1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 20 of 32.
The Song at the Sea quotes the enemy's own boast, "The foe said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil" (Exodus 15:9). The Mekhilta asks a sharp question: how cou...
When the Torah says "the people quarreled with Moses" (Exodus 17:2), it sounds like a straightforward complaint. But the Mekhilta sees something far worse. Israel "transcended the ...
You shall not take": What is the intent of this? (Leviticus 19:12) "You shall not swear falsely in My name" speaks only of swearing. Whence is it derived that it is also forbidden ...
The Torah says: "And if a man strike", using the masculine form. The Mekhilta immediately asks the obvious question: does this law apply only to men? What about a woman who kills? ...
Rabbi Yehoshua disagrees. In his reading, the "haste" of the Passover meal belongs to the Israelites themselves, not to the Egyptians. And he flips the proof texts to make his case...
When Yithro, the father-in-law of Moses, heard about everything that had happened at the Red Sea, he made a remarkable declaration: "Now I know that greater is the Lord than all th...
The Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, in its tractate Shirah on the Song at the Sea, turns the boasting of Israel's enemy against itself. "The foe said," the Song reports, and the midrash...
Moses responded to Israel's complaints with a question that reframed the entire conflict: "Why would you quarrel with me? Why would you try the Lord?" (Exodus 17:2). He was telling...
Because of (the following) four things R. Mattia b. Charash went to R. Elazar b. Hakappar in Ludia. He said to him: My master, did you hear of the four divisions of atonement expou...
The Torah commands that the paschal lamb be eaten "in haste" (Exodus 12:11), and the Mekhilta preserves a striking reading from Abba Channan in the name of Rabbi Elazar. Whose hast...
Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the Torah says "the sea returned towards morning to its eithano" (Exodus 14:27). That final word, eithano, becomes the subject of a...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a dramatic speech attributed to God, addressed to the Egyptians at the moment of the Red Sea's destruction. The voice is that of a king. And...
When God announces the final plague, He uses a word that looks simple at first, but carries layers of meaning: "And I shall pass through the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12). The Hebr...
An analogy: A dove, fleeing a hawk, enters a king's palace, whereupon the king opens the eastern window for her, whence she escapes. The hawk, following, the king closes all the wi...
The Mekhilta preserves a disturbing alternative reading of Pharaoh's boast. "Others say: It is not written 'I will draw my sword,' but 'I will empty my sword.'" The shift from "dra...
Rebbi, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, draws a dividing line through the commandments to explain how different kinds of sin are wiped away. He locates the boundary at the prohibition "You sh...
The night of the tenth plague was unlike anything Egypt had ever witnessed. Every firstborn in the land, from the heir of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the capt...
The Mekhilta records a three-way dispute over the fate of Pharaoh himself at the splitting of the sea. Scripture says (Exodus 14:28) "And the waters returned and covered the chario...
The Egyptian army was not unified in its cruelty. According to the Mekhilta, the Egyptians at the Red Sea divided into three factions, each with a different plan for what to do wit...
(Ibid. 20:8) "Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it": "Remember" and "Keep" (the Sabbath day to sanctify it [Devarim 5:12]) were both stated in one pronouncement. (Exodus 31:14) ...
R. Eliezer says: Scripture speaks of a Canaanite (as opposed to a Hebrew) man-servant. You say this, but perhaps it speaks of a Hebrew? (This is not so, for) it is written here "hi...
The Torah's description of the tenth plague contains a phrase that seems redundant but actually expands the scope of the devastation far beyond Egypt's borders: "and I smote every ...
The ministering angels were astounded (at Israel's survival), saying: "Idolators walking on the dry land in the midst of the sea!" And whence is it derived that the sea, too, was f...
The Mekhilta reads the Song at the Sea as a precise courtroom exchange. The enemy at the Reed Sea did not merely chase Israel; he announced his intentions out loud, and the rabbis ...
(Exodus 21:20) specifies that the master strikes his bondservant "with a rod." The Mekhilta asks: does this mean the master is liable regardless of what kind of rod he used? Even a...
The tenth plague killed every firstborn in Egypt. But the Mekhilta asks a question that pushes the scope of the devastation further than most readers imagine: what about the firstb...
Pappus expounded (Song of Songs 1:9) "to a mare in the chariots of Pharaoh, etc.": Pharaoh rode on a stallion, the Holy One Blessed be He revealed Himself, as it were, on a stallio...
The Song at the Sea declares, "You inclined Your right hand, the earth swallowed them up" (Exodus 15:12), and the Mekhilta illustrates the downfall of Pharaoh with a sharp parable....
This teaching from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael unfolds during the crisis at Rephidim, where the thirsty people quarreled with their leader and were ready to stone him. Commenting...
The Torah requires that for a killing to be classified as murder. And thus subject to the death penalty, the blow must be struck in a place on the body where it could actually caus...
Pappus expounded a verse from Job: "And He is one, and who can turn Him back? Whatever He desires, He does" (Job 23:13). His interpretation was straightforward, God is the sole jud...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael invokes a pair of verses from Psalms to reveal something startling about how God responds to the nations that rage against Israel: He laughs. The firs...
The Mekhilta identifies a remarkable pattern in the relationship between God and Moses: sometimes God "lowers" Himself while Moses "raises" himself, and other times the dynamic rev...
The Mekhilta probes the laws of a master who strikes his Canaanite slave, and in doing so it sets a boundary on how far rabbinic logic may reach. The Torah teaches that for the kil...
Pappus and Rabbi Akiva clashed again, this time over one of the most enigmatic verses in Genesis. After Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge, God said: "Behold, the man has become l...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael connects the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea to the apocalyptic prophecy of Ezekiel about the war of Gog and Magog. The link between these tw...
When God told Moses, "Pass over before the people" (Exodus 17:5), the instruction sounds like a simple command to walk ahead of the crowd. But the Mekhilta hears at least three dif...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael derives the practice of Kiddush, the sanctification of Shabbat (the Sabbath) over wine, from the commandment to "sanctify it." The phrase "to sanctify...
Rebbi, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, asked why the Torah specifically mentions "a rod" in the law about striking a bondservant. He argued that the word "rod" is extra, it is not needed for...
The passage from the Mekhilta records a sharp exchange between R. Pappus and R. Akiva over the meaning of (Psalms 106:20) "And they exchanged their glory for the image of an ox tha...
The Mekhilta pauses on two words from (Exodus 15:10), "mighty waters". And asks a deceptively simple question: who in scripture is called "mighty"? The answer reveals a fourfold st...
The Torah legislates the case of a master who strikes his servant, specifying that the servant must "die under his hand." The Mekhilta dissects this phrase to extract a precise leg...
Commenting on the words "and the Lord saved Israel on that day" (Exodus 14:30) at the splitting of the sea, the Mekhilta reaches for two vivid images to capture how total and how d...
When God told Moses to take the staff that had struck the Nile, the Mekhilta explains the reason: it was because of Israel's "murmurings." The people had been complaining, and now ...
"Vengeance shall be taken", the Torah declares this regarding a master who kills his bondservant. But what does "vengeance" mean in legal terms? The Mekhilta identifies it as death...
The verse (Exodus 14:30) reads "And Israel saw Egypt dead on the shore of the sea." The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael asks why the bodies of the Egyptians were cast up onto the shore r...
The incense was terrifying. Israel had watched it kill Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, when they brought unauthorized fire before God (Leviticus 10:1). Two young priests, dead ...
(Exodus, Ibid. 10) "And the seventh day is Sabbath to the L–rd your G–d. You shall not perform any labor." What is the intent of this? (Exodus 31:15) "Everyone who does labor on th...
