Episode 78: Pete Enns - Pete Ruins Exodus (Part 1)
There’s a lot more going on in the book of Exodus than what you’ve seen on the big screen or heard in church. More than a story of deliverance, Exodus is a subtle literary creation that contains many surprises when we read it closely. Join Pete here for Part 1 of this series where he looks at some big picture issues (like “did it happen?”) before walking us through the themes of chapters 1 and 2.
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Pete: You’relistening to the Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on theinternet. Serious talk about the sacredbook. I’m Pete Enns.
Jared: And I’m JaredByas.
[Jaunty Intro Music]
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Bible ForNormal People. Today’s episode is a soloepisode. Not only that, but it’s thebeginning of a series on the book of Exodus that I’m calling “Pete RuinsExodus,” just because I like being that kind of guy. This is not about ruining anything. It’s more about digging deeper into somethingthat 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 fromother angles, not ones we might have gotten from Veggie Tales or the TenCommandments 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 lookat. That’s all. I just like the Bible and I want to talkabout it. So here we go.
Also, I said a series. This is a series. Do not hold meto how many episodes. I have noidea. It just depends on how thingsgo. 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’sa lot going on. Especially, with thefirst three/four chapters, those are such thick and rich chapters. So much information is just baked into thesechapters, that I think that it’s well-worth our time to maybe slow down alittle 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 thebook of Exodus into sections. And foreach section, drop down into the book and focus on things that, I think, areinteresting or important or the kinds of things a lot of people talk about, allfor 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 backgroundissues that all have to do with history that keep coming up, and I want tointroduce them here. We’ll come back tothem occasionally during the course of these podcasts. But the first has to do with authorship ofthe 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 wascompiled more than written from various traditions over several centuries andthen brought together at a later time in Israel’s history. That is pretty much my point of view aswell. But it’s not the most importantthing we’ll talk about here, because we are going to try to deal on the levelof where theology and history sort of come together, and not focus entirely onthings 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 knowswho wrote the book. To say that Moseswrote it is really a guess because the book’s anonymous, just likeGenesis. 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 themodern 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, oneperson wrote this in one sitting at the time of Moses’ life, which might havebeen right around the 13th Century or something like that. It’s unlikely that that’s the case. But this podcast series is not aboutthat. I’m just throwing it out therebecause it will come up.
The other issue is just, the basic(est) issue ofhistoricity, fancy way of saying, “Did any of this happen?” What I’ll do is, as we go through thepodcast, is say things like, “In the logic of the narrative,” because I don’tnecessarily want to commit myself to whether things happened or didn’thappen. 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’twant to presume anything one way or the other. I want to just let the book have its way and talk the way it wants totalk.
Did any of this happen? That’s a question that’s of some importance, especially for some modernreaders, not for everyone. I think of itthis way. The reason why digging intohistory 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, andknowing something of context, knowing something of when might help usunderstand 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 aboutMartin Luther King Jr. I want to talkabout Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” Somebodymight say, “Okay. Well, for MartinLuther King, Jr., we have to talk about also just the setting of the 1960s’Civil Rights Movement.” You say, “Noway. I don’t—I’m not interested inthat. I just want to talk about MartinLuther King Jr. or FDR.” “Yeah. Hehelped America get out of the Depression and he was the president during theSecond World War.” And somebody says,“Hold on a second here. Who cares? Ijust 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 contextualbeings and social beings. No one’s anisland. Knowing something about the pastsetting might help us understand the theology of the text, which is really thegoal for me.
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Not only that, but you have sort of a triangle here. You’ve got history, theology and then otheraspect is the Bible as literature. Andit is. We’ll see that too, here in thebook of Exodus.
Think of it this way. You have a writer living in history who is trying to communicatesomething of a theological nature through writing. How he writes the literature, when he writesthe history affect how we read the theology. Those things all hang together. Tojust read Exodus without a view towards literature or history, it can reallywind up obscuring the message and not helping it very much.
A few more words about history. Because again, this is something that comesup a lot and so much of this book is an object of apologetic defense. Did the Exodus happen as the Bible says itdid? 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, thatthere is no direct evidence whatsoever for an Israelite presence in the land ofEgypt at any point in time. In otherwords, there’s just nothing there. There’s nothing Egyptian, and the only source we have is an Israelitesource, the Bible. We don’t have anymusings from other nations. We don’thave any material, evidence, in other words, archeological evidence. There’s nothing there.
There’s evidence for a lot of things that are in theBible. But for this big event, we justdon’t see much. That’s at least worthstating. That doesn’t prove nothinghappened. 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 expectthe Egyptians to talk about this humiliating defeat on the part of a slavepopulation that left Egypt? They wouldwant to bury that and not talk about it.” That’s just not true.
What ancients did was, when something bad happened, theydidn’t try to ignore it. They spunit. I would expect something. We see this, actually, elsewhere in the OldTestament, vis a vis, other nations and how they talk about things. We would expect the Egyptians to have spunand said, “Listen, our gods were mad at us. Therefore, we lost our slaves. It’s not that we’re weak. It’sthat we were disobedient.” That’s acommon ancient way of handling embarrassing moments.
Plus, you can’t really keep this quiet. It’s not like no one would have heard ofit. It was pre-internet, but still, theMoabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Babylonians, somebody would haveheard of this mass escape of slaves and the economic and ecological destructionof Egypt.
It’s hard to imagine that the silence of Egyptian sources isactually an argument for historicity, which is how some people try todefend. But I think it just doesn’twork. Having said that, I think there issuggestive evidence for the fact that something happened, which is sort of myposition. Something happened.
For example, one of the oldest pieces of Hebrew literaturethat we have comes from the book of Exodus, Chapter 15. The oldest manuscripts we have of Exodus area couple of hundred years before Christ. Nothing really before that. That’s the Dead Sea Scrolls. That’s the oldest textual evidence we haveof anything in the Bible, with a couple of exceptions, but not really relevantfor this discussion.
But, Chapter 15, called the Song of Moses or the Song of theSea—this is considered, by linguists, to be evidence of very old writing on thepart of the Hebrews. It could go as farback as about 1200 BCE, which would make it very old and would make it not longafter these kinds of events would have transpired. Just think about that. Exodus 15 is a song praising Yahweh forkilling the Egyptians in the sea. That’sreally what it is. “You’re so great. You’re awesome. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
Probably Exodus 15 was changed and adapted and added tolater in Israel’s tradition. Probablythe 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 manuscriptthat has a lost Shakespearean play or something like that, we would knowinstinctively where to put that historically. We wouldn’t put it in the 19th Century. We wouldn’t put it in the 12thCentury. We wouldn’t put it in the 21stCentury. We’d put it where it belongs,right in the middle there somewhere.
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We know enough about the development of the English languageto know pretty much where things should belong. That’s what linguists do of Semitic languages like Hebrew andothers. They’re able to see evolutionarydevelopments in languages because all languages evolve. All languages develop. You can see signs of that in Exodus 15, alongwith 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 hedies.
It’s interesting. This is suggestive that the earliest memory we have of the Israelites issomething 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 awarrior, which doesn’t stay that way throughout the whole Bible. But early depictions of Yahweh as a warriorwho rescues his people and beats up the Egyptians. That suggests that this is a very old memoryon the part of the Israelites and it’s not made up after the Exile or somethinglike that.
Another echo of history here is several of the names, one ofwhich is Moses’ name itself. We’ll getback to that soon enough. But Moses isalmost—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 somethinglike “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 longerEgyptian name. That doesn’t proveanything. It doesn’t prove thehistoricity of Moses. Doesn’t prove thehistoricity of the Exodus. What is doesindicate, though, is that there an Egyptian memory. There’s something about Egypt that seems tobe real and strong in Israel’s memory that would inspire the writing down ofstories like this.
It doesn’t seem like this is simply made up of out of wholecloth. 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 thatyou’re going to make up out of whole cloth. There’s seems to be a real authentic memory of something that has madeits way through Israel’s tradition and is now written down.
What some scholars say, and even Evangelical scholars (Ishouldn’t say “even”), but just to indicate how relatively broad this way ofthinking about it is, a way of looking at this book of Exodus is what some callmythicized history. If you’reinterested, 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 theytell the story gets overlaid with mythic elements. I use that word without embarrassment orshame or hesitation, because that’s what they are. We’ll get into this. They’re mythic elements that are used tocommunicate the full force of the impact of the story.
There are ways of telling stories of origins in the ancientworld 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, nothistoricized myth, but mythicized history is what I’m saying.
Others would say (this is really not a view that’s thatcommon anymore that it would be, not mythicized history, but historicizedmyth. In other words, it’s something that’sfoundationally mythic, and then you just put some names and places attached toit to make it look historical. That doesn’tseem to be the case. You’re on prettysafe grounds saying something like, “There’s a historical base, but it’smythicized. That’s just the way theytold 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 Biblefrom a thirty-thousand-foot view. When Ido that, I see these 40 chapters and I divide the book into two parts. The first 15 chapters are all about departingfrom Egypt and then the rest of the book are all about the Sinaiexperience. So 1-15 and then basically16-40. Most of Exodus happens on Mount Sinai.
By the way, Mount Sinai is really the location of, not justmost of Exodus, but all of Leviticus and the first ten chapters ofNumbers. Basically, the center chunk,the heart of the Pentateuch, takes place on Mount Sinai. About a year transpires in the logic of thenarrative. About a year transpires onMount Sinai, which means, you’re really slowing down the clock here andspending a lot of time at what happens on this mount, which is an indication tous that this is important. Exodus isreally about getting to Mount Sinai. That’s really what the story’s about.
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Let’s break this down a little bit further, because this iswhere we’re going to go with this series. Chapters 1 to 15. This is allabout the departure from Egypt. I wouldsay the first four chapters are all about preparation. It’s about the preparation for the actualdeparture. The problem isintroduced. 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 andthey’re battling and it’s the plague narrative.
Chapters 14 and 15 are the story of the departure from Egyptitself, 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 fromEgypt. Chapter 15 is the poeticsection. That’s one of the oldersections of Hebrew literature, as I mentioned before. You have the preparation, the plagues, thenthe departure. That’s the first 15chapters.
The rest of the book is all about, first of all, getting toMount Sinai. That’s Chapters 16 to18. They arrive in Chapter 19. They won’t depart from there until Numbers Chapter10. They’re going to be there for a longtime.
Then, the laws—that’s Chapters 20 through 24—20 is the TenCommandments. The rest are somethingcalled the Book of the Covenant (which we’ll look at some of those laws lateron in this series).
Then comes this Tabernacle section. That begins in Chapter 25. The last—more than a third of the book istaken with something to do with the Tabernacle. It’s a bit tedious. We’re not going to spend 15 weeks on theTabernacle, but we’re going to spend a little bit of time, because there’sstuff 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, youdidn’t give up and you’re at the Tabernacle section because “who cares,” right? But the instructions for building theTabernacle are Chapters 25-31. Theactual building of the Tabernacle are Chapters 35-40.
Sandwiched in-between is the famous episode of the GoldenCalf, Chapters 32 to 34. And we’ll takeeach of those in turn, obviously, when we get there.
That’s the basic gist of it and, I thought, today, we’ve gota little bit of time. We can just startoff her with Section One and see where we go, because I have no idea wherewe’re going. We’ll see where we go. Who knows where we’ll end up. Anyway. Okay.
Section One. This isabout Chapters 1 to 4. This is about thepreparation, as I said. We’re going totake 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 ofthe way. It’s sets up what’s going tofollow. I think it’s worth paying someattention to.
The big view here (these first four chapters) is thatthere’s a problem, a big problem. Fromthe Egyptian point of view, here’s the problem. The problem is that there are too many Israelites and they mightrebel. The solution is, eventually—well,there are actually three that are attempted. One is enslavement. That sort ofworks, but it doesn’t work. We’ll lookat that in a second. Another is, youhave—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 whenthey’re born. That doesn’t work. Eventually, the third solution is to throwthe male Hebrew children into the Nile.
Israel is under threat. They’re not just enslaved. They’re actually under threat. Thatposes a problem. Israel’s underthreat. Now another solution isoffered. This solution is, of course,Moses—Moses is called to deliver the Israelites. We’re introduced to Moses here in this partof the story.
In Chapter One—these are just some things that I think thatare worth noticing. Throughout, I’ll belooking 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 notdriving.
Chapter One. Here aresome things that I think are worth noticing in the chapter that aren’t alwaysdrawn out. Actually, three in the firstchapter. The first is the introductionof a theme that will become very, very important in the course of this book,and that is the theme of creation. Youcan see this already. It’s hidden alittle bit, but not too much. In ChapterOne, look at Verse 7. It talks about howthe Israelites were fruitful and prolific and they multiplied.
This is echoing Genesis One language because the Israelitesare actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing. They’re in accordance with God’s will byincreasing in number, which is exactly the thing that has this Pharaoh freakedout, this unnamed Pharaoh freaked out. Andso he wants to do something about it. Hesays, “There are too many. They mightactually 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.
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But you see, we should not lose sight here of how Pharaohand Egypt are being posited here by the writer as sort of an anti-godforce. Not just ???? enslavement, butthe problem they have is that there are too many Israelites, which is exactlywhat God wants. By trying to keep the populationdown, they’re going against the creation mandate.
As I said, is something that will come up again and againand again in, especially, the first fifteen chapters—actually, no, the wholebook. What am I talking about? The whole book has this creation themehappening and it’s introduced to you already. Actually, when they’re enslaved, as an attempt to curtail thepopulation, we read in verse 12, the more they were oppressed, the more theymultiplied and spread. It actuallybackfires. That attempt to reduce thepopulation actually results in them increasing all the more. This is an indication of God’s favor. This is actually an indication of where thiswhole book’s going.
Egypt’s attempt to hold the Israelites at bay and to squashthe Israelites and to squash their god are going to backfire. They’re not going to work. This is already hinted at here at the verybeginning.
Actually, speaking of Genesis here, this is a connectionback to Genesis One. But there’s anotherinteresting connection here to Genesis, which again, shows us something of theliterary style and intentionality of this writer. Because in verse 10, this is the peoplesaying, “Look. The Israelites—they’remore numerous, more powerful than we. Come let us deal shrewdly with them.” That same cadence, that same language is used in the Tower of Babelstory. “Come let us make bricks. Come let us build the tower up to heaven.”
Of course, that effort (if you know that story) is squashedby God, because God later says, “Come let us go down and see.” The divine response also begins, “Come letus.” As you’re reading this, you seehere an echo of the Tower of Babel story. Again, this is an indication that at some point in the Exodus story, Godis 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 thesewriters to make these connections to other parts of their story, especially thebook of Genesis, oh boy, is Genesis just a wonderful place for this writer togo to draw connections with the story of the Exodus. If we’re expecting that, we’re going to seeit and I think we should just keep our eyes open to all that stuff.
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Creation theme. That’s a big thing.
A second thing is women in Exodus are being introducedhere. We have a few of them, especiallyin Chapter Two. We’ll get to that. They’re sort of heroes by undermining thework of this Pharaoh. You have these twowomen, 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 whothe Pharaoh is, but maybe they don’t remember his name. But the point is that they do remember thesemidwives’ names, because they do something pretty good. They outwit the king and they do so by lying.
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The king says to—the Pharaoh rather—he says to “kill themale 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 timewe get there, these Hebrew women are so vigorous, by the time we get there,they’ve already given birth. These areamazing women. They just drop kids allover the place. We can’t get there intime.”
That’s not true. That’s a lie. What a lot of mystudents wind up asking about this story (maybe you’ve asked it too), is why dothey lie and why is it okay with God to lie like that. I tell them, with complete respect, “that’s avery white question to ask. That’s avery privileged question.” Because when you’reliving 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 nolegal system. If you want to get awaywith stuff that you know is right, that you know that you have to do, in theface of absolute power, which is the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, you have to becrafty and you have to lie. This is notthe only time we see this sort of thing in the Bible. You have to tell stories to people in powerto outwit them. This is really notlying. This is outwitting. This is using your wiles and your abilitiesto 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’sbad 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 placesin the Old Testament, where, just like it suggests, you are tricking otherbecause you’re disenfranchised and you’re out of power and this is what youhave to do.
Again, we’re going to meet other women, especially inChapter Two with Moses’ sister and Pharaoh’s daughter. You have this group of women in Chapters Oneand Two who outwit the almighty Pharaoh, which makes him look ratherridiculous, that he’s being so easily outwitted by these women. I think that’s, in my opinion, the intentionof the writer. It’s not simply—it’s notto 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 elevatewomen, as much as it is to make Pharaoh look ridiculous that you have hissister, Moses’ sister, and Pharaoh’s own daughter and these two lowly Hebrewmidwives who are slaves, they’re able to outwit this Pharaoh so he doesn’t knowwhat’s going on. As a result, Moses isdrawn into the household of Pharaoh and he grows up there, which will haverather significant implications as the story goes on.
Third thing. We havethe creation theme. The introduction ofwomen in Exodus. Also, this idea ofdrowning the male children in the Nile. That’s the third of the three attempts on the part of Pharaoh to reducethe population of the Israelites. It’sonly 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 oneswho go to war. They’re also the onesthrough whom the lineage is traced and so if you want to further disenfranchisea people that have, let’s say, a nationalistic or an ethnic identity, the wayto do that is to get rid of the men. Thewomen 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 fordrowning. We have to think here of howthis story will end. The Red Sea. Especially the Tenth Plague too. The Tenth Plague and the Red Sea. The way many interpreters, especially Jewishinterpreters throughout history have read this, is that the Tenth Plague, whichis the death of the firstborn, and also the Red Sea, which is the drowning ofthe 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, “Justicemeans 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 anonramp to get to the Red Sea episode. There are Ten Plagues. They’rerather drawn out. We’ll get into allthat stuff. It could have been oneplague. 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 onfor a bit. It’s all about building upthe tension for that final moment where God finally does what, again, in thelogic of the narrative, God finally does what God has been wanting to do, namely,vengeance on the Egyptians. “You willdie because of how you treated my children.”
It’s interesting. When we get to Chapter Four, we’ll see how when God tells Moses toconfront 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 yourchildren are going to get it too.” Itmakes sense. The theology makes sense iswhat I’m saying. It may be a little bitgruesome, 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.
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Ok, so those are three things that happen in the firstchapter and some of these things we’ll come back to, namely the Nile and theCreation theme. Those things hangtogether.
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’sprobably important, because we’re not given much information about the book ofcharacters, 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 thefirst high priest. He’s of the tribe ofLevi as well. That’s an important detailfor this author because Tabernacle, sacrifice, priesthood, all this stuff getsintroduced in the book of Exodus. Themain guy here, Moses, is of that same tribe and nd his brother, Aaron, who willbe the high priest. That’s just laid outthere 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 papyrusbasket as the New Revised Standard Version has it. And it’s lined with bitumen and pitch to keepit from sinking. The Hebrew word herefor this basket is a rare word in the Old Testament. It’s only used here and then way back in theflood story to describe the ark. TheHebrew word is “tevah.” That’s notirrelevant. That’s pretty importantbecause what you have is Moses—this is like another Noah, and he’s in an arkand he will be delivered from this watery threat. As a result, there will be a new beginningfor 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 youknow he’s doing something new when he’s saving people through water. Guess where else in this story God is goingto 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 thisstory that actually echoes back to Genesis Chapter One as well. I’m going to leave that for later, becauseit’s really clear when you get to Chapter 14 that it’s not just Noah, but we’regoing back to Genesis Chapter One in this story. There are echoes of the creation story itselflater 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 himafloat and follows the basket and sees where it goes and Pharaoh’s daughterpicks it up. The two of them conspire tokeep 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’sready?” “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 hegrows up in the house of Pharaoh. Wehave these thoughtful women outwitting Pharaoh and finding a way to keep thisinfant 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 himand says, “Wow. This is fantastic.”
We have these women outwitting Pharaoh again. Also, the name Moses—I mentioned before itprobably has an Egyptian echo to it. Butin the story itself, the writer gives Moses a very different meaning, a Hebrew meaningfrom 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 thisname. It’s Pharaoh’s daughter, whichraises a couple of questions. Numberone: did she know Hebrew? The chances for knowing Hebrew, maybe, maybenot. I think it’s unlikely. Most people think it’s unlikely. Why would she bother learning the tongue ofthe slaves? They have to learn theirtongue, not the other way around.
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But more importantly, why would she give him a Hebrew nameto 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 thepretty standard answer in Biblical scholarship, if it’s of interest toyou. I hope it is. This is what is called a folketymology. It’s not a scientific,linguistic etymology. But it’s a folk etymology. It’s how the Israelites later explain thename of Moses from their point of view. It’s possible the author may not have understood Moses’ name, maybe fewpeople did. Who knows? But at least, the writer intentionally givesthis name a Hebrew significance that has something to do with the storyitself. So it’s unlikely that Pharaoh’sdaughter named him this, because it would have been rather nonsensical for herto do that. The name has some historicalresidences with Egypt. But from theHebrew 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 olderstory, going back to late third millennium BCE, of a king, Sargon, of a placecalled Akkad (there’s where we get the word Akkadian from, if that helps). We have a similar kind of rags to richesstory. He’s threatened and he’s saved bythe 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 muchso, that scholars typically think, not so much in terms of the Moses story isborrowed from this story of Sargon from a long time ago, but it’s more like astandard way of talking about the origins of a great person, sort of like arags-to-riches story. That seems to bewhat’s happening here, and again, these are the kinds of things have to bediscussed when you’re talking about the historicity, like we said earlier, whenyou’re talking about the historicity of this episode. These are the kinds of things that you haveto really take into account somehow and try to explain. Again, it may not mean that Moses neverlived. But it may mean that Moses’actual history, the way we think of it, may not be exactly how the Bible hereis 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 atheologically meaningful way of telling this story that really speaks to thepeople who are recounting their past and setting a vision for their present anda vision for their future.
If we’re expecting this to be totally distant from historyand have no connection with the Sargon story, I think that’s a tough hill toclimb. Using literary motifs from othernations is not unheard of in the history of humanity. You sort of do that. You learn how to tell stories from theenvironment that you’re in. That seemsto be what’s happening here as well. Mosesis already being styled as, clearly, this guy’s going to be a greatleader. Look at how history isbeginning. This is how you tell thestory of a great leader in that time.
Then he flees (little Moses) to Midian and he flees therebecause he was found out. He saw anEgyptian beating a Hebrew slave and he intervened and he killed the Egyptianand hid him in the sand. Way to goMoses! Way to not be impulsive! But you see what’s happening here is thatwe’re seeing Moses as a grown man. Weknow nothing of his infancy except for that little story. But here is a grown man and he’s doing nowwhat he’s going to be later on. He’sprotecting 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 goingto be doing later on his life throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers andDeuteronomy. He saves a slave from the Egyptians,he protects his own people. But then thenext 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 tokill 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 upa lot in the story of Moses throughout the next few books of the Bible. We have another example of something is thatis a preview of coming attractions.
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The biggest one is that he flees and where does he fleeto? He flees to Midian, whichanticipates the same path that the Israelites will take later on. He goes to Midian (we’re jumping aheadhere). He meets Yahweh on Mount Sinaiand Yahweh says, “Go get the people and bring them back here to worship.” It’s almost like a trial run, escaping Egyptto go to Midian. He’ll come back andthen he’ll take the people.
More subtlety, however, this story of going to Midian hasanother 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 bringsJoseph to Egypt and there’s a Midian connection here to with Moses that willbring him back to Egypt. Midian is also,if I remember this right, he’s also one of Abraham’s sons through Keturah namedMidian. There’s something about theancestors in Genesis that is evoked by the word Midian.
Another point about this flight to Midian is this is wherehe’s going to meet his wife by a well. Zipporah. She’s the daughter of Jethro, the priest ofMidian. This, again, connects him tothese 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 orsomething. Probably not. It’s a motif. It’s the dessert. You’ve got todrink and you meet people by a well. Buthe’s doing it too. This is acontinuation of this theme from Genesis.
One last point and then we’ll stop for today. We see here at the end of Chapter Two, Ithink, a very, very important moment in the story that is worthremembering. It’s the last three versesof Chapter Two. I just want to readthem.
“After a long time, the king of Egypt died.”
This Pharaoh that had impressed them and enslaved them, hedies.
“This Israelites groaned under their slavery and criedout. Out of the slavery, their cry forhelp rose up to God. God heard their groaningand God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites and God tooknotice of them.”
The reason I want to draw this out just a little bit isbecause this is giving us the reason for the Exodus. Why does God deliver His children fromEgyptian slavery? It’s basically to keepa promise to the Patriarchs, meaning Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is who God speaks to in the Old Testamentin the book of Genesis, especially, in Chapter 15, where he’s engaging Abrahamand he says, “Listen, your descendants are going to be slaves in Egypt for 400years, but I’ll get them out and I’ll bring them into this land and everythingwill 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 theplace. There are even laws in Exodusabout 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 cryingout. I hear you groaning and I don’tlike slavery.” It’s more “I made apromise 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 couldthrow a little Hebrew on you here—in English, it’s rather cumbersome.
“God looked upon the Israelites and God took notice ofthem.”
But in Hebrew, it’s just a few words. “God saw the Israelites. God knew.”
I just love that. Godsaw. God knew.
This is not taking God by surprise. God is going to do something. From here on out, what we’re really going tosee 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 tohappen.
[Outro Music Begins]
Alright folks, well we’re going to stop there. That’s notbad, 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 justgoing to happen by Divine direction I think; it’s just going to happen. Butuntil then, and as always, thank you for listening. Folks, when you pressdownload and then push to listen, we’re very thankful that you’re letting usinto 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 findt-shirts of various colors, even youth sizes, with all sorts of fun little sayingson them and polo shirts, which I have, and fleece hoodies, hats, beanies, all differentcolors and sizes. We have a lot of mugs, tote bags, and we even have onesiesfor your babies. We’re actually working on an adult onesie but we’re trying to figureout 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, whynot? 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.
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