1 And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.OMFG are we stuck in a rut here! And Exodus got off to such a good start.
2 Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land.
3 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
4 But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.
5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
6 And Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded them, so did they.
7 And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.
8 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
9 When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent.
10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.
13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.
15 Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand.
16 And thou shalt say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear.
17 Thus saith the LORD, In this thou shalt know that I am the LORD: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.
18 And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.
19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.
20 And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
21 And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
22 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said.
23 And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also.
24 And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river.
25 And seven days were fulfilled, after that the LORD had smitten the river.
God has Moses tell Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. God hardens Pharaoh's heart, so he won't let 'em go. Wet hair, lather, rinse, repeat.
There are, nonetheless, a few interesting beats here.
First of all, God says he's made Moses into a deity for Pharaoh, and Aaron his is prophet. So far, YHWH hasn't responded well to man playing God, so this is an interesting wrinkle.
We find that Moses is three years younger than Aaron. Once again the baby brother is upstaging his elder sibling.
At long last, there's a fresh tell-Pharaoh variation: the intensely homo-erotic snake-off.
Intriguingly, Pharaoh's magicians can pretty much keep up with the tricks Moses learned from God. Do these magicians trade in real magic? Most intriguing — I wonder if we'll encounter more stories of these unholy miracle men.
Still, God made Moses' serpent-stick the most potent of all. And — you'll never guess — Pharaoh's hard heart won't budge.
And who pays the price for God's decision to make Pharaoh intractable about permitting the picnic plan? It's all the fish in the river, and the Egyptian people who can't drink from the bloody brook.
After your kids finish watching Finding Nemo for the 43rd time, be sure to tell them how the Almighty treats innocent little fishies.
Now, why the magicians repeat the red-river trick is beyond me, but it didn't mean much to Ol' Hard Heart, either.
Meanwhile the Egyptians citizens are desperately digging for a drop to drink. God is love, doncha know?
11 comments:
The constant references of the old testament calling god "the Lord God of the Hebrews" reeks of polytheism. A lord god makes me think there are other gods to lord over, and god of the Hebrews leaves the door open for other peoples gods. Not very convincing for a monotheistic religion. I'm curious to find out when he becomes the one and only.
Krankor, that's an excellent point, definitely something we should watch for in the chapters ahead -- thanks!
Thank you for the welcome...
In reply to krankor:
The word "god", in this context, is meant to imply that whom you serve and who has power. The Jews served YHWH, whose name Jews would generally not even write down because it was so "holy". They refered to Him as a god, because that's what he was. Polytheism during that time and in that area was accepted. You are right at implying that the Jews may have believed in multiple gods: In acknowledging thier god as THE ONE God, Lord of Lords, God of all, they did not necessarily rule out the idea that there may be other gods as well (in the very human sense, refering more to belief and not necessarily truth/reality). What the Jews accepted, however (based off of thier experience, not just some made up god or formed image, contrary to the surrounding cultures), is just that if there WERE other gods, they were all under YHWH's authority. And YHWH to them WAS real; indeed the only TRUE "God".
In reply to your comment (in your last post), where you said:
"Many folks want our public schoolchildren to read the Bible as literature. That's what I'm doing -- taking the approach of treating the text as the proper focal point (as opposed to relying on historical background docs or other analysis)."
Yeah, I am aware of the new trend in public schools to start teaching the Bible, as literature - much like one would teach Shakespeare. However, as was done in my Shakespeare class, they do in fact use various other sources (such as context and other history) in order to help guide the understanding of a story. Granted, much less in High School than in College. But, as you said, they don't take everything literally. (And the the Shakespearian era is much easier for our culture to understand than is the ancient Hebrew culture, simply because it was so long ago.)
Concerning this particular post:
In verse one, it's meant to be understood that Moses is like a god to Pharoa (which is why some translations such as the NIV add the word "as" or "like" to make that point clear).
In some places the author writes that God hardens Pharoah's heart, while in other places (such as Exodus 8:15) he writes that Pharoah hardened his own heart. Read in one sitting, this reflects the Jewish concept that although we are responsible for our own choices, nothing happens that God does not first choose to allow to happen. (People call that his "natural will".)
Some scholars believe that God did cause Pharoah's heart to be hardened, actively and purposefully. Others believe that God hardened his heart only in the sense that, through his own experiences and developed character under God's allowance (in consistancy with the idea that God does not force us to will anything), Pharoah's heart was hardened, and that the Jewish writer was simply trying to express to us the idea that God is in control.
(Either one may be the accurate understanding, but we can't know for sure, obviously.) Just throwing that out there.
Concernig the passive-aggressive attack on God's love:
God is also just, and in ancient history God's purpose was to show the world through the Jewish nation that He is the one and only God, with all power and authority, and to show the world what is good; what to do and what not to do in order to keep themselves from harm. During this time, in order to be understood (by the poorly-developed morality of the time) He acted toward nations as a whole, rather than individual people as He does now. If the Jewish nation was guilty of a sin, He would reveal that to them through pain or discomforts or other such curses; and if they were righteous, He'd reward them with blessings. Here, he does the same with the Egyptian nation.
-Cormack.
"LORD God of the Hebrews" is roughly "YHWH el [Hebrews]" in Hebrew, i.e. "YHWH (the god of the Hebrews)", which is perfectly reasonable to write, and not indicative of polytheism. But, it does seem to be written from a point of view where "Hebrews" are "them"; i.e. the writer isn't one of them. If you are interested in biblical Polytheism, you really need to be looking at place names, people's names (like Meribaal and Zadok), and the early Psalms (Psalm 82 and 89, for example) - careful about translations, sometimes they obscure the polytheism present in the Hebrew.
The thing to bear in mind about these Plague passages is that they are spliced together from three earlier documents [documentary hypothesis again]. They can be untangled...
The Yahwist story is Moses (just Moses) appealing to Pharoah to let the people go, Pharaoh refuses, so god sends the plague, then pharaoh agrees to let the people go under certain conditions, so Moses begs god to end the plague, at which point Pharaoh recants his release of the people. This happens repeatedly, with pharaoh gradually being more willing to let the people go, until eventually pharaoh is positively begging that the Israelites leave, even giving them gifts as an incentive.
Elohist story is similar, but Moses actually threatens the Pharaoh, and, with the magic of his rod, creating the plague - note that Moses brings the plagues here, whereas in the Yahwist it was God who brought them. The plagues are more dramatic, less naturalistic. Moses threatens a final plague, involving the death of the firstborn, but pharaoh is so petrified by now that he insists the Israelites leave, even chasing them AWAY.
So these two versions get joined together at some point, and the joined-together version is seen by the Aaronids, who disagree with the idea of a supernatural Moses, and his direct communication with God. So they produce their own version of the story - the priestly source.
In the priestly source, Moses isn't bargaining for release of the isrealites at all. Indeed, his actions HARDEN the pharaoh's heart (in the earlier sources, the opposite happens). The plagues are just a show of force, to demonstrate Yahweh's power (yes, its utterly disgusting to victimise people just to show how powerful you are, but that's the kind of mindset that the priestly source entails). The "magicians" belong to this source; they are there to contrast with Yahweh's power - to show that its more powerful than mere conjuring. Notice also that instead of Moses "doing" the plagues, this time its Moses asking Aaron to make God do them; always Moses AND Aaron, not Moses on his own like the earlier sources. At the end of this, the death plague is carried out (again, its the priestly source just being its typical genocidal self again), but it "passes over" the Israelites, hence the "passover" festival (see below). Pharoah chases after the Israelites to BRING THEM BACK.
There are 4 plagues in total, in the Yahwist: (1) smiting the river (2) flies (3) hail (4) Locusts
In the Elohist, some of the plagues get split. River smiting (fish die, and frogs swarm) becomes a plague of blood and a seperate plague of frogs. Hail (which destroys crops and kills cattle) becomes a plague of pestilence (against cattle) and a plague of fire-hail (against crops). Locusts (which cover the sky) become Locusts and a different plague of darkness. This makes the total 7, or 8 if the threat of death is included.
The priestly source only uses 5 plagues - like the Yahwist (after the "death" plague is included), so the Yahwist's tradition may have been known to the priestly source. The priestly source doesn't have the locusts, hail, or darkness plagues, and the flies become lice. Putting the three sets of plagues together, you get ten plagues - the "hail" and "fire-hail" plagues are treated as distinct, in the combined text, as are the "lice" and "flies".
Passover actually has nothing to do with death "passing over" anything. Thats a theologically-biased folk etymology by the priestly source. In reality it was just a simple beginning-of-spring festival. Its the feast of the firstborn lamb - you'll see that in the yahwist and elohist descriptions of the ceremony, which appear later in the text. The term "passover" translates a word (~"pesach") which literally means "spring/bounce"; it originally referred to newborn lambs - the original purpose of the ceremony (much like the reason that "spring" is called "spring"). Newborn first of anything were traditionally sacrificed to Yahweh (then eaten), hence the lamb-based Passover meal (and the lambs blood on the doors in the story).
Historically, the Hyksos - the most likely candidates in Egyptian records for the Israelites in Egypt - were deposed and chased out of Egypt; much closer to the Yahwist and Elohist version of events at the end of the story (though the Hyksos were always viewed as enemies, and it wouldn't have been a case of pharaoh gradually weakening his stance).
And as to "God's love", he later orders the Genocide of the Canaanites, among other crimes against humanity. And that's before you even begin to consider him torturing Job just for a bet.
Oh, by the way, the snake-off has very little to do with homo-eroticism. Snakes were a standard magic trick in the middle east (for example, the musically charmed cobra kept in a basket, etc.). Additionally, snakes were a symbol of some Israelite deity (possibly Yahweh) worshipped in ancient Israel - particularly the deity represented by the Nehustan (a bronze snake, which was a cult object - the bible says it was created by Moses in honour of God saving people from snakes [but that's just a folk tale to give an explanation to something ancient whose presence was otherwise embarrassing to certain conservative religious viewpoints] - much later Josiah condemns the Nehustan as heretical, and evidently it was worshipped/treated as an idol/fetish [only sexual fetishes are sexual, a "fetish" is an object believed to have supernatural powers, usually associated with a deity]).
If you want homo-eroticism, you'll have to look up parts of the song of songs (aka Song of Solomon aka Canticles), and the story of david and Jonathan (who david "loved more than women") stripping off, holding each other close, kissing, and "weeping" until one of them "enlarged" [the hebrew term literally means "enlarged", but is variously rendered "exceeded"/"wept the most"/"weeping especially hard"/"exerted himself"/"cried louder"/. In old arabic, the related term means "got an erection". And then there's Absalom later kissing all the men who came to see David, and as a result, stealing "their hearts".
Have you ever read about the Gnostics, by the way. They were a major Christian group (some still exist, but they were heavily supressed - the inquisition and the crusades (the first crusade was the Albigensian crusade - against the Gnostics in southern france, otherwise known as the Cathars and Alibigensians) both began as an attempt to quosh the Gnostics, and the term "bugger" is a slur against Gnostics in Bulgaria (in french: Bugre) - the Bogomils if I remember correctly).
Well, these Gnostics, they were christians, at least in their own eyes, except that they were mystics who believed that the bible should be interpreted esoterically, with the interpretation itself also having a deeper underlying esoteric interpretation, etc. A large number of Gnostics thought that there were two gods in the Bible, not one, wit h the old Testament God, known to them as the "demiurge" being pure evil. They basically turned the interpretation of the Bible on its head. For example, they viewed Adam + Eve as a story about the demiurge wickedly trying to hide knowledge from Adam+Eve, while the heroic serpent manages to ensure that they get it in the end.
Here, according to the Gnostics, the reason that God is evil to the Egyptians, is that God is just plain evil anyway. Everytime the Gnostics managed to get a foothold (from its beginnings with Marcion and his teachers in the first and second centuries, to its appearance in 14th century people in the south of france), they were a rapidly spreading group. With Marcion they nearly managed to take over the church by sheer force of numbers, the spread of the Cathars was such that it would have lead to the same situation if it hadn't been stopped. Imagine what could have been - vicars shouting from the pulpit about how evil and wicked God is.
I have read limited things about gnostics and the canon or the book or whatever it was that was left out of the bible by those who eventually formalized it in the 2nd or 3rd century. I like their theology much better than the mainstream Catholicism and its unfortunate they decided it wasnt worth keeping.
(cont'd) I think the belief that knowledge as a spiritual path that leads to salvation would have made christianity's influce much more positive on the world. Though it does make sense that the church would stamp it out considering its roll in subduing free thought.
Cormack, re: the "passive/aggressive attack on God's love."
There are two prongs to that "attack," namely:
* So far, I'm not seeing YHWH as font of love
* I'm tweaking the religious fundamentalists who generally turn out to be something less than loving
Of course, as Karen Carpenter once sang, we've only just begun...
Anonymous,
Again thanks for the extensive commentary about authorship and religious practice.
How accepted or controversial would you say that the documentary hypothesis is?
Is accepting the hypothesis tantamount to repudiating the literalists?
Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, perhaps you could include some kind of name/handle (as Cormack does), so I can address you in a friendlier manner than just "Anonymous"?
Hello. I prefer to be enigmaticly anonymous.
How accepted is the documentary hypothesis? It has somewhere over 90% support. Its a core topic in most university theology courses. Even the Vatican supports it (or at least it did under the previous Pope) - and it sometimes appears in the footnotes of the Vatican-sanctioned NAB (New American Bible). You'll find it extensively in most serious academic Bible commentaries (encyclopedia-like books that analyse the entire Bible line by line). If you want to read more about it, a good easy-to-read introduction is "Who wrote the Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman. A more hardcore-academic text is "The Bible with sources revealed", which is exactly what it says - the bible, with the Yahwist and Elohist bits highlighted in different colours, etc.
Krankor: There are still a few ancient Gnostic and Gnostic-like sects surviving. The Mandaeans, for example, survive in parts of Iraq (the situation there isn't really helping their survival, especially as they are abject pacifists); Mandaeans have John the Baptist as their saviour (in a manner of speaking) - interestingly, they honour John the Baptist, while viewing Jesus as an ordinary unimportant man. Then there are the Sabians [not the Sabaeans, who are something else entirely]. The history of the Gnostics is really quite fascinating, involving war, international politics, religion, and sex; just wait till you see what the second/third century Carpocracians did, and what they said Jesus had done at night with that naked guy near the end of the gospel of Mark. Then there's the puzzle over Mark 16:9-20, and the secret gospel of Mark, a real mystery. That's something for when the blog gets round to the Gospels I suppose. That's a long way off yet. So, if you're interested and want a head start, try reading "The Gnostic Paul", written by Elaine Pagels, who is no less than professor of Theology at Harvard. You might also like to read about (and read) the [Coptic] gospel of Thomas (not the same as the Infancy Gospel), the recently discovered Gospel of Judas, and just try and read the Trimorphic Protennoia.
Back to "God Is Love" and fundamentalists. Just the other day I happened to be reading something about what Leviticus 18:22 (and the related part of Leviticus 21) literally says - I'm assuming you'll get to that later, and I'll leave most of what I can say on that topic for then. But Leviticus 18:22 is one of the key verses used by fundamentalists against homosexuality; most bible translations are quite biased in how they render the verse (some even distort it so far that it says "homosexuality is an abomination", even though, for a start, it doesn't mention anything other than what appears to be anal sex between men). What I was reading the other day was about the underlying Hebrew; it doesn't mention two men "doing it" together, it mentions an ordinary man "doing it" with a man sanctified to God - the underlying words are very different. And that, together with the use elsewhere of the particular term rendered "abomination" (the english term is the translation for several different Hebrew terms), seems to suggest that its actually a condemnation of people who use religious-prostitution. More details when you get to Leviticus 18 and 21. Similar passages also specify the death penalty for adultery, and for children who speak out of turn; its odd, isn't it, that fundamentalists never choose to be consistent, and insist that, along with condemning homosexuals, naughty children should also be stoned to death.
Anyway, back to the Book of Exodus...
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