Or HaChaim on Genesis 15:14/אור החיים על בראשית ט״ו:י״ד

1 וגם את הגוי אשר יעבודו דן אנכי, "I will also judge the nation for whom they perform slave labour." What justification is there for the word "also" in this verse? The last subject the Torah spoke about was enslavement and oppression. How can the retribution be linked to the former by the word וגם, "and also?" Besides, as we are all aware that G'd is the judge, why does G'd have to say דן אנכי, "I will judge?" Who else could possibly judge? Why does the Torah write את הגוי instead of merely הגוי, "the nation?" Why does the Torah not mention the conclusion of the Jewish people's exile experience at the end of verse 13 by adding: "after that they will depart with great possessions," and then add the part about G'd's retribution to the Egyptians in verse 14? Why was the part about the retribution inserted in the middle of the sequence? The last question is probably best answered by recalling that events actually happened in precisely the order the Torah describes. First the Jews were enslaved and oppressed, then G'd smote the Egyptians with the ten plagues; finally the Jews left Egypt having "borrowed" all of the Egyptians' gold and silver.

2An equally valid explanation of the sequence of the verse will become clear when we keep in mind what our sages had to say on Exodus 13,18. We read there that וחמושים עלו בני ישראל מארץ מצרים. According to the Mechilta the meaning is that only one out of five Israelites left Egypt, the remainder having died in Egypt during the plague of darkness so as not to afford the Egyptians the satisfaction to observe that they had not been worthy of redemption. The judgments that verse 14 speaks about then would be G'd judging the Israelites who did not merit to participate in the Exodus. The verse also alludes to the opportunity the Israelites had to examine where the Egyptians kept their valuables during the days of darkness, and to subsequently demand to borrow those. The expression וגם is used to demonstrate that G'd kept the promise made to Abraham here. This was recorded in Exodus 12,35-36. The word וגם means that G'd referred to something in addition to the decree of enslavement, namely that the redemption would be accompanied by a windfall of silver and gold, a compensation for some of the suffering to be endured. The word את refers to the death of 80% of the Israelites, whereas the word אנכי refers to the fact that this was something only G'd himself would know about; the Egyptians would not have any idea that some Jews died during the plague of darkness.

3The question arises why G'd punished the Egyptians altogether when they had actually carried out the decree G'd had announced long previously.

4Maimonides already answered this in his ספר המדע, explaining that G'd had never appointed a specific nation to carry out His decree. Whenever Gentile nations abuse Jews and this appears to be a fulfilment of a divine decree, none of the Gentiles had ever been specifically charged to be G'd's agents in the matter. Nachmanides and Rabbi Avraham ben David both take issue with Maimonides on this. They feel that inasmuch as those Gentiles had carried out G'd's wishes they had actually performed a מצוה. Nachmanides explains that the reason that G'd punished those nations was that they carried out the commandment with excessive enthusiasm. They demonstrated that they were intent on inflicting maximum discomfort on the Jews rather than to carry out G'd's will by what they did. When we keep this in mind, the word וגם refers to the excessive zeal displayed by the nations who persecute us which is the reason that G'd judges them. The word את then means that while G'd is busy punishing the Gentiles, He punishes the Jews who deserve it at one and the same time.

5The Gentile nations persecute us because we separated ourselves from them by rejecting their religion. Had the Jewish people worshiped the lamb (Egyptian deity) in Egypt, the chances are the Egyptians would not have seen in us a foreign element and they would not have persecuted us. The same holds true throughout our history. Our persecution by the nations (at least from their point of view) has always been due to our refusal to accept their religious yardsticks, and to our describing ourselves as G'd's chosen people. The Gentile nations never viewed themselves as performing G'd's decree to punish us for our sins. There is therefore no question that they deserve retribution for what they did to us on their own initiative. G'd decreed that we be punished because we did not observe all of His commandments, whereas they persecuted us for not disregarding all of His commandments. This is what the prophet Zecharyah 1,15 had in mind when he quoted G'd as saying: אני קצפתי מעט והמה עזרו לרעה, "I was angry a little (because of a few sins Israel committed), and they overdid the punishment." In fact the Gentile nations contributed to our transgressing more of G'd's commandments because they maltreated us so much.

6G'd goes on record here that He knows the true motivations of our oppressors and that is why He will punish the Egyptians. The Torah continues by linking Israel's redemption to the degree of abuse they would experience at the hands of the Egyptians by saying: ואחרי כן יצאו, "and as a result of this (exaggerated maltreatment) they will depart with great belongings;" Israel's redemption would be due in large measure to the excessive cruelty of its oppressors rather than to its accumulated merits. Sanhedrin 104 tells about the delegation the Egyptians sent to Alexander the Great demanding that the Jews return the silver and gold they had taken with them from Egypt at the time of the Exodus. Israel's representative countered by demanding back-pay with interest for several hundred years of slave labour by over a half a million of its people for over 200 years.

7Our verse also contains a hint that when the Israelites went down to Egypt G'd's presence accompanied them (Megillah 29). Psalms 91,15: "I will be with him (Israel) in distress," is also proof that the שכינה accompanies the Jewish people into exile. Another indication that our verse speaks about the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt is Exodus 24,10 where the nobles of Israel had a vision of a sapphire brick underneath the throne of G'd. This is an allusion to G'd having been present when the Israelites were engaged in brick-making in Egypt.