Episode 91: Pete Enns - Pete Ruins Exodus (Part 3)
Pete continues his award-winning (his cat seems to like it) and mind-altering series on Exodus by diving into chapters 5-13: Moses and Aaron’s first confrontation with Pharaoh (which did and did not go well) and the story of the plagues, which are loaded with all sorts of symbolic, theological, and mythic meaning.
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- “There’s a theme here in Exodus - and this goes really throughout Scripture, Old and New Testaments - is that the Creator is the redeemer." @peteenns
- “I think that the Exodus story has a historical footing or grounding, but the story is not told in a way that simply preserves that. It’s told in ways that drives theology forward." @peteenns
Mentioned in this episode:
- Article: "Exodus in the Bible and the Egyptian Plagues" by Ziony Zevit
- Book: “The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son” by Jon D. Levinson
- Book: "How the Bible Actually Works" by Pete Enns
- Support: The Bible for Normal People Patreon
- Learn: The Bible for Normal People Courses
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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]
Pete: Hey Folks. Welcome to Part 3 of Pete Ruins Exodus. We’re going to cover a lot today. We’re going to cover Chapters 5 to the middle of Chapter 13, which is 9 ½chapters.
That’s okay. We’vebeen taking our time the first four chapters. We had two separate episodes on those because that’s where a lot is set uphere.
Now, we’re starting to get the meat of the book, at least,the meat of the first part of the book. I hope that will be clear by the time we get there. A battle’s gonna happen real soon.
I would divide these chapters into two parts. There’s the first part, which is 5 to abouthalf-way through Chapter 7. That is, fora lack of a better way of putting it, a transitionary section. I really don’t like the term, because itsounds like it’s unimportant. Everychapter in Exodus is important. Everychapter, every paragraph, builds to something that the writer wants tosay. Let’s not think of this asunimportant.
But it is a ramp to the plague stories, which is really acentral point here in the first half of the book. This is where Yahweh shows Pharaoh who’swho. We’ll look at that, too, at somelength, obviously.
These chapters (let’s stick with the first part here), verse5 to the middle of Chapter 7. Theybridge Moses’ call that we looked at in the early chapters. They bridge that to the big action, which isthe deliverance from Egypt, which is the plagues and then also, the crossing ofthe Sea of Reeds, popularly known as the Red Sea. But that’s not accurate. We’ll get to that too.
Just an overview here of this section. First, Moses and Aaron have their firstconfrontation with Pharaoh, which doesn’t go well, followed by God’sreassurance to Moses, followed by a genealogy stressing the priestly pedigreeof Moses and Aaron. Where’s that comingfrom? There’s a lot happening in thissection.
I just want to stick to some highlights here: my ownselective thoughts and what I think are important. As far as I’m concerned, you really get thegist of this transitionary section in the first few verses of Chapter 5. A lot of things are laid out there.
First, Moses and Aaron, they go to Pharaoh, and they say,“Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.” First of all, that gives us a sense as towhat the purpose of the exodus is. It’snot simply freedom because they don’t say to Pharaoh, “Let my people so we canjust do whatever.”
The purpose of this is to celebrate a festival, which is toworship and, in other words, there’s a reason for this. I know we touched on this way back on partone. It already comes up in chapter1. One of the the big themes of thisfirst part of the book until they cross the Red Sea is to whom do theIsraelites belong? Do they serve Pharaohas slaves or do they serve Yahweh as his worshippers? There’s a Hebrew word (it’s pronounced avad)which means “to serve” and it can have that double meaning.
One of the big questions is whom will Israel “avad”? Will they “avad” Pharaoh as slaves or willthey “avad” Yahweh as worshippers. Here,they tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go, so that (very important)—there’s apurpose—they might celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.”
What kind of a festival are we talking about? On Mount Sinai, they offer sacrifices whenthey get there. This is in Chapter 24,verse 5. It is what scholars call a“covenant meal.” They offer sacrifices. There’s eating involved. God eats. The people eat. That seems to bethe fulfillment of this request, when they get to Mount Sinai.
Jumping ahead just a little bit, just to get our juicesflowing here, don’t forget this famous golden calf episode, which is in Chapter32. That is a festival to Yahweh. They just do it wrong. They worship Yahweh in the form a golden calfand that’s a no-no. You don’t worshipGod in images of anything in creation. God doesn’t have images.
This is a really touchy point in this story, this goldencalf episode, which doesn’t happen for 20 chapters. It’s an anti-covenantal meal. It’s a meal. It’s a festival. It’s a worshipservice, but it goes awry and it’s just a horrible thing.
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We’ll get to that. Idon’t want to jump ahead too much. Ithink it’s worth highlighting where some of this stuff is going.
They ask Pharaoh to let them go and Pharaoh, of course, hasa very understandable response. He says, “I don’t know Yahweh. I don’t who this god is that you’re talkingabout. No. I’m not going to let the people go.”
The plague story—those 10 plagues—can be understood,theologically should be understood, as the process by which Pharaoh getsacquainted with who Yahweh is.
That may be one reason why there are 10 of them and wheythey’re so drawn out and why they take directions that they do, which we’ll getto a little bit later.
He doesn’t know who Yahweh is. Actually, I don’t blame him. I’m the king of Egypt and slaves say, “Ourgod wants us to go free to sacrifice to him.” “Well, no. What kind of a kingwould I be? What kind of gods would Ihave if I just let you do what your god says? That means your god is telling us what to do. That’s just not going to happen.”
It’s almost like picking a fight. That’s the way I look at this. It’s making a request that seems veryunreasonable.
That’s Pharaoh’s response.
You have a second plea on the part of Moses and Aaron. They say, “Our God—our God told us to go on athree-day’s journey to sacrifice or what’s going to happen? Yahweh will fall on us with pestilence andsword. You don’t understand. We’re in deep, hot water here if you don’tlet us go. We’re just going to go on athree-day’s journey to prevent God being angry with us.”
Which, by the way, is what’s going to happen to Egypt fornot letting them go. That’s one of thesenice ironies that happens in the book. One question to ask here “is this actually a truthful kind of plea ontheir part? Because a three-day’s journey? Really? Is that what this isabout?
We saw this in Chapter 3, verse 18, where, likewise, Godtells Moses to tell Pharaoh. Just say,“We’re gonna go on a three-day trip.” Does that mean a big trip and they’re gonna come back after those threedays? Is that what’s implied here? Is that just left open?
It’s hard to know whether this request is completely aboveboard. It may be, “Listen, all we wantto do is have a weekend away to worship our god, because we can’t sacrifice toGod on this foreign soil. We justcan’t. It’s been so long since weworshipped God correctly. We need to dothis now. You need to let us go.”
It may just be the minimalist request, that even this,Pharaoh is not willing to do. That’s apossible way of reading this.
I wonder, too, if the whole thing about, “Listen, if you don’tlet us go, God’s gonna punish us, if we don’t sacrifice to him.” I don’t think that’s implied anywhere in thisstory up to this point.
This may just be rhetorical flourish. You’re confronting the king and you have totell this story. Maybe exaggerate thingsa little bit. It’s not exactly what Godsays to say. The reader’s left to try tomake some sense of this. It’s notentirely clear. I think it’s not reallyclear, just what the point of this second request is, other than it seems likea minimalist request, as far as I’m concerned.
Pharaoh is digging his heels in. This is just going to go bad for him, becausehe’s really stubborn. He has a hardheart. We’re going to see that a lot inthis story.
Notice, too, what Pharaoh’s response is here. We’re still in the opening verses of Chapter5, 1-5. Pharaoh’s response to thissecond plea is –well, it’s two-fold. Hesays, “First of all, there are so many of you.” That’s in verse five, and that echoes what we saw back in Chapter 1. The whole reason for enslaving them was thatthere are so many of them.
The second part of Pharaoh’s response is, “Here’s theproblem. You guys are lazy. That’s what you are. You’re just lazy, lazy people. From now on, here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna have to gather your own straw tomake your bricks.” The mud is kept together by fibrous straw and that makes thebricks stay firm and last forever. They’re going to have to gather their own straw. It’s not going to be given to them.
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This is how this opens up. This pits Pharaoh against Yahweh. Remember, we saw early in the first episode, first part, how the maincharacters of this story are really Yahweh, Israel’s god, and the gods of Egyptand their power that are mediated through this Pharaoh figure.
Here you have Pharaoh digging his heels and saying, “I don’tknow who Yahweh is. I’m not letting yougo. In fact, I’m going to make it harderon you. I don’t care if your gods aregoing to be angry with you. I’m notgoing to let you go. You’re stayinghere.”
Of course, the response here—poor Moses. His earlier fears are realized. Remember, one of the excuses he gave, and apretty good one frankly, is if goes and tries to convince the people, they’renot going to believe him and this is not going to go well for him.
It doesn’t go well for him. The people grumble, which is the first grumbling against Moses that wesee in other places in the Pentateuch. It’s a theme of the Pentateuch. The people grumble against Moses.
They accuse Moses of making their situation worse. “I told you so, Moses.” Actually, it’s Moses saying that to God,isn’t it? “Listen. I’m being rejected by these people you toldme deliver. Thanks. I warned you this was going to happen.”
As a result of that, Chapter 6 then follows with Yahweh’sassurance that Moses will indeed deliver the Israelites. We’re not going to get into this whole thing,because we can’t do everything. If youlook at the first 13 verses of Chapter 6, this is Yahweh assuring Moses. It’s a reiteration of the whole conversationin Chapters 3 and 4. They repeat a lotof the same language.
It’s going back. “It’s okay. I know it didn’t gowell, but let me repeat what I said before. It’s going to be fine.”
Also, the genealogy in Chapter 6, verses 14-27—it’s a genealogyof Moses and Aaron—but really focusing on Aaron, because it goes to Aaron’sgrandson, Phineas, who is a figure who pops up in the book of Numbers.
This is the weird thing. Why interrupt a story like this by giving a list of names that don’tseem to feed directly into the flow of the story. In fact, this doesn’t. This genealogy of Moses and Aaron right herein the Exodus story, it goes back to the Patriarchal Period, one of the sons ofJacob, Levi and the priests will come from the tribe of Levi and from one ofthe Levites, Aaron, will be descended all the high priests. That’s what the deal is.
This, of course, anticipates the future, because we’realready bringing Phineas into this. Hedoesn’t even show up until the book of Numbers. It’s tying this moment in.
Remember where this story began way back in Genesis andwhere it’s going. We have an importantmoment here of establishing Aaron as a Levite, a chosen intermediary betweenGod and the people.
It may be the case that one of the purposes of this genealogyis simply to establish Aaron as a worthy partner. Another possibility, and this is where modernscholarship typically goes, and this has always been convincing to me (I thinkit makes a lot of sense)—this insertion here of the Levitical pedigree of thesetwo important people and especially Aaron, the first High Priest, is a backreferencing of the later priesthood here into this ancient story.
As we looked briefly in the first part of this series, thebook of Exodus wasn’t written by Moses. It wasn’t written five minutes after Moses. The book of Exodus has a long history ofdevelopment and of traditions, of editing that probably didn’t see their finalphase of editing until a thousand years or so after Moses would have lived,which is around 1300 BCE and the exile is in the Sixth Century, that’s 700years or so, 800 years, and probably even after the return from exile. This is when these books, like thePentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, which includes the book ofExodus, this is when they would have taken their final form.
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What you have, then, by that point, is a verywell-established Israelite worship system which scholars call a cult, a culticsystem, which has nothing to do with drinking Kool-Aid. It’s just a fancy word that has anything todo with worship like priests and temples and sacrifices.
The Israelites have a well-developed and clear identity asIsraelites and what it means to worship God. These stories are brought back into the distant past and given a hookinto these foundational times and events of the people.
Of course, we don’t know that. It does make a certain degree of sense when hereyou have something that already anticipates a priesthood that involves Phineaswho shows up a few books later. In andof itself, it may not be convincing to think like this, but there are so manyinstances in the Pentateuch itself where this sort of thing seems to behappening. If I start on examples ofthat, it’s going to take us so far afield. But Genesis seems to have so many anticipations of the later monarchicperiod that suggest that Genesis was edited during the monarchic period to takeinto account current political and religious realities.
That sort of thing does not stop with the book ofExodus. We seem to have an example of ithere, with this genealogy.
Moving on. We’regetting to the end of this transitionary period, from 6:28, after this genealogyends, to 7:13. This last part of thistransitionary section of Exodus largely repeats and reiterates the gist ofChapters 3 to 4. Here’s Moses and he says, “This is a disaster. Send someone else. I can’t talk.” Remember that? “I’m not eloquent enough. I’m not a public speaker.”
Then God says, “Listen, Aaron will speak for you.” A reiteration of what He said before. Then He says, “Now go confront Pharaoh.”
Moses’ inability, but then highlighting Aaron’s ability tospeak for him, might be why you have that genealogy here, to establish Aaron’sworth and his high pedigree as someone who is worthy to stand next to Moses andto be, in essence, a co-deliverer of God’s people from Egypt. That’s one explanation.
But genealogies pop up. They pop up because they meant a lot in antiquity. To establish a pedigree was a very importantthing, before DNA tests and all stuff like that. You have to establish your family and yourright to perform certain roles and certain functions.
Back to this very last section. Starting in 6:2 and going to 7:13, if youhave a chance look at some of this stuff at some point with a Bible open, 6:2to 7:13, the last chapter and a half of this transitionary section, may be aparallel and alternate tradition of Moses’ call that we see in Chapters 3 to5.
One reason why scholars say that is because it includes twoannouncements of Yahweh’s name. We sawone of them in Part 2, because it’s in Chapter 3, verse 15. We see another one here in Chapter 6, verse3.
This suggests that we’re dealing here again with multiple traditionsthat are brought together. For example(let me just flip to 3:15 just to refresh our memories), in 3:15, we read—thisis, of course, God announcing his name to Moses—“God also said to Moses, ‘Thusyou shall say to the Israelites, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham,the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. And this is my title for all generations.’”
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It sounds like there’s some sort of an announcement there ofMoses’ name. But if you go to Chapter 6and verse 3, you see here—I’ll start in verse 2—“God also spoke to Moses’ andsaid to him, ‘I am Yahweh. I appeared toAbraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty.’” Which, by the way, to El Shaddai inHebrew.
“I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, butby My name, Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them.”
It’s interesting. Inverse 3, Israel’s god was not known beforehand as Yahweh, which in EnglishBibles is the “Lord.” That’s how thatdivine name is handled in English Bibles.
“I wasn’t known beforehand as Yahweh, but I was known as ElShaddai.” An example of that is in thestory of Abraham, Abraham refers to him as El Shaddai.
Here’s the problem, though. Yahweh, that name, has been used all over the place prior to this storyever since Genesis Chapter 2, which is one of the key moments in the history ofbiblical scholarship that alerted scholars to the possibility that we’redealing here with—in Genesis and Exodus and the books that follow—we’re dealingwith an editing together of different traditions. I know I’ve just said that. But I think it’s important.
Part of what we’re doing here in this podcast is looking at little things thathave inspired thinkers and careful readers of these texts to ask questionslike, “Where did this come from? Why doChapter 3 and Chapter 6 look so similar? Why do we have these things that seem to be very repetitive and becausethey’re repetitive, they almost seem to contradict themselves?”
You have different traditions that are brought together bylater editors, woven together, put into place and all for the purpose ofpreserving the ancient traditions of the people, about their deliverance fromEgypt by God’s hand. These traditionsthat are woven together like this that have been active for a very longtime. Maybe by the time this was writtendown, hundreds of years, even handed down orally or in writing from different traditions. Different parts of Israel may have writtendown different traditions and told the stories a little bit differently. There are no libraries. There’s no checking of documents on theinternet, obviously. I’m not trying tobe funny.
You have to think of it like an ancient person. Not everybody reads first of all. Things were handed down orally. They’re handed in writing, but people who areliving way in the North don’t know what people way in the South aresaying. It may be not until certaintimes when—let’s say when the North falls in 722 BCE that the North and theSouth really start talking to each other, because priests from the North camedown to the South.
They said, “Here’s our version.”
“That’s pretty cool. Ours is way different.”
“I know. Let’s putthem together.”
That is a “tweet” version of what scholars basically thinkhappened that resulted in books like Exodus that have these different traditions. There you have it.
In fact, getting back to this last chapter and a half,starting in 6:2, this whole section of 6:2 to 7:13 feels like an interruptionto the story. If you look at 7:14—thisis a little bit too much detail if you’re listening in the car so don’t sweat it—7:14picks up on the action where 6:1 left off, about Pharaoh’s hard heart.
Sometime, sit down and when you have a moment, skip from 6:1to 7:14 and you might say, “This makes sense together and all this stuff inbetween seems to be an interruption into the flow of the story.”
Now the editor didn’t really think of it as aninterruption. He thought of it as, “I’mjust going to put this here because I think it’s meaningful and it needs to besaid and I have to put it somewhere.”
Don’t think of it as an intrusion into the story, but it’staking a break almost, a commercial break before getting back to—“well, we’reback. Let’s talk about Pharaoh’shardened heart,” in 7:14.
This is the Bible for Normal People and I’m not going tomake apologies for looking at things like this because part of what we want todo is engage and bring to the surface that the Biblical scholars talk aboutthat I think some of you find very helpful. Hopefully, some of you also feel very challenging and maybe,enlightening, taking the scales off and saying, “I’ve always wondered why thisstuff looks the way it does in the Bible.”
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All this for me is an interesting and almost inevitablecomment on the composition of the Bible. How it was written. Maybewho. Maybe when. All that sort of stuff, which is what modemBiblical scholarship is trying to do.
The bottom line is that the storyline is clear enough. Once you begin reading closely and you notice6:3, when you just read 3:15, you notice a lot of Chapter 6 seems to repeatthings you just already saw, and other things in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. You notice oddities that the curious mindrequires some explanation. There havebeen curious minds thinking about this stuff for hundreds of years. We’re doing it on a podcast. There you have it.
One more very quick point about this section. This is the last part of this transitionarysection. Chapter 7, verses 8 to 13. The battling staffs.
We were alerted to this back in Chapter 4, verses 1 to5. This is one of the signs that Godsaid Moses was to perform. Here you havethis really interesting incident. Ifyou’ve ever watched the movie, “The Ten Commandments, with Charleton Heston,this is a rather memorable moment, because of the really cheesy graphics theyhave when they do this.
Aaron is told to throw down his staff and it changes into asnake. Let’s call it a serpent. Pharaoh’s magicians do the same thing. Uh-oh. They’re able to do this. Thisisn’t such a big deal. “Moses, what kindof a god do you have with these little magician’s tricks?”
“We can do this. Wealso have access to the supernatural. Wecan make our staff turn to snakes.”
But of course, Aaron’s staff swallows them whole. I’m sure we talked about this back in Part 1of this series. This is rathersignificant here because it’s highly symbolic. This is the staff of Aaron being thrown down and turned into a serpent,which then swallows the serpents of the magicians.
Serpents are symbols of Egyptian power, government, thePharaoh. If you’ve ever seen Pharaoh’shat, his headdress—not all the time, but at certain times in Egypt’shistory—it’s got those big fan-looking things off the side that look like acobra when it’s got its neck all puffed up and scaring the daylights out of youbecause it’s about to bite you. It’s a menacingfigure.
For the staff of Aaron to swallow up thestaffs-turned-snakes of Pharaoh’s magicians, basically it’s already telling uswhere this story is going to end. “Yourpower means nothing. Yahweh will squelcheverything. He’ll eat you up and spityou out. Guys, you know you might wantto quit while you’re ahead. Do we reallyhave to go on with the ten plagues?”
“Yeah. BecausePharaoh’s heart is hard. He doesn’t getit.”
Again, I can’t blame him. He is a king. He can’t justcave. The way the story is told, Pharaohis becoming a rather ridiculous and stubborn figure and you’re really rootingfor him to get what’s coming to him, at least if you’re pro-Israelite. You are doing that.
The question is: Whose power is stronger? The rest of the story is going to make thatvery clear, plague after plague after plague. Whose power is stronger? It’s notgoing to go well for Egypt.
So much for this transitionary section of Chapters 5 throughthe middle of Chapter 7.
Now, we’re going to hit the plagues, which will take usthrough Chapter 13, in the middle of that, which is verse 16. Here’s what we’re going to do.
We’re not going to go through each one. You can’t have a 10,000-week series. There’s so much interesting stuff in thisplague narrative. What we’re going to dois we’re going to be content with the big picture.
I’ve got five big picture points that I think will help. If you ever want to read these stories, thesemight be things to hold on to as you’re reading through them that help orientus toward what’s happening in this section and how do we understand it andwhat’s the point of it all.
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Big picture point #1:
When you read the plague story, all those 10 plagues, don’tseek naturalistic explanations. That’sreally common. I shouldn’t limit this tothe evangelical world, because that’s really not fair. I’ve seen this in non-evangelicalscholarship. I just don’t get it. There always seems to be some attempt to say,“Well, listen. All these thingshappened. We can try to document themhistorically. Maybe the Nile turning toblood is red silt coming down from the mountains or it’s a special kind ofalgae or this or that.”
I think we will miss the point of this because this story—inthe logic of the story—remember, just to back up for a second, I said back inPart 1 that I think that the Exodus story has a historical footing or grounding.
But the story is not told in a way that simply preservesthat. It’s told in ways that drivestheology forward. The theology of theplague narrative is that these are acts of God. From a theological point-of-view, I want to take that veryseriously. I just want to read thisstory with the intention that I think that the Biblical writer’s themselveshave.
We talked about history and the problem of history andhistoricity, that fancy word that just means “did something happen or nothappen?” With the Exodus story, it’s difficult. You can’t really know exactly what happened,what didn’t happen. But one thing thatscholars agree on—and I mean across the spectrum, including most every evangelicalscholar that I know of—they’re very quick to say, “We’re not getting a video tapepresentation here. There’s somethingelse going on here.”
The term that I’ve used before, and I like and it makes atremendous amount of sense to me and we talked about it in Part 1, ismythicized history. You have ahistorical foundation or basis or kernel or something like that, that gave riseto this story. Something that involvedEgypt and escape and deliverance of slaves that eventually became the nation ofIsrael. Fine.
But the story is told using mythological categories. It’s really hard to deny that. What you have here is mythicized history.
I talk about that in a little bit more length back in Part1, so I’m not going to do that here.
You have the plagues. Don’t look for naturalistic explanations. Rather, let the story take it where it wantsto take you. A moment that really showsus this is Chapter 12, verse 12. This isin the middle of the Passover section.
You have here that Yahweh is about to pronounce judgment,Chapter 12, verse 12, on all the gods of Egypt. Then the verse ends, “I am Yahweh.”
The plague narratives have something to do with what I liketo call a battle of the gods, a cosmic battle between the god of Israel and thegods of Egypt. Which god is going tocome out on top? Is it the god who can’teven rescue his people from slavery? They’ve been there for 400 years. Or is it going to be the gods of the superpower, Egypt? Who’s going to win? Is it the god of slaves that Pharaoh doesn’teven know who he is? Never heard of theguy. Or is it going to be this pantheon,this menagerie of gods from ancient Egypt who are clearly superior becauseEgypt runs things? They enslavepeople. The Israelites don’t.
This is really, in my opinion, the point of the plaguenarratives. Don’t look for historicalexplanations, but the mythological thing hit you because the point of this isgoing to be lost if we don’t. This isabout which god is superior, the god of slaves or the gods of Egypt?
You can see this, and I’ve gotten this from a scholar namedZiony Zevit. I forgot the name of thearticle. It’s been so long since I’veengaged it. It’s 30 years old. Google it.
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He has this great article where he connects, as others have,the plagues with the Egyptian gods. Forexample, the first two and the last two, because I think it will make thepoint. They are much clearer in thebeginning and at the end than they are in the middle. For example, the first plague is turning thewater, especially the Nile, and other waters as well, into blood. That is seen by this scholar, Ziony Zevit, asan attack on the god, Hapi, who is in charge of the Nile River and the yearlyinundation of the Nile.
When the Nile floods, it spills over to the banks and itgoes on and on. That’s what allows theEgyptians to grow things and not die. Without this god, Hapi, and the Nile doing what it does, Egypt doesn’texist.
This first plague is an attack on the whole existence ofEgypt as a people. God will turn theNile and the waters into blood, which you can even say—you can think of that asthe god Hapi’s being slain or at least wounded, because then God turns it allback again.
Interestingly enough, the Egyptian magicians are able toduplicate this, which is weird, because why would they want to. Again, thinking of the logic of the story—I’mnot talking historically here—just the logic of the story—why would they wantto do that. If all the waters turned toblood, there’s no water left for them to turn. It’s a little bit of a confusing section. But the point is that both are able to do it,but only one is able to undo it. That’sa really important point we’ll get back to in a second.
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The second plague is the multiplication of frogs. In the Egyptian pantheon, at least at one pointin its history, the goddess of fertility, Heket, had the head of a frog. The question here is who controlsfertility? No small thing in the ancientworld, folks. Controlling water—firstplague. Controlling fertility—secondplague. Also, water is controlled in thecrossing of the Sea of Reeds.
Controlling those things is what the high gods do. The god worth worshipping is the one who cancontrol water, to give life. Not toomuch water, because that will drown you. Also, to control fertility. Whocontrols fertility? Even in Egypt, it’sYahweh.
This is Yahweh stepping into Egyptian territory andbasically doing what he wants.
Again, oddly enough, the magicians can replicate this, butit’s only Yahweh who is able to get rid of it.
Right at the surface, but just not named—and I’ve talkedabout this in podcasts before and in books that I’ve written because I thinkit’s such an important point—the whole theological oomph of the book of Exoduspresumes the existence of other gods and Yahweh’s greater than they are.
Go back to Exodus 12:12. “I’m passing judgment on all thegods of Egypt. I’m Yahweh. I’m the best.” That is a term that usually is calledmonolatry. Mono (one) and latry (from aGreek root that means to worship). Theidea is that the Israelites believed that many gods existed, but only their godis worthy of worship. They’remonolatrists. They’re notmonotheists. They don’t believe thatthere is only one god that exists and all other gods are just made up.
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You get to a point in Israel’s history where they do believethat. Not here.
This whole story moves theologically because Yahweh isshowing His might, His superiority over the gods, even of Egypt, even where thepeople, the Israelites were enslaved. God is marching onto Egyptian territory. The god of slaves, whose been a no-show, shows up and marches ontoEgyptian territory and basically smacks them around.
I talked about the first two plagues: the Nile and fertility.
The last two are interesting as well. The ninth plague is the plague of darknesswhere the sun is blotted out. It happensthat the sun god, Ra, is the main buddy of Pharaoh. That’s Pharaoh’s patron god, the sun god. By blotting out the sun, these aren’t justtricks. They’re meant to communicatesomething of political and religious significance to the people, that God canjust blot out the sun, the high god of the Egyptian pantheon, and just bringthe sun back when he wants to.
The last plague is a plague of death. Who controls death? It’s not Osiris, the god of the dead. It’s, you guessed it, Yahweh. Yahweh controls the dead. This is what makes these stories go. It’s the mythological content of it, whichwould have spoken so loudly to an ancient people.
Remember, these are modern scientists or historians oranything like that. Frankly, I don’talways think that modern history or science can get at deeper realities ordeeper truths. I think myth does areally good job at that. That’s what wehave here.
We don’t have a videotaped recording of events. We have the expression of people’s faith inwho Yahweh is and what Yahweh does for them. They talk about it in ways that would have made perfect sense and didmake perfect sense back then. We justhave to try to recover what that sense is.
Second point is the creation theme. This is a theme that runs throughExodus. I mentioned it back in theintroductory podcast, Part 1. It alsoruns through Genesis and so much of the Bible.
The plagues, think of them as participating in this theme ofthe forces of creation. The plagues arereversals of creation. They are theintroduction of disorder, where Genesis 1, God put everything in order. Things are where they are. They are where they belong. Here the plagues are a disruption ofthat. It’s introducing a little pocketof chaos. Little pockets of chaos thatwas tamed back in Genesis 1 and everything is where it belongs and does what ithas to do. Everything is perfect. It’s laid out. It’s neat. No mess. No ambiguity. It’s allthere.
Here, the creation that was ordered is being disordered inlittle pockets. When God is finished,after a couple of days, he restores the order. The question here is who controls order and chaos? This is a mythic creation theme of theancient world. The Israelitesparticipate in it. The gods didn’tcreate out of nothing. They establishedorder in the cosmos. They made thingslivable and habitable and they put things where they belong. That’s an ancient way of conceiving of theactions of the gods. You see that in GenesisChapter 1.
The flood story, right? Don’t forget the flood story. It’s not a bad rainstorm. It isthe waters of chaos that were kept separate in Genesis Chapter 1 that allowedlife in the air and life on the oceans and life on the land to be created byGod. It created a space for livingthings.
In the flood story, that vault, that dome overhead, gave wayto these chaos waters that God had tamed, that God had kept at a safe distancefrom the people. Don’t be afraid tothink here of the crossing of the Red Sea story, because here you have verymuch a very clear replay of the way, of the waters of chaos crashing down onthe bad guys, just like you did in the flood story.
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Noah is saved. Mosesis going to be saved. All this kind ofstuff. We’ll get to that. The point is that the plague narratives arepart of this messing with creation that only God can do. The magicians can do the first two, but afterthat, they’re done. They can’t reproduceany of the others. By the third plague,they’re done. They’re saying, “Pharaoh,can you please let these people get the heck out of here? We can’t compete with this god.”
Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.
It’s this creation theme that is very prominent here. Who benefits from God playing and toying withcreation? Of course, it’s Hispeople. It’s the Israelites. That’s what you see in these plagues. A few of them, let’s say, a distinction wasmade between Israel and Egypt. Adistinction is made. Israel’s notaffected, but Egypt is. The good guysare not affected, but the bad guys are.
Just like the flood. Creation goes berserk. There’s adistinction made between Noah and his family and everybody else. You don’t have to be afraid of the creatorGod going ballistic with creation because you’re safe. Everyone else is going to suffer.
The plagues are part of this large creation theme. Again, you see this in the Red Sea. A distinction is made. Who dies? Not the good guys. The badguys. From water.
Another aspect of this creation theme that I think is soimportant, which is three podcasts in and of itself, but I’ll mention it here,is how there’s a theme here in the Exodus, and this goes throughout Scripture,Old and New Testaments, is that the creator is the redeemer. That’s the theme.
The creator is the redeemer. What I mean by that is when God redeems people in the Bible, it’s oftenspoken of in language that echoes the language of creation.
Here you have the Israelites delivered. They’re being given a new birth coming out ofthe Red Sea. You have the redeemer, God,who redeems the people from Egypt, saves them, delivers them from Egypt. But doing that involved creation. When God saves the people, creation getsinvolved somehow. It’s a new start. It’s a new beginning.
Paul says that in 2 Corinthians. “That if anyone is in Christ, they are a newcreation. The old has gone. The new has come.” Being redeemed, being saved, being deliveredis like being created again. Paul useslanguages more often of “being raised from the dead.” It’s a new start. Peter or John will use the language of “bornagain” or a “new birth” or a “birth from above.”
My point is that when the creator saves, it’s an act ofcreation. Something new is happening. You get to the book of Revelation at the end,where everything is created anew. Theologically speaking, in the Bible, that is actually is the goal ofall this: new creation. When God delivers people, it’s a mini-act ofcreation happening that anticipates the big act of re-creation.
If anything, there’s just so much happening in these storiesthat have theological echoes throughout the Bible. We’re gonna get back to this creation themebecause as I hinted already back in Part 1, the tabernacle itself is big-time,major creation overtones. So much ofGenesis is wrapped up Exodus. So much ofExodus is wrapped up in Genesis.
A third point. More mundane, perhaps,than a creation theme. There are tenplagues. There are other plaguesequences in the Old Testament, namely in Psalm 78 and in Psalm 105. Depending on how you count them, seven oreight plagues and they are in a different order. This is the theme in scholarship: the tenplagues of Exodus might not be the original form, but might be a later literaryproduct. There is clearly plaguetraditions in ancient Israel and they come up differently in differentplaces. The ten (the nice round numberin 10) might be more of a stylized, highly literary way of looking at this.
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I think that’s really interesting, but more than just that,we’re looking at the plagues as literature. They’re spoken of and written about in ways that show us that literarythoughtfulness on the part of the writer. For example, you’ve got 10 plagues. The tenth plague is the big one. We’ll get to that in a second. The other nine are very clearly divided into three sections ofthree. In other words, three series ofthree plagues.
One, two, three. Four, five, six. Seven, eight,nine.
The first one of each of series—one, four and seven—they’represented from a literary point-of-view in a very similar way. There’s always a forewarning given aboutwhat’s going to happen. Even the time ofthe warning is in the morning.
There’s an instruction given by God. “Station yourself or go stand beforePharaoh.” That’s one, four and seven.
The next ones in each sequence—two, five and eight—they havetheir own. They have their own way ofintroducing those plagues.
The last plague of each series—three, six and nine—is the shortest. There are no introductions to it. No talking to Moses or Aaron. It just happens by God.
Each of the three have their own way of talking, their ownway of expressing. This is clearly aliterary device, the purpose of which who knows. I have no idea. Can’t ask anybody.
The purpose of having this three groups of three that are soclearly identical in how they’re presented is, if anything, just evidence ofliterary intentionality on the part of the writer. They’re not saying, “Let’s write historyhere. Let’s just lay out there the waythings happened.” They’re not doingthat. They’re telling a story and partof it is just literary artifice, literary beauty, just intentionality,thoughtfulness. These weren’t peoplejust throwing stuff out there and saying, “I hope this works.” They’re actually writing something withliterary intentionality.
That affects the degree of history that you find here. If you start playing with literarypresentation, you’re clearly not focused on simply reproducing the facts. If that troubles you, that’s fine. It shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter if it troubles me or you, because that’s how theBible’s working. That’s how the Bibleactually works, to quote a book title. There you have it. We just have to deal with it and try to put thepieces together, which might take time. Something you have to think about. Don’t lose sleep over it.
The plague of death, which is the last plague, that’s thecrescendo. That’s the crowningplague. That’s the one that results inthe Israelites being released from Egyptian slavery. The first nine get you to the tenth. Those three groups are presented the way theyare. Then you get to the last one. There’s literary intentionality.
You also have a progression, at least some see this and Ithink there’s something to this, in severity. When you get to the plague of boils, which is the sixth plague, this isthe first that actually affects humans. Up until then, it’s indirectly. But this one actually physically affects humans. Job had boils and things like that. The end of it is people die.
You have a progression in severity. I’m not sure if I think’s really helpful. I’m just throwing it out there, because a lotof people say this. I think the firstone is pretty severe, at least in its symbolic value: the Nile turning to blood. That goes away after three days.
The last plague. Theplague of death. That doesn’t go away after three days. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Even back in biblical days.
Those are three—that’s a third of the big picture points.
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Here’s the fourth. Ithas to do with something that students ask me when we talk about Exodus all thetime. It’s the whole idea of God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, specifically in thelast three plagues, eight, nine and ten.
This brings together something that we looked at briefly inPart 2 of the podcast: 3:19, where God says, “I’m going to send Moses. I’m going to send you to them. But you know what? Pharaoh’s not going to listen to you unlessyou perform all these wonders and signs.”
The purpose of the plagues is that they will convincePharaoh to let the people go. The nextchapter, 4:21, God says, “I’m going to send you there. But I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart, sothat he doesn’t let you go.”
In the first one, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. It needs to be softened by the plagues. But here, in 4:21, it’s “I’m going to hardenPharaoh’s heart so that he doesn’t let the people go.” That is seen by some as a contradiction. It’s definitely not.
The whole point of this is that God’s not done with Pharaohyet. You’ve got these ten plagues and bythe time it’s plagues three and four, you have a Pharaoh (already in the secondplague, the plague of frogs) who begs Moses, “Can you just lay off here?” Then he hardens his heart in the thirdplague. He begs and then he hardens hisown heart.
He hardens his own heart again with the plague of thelivestock, which is the fifth plague. Hehardens his own heart and his heart becomes hardened. But God’s not doing it. Pharaoh freaks out after the second plagueand says, “Okay. Listen. Can you just get out of here?” But then he hardens his own heart. This is the thing. This is 3:19. He needs to have his heartsoftened. The plagues are going to doit. You wonder when is this going tofinally happen.
It happens finally in the plague of locusts, which iseight. The plague of darkness, which isnine. Then the plague, the death of thefirstborn, which is the tenth plague. Here you have Pharaoh begging Moses to talk to God and say, “Relent andjust leave. I can’t do thisanymore.” He’s finally and completelyhad it.
Here, unlike before, Pharaoh doesn’t harden his own heart,or his heart doesn’t just become hard. Here, it’s God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Both those things are contradictory in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. They’re just two different parts of thestory. The first seven plagues, you havewhat 3:19 says. Pharaoh is going to needto be convinced. 4:21: “but even afterhe’s convinced, I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart.”
It sounds really unfair. Why would God do that to people? Don’t forget this is a story. Number One. Number Two. How God here acts towards Pharaohtheologically has nothing to do with how he acts toward you or anybody else. This is part of the story where God isplaying a cat-and-mouse game with Pharaoh.
If you’ve ever seen a cat, and we’ve seen this more thanonce—a cat catches a mouse and it plays with it and then it revives it so itcan keep playing with it. Theneventually, it kills it. You see herethis idea of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart as simply an indication that Pharaohand the gods of Egypt by extension are Yahweh’s plaything. “Hey Pharaoh. You had trouble knowing who I was earlier. Do you know me now? Who’s your daddy?” That’s how I read this last sequence ofplagues, these last three plagues.
Perhaps, and again I’m thinking here of the composition ofthe book and how so much of this has to do with Israel and the land and keepingthe land and what to do with foreign people, maybe this drawing out of thisstory over ten plagues like this is an object lesson for the Israelites fortheir life in the land in the land of Canaan, where the temptation iswhat? It’s always to worship the gods ofCanaan.
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You can always look at this story and say, “Remember ourpast and how patiently God dealt with us and how God drew out this disseminationof the Egyptian pantheon. It’s the same God we’re dealing with heretoday.” It could act as an objectlesson. I think it probably does.
In any event, here is Israel’s god defeating the gods ofEgypt, playing with them, toying with them and the bottom line is reallythis: it’s monolatry. Israel’s god alone is worthy or worship. The other gods, by comparison, areridiculous. That’s what this fourth bigpicture point, that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. I think that’s what it’s getting across.
I don’t think it should cause a major theologicalcrisis. Why would God harden people whoare repenting? He’s not repenting. This is not a Christian story. This isn’t about accepting Jesus and allthat. This is not about becoming anIsraelite. This is an ancient Israelitestory of a people group, a geopolitical reality, the Israelites, vis a vis theother nations in the context of a hostile, violent, tribalistic world-view.
This god is all about protecting his people. That’s what he does. That’s why he’s worthy of worship.
Last one. Last bigpicture point is the long Passover section. It starts in 11:1 and it goes to the end of this section, 13:16. Three and a half chapters. Dealing with this is a separate episode,folks. It really is. If we really want to. Maybe one day, we will. I will come back to it.
For the purposes of this podcast series, we don’t have totalk about everything, but just to notice how long this Passover sectionis. The Passover is obviously thefocus. It’s the focus of thissection. Wedged into this discussion iswhere you find you find the tenth plague. It’s Chapter 11, verses 1 to 10 and then Chapter 12, verse 29 to32. You have a little bit of here’s thetenth plague, a little bit of action, tenth plague, little Passover. Back and forth.
It’s a real complex section here of the book of Exodus,historically complex, weaving together three (or some scholars think as many asfour) separate traditions coming together here that results in some odditiesthat, if we start talking about them, we’d be here for another five hours. I just don’t want to do that here. But it results in some oddities that justmake you notice. This section’s a littlebit inconsistent. I’m not sure what’s goingon here.
That’s not the point. The point is that you have the focusof the Passover and there are three or four traditions that are all gettinginvolved in this, because the Passover was a major, major moment in Israeliteworship and Israelite identity.
Passover is the focus of this section, 11 to 13, verse16. The other stuff, like the tenthplague and the departure from Egypt, in 12:33-42. Those things are woven into that. The star of this section is Passover. It’s not the tenth plague. The tenth plague serves the Passover. The departure serves the Passover. The Passover is the thing.
It is establishing—this section—a ritual festival. What I said earlier holds here too. It may be (this is my opinion) that thissection of Exodus is really back referencing later Israelite cultic worshiprealities that revolve around festivals like the Passover Festival.
Later realities affect how this story of Exodus iswritten. Exodus is written with themonarchy already in the past, written with the Babylonian captivity already inthe past. Not made up at that point intime. I’ve said this before. It’s notlike the Exodus story is made up in the 6th Century. There are traditions. We have multiple traditions, but they’reironed out. They’re put togetherhere.
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The way the story of Exodus is told with elaboratepreparations for festivals that have some tensions between them in variousparts of this section. It suggests thatthis story in Exodus reflects later realities. It’s actually what I’m getting at.
If you’ve read some of my books or are familiar withbiblical scholarship or if you’ve even heard podcasts here, this is not adaring conclusion to come to. You have ahistory of development of these texts and what we have is not the originalversion of anything. It’s a later,edited version on the part of the people of Judah, who returned from exile fromBabylon.
When that started to click with me, a lot of things fellinto place.
What is Passover mean? To pass over probably means “to protect” and not from the angel ofdeath. You see this in 12:23. This isnot the angel of death. Later Israelitetheology has an angel that’s responsible for death, but this is not here. The Hebrew says he’s a “destroyer.” We don’t know what this is. But we do know that later in the story, inChapter 12, this destroyer’s equated with Yahweh.
I’m always thinking of the Ten Commandments movie withCharleton Heston, where it’s an angel of death. There’s no angel of death. It’sbasically Yahweh doing the destroying.
I have to be careful here, because in Psalm 78, which talksabout the plagues, it refers to a “destroying” or “bad angels.” You see, it’s another tradition. That’s my point. You’ve got a destroying angel or angels in Psalm78 and you have a destroyer who’s Yahweh here. Which is it?
I don’t know. In thelogic of the story, I don’t know. Butwhat I do know is that the Bible preserves multiple traditions, multipleinterpretations of these pivotal moments in Israel’s life. I just don’t feel it’s my business to try toeven them out. I don’t think it’sanybody’s business to even them out. They are just there.
Of course, as you probably know, the Passover, the actualsign of the Passover that will tell the destroyer to bypass a house is if youput the blood of the lamb on the lintel and then on the doorposts and I want toecho here that there are other signs in the Bible. There seems to be a lot of signs thatindicate that you’re in.
The other big one in the Old Testament is circumcision. Circumcision is a sign that you’re aninsider, not an outsider. Here, whendeath is on the line, the sign that you’re an insider and not an outsider isblood around your home. The destroyerwill pass by. I think jumping to Jesusin the New Testament—the sign that you’re in is you identify with the blood ofthe lamb. That is your sign that you’rean insider to this gospel, to this kingdom of heaven that Jesus built.
Passover is very much used in the New Testament. For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Last Supperis the Passover meal. For John, he has adifferent take on the Passover and on the Last Supper. In those three gospels, the Jesus thing, thecrucifixion is tied very much to the Passover meal. For obvious reasons, theologically, theshedding of blood and the efficacy of that shed blood. I don’t want to say it’s to shield us fromGod killing us in the New Testament. Ithink it does take on a different significance. But again, that’s another 17 podcasts. We won’t do all that here.
One last point about the Passover. This is a little bit off the beatenpath. I’ll be rather brief aboutthis. In the Old Testament, God has aright to the firstborn. The firstbornbelonged to him. You see this in this section. If you read Chapters 12 and 13, the“firstborn belonged to Me.” You cansubstitute something for that firstborn.
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For example, can you can substitute a sheep orsomething. You can substitute anotheranimal for the firstborn. The firstbornbelongs to Me, including the firstborn human, the firstborn of your own familybelongs to Me. God has a right to thatfirstborn. But God accepts substitutes.
That really strikes me because one way of looking at theplague of death is God just exercising his right to the firstborn. That includes the Egyptian firstborn. They belong to him too. That’s the point. The firstborn belongs to God.
This is not uncommon in the ancient world. The prized elder children, they belong toGod. The prized of the flock, theybelong to God.
Think, for example, of the binding of Isaac back in Genesis22. God tells Abraham, “take your sonand sacrifice him to Me.” God isclaiming his right on the firstborn. Abraham does not say, “You can’t do that. You’re God. You would never ask me to dothat.” But he does.
It’s even assumed in the story there in Genesis that this isa viable option because God’s going to test Abraham to see if he really meansit and Abraham just goes right along with it.
It’s this whole idea here of God has a right to thefirstborn. They belong to him and he canrequire them if he wants to. I got thisfrom John Levinson years and years ago. He’s got this great book on the resurrection of the beloved son. He was a podcast guest a couple of years agoand we didn’t talk about this, but this idea that in the New Testament (this isa Jewish scholar by the way)—in the New Testament, in the gospel, the sacrificeof Jesus, God actually went through with it. God actually claimed the firstborn, but it was his own. It wasn’t yours.
It’s a reversal of this theme where God talks something ofvalue to Himself and, to use New Testament language that some authors use,sacrificed him for the good of the whole. It’s a reversal. It’s not Godtaking your firstborn. It’s God givingup his own firstborn son.
You get things like “God gave his own begotten son.” That’s not just sentimental. That is a reversal of an Old Testament themethat you see here in the Exodus story.
The Exodus isn’t just previewing the gospel. The gospel, actually, takes parts of thisExodus story and turns it on its head, which is a lot of what the New Testamentdoes.
I’ve had fun. Listen,we’re going to come to an end here. We’ve covered a lot of ground and the next episode, we’ll look at thetrek to Sinai, which starts in chapter 14 and the actual departure fromEgypt. We’ll talk about that. This actually begins in the second half of 13and through 14 and 15 and then through 19, this movement, this trek fromEgyptian slavery to the foot of Mount Sinai.
In the rest of the podcasts, we’ll look at the second halfof the book, Chapters 20 to 40, which really are about two things. They’re about laws for how to behave and lawsfor how to worship. Interrupting that,which I mentioned earlier, is the golden calf episode, which is a pivotalmoment in this story and almost derails everything were it not for Moses’ quickthinking and convincing God to go through with delivering the and bringing themto the promised land.
Interestingly enough, just as God had convinced Mosesearlier on, “Come along, do this,” now Moses is in the position later on in thebook of Exodus to say, “No. You’re goingto go through with this. You didn’t dragme out here just to leave me hanging. We’re going to do this the way you said.” It’s an interesting relationship between Godand Moses.
That’s for the weeks to come. We’ll see when this ends. But I’m anticipating a few more episodes heretalking about Exodus.
Thanks for listening. As always, wedeeply appreciate you listening to the podcast and being patrons on our Patreonpage and for all the other things that you do to make this so pleasurable forme and more Jared. We just have a greattime. Thank you and until next time,blessings.
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