Audio Summaries of the daily Chumash portions In loving memory of Ousher Zelig ben Myer HaLevi Z”L

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The Plague of Lice

Moshe reassures Pharaoh that the frogs will leave the Egyptians homes and only be in the Nile. Moshe then departs from Pharaoh and as he said he would, he prays to G-d for the frogs to be gone on the following day.

G-d heeds Moshe's request and the next day the frogs all die and the frog corpses pile up into mounds and the land becomes foul.

Once Pharaoh saw that relief had come with the frogs, he once again hardened his heart as G-d had predicted that he would.

G-d commands Moshe to instruct Aaron to stretch out his staff over Egypt, which He says will bring lice all over the land*.

*Side note, G-d did not want Moshe to instigate this plague, which involved lice coming up from the ground, as the ground had helped Moshe insofar as Moshe hid the Egyptian that he killed in the sand. Therefore, G-d preferred that Aaron do it.

So Aaron went ahead and stretched out his hand with the staff and hit the ground and all of the dust in the entire land of Egypt turned into lice and both men and beasts became infested.

Pharaoh's sorcerers tried to replicate this (from an area apart from Aaron so people would know that they weren't just using the lice which Aaron created) but they could not. Demonic forces cannot have power over anything which is smaller than a grain of barley, and these lice were smaller than that.

The sorcerers told Pharaoh that the lice were not a trick but rather coming from G-d but Pharaoh did not accept this and once again, as was predicted, Pharaoh's heart hardened.

Hashem tells Moshe to once again approach Pharaoh in the early morning at the Nile and ask Pharaoh to release the Israelites. He is then to warn Pharaoh that if Pharaoh does not heed this request, G-d will send an assortment of harmful wild beasts* and snakes and scorpions into Egypt which will invade the Egyptian's homes. The Israelite homes will not suffer from an invasion of these beasts however, and thus the land of Goshen (where the Israelites resided) will be noticeably distinct and G-d's presence in the land known thereby.

*Side note, the plague of the wild beasts was the first one that directly killed the Egyptians. However not all of the subsequent plagues caused the Egyptians directly to die, so what is the meaning behind the order of the plagues? To understand this, Rashi quotes a Midrash which expounds upon the order of the plagues, saying that they follow the order of typical military strategy in battle:

Blood - Typically, an invading army will attack the enemy's water supply

Frogs - Then they make loud sounds and blow horns to scare and confuse those who live in the besieged city, much like the croaking of the frogs.

Lice - The army will then shoot arrows at the enemy, much like the lice which entered into the Egyptians like arrow.

Wild Beasts - These are like foreign mercenaries which the invading army then sends in.

Pestilence - This corresponds to the subsequent seizure of enemy captives by the invaders.

Boils - This is the invaders attempt to burn out the enemy.

Hail - This is likened to stones thrown from catapults at the enemy.

Locusts - This is likened to a large army attacking.

Darkness - Assuming the enemy has still not surrendered at this point, they are imprisoned.

Firstborn - If they still don't surrender, their leaders are executed.

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