Censored Sefornos in Beshalach

There were a few comments of Seforno left untranslated.

The first is on Shemot 15:9:

אָמַ֥ר אוֹיֵ֛ב אֶרְדֹּ֥ף אַשִּׂ֖יג אֲחַלֵּ֣ק שָׁלָ֑ל תִּמְלָאֵ֣מוֹ נַפְשִׁ֔י אָרִ֣יק חַרְבִּ֔י תּוֹרִישֵׁ֖מוֹ יָדִֽי׃

The foe said,
“I will pursue, I will overtake,
I will divide the spoil;
My desire shall have its fill of them.
I will bare my sword—
My hand shall subdue them.”

Seforno writes, on the preceding verse:

וברוח אפך נערמו מים. עתה ספר המלחמה הגדולה שנלחם האל יתברך בהמון מצרים, ואמר הנה ברוח אפך נבקע הים ונעשו המים כערמה וכנד. וקפאו תהומות, בקרקע הים באופן שיכלו ישראל לעבור:

וברוח אפיך נערמו מים, now Moses speaks of the third war G’d conducted against the multitudes of Egypt; (not the elite) Moses recapitulates the phenomena faced by the Egyptian hordes when the waters which had previously been normal became like towers of frozen water in the midst of the sea.

The end of this is left fairly untranslated. Then, on our verse:

וכאשר אמר אויב ארדוף. אחריהם בים:

אשיג אחלק שלל. והם היו המון כל רכב מצרים שלא באו אלא לגזול ממונם של ישראל:

Which was left untranslated by Eliyahu Munk. I will translate

and when said “the enemy I will pursue” — after them in the sea,

“I will overtake, I will distribute spoils” — and they were the multitude of all the chariot(er)s of Egypt, who only came to steal the money of Israel.

I thought about it for a while, and even compared with what other meforshim said, and just cannot figure out what is so odious in Seforno’s comment that it couldn’t be translated. I would instead suggest a more mundane reason. Eliyahu Munk was already summarizing in the preceding comment’s translation, with “Moshe recapitulates the phenomena faced by the Egyptian hordes” and then gives a quick summary. He leaves off much in the translation at the the end of that preceding comment.

Perhaps he feels that there is no new information there. So why bother struggling to translate it, if it is all recapitulation. Of course, the value is in knowing what each poetic word in the poetry means relative to the preceding prose narrative. Alternatively — I did not check this, and am writing carelessly in haste — but sometimes a retelling / recap has slight differences, all the more so for poetic retellings, and so if there’s an inconsistency, the translator might have decided to avoid it.

A bit later, on Shemot 16:14:

וַתַּ֖עַל שִׁכְבַ֣ת הַטָּ֑ל וְהִנֵּ֞ה עַל־פְּנֵ֤י הַמִּדְבָּר֙ דַּ֣ק מְחֻסְפָּ֔ס דַּ֥ק כַּכְּפֹ֖ר עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

When the fall of dew lifted, there, over the surface of the wilderness, lay a fine and flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.

Seforno writes:

והנה על פני המדבר דק. דבר שהגרגיר שלו היה דק, כאמרו כזרע גד הוא:

והנה על פני המדבר, kernels in the shape and texture of very fine crystals as described in Numbers 11,7 כזרע גד הוא, similar to the seeds of Gad.

דק ככפור. גם בהנחתו היה דק, שלא היה מונח גרגיר על גרגיר:

He leaves the second part untranslated, so I will translate:

as fine as the frost [on the ground] — even in its placement it was fine, that one kernel did not rest on another kernel.

We can only guess why this might be left untranslated. Perhaps it goes against a fundamental Jewish belief, in why we have two challot on Shabbos, because on layer of mann rested upon another layer of mann.

In terms of Rashbam, I also spotted one instance that seemed truncated / omitted. I am not reading through these carefully, so it is quite possible that there are others.

In Shemot 15:18:

יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ יִמְלֹ֖ךְ לְעֹלָ֥ם וָעֶֽד׃

יהוה will reign for ever and ever!

Rashbam writes:

But of course, the full translation of the Hebrew comment is:

“Hashem will reign — after they are settled in the Land of Israel, the kingdom of Hashem will be known in all the kingdoms.”

This seems based on the preceding verse, in which Moshe talks about eventual settlement in Israel and building the Temple.

This seems like such a substituted translation, even adding the yimloch le’olam valed, which is not said, that I wonder if somehow Eliyahu Munk is working from a different text! But, give other censorship, I don’t know that we should give such benefit of the doubt. I still cannot figure out why anyone would censor this. It isn’t Zionism!