page_title: Bo (parsha)
section_title: Exodus chapter 10
hierarchical_section_title: Bo (parsha) / In classical rabbinic interpretation / Exodus chapter 10
caption_attribution_description: English: The Plague of Locusts, illustration from the 1890 Holman Bible
context_page_description: Bo is the fifteenth weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the third in the Book of Exodus. The parashah constitutes Exodus 10:1–13:16. The parashah tells of the last three plagues on Egypt and the first Passover.
  The parashah is made up of 6,149 Hebrew letters, 1,655 Hebrew words, 106 verses, and 207 lines in a Torah Scroll. Jews read it the fifteenth Sabbath after Simchat Torah, generally in January or early February. As the parashah describes the first Passover, Jews also read part of the parashah, Exodus 12:21–51, as the initial Torah reading for the first day of Passover, and another part, Exodus 13:1–16, as the initial Torah reading for the first intermediate day of Passover. Jews also read another part of the parashah, Exodus 12:1–20, which describes the laws of Passover, as the maftir Torah reading for the Special Sabbath Shabbat HaChodesh, which falls on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, the month in which Jews celebrate Passover.
context_section_description: Reading Exodus 12:1, 12:43, and 12:50, a Midrash taught that in 18 verses, Scripture places Moses and Aaron (the instruments of Israel's deliverance) on an equal footing (reporting that God spoke to both of them alike), and thus there are 18 benedictions in the Amidah.
  A Midrash taught that in Exodus 10:1, God begins with the word "Come (בֹּא, bo)," instead of "Go (לֶך, lech)," to teach that the Glory of God fills the whole earth, including Pharaoh's Egypt.
  Rabbi Johanan asked whether God's words in Exodus 10:1, "For I have hardened his heart," did not provide heretics with ground for arguing that Pharaoh had no means of repenting. Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish (Resh Lakish) replied that the mouths of the heretics should be stopped up. For, as Proverbs 3:34 teaches, "If it concerns the scorners, He scorns them." When God warns people once, twice, and even a third time, and they still do not repent, then God closes their hearts against repentance so that God may exact vengeance from them for their sins. Thus it was with the wicked Pharaoh. Since God sent five times to him (in the first five plagues) and he took no notice, God then told Pharaoh that he had stiffened his neck and hardened his heart, so God would add to Pharaoh's impurity. The Midrash taught that the expression "I hardened" (הִכְבַּדְתִּי, hichbad'ti) implied that God made Pharaoh's heart like a liver (כָּבֵד, kaveid), which stiffens (and becomes unabsorbent) if boiled a second time. So Pharaoh's heart was made like a liver, and he did not receive the words of God.
  Similarly, Rabbi Phinehas, the priest, son of Rabbi Hama, interpreted God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart in light of Job 36:13, "But they who are godless in heart lay up anger; they cry not for help when He binds them." Rabbi Phinehas taught that if the godless, for whose repentance God waits, do not do so, then later on, even when they do think of it, God distracts their hearts from penitence. Rabbi Phinehas interpreted the words of Job 36:13, "And they who are godless in heart," to teach that those who begin by being godless in heart end up bringing upon themselves God's anger. And Rabbi Phinehas interpreted the words of Job 36:13, "They cry not for help when He binds them," to teach that though the godless wish later to return to God and to pray to God, they are no longer able, because God binds them and bars their way. Thus after several plagues, Pharaoh wished to pray to God, but God told Moses in Exodus 8:16: "Before he goes out [to pray to God], stand before Pharaoh."
  Reading the words of Exodus 10:1, "and the heart of his servants," a Midrash taught that when Pharaoh's heart softened, his servants' hardened, and when they softened, he hardened. When both softened, God hardened their hearts, as Exodus 10:1 states. God closed their hearts to repentance to punish them for their earlier stubbornness.
  Reading the words "My signs (אֹתֹתַי, ototai) in the midst of them" in Exodus 10:1, Rabbi Judah ben Simon taught that God inscribed the letters of the plagues on their very bodies. Similarly, a Midrash taught that God inscribed abbreviations of the plagues on the staff of Moses, so that he would know which plague was next.
  It was taught in a Baraita that Rabbi Judah the Prince (or others say Rabbi Meir) used to say that Providence repays a person measure for measure. Thus, a Midrash taught that God sent the plagues against Pharaoh measure for measure. God changed the Egyptians' water into blood because the Egyptians prevented the Israelites from using the ritual bath (מִקְוֶה, mikveh) so as to prevent the Israelite women from having marital relations with their husbands. God brought frogs because the Egyptians had ordered the Israelites to bring them reptiles and creeping creatures (which were an abomination to the Israelites). God sent lice because the Egyptians had made the Israelites clean the dirty streets and marketplaces. God sent swarms of wild animals because the Egyptians had demanded that the Israelites catch bears, lions, and leopards so as to separate the Israelite men from their wives. God 
caption: The Plague of Locusts (illustration from the 1890 Holman Bible)
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