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Exodus 11:5 - On the gender of “first-born”

וּמֵ֣ת כׇּל־בְּכוֹר֮ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֒יִם֒ מִבְּכ֤וֹר פַּרְעֹה֙ הַיֹּשֵׁ֣ב עַל־כִּסְא֔וֹ עַ֚ד בְּכ֣וֹר הַשִּׁפְחָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֖ר אַחַ֣ר הָרֵחָ֑יִם וְכֹ֖ל בְּכ֥וֹר בְּהֵמָֽה׃

and every [male] first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the first-born of the slave woman who is behind the millstones; and all the first-born of the cattle.

(The above rendering comes from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation.)


Heb. בְּכוֹר. This noun is not lexically gendered; that is, when a speaker uses it as a label, it does not constrain the gender of the person/people to whom it is refers. (For details, see see my footnote on this verse in my 2005 translator’s notes (2013 update), ad loc.) Meanwhile, when a noun is used to make a non-specific reference (like this one—to a class of persons), it cannot specify the gender of its referent (Stein 2008; 2013).

That being said, even though the wording is arguably gender-inclusive, the topic of an utterance is often such that it goes without saying that only males are in view. That turns out to be the case here.…

Ramban’s comment (at 12:30) presumes that the plain-sense scope of the tenth plague can be inferred from the subsequent ritual regulations; this is also the view of the Mishnah B’rurah at Orach Chayim § 470.1. I apply that reasoning to the gender question as follows. The related metaphors and legal sequelae—i.e., those practices to which the present plague narrative functions to give resonant meaning—clearly involve only males. Given a presumed correspondence between narrative and ritual, I infer retrospectively that the tenth plague killed only males. That is, the ancient audience would have understood the narrative in terms of the male-only rites with which they were already familiar, and to which the Torah account gives meaning.

In other words, the Torah is using a gender-inclusive term to refer to a male-only group, while the gendered nature of that group is expected to be understood from shared knowledge. (That is like in English when we are discussing the National Basketball Association: we customarily refer to athletes who members of a team simply as “players.” In context, their gender goes without saying, even though it is constrained by the league.)


As for rendering into English, the NJPS “first-born” is unduly vague. Its lack of gender specificity confounds the readers’ understanding as to who will be affected by the plague and by rituals later consequent upon it. Contemporary readers do not share the ancient presupposition that only males are in view. Therefore the translation must make explicit that the scope is restricted, at least upon the first use in a given passage.

However, I do perceive a distinction in the Torah’s wording: It is more vague as to whom the tenth plague killed than it is as to whom the later lore applies. Therefore I have made a distinction: I have rendered the references to victims of the plague in terms of “[male] first-born” (with brackets that respect the textual ambiguity), whereas the consequent references to Israelite life are to “male first-born” (without brackets).

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