Parshat Beshalach6 min read

The Oath by the Gazelles and the Blood No One Will Claim

Gog marched seventy-one nations on Jerusalem, calling Pharaoh and Haman fools. He would fight Israel's God first. The hail fell before the lines were dug.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Chariots Came Back Up on the Sand
  2. Gog Counts the Fools Who Went Before Him
  3. The King With One Ear Stopped and One Ear Open
  4. The Oath Sworn on the Gazelles and the Hinds
  5. What No Sword Could Cut Out of the World
The Oath by the Gazelles and the Blood No One Will Claim Click for full size

The Chariots Came Back Up on the Sand

The sea gave back what it had taken. Wheels, breastplates, the padded collars of horses, riding in on the foam while the drums went quiet in the women's hands. Moses stood in the wet sand and would not let the people look down. He turned their faces east, past the wreckage, and told them the wreckage was the smaller thing.

"You have seen what He did here," he said. "What is coming is greater."

Then he showed them the world they stood in, seen from outside for once. Wars in it. The evil inclination working under a permit, Ha-Satan the Accuser under a permit, the Angel of Death licensed to walk here and nowhere else. In the world coming there would be no servitude, no permits, and no tears left on any face.

Moses had heard the shape of it in Egypt, before Aaron opened his mouth in front of Pharaoh. "In this world I collect from Egypt with ten plagues," God had told him. "In the world to come I collect from Gog the same way, with pestilence and blood, torrential rain and hailstones, fire and brimstone."

Gog Counts the Fools Who Went Before Him

The vision ran forward and the shore dropped away. Israel sat in its own land with no king and its gates unbarred, and word of that reached Gog, who took seventy-one nations by the collar and marched them toward Jerusalem.

Gog talked the whole way up. "Pharaoh was a fool," he said. "He decreed death for the boys and left the girls alive. Balak was stupid, hiring a mouth to curse them without learning that their God blesses them. Haman was out of his mind, wanting them slaughtered without asking whether their God could pull them out. I make war on their God first. After that the people are nothing."

The answer came before the siege lines were dug. "Wicked one. You want a war with My people? By your life, I will finish you." The hailstones kept in the firmament came down on the seventy-one armies, and the plague went into the men still standing: flesh rotting off the bone while the legs held, eyes going soft in the sockets, tongues dissolving in the mouths that had cheered him.

The King With One Ear Stopped and One Ear Open

Out of that wreck another king stood up. Bald, brazen in the face, one eye small and one large, a right arm a handbreadth long and a left arm two and a half cubits, leprosy across his forehead. His right ear was stopped shut and his left hung open. Good news got the stopped ear. Anything vicious got the open one, and Armilus leaned in.

He made war on Israel three months, then went up to Jerusalem and killed Messiah son of Joseph in the open. The mourning over that body was the mourning of a house that has lost its only son.

Then the cloud came down. Messiah son of David rode it with dominion and a kingdom put into his hands, and he drew nothing. He breathed, and Armilus dropped.

After that the scattered came home, seventy-two pearls hung over Jerusalem burning from one end of the world to the other, and the Temple came down out of heaven finished. Israel ate the Leviathan there two thousand years. Then the throne of judgment went up in the valley of Jehoshaphat and every nation was asked whom it had served. "Idols of silver. Idols of gold." God said, "Walk into this fire with them and let them save you if they can."

The Oath Sworn on the Gazelles and the Hinds

The vision shut like a door.

Forty years later the men who stood in the wet sand were bones under it, and their sons had circled the same mountain in Seir until they knew every gully on its flank. The word came into the camp: "You have circled this mountain long enough. Turn north."

The marching order came with terms attached, and the terms were sworn ones, three of them, taken on the gazelles and on the hinds of the field. Israel would not reveal the End. Israel would not press for the End. Israel would not rebel against the kingdoms that would hold them.

Then the other half. "Uphold them and it goes well with you. Break them, and I permit your flesh like the gazelle's and the hind's in the open field, which nobody owns and nobody comes looking for. I will not ask after your blood."

Nobody argued. The tents came down and the camp turned north carrying an oath with no expiry written into it anywhere.

What No Sword Could Cut Out of the World

Generations later, in a study house with the lamp burning low, Rabbi Elazar Hamodai put the question nobody in the room wanted answered. When does the name of Amalek go out of the world?

Not at Rephidim, where the hands had to be held up all day, and not by any army after it. Amalek's name goes when idolatry is pulled out of the world by the root, it and its servants together, and not one hour sooner. "The Lord will go out and He will war against those nations," Elazar said, and, "the Lord will be King over all the land." The one name burns off on the day the other Name is the only one left.

Outside the study house a smith was hammering silver leaf over a wooden core for somebody's household god, the sound coming in through the doorway. While that hammer kept going, Amalek had a place to stand, the oath held, and the blood in the field lay where it had fallen with nobody coming to claim it.

Gog And MagogArmilusThree OathsMessiahAmalekEnd Of Days
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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 Vayosha 9Midrash VaYosha

Translation of the source text.Otzar Midrashim, New York 1915, Public Domain · CC-BY-SA

"The Lord shall reign forever and ever." Our Sages of blessed memory said: Moses said to Israel, You have seen the miracles and mighty deeds that the Holy One, blessed be He, performed for you; far more than these is He destined to do for you in the time to come, in this world and in the world to come. In this world there are wars and troubles and the evil inclination and Satan and the Angel of Death, who have permission to rule in the world; but in the world to come there are neither troubles nor groanings nor servitude nor the evil inclination nor Satan nor the Angel of Death, as it is said, "And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces" (Isaiah 25), and it is written, "And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation" (ibid. 25).

And when the days of the Messiah arrive, Gog and Magog will come up against the land of Israel, because he will hear that Israel is without a king and dwells securely. At once he will take with him seventy-one nations and go up to Jerusalem, and he will say: Pharaoh was a fool, for he decreed to kill the males and left the females; and Balak was stupid, for he wished to curse them and did not know that their God blessed them; and Haman was mad, for he wished to slay them and did not know that their God could deliver them; but I will not do so to them. Rather, I will go up and wage war first with their God, and afterward I will slay them, as it is said, "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed" (Psalms 2). And the Holy One, blessed be He, will say to him: Wicked one! Do you seek to make war with My people? By your life, I will make an end of you. At once He will bring down upon him hailstones that are stored away in the firmament and strike them with a great plague, as it is said, "And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth" (Zechariah 14:12).

And after him there will arise another king, wicked and brazen of face, and he will wage war with Israel for three months, and his name is Armilus, and these are his signs: he will be bald, and one of his eyes small and one large, and his right arm a handbreadth and his left two and a half cubits; and he will have leprosy on his forehead, and his right ear stopped up and his left open. When a man comes to speak to him good things, he turns toward him his stopped-up ear, and if a man wishes to speak to him evil, he turns toward him his open ear. And he will go up to Jerusalem and slay Messiah son of Joseph, as it is said, "And they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son" (Zechariah 12:10). And afterward Messiah son of David will come in a cloud, as it is said, "Behold, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven" (Daniel 7), and it is written after it, "And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom"; and he will slay Armilus the wicked, as it is said, "And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked" (Isaiah 11).

And afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, will gather in the dispersed of Israel scattered here and there, as it is said, "I will hiss for them and gather them, for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase as they have increased" (Zechariah 10:8). And there will hang in Jerusalem seventy-two pearls that shine from one end of the world to the other, and the nations of the world will walk by that light, as it is said, "And nations shall walk by thy light, and kings by the brightness of thy rising" (Isaiah 60). And the Temple the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring down from heaven, just as the Holy One, blessed be He, showed it to Moses, as it is said, "Thou bringest them in and plantest them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, O Lord." And Israel will dwell there two thousand years and eat of the Leviathan; and at the end of two thousand years the Holy One, blessed be He, will sit upon the throne of judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and at once the heavens and the earth are changed, and the sun and moon are ashamed, as it is said, "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed" (Isaiah 24).

And whence that on the third day (in the third millennium) the judgment will be? As it is said, "On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him" (Hosea 6), this is the judgment. And the Holy One, blessed be He, brings every nation and tongue and says to them: Whom did you serve in the world that has passed, and to whom did you bow down? And they say: To idols of silver and idols of gold. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: Pass, you yourselves, through this fire, and your gods, if they are able to deliver you, let them deliver you. At once they pass through and are burned there, as it is said, "The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God" (Psalms 9). And afterward Israel comes, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: Whom did you serve? At once they answer, "For Thou art our father, for Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us; Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer from of old is Thy name" (Isaiah 63). At once the Holy One, blessed be He, delivers them from the judgment of Gehinnom, and they dwell in the Garden of Eden and take delight in its fruits, as it is said, "But the humble shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Psalms 37).

And afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, renews for them the heavens and the earth, as it is said, "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65). And the earth which the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to renew will bring forth good trees and all kinds of sweet fruits, and all live forever and unto all eternity. He who performed miracles and wonders in those days, may He perform miracles and wonders with us in these days and at this time, and gather us from the four corners of the earth and lead us to Jerusalem; may it be built and established speedily in our days, Amen.

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Devarim 4:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Devarim

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

"You have circled this mountain long enough" (Deuteronomy 2:3). This is what Scripture says: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles" (Song of Songs 2:7). Why are there three oaths in the Song of Songs? One, that the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured Israel that they should not reveal the End; and that they should not press for the End; and that they should not rebel against the kingdoms. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: If you uphold the oaths, well and good; but if not, I will permit your flesh, like the gazelles or like the hinds of the field, which have no one to claim them and no one to seek them; so too I will not claim your blood.

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Mekhilta Tractate Amalek 2:42Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Mechilta, translated by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein · CC-BY

Rabbi Elazar Hamodai posed a question that pointed toward the end of history itself: When will the name of Amalek finally be erased from the earth?

The answer was not tied to any battle, any king, or any military campaign. Amalek's name would vanish when idolatry was uprooted from the world, "it and its servants." As long as false worship existed anywhere on earth, the spiritual force that Amalek represented would persist. The two were linked. Amalek was not just a nation but a manifestation of everything that stood against the recognition of God's sovereignty.

When would that day come? When "the Lord will be One in the world, and His kingdom will endure forever and ever." Rabbi Elazar cited two verses from Zechariah to anchor the prophecy: "The Lord will go out and He will war against those nations" (Zechariah 14:3) and "the Lord will be King over all the land" (Zechariah 14:9).

This teaching transforms the war against Amalek from a historical conflict into an eschatological one. The physical nation of Amalek could be defeated in battle, but the name of Amalek, what it represented, could only be erased when the conditions for its existence disappeared entirely. As long as any corner of the world rejected God's kingship, Amalek endured in some form. Only the arrival of the messianic age, when all nations recognized God as One, would finally and permanently wipe the name from memory. The erasure of Amalek and the redemption of the world were the same event.

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 10:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

Another interpretation: Just as the expounder comes and expounds, and the amora (the one who speaks out) speaks before him, so too "You shall speak everything that I command you, and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh" (Exodus 7:2). "They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh" etc. (Exodus 6:27). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: In this world I exacted retribution from Egypt through ten plagues, and in the world to come thus will I exact retribution from Gog, as it is said, "And I will enter into judgment with him with pestilence and with blood; and torrential rain and hailstones, fire and brimstone" etc. (Ezekiel 38:22).

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