Parshas Bo

“And Hashem said to Moshe, come to Paroh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants in order to place these wonders of mine in his midst.”

The Ramban comments on this verse as follows:

“The Holy One Blessed Be He made known to Moshe that he was hardening their hearts since they were afraid of Him on account of the hail and confessed their iniquity.
And He said to him, (Moshe), “The reason that I am doing this is in order that I will place in their midst these wonders which I wish to do to them so that Egypt will know of my might, not that I shall punish them more because of this hardening, and further more, in order that you and all Yisroel should recount the strength of My doings for your subsequent generations and you shall know that I am Hashem and all that I wish to do, I carry out, in the heavens and the earth.”

God told Moshe that although the Egyptians wouldn’t be punished any more than they were already deserving of, nonetheless, the hearts of Paroh and his counselors would be hardened in order to prolong the subjugation of the Jewish People and the perform additional plagues to demonstrate His might.

However, if Hashem was going to perform additional plagues, isn’t that additional punishment?

If the full amount of the punishment already accrued by Egypt hadn’t yet been visited upon them by the time they confessed their iniquity, hadn’t the opportunity to continue punishing them been lost?

Why was this step by step slow increase in the intensity of the plague required? Why couldn’t one super-plague have took the place of the hail, without any subsequent need for additional heart hardening?

It could be that Hashem wanted to incrementally increase the intensity of the plagues rather than to throw everything at them at once in order to make the greatest psychological impact. There is a format in Mishnayos of introducing the smallest chiddush first. (That is quoting the halacha which departs the least from our expectations at the beginning of a list of halachos). This format is called Lo Zu, Af Zu, not only this but even this! I have heard said in a gemoro shiur, that this format is designed to intensify the emotional impact on the reader, as the Mishna intensifies the “newness” of its contents.
Thus it could be said in the case of the plagues too, that one super-plague wouldn’t have the incremental physcological effect of a build up of ten plagues, ending with the slaying of the first born.
Therefore, if Paroh and his advisors had acceded to Moshe’s request to be allowed to leave before reaching “number 10”, the full revelation of God’s power which He wanted to reveal in Egypt would not have been reached. Yisroel would have left before they had seen the all of the miracles which would testify for them that, “I am Hashem and all that I wish to do, I carry out, in the heavens and the earth.”

Therefore the punishment of which Egypt was already deserving, before the start of the plagues, was divided into ten from the outset.

However this still leaves the question that if Paroh and his advisors wanted to repent, thereby bringing the plagues to an early conclusion, how could Hashem prevent this? And isn’t this an infliction of additional punishment?!

To answer this it may be possible to rely on the Rambam, Hilchos Teshuva, 1:4, who says that in the case of serious transgressions, even though the sinner repents, only once tribulations have come upon him, (and in the most serious cases of sin, death as well), will he be atoned.

If this idea can apply to nations as well as individuals, then we can now understand why even after Paroh wanted to repent and his heart was hardened, additional plagues weren’t considered additional punishment, the repentance of Egypt wasn’t enough to avoid the coming of further plagues.

Therefore, in order to visit divine retribution in an orderly and incremental fashion, revealing some of Hashem’s greatness to the Jewish people in the most effective manner, Paroh’s heart had to be hardened, allowing the plagues to continue in the presence of the Jewish people in Egypt.


Although this approach hasn’t dealt will all the questions that one could ask on the Ramban, and although it too generates further questions, nonetheless, we have at least to some extent understood this piece and identified some fundamentals of the faith!



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