לָמָ֤ה הֲרֵעֹ֙תָה֙ לָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה

(15) And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: יהוה, the God of your fathers’ [house]—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you: This shall be My name forever, This My appellation for all eternity. (16) “Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: יהוה, the God of your fathers’ [house]—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said, ‘I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt, (17) and I have declared: I will take you out of the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’ (18) They will listen to you; then you shall go with the elders of Israel to the king of Egypt and you shall say to him, ‘יהוה, the God of the Hebrews, became manifest to us. Now therefore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to our God יהוה.’ (19) Yet I know that the king of Egypt will let you go only because of a greater might. (20) So I will stretch out My hand and smite Egypt with various wonders which I will work upon them; after that he shall let you go.

V’LO B’YAD CHAZAKAH’ (AND NOT BY A MIGHTY HAND). “So long as I do not let him feel My mighty hand he will not let you go.” Thus the words of Rashi.The correct interpretation in my opinion is: “The king of Egypt will not give you leave to go by plea, and not [even] by a mighty hand, until I will put forth My hand with all My wonders which I will do in his midst, by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, and by signs and by wonders. And after that he will let you go.” Indeed, all these manifestations came upon him before he gave them leave to go.

ואני ידעתי וגו', but I am perfectly aware that initially he will not grant you permission to follow My instruction to dismiss the Jewish people. This will not be due to his own innate toughness as he is quite powerless against Me, but I shall reinforce his obstinacy to give Myself a chance to display My might first. Only after that will the Egyptians come to realise that I am the only G’d and that all power resides within Me.

(21) And יהוה said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the marvels that I have put within your power. I, however, will stiffen his heart so that he will not let the people go. (22) Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says יהוה: Israel is My first-born son. (23) I have said to you, “Let My son go, that he may worship Me,” yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your first-born son.’”

(21) and they said to them, “May יהוה look upon you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh and his courtiers—putting a sword in their hands to slay us.” (22) Then Moses returned to יהוה and said, “O my lord, why did You bring harm upon this people? Why did You send me? (23) Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with this people; and still You have not delivered Your people.”

ואני ידעתי כי לא יתן אתכם מלך מצרים להלוך, “I know already that the King of Egypt will not permit you to go;” G-d revealed to Moses beforehand that Pharaoh would become obstinate; He told Moses this in advance so that he would not become discouraged over Pharaoh’s refusal. Seeing that in the event Moses still did become discouraged, we can imagine how much more discouraged he would have been if G-d had not foretold him that.

למה הרעות, “to what purpose did You worsen (the people’s plight)?” ולמה זה שלחתני, “and if so, for what purpose have You sent me?”Did Moses then not know from what G-d had already told him that Pharaoh would not be responsive? G-d had told him explicitly in Exodus 3,19, that Pharaoh would not consent to let the Israelites go? Moses had thought that while Pharaoh would not consent to let the Israelites go, at least he would lighten their burdens. This is why he added in frustration that instead of a marginal improvement in the Israelites’ sorry state, it had now worsened dramatically due to his intervention! This is why he added (improperly) “and You have certainly not saved Your people!” He quoted G-d as having said: “I’ll descend and save it.”G-d responded that “now you will see,” as from now on I shall commence applying pressure to him via My plagues.” They will soon feel a drastic reduction in their suffering.

Moses may also simply have asked: "why did You cause harm to Your people?" G'd's answer would have to be that the harm was the result of Moses' mission. To this Moses retorted: "Why is this (זה) that You have sent me on this mission?" Moses' adding of the word זה was his way of saying that this was why he had been unwilling to undertake the mission in the first place.

לדבר בשמך…והצל לא הצלת את עמך. "to speak in Your name…but You have not saved Your people." Moses added another argument to his previous ones. He wanted to know how it was possible that since he had spoken to this wicked king in the name of G'd, not only had He not responded but He had actually made things worse for the people whom Moses represented. He emphasised the word מאז to point out that Pharaoh's obstinacy appeared to have been a direct consequece of G'd's intervention through Moses. Clearly what Pharaoh did was motivated by his hatred for G'd. He was unparalleled in his rebellious behaviour against the king of the universe. Moses was amazed at G'd's apparent lack of jealousy of His reputation. Surely G'd now had an additional reason to redeem Israel immediately. Even if Israel did not merit redemption at this time due to its own merit, it had to be redeemed as a gesture against the blaspheming Pharaoh! The words והצל לא הצלת should be read as a question expressing Moses' amazement that G'd had not yet saved His people. Moses spoke of two "salvations," i.e. the one due to Israel's merit and the one due to Pharaoh's excesses.

(1) Then יהוה said to Moses, “You shall soon see what I will do to Pharaoh: he shall let them go because of a greater might; indeed, because of a greater might he shall drive them from his land.”

Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. Until this point, the B’nei Yisrael were still lacking sufficient merit for to be redeemed, and there was not enough sin to fill the measure for Pharaoh. However, due to the difficult oppression at the end of their servitude the affliction and suffering of the B’nei Yisrael reached its limit, and the measure of Pharaoh’s wickedness was complete. For not only did Pharaoh not heed the word of Hashem and let them go, he even rebelled against Hashem by increasing their affliction (Malbim).

אדנ-י למה הרעות לעם הזה, “My Lord, why have You allowed things to become worse for this people?” Moses chose this name of G’d as he was not afraid of the element of the attribute of Mercy which is part of this name; he was however afraid of the central part of the name, the word דן, the attribute of Justice. This fear of Moses is expressed in his adding the extra letter ה at the end of the word הרעותה. It is as if he had said to G’d: “Why did You allow the harmful effect of the attribute of Justice to be invoked against this people?” He added the words: “why did You send me?” He meant: “why did You not wait until the predetermined time for the redemption when these negative elements of the attribute of Justice could not have affected the people?” This is the way Nachmanides explains Moses’ outcry. A Midrashic approach (based on Tanchuma Vaeyra 1) When Moses began to question G’d’s methods in our verse, G’d responded by saying to him: “what a pity that the patriarchs are no longer alive; they are indeed unforgettable. When I told Avraham to walk ahead of Me and be perfect, he did not question My ways. When he searched for a piece of ground to bury his wife Sarah and could not find it until he finally paid a fortune of 400 shekel for a cave, he did not question Me and My ways [after all G’d had promised the whole of the land of Canaan to Avraham and his descendants. Ed.]. When I told Yitzchak to stay in the land of Canaan during the famine instead of seeking relief in Egypt, he did not question My ways. How many times did he have to dig for water only to be denied its use by the Philistines? He never questioned My ways. I had promised Yaakov that the land he was lying on was all going to be his and his children’s and when it came to finding a piece of land whereon to put his tent 26 years later he had to acquire a small tract near Shechem for 100 kessitah (an outrageous amount) yet he never questioned My ways. You, on the other hand, who are only at the very beginning of your career as My messenger already are beginning to question My ways! First you wanted to know My name; now you accuse Me of making things worse for the Jewish people! Truly, עתה תראה “what I am going to do to Pharaoh now you will experience, but because you have seen fit to question My ways you will not live to see what I am going to do to the 31 kings of the land of Canaan.” This will be a battle under the leadership of Joshua. According to this Midrash Moses had already accepted the decree that he would not enter the land of Canaan at this time. Thus far the Midrash. It appears to me that when you read the plain text without trying to read between the lines as did the sages of the Midrash, you will come to the conclusion that Moses had not sinned at all with what he asked. There are two reasons for not finding fault with Moses’ question למה הרעותה לעם הזה, “for what purpose did You allow this people to experience a deterioration in their plight instead of redeeming them immediately?” The Torah wanted to inform us that improvements or deteriorations in the fate of the Jewish nation are the result of G’d’s doing, not of someone else’s doing. By his very question, Moses wanted to make it clear that he understood this. After all, evil does originate with G’d though in a more indirect manner than good. Did not Tzefaniah 1,12 admonish the people saying: “I will punish those who say to themselves: ‘the Lord will do nothing good or bad?’” Secondly, If Moses had been under the impression that his question had been sinful, it is hard to understand why he would repeat the same mistake in Numbers 11,11 where he used similar language applying it to his own situation when he asked G’d למה הרעות לעבדך ולמה לא מצתי חן בעיניך, וגו', “why did You do this evil to Your servant; why did I not find favor in Your eyes, etc.” Moses did commit a sin however when he said in the following verse: “Ever since I have come to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people, but You did not rescue Your people.” In response to this criticism of G’d’s methods, G’d told Moses that he would indeed shortly observe how He would make good on His promise against Pharaoh and the Egyptians; He implied that Moses would not become a witness to how G’d would make good on His promise to bring the Israelites to the Holy Land. The lesson G’d was going to teach Pharaoh would be that he himself would ask the Jewish people to leave. They would not escape but Pharaoh would actually expel them. I have found support for my theory in the wording of Tanchuma Vaeyra 1 which quotes Moses as saying: “seeing that I have sinned with a remark commencing with the word אז, I wish to make amends by extolling You with a song commencing with the word אז.” (Exodus 15,1). As to the Midrash which I have quoted earlier in which G’d is reported as saying to Moses ‘you have questioned My ways already at the beginning of your mission by asking “what is Your name,” and now you continue by saying: “why have You made things worse, etc.?’” I do not think that we need to interpret these words by G’d as a rebuke. The reason the Midrash had G’d quote these words was simply because they had been the first words Moses addressed to G’d during that entire dialogue at the burning bush. I have seen in the commentary by Rabbeinu Chananel that the words למה הרעותה are not a complaint at all. They were simply a question; Moses asked for enlightenment. He did not mean to criticise. Moses’ question included the whole subject of צדיק ורע לו ורשע וטוב לו, of why the righteous is often seen to suffer whereas the wicked is often perceived as prospering in all his undertakings. Moses wanted to know the point of this attribute, this phenomenon? He referred not to what had occurred during the time since his appointment but to what had occurred during the hundreds of years prior to his appointment during which time the innocent Israelites had been subject to all kinds of torture at the hands of an immoral society such as the Egyptians. Seeing that afflictions can be divided into two categories, i.e. the ones which are retribution and the ones which are known as יסורין של אהבה, afflictions which reflect G’d’s love for the afflicted, Moses wanted enlightenment. We know that there are these two kinds of afflictions from Isaiah 57,17: “for their sinful greed I was angry; I struck them and turned away My wrath.” On the other hand, we know of a different category of afflictions described in Deut. 8,16: “who fed you manna in the wilderness...in order to test you through hardships and to benefit you in the end.” These latter kinds of afflictions are called יסורין של אהבה, and concerning them David has said (Psalms 94,12) “happy is the man whom You discipline, O Lord, the man whom You instruct in Your teaching.” Seeing that Moses had now observed that ever since his appointment to Pharaoh the latter had increased the people’s workload, Moses asked G’d why He had allowed this seeing that it was within His power to save them and He had not made use of that power. The meaning of הרעותה is: “You have allowed things to get worse,” not “You have made things worse.” It is similar to Exodus 1,17 when the Torah wrote of the midwives ותחיין את הילדים. The meaning obviously is not that the midwives “gave life” to the children, but that they had allowed the children to survive. When Pharaoh (Exodus 1,22) ordered וכל הבת תחיון, the meaning was not “you shall bring to life every daughter,” but “you may allow every daughter to survive.” After all, it is not within the power of human beings to grant life or death. Moses spoke out of a fear that Pharaoh would further add to the sufferings of the Jewish people. Actually, many hundreds of years later the prophet Jeremiah posed a similar question when he asked (Jeremiah 12,1) “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are the perpetrators of treachery at ease?” Jeremiah wanted to know if the ease experienced by the wicked is the compensation they receive from G’d in this life for any good deeds they have performed, or if their ease was a form of punishment which would reinforce them in their belief that they were not accountable for their wicked deeds. As a result of their continuing their wicked ways their eventual punishment would be so much greater. At that time G’d answered him that whatever ease the wicked experience in this life is only a prelude to their eventual terrible punishment. We find that David was troubled by similar thoughts when he asked of G’d (Psalms 69,28) “add to their guilt, let them have no share of Your beneficence; may they be erased from the book of life; and not be inscribed with the righteous.” G’d’s answer to Moses’s question: “now you will see, etc.” meant that he would become aware that the afflictions suffered by the Israelites were only designed to increase the reward they would reap at the end of their period of enslavement; at the same time it would also serve to double and redouble the punishments to be endured by their oppressors The first message was contained in the words עתה תראה, the second in the words אשר אעשה לפרעה, “what I am going to do to Pharaoh.” There is an allusion to our present exile under the descendants of Edom in the experience of the Jewish people in their first exile under the Egyptians. The Jews in Egypt had to bear up under increasingly difficult conditions only in order to experience a wonderful redemption and in seeing their oppressors being killed after suffering many plagues and then dying a painful death by drowning. Similarly, when the time comes we will experience a wonderful redemption when the Messiah will arrive, a redemption by comparison to which the Exodus of the Jewish people will fade into relative insignificance. David referred to this redemption in Psalm 130,6 where he described the longing of the כנסת ישראלsaying “I am more eager for the Lord than watchmen for the morning.” If in spite of our impatient wait for the redemption it has been delayed then this is only in order to add to the guilt of our oppressors in the interval and in order to punish them more severely for their sins against G’d and against His people. Just as we find that oppression of the Jewish people reached a new intensity after Moses asked that his people be allowed to celebrate a holiday for the Lord in the desert, the redemption in the future will be ushered in after a period of unparalleled suffering by the Jewish people. The initial attempt at bringing about the final redemption will suffer setbacks just as the initial attempt by Moses to secure the release of the Jewish people encountered setbacks... When the prophet Micah 7,15 speaks of G’d performing miracles “just as in the days when you came out of Egypt,” he alludes to certain similarities between what preceded the Exodus from Egypt to what will occur when the final redemption will be at hand. We have another Midrash (Sanhedrin 98) according to which the meaning of Isaiah 59,19: “for he will come like a hemmed in stream which the wind of the Lord drives on,” is that if you observe a certain generation being flooded by troubles from all sides like a river, await him (the Messiah), seeing that the prophet Isaiah continued there (verse 20) “for he shall come as a redeemer to Zion and to those who turn back from sin.”

(2) God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am יהוה.