The Mekhilta offers a striking interpretation of the phrase "from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh" (Exodus 18:10). Why does the verse mention both Egypt and Pharaoh separately? Are they not the same thing? Not according to the rabbis.
"From the hand of Pharaoh" refers to the king himself, who is compared to a great serpent. The proof comes from the prophet Ezekiel, who described Pharaoh in exactly these terms (Ezekiel 29:3): "the great serpent sprawling in its Nile, who said 'Mine is the Nile and I have made it for myself.'" Pharaoh was not merely a tyrant. He was a creature of mythic proportions — a serpent coiled in the waters of Egypt, claiming to have created the very river that sustained his kingdom.
"From the hand of Egypt," by contrast, refers to something different: the system of subjugation itself. "From under the hand of Egypt" means liberation from the grinding machinery of slavery — the taskmasters, the quotas of bricks, the infrastructure of oppression that existed independently of any single ruler.
God delivered Israel from both. He defeated the serpent-king who claimed divine power over the Nile, and He broke the institutional bondage that had held an entire people in chains. The verse distinguishes between the two because they were two distinct forms of captivity — one personal and mythic, the other systemic and crushing — and both had to be overcome.