Who was Ba’al Tz’fon?
(Adapted from the Oznayim la’Torah) The Mechilta explains that Ba’al Tz’fon’s real name was Pisom (one of the two store-cities that Yisrael built), and that they changed its name to Ba’al Tz’fon. That became the king’s treasury where they placed all the silver and gold that Yosef had collected from the sale of corn during the famine. Perhaps, the Oznayim la’Torah suggests, they called it Ba’al Tz’fon on account of the money that was stored away there (from the word ‘Tzofun’ – hidden), in keeping with the Pasuk in Iyov 37 “mi’Tzofon zohov yo’asoh”). In any event, the author points out, it was not because it was in the north, since, according to the Medrash ‘Migdol was in the north, and Ba’al Tz’fon, in the south’.
*The lack of gratitude of the Egyptians is remarkable, says the Oznayim la’Torah. They forced the B’nei Yisrael, among them the sons and family of Yosef, to build Pisom, to house the vast stores of money that Yosef, in his wisdom, and in total integrity, had amassed on their behalf.
Interestingly, he comments, Egypt had been hard hit regarding their water and their animals, their produce, their firstborn, their gods – (the Nile, the lambs and the oxen all of which they worshipped) and their bodies. But not Pisom, (alias Ba’al Tz’fon), which served as the royal treasury. Par’oh and the Egyptians were overawed. Clearly, they believed, this idol was all-powerful, and that even the G-d of the Jews was unable to dislodge it from its supreme pedestal.
Little did they know that, not only was this a ploy on the part of G-d to lure them out to the desert, before drowning them in the Yam-Suf, but that the royal treasures were about to fall into the hands of the B’nei Yisrael. G-d saw what the Egyptians had done to His people, and how as part compensation, they had lent them all their precious vessels. But, he decided, this was not sufficient to pay them for all those years of slavery, particularly considering all the property, furniture and valuable possessions that they left behind. So he commanded them to empty Pisom, and to take all the silver and gold that was stored there, a command that Yisrael had no difficulty in carrying out, since, having built it, they were conversant with every nook and cranny there. They had full access to all its contents.
*What’s more, the author concludes, it was in order to recapture the vast royal treasures that Par’oh gathered an army to attack them as they stood at the Yam Suf. Indeed, when, as mentioned in the Shirah, he spoke about “sharing the spoil”, he cannot have been referring to the vessels that Yisrael had borrowed from them, since that belonged to their respective owners. It was not Par’oh’s to give away. He must therefore have been referring to the silver and gold that Yisrael took from Ba’al Tz’fon.
