00:00
Pete: You’re
listening to the Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the
internet. Serious talk about the sacred
book. I’m Pete Enns.
Jared: And I’m Jared
Byas.
[Jaunty Intro Music]
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Bible For
Normal People. Today’s episode is a solo
episode. Not only that, but it’s the
beginning of a series on the book of Exodus that I’m calling “Pete Ruins
Exodus,” just because I like being that kind of guy. This is not about ruining anything. It’s more about digging deeper into something
that is familiar to a lot of people.
The story of Exodus has this universal appeal. But I’d like to take a look at this book from
other angles, not ones we might have gotten from Veggie Tales or the Ten
Commandments or the Prince of Egypt or something like that. Because there’s a lot going on. This is a deeply theological book. I think it’s just a fun thing to look
at. That’s all. I just like the Bible and I want to talk
about it. So here we go.
Also, I said a series.
This is a series. Do not hold me
to how many episodes. I have no
idea. It just depends on how things
go. We’ll see. It could be three. It could be 30. Not 30.
But, it’s going to be something more than just a couple, because there’s
a lot going on. Especially, with the
first three/four chapters, those are such thick and rich chapters. So much information is just baked into these
chapters, that I think that it’s well-worth our time to maybe slow down a
little bit at the beginning and take larger chunks as we go on. That’s sort of what I’m planning.
My plan, then, is to, as you’ll see in a second, divide the
book of Exodus into sections. And for
each section, drop down into the book and focus on things that, I think, are
interesting or important or the kinds of things a lot of people talk about, all
for the purpose of helping us understand the theology of this book more clearly,
because it is a book of theology.
There’s no question about that.
Now as we get started, there are a couple of background
issues that all have to do with history that keep coming up, and I want to
introduce them here. We’ll come back to
them occasionally during the course of these podcasts. But the first has to do with authorship of
the book, namely who wrote it, and when.
The bottom line is nobody knows.
Nobody really knows who wrote the book of Exodus. In fact, most scholars think that is was
compiled more than written from various traditions over several centuries and
then brought together at a later time in Israel’s history. That is pretty much my point of view as
well. But it’s not the most important
thing we’ll talk about here, because we are going to try to deal on the level
of where theology and history sort of come together, and not focus entirely on
things like where did the book come from, who wrote it. Those things are relevant. We’ll see that in a second. But it’s not the focus. But the bottom line is nobody really knows
who wrote the book. To say that Moses
wrote it is really a guess because the book’s anonymous, just like
Genesis. They’re all anonymous. We don’t know who wrote any of these books.
Tradition has Moses, but a lot of work, not just in the
modern period, but even going back to Medieval Judaism and even before that,
people have picked up that it’s hard to look at a book like Exodus and say, one
person wrote this in one sitting at the time of Moses’ life, which might have
been right around the 13th Century or something like that. It’s unlikely that that’s the case. But this podcast series is not about
that. I’m just throwing it out there
because it will come up.
The other issue is just, the basic(est) issue of
historicity, fancy way of saying, “Did any of this happen?” What I’ll do is, as we go through the
podcast, is say things like, “In the logic of the narrative,” because I don’t
necessarily want to commit myself to whether things happened or didn’t
happen. I do think things happened. We’ll get to that in a second too.
Again, defending the book historically is not my point. I don’t want to defend anything and I don’t
want to presume anything one way or the other.
I want to just let the book have its way and talk the way it wants to
talk.
Did any of this happen?
That’s a question that’s of some importance, especially for some modern
readers, not for everyone. I think of it
this way. The reason why digging into
history is actually more than just interesting, but it’s important, is that,
while these texts were written by people at some point in time in the past, and
knowing something of context, knowing something of when might help us
understand something of why these texts were written.
I mean, think about this.
Pick a figure like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
and say, “Yeah. I want to talk about
Martin Luther King Jr. I want to talk
about Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” Somebody
might say, “Okay. Well, for Martin
Luther King, Jr., we have to talk about also just the setting of the 1960s’
Civil Rights Movement.” You say, “No
way. I don’t—I’m not interested in
that. I just want to talk about Martin
Luther King Jr. or FDR.” “Yeah. He
helped America get out of the Depression and he was the president during the
Second World War.” And somebody says,
“Hold on a second here. Who cares? I
just want to talk about Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” You can see how nonsensical that is. Right?
You have to talk about context because human beings are contextual
beings and social beings. No one’s an
island. Knowing something about the past
setting might help us understand the theology of the text, which is really the
goal for me.
05:24
Not only that, but you have sort of a triangle here. You’ve got history, theology and then other
aspect is the Bible as literature. And
it is. We’ll see that too, here in the
book of Exodus.
Think of it this way.
You have a writer living in history who is trying to communicate
something of a theological nature through writing. How he writes the literature, when he writes
the history affect how we read the theology.
Those things all hang together. To
just read Exodus without a view towards literature or history, it can really
wind up obscuring the message and not helping it very much.
A few more words about history. Because again, this is something that comes
up a lot and so much of this book is an object of apologetic defense. Did the Exodus happen as the Bible says it
did? Just introduce it here. I don’t want to get into it too much. We’ll see things along the way. But it’s worth noting, first of all, that
there is no direct evidence whatsoever for an Israelite presence in the land of
Egypt at any point in time. In other
words, there’s just nothing there.
There’s nothing Egyptian, and the only source we have is an Israelite
source, the Bible. We don’t have any
musings from other nations. We don’t
have any material, evidence, in other words, archeological evidence. There’s nothing there.
There’s evidence for a lot of things that are in the
Bible. But for this big event, we just
don’t see much. That’s at least worth
stating. That doesn’t prove nothing
happened. But it’s at least a fact. It is a fact that we don’t have evidence.
Now some say, not to get into this too much, but some say, “Why would we expect
the Egyptians to talk about this humiliating defeat on the part of a slave
population that left Egypt? They would
want to bury that and not talk about it.”
That’s just not true.
What ancients did was, when something bad happened, they
didn’t try to ignore it. They spun
it. I would expect something. We see this, actually, elsewhere in the Old
Testament, vis a vis, other nations and how they talk about things. We would expect the Egyptians to have spun
and said, “Listen, our gods were mad at us.
Therefore, we lost our slaves.
It’s not that we’re weak. It’s
that we were disobedient.” That’s a
common ancient way of handling embarrassing moments.
Plus, you can’t really keep this quiet. It’s not like no one would have heard of
it. It was pre-internet, but still, the
Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Babylonians, somebody would have
heard of this mass escape of slaves and the economic and ecological destruction
of Egypt.
It’s hard to imagine that the silence of Egyptian sources is
actually an argument for historicity, which is how some people try to
defend. But I think it just doesn’t
work. Having said that, I think there is
suggestive evidence for the fact that something happened, which is sort of my
position. Something happened.
For example, one of the oldest pieces of Hebrew literature
that we have comes from the book of Exodus, Chapter 15. The oldest manuscripts we have of Exodus are
a couple of hundred years before Christ.
Nothing really before that.
That’s the Dead Sea Scrolls. That’s the oldest textual evidence we have
of anything in the Bible, with a couple of exceptions, but not really relevant
for this discussion.
But, Chapter 15, called the Song of Moses or the Song of the
Sea—this is considered, by linguists, to be evidence of very old writing on the
part of the Hebrews. It could go as far
back as about 1200 BCE, which would make it very old and would make it not long
after these kinds of events would have transpired. Just think about that. Exodus 15 is a song praising Yahweh for
killing the Egyptians in the sea. That’s
really what it is. “You’re so great. You’re awesome. Blah.
Blah. Blah.”
Probably Exodus 15 was changed and adapted and added to
later in Israel’s tradition. Probably
the Exodus 15 that we have was not all old from the 12th Century,
but there are elements of it that linguists say make sense in that time period.
Think of it this way: if someone were to find a manuscript
that has a lost Shakespearean play or something like that, we would know
instinctively where to put that historically.
We wouldn’t put it in the 19th Century. We wouldn’t put it in the 12th
Century. We wouldn’t put it in the 21st
Century. We’d put it where it belongs,
right in the middle there somewhere.
10:09
We know enough about the development of the English language
to know pretty much where things should belong.
That’s what linguists do of Semitic languages like Hebrew and
others. They’re able to see evolutionary
developments in languages because all languages evolve. All languages develop. You can see signs of that in Exodus 15, along
with passages like Judges Chapter 5.
This is the story of Deborah.
That’s another one. Very often,
scholars will look at Genesis 49, Jacob’s last words to his sons before he
dies.
It’s interesting.
This is suggestive that the earliest memory we have of the Israelites is
something that has to do with departing from Egypt. It’s interesting. That’s like the earliest record we have.
It’s also the earliest record we have of. Yahweh as a
warrior, which doesn’t stay that way throughout the whole Bible. But early depictions of Yahweh as a warrior
who rescues his people and beats up the Egyptians. That suggests that this is a very old memory
on the part of the Israelites and it’s not made up after the Exile or something
like that.
Another echo of history here is several of the names, one of
which is Moses’ name itself. We’ll get
back to that soon enough. But Moses is
almost—it just sounds like an Egyptian name.
You have that element. Moses,
that’s at the end of other names, like King Tut, King Tut Moses. That’s the full name, which means something
like “born of a god, born of the god Tut or Toth,” spelled, pronounced differently,
depending on who you ask.
That Moses element seems to be part of an originally longer
Egyptian name. That doesn’t prove
anything. It doesn’t prove the
historicity of Moses. Doesn’t prove the
historicity of the Exodus. What is does
indicate, though, is that there an Egyptian memory. There’s something about Egypt that seems to
be real and strong in Israel’s memory that would inspire the writing down of
stories like this.
It doesn’t seem like this is simply made up of out of whole
cloth. Who would make up, frankly, a story of national origins that goes,
“Yeah, we were slaves for a long time and then we escaped.” It doesn’t seem like the kind of story that
you’re going to make up out of whole cloth.
There’s seems to be a real authentic memory of something that has made
its way through Israel’s tradition and is now written down.
What some scholars say, and even Evangelical scholars (I
shouldn’t say “even”), but just to indicate how relatively broad this way of
thinking about it is, a way of looking at this book of Exodus is what some call
mythicized history. If you’re
interested, I think I wrote a blog post about this a year or so ago. You can find it on the website.
But mythicized history.
In other words, it’s history that mythicized. Something happened, but then the way they
tell the story gets overlaid with mythic elements. I use that word without embarrassment or
shame or hesitation, because that’s what they are. We’ll get into this. They’re mythic elements that are used to
communicate the full force of the impact of the story.
There are ways of telling stories of origins in the ancient
world and implying mythic themes is one of them. We see that in the book of Exodus. But here’s the point. The root of it is some historical experience,
but that gets told in any mythicized way, as opposed to the opposite, not
historicized myth, but mythicized history is what I’m saying.
Others would say (this is really not a view that’s that
common anymore that it would be, not mythicized history, but historicized
myth. In other words, it’s something that’s
foundationally mythic, and then you just put some names and places attached to
it to make it look historical. That doesn’t
seem to be the case. You’re on pretty
safe grounds saying something like, “There’s a historical base, but it’s
mythicized. That’s just the way they
told stories back then.”
Again, those are just two preliminary issues: authorship and historicity. We’ll get back into all this stuff, no doubt,
as we continue this series.
But here, let’s start this way. The big picture.
Exodus, second book of the Bible. Got it.
Good.
Forty chapters long and I like looking at books of the Bible
from a thirty-thousand-foot view. When I
do that, I see these 40 chapters and I divide the book into two parts. The first 15 chapters are all about departing
from Egypt and then the rest of the book are all about the Sinai
experience. So 1-15 and then basically
16-40. Most of Exodus happens on Mount Sinai.
By the way, Mount Sinai is really the location of, not just
most of Exodus, but all of Leviticus and the first ten chapters of
Numbers. Basically, the center chunk,
the heart of the Pentateuch, takes place on Mount Sinai. About a year transpires in the logic of the
narrative. About a year transpires on
Mount Sinai, which means, you’re really slowing down the clock here and
spending a lot of time at what happens on this mount, which is an indication to
us that this is important. Exodus is
really about getting to Mount Sinai.
That’s really what the story’s about.
15:24
Let’s break this down a little bit further, because this is
where we’re going to go with this series.
Chapters 1 to 15. This is all
about the departure from Egypt. I would
say the first four chapters are all about preparation. It’s about the preparation for the actual
departure. The problem is
introduced. Moses is introduced. We can sort of see where this is going.
Then, starting in Chapter Five and going to Chapter 13. Now we have Moses engaged with Pharaoh and
they’re battling and it’s the plague narrative.
Chapters 14 and 15 are the story of the departure from Egypt
itself, the Red Sea Crossing or the Sea of Reeds. We’ll get to that too. It’s probably Sea of Reeds. It’s not Red Sea.
Chapter 14 is the narrative version of the departure from
Egypt. Chapter 15 is the poetic
section. That’s one of the older
sections of Hebrew literature, as I mentioned before. You have the preparation, the plagues, then
the departure. That’s the first 15
chapters.
The rest of the book is all about, first of all, getting to
Mount Sinai. That’s Chapters 16 to
18. They arrive in Chapter 19. They won’t depart from there until Numbers Chapter
10. They’re going to be there for a long
time.
Then, the laws—that’s Chapters 20 through 24—20 is the Ten
Commandments. The rest are something
called the Book of the Covenant (which we’ll look at some of those laws later
on in this series).
Then comes this Tabernacle section. That begins in Chapter 25. The last—more than a third of the book is
taken with something to do with the Tabernacle. It’s a bit tedious. We’re not going to spend 15 weeks on the
Tabernacle, but we’re going to spend a little bit of time, because there’s
stuff happening there that’s really, really interesting theologically.
This is the stuff you skip.
If you’re reading through Exodus and you make it past the laws, you
didn’t give up and you’re at the Tabernacle section because “who cares,” right? But the instructions for building the
Tabernacle are Chapters 25-31. The
actual building of the Tabernacle are Chapters 35-40.
Sandwiched in-between is the famous episode of the Golden
Calf, Chapters 32 to 34. And we’ll take
each of those in turn, obviously, when we get there.
That’s the basic gist of it and, I thought, today, we’ve got
a little bit of time. We can just start
off her with Section One and see where we go, because I have no idea where
we’re going. We’ll see where we go. Who knows where we’ll end up. Anyway.
Okay.
Section One. This is
about Chapters 1 to 4. This is about the
preparation, as I said. We’re going to
take a little more time here because these are thick chapters. There’s a lot going on. It’s not just preliminary stuff to get out of
the way. It’s sets up what’s going to
follow. I think it’s worth paying some
attention to.
The big view here (these first four chapters) is that
there’s a problem, a big problem. From
the Egyptian point of view, here’s the problem.
The problem is that there are too many Israelites and they might
rebel. The solution is, eventually—well,
there are actually three that are attempted.
One is enslavement. That sort of
works, but it doesn’t work. We’ll look
at that in a second. Another is, you
have—the midwives are told (if you’re familiar with this story)—the midwives,
these two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, are told to kill the mail children when
they’re born. That doesn’t work. Eventually, the third solution is to throw
the male Hebrew children into the Nile.
Israel is under threat.
They’re not just enslaved.
They’re actually under threat. That
poses a problem. Israel’s under
threat. Now another solution is
offered. This solution is, of course,
Moses—Moses is called to deliver the Israelites. We’re introduced to Moses here in this part
of the story.
In Chapter One—these are just some things that I think that
are worth noticing. Throughout, I’ll be
looking at the New Revised Standard Version if you want to follow along. That would be fine too. In fact, I hope you do, as long as you’re not
driving.
Chapter One. Here are
some things that I think are worth noticing in the chapter that aren’t always
drawn out. Actually, three in the first
chapter. The first is the introduction
of a theme that will become very, very important in the course of this book,
and that is the theme of creation. You
can see this already. It’s hidden a
little bit, but not too much. In Chapter
One, look at Verse 7. It talks about how
the Israelites were fruitful and prolific and they multiplied.
This is echoing Genesis One language because the Israelites
are actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing. They’re in accordance with God’s will by
increasing in number, which is exactly the thing that has this Pharaoh freaked
out, this unnamed Pharaoh freaked out. And
so he wants to do something about it. He
says, “There are too many. They might
actually rebel against us and join with our enemies and fight against us. We can’t have this. We have to keep them under wraps.” Which is why he enslaves them. That’s the first attempt.
20:15
But you see, we should not lose sight here of how Pharaoh
and Egypt are being posited here by the writer as sort of an anti-god
force. Not just ???? enslavement, but
the problem they have is that there are too many Israelites, which is exactly
what God wants. By trying to keep the population
down, they’re going against the creation mandate.
As I said, is something that will come up again and again
and again in, especially, the first fifteen chapters—actually, no, the whole
book. What am I talking about? The whole book has this creation theme
happening and it’s introduced to you already.
Actually, when they’re enslaved, as an attempt to curtail the
population, we read in verse 12, the more they were oppressed, the more they
multiplied and spread. It actually
backfires. That attempt to reduce the
population actually results in them increasing all the more. This is an indication of God’s favor. This is actually an indication of where this
whole book’s going.
Egypt’s attempt to hold the Israelites at bay and to squash
the Israelites and to squash their god are going to backfire. They’re not going to work. This is already hinted at here at the very
beginning.
Actually, speaking of Genesis here, this is a connection
back to Genesis One. But there’s another
interesting connection here to Genesis, which again, shows us something of the
literary style and intentionality of this writer. Because in verse 10, this is the people
saying, “Look. The Israelites—they’re
more numerous, more powerful than we.
Come let us deal shrewdly with them.”
That same cadence, that same language is used in the Tower of Babel
story. “Come let us make bricks. Come let us build the tower up to heaven.”
Of course, that effort (if you know that story) is squashed
by God, because God later says, “Come let us go down and see.” The divine response also begins, “Come let
us.” As you’re reading this, you see
here an echo of the Tower of Babel story.
Again, this is an indication that at some point in the Exodus story, God
is also going to have a “come let us” moment.
And that’s called the Plagues and the Red Sea.
It’s not terribly subtle.
It actually jumps out at you when you’re reading this story. If we’re looking for and even expecting these
writers to make these connections to other parts of their story, especially the
book of Genesis, oh boy, is Genesis just a wonderful place for this writer to
go to draw connections with the story of the Exodus. If we’re expecting that, we’re going to see
it and I think we should just keep our eyes open to all that stuff.
BREAK
Creation theme.
That’s a big thing.
A second thing is women in Exodus are being introduced
here. We have a few of them, especially
in Chapter Two. We’ll get to that. They’re sort of heroes by undermining the
work of this Pharaoh. You have these two
women, Shiphrah and Puah (by the way, who are named and Pharaoh isn’t). I think one reason why Pharaoh isn’t named,
because this may be very distant past memories and it doesn’t even matter who
the Pharaoh is, but maybe they don’t remember his name. But the point is that they do remember these
midwives’ names, because they do something pretty good. They outwit the king and they do so by lying.
24:58
The king says to—the Pharaoh rather—he says to “kill the
male children when they’re born” and they’re not doing it. He says, “What’s going on?” They say, “You don’t understand, by the time
we get there, these Hebrew women are so vigorous, by the time we get there,
they’ve already given birth. These are
amazing women. They just drop kids all
over the place. We can’t get there in
time.”
That’s not true.
That’s a lie. What a lot of my
students wind up asking about this story (maybe you’ve asked it too), is why do
they lie and why is it okay with God to lie like that. I tell them, with complete respect, “that’s a
very white question to ask. That’s a
very privileged question.” Because when you’re
living in a time where you don’t have power, where you’re disenfranchised,
where you’re marginalized, you have no power.
There’s no court to go to.
There’s no lawyer. There’s no
legal system. If you want to get away
with stuff that you know is right, that you know that you have to do, in the
face of absolute power, which is the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, you have to be
crafty and you have to lie. This is not
the only time we see this sort of thing in the Bible. You have to tell stories to people in power
to outwit them. This is really not
lying. This is outwitting. This is using your wiles and your abilities
to think on your feet to allow God’s purposes to go forward.
It’s not a moral issue.
“Oh no. They’re lying and it’s
bad to lie.” It’s not bad to lie. Not here.
There’s actually something that scholars study. It’s called the trickster theme. This is the theme that appears in many places
in the Old Testament, where, just like it suggests, you are tricking other
because you’re disenfranchised and you’re out of power and this is what you
have to do.
Again, we’re going to meet other women, especially in
Chapter Two with Moses’ sister and Pharaoh’s daughter. You have this group of women in Chapters One
and Two who outwit the almighty Pharaoh, which makes him look rather
ridiculous, that he’s being so easily outwitted by these women. I think that’s, in my opinion, the intention
of the writer. It’s not simply—it’s not
to elevate women in the abstract, although we can read it that way. I don’t that’s the intention of the writer. My opinion—I don’t think it’s to elevate
women, as much as it is to make Pharaoh look ridiculous that you have his
sister, Moses’ sister, and Pharaoh’s own daughter and these two lowly Hebrew
midwives who are slaves, they’re able to outwit this Pharaoh so he doesn’t know
what’s going on. As a result, Moses is
drawn into the household of Pharaoh and he grows up there, which will have
rather significant implications as the story goes on.
Third thing. We have
the creation theme. The introduction of
women in Exodus. Also, this idea of
drowning the male children in the Nile.
That’s the third of the three attempts on the part of Pharaoh to reduce
the population of the Israelites. It’s
only the male children, of course, as is with the midwives. Here is it with the Nile. It’s only the males because they’re the ones
who go to war. They’re also the ones
through whom the lineage is traced and so if you want to further disenfranchise
a people that have, let’s say, a nationalistic or an ethnic identity, the way
to do that is to get rid of the men. The
women will become the property of other men, namely Egyptians. So you get rid of them. This makes some sense historically.
But the men here are thrown into the Nile. Male infants are thrown into the Nile for
drowning. We have to think here of how
this story will end. The Red Sea. Especially the Tenth Plague too. The Tenth Plague and the Red Sea. The way many interpreters, especially Jewish
interpreters throughout history have read this, is that the Tenth Plague, which
is the death of the firstborn, and also the Red Sea, which is the drowning of
the Egyptians, that’s sort of tit for tat.
It’s eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth.
“If you do this to my children at the beginning,” Yahweh says, “Justice
means it will happen to you at the end.”
That’s the Tenth Plague and the Crossing of the Red Sea.
The plagues as a whole are really, in my opinion, just an
onramp to get to the Red Sea episode.
There are Ten Plagues. They’re
rather drawn out. We’ll get into all
that stuff. It could have been one
plague. It could have been none. It could have just been “go out.” Just leave, just part, go through the Red Sea. But you have this Ten Plagues and it goes on
for a bit. It’s all about building up
the tension for that final moment where God finally does what, again, in the
logic of the narrative, God finally does what God has been wanting to do, namely,
vengeance on the Egyptians. “You will
die because of how you treated my children.”
It’s interesting.
When we get to Chapter Four, we’ll see how when God tells Moses to
confront Pharaoh, he says, “Is this what you say? Israel is my son, my first-born.” Israel is like God’s child. “If you do this to my children, then your
children are going to get it too.” It
makes sense. The theology makes sense is
what I’m saying. It may be a little bit
gruesome, the violence here, but again, you’re reading the Bible, folks. We got to get used to the violence. It’s all over the place.
30:19
Ok, so those are three things that happen in the first
chapter and some of these things we’ll come back to, namely the Nile and the
Creation theme. Those things hang
together.
In the second chapter, this is where Moses is born. We’re introduced to Moses. We’re told that he’s a Levite. When the Bible gives details like that, it’s
probably important, because we’re not given much information about the book of
characters, and when we are, there’s probably a reason for it. But here, we’re told that he’s a Levite. Of course, his brother Aaron will be the
first high priest. He’s of the tribe of
Levi as well. That’s an important detail
for this author because Tabernacle, sacrifice, priesthood, all this stuff gets
introduced in the book of Exodus. The
main guy here, Moses, is of that same tribe and nd his brother, Aaron, who will
be the high priest. That’s just laid out
there right here at the beginning.
A second thing here in terms of Moses’ birth in Chapter Two,
is, as you know, the famous story, he’s put into a reed basket or a papyrus
basket as the New Revised Standard Version has it. And it’s lined with bitumen and pitch to keep
it from sinking. The Hebrew word here
for this basket is a rare word in the Old Testament. It’s only used here and then way back in the
flood story to describe the ark. The
Hebrew word is “tevah.” That’s not
irrelevant. That’s pretty important
because what you have is Moses—this is like another Noah, and he’s in an ark
and he will be delivered from this watery threat. As a result, there will be a new beginning
for God’s people, just like the Noah story.
He and his family are saved through a threat of water and as a result,
they’ll start something new.
We’re seeing the Noah story revisited here, but not just a
“what a nice little literary connection.”
The point is more theological that God is doing something new and you
know he’s doing something new when he’s saving people through water. Guess where else in this story God is going
to save people through water?
Exactly. Chapter 14 and 15. The departure from Egypt. The crossing of the Sea of Reeds. You’ve got this water deliverance in this
story that actually echoes back to Genesis Chapter One as well. I’m going to leave that for later, because
it’s really clear when you get to Chapter 14 that it’s not just Noah, but we’re
going back to Genesis Chapter One in this story. There are echoes of the creation story itself
later on, very prominently when we actually depart Egypt.
You have a reed basket.
Also, as I mentioned before, you have the sister here who puts him
afloat and follows the basket and sees where it goes and Pharaoh’s daughter
picks it up. The two of them conspire to
keep this infant safe from Pharaoh’s hands.
“I happen to know this guy’s mother.
You want me to bring him back and have her breastfeed him until he’s
ready?” “Yeah. That’d be great. Go ahead and do that.”
Three months or so and then he comes back. Actually, it’s more than that. It’s not three months. Actually, we don’t know how long it is. When he’s ready, he comes back and then he
grows up in the house of Pharaoh. We
have these thoughtful women outwitting Pharaoh and finding a way to keep this
infant safe, because they’re looking at this infant and for whatever reason,
this is a kid worth saving. At least,
that’s Pharaoh’s daughter’s point of view.
Moses’ sister would not have that kind of an issue, but she looks at him
and says, “Wow. This is fantastic.”
We have these women outwitting Pharaoh again. Also, the name Moses—I mentioned before it
probably has an Egyptian echo to it. But
in the story itself, the writer gives Moses a very different meaning, a Hebrew meaning
from a verb, a rare verb in the Old Testament that means “to draw out,” meaning
“because I drew Moses out of the water, I’m going to call him Moses.”
A problem with this is that who’s giving Moses this
name. It’s Pharaoh’s daughter, which
raises a couple of questions. Number
one: did she know Hebrew? The chances for knowing Hebrew, maybe, maybe
not. I think it’s unlikely. Most people think it’s unlikely. Why would she bother learning the tongue of
the slaves? They have to learn their
tongue, not the other way around.
34:55
But more importantly, why would she give him a Hebrew name
to begin with if the whole point is to keep him safe. At the dinner table with Pharaoh: “Hi. This is Moishe.” You’re not going to do that. You’re going to do something else. It’s unlikely that she gave him this name,
but here’s what’s happening. This is the
pretty standard answer in Biblical scholarship, if it’s of interest to
you. I hope it is. This is what is called a folk
etymology. It’s not a scientific,
linguistic etymology. But it’s a folk etymology. It’s how the Israelites later explain the
name of Moses from their point of view.
It’s possible the author may not have understood Moses’ name, maybe few
people did. Who knows? But at least, the writer intentionally gives
this name a Hebrew significance that has something to do with the story
itself. So it’s unlikely that Pharaoh’s
daughter named him this, because it would have been rather nonsensical for her
to do that. The name has some historical
residences with Egypt. But from the
Hebrew point of view, “who cares?”
That’s not furthering our story.
We’re going to look at this differently and give him a Hebrew etymology,
which means “to draw out of water.”
One more thing about Moses being drawn out of water. Everybody talks about this. This parallels a much, much, much older
story, going back to late third millennium BCE, of a king, Sargon, of a place
called Akkad (there’s where we get the word Akkadian from, if that helps). We have a similar kind of rags to riches
story. He’s threatened and he’s saved by
the court and his life is threatened.
But then he grows up in this court and winds up becoming a great king.
The Moses story follows that pattern very nicely, so much
so, that scholars typically think, not so much in terms of the Moses story is
borrowed from this story of Sargon from a long time ago, but it’s more like a
standard way of talking about the origins of a great person, sort of like a
rags-to-riches story. That seems to be
what’s happening here, and again, these are the kinds of things have to be
discussed when you’re talking about the historicity, like we said earlier, when
you’re talking about the historicity of this episode. These are the kinds of things that you have
to really take into account somehow and try to explain. Again, it may not mean that Moses never
lived. But it may mean that Moses’
actual history, the way we think of it, may not be exactly how the Bible here
is portraying it, like where he got his name from. This is a Hebrew overlaying. This is not really mythical. We’ll get to mythical overlays later. But this is still a legendary or a
theologically meaningful way of telling this story that really speaks to the
people who are recounting their past and setting a vision for their present and
a vision for their future.
If we’re expecting this to be totally distant from history
and have no connection with the Sargon story, I think that’s a tough hill to
climb. Using literary motifs from other
nations is not unheard of in the history of humanity. You sort of do that. You learn how to tell stories from the
environment that you’re in. That seems
to be what’s happening here as well. Moses
is already being styled as, clearly, this guy’s going to be a great
leader. Look at how history is
beginning. This is how you tell the
story of a great leader in that time.
Then he flees (little Moses) to Midian and he flees there
because he was found out. He saw an
Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and he intervened and he killed the Egyptian
and hid him in the sand. Way to go
Moses! Way to not be impulsive! But you see what’s happening here is that
we’re seeing Moses as a grown man. We
know nothing of his infancy except for that little story. But here is a grown man and he’s doing now
what he’s going to be later on. He’s
protecting his people from the threat, from the Egyptian threat.
Actually, this whole Chapter Two that talks about Moses’
flight to Midian is a preview of coming attractions. We’re seeing Moses do things that he’s going
to be doing later on his life throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy. He saves a slave from the Egyptians,
he protects his own people. But then the
next day, he sees two Hebrews arguing and he gets in the way of them and they say,
“What are you going to do? You going to
kill one of us too?”
There’s this whole grumbling and rebellion against Moses’
authority on the part of his own people that pops up a lot. If you know where this story goes, it pops up
a lot in the story of Moses throughout the next few books of the Bible. We have another example of something is that
is a preview of coming attractions.
40:01
The biggest one is that he flees and where does he flee
to? He flees to Midian, which
anticipates the same path that the Israelites will take later on. He goes to Midian (we’re jumping ahead
here). He meets Yahweh on Mount Sinai
and Yahweh says, “Go get the people and bring them back here to worship.” It’s almost like a trial run, escaping Egypt
to go to Midian. He’ll come back and
then he’ll take the people.
More subtlety, however, this story of going to Midian has
another echo of something in Genesis, namely the Joseph story. Joseph is cast into a well by his brothers,
but then sold to the Midianites, who then give them over to the Egyptians. There’s a Midian connection that brings
Joseph to Egypt and there’s a Midian connection here to with Moses that will
bring him back to Egypt. Midian is also,
if I remember this right, he’s also one of Abraham’s sons through Keturah named
Midian. There’s something about the
ancestors in Genesis that is evoked by the word Midian.
Another point about this flight to Midian is this is where
he’s going to meet his wife by a well. Zipporah. She’s the daughter of Jethro, the priest of
Midian. This, again, connects him to
these ancestral stories in the book of Genesis, namely Isaac and Jacob. They both meet their wives by a well. What is it about a well? It’s like a bar. I don’t know what it is. It’s just where you meet girls or
something. Probably not. It’s a motif.
It’s the dessert. You’ve got to
drink and you meet people by a well. But
he’s doing it too. This is a
continuation of this theme from Genesis.
One last point and then we’ll stop for today. We see here at the end of Chapter Two, I
think, a very, very important moment in the story that is worth
remembering. It’s the last three verses
of Chapter Two. I just want to read
them.
“After a long time, the king of Egypt died.”
This Pharaoh that had impressed them and enslaved them, he
dies.
“This Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried
out. Out of the slavery, their cry for
help rose up to God. God heard their groaning
and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites and God took
notice of them.”
The reason I want to draw this out just a little bit is
because this is giving us the reason for the Exodus. Why does God deliver His children from
Egyptian slavery? It’s basically to keep
a promise to the Patriarchs, meaning Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is who God speaks to in the Old Testament
in the book of Genesis, especially, in Chapter 15, where he’s engaging Abraham
and he says, “Listen, your descendants are going to be slaves in Egypt for 400
years, but I’ll get them out and I’ll bring them into this land and everything
will be fine.”
This is a promise that God made. It’s not simply God hates slavery. Forgive me.
God clearly doesn’t hate slavery because there are salves all over the
place. There are even laws in Exodus
about what to do with slaves and how to keep them and how to treat them. Slavery is not a bad thing. Not for this god. Not for here.
It’s not just “I don’t want slaves and I hear you crying
out. I hear you groaning and I don’t
like slavery.” It’s more “I made a
promise to Abraham and I’m going to keep it.”
That is the reason why they’re delivered from Egyptian slavery.
The last verse—I love the last verse here because if I could
throw a little Hebrew on you here—in English, it’s rather cumbersome.
“God looked upon the Israelites and God took notice of
them.”
But in Hebrew, it’s just a few words. “God saw the Israelites. God knew.”
I just love that. God
saw. God knew.
This is not taking God by surprise. God is going to do something. From here on out, what we’re really going to
see is what God is going to do to deliver the Israelites. Not so much Moses. But God sees and God knows. And now something absolutely is going to
happen.
[Outro Music Begins]
Alright folks, well we’re going to stop there. That’s not
bad, we did half of this preparatory section 1-4, we’ll finish it next time,
whenever that’ll be. I have no idea, I’m not planning this out folks, it’s just
going to happen by Divine direction I think; it’s just going to happen. But
until then, and as always, thank you for listening. Folks, when you press
download and then push to listen, we’re very thankful that you’re letting us
into your lives. We don’t take that for granted at all, and one last thing,
this is important, it’ll change your life. So 3 simple words: Grab. Some. Swag.
You can go to our store at thebiblefornormalpeople.com and you can find
t-shirts of various colors, even youth sizes, with all sorts of fun little sayings
on them and polo shirts, which I have, and fleece hoodies, hats, beanies, all different
colors and sizes. We have a lot of mugs, tote bags, and we even have onesies
for your babies. We’re actually working on an adult onesie but we’re trying to figure
out whether that’s actually legal in the state of Pennsylvania. But if it is,
oh boy, you’re going to see adult onesies here on this website. Because, why
not? That’s why. Because that’s how we roll, man, and that’s what we do. Ok folks,
anyway, thanks again for listening and we’ll be with each other next time. See ya.
[Music fades]
45:48
