What does the passuk mean when it says וישרצו? Isn’t that word usually used for reptiles amd bugs because it means squirmed amd swarmed and covered the land? This is from passuk 7.
Rashi says it just means the Jewish mothers gave birth to many babies at one time. In one birth, they could have 6 babies. What else could we learn from this Passuk?
According to רשבם each of the words in the posuk means a separate thing. He says that וישרצו means that the land was filled with little children, they swarmed the land. וירבו means that children didn’t die in infancy. ויצמו means that they didn’t die in early adulthood. במאי מאד they had children until the entire land was filled with them.
ReplyDeleteI like this idea because it gives multiple definitions when just one was necessary.
According to rashi וישרצו (even though it’s usually used for animals and bugs) is used here to emphasize that instead of the normal one or two children, in each pregnancy there were up to 6 children.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is a little bit of a stretch because how would every Jewish women have 6 kids in each pregnancy. On the other hand it makes sense if that’s true to use the word that is usually for animals who give birth to more than one kid at a time
The Chasan Sofer comments in Berashit and says that when Hashem says to “be fruitful and fill the land” it doesn’t mean with people. Rather, he says, the commandment is to fill the world with good. However, he explains that in Egypt the opposite happened. Rather than Bnei Yaakov filling Egypt with good they allowed Egypt to fill them (with their traditions and immorality). This is shown in pasuk 7 with the words “״ותמלא בארץ אותם
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