Category: National biography

Va-eira: Great Source(s)

God [Elohim] spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am HASHEM [YHVH]. I appeared [va-eira] to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but with My Name [u-shemi] HASHEM I did not make myself known [nodha’ti] to them.
—Shemot/Exodus 6:2-3 (Stone translation*)

There is a raft of commentary on just these two verses. Nechama Leibowitz, for example, directs two of her six essays on this portion — in New Studies in Shemot/Exodus* –to these first two verses, discussing many classical, and a few contemporary, commentaries along the way.

Some commentary focuses on the variety of names for God — Elohim, El Shaddai and YHVH — used in this brief span. Some, the verb nodhati, “made myself known.” Cassuto combines several of these themes in his commentary*:

…This enables us to understand the text before us clearly: I revealed Myself (God declares) to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in My aspect that finds expression in the name Shaddi, and I made them fruitful and multiplied them and gave them children and children’s children, but by the name YHWH (the word shemi [‘My name’] is to be construed here as an accusative of nearer definition, and signifies ‘by My name’), in My character as expressed by this designation, I was not known to them, that is, it was not given to them to recognize Me as One that fulfills His promises, because the assurance with regard to possession of the Land, which I had given them, I had not yet fulfilled….

Some teachers take a more inward approach to the meaning and experience of ‘knowing’ the Name. See More Great Sources: The Holy Name of Being.

*For complete commentary citations, please see Source Materials.

The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.

Shemot: Language and Translation

The children of Israel proliferated, swarmed, multiplied and grew more and more.* [Exodus/Shemot 1:7]

This is a very odd verse, stylistically. There are four almost synonymous verbs of increase that seem to gain momentum till climaxed by the double-barrelled adverbial intensifier of me’od me’od [note**].
–Nechama Leibowitz, Studies in Exodus***

Leibowitz discusses classical views of this language, some of which attempt to “differentiate between the connotations of the four verbs.” She concludes, instead, that “this concentrated crescendo of verbs of ‘increase’ is a stylistic device emphasising the extraordinary nature of this population explosion.”

* Translator’s footnote:

I have deliberately deviated from the classic translations in an effort to reproduce the “form” as well as the “content” of the original. “To an extraordinary degree,” undoubtedly, a more elegant rendering of bi-me’od me’od would not have reproduced the doubling of the intensifier. See author’s note 2, p. 20. Similarly, the predicatives: “were fruitful” and “became strong” lack the force of the unmodified Hebrew verbs. [Aryeh Newman, translator]

** In an endnote, Leibowitz criticizes English, French and German bible translations for their failure “to reproduce in the vernacular the full force and effect of the original,” asking the reader to “Note how they weakened the effect by reducing the number of predicates and their reluctance to end with two identical words.”

Umberto Cassuto*** views this stylistic point in a slightly different way:

And the children of Israel were not merely fruitful, but they teem; they not only multiplied, but grew mighty; exceedingly [b-me’od me’od, literally, ‘with strength, strongly’], in keeping with the promise given to Abraham; so that the land was filled with them, in accordance with the assurance given to Adam and Noah. We are now enabled to understand how the children of Israel could, for the first time, be called a people in v. 9

Seven expressions for increase are used in this verse, a number indicative of perfection: (1) were fruitful; (2) and teemed; (3) and multiplied; (4) and grew mighty; (5) with strength [b-me’od]; (6) strongly [me’od]; (7) so that the land was filled with them. Harmonious perfection is implied here, with the object of teaching us that all that happened was brought about by the will of God in conformity with His predetermined plan.

*** Please see Source Materials, as well as Commentators, for full citation and more details. See also Great Source(s) for more on Cassuto.



The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.

Shemot: Something to Notice

These are the names (v’eileh shemot) of the sons of Israel (bnei yisrael) who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household. (Exodus 1:1)

These opening words elegantly make a transition from Genesis into the second book of the Torah. Ve’eileh, “And these…,” Exodus begins, indicating that this is in fact not an absolute beginning but a continuation.

A wordplay on the phrase [bnei yisrael] highlights the thematic and historical transition we make when we begin the second book of the Torah. We move from Genesis, where the focus is on individuals and their families in the stories of our matriarchs and patriarchs, to a focus in Exodus on the development of the Israelites as a people. The term bnei yisrael is translated in Exodus 1:1 as “sons of Israel.” Here bnei yisrael refers to the individual sons of Jacob/Israel, the eleven brothers who came to Egypt and joined Joseph, who was already there (Exodus 1:3). Only six verses later, the same phrase, bnei yisrael, will mean something different — “the children of Israel” — for it will refer to the Israelites as a people (Exodus 1:7). We will have moved from a family of twelve sons to a clan of tribes bearing their names — the Israelite people. Continue reading Shemot: Something to Notice

Vayishlach: Great Source(s)

The uterine struggle between Jacob and Esau [Genesis/Breishit 25:22-26] prefigures the momentous struggle with the angel [Gen. 32:23-31]. It is through wrestling in the night with a divine being that Jacob acquires the nation’s name. “They name shall be no more called Jacob, but Israel,” says the divine opponent, “for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed (Gen. 32:28). Jacob does not become angelic as a result of this nocturnal encounter, but the struggle reveals a certain kind of intimacy with God that is unparalleled.

The nation, not unlike the eponymous father, is both the chosen son and the rebel son, and accordingly its relationship with the Father is at once intimate and strained…. Continue reading Vayishlach: Great Source(s)