Three Deaths at the Sea by the Weight of Their Wickedness

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 246:7

Curated by Arthur·Told by Maggid·

Another interpretation of "like a stone": this was a middling death. The most wicked among them were tossed about like straw; the middling ones like a stone; the cleverest among them "sank like lead in the mighty waters" (Exodus 15:10, verse 10 below). [Plain-sense note: the song describes the Egyptians sinking variously like straw, like a stone, and like lead; the rabbis read these three images as three grades of death matched to three grades of guilt.]

Themes

Divine JusticeEgyptSea

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