Punishing Egypt Measure-for-Measure

This is an Amoraic idiom (e.g. Gen Rabb 9:11) which summarizes an earlier, Tannaitic idiom: “By the same measure by which a man metes out, so too is meted out to him” במידה שאדם מודד בה מודדים לו (see e.g. Tosefta Sotah 3:1 and trhe long list of biblical examples cited on chaps. 3-4 there). On this concept and its uses in rabbinic literature see Ishay Rosen-Zvi, "Measure for Measure as a Hermeneutic Tool in Early Rabbinic Literature," Journal of Jewish Studies 56 (2006), pp. 269-286.

Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary, trans. J.S. Bowden, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 149; trans. of Das zweite Buch Mose: Exodus, Das Alte Testament Deutsch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959).

See William H.C. Propp, Exodus 1–18, Anchor Bible 2A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1999), 631, s.v. “the affair.”

For a discussion of measure-for-measure punishments in the Bible, see Jonathan Jacobs, מידה כנגד מידה בסיפור המקראי [Measure for Measure in the Biblical Storytelling], (Alon Shevut: Tvunot, 5766 [2005/6]). For some specific examples, see Yael Shemesh, “Measure for Measure in the David Stories,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 17:1 (2003): 89–109, Zev Farber, “How Is It Possible that Jacob Mistakes Leah for Rachel?” TheTorah (2017).

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, makes the same point in less detail:

ארום בפיתגמא דארשעו מצראי למידן ית ישראל במיא עליהון הדר דינא לאיתדנא במיא.

For the very thing that the Egyptians were wicked enough to punish Israel, with water, the punishment turned back on them, and they were punished with water.

Onkelos translates more vaguely:

אֲרֵי בְּפִתְגָמָא דְּחַשִּׁיבוּ מִצְרָאֵי לִמְדָּן יָת יִשְׂרָאֵל בֵּיהּ דָּנִינּוּן.

For in the very thing that the Egyptians planned to punish Israel, they were punished.

For the 1^st century B.C.E. dating see David Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), 20–25. For the 1^st century B.C.E. dating see Matthew Kraus, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” in The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, ed. Jonathan Klawans and Lawrence M. Wills (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 391–425 [p. 391]; Peter Enns, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Writings Related to Scripture, ed., Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2013), 3. 2155–2207 [p. 2155].

At one point, it was popular among scholars to see these three sections originating as independent works. See, e.g., Joseph Reider, The Book of Wisdom (New York: Harper, 1957), 19–21; Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, 12–14. For a more recent unitary attitude to the composition see Peter Enns, “Wisdom of Solomon,” 2155.

Chapters 11–16, with two large interludes: on the Canaanites (12) and on Idolatry (13–15).

This is also the understanding of R. Nehemia in Exodus Rabbah 11:3: מני צרעין ויתושין, “types of wasps and gnats,” in contrast to R. Yehudah there who suggests דובים ונמרים, “bears and leopards.” In line with the LXX and Rabbi Nehemiah’s understanding, the NJPS translates “swarms of insects.”

English citations are according to Winston’s translation.

^{Wis. 11:15} ἀντὶ δὲ λογισμῶν ἀσυνέτων ἀδικίας αὐτῶν, ἐν οἷς πλανηθέντες ἐθρήσκευον ἄλογα ἑρπετὰ καὶ κνώδαλα εὐτελῆ, ἐπαπέστειλας αὐτοῖς πλῆθος ἀλόγων ζῴων εἰς ἐκδίκησιν, ^11:16 ἵνα γνῶσιν ὅτι, δι᾿ ὧν τις ἁμαρτάνει, διὰ τούτων κολάζεται.

^{Wis 16:2} ἀνθ᾿ ἧς κολάσεως εὐεργετήσας τὸν λαόν σου εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν ὀρέξεως ξένην γεῦσιν τροφὴν ἡτοίμασας ὀρτυγομήτραν.

^{Wis 11:13} ὅτε γὰρ ἤκουσαν διὰ τῶν ἰδίων κολάσεων εὐεργετημένους αὐτούς, ᾔσθοντο τοῦ κυρίου.

^{Wis 18:1} Τοῖς δὲ ὁσίοις σου μέγιστον ἦν φῶς· ὧν φωνὴν μὲν ἀκούοντες μορφὴν δὲ οὐχ ὁρῶντες, ὅτι μὲν οὐ κἀκεῖνοι ἐπεπόνθεισαν, ἐμακάριζον. The difference itself is noted in Exodus 9:23, but the Egyptians taking note of it and coming to some sort of conclusion about it is the contribution of Wisdom of Solomon.

^{Wis 12:2} Διὸ τοὺς παραπίπτοντας κατ᾿ ὀλίγον ἐλέγχεις καὶ ἐν οἷς ἁμαρτάνουσιν ὑπομιμνῄσκων νουθετεῖς, ἵνα ἀπαλλαγέντες τῆς κακίας πιστεύσωσιν ἐπὶ σέ, κύριε.

See e.g. Maren Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2018), 201–202.

^{Wis 18:13} …ἐπὶ τῷ τῶν πρωτοτόκων ὀλέθρῳ ὡμολόγησαν θεοῦ υἱὸν λαὸν εἶναι.

This is a well-known tension among Jewish Hellenistic authors. See Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Adi Ophir, Goy: Israel Others and the Birth of the Gentile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 103–109.

On the justifications given by ancient interpreters to the fate of the Canaanites see Katell Berthelot, Joseph E. David, and Marc Hirshman, eds., The Gift of the Land and the Fate of the Canaanites in Jewish Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

This appears twice in the Torah:

^{שׁמות כג:כט} לֹא אֲגָרְשֶׁנּוּ מִפָּנֶיךָ בְּשָׁנָה אֶחָת פֶּן תִּהְיֶה הָאָרֶץ שְׁמָמָה וְרַבָּה עָלֶיךָ חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה.

^{Exod 23:29} I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply to your hurt.

‏^{דברים ז:כב} וְנָשַׁל יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶת הַגּוֹיִם הָאֵל מִפָּנֶיךָ מְעַט מְעָט לֹא תוּכַל כַּלֹּתָם מַהֵר פֶּן תִּרְבֶּה עָלֶיךָ חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה.

^{Deut 7:22} YHWH your God will dislodge those peoples before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them at once, else the wild beasts would multiply to your hurt.

Editor’s note: For a discussion of this concept in contrast to other biblical descriptions of the Canaanites’ expulsion, see Mordechai Cogan, “Israel’s Incomplete Conquest of Canaan,” TheTorah (2022).

^{Wis 12:8} ἀλλὰ καὶ τούτων ὡς ἀνθρώπων ἐφείσω ἀπέστειλάς τε προδρόμους τοῦ στρατοπέδου σου σφῆκας, ἵνα αὐτοὺς κατὰ βραχὺ ἐξολεθρεύσωσιν. ^12:9 οὐκ ἀδυνατῶν ἐν παρατάξει ἀσεβεῖς δικαίοις ὑποχειρίους δοῦναι ἢ θηρίοις δεινοῖς ἢ λόγῳ ἀποτόμῳ ὑφ᾿ ἓν ἐκτρῖψαι, ^12:10 κρίνων δὲ κατὰ βραχὺ ἐδίδους τόπον μετανοίας οὐκ ἀγνοῶν ὅτι πονηρὰ ἡ γένεσις αὐτῶν καὶ ἔμφυτος ἡ κακία αὐτῶν καὶ ὅτι οὐ μὴ ἀλλαγῇ ὁ λογισμὸς αὐτῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

I cite here the Mekhilta de R. Ishmael’s version, but the two Mekiltot are almost identical in the large aggadic part (interpreting Ex 13:17–20:1 consecutively). See Menachem Kahana, המכילתות לפרשת עמלק: לראשוניותה של המסורת במכילתא דרבי ישמעאל [The Mekhiltot on Parashat Amalek: The Priority of the Tradition in Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), 25–32.

Citations from Mekhilta DeRabbi Ishmael are according to MS Oxford 151. The second number in each reference refers to the page number in Lauterbach’s edition of the Mekilta (Philadelphia: JPS, 1976, three volumes). Lauterbach’s translations are modified to make them as literal as possible.

The midrash continues with several biblical prooftexts for the measure for measure principle:

שנ' "בור כרה ויחפרהו" וג'. ואו' "ישוב עמלו בראשו" וג'. ואו' "כורה שחת בה יפול" וג'. ואו' "חופר גומץ בו יפול" וג'. ואו' "מסיע אבנים יעצב בהם" וג'.

For it is said: “He has dug a pit etc.” (Ps 7:16). And it also says: “His mischief shall return upon his own head” (Ps 7:17). And it also says: “He that digs a pit shall fall into it etc.” (Eccl 10:8–9). And it says: “Whoever digs a pit shall fall into it” (Prov 26:27) And it says: “he that cleaves wood is endangered thereby” (Eccl 10:8–9)

Modern dictionaries debate the exact meaning of this term. HALOT (s.v. אבנים) brings two suggestions: a literal translation “stones of the birthstool” and a euphemistic one “female genitals.” David Clines’ Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (s.v. אֹ֫בֶן) interprets the meaning as “stones.” It is doubtful, however, that the rabbis saw a linguistic connection between אָבְנָיִם to אֶבֶן since in b. Sotah 11b, the two are connected only through a parable (“her thighs become cold like a stone”).

See Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume Two—Mythical Thought, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1955), 67; trans. from Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen: 2. Das mythische Denken (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer Verlag, 1925).

See chapter 7 in, Isaac Heinemann, דרכי האגדה [The Ways of the Aggadah] (Jerusalem 1949), 56–74. On the romantic sources of Heinemann’s theory of midrash see “Reading Heinemann’s Darkhe Ha’aggadah” in Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), 1–11.

Yehoshua Amir summarizes this as follows: “such a network of well-knit interrelationships is experienced as a guarantee for a well-ordered world. All-pervading correspondence makes one sure of meaningfulness; ultimately, of course, behind this well-disposed world order stands God himself […] To make it visible to all is the aim of rabbinical exegesis.” Yehoshua Amir, “Measure for Measure in Talmudic Literature and in The Wisdom of Solomon,” in Justice and Righteousness: Biblical Themes and Their Influence, ed., Henning Graff Reventlow and Yair Hoffman, The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 29–46 [p. 33].

This idea is expressed in Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1982), 42–43:

The rabbis saw in the Bible not only an archive of past history, but an unearthing of the structure of history itself… the historical writings in the Bible seemed to the rabbis powerful enough to elucidate and explain every future historical development.

Compare the statement by James L. Kugel, in “Two Introductions to Midrash,” in Midrash and Literature, ed., Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 77–103 [p. 89]:

[W]hen what happened in Scripture happened again and again, unfolds over and over, it is because the Bible in not “the past” at all…the Bible time is important, while the present is not; and so it invites the reader to cross over into the enterable world of scripture.

The homily is based on the grammatical construct of cognate accusative, which quotes the same root (מ.ח.ה) twice.

For this version see Kahana, Mekhiltot, 261–262.

While the rabbis had a robust concept of conversion (see my, “In the Torah, Is the Ger Ever a Convert?” TheTorah [2019]), they do not set the gathering of converts as a goal.