By Appointment They Shamed You and By Appointment I Make You Judge

Another interpretation: to whom will You say "thus" at Sinai - "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob" (Exodus 19:3)? "Two Hebrew men were quarreling" - they saw sparks coming from their heels, and they laid charges before Moses so that he would be exposed through them. "Who appointed [placed] you as a man?" The Holy One, blessed be He, said: with placing they reviled you, with placing I make you a judge, as it says, "These are the ordinances that you shall place before them" (Exodus 21:1). "Do you mean to kill me?" - they prophesied against themselves that he would swallow them up by a word, as it says, "And if the LORD creates a new creation" (Numbers 16:30). "Surely the matter is known" - this teaches that Moses was pondering: why did the Holy One, blessed be He, see fit to enslave Israel more than all the nations? - until Dathan and Abiram came and informed on him. They went and said to Pharaoh: he despises your purple robe and your crown. He said: it will be sweet to him. Rav Nachman said: over everything Pharaoh found it sweet, until they said to him, he is not the son of your daughter. And the Rabbis said: over everything he was not strict until they said to him, he is a shedder of blood and killed the Egyptian. "And he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man" (Exodus 2:11). The Egyptians were taskmasters and the Israelites were officers, an Egyptian set over ten officers, and each officer set over ten Israelites, so the taskmaster was set over a hundred and ten men. One time a taskmaster called on an officer and said, Go round up your ten. He went to gather them, and the officer's wife smiled at the taskmaster, who said, This is a fine woman. The husband had hidden himself behind the ladder; when he thought the husband had gone out, the taskmaster went in and defiled himself with her. The husband turned and saw it, and when the taskmaster knew the husband had sensed it, he came out and beat the husband all that day, saying, Work well, work well. Moses our teacher saw with the holy spirit what the taskmaster had against the man and said: it is not enough that he defiled himself with the man's wife; he even seeks to kill him. At once, "He turned this way and that" - he saw what the Egyptian had done in the house and what he intended to do in the field. "And he saw there was no man." Rabbi Yehuda says: he saw there was no one who would rise and be zealous for the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, to kill him, so he rose and was zealous and killed him. Rabbi Nehemiah says: he saw there was no one who would invoke the Name over him to kill him, so he invoked it over him and killed him. And the Rabbis said: he saw there was no hope of any worthy offspring coming from him, nor from his children, nor his children's children to the end of all generations, so he rose against him and killed him. With what did he kill him? Rabbi Yitzchak said: with his fist, as you say, "to strike with the fist of wickedness." Rabbi Levi said: with the trowel of Israel; this is what is written, "And the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea."