After Aaron performed the miraculous feat of turning his staff into a snake, Pharaoh called on his wise men and magicians to do the same. As the Bible reports, the Egyptian chartumim (usually translated as “necromancers”) replicated this feat using their “lahat” (Exodus 7:11). After Moses and Aaron brought about the plague of blood, the chartumim similarly replicated the miraculous feat with their “lat” (7:22). Then, the same thing happened with the plague of frogs: the chartumim used their “lat” to replicate what Moses and Aaron did (8:3).
When it came to the plague of lice, however, the Egyptian chartumim tried with their lat to replicate what Moses and Aaron had wrought, but could not do so. This time, they finally admitted that the plagues that Moses and Aaron brought come from “the finger of G-d,” which was more powerful than them (8:14-15).
What is the difference between a lahat and a lat, and how did those items help the chartumim in the early successes?
Targum Onkelos (to 7:11, 7:22) translates both lat and lahat as lachash (“whispering” or “incantation”). In doing so, Onkelos takes the position that these two words mean the same thing, effectively rendering them synonyms. In contrast, the Talmud (Sanhedrin 67b) assumes that lat and lahat are not synonymous: the Talmud adduces that lat refers to the use of sheidim (loosely translated as “demons”), and lahat refers to the use of kishuf (loosely translated as “witchcraft”).
As we will see below, commentators and exegetes adopt variations of one or the other of these two approaches.
Rashi cites Onkelos’ understanding of lahat – that it, just like lat, refers to a whispered incantation. He compares the usage of lahat here to when the word appears in a verse describing Adam’s banishment from the Garden of Eden: “He [Hashem] placed the Cherubim and the flame (lahat) of the ever-turning sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life” (Genesis 3:24). Rashi explains that although the word lahat in that context means “flame,” it is still related to the lahat as “incantation” because the ever-turning sword looks like something enchanted by means of an incantation or spell.
In his commentary to Sanhedrin 67b, however, Rashi says the Talmud holds that lahat is something performed by the practitioner himself, while lat adjures sheidim to act on one’s behalf. The Talmud itself actually cites the verse about the ever-turning sword to make the point that the sword is enchanted as opposed to being turned by outside forces (i.e., sheidim).
In this vein, the Tosafists (Moshav Zekenim to Exodus 7:11) write that lahat refers to feats performed via sleight of hand, while lat refers to forcing sheidim to do one’s bidding. Another perspective: Rabbi Avraham Saba (1440-1508) in Tzror HaMor writes that lat refers to the chartumim‘s use of speech (like magical incantations, or oaths to adjure sheidim) to bring about what they were trying to achieve, while lahat refers to their use of magical instruments to perform their acts of witchery.
Nachmanides (to Exodus 7:11) explains that when the Talmud says that lahat refers to kishuf, this implies the use of destructive angels referred to elsewhere in Psalms (104:4) as aish lohet (“inflamed fire”). When the Talmud says that lat refers to sheidim, Nachmanides understands this to mean that the word lat is derived from the biliteral root lammed-tet, “clandestine” (see I Samuel 18:22). The presence of sheidim are not usually discernable or palpable to humans, so one using sheidim is being sneaky and undercover.
Menachem Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Radak all maintain that the triliteral root lammed-aleph-tet means “covered/hidden,” but that sometimes the middle aleph might disappear, or morph into a vav (like in I Samuel 21:10, Isaiah 25:7). Based on this, Ibn Janach and Radak suggest that the words lahat and lat both derive from this root, with the middle aleph disappearing in the case of lat and morphing into a hey in the case of lahat. By offering this explanation, Ibn Janach and Radak follow Targum Onkelos’ approach that lahat and lat mean the same thing.
Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (1740-1814) in Cheshek Shlomo discusses the biliteral root tet-lammed, which he defines as “folding.” He relates it to the term mentioned above regarding “hidden/concealed,” by explaining that something “folded over” conceals the part that is hidden from view. Similarly, he explains lat as referring to a type of magic trick whereby one puts a stone in a folded cloth, and suddenly pulls a bird or animal out of the cloth. He then explains that lahat in the sense of “blade/flame” also relates to “folding,” because the blade appears as though it were “folding,” or otherwise contorting itself, in order to cut through whatever is being cut (and the same is true with a flame “contorting” itself to burn through whatever it is consuming). In a borrowed sense, lahat came to refer to magic tricks because they are performed by sleight of hand, which resembles the fast movement of a flame or blade. In Yerios Shlomo, Rabbi Pappenheim writes that lat and lahat mean the same thing, with both terms referring to the speed and dexterity needed to pull off a sleight of hand magic trick.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (to Exodus 7:11) explains that lahat refers to the magician’s use of a shiny object to distract his audience, while lat refers to the quick movement of the hand that the magician does while his audience is distracted.
Exegetes like Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882-942), Rabbeinu Chananel ben Chushiel (965-1055), Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, and Rabbi Avraham Maimuni (1186-1237) deny the existence of sheidim and the efficacy of kishuf. These so-called “Rationalist” commentators instead explain that when the Bible reports that the chartumim “also did” like what Moses and Aaron did, this does not actually refer to them doing something that yielded the same results as the miracles performed by Moses and Aaron. Rather, it refers to the chartumim performing the necessary speech-acts needed to replicate what Moses and Aaron were able to pull off, but these “dry actions” did not result in creating any new entity; they only seemed to copy Moses and Aaron.
Rabbi Saadia Gaon (in Emunah v’Deos Maamar #3) and Gersonides (to Exodus 7:11, 7:22) explain that lahat and lat both mean something done in a “concealed” or “clandestine” way. In this case, the parlor tricks performed by the Egyptian chartumim were achieved through sleight of hand, thus using “hidden” methods to give off the illusion of changing the staff into a snake or replicating the plagues of blood and frogs. In those cases, they were successful in producing the illusion of being able to copy Moses and Aaron. When it came to the plague of lice, however, the chartumim were not even able to pull off the illusion of successfully copying Moses and Aaron.
As mentioned above, the Talmud says that lat refers to the use of sheidim, and lahat refers to the use of kishuf. How does this explanation jibe with the Rationalist approach that denies the validity of both of those modalities?
Rabbi David HaNaggid (Maimonides’ great-great-grandson) offers an answer to this in his work in Kelil HaYofi. He axiomatically assumes that the chartumim did nothing more than a mere illusion that only seemed to mirror what Moses and Aaron brought about. There were two dimensions to this trick, he explains: one was lahat, which was sleight of hand (like in all kishuf), and the other was arousing the observer’s imagination and enticing him into thinking that he sees something that does not actually reflect reality. This relates to the Maimonidean conception of sheidim as reflecting the wild imaginations of those less intellectually disciplined (see Guide for the Perplexed 3:46), and is the idea referred to as lat.
(The relevant excerpts from Rabbi David HaNaggid’s Klil HaYofi were first published by Rabbi Moshe Maimon of Jackson, New Jersey, in Mechilta vol. 4 (Sept. 2022); that work cites Rabbi Saadia Gaon and Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi’s lost commentaries to Exodus. I thank Rabbi Maimon for his assistance in helping me prepare this essay.)
