Shabbat Parashat Beshallach - 5786

Shabbat Parashat Beshallach - 5786

Rabbi Hal Miller

  He removed the wheel of their chariots and He led them with heaviness. Egypt

  said, "I shall flee before Israel for God is waging war on their behalf against Egypt."

  [Shemot 14:25]

The word for wheel here, ofen, is in the singular. Onkelos pluralizes it and virtually all commentators follow him. The verse leads from that right into "He led them with heaviness", which is rather unclear. What does this mean? How does it tie to the first part of that sentence?

Most commentators explain the phrase about removal of chariot wheels as God striking them with fire from the heavens. Rashi adds a purpose, that this caused the chariots to be dragged along in a way that the riders were shaken about and their limbs dislocated. Rashbam says that it was to cause confusion and to prevent the Egyptians from fleeing.

There is less agreement as to the meaning of the next phrase, vayinahageihu bichveidet, translated above as "and He led them with heaviness". Rashi explains this to mean a punishment equivalent to what Egypt imposed upon the Israelites, that they made their hearts heavy, thus the heaviness is a mental striking against the Egyptians. But Sforno differs and understands this phrase to apply to the physical chariots, meaning sunk in deep mud. Baal HaTurim is close to this when he writes in accord with Onkelos that God "caused them to drive with difficulty", changing the subject and verb from 'God leading' to 'the Egyptians driving'.

We could also understand the first words of our verse as "He punished the manner of their chariots", referring to the way the Egyptians chose to come after the Israelites they had just released. This would allude, as does 'heaviness' in the next phrase, to the punishment measure for measure over the Egyptian treatment of Israel, and this approach makes these two phrases fit together. It also does not require changing the Torah's word 'ofen' into a plural form 'ofanim'. It further indicates that the second phrase refers to God performing the action rather than the Egyptians, and thus gives a reason for the Egyptian reaction in the last half of the verse.