We examine the book Zera Shimshon on Shir HaShirim, in a wonderful explanation of a verse from our chapter. The verse appears brief and simple on the surface, yet from it, the Zera Shimshon draws out a complete foundation for understanding the Exodus from Egypt and the Splitting of the Red Sea, the spoils of Egypt and the spoils of the Sea, and why one wealth is compared to silver and the other to gold.
תּוֹרֵי זָהָב נַעֲשֶׂה לָּךְ עִם נְקֻדּוֹת הַכָּסֶף׃ (א, יא) - We will make you rows of gold with studs of silver. (1:11)
In Midrash Shir HaShirim Rabbah, the Sages expound: "'We will make you rows of gold' - this is the spoils of the Sea. 'With studs of silver' - this is the spoils of Egypt. Just as there is a distinction between silver and gold, so too is the wealth of the Sea superior to the spoils of Egypt." This concept is also familiar to us from the Pesach Haggadah. The Midrash teaches that the spoils of the Sea are compared to gold, whereas the spoils of Egypt - where "each woman shall borrow from her neighbor and from the dweller in her house" - are considered merely silver. And just as gold is more precious and silver is less valuable, so too the spoils of the Sea surpassed the spoils of Egypt.
And so it was: the entire Egyptian army set out to pursue Israel laden with immense silver and gold, which Pharaoh lavished upon them so that they would be willing to join the pursuit. All of this was shaken free from them in the sea. Therefore, the waves had to rise and fall to shake them loose, and once everything had been shaken off, the sea cast it all onto the shore. Thus, there was an enormous fortune there, to the point that the Sages said every single Jew loaded ten Libyan donkeys, and that is according to the most conservative opinion.
The Zera Shimshon asks: Does the fact that the spoils of the Sea are called "gold" necessarily prove that they were greater in quantity and more significant? After all, if there is far more silver than gold, the silver is more valuable. If a person were asked, "What do you prefer, a grain of gold or a bar of silver?", we would all choose the bar of silver. Evidently, quantity matters here, not just quality. If so, how can one be certain that the gold held the greater value?
And if you would suggest that the verse itself hints at a difference in quantity - since it says "rows of gold," an expression of magnitude, as opposed to "studs of silver," an expression of smallness, meaning the silver was inferior both in quality and in amount - a difficulty still remains: Why compare these matters to silver and gold in the first place? It would have been sufficient to state that the spoils of the Sea were abundant while the spoils of Egypt were meager, without entering into silver and gold at all. Perforce, the parable of silver and gold must carry a deeper, unique meaning.
The author explains: Gold alludes to Din (strict justice) while silver alludes to Chesed (lovingkindness), as cited in the Zohar. This is also reflected in their physical natures: silver is white, and whiteness symbolizes acts of Chesed; whereas gold, as our Sages note, has an orange-like hue close to red, and red symbolizes Dinim (judgments).
It is known that the Exodus from Egypt was carried out through the Heavenly Court, as Rashi explains on the verse "And Hashem struck down every firstborn" - He and His court. It was determined by strict justice that the Jewish people had to leave Egypt. By contrast, regarding the splitting of the Yam Suf, the Holy One, blessed be He, in His own glory willed it, because Pharaoh had rebelled against the Heavenly kingdom and declared, "Who is Hashem that I should listen to His voice?" The Exodus was necessary: the people were stuck in Egypt and needed to leave. The splitting of the sea was seemingly not strictly necessary - after they left, the Holy One, blessed be He, could have arranged other ways to shake off the Egyptians. Rather, Pharaoh "earned" this fairly: he rebelled against the King, and it was necessary to show him who Hashem is.
Even so, know that there was great prosecutorial accusation in the Heavenly Court regarding this matter, as seen from the Midrash in the Yalkut on the verse "And Hashem saved on that day," as well as from what is stated, "And I will be glorified through Pharaoh and through all his army."
Thus says the Midrash: When the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to drown the Egyptians, Uzza, the guardian angel of Egypt, stood before Him and said: Master of the Universe, You are called righteous and upright, and before You there is no injustice, no partiality, and no taking of bribes. Why do You wish to drown Egypt? Did my children drown any of Your children, or kill any of them? And just because they enslaved them, You want to drown them? They have already taken their wages - all their silver and gold. And from his words we see that Uzza also had a short memory, for he forgot that Pharaoh drowned the male infants in Egypt. His entire claim was: this was merely a financial matter, and with money the account was already settled, for "each woman shall borrow from her neighbor" - they have already taken all their silver and gold.
At that moment, the Holy One, blessed be He, assembled the entire Heavenly entourage and said to them: Judge between Me and Uzza, the guardian angel of Egypt. Initially I brought a famine upon them and provided them with Yosef, who managed it with his wisdom, and they all became his servants. Ultimately, My children arrived as strangers, and the Egyptians subjected them to harsh servitude, until their cry rose up before Me. I sent them Moshe and Aharon, My servants, and they said to their king, "So says Hashem, God of the Hebrews." But because he denied Me, I sent ten plagues upon him, yet to no avail; he continued to enslave My children. And after I made My strength and might known to him, he sent them out against his will, and now he has pursued them to return them to bondage. Does one who acted in this way and failed to understand not deserve to be drowned in the sea, he and his entire army? The entire Heavenly entourage answered Him: Justice is on Your side, do as You please.
We see that this process did not go smoothly; Uzza tried to stop it. The verse likewise testifies: "And I will be glorified through Pharaoh and through all his army, and Egypt shall know that I am Hashem." Rashi explains: When the Holy One, blessed be He, takes vengeance on the wicked, His Name is magnified and sanctified. It turns out, then, that the splitting of the Yam Suf was vengeance and punishment upon Pharaoh for rebelling against the Holy One, blessed be He, since the ten plagues had still not set him straight, as shown by the fact that he went out afterward to pursue them.
In the sixth chapter of Sanhedrin, the Sages said: Regarding those executed by the monarchy, their property goes to the king; regarding those executed by the court, their property goes to their heirs. In other words, when a person is executed by royal decree, his assets pass to the king; but if a beit din sentenced him to death and executed him, his assets pass to his heirs. For this reason, Achitofel took his own life: he did not want to give David the pleasure of executing him and taking his wealth, for the property of those executed by the monarchy goes to the king, and so he preferred to leave his estate to his children after him.
Now, the great wealth that the Holy One, blessed be He, promised to Avraham was only due if they completed the count of four hundred years, as it says, "And they shall enslave them and afflict them four hundred years, and afterward they shall leave with great wealth." This implies that without four hundred years, the wealth was not warranted. If so, why were we nevertheless privileged to receive great wealth? Rather, because of the sheer severity of the servitude, we say that it completed the count. The Jewish people worked in increased measure, day and night, and the pressure and harshness of the servitude compressed into a short timeframe what was meant to have spanned four hundred years.
From here we also understand the matter of "No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us: Make bricks!" Moshe Rabbeinu came and cried out, "Why have You brought harm?" This was his error and the grievance held against him - for evil does not descend from Heaven, so how could he say "Why have You brought harm?" He was punished for this, as he was told, "Now you shall see" - but not during the war against the thirty-one kings. And why was this final decree truly necessary? Because Hashem was about to take them out, and the moment the plagues began, the servitude ceased; to bring them out, the remainder of the four hundred years had to be completed. And how was it completed? By intensifying the dosage of servitude. That is why the decree came, "No straw is given to your servants," and as a result they were enslaved much more harshly. It was thus accounted as though they had suffered for four hundred years, and from then on the labor could end and they could go free.
However, a litigant could still argue and claim that this was not a complete fulfillment - it was "as if," rather than an actual four hundred years. Therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He, performed an act of chesed with the Egyptians, allowing Israel to acquire that property merely as a loan, so that the Egyptians' legal standing would not be compromised and they could still claim that wealth - as they indeed did years later in the days of Geviha ben Pesisa in Sanhedrin, when they came and argued, "They borrowed from us and did not return it," and the Sages sent Geviha to answer them. In other words, since the Egyptians still retained some semblance of a claim, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: Take the wealth as a loan, and not as something inherently belonging to you. This is the meaning of "And every woman shall borrow from her neighbor and from the resident of her house."
For this reason, the spoils of Egypt are compared to silver, which represents chesed, and the spoils of the sea to gold, because at the sea there was an absolute legal judgment against the Egyptians. They held the status of those executed by royal decree (harugei malchut), whose property goes to the king - that is, to the Holy One, blessed be He. The Exodus from Egypt was carried out through "Hashem and His heavenly court," and regarding those executed by the court (harugei beit din), their property goes to their heirs. Therefore, the wealth remained, as it were, belonging to the Egyptians, and taking it was only as a loan, in the category of chesed. But at the sea, it was the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and essence, for a maidservant at the sea saw what Ezekiel did not see, and they pointed and said, "This is my God, and I will glorify Him." Pharaoh struck at the honor of the King, and the King Himself went out and struck Egypt; and when the King Himself strikes, the wealth belongs to Him by strict right. This is gold: wealth that comes through absolute justice.
Furthermore, after the Egyptians rebelled against the sovereignty of Heaven at the Yam Suf, Israel gained full legal ownership of the spoils of Egypt as well. Lest one ask: Was the plunder of Egypt to remain forever defined as chesed and as a borrowed item? The answer is no. Chesed was only until the moment the Red Sea parted; but once the Egyptians pursued Israel again and rebelled against the sovereignty of Heaven, Israel acquired strict legal title even to what they had taken out of Egypt, and what had been deemed a loan became a complete gift. For even if the Egyptians had any legitimate claim to that plunder, now all their assets and legal rights belonged to the King of the Universe. And when all of a person's property forfeits to the king, even his debt notes and legal claims forfeit to the king - so the legal claim over what was borrowed automatically passed to the King, and He granted it to Israel.
This explains the precise wording of the verse. It does not say, "We will make you circlets of gold," and separately, "We will make you studs of silver," but rather, "We will make you circlets of gold with studs of silver" - meaning that with the arrival of the circlets of gold, you also acquire the studs of silver. The circlets of gold represent the spoils of the sea, which granted us the wealth by strict legal right; and once the wealth was awarded by strict right, we automatically acquired the earlier wealth from the spoils of Egypt as well. Thus, it was the circlets of gold that secured everything for us - truly sweeter than honey.
The Midrash compares the spoils of the sea to gold and the spoils of Egypt to silver, and the Zera Shimshon explains that this is not a comparison of quantity, but of essence: silver alludes to chesed and gold alludes to din. The Exodus from Egypt was carried out by "Hashem and His heavenly court," and with those executed by a court of law, the property goes to the heirs; therefore, the wealth was given as a loan - an act of chesed toward the Egyptians, who still had an argument that the four hundred years had not been literally completed, but only fulfilled through the harshness of the servitude. But at the Yam Suf, Pharaoh rebelled against the sovereignty of Heaven, and the King Himself exacted retribution from him. With those executed by the king, the property forfeits to the king - wealth that comes by strict right, gold. And from the moment all of Egypt's property and legal rights passed to the King of the Universe, Israel was granted not only the spoils of the sea, but also the spoils of Egypt retroactively as a complete gift. And this is: "We will make you circlets of gold - with studs of silver."