Exodus 11:2
"Please speak to the ears of the People that they should borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from her neighbor, artifacts of silver and of gold."
Rashi: Please, speak-. Heb. דַבֶּר-נָאis only an expression of request. [The verse is saying] I ask you to warn them about this, [i.e., to ask their neighbors for vessels] so that the righteous man, Abraham, will not say He fulfilled with them [His promise] “and they will enslave them and oppress them” (Gen. 15:13), but He did not fulfill with them “afterwards they will go forth with great possessions” (Gen. 15:14). — [from Ber. 9a] I Genesis 15:13-14: "Your descendents will be strangers in a strange land, be enslaved... and afterwards leave with great wealth" The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (painting by David Roberts) See the Parsha Bo commentary on Tohu Bohu. And this comment: "There is another interpretation of the "deliverance" or "despoiling" of the Egyptians by the Israelites: First of all, asking for items of value is the first act of freed slaves, and a good sign that, while they still suffer from the mental bondage of their recent slavery, they are capable of asking for something for themselves, and then taking it. (The Hebrew for "borrow" and "ask" is the same - perhaps something like, "can I borrow a kleenex?") It is also only through the Israelites "asking" for items of value from the Egyptians that the Egyptians are saved. For hundreds of years they were either actively or passively complicit in the cruelty and enslavement of the Israelites. It is through voluntarily giving gifts - something like reparation - that they, themselves are redeemed. Imagine what a different history of race relations we might have had if freed slaves had asked white southerners to voluntarily give them valuable items, and the southerners had assented." Rabbi Miseh WIllig writes at Yeshiva Torat Shraga about the "borrowing": "Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem's Old City, suggests a delightful and ingenious solution to these questions: The pasuk in Tehillim (115, 4) says of the idols worshipped by pagan nations: "Their idols are of silver and of gold, the handiwork of humans". It is safe to assume, suggests Rav Nebenzahl, that similar to many of the archeological finds from ancient Egypt, many of the gold and silver vessels given to Bnei Yisrael by the Egyptians were engraved with images of Avodah Zarah. This would present a serious problem, because a Jew can not derive any pleasure from Avodah Zarah. This would mean that every time one of the Bnei Yisrael would use one of the vessels from Egypt, he would transgress a serious aveira. Additionally, a Jew who possesses Avodah Zarah is obligated to destroy it! What would be the point of shlepping such gifts across the desert? " Elsewhere in the parsha, Hashem promises that "I will pass judgment on all the gods of Egypt" (Shemos 12, 12). Rashi there explains that Hashem caused the wooden idols to rot, and the metal ones to melt. Now, the Gemara in Maseches Avodah Zarah tells us that if an idol is destroyed, it looses its status of Avodah Zarah, and no longer carries an issur hana'ah- a prohibition of deriving pleasure, nor a chiyuv bi'ur- a requirement to destroy it. But there is one condition: to become permissible, the Avodah Zarah can not be in the possession of a Jew. In his possession, the idol will always retain its issur, no matter what. Now we can understand why Hashem specifically had the Bnei Yisrael borrow the Egyptian treasure- so that when the Avodah Zarah would melt, it would be rendered permissible, since it would still technically belong to non-Jews. This is what David Hamelech meant by saying that there was "no stumbling block" in the gold and silver of Mitzrayim."