Moses striking the Egyptian, Amsterdam Haggadah, 1695-1712. Stanford University Libraries (adapted)
Raised as an Egyptian, How Does Moses Come to Identify as a Hebrew?
When Moses sees an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, he kills the Egyptian. Does Moses get involved because he knows he is a Hebrew or does he act out of a sense of justice?
Published December 22, 2021
This article is based on a chapter in Jonathan Magonet, How Did Moses Know He Was a Hebrew? Reading Bible Stories from Within (Republic of Moldova: Hakodesh Press, 2021).
I have translated using the singular here, but most English translations change this into the plural pronoun “them” to make sense. Rashi recognizes this grammatical reality, but he adds the rabbinic view from b. Sotah 11a that the reference to “Him” here is to God.
The note on Ibn Ezra in the Torah Chaim Chumash “corrects” Ibn Ezra’s first comment: “It seems he meant to write ‘the Hebrews.’” Given ibn Ezra’s sarcasm about rival commentators, it would be interesting to learn how he might have commented on this correction to his text.
Nehama Leibowitz Studies in Shemot: The Book of Exodus (Translated and Adapted by Aryeh Newman) (The World Zionist Organisation, Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, Jerusalem 1976), Volume 1, pp. 43-44.
The same verb is used for Moses’ act of striking as was used for the actions of the Egyptian man when striking the Hebrew man.
This is clearly an absurd description of their former state as slaves, but it works well as an example of negative political campaigning.
