Texts in Conversation
Jubilees, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Rabbinic tradition in tractate Sotah interpret the drowning of the Egyptian army in Exodus as revenge for Pharaoh drowning Israelite children. Jubilees adds that 1,000 Egyptians died for each Israelite child.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 48:14
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
13 And I stood between the Egyptians and Israel, and we delivered Israel out of his hand, and out of the hand of his people, and the Lord brought them through the midst of the sea as if it were dry land. 14 And all the peoples whom he brought to pursue after Israel, the Lord our God cast them into the midst of the sea, into the depths of the abyss beneath the children of Israel, even as the people of Egypt had cast their children into the river. He took vengeance on 1,000,000 of them, and one thousand strong and energetic men were destroyed on account of one suckling of the children of your people which they had thrown into the river.
Wisdom of Solomon 18:5
Deuterocanon
4 For the Egyptians well deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned by darkness, they who had imprisoned your children, through whom the incorruptible light of the law was to be given to the race of men. 5 After they had taken counsel to kill the babes of the holy ones, and when a single child had been abandoned and saved to convict them of their sin, you took away from them their multitude of children, and destroyed all their army together in a mighty flood. 6 Our fathers were made aware of that night beforehand, that, having sure knowledge, they might be cheered by the oaths which they had trusted.
Sotah 11a
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
Alternatively, there is an additional way to punish the Egyptians with water: He does not bring a flood upon them, but they may come and fall into water, and so it says: “And the sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled toward it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea” (Exodus 14:27), indicating that the Egyptians fell into the water. And this is what Rabbi Elazar says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for in that which they conspired [zadu] against them” (Exodus 18:11)? The phrase means: In the pot in which they cooked, they themselves were cooked, as they were punished through drowning, measure for measure, for drowning the Jewish babies. The Gemara asks: From where may it be inferred that this word “zadu” is a term meaning a pot? The Gemara answers: As it is written: “And Jacob simmered a pot [vayyazed Ya’akov nazid]” (Genesis 25:29).
Date: 450–550 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Measure for measure: Jubilees further sees in the drowning of the Egyptian forces at the Red Sea the principle of “measure for measure”: this was a just recompense for the Egyptians’ drowning of the Israelite babies in the Nile (Exodus 1:22). The same theme appears in Wisdom of Solomon 18:15, Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 9:10, Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael Shirta 4 (end), b. Sota 11a. Jubilees’ author celebrated the disproportionality, 1,000 men … for one infant; compare mishnah Sota 1:9 ..."
Kugel, James L.
A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation
(p. 197) Brill, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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