[dropcap]Israelites[/dropcap] worked as slaves in Egypt for 210 years. They had the right to collect payment upon their freedom. Thus G-d commanded in Exodus: “Let each woman request from her neighbor . . . silver vessels and gold vessels, and garments” to put on their “sons and daughters, and you shall empty out Egypt” (Exodus 3:22). The reparations were to be demanded and taken in one night, when G-d smote the Egyptian firstborn and Pharaoh finally relented after hanging stubborn during nine previous plagues. At midnight he freed the Israelites.

Please note: As I quoted the verse above, I inserted ellipses, “Let each woman request from her neighbor . . . ” What did I omit? This: “ . . . and from the one who lives in her house.” Let each woman request reparations not only from her Egyptian neighbor but from “the one who lives in her house.” Whose house? Who is the “one” living there? The phrase is ambiguous. Its nouns — “one,” “house” — have no clear referents. Is the Israelite female slave living in the Egyptian woman’s house? Or is the female Egyptian slavemaster living in the Israelite’s house?

Does either possibility make sense?

[dropcap]Say[/dropcap] that the ambiguous phrase means that the freed Israelite woman was living in the Egyptian woman’s house. In terms of reparations, the verse is clear; let the Israelite collect from the Egyptian woman. But back up. How could a slave be living in the master’s house? If anything is clear from the inception of the Israelite enslavement, it is that the Israelite population multiplied dramatically. Seventy Israelite souls went down to Egypt from Canaan, but 600,000 adults Israelite males, plus women and children, left. The Israelite population exploded. Where were they all born?

Are we to believe that the Israelite women were hosted by their female Egyptian slavemasters in their houses? It had to have been quite a hosting, for the Israelite women were giving birth virtually without stop. And what good hosts they had to have been! Presumably, they provided the privacy of the Israelite couples; otherwise, they would not have proliferated exponentially.

But how could the Egyptian women host the Israelite slaves? Pharaoh had commanded that all Egyptian boys be killed (1:16-19). True, the Israelite midwives evaded Pharaoh’s degree, but are we to believe that countless thousands of Egyptian women witnessed the midwives’ massive evasion of Pharaoh’s decree and not a single Egyptian ratted to Pharaoh’s minions?

So no, it doesn’t seem that the intent of the Biblical command to take reparations from “her house” referred to the Egyptian women’s houses.

But if so, the Israelite women were told to take reparations from the Egyptian women living in their own — the Israelite women’s — houses. Really? The slavemaster lived in the slave’s house? That seems even more unlikely than Israelite slave women living in the slavemasters’ houses.

[dropcap]Confronted[/dropcap] with this textual ambiguity, Rashi says the meaning of the verse is that the Israelite women lived in the slavemaster’s houses, and were instructed to take reparations from there. This has implications! We have already mentioned three: the big Israelite families in the slavemasters’ houses; the likelihood of the Israelite couples’ privacy; and an unknown clever technique for concealing the midwives’ evasion of Pharaoh’s decree of infanticide. True, the midwives offered an excuse to Pharaoh, but it is unlikely he credited it for hundreds of thousands of births.

Still more: The Egyptian women were instructed by G-d to take reparations not only from the dweller in “her house,” but also from “her neighbor.” Now, “her” neighbor clearly refers to the Israelite woman’s neighbor. To call the person next door to a slave a “neighbor” seems to reinforce the idea that the Israelite women enjoyed some degree of a normal life. They seemed to be hosted in a slavemaster’s house; at a minimum, they were comfortable enough there to raise large families. Then, an Israelite woman, living in the slavemaster’s house, had a “neighbor.” Later in Exodus, this neighbor is called a “friend” (11:2). For all the cruelty of the Egyptian taskmasters, the Israelite women may have had a somewhat easier time.

What might all this mean?

[dropcap]Observe[/dropcap]: Midrash meets skeptics. Where did all of the stories and character traits that the midrash imputes to the Biblical text come from? Were they purely the product of the sages’ imaginations? Tradition has it that midrash springs from a problem, a hint or a tic in the Biblical text. Midrash addresses a real issue in the text. It is not the product purely of a sage’s imagination. It is not storytelling.

I think we have an apt illustration right here with the verse instructing the Israelite women from whom to take reparations — from their female Egyptian neighbors, friends and hosts. After the liberation from Egypt, Israelites brought their valuables to Moses to be used in the construction of the Tabernacle (35:4-9, 21-29, 36:3-7). Among the items brought were the “mar’os ha-tzov’os,” the mirrors that would be melted down to fashion the laver and its base, two of the sacred vessels in the Tabernacle (38:8). What were these mirrors? Midrash Tanhuma says that the Israelite women used them to beautify themselves for their husbands upon their return from bitter, crushing slave labor. Their husbands were too exhausted for intimacy. But their wives used these mirrors to beautify themselves in their husband’s presence — they could see each other in the mirror — and thus their husbands would be aroused to intimacy. Hence, the Israelite population explosion in Egypt.

This midrash explains the population explosion, but what is the basis in the text for this explanation? The text simply says that these mirrors were brought to Moses when he requested valuables for the construction of the Tabernacle. As we unpack the verse on reparations (3:22 above), we see that the Israelite women had neighbors and friends and had hosts who respected their privacy. We arrive at a context in which these mirrors could come into play. Here is a verse whose ambiguity begs it to be unpacked, a verse otherwise not paid much attention yet rich in implications, a verse that provides the context — the space provided the Israelite women for a private life — from which this famous midrash could spring to life.

© IJN 2025