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Pharaoh Gnashed His Teeth at Moses and Aaron

Pharaoh called the brothers unclean and idle, mocked their scrolls of hope, and blasphemed the God who answered every plot with more Israel.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Come, Let Us Deal Wisely
  2. Scrolls Read on the Sabbath
  3. Names Heaven Assigned
  4. God Is Not a Man to Be Deceitful
  5. The Court That Could Not Swallow the Word

Pharaoh ground his teeth so hard the court heard the bone-sound under the gold. Moses and Aaron still stood in the heat of the throne room with a sentence that refused to shrink. The God of the Hebrews had met with them. The king wanted that claim broken into dust.

Pharaoh Gnashed His Teeth at Moses and Aaron Click for full size

"You are idlers," he spat, twisting the word until it meant uncleanness. "So you claim you are holy men, and you say, Let us go?" The insult was not policy alone. Midrash Tanchuma hears blasphemy aimed at the One on High, a ruler trying to outmaneuver the God who had already promised increase.

Come, Let Us Deal Wisely

Years earlier the same mouth had opened a softer knife. "Come, let us deal wisely with them" (Exodus 1:10). Wisdom, in Pharaoh's dictionary, meant crushing a people without admitting fear. He feared their numbers. He feared they might join an enemy and ascend from the land. The midrash turns that fear into a prophecy against him. Every time Egypt presses, Israel multiplies. Every fall into dust is followed by a lifting, as David later sang from the depths, "Arise for our help" (Psalms 44:27).

Pharaoh plotted against a blessing and discovered that craft cannot cancel a divine count. The people grew under the bricks. The more he pressed, the more the promise answered with bodies and breath.

Scrolls Read on the Sabbath

In the throne room the king pushed further. He told them to get to their burdens. He ordered heavier work so the men would not regard "lying words." What were those words? Scrolls the Hebrews delighted to read from Sabbath to Sabbath, scrolls that said the Holy One would redeem them. Pharaoh wanted the hope itself criminalized. Let them not delight in it. Let labor erase the future.

Moses and Aaron had already risked a careful correction of speech. They had said, "Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel," and then returned with, "The God of the Hebrews hath met with us" (Exodus 5:3), lest Pharaoh claim they had altered the message. The king did not care about precision. He cared about breaking the mouths that carried it.

R. Joshua son of Levi notes that the tribe of Levi was exempt from the hard labor. Pharaoh heard their freedom as insolence. Exemption became, in his ears, proof that holy talk is the luxury of men who do not bleed under the sun.

Names Heaven Assigned

Behind the brothers stood a people whose names heaven had already claimed. Midrash Tanchuma teaches that God assigned names with purpose, that Isaac's letters carry counts, that Jacob's letters crown the people who will adore the Holy One. Pharaoh tried to reduce those named lives to idle flesh. The naming tradition answers that each person is already addressed by God before any king addresses them with a whip.

The conflict is not only bricks versus rest. It is a war over who gets to define a human being: the throne that counts labor, or the God who counts names.

God Is Not a Man to Be Deceitful

Later Scripture will say, "God is not a man, that He should lie" (Numbers 23:19). Midrash Tanchuma reads the line with a double edge. With good, God does not reverse Himself even if a generation is liable. With evil decreed, He may rescind, as when Moses stood after the calf and the Lord turned from the disaster He had spoken. Pharaoh learns the hard side of the opposite truth: human deceit cannot force heaven to abandon a good promise already sworn.

He said Israel would be handled. Heaven said Israel would rise. The teeth kept grinding. The people kept breathing. The scrolls kept their Sabbath voice under the noise of the lash.

The Court That Could Not Swallow the Word

Moses did not answer the insult with a matching sneer. He carried a mission that had to survive mockery. Aaron stood with him as mouth and brother. The king called them unclean. The midrash answers by grinding Pharaoh's bones in a curse of memory, because the one who calls holiness idle has already chosen the wrong side of the story.

Outside, the quotas rose. Inside the huts, men still opened the old words when the week turned. Hope is hard to kill with bricks. Pharaoh discovered that blasphemy is a poor tool against a God who treats every Egyptian scheme as another reason to multiply the very people the scheme was built to shrink.

When Moses left the court that day, the taste of the insult stayed in his mouth like metal. Aaron walked beside him without polishing the pain into a speech. They had not come to win a debate with a king who called redemption a lie. They had come to deliver a demand that would outlast the teeth that ground against it.

PharaohMosesAaronEgyptExodus
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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Midrash Tanchuma, Shemot 6Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

The Midrash Tanchuma turns to Pharaoh's opening scheme against Israel: "Come, let us deal wisely with them" (Exodus 1:9). The sages hear in these words not merely cunning politics but blasphemy aimed at the One on High. Pharaoh imagines he can outmaneuver the God who promised to make this people numerous, and the Holy One answers his arrogance directly. No matter what you plot against Israel, He declares, the nation will only increase and multiply. The harder Egypt presses, the more the people will grow, for the divine blessing cannot be canceled by human craft.

Pharaoh's fear that the Hebrews might "join themselves unto our enemies, and ascend from the land" (Exodus 1:10) becomes, in the rabbis' reading, a prophecy turned against him. The very word he uses, that they will "ascend," reveals the pattern of Israel's history: every time the people are cast down, they rise again. The midrash links this to King David, who cried out from the depths, "For our soul is bound down to the dust; our belly cleaveth unto the earth" (Psalms 44:26). That verse describes Israel pressed flat, humbled into the ground. Yet the very next words reverse the picture: "Arise for our help, and redeem us for mercy's sake" (Psalms 44:27). The descent into the dust is always followed by a divine lifting up. So the sages teach that Pharaoh's plan was doomed from its first sentence, because the God of Israel had already woven rising after every fall into the destiny of His people.

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Midrash Tanchuma, Vaera 6Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

And they said: “The God of the Hebrews hath met with us” (Exod. 5:3). Moses and Aaron declared: Perhaps You will say we altered Your words when we told him: “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel (ibid. 5:1), and for that reason he became hardened against Him.” Thereupon they returned to him (Pharaoh) and said: The God of the Hebrews hath met with us (ibid., v. 3).

And Pharaoh said: Behold, the people of the land are now many (ibid., v. 5). R. Simeon the son of Yohai said: What did he do to them? He began to gnash his teeth furiously against them, and he called out to them, saying: You are idlers (nirpim) (ibid., v. 17). Nirpim means “uncleanness.” May his bones be ground up. “So you claim that you are holy men? and you say: Let us go (ibid., v. 17)?” R. Joshua the son of Levi said: The tribe of Levi was exempted from hard labor, and therefore Pharaoh said to them: “Perhaps it is because you are exempted from hard labor that you dare say: Let us go and sacrifice to our God (ibid., v. 8) (Get you unto your burdens.)

The king of Egypt said unto them: For what reason do you Moses and Aaron cause the people to break loose from their work? (ibid., v. 4). What is the meaning of lamah (“for what reason”)? He said to them: “For what (lamah) do you think you are? And for what purpose (lamah) are your words?” As though to say to them: “Enough! Get you unto your burdens.”

Let heavier work be laid upon the men…. and let them not regard lying words (ibid. 5:9). What is the meaning of let them not regard lying words? They had scrolls which they delighted to read from Sabbath to Sabbath, in which it is stated that the Holy One, blessed be He, would redeem them. Pharaoh said to them: Let them not regard lying words, that is, let them not delight in it, and let them not rest (on the Sabbath), as it is said: And the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people (ibid., v. 6).

So the people were scattered (… to gather stubble instead of straw) (ibid., v. 12), because (the straw) was (as rare) as dates. The Holy One, blessed be He, declared: Tomorrow I shall inflict plagues upon them; but they replied: Pharaoh sins and we are smitten. When an Israelite went out to gather the straw with which to make bricks, an Egyptian upon seeing him within his field would pursue him and break his thighs. Hence, So the people were scattered.

And they met Moses and Aaron who stood in the way (ibid., v. 20). This refers to Dathan and Abiram, concerning whom it is written: Dathan and Abiram came out (Num. 16:27). They began to reproach and revile Moses and Aaron, saying: The Lord look upon you, and judge (Exod. 5:21). They shouted at Moses and Aaron: See how the Israelites have been compelled to suffer because of the plagues. The Egyptians previously had only a faint suspicion that we would be redeemed, but now you have come and acerbated their suspicion, as it is said: Because you have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh (ibid.).

R. Judah the Levite, the son of Shalum, stated: Dathan related a parable. To what may we be compared? To a lamb (in danger) of being snatched by a wolf from the fold. The shepherd pursues the lamb to rescue it from the mouth of the wolf, but between the wolf and the shepherd, the lamb was torn apart. Thus the Israelites said to Moses: Between you and Pharaoh we are being destroyed. Hence it is stated: And Moses returned unto the Lord (ibid., v. 22), and said: Wherefore hast Thou dealt ill with this people? (ibid. 5:22). If you should say: What difference does it make to you? Then why is it that Thou hast sent me? (ibid.). For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name he hath dealt ill with this people (ibid., v. 23). Your name is a source of life and healing to all the inhabitants of the world, but despite Your name he has dealt ill with this people. What have they done that they should have been immured within the bricks? He answered him: Now thou shalt see what I will do to him (ibid. 6:1).

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Midrash Tanchuma, Masei 7Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

"Command the Children of Israel" (Numbers 34:2:). This is what is stated in the verse (in (Numbers 23:1)9), "God is not a man to be deceitful," [meaning] a man will not make God deceitful; "nor the son of" Amram (this is a play on words, as the verse reads, the son of man, "Adam") to make Him "change His mind." As [only after God] said, "Let Me go," did the son of Amram stand and make Him change His mind, as stated (Exodus 32:14), "And the Lord rescinded the evil that He was saying to do to His people." Another interpretation (of (Numbers 23:1)9): "God is not a man to be deceitful," with the good. When He speaks to bring good - even if the generation is liable - He does not go back on it, [as] "God is not a man to be deceitful." But when He speaks to bring evil, He does go back on it, as it is stated (Numbers 23:19), "He said it but does not do [it]." You should know that He said to Avraham (Genesis 15:5), "Look toward heaven and count the stars...." And He did it, as stated (Deuteronomy 1:10), "The Lord, your God, multiplied you, and behold you are today...." [But when] He said to Avraham (Genesis 15:13), "Know well that your offspring shall be strangers [... four hundred years]," they were oppressed for only two hundred and ten years. That is [the meaning of], "God is not a man to be deceitful" - with the good. But with the evil, "He said it but does not do [it]." [In this vein,] He said to Israel, "as you are not My people" (Hosea 1:9). But He went back and said, "and I will say to Not My People, 'You are My people'" (Hosea 2: 25). That is [the meaning of], "He said it but does not do [it]." He said to Avraham, "As I will give [the land] to you and your offspring" (Genesis 26:3), and He did not go back [on it]. As it is stated (Numbers 34:2), "when you come to the Land of Canaan," and He brought them into the Land.

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Midrash Tanchuma, Shemot 4Midrash Tanchuma

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma -- Torat Emet · Public Domain

"And these are the names" -- the names are pleasant for Israel. You find that the Holy One, blessed be He, called them by names. He gave a son to Abraham and said to him: "And you shall call his name Isaac" (Genesis 17:19). Yod is ten, tzadi is ninety, chet is eight, kof is one hundred -- this makes two hundred and eight. And two hundred and ten years Israel spent in Egypt -- even though He said to Abraham, "and they shall serve them, and they shall afflict them, four hundred years" (Genesis 15:13).

He said to him: "that your seed shall be a stranger" -- from when you have seed. The Holy One, blessed be He, began counting from when Isaac was born. And the eight days of circumcision -- for he was the first to be circumcised at eight days, as it is said: "And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old" (Genesis 21:4). Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him a name.

And Jacob too, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him a name, as it is said: "And he called his name Jacob" (Genesis 25:26). "Jacob" (Yaakov) has four letters in it, corresponding to the four crowns with which his children crown the Holy One, blessed be He. Yod corresponds to the Ten Commandments; ayin corresponds to the seventy elders; kof corresponds to the Sanctuary that his children built for the Holy One, blessed be He, whose height was one hundred (me'ah) cubits, as it is said: "And the temple was a hundred cubits" (Ezekiel 41); bet corresponds to the two tablets. And by the merit of Jacob they were redeemed from Egypt, as it is said: "And He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute" (Psalms 105:10). And were it not for Jacob, Abraham would not have been delivered from the furnace, as it is said: "Therefore thus says the LORD to the house of Jacob, who redeemed Abraham" (Isaiah 29:22). But Esau -- his father and his mother called him by name, as it is said: "And they called his name Esau." Of him it is said: "His memory perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the street" (Job 18:17).

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