Vaera (“I Appeared”) opens as God promises to redeem the enslaved Israelites and bring them to the Promised Land. When Pharaoh repeatedly refuses to let the Israelites go, God sends a series of plagues: water turning to blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, death of livestock, boils, and hail.
Moses has a revelation of God. Take the Children of Israel out of Egypt, deliver them from slavery, redeem them, and take them in as His own chosen people at “Mount Sinai”; He will then bring them to the land He promised the Patriarchs as their forever heritage. These are the “four expressions of redemption.”
Let My People Go So They May Serve Me in the Wilderness is the cry that Moses and Aaron make before Pharaoh again and time again in the name of God. Pharaoh declines repeatedly. The magic sticks of the Egyptian sorcerers are swallowed by Aaron’s staff, which transforms into a serpent. Then God unleashes a series of calamities on the Egyptians.
The Nile’s waters turn to blood, frog swarms infest the land, and lice infest all humans and animals. Cities are overrun by hordes of wild animals, domestic animals are killed by a plague, and Egyptians suffer from excruciating boils. For the seventh plague, a terrifying shower of fire and ice falls from the sky. However, “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he would not permit the children of Israel to go, as God had commanded Moses.”
It is composed of 6,701 Hebrew letters, 1,748 Hebrew words, 121 verses, and 222 lines in a Torah Scroll, and is considered part of the Hebrew Bible.
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