Then
God said to Moses: go to Pharaoh, for I have allowed his heart and the hearts
of his servants to remain stubborn in order to show these My signs in his
midst. And in order that you may relate in the ears of your son and your son’s
son the series of deeds which I have wrought on Egypt, and My signs which I
have made among them, so that you may perceive that I am God. Exodus 10:1-2
Essentially, the verses present two
reasons for God's hardening the heart of Pharaoh (“allowing his heart to remain
stubborn” in Rabbi S.R. Hirsch’s translation).
Netziv notes that verse one
expresses God’s purpose as it relates to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, while verse
two presents the goal in relation to the Children of Israel. The two verses
present very different goals. The subject of verse one is God, Who will
demonstrate His miracles and wondrous signs to the Egyptians and their king.
Pharaoh and his people are completely passive. Verse two is not only directed
at the Children of Israel, but they are the subject of the verse: “..that you may relate ...that you may perceive.”...
God’s purpose as far as the Nations
of the World are concerned is simply His demonstration of might. There is no
expectation that the gentiles act upon their observation of God’s miracles. As Netziv
phrases it, the purpose for the Nations of the World is merely to know in a
general way of matters of Divine Providence and God’s power. Not so for the
Children of Israel, for whom observing God’s miracles must lead to practical manifestations. For the Children of Israel, witnessing God’s
miracles does not and may not end simply by observing the event. The Children
of Israel must convey to their sons and their son’s son what they witnessed.
Verse two ends with the purpose of the Israelites’ observing God’s miracles:
“so that you may perceive that I am God”. For Israel, the point of witnessing
divine intervention is to achieve knowledge of God and to translate that
knowledge into practical terms, in serving God.
There is an apparent anomaly in
verse two. The verse begins with the singular: “that you (singular) may relate”
and ends with the plural “that you (plural) may perceive”... Perhaps the verse
intends to teach us the interplay between the individual and the collective.
The ultimate goal is on the collective level, for the klal to reach knowledge of God. However, reaching this goal
requires commitment and action on the part of individuals. When each parent teaches his children and his children’s
children, the collective goal will be achieved.
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