Shabbat Parashat Beshallach - 5783

Shabbat Parashat Beshallach - 5783

Rabbi Hal Miller He took 600 select chariots and every chariot of Egypt, and officers over all of it. [Shemot 14:7] There are a few obvious questions in our verse. Why 600 select chariots? If Pharaoh took every chariot of Egypt, wouldn't that have included his 600 best? And why does the Torah see a need to tell us that Pharaoh also took officers over all of it, wouldn't that have been a foregone conclusion? Further, didn't all the draw animals of Egypt just get destroyed in the plagues? Rashi answers this last question for us. Certainly all the working animals of Egypt were destroyed, except for those of the few Egyptians who listened to Moshe and brought their animals into their houses before the plague. The Jews took their animals with them, so only these protected ones were left. From the fact that Pharaoh had those animals, R'Shimon in the Mishnah says that every Egyptian was to be killed since even those who listened at first did not really believe. Numerous commentators wonder about the word "select". Sforno, for example, explains that they were the "choicest chariots and chariots of average quality, of which there were many." Rav Hirsch understands it a little differently, "the first were war chariots, the second were transport wagons." These help us understand why there were two classes of chariots, but not the inclusiveness of "every chariot", so instead of "every chariot", Rashi reads it, "all the rest of the chariots", which makes sense, but doesn't follow the wording of the verse. Another issue of not following the simple meaning is that the word chariot in the first part (600) is actually singular, "chariot" rather than "chariots". Onkelos just rewrites it with the plural, but why did the Torah give it in the singular? If we accept the second instance as singular, "every chariot", that gives us a question on Rashi's use of all the rest of the chariots, in the plural. Perhaps we can read it as, he took 600, consisting of a select chariot and 599 of the other kind. But that does not seem to fit the story line. Perhaps we can read it as, he took 600, which as a class are called "select chariot", plus an indeterminate number of others that are called as a class "every chariot." Ibn Ezra asks why 600,000 Jews would be so frightened of 600 chariots, and says the Torah is telling us that the slave mentality brought about fears even when they were not justified. This answer seems to ignore the other chariots, but it does open the discussion of others about the word shlishim, translated above as officers. Understanding this may give us our answer to the chariots. Although translating it as officers, Onkelos notes that in various other languages of the time, shlishim means "soldiers who fight from chariots", "triply armed", "the third man on the chariot", or varying multiples of three Egyptians against each Israelite. Rashbam follows Onkelos in translating the word "high ranking officers", citing the verse in Shemot [15:4], "and the pick of his officers are drowned in the Sea of Reeds". Sforno says it means officers with battle experience. Talmud Yerushalmi [Kilayim 8:2] refers the word to the number of horses, that originally people hitched two horses per chariot, citing Bereishit [41:43] where Pharaoh had Yosef paraded around in a "chariot of two". Then a later Pharaoh changed the attachment to teams of three, per our verse. Still later, Rome made teams of four. Rambam refers the word to the number of chariots connected together in a train. By connecting chariots to each other in a row, they were able to bring more soldiers to the battle with the same team of horses, thus Pharaoh in our verse is making triple chariots to increase his force on the ground. We can then read our verse to say that Pharaoh took steps to modernize his army to increase his strength going to battle Israel. Knowing as he did that Israel was in no shape to oppose such force, we have to understand our verse that Pharaoh was preparing to do battle with God Himself, and took every weapon and every preparation he could. Didn't work.