to the Children of Israel, not to leave anything in doubt, not to speak allegorically, or by hinting only. The reason why this is so is because Moses, as the only prophet on such a level, received clear and unmistakable instructions from G’d. Other prophets received what our sages call “blurred visions.” If Moses were not to relay what he had been told clearly and unmistakably, why would G’d have troubled Himself to spell His instructions out to him in the first place? This is what G’d told Aaron and Miriam in Numbers 12,6-8, when He warned them not to compare their level of prophetic insights to that of Moses, with whom G’d spoke as clearly as a man speaks to his fellow man.

הן בני ישראל לא שמעו אלי, “behold, even the Children of Israel have not listened to me, etc.” according to Rashi this was one of the ten occasions when we encounter an “a fortiori” method, i.e. a logical argument in the Torah. This comment seems uncalled for, seeing that the Torah had spelled out that the reason why the Children of Israel did not listen to Moses was because the terrible conditions under which they laboured had which made them unable to think rationally, i.e. they suffered from קוצר רוח, “impaired intellectual judgment.” Seeing that Pharaoh did not suffer from that same ailment, where was the logic that Moses referred to? Seeing that the commentators are obviously aware of this counterargument, they explain Moses’ argument as follows: “if even the Israelites themselves are afraid of leaving Egypt seeing the very discussion of such a plan brought additional hardship upon them, surely this knowledge will fuel Pharaoh’s determination not to let them go.” Alternatively, Moses simply meant that when Pharaoh saw that the Israelites themselves did not pay heed to their leader, why should he pay heed to him?

ואיך ישמע אלי פרעה?, “how can Pharaoh be expected to take me seriously?” We need to understand the sequence of events as follows: originally Moses had been instructed to take the elders with him when they would speak to Pharaoh. (3,18) It is possible that at that point the elders did the talking, while Moses was silently listening. Moses was also too shy to speak to the people, as we know from his having told G’d that he was not איש דברים, someone qualified to appeal to people by his oratory. At that point, G’d had assured him that his brother Aaron would make a good mouthpiece for him, and that he would formulate what Moses intended to say to the people. He would also perform the miracles, etc. Now that G’d suddenly tells Moses to speak to the people himself, without Aaron as his mouthpiece, and after having done so, the people did not respond to him, he asked G’d how he could possibly expect Pharaoh to be more responsive than his own people? G’d now added Aaron to be Moses’ spokesman in all interviews with Pharaoh. The Torah also confirms that Aaron addressed the people conveying all that G’d had said. (4,30) He had commanded both of them to address the people of Israel, but it was enough that one of them should be the actual speaker during these encounters. Now that G’d commands Moses himself to be the speaker, He repeats once more that He is the One Who had appeared to him previously. When G’d now said (verse 13) that he and Aaron are to speak both to the people and to Pharaoh, Moses is satisfied. The procedure was that G’d would tell Moses what was to be said, and he would tell Aaron of the instructions he had received, and Aaron would address these instructions to Pharaoh or the people, in accordance of what the situation called for. Aaron’s part in all this was comparable to the part of a prophet throughout the ages who would be commanded by G’d to relay a message to the people, except that in Aaron’s case the instructions would come from Moses, so that Moses fulfilled the role normally fulfilled by elokim. Hence G’d told him that he would have that role vis a vis Aaron. This was a major promotion for Moses, and enhanced his stature considerably. Moses merited this promotion due to his humility, not wanting to arrogate to himself a role unfitting for someone suffering from a speech handicap. This is also why the Torah testifies at a later stage, (11,3) that “Moses was considered as a person of great stature both in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of the Egyptians generally.” This does not conform to Rashi’s explanation that the words וידבר ה' אל משה לאמור in verse 10 are an introduction to what follows in verse 13. The fact is that verses 10-12 are, while verse 13 is a separate paragraph, if you will, as is evident by their being written as separate paragraphs. We therefore do not need Rashi’s comment that Moses was to deliver the stark message and Aaron was to elaborate on it. Consequently, we stick by our explanation that Moses delivered the message in the presence of Pharaoh, but that Aaron addressed it to Pharaoh.

אלה ראשי בית אבותם, “These were the heads of their father’s houses.” The Torah’s intention in this paragraph is only to give us the genealogy of the house of Levi, whereas Reuven’s and Shimon’s genealogy are mentioned only in order to accord them the courtesy due to seniority. Had the Torah ignored the genealogy of Reuven and Shimon at this point, some people might have thought that Levi was the senior of the brothers. In order to show that the Torah wishes to focus on the genealogy of Levi, the genealogy of the two senior brothers is abbreviated and is commenced only from the point where they arrived in Egypt. In the case of Levi, we are even told details of the number of years some of the principals lived. This enables the reader to reconstruct the chronology of the Jewish people commencing with the birth of Yitzchok. Ibn Ezra writes that the report of the number of years Levi lived was meant to honour Moses and Aaron. Seeing that the Torah meant to honour Moses and Aaron, it also included details about the years Amram, their father lived, as well as some details about the other sons of Levi. In the case of Yitzhar, even his grandchildren’s names were mentioned as the marriage of Amram to Yocheved is reported, seeing they were the founding couple from whom the leadership of the nation devolved. The sons of Yitzhar are mentioned only in order to put the conduct of Korach, the rebel, into proper perspective. The brothers of Korach, Nefeg and Zichri are mentioned without their children’s names, although they did not join their brother in his rebellion, whereas Korach’s sons are mentioned precisely because they did not join their father in his rebellion, as the Torah states on another occasion ובני קרח לא מתו, “Korach’s sons had not died during the rebellion.” (Numbers 26,11) Uzziel’s sons are mentioned as they distinguished themselves when removing Nadav and Avihu’s corpses from the Tabernacle. (Leviticus 10,4-5) Seeing that no information could be added to Chetzron, the Torah did not bother to list his children’s genealogy here.

ויקח אהרן, “Aaron took a wife, etc.” This detail is mentioned to show that even members of the priesthood, a hereditary distinction, paid tribute to the line of the kings, so that Aaron married a member of the Royal House of Yehudah, i.e. the sister of Nachshon, who was the 5th generation after Yehudah through his son Peretz. (Chronicles I,2,7) The Torah also mentions by name the marriage of Eleazar, son of Aaron, to a daughter of Putiel, in light of their illustrious son Pinchas, seeing that Pinchas, though born before his father had become a priest, merited elevation to the priesthood by a special decree of G’d. [anyone born to a father who was already a priest at that time became a priest through hereditary genes. Ed.] Our sages state that the reason why the Torah mentioned that Eleazar married “one of the daughters of” Putiel, instead of simply ”a daughter of” Putiel, is a compliment, not a reference to a Putiel who used to sacrifice to idols, but a descendant of Joseph who had demonstrated self control in not allowing himself to be seduced by the wife of his master Potiphar. (Baba Batra 115) [the use of the expression בנות (plural of בת) here alludes to multiple genetic input, including that of Joseph. Ed.] Elezar’s wife being a granddaughter, not a daughter of Putiel, is the reason that her name is not mentioned.

הוא אהרן ומשה אשר אמר, “this was Aaron and Moses to whom He said, etc.” The point of this verse is that in respect to אמירה, verbal communication, the Torah mentioned Aaron ahead of Moses, as it was he who delivered Moses’ message to Pharaoh. He did the actual talking. On the other hand, whenever the Torah makes reference to the Exodus, Moses is invariably mentioned ahead of his older brother Aaron. Ibn Ezra explains the Torah mentioning Aaron first as something natural, seeing he was the senior of the two. Moreover, Aaron had displayed prophecy to the people before Moses had been appointed as the prophet. After this, whenever they were speaking to Pharaoh, Moses is mentioned first, seeing he had superior rank. This is why after this exception you will no longer find that the Torah mentions Aaron first when G’d addresses both of them, or when the Torah discusses something in which both brothers participated. One cannot bring a counter argument from the verse (Numbers 3,1) אלה תולדות אהרן ומשה, “these are the generations of Aaron and Moses,” (in this order) or from the verse ותלד את אהרן ואת משה, ”she (Yocheved) bore Aaron and Moses,” seeing that the Torah there merely records the order in which they were born

ויהי ביום דבר, “It was on the day Hashem spoke, etc.” According to Ibn Ezra this verse is directly linked to what follows, i.e. verse 29 ויהי ביום דבר ה', “it was on the day that Hashem spoke,etc.” Nachmanides claims that it is possible to understand verse 28 as referring to what had preceded it, i.e. to verse 26 where Moses and Aaron are described as the ones who had been commanded by G’d to take the Israelites out of Egypt. Seeing that once we have a verse in which Moses is mentioned first, and another in which Aaron is mentioned first, the meaning may well be that the commandment to take the Israelites out of Egypt applied to both of them in equal measure. The Torah now clarifies that the word of G’d was issued to Moses, but that the commandment to carry it out applied to both of them in equal measure. This is the reason why this paragraph was split into two sections.