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The episode of the ten Makkot as related in Shemot 6-11 raises many thematic and structural questions. Why did the Makkot need to be accompanied by such open miracles? What was so important about the Makkot that Hashem “hardened Paroh’s heart” in order to prolong the ordeal and maintain the necessity for more Makkot? Is there a pattern to the Makkot? Many commentators and others have struggled with these questions over the centuries. The Malbim has many deep and fascinating insights that provide answers to them, and it is mainly his approach that will be discussed here. In order to understand it, we must first gain some insights into the structure of the Makkot narrative.
The Shemot narrative seems to describe the Makkot in chronological order. Recitals of the Ten Makkot, in the order in which they occurred, have become part of our liturgy in the Pesach Haggadah; indeed, Jewish children of very young ages are taught to rattle off these Makkot. As it says in the Haggadah, Rabi Yehuda even created a mnemonic device for the ten Makkot (דצ’ך עד’ש באח’ב), which he intriguingly chose to split into three parts. This is interesting in light of Rashbam's commentary on Shemot 7:26. There, he constructs the Makkot as having occurred in three segments, with Makkat Bechorot as an addendum at the end (which the commentators generally agree was meant to finally break down Paroh’s resistance totally). Each segment consisted of three Makkot, the first two of which were preceded by a warning delivered to Paroh through Moshe. The third Makkah of each segment, Rashbam says, was delivered against Mitzrayim without warning. However, the Rashbam does not elaborate on the importance of this structural element. Why the three segments, and what’s the significance of every third Makkah coming without warning?
Now we have a foundation upon which Malbim’s approach can be built. These comments are summarized in his commentary on Tehillim 78 and 105, which will be explored in the second installment of this article. He starts with the same structural theme as the Rashbam: three sets of three Makkot, each set having two with a warning prior and a third without. Hashem refers multiple times to the Makkot as “Otot” and “Mofetim” while speaking to Moshe; the Malbim defines these terms as referring to those two types of Makkot. An “Ot” (literally “sign”) would be any one of the Makkot that was preceded by a warning, as these were meant to be the didactic tools through which Mitzrayim would come to “know” Hashem. Each of the three sets of Makkot was meant to teach a different aspect of knowledge of Hashem- the first set His existence and Omnipresence, the second set His supervision of detail, and the third set His supreme, unmatched power. These are hinted to by the phrasings of several Pesukim in which Hashem says, “Mitzrayim will know… that I am Hashem”, “… that I am Hashem in the midst of the land”, and “… that there is none like Me in all the land”. To serve as “witnesses” to these ideas, each set of Makkot began with two “otot” which symbolized that set’s aspect. The third Makkah in each set, which arrived suddenly, was not meant to educate the Mitzrim. The Malbim says that these three Makkot (Kinnim, Shechin, and Choshech) were the “Mofetim” (literally “wonders”): miraculous and devastative phenomena meant to punish Mitzrayim for not learning the lesson of that set of Makkot. To quote the Malbim on Tehillim 78:43, “‘the Otot were in Mitzrayim’, for they were meant to teach that nation one of the cornerstones of faith, and ‘the Mofetim were in the field of Zoan’, for they were brought not to teach, rather to smite the land in its entirety”.
So, the structure of the ten Makkot in chronological order tells a story of the attempted teaching of three lessons, with repercussions for Mitzrayim’s refusal to learn, culminating in a final blow that shattered Paroh’s resistance once and for all and forced him to begrudgingly admit defeat. There are, however, two other Makkot narratives in Tanach, which appear in Tehillim 78 and 105. Part 2 of this article will explore the implications of these narratives and the ways in which their structures differ from the narrative found in Sefer Shemot.