Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah
Ibn Ezra on Exodus 13:15/אבן עזרא על שמות י״ג:ט״ו
אויהי. החל לומר בחוזק יד הוציאנו, ושב לפרש מה היתה היד החזקה, והיא מכת הבכורים, כי על יד זה יצאו ממצרים, ולא על יד מכות הראשונות, וככה אמר המשורר, למכה מצרים בבכוריהם כי לעולם חסדו (תה' קלו י), ומשה תפס דרך קצרה, כי ידוע היה באמרו, ויהרוג ה' כל בכור והציל בכורינו ובכור בהמתינו, ועם זה ידבק על כן אני זובח ולא עם הריגת בכורים:
1AND IT CAME TO PASS. Moses begins by saying, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt (v. 14) and backtracks and explains that what the strength of hand refers to is the plague of the first-born. It was because of this plague, and not because of the first plagues, that Israel went out of Egypt. The poet similarly says, To Him that smote Egypt in their first-born, For His mercy endureth for ever (Ps. 136:10).56 (Ps. 136:11). None of the other plagues are recalled in Ps. 136. Only this plague is mentioned, because it was the one that caused Pharaoh to permit Israel to leave Egypt. Moses wrote elliptically. When Moses said, that the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man, and the first-born of beasts, it was known57 that God saved our first-born and the first-born of our cattle. It is to the latter,58 not to the slaying of the first-born, that therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the womb is connected.
בכל פטר רחם הזכרים. מהמין הראוי לזבוח לפני השם:
2ALL THAT OPENETH THE WOMB, BEING MALES. From a kind fit to be sacrificed to the Lord.59