| וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ ה' מִמִּצְרַיִם. לֹא עַל-יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, וְלֹא עַל-יְדֵי שָׂרָף, וְלֹא עַל-יְדֵי שָׁלִיחַ, אֶלָּא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בִּכְבוֹדוֹ וּבְעַצְמוֹ. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְעָבַרְתִּי בְאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה, וְהִכֵּיתִי כָּל-בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מֵאָדָם וְעַד בְּהֵמָה, וּבְכָל אֱלֹהֵי מִצְרַיִם אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים. אֲנִי ה'. | "And the Lord took us out of Egypt" - Not though an angel and not through a seraph and not through a messenger, but [directly by] the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, as it is stated (Exodus 12:12); "And I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and I will smite every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from men to animals; and with all the gods of Egypt, I will make judgements, I am the Lord." |
| כג וְעָבַר יְהוָה, לִנְגֹּף אֶת-מִצְרַיִם, וְרָאָה אֶת-הַדָּם עַל-הַמַּשְׁקוֹף, וְעַל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת; וּפָסַח יְהוָה, עַל-הַפֶּתַח, וְלֹא יִתֵּן הַמַּשְׁחִית, לָבֹא אֶל-בָּתֵּיכֶם לִנְגֹּף. | 23 For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. |
Perhaps one answer is that the "destroyer" is really also God. But the question is felt. Rashi himself makes the question even more acute, because he includes both concepts explicitly in his commentary, that God did the plague Himself, but also set loose an external "destroyer".
On 12:12 he states:
| will I wreak judgments-I The Lord: I by Myself and not through a messenger. — [from Passover Haggadah] | אעשה שפטים אני ה': אני בעצמי ולא על ידי שליח: |
| and you shall not go out, etc.: This tells [us] that once the destroyer is given permission to destroy, he does not discriminate between righteous and wicked. And night is the time that destroyers are given permission, as it is said: “in which every beast of the forest moves about” (Ps. 104:20). — [from Mechilta] | ואתם לא תצאו וגו': מגיד שמאחר שנתנה רשות למשחית לחבל אינו מבחין בין צדיק לרשע, ולילה רשות למחבלים הוא, שנאמר (תהלים קד כ) בו תרמוש כל חיתו יער: |
And on 12:23 states
| and He will not permit the destroyer: Heb. וְלֹא יִךְתֵּן, lit., and will not give. [I.e.,] He will not grant him the ability to enter, as in “but God did not permit him (נְתָנוֹ) to harm me” (Gen. 31:7). | ולא יתן המשחית: ולא יתן לו יכולת לבא, כמו (בראשית לא ז) ולא נתנו א-להים להרע עמדי: |
Sefaria has some interesting Haggadah commentaries available. Some respond to this inherent question:
The Kimcha Davshuna (Rabbi Johanan Treves, published 1541) suggests that destroyer in 12:23 refers to the destruction God is raining on Egypt, but not to some external being. So it's God alone, not permitting Himself(?) to go into Jewish homes. This doesn't work with Rashi, and it doesn't work very well with the verse.
Maaseh Nissim has an interesting answer. He also points out that there are several references to "malach"s taking us out of Egypt, such as Numbers 20:16:
| טז וַנִּצְעַק אֶל-יְהוָה, וַיִּשְׁמַע קֹלֵנוּ, וַיִּשְׁלַח מַלְאָךְ, וַיֹּצִאֵנוּ מִמִּצְרָיִם; וְהִנֵּה אֲנַחְנוּ בְקָדֵשׁ, עִיר קְצֵה גְבוּלֶךָ. | 16 and when we cried unto the LORD, He heard our voice, and sent an angel, and brought us forth out of Egypt; and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border. |
So he takes the idea from Maimonides that a "malach" can refer to natural occurrences. What it means, then, that God is performing this plague without a "malach" simply means that this is the direct will of God, and not nature.
In my own Haggadah collection, I see that Rav Yaakov Emdin in Metiv Nagen also asks from the verse in Numbers that states explicitly that an angel took the Israelites out of Egypt. He answers within the well-used "law" of angels that they cannot be used for more than one job. Therefore, it was an angel that took us out of Egypt, but it was ot alone in doing so. It was God who (indirectly) took them out of Egypt, and God who (directly) struck the firstborns. For, he says, you shouldn't say that God-forbid God would ever do something so cruel, and you would rather place it on the sitra achra. No! It was God Himself, and that's why 12:12 states again, "I am God." For there was actually mercy here, in that even if the Jewish first-born was in an Egyptian house, he would be saved, which never would have happened if God let the other angels loose. And it was a mercy for the Egyptians, because the angels can't distinguish between the firstborn and the not firstborn, and all Egyptians would have died.
The Avudraham tries to answer first the question of the verse in Numbers that states that, "He (God) sent an angel, and he took us out of Egypt", really means that God sent Moses (which Rashi there states, by the way), and it wasn't the angelMoses that took them out, but rather the next phrase is going back on God, that "He sent an angel, and He took us out..." But he notes this does not help us with the thorny problem of the doorposts protecting the Israelites from the "destructor". To that, he says that "destructor" could mean "the destruction," which we see happen in the Torah every so often. He points to Genesis 18:17's "hamechaseh", but I don't see it.
But outside the Haggadah, we have some of the commentaries on Chumash.
The Baalei HaTosafot (Daat Zekenim on 12:23) answer that "ani velo malach" means "My glory and him, not just him alone" - "וי"ל דהכי פירושו אני בכבודי וגם המלאך, ולא המלאך לבדו כי לא יתכן שיהי' ה' בלא מלאך".
The Chizkuni on 12:23 says very similarly: ולא יתן המשחית ומה שאמרו רבותינו ועברתי בארץ מצרים. אני ולא מלאך היינו שלא ישלח מלאך במקומו אלא הוא בעצמו בכבודו ירד למצרים ועמו מלאכי משחית להשחיתם.
It seems to me there is some support for this kind of answer from the Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 2:1 (10a), also found in Yerushalmi Horiyot 3:1 (12a):
כד אתא רחמנא למיפרוק ית ישראל לא שלח לא שליח ולא מלאך אלא הוא בעצמו דכתיב ועברתי בארץ מצרים הוא וכל דרגון דידיה.
When the Merciful One came to redeem Israel, He did not send a messenger, nor an angel, but He Himself, as it is written, "And I passed through the land of Egypt" - Him and all His staff of officers with Him.
The Ramban answers it a bit better, that though God was the one directly involved in the striking of the Egyptian firstborns, there is automatically a destructive angel that pops up when plague goes around (and he points us to II Smauel 24:16). It was to protect the Jewish people from this other source of death that God is referring to in 12:23: המלאך המשחית בעולם בעת הנגף, כעניין ויאמר למלאך המשחית בעם רב עתה הרף ידך (ש"ב כד טז), לא המשחית במצרים, כי הקדוש ברוך הוא הוא המכה:
The Abarbanel's understanding of the "destructor" is that it was not an angel, but some kind of air-borne disease that was protected miraculously through the performance of the required mitzvot such as milah and pesach:
ואמנם מה הוא המשחית אשר זכר ושיזכור אחר זה ולא יתן המשחית לבוא אל בתיכם לנגוף הנה הוא לדעתי אויר מעופש שורף שחידש הקב"ה על דרך הפלא והיה נכנס בבכורות מדרך הפה והנחירים והולך אל לבם פתאום והוא היה המשחית שאינו מבחין בין צדיק לרשע כי אינו בעל דעת ובחינה. והיה מהנס האלהי שבזכות הפסח והמילה לא נכנס האויר המעופש ההוא בבתיהם של ישראל
...
אבל מכת בכורות עשאה הקב"ה בעצמו מבלי אמצעי ולפניו ילך דבר והיה בזה סכנה עצומה לחוטאים כי בקום למשפט אלהים לא לפניו חנף יבא וישראל היו מלוכלכים בגלולי מצרים והיה משורת הדין בהלקות את השרים העליונים שכל עובדיהם ימחו מספר חיים. ומפני הסכנה העצומה שהיה בזה לחטאים בנפשותם הגדיל ה' לעשות עם ישר' לצוותם שיעשו מעשה מיוחד וינצלו מתוך ההפכה
This is pretty close to the Maaseh Nissim's answer. Rav Hirsch says similarly on Deuteronomy 11:14:
ונתתי: "אני לא על ידי מלאך ולא על ידי שליח" (ספרי). ירידת הגשם היא תמיד מעשה של השגחת ה' הישירה ואין היא רק תוצאת פעילותם הבו - זמנית של חוקי הטבע שנקבעו אחת ולתמיד. הסיבה הראשונה היא השגחת ה'. על פי האמור במסכת תענית ב ע"א מפתח של גשמים הוא אחד משלושת המפתחות, שהם בידו של הקב"ה ולא נמסרו ביד שליח, "ואלו הן: מפתח של גשמים ומפתח של חיה (יולדת) ומפתח של תחיית המתים".There are other midrashim that understand certain promises by God as "Me and no messenger or angel." It could be a statement that though the world runs on nature, sometimes God promises miraculous outside-of-nature occurrences. There seems to be this running theme here.
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