“When Pharaoh let the people go, G-d did not lead them on the road through the Plishtim country because it was close. For G-d said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” (Shmos 13,17)
The following verse (1 Divrei haYamim 7,20-22) may shed some light on the understanding of the Torah verse:
“And the sons of Ephraim; Shuthelah, and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eladah his son, and Tahath his son, And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and Elead. Now the men of Gath, who were born in the land killed them, for they (=the sons of Ephraim) came down to raid their cattle. Their father Ephraim mourned for them for many days, and his brothers came to comfort him.”
The problem with this verse is with the timing. It appears to be in the lifetime of Ephraim. But Ephraim was certainly not among those that entered the Land of Israel plus he would have been very old.
Four different methods are offered by the commentators:
- Ralbag offers the simplest explanation. “the land” actually refers to Egypt where a colony of Plishtim had an outpost. Thus, the incident occurred prior to the Exodus. The difficulty is the reference to the men of Gath, which implies their living in the area near the Land of Israel.
- Rabbi Yehudah haChassid suggests that even during the exile in Egypt Paroh allowed the Jews to move freely between Egypt and Israel. Thus, this incident could have happened in the Land of Israel but in the early years of the Egyptian exile.
- Radak assumes the incident must have happened at the end of the forty years in the desert when the Jews conquered land on the East side of the Yarden river.
- Chaza”l have a different tradition: “Though it is close (קרוב)”– The war of the Plishtim with the sons of Ephraim was recent (קרוב), for it says (1 Divrei haYamim 7,20), “And the sons of Ephraim, Shutelach and Bered...” And regarding them, Dovid says (Tehillim 78,9): “Like the Ephraimite bowmen who played false in the day of battle.” Why [were they destroyed in battle with the Plishtim]? They made a mistake in their calculations and they left thirty years before what was supposed to be the end of their slavery. They fled Egypt and fell [in the raid on Gath.] (Medrash Hagadol Shmos 13,17)
In the Medrashic reading, the Ephraimites of both Divrei Yamim and Psalm 78 are the sons of Ephraim who fled Egypt on their own initiative before the appropriate time. They calculated the time of the redemption of 400 years from the time of the Bris bein haBasrim, but were off by thirty years. They sought to enter the land via the coastal plane and encountered the Plishtim of Gath and fell in battle. They died was because they trusted in their human calculations and refused to wait in Egypt for Moshe’s instruction.
All of this is reflected in the Medrashic interpretation of Shmos 13:17. The reason that G-d did not want to lead the Israelites from Egypt into the land via the land of the Plisthim was “כי קרוב הוא.” The simple meaning of the Hebrew phrase is geographical, “although it is was close.” However, the Rabbis read the word כי as “because” and “close” as temporal, that is, the fall of the Ephraimites at the hands of the Plishtim was still fresh in people’s minds, having occurred only thirty years earlier. This is the war that the Israelites would “face,” that is, recall, if they proceeded on that path, and it is that memory that would dishearten them and encourage them to return to Egypt.
(According to one opinion in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 92b) the bones that Yechezkel revived were these descendants of Ephraim that had been killed)
A conception of Israel’s beginnings that diverges radically from the exodus narrative is reflected in a striking passage in the book of Chronicles (דברי הימים). The bulk of this book narrates Israel’s history from the death of Shaul until the edict of Cyrus, allowing the Jews to return to the land. Yet unlike the history book of the Naviim, this book has a purpose and is not a recounting of history. Rather, this book is the story of the Jewish people from the prospective of the קֵץ (the end), the deadline when Moshiach will finally arrive.
