“When G-d wanted to drown the Egyptians in the sea, Uza, the ministering angel of Egypt, stood up and said, ‘Master of the World, You are referred to as being righteous and straight, never doing wrong nor showing favoritism; why then do You want to drown my sons in the sea? Did they drown even one of Your sons, or kill even one of Your sons? And if it’s because of the hard servitude that [my sons] put Your sons through that You want to drown them, [Your sons] have already been paid for it, as all the silver and gold that [my sons] had was taken by [Your sons].” Before addressing the seemingly obvious question on the argument that Midrash Avkir, quoted by Yalkut Shimoni (241) and Midrash Vayosha, says Uza made to try to stop G-d from drowning the Egyptians (“his sons”), let’s see how G-d responded, addressing all the angels so that they could decide whether or not G-d was justified in drowning the Egyptians. (Although I will present G-d’s response in an edited form, all the words are from the Midrash, presented in context. It should be noted that there are some slight differences in how the Midrash is quoted; I translated Midrash Vayosha’s version here.)
“They (My sons, i.e. Israel) did every kind of hard labor for [the Egyptians], and they cried out from the abundance of labor and their outcry ascended before Me, so I sent my trustworthy emissaries to Pharaoh, Moshe and Aharon, and they said to him, ‘so says G-d: send out My people so that they can serve Me,’ and [Pharaoh] said, ‘who is G-d that I should listen to what He says.’ Because he denied My existence, I sent ten plagues against him, until he sent My people out against his will. Yet despite all this he didn’t hold himself back from his wickedness, and he still chased after [My sons] to bring them back to his servitude. And because he did all of this and did not acknowledge Me, we want to drown him and his entire army in the sea.” (You can guess which way the verdict went.) There are two (separate) issues in this Midrash that I’d like to discuss, one at a time.
The first issue is how Uza could have claimed that the Egyptians didn’t drown even one of G-d’s sons, or kill any of them, if there was a royal edict (Sh’mos 1:22) to throw newborn male Israelites into the Nile. [Although Yalkut Shimoni doesn’t say “even one,” the same question applies to “any of them.”] Four possible ways to deal with this issue will be presented.
The first possibility is that no infants ever really drowned, so Uza’s claim was accurate. Pirkay d’Rebbi Eliezer (42) quotes Rabbi Shila, who says “all the children who were thrown into the Nile survived, as it expelled them, tossing them to the Egyptian desert.” There, G-d nourished them by bringing each two rocks, one providing honey and one that provided oil, the way a new mother nurses a child. Similarly, Eliyahu Rabbah (7) says that G-d commanded the angels to descend and save the infants who were being tossed into the river. The angels caught them (before they hit the water) and placed them on rocks, and G-d caused small protrusions to extend from the rocks, from which the babies suckled and were nourished (by honey).
The Talmud (Soteh 11b) says that when the mothers were about to give birth, they went out to the fields and gave birth under orange trees, where G-d took care of the infants (including nourishing them with oil and honey). When the Egyptians realized what was happening, they tried to seize the children, but the ground swallowed them up, and after the danger passed, the youngsters sprouted from the ground. Midrash Vayosha (on the Shirah) presents a very similar scenario (although the nourishment was butter and honey) to explain what happened to the children who would have been tossed into the Nile. [There are other Midrashim with a similar scenario as well. Since the Midrash we are trying to explain is quoted by Midrash Vayosha, this is likely how the compiler of the Midrash understood it.]
Rabbi Eli Steinberg, Sh’lita, (Minchas Eliyahu), in order to explain why Yisro said that the Egyptians were punished for what they tried to do (Sh’mos 18:11) as opposed to what they actually did, references Tosfos (Soteh 12b), who says that Moshe was the first infant to be thrown into the water, and the Talmud itself (ibid), which says that after Moshe was put into the water (in a basket) no infants were thrown into the Nile. If none were thrown in before Moshe, and none were thrown in afterwards, and Moshe himself survived, no infants actually drowned!
If no infants were ever tossed into the Nile, or if those who were survived, we can understand how Uza could have claimed that none of his sons ever drowned any of G-d’s sons. Nevertheless, since the Egyptians deserved to be punished because they denied G-d’s existence and/or His abilities, drowning was the method by which they were punished because of what they wanted to do. [I will address the “not killing” part shortly.]
Rabbi Menachem Kasher (Torah Sh’laimah, Sh’mos 1:212*), explaining a Midrash which implies that the decree to toss the children into the Nile was only made against those who did not fulfill their quota of bricks, with the bodies of the drowned infants used to compensate for the materials that were not supplied, seems to suggest that Uza did not consider those who were thrown into the river because of the “negligence” of the parents to have been killed by the Egyptians (as it was the parents‘ fault for not fulfilling the quota). This approach would also explain how Uza could say that “my sons did not kill any of Your sons” even though there are Midrashim that say they used infants as bricks; if they only used infants whose parents hadn’t fulfilled their quota, and didn’t consider their deaths to be attributable to the Egyptians, Uza wouldn’t have considered it as “his sons” killing “G-d’s sons.” It should be noted that one source (Sanhedrin 111a) says explicitly that the Egyptians drowned some of our ancestors, killed some of them, and used some for bricks; since the Midrash obviously disagrees with the first two aspects (drowning and killing), it can easily be said that it disagrees with the third as well. In any event, if Uza thought that the Egyptians shouldn’t be blamed for any of those deaths, we can understand how he could have claimed that his sons did not drown (or kill) any of G-d’s sons. [Even if his line of thinking was wrong, G-d responded by giving a different reason why they deserved to be punished, one that Uza could accept even with his mistaken thought process.] Since the verse strongly implies that the decree was against “all” the newborn males (especially since no quota is mentioned until Moshe returns from Midyan 80 years later), this second possibility does not seem likely.
A third possibility [also suggesting a mistaken thought process on Uza’s part] could be that the Egyptians didn’t consider newborn infants “people” (a “ben-kayama” is an infant who is at least 30 days old), so drowning them (or killing them by using them as building material) was not, according to them, considered drowning (or killing) any of G-d’s sons. [The word “son” may be the same for those decreed to be thrown into the Nile and for those who Uza claimed were not drowned, but the former clearly refers to infant sons, while the latter is compared to “his sons,” i.e. adults.] This would also explain why Pharaoh thought he could get away with telling the midwives to kill the new-born males, and how he could extend the decree to include tossing Egyptian babies into the Nile (see Rashi on Sh’mos 1:22), as in Egyptian culture, doing so wouldn’t be considered a serious crime.
A fourth possibility is based on the fact that the generation that drowned in the sea was not the same generation that tossed infants into the Nile, which had taken place 80 years earlier (Moshe’s age at the time of the exodus). Uza could therefore claim that none of those whom G-d wanted to drown had drowned any of G-d’s sons (even if their parents had).
Moving on to the second issue, G-d’s response was that the Egyptians deserved to be drowned because they denied G-d’s existence and/or His abilities, despite experiencing the ten plagues. However, for the last five of these plagues, the Egyptians only refused to let G-d’s people go because He had hardened their hearts. How could they be punished for not listening to G-d if G-d didn’t let them listen? I discussed this issue a couple of weeks ago (https://rabbidmk.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/parashas-vu-aira-5776/) in regards to the consequences of the last five plagues; how it applies to being punished by drowning in the sea deserves a closer look as well.
Removing the possibility of repentance as a punishment for previous transgressions may explain why Pharaoh’s free will was taken away (with the punishment of the plagues coming for those previous transgressions, not for disobeying G-d after free will was removed), but it cannot explain how drowning could be a punishment for not giving in after each of the ten plagues if there was no option of giving in after the last five. Taking away their free will in order to demonstrate G-d’s greatness (through the last five plagues) may be a valid approach if the punishment was for previous transgressions, but it doesn’t explain how they could be punished for not giving in if they did not have the ability to do so. Although the very fact that Pharaoh would have given in only because of the suffering he endured and not because he finally recognized G-d could be reason enough to punish him for still “denying His existence,” the Midrash adding “despite all this he didn’t hold himself back from his wickedness, and he still chased after [My sons] to bring them back to his servitude” when he only did so because “G-d strengthened [his] heart” (14:4 and 14:8) precludes this approach from being consistent with the Midrash, as drowning in the sea is described as being punishment for chasing after the Israelites, not just for denying G-d’s existence.
It would therefore seem that this Midrash supports S’fornu and Malbim’s approach, that the hardening/strengthening of Pharaoh’s heart (and the hearts of his servants) did not take away their free will, but gave it back to them, allowing them to withstand the hardship of the plagues and choose whether or not to recognize G-d and His abilities/dominion and follow His will. As the Midrash says, “Pharaoh was forced to let them go” (after the 10th plague), but he never accepted G-d as the Creator and Ruler of the world. Therefore, he, and his army, deserved to drown.
