"How could one pursue a thousand": If you did not observe the Torah, how could I observe My assurance to you? I would desire that one of you pursue a thousand; and two, ten thousand. But now, one of them will pursue a thousand of you; and two, ten thousand.
"if their Rock had not sold them, and the L-rd (had not) delivered them (into their hands)": I do not deliver you into their hands of Myself, but through others. (And it already happened that the flies delivered them in Yehudah [by revealing their whereabouts]). R. Yehudah of Tivim says: Not as one says to his neighbor: "I am selling you a slave to be delivered at a certain time." But I am not like that. I sell and deliver (at once), as the unclean into the hands of the clean. And whence is it derived that only the unclean are "delivered" ("masgirim")? From (Leviticus 13:4) "And the Cohein shall 'deliver' ('hisgir', lit., 'close off') the plague-spot.