Rabbi Tanḥuma said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon: It is written: “Who makes a way in the sea” (Isaiah 43:16); that is not a difficult feat. “And a path in mighty waters” (Isaiah 43:16); this is not a difficult feat. Rather, what is a difficult feat? “Who brings out chariots and horse, an army, and a mighty force” (Isaiah 43:17).
Rabbi Yudan said: A great hunt and pursuit would begin from the archers. Each would push and chase the other, and [their horsemen] would drive them into the sea. Rabbi Ḥanan said: What did the virtuous and modest daughters of Israel do? They would take their sons and conceal them in burrows and the wicked Egyptians would take their small children and bring them into the Israelite houses and pinch them.
They would cry and the Israelite baby would hear the sound of his counterpart crying and would cry with him. [The Egyptians] would then take them and cast them into the Nile. That is what is written: “Catch foxes for us, little foxes.”140The verse is interpreted by the midrash to mean: Foxes would catch us. They monitored them to cast them into the Nile. How many babies did they cast into the Nile?
Ten thousand, as it is stated: “[I rendered you] as numerous [revava] as the plants of the field” (Ezekiel 16:7).141The word revava also means ten thousand. The midrash means that God replenished their numbers such that the ten thousand were replaced (Matnot Kehuna). Rabbi Levi said: Six hundred thousand, as Moses said: “Six hundred thousand men on foot is the people in whose midst I am” (Numbers 11:21).142Each of the men had, on average, one child who had been cast into the Nile (Matnot Kehuna).
What would the Egyptians do? They would bring their children from their academies and would send them to their bathhouses143The bathhouses used by the Israelite women. and they would see which Israelite women were pregnant and they would make a note for themselves and return and say to their fathers: ‘So and so has three months, so and so has four months, or five months.’ According to their calculation,144When they calculated that the baby had already been born. they would take them from their [mothers’] breasts and cast them into the Nile.
That is what is written: “Catch foxes for us, little foxes.” 145The verse is interpreted by the midrash to mean: Foxes would catch us, little foxes. “Seized us,” “killed us” is not written here, but rather “catch [eḥezu] us.” They monitored them to cast them into the Nile.146The Egyptian children, referred to here as little foxes, would monitor us so that the Egyptians could throw our babies into the Nile.