1 And the Lord said unto Moses, “Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these, my signs, before him:
2 And that you may pass down, to your son and your son's sons, tales of what mighty things I have wrought in Egypt; and my signs which I have done among them; that you may know how that I am the Lord.
3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews, 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.
4 Else, if you refuse to let my people go, then tomorrow will I bring the locusts into your coast:
5 And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot see the ground: and they shall eat whatever crops remain since the hail, and shall eat every tree which grows for you out of the field:
6 And they shall fill your houses, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.
7 And Pharaoh's servants said unto him, “How long must we bear these plagues from Moses? let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God! Don't you know that Egypt lies in ruin?”
8 And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, “Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go?”
9 And Moses said, “We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.”
10 And he said unto them, “Let the Lord be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you.”
11 “Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for that ye did desire.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence.
12 And the Lord said unto Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail has left.”
13 And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.
14 And the locust went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt. They became a grievous problem; never before had there been such locusts, and never again shall there be again:
15 For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, throughout all the land of Egypt.
16 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.
17 Now therefore forgive, I pray, my sin only this once, and entreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only.”
18 And he went out from Pharaoh, and entreated the Lord.
19 And the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt.
20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.
21 And the Lord said unto Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.”
22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days:
23 They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
24 And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, “Go now, serve the Lord! Only let your flocks and your herds[a] remain in Egypt; let your little ones also go with you.”
25 And Moses said, “You must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God.
26 Our livestock[b] also shall go with us; no hoof left behind; we must take them to serve the Lord our God; and we won't know what animal we need until we are there.”
27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go.
28 And Pharaoh said unto him, “Get out of here. Take heed you see my face no more; for on the day you see my face you shall die.”
29 And Moses said, “You have spoken well, I will see your face again no more.”
[24a] h.צֹאנְכֶ֥ם וּבְקַרְכֶ֖ם (ṣō-nə-ḵem ū-ḇə-qar-ḵem) flocks and herds (see v.26)
[26b] h.מִקְנֵ֜נוּ (miq-nê-nū), KJV 'cattle”. Livestock here refers to more than just cattle; the implication is that Moses was rejecting's pharaho's earlier mention of 'flocks and heards' from v.24.
h.ויאמר ה' אל משה בא אל פרעה AND THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES GO IN UNTO PHARAOH and warn him.
h.שתי means my setting (an infinitive of שית), so that the phrase, which literally means “for the sake of my setting these my signs”, denotes “that I may set”.
h.התעללתי means I HAVE MOCKED, as in, (Numbers 22:29) “Because thou hast mocked (התעללת) me”; (I Samuel 6:6) “Indeed, when he mocked (התעולל) them”, which, also, is said in reference to Egypt. It is not an expression denoting doing and action, for were this so it should have written עוללתי, similar to (Lamentations 1:22) “And do (עולל) unto them as thou hast done (עוללת) unto me”, and to (Lamentations 1:12) “which he has done (עולל) unto me”.
h.לענת Translate as the Targum: TO BE HUMBLED. It is of the same derivation as עני poor, so that the passage signifies, “thou refusest to be poor and lowly before Me”.
h.את עין הארץ means THE COLOUR OF THE GROUND.
h.ולא יוכל AND HE — i. e. anyone who is looking — WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE THE EARTH; it speaks in (uses) an elliptical expression.
h.הטרם תדע means KNOWEST THOU NOT YET that Egypt has perished. (Cf. Rashi on Exodus 9:30.)
h.ויושב [AND MOSES AND AARON] WERE BROUGHT BACK (The verb has a passive meaning [Hophal], not an active as the particle את before משה and אהרן might lead one to suppose) — They were brought back by a messenger: they (Pharaoh’s servants) sent people after them and these brought them back to Pharaoh.
h.כאשר אשלח אתכם ואת טפכם [MAY THE LORD BE WITH YOU] AS I WILL LET YOU AND YOUR LITTLE ONES GO — even though I were to let go also the flocks and herds as you have said.
h.ראו כי רעה נגד פניכם Understand this as the Targum takes it: See, the evil you are about to do wilt turn against yourself. I have heard a Midrashic explanation: There is a certain star the name of which is רעה “Evil”. Pharaoh said to them, “By my astrological art I see that star rising towards you in the wilderness whither you wish to proceed. It is an emblem of blood and slaughter”. Consequently, when Israel sinned by worshipping the calf and the Holy One, blessed be He, intended to slay them, Moses said in his prayer, (Exodus 32:12) “Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, He brought them forth together with רעה (i. e. under the influence of the star רעה); this is, indeed, what he (Pharaoh) has already said, “See, the ‘רעה’ is before you”. At once, “the Lord bethought Himself concerning ‘רעה’”, and He changed the blood of which this star was an emblem to the blood of the circumcision because indeed Joshua had them circumcised. This is the meaning of what is said, (Joshua 5:9). “This day have I rolled from off you the reproach of the Egyptians”, for they said to you. “We see blood impending over you in the wilderness. (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 1:392; cf. also Rashi on Joshua 5:9.)
h.לא כן NOT SO as you have said, to take the children with you, but 'לכו נא הגברים ועבדו את ה GO YE WHO ARE ADULT MEN AND SERVE THE LORD.
h.כי אתה אתם מבקשים means FOR THAT IS WHAT YE DID SEEK till now: let us sacrifice to our God — and it is not the custom for little children to offer sacrifice.
h.ויגרש אותם AND HE DROVE THEM OUT — This is an elliptical phrase and it does not expressly state who drove them out (i. e. the subject of the verb is omitted).
h.בארבה means on account of the plague of locusts (the prefix ב signifies “on account of”).
h.ורוח הקדים THE EAST WIND — It was an east wind that brought the locusts because that came (blew) from the direction opposite to it (to Egypt), since Egypt was in the south-west, relative to Palestine, as it is explained in another place (Numbers 34:3).
h.ואחריו לא יהיה כן NEITHER AFTER THEM SHALL BE SUCH — That plague of locusts which happened during the days of Joel of which it is said, (Joel 2:2) “there hath not been ever the like” — which statement teaches us that it was more grievous than that in the days of Moses — was, however, caused by many species of locusts, together, those called ארבה and ילק and חסיל and גזם; but that which happened in the days of Moses consisted of only one species (the ארבה) and any ארבה like that there never was and never will be.
h.כל ירק means any green leaf (not “any herb”, since it speaks of the ירק of the trees); old French verdure.
h.רוח ים is A WEST WIND.
h.ימה סוף INTO THE RED SEA — I say that the Red Sea was, as to part of it, in the west opposite the whole southern side of Palestine, and was also eastward of the Land of Israel; therefore a west wind blew the locusts into the Red Sea which was in the opposite direction to the west of Egypt. Thus do we find mentioned regarding the boundaries of Palestine that it (the Red Sea) faces the east of Palestine, since it states, (Exodus 23:31) “[And I will set thy boundaries] from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines”, which means from east to west since the sea of the Philistines was in the west, as it is said of the Philistines, (Zephaniah 2:5) “the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the nation of the Cherethites (the Philistines)”.
h.לא נשאר ארבה אחד THERE REMAINED NOT ONE LOCUST — not even those which they had salted — for they had salted some of them (Exodus Rabbah 13:7).
h.וימש חשך signifies and it (the darkness mentioned in the preceding phrase, ויהי חשך) shall darken for them the natural darkness to a higher degree than the darkness of night: i. e. the darkness of night shall become even more black and dark.
h.וימש means as much as (is a contraction of) ויאמש (a Hiphil form of אמש, evening darkness). We have many words in which an א is omitted; since the sound of the א is not very marked, Scripture is not particular about omitting it. An example is: (Isaiah 13:20) “the Arabian לֹא יַהֵל there”, which is the same as לא יַאֲהֵל, shall not pitch his tent. Similar is, (II Samuel 22:40) “וַתַּזְרֵנִי with strength”, which is the same as וַתְּאַזְרֵנִי “And thou hast girded me” (cf. Psalms 30:12). Onkelos translated it in the sense of removing, from the same root as, (Joshua 1:8) “it shall not depart (ימוש)”, his rendering being, “[and there shall be darkness..] after the darkness of night has departed”, i. e. when the time approaches near to the light of day. But the statement does not then fit with the ו of וימש, because this word is written after ויהי חשך. A Midrashic statement explains it in the sense of (Deuteronomy 28:29) “groping (ממשש feeling) at noon-day”, so that the meaning would be that it was of such a double character and so thick that there was something tangible in it (Exodus Rabbah 14:1-3).
h.שלשת ימים denotes a triad of days. old French terziane; so, too, שבעת ימים everywhere it occurs denotes in old French a septaine of days (a period of seven days).
h.ויהי חשך אפלה … שלשת ימים — there was darkness of gloom when no man saw another during those three days, and there was moreover another period of three days’ darkness twice as thick as this when no man rose from his place: one who happened to be sitting when this second period of darkness began was unable to rise, and one who was then standing was unable to sit down. And why did He bring darkness upon them? Because there were wicked people amongst the Israelites of that generation who had no desire to leave Egypt, and these died during the three days of darkness so that the Egyptians might not see their destruction and say, “These, (the Israelites) too have been stricken as we have”. And a further reason is that the Israelites searched (the darkness came just in order that they might do this) and saw their (the Egyptians’) jewels, and when they were leaving Egypt and asked them for their jewels, and they replied, “We have none at all in our possession”, they answered them, “I have seen it in your house and it is in such and such a place” (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Bo 1; Exodus Rabbah 14:3).
h.יצג means SHALL REMAIN STANDING in its place.
h.גם אתה תתן THOU MUST GIVE ALSO — It will not be enough for you that our cattle will go with us but you will give also of yours.
h.פרסה is the hoof of the foot; in old French plante.
h.לא נדע מה נעבד means WE DO NOT KNOW WITH WHAT WE MUST SERVE we do not know how heavy will be the service: perhaps He will ask more than we have in our possession.
h.כן דברת signifies RIGHTLY HAST THOU SPOKEN, and in its proper time hast thou spoken; for it is true that I will not see thy face again (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 12:31; Exodus Rabbah 18:1; cf. also Onkelos).