Vaera - Snakes in the Palace

(9) “When Pharaoh speaks to you and says, ‘Produce your marvel,’ you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and cast it down before Pharaoh.’ It shall turn into a serpent.” (10) So Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh and did just as the Eternal had commanded: Aaron cast down his rod in the presence of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and it turned into a serpent. (11) Then Pharaoh, for his part, summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and the Egyptian magicians, in turn, did the same with their spells; (12) each cast down his rod, and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed their rods. (13) Yet Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed them, as the Eternal had said.

(1) But Moses spoke up and said, “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me, but say: The Eternal did not appear to you?” (2) The Eternal said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he replied, “A rod.” (3) He said, “Cast it on the ground.” He cast it on the ground and it became a snake; and Moses recoiled from it. (4) Then the Eternal said to Moses, “Put out your hand and grasp it by the tail”—he put out his hand and seized it, and it became a rod in his hand— (5) “that they may believe that the Eternal, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did appear to you.”

(1) In that day the Eternal will punish, With His great, cruel, mighty sword Leviathan the Elusive Snake — Leviathan the Twisting Snake; He will slay the Serpent of the sea.

(1) In the tenth year, on the twelfth day of the tenth month, the word of the Eternal came to me: (2) O mortal, turn your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. (3) Speak these words: Thus said the Eternal God: I am going to deal with you, O Pharaoh king of Egypt, Serpent, sprawling in your channels, Who said, My Nile is my own; I made it for myself. (4) I will put hooks in your jaws, And make the fish of your channels Cling to your scales; I will haul you up from your channels, With all the fish of your channels Clinging to your scales.

It will be a serpent: there is a hint here to Pharaoh, who is called a Serpent, as it sayd in Ezekiel 29: "the great Serpent sprawling in your channels". So that when the Magicians make Serpents and Aaron's swallows theirs, it will hint to the swallowing of Pharaoh and his destruction from the world.

יהי לתנין “it will turn into a serpent.” Seeing that Pharaoh had boasted and called himself the great Serpent, the sign was from the Serpent. It said that just as snakes bend and twist, so Pharaoh would also be forced to bend and twist...

והשלך לפני פרעה יהי לתניו, “throw it in front of Pharaoh so that it will turn into a monster.” The reason for this was that Pharaoh boasted of his power to the extent that God called him “the great Serpent.” The Holy Blessed One said to Moses: Go and say that just as this staff can turn into a Serpent and swallow the other staffs and in the end it will turn back into dry wood, so too you have swallowed the twelve staffs of the Tribes of Israel, and your end will be like dry wood - dead.

And now the time has come to return to the change of language here, and this is because the Tanin is a big snake, more dangerous than others, as it says: "their wine is the venom of Serpents" (Deut 32:33), implying that their venom is stronger than a general snake. And behold, Moses and Aaron did all their miracles with the words of their mouths, like this snake, whose ultimate strength is in its mouth. But since it appeared that most of the miracles were done by means of the staffs of Moses and Aaron, and in order not to give an opening to a disputant to object and say that it was through the power of the staffs that the miracles were done - for perhaps they would mistakenly say that there was magic in their staffs. Therefore they turned the staffs into snakes, to say that just as 'the snake that bites without a spell' with its mouth (Ecclesiastes 10:11), so too Moses and Aaron have their power in their mouths. Their staffs work all those wonders through the power of their mouths, for the righteous person decrees and it is fulfilled for them. Therefore the staffs of both of them turned into snakes.

As it says "Dan will be a snake in the road" (Gen 49:17), thus the staffs of Moses and Aaron would be like fiery snakes to hurt Pharaoh and all his servants.

Know and understand that Moses was a shepherd, and led Israel with his mighty staff (cf. Psalm 110:2), and was a prince and a ruler also over Pharaoh. But Aaron was not a ruler except over Pharaoh and his people alone. Therefore God commanded that in front of Israel Moses should through down his staff and it would be "a snake on the road" for Pharaoh and all his people, "that bites the horses heels and sends the rider backwards", hinting to the horse of Egypt and its rider. But Moses fled before it. He was thinking that his staff would always be destructive and would injure like a snake, and this wouldn't be to his good qualities. Therefore God said to him to seize it by the tail and it became a staff in his hand, for even though his face, which is the place of the head, and the mouth that is dangerous and could do damage and injure the enemies of God - behold, his tail is at the back, for in the end Moses would be the shepherd of Israel, and not cause harm or damage anymore, like the tail of a snake that does not damage but is only like a staff. Thus the strength of this snake turning into a staff in his hand, as if God was saying that the snake that will damage Egypt and the "mighty staff" are one and the same.

And you could even say that Israel also the snake and the staff as one - a mighty staff to the good and the fiery snake to the bad. For the bite of the sages is like the bite of snake. That's why it's also fitting that this miracle was done for Israel specifically with Moses' staff.