Exodus Pt 5

 

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Manna, Water, and the

Father-in-Law Chimes In

or

What is an Omer?

Welcome back. I hope you had a good holiday weekend and took time to remember what Memorial Day is all about. Now back to Moses and Aaron and the other million or so Israelites on their journey to the Land of Milk and Honey.

     When last we checked in with the travelers, at the end of Chapter 15, they were lounging around the oasis at Elim, enjoying all that a dozen springs and seventy palm trees could provide in the way of rest and refreshment. Chapter 16 finds them in the Wilderness of Sin (sounds ominous), which is located somewhere between Elim and Sinai, and once again everyone is getting anxious about provisions.

    Moses turns to God for guidance and God has a solution that, as always, has a catch or three attached. God will arrange for bread in the morning and meat in the evening, but the Israelites must make sure they only take what they need for one day and not stash any away for later, except on the sixth day when they should gather enough for two days, because on the seventh day they're not supposed to do any gathering as that should be set aside as a "day of solemn rest".

    Although God promises both bread and meat, most of the material presented is devoted to the bread, or as it came to be known, Manna. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason the protein isn't mentioned more often in this familiar story is because, well, here's what it does say...

Verse 13: In the evening quails came up and covered the camp

    Share that with a Sunday School class of adolescent girls and the reaction is bound to be one of absolute horror. "They ate quail? But they mate for life and they're soooooo cute!!!"

    Back to the bread. Verses 13 and 14 continue with...

and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.  14When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.

    That fine flaky substance is, of course, what is destined to be the carb part of the Israelites complete and balanced diet for a good long time. But when it is first presented to them they have no idea what to do with it. Moses has to explain that it "is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat". In other words this manna from heaven shows up not as something fresh out of the oven, ready for a dab of butter and some berry preserves, but as an unfamiliar raw material to be scraped up off the ground and then worried into some sort of recognizably edible form. Kind of like the extreme cooking version of a technical challenge on the Great British Baking Show. While the people are standing around, eyeballing what must have looked like the grounds outside a King Arthur flour factory after an explosion, Moses also spells out God's Ration Card Plan. They will be allowed one omer of fine and flaky per person per day, except on the sixth day when two omers is the ration.

    There is no mention about any limitations on the number of quail to be served up each evening. For all we know it is simply "See what you can catch." Like Mrs. Lovett and the neighborhood cats.

    But at this point I just want to know what an omer is. So I keep reading, and sure enough, at the end of the chapter I get the answer.

36 An omer is a tenth of an ephah.

    Which should have satisfied me, but I found I was handicapped with a lack of knowledge concerning ephahs. And so...

    Today I have devoted my five minutes of research to the terms "omer" and "ephah". Here is what my five minutes rendered.

According to Wikipedia an omer is:

• A unit of dry measure also known as an isaron. Okay. Let's keep going.
• An omer is one tenth of a ephah. Already knew that from previous reading. However, it is nice to know that...
• An ephah is the same as 72 logs. Well, that doesn't really clear things up for me.
• A log is the same as a Sumerian mina. Good lord.
• A mina is 1/60th of a maris. I am beginning to think Wikipedia is not going to be my go-to source.
• Ah! an omer is the same as 12/100ths of a maris. No, that doesn't get me anywhere.
• But then we factor in the notion that a maris is the same in dry measurement as the quantity of water which is equal in weight to a light royal talent, or 8.0 US gallons, whichever comes first. And we're still in the dark about what size bucket the Israelites needed to haul their manna.
• But it does mean that an omer, which if you'll recall is what we're really interested in here, is the same as 0.98 US gallons. Now we're getting somewhere!
• Unless you look in the Jewish Study Bible of 2014, where it is 0.61 US gallons. That's a pretty big difference, percentage-wise.
• To sum it all up, Wikipedia also says that the Traditional Jewish definition of an omer is the equivalent of 43.2 chicken eggs.
• And my five minutes is up. An omer is an omer is an omer. Let's just leave it at that. Sometimes five minutes of research just makes things more confusing.

    Back to our story and the heck with the bothersomely vague details. The people are hungry, God arranges for regular deliveries of Bisquick and small poultry provided the people abide by his rules and regulations concerning gathering, consumption and storage.
There are attempts by some to circumvent the rules, which makes God angry, which makes Moses angry, which results in a stern warning to all involved. Everyone gets with the program and the march continues.

    In Verse 31 we do get an interesting additional bit of info about this manna. Just another one of those tangents we should be getting used to by now.

...it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

    Which does make it sound more appealing than the "fine and flaky" description given earlier.

    And then we end the chapter with...

35 The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.  36 An omer is a tenth of an ephah.

    Think about that. Forty years wandering around, most likely in circles because why else would it take so long to travel something under four hundred miles? Maybe we'll find out later, because after Exodus we have three more books that, as far as I can tell, take place during this forty year span. I'm just stuck on the idea that for forty years those folks had a diet of nothing but coriander flatbread and quail. That may have something to do with their unimpressive pace.

    I know we already looked at verse 36, but I wanted to put it in context for you. As if that would help either of us.

    Let's move on to the next chapter, shall we?

    Chapter 17 is pretty short and deals with just a couple of unrelated incidents. In one, there is another water shortage and this time Moses solves it by making water come out of a rock. In the other, someone or some group (it's not made clear) called Amalek attacks the wanderers and Moses sends Joshua out to fight him/them. Moses, along with Aaron and a buddy by the name of Hur, is watching the fight from the top of a hill and he is obliged to hold his staff up high in order for Joshua to get some sort of home court advantage. That's what it says. Problem is, the staff gets a bit heavy after a while, and so Aaron and Hur come to the rescue by getting Moses a rock to sit on and they each grab a hand to help him keep the staff aloft, so it all turns out okay. We are, however, left with this rather troubling bit at the end of the chapter...

The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

    Kinda makes a person curious to know more about this Amalek person/tribe/benevolent society, doesn't it? Should we be looking out for him in our own neighborhood?

    But now we turn in Chapter 18 to Jethro, father of Zipporah, father-in-law to Moses, grandfather to Gershom and Eliezer. Zipporah and the kids have been sent to live with grandpa while Moses is on his camping trip, but apparently the invitation isn't for an open ended sort of stay and Jethro shows up at the Israelite camp with daughter and grandsons in tow to deliver them back into Moses' care. While he is there, Jethro notices that everyone brings every concern, every grievance, every little complaint directly to Moses and it is beginning to wear the man down. So before he leaves, Jethro advises Moses to choose some reliable men, give them authority over not so major sorts of issues, and focus his attention on the Big Picture. Like why it's taking them forty years to cover a relatively modest amount of ground.

*A photo from our trip to Alaska way back in I forget what year.

A Short Note of Despair

Or, As Cervantes Said: Forewarned is Forearmed

I made the mistake of looking ahead in my reading, just to get an idea of what Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy have in store for me and...Holy Moses, but it does look like grim reading. Rules, rules, nothing but rules, with a bit of gratuitous violence thrown in here and there. I will have to figure out how best to approach these books because my initial response was "Get me out of here!" and that would be breaking my promise to myself and to you to forge ahead. 

I will say this: What a world it must have been back then for all of this to be considered necessary. As screwed up as the 21st century undoubtedly is, life back then must have been absolutely bonkers.

Anyway, we still have something like thirty-four chapters of Exodus to explore before we even get to Leviticus. You will be happy to know that most of those thirty-four chapters are filled with instructions on how to properly construct a tabernacle and all of its necessary components.

In the meantime, I hope both of my readers here have a lovely Memorial Day weekend. I will be taking the time off the blog in order to practice and then play "Taps" at 3:00 PM Monday out on the front porch as part of "Tap Across America". If you play an instrument, pick it up and join me. 

 

Exodus Pt 4

 

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Firstborns, Pillars, and Water

I've got to admit that sometimes I find the word choices i this book to be less than ideal. For instance, the word “consecrate” is a pretty big player in Chapter 13, which opens with the Lord telling Moses that since he did the Israelites a solid by killing all the firstborn in Egypt, the Israelites now owe him their own firstborn.

“…whatever is first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and animals, is mine.”

        Right there, Chapter 13, verse 2.

        Then verses 3 through 10 give us an unleavened bread tangent that is mostly a rehash of old material.

        The firstborns come back in verse 11, and starting in verse 12 God tries to clear up what he means by “is mine”.

“All the firstborn of your livestock that are males shall be the Lord’s. 13  But every firstborn donkey you shall redeem (there’s another word that keeps popping up) with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. Every firstborn male among your children you shall redeem.”

        So now we have the question of just what “redeem” means, and if it means the same thing for human children as it means for sheep and donkeys. Is it the same as “consecrate”? If so, that doesn’t really help me much since I’m still not sure what “consecrate” means here. Is it the same as “sacrifice” and if so does that meaning only apply to animals and for kiddos it means the child has to do or wear or say something special to remind him (always a him) that he belongs to God? And what’s with the whole breaking a donkey’s neck business? In the verses that follow the Lord gives us a bit of an explanation, making it kinda-sorta sound like the animals get killed but the kiddos don’t and there is something about an emblem on the forehead but mostly he just talks about how the reason he wants all this redeeming done on a regular and ongoing basis is so everyone remembers what a tough guy he was when it came to handling those darned Egyptians.

        Next, we learn that the Israelites have been provided with a couple of guides in the form of pillars that will lead them to the land of milk and honey that belongs to other folks at the moment. By day there is a pillar of cloud that they follow, and by night there is a pillar of fire they’re supposed to follow. In verse 21 it says these two guides are there “so that they might travel by day and by night.” Not sure when they made camp. Six hundred thousand men and however many women and children, tramping along twenty-four hours a day sounds like a formula for mutiny, or at least a lot of grumbling.

        It’s been an entire chapter since God has had an excuse to whomp on some Egyptians, so in Chapter 14 he tells Moses to make his people march in a sort of zig and zag—or serpentine, if you’re a fan of the movie “The In-Laws”—manner, like they’re confused, and then make camp (see! they do make camp after all!) as if they’re getting discouraged, so as to attract Pharaoh’s attention; you know, make him think they are ripe for bringing back into the Egyptian labor force by giving them the old “The Pharaoh you know is better than the crazy guy with the snake-staff you only think you know” speech. As a backup plan, he’s bringing along six hundred of his best charioteers for muscle.

        The Israelites see Pharaoh and his posse and get worried. Moses asks God what to do, and God tells him to hold his staff out over the waters of the Red Sea and we all know what happens next because they made a movie with Charlton Heston and Yvonne De Carlo all about it. God makes a mighty wind part the Red Sea, the Israelites hoof it on over to the other side, the charioteers follow them with bad intent, and the waters come back together just in time to drown every single Egyptian. Honestly, it’s wonder Pharaoh has anyone left to govern at this point.

        And then, in Chapter 15, Moses sings a song that goes on for eighteen verses all about how God saved the Israelites by drowning the charioteers and scaring the bejesus out of the populations of Philistia and Moab and Edom and Canaan. Then Miriam, who is described as a prophet, which is quite an accomplishment for any women in this society, and who also happens to be Aaron’s sister, which I’m thinking should also make her Moses’ sister, and which could suggest at least a bit in the way of nepotism regarding her title of prophet…anyway, Miriam and women get a whole verse to sing their musical contribution.

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

The remainder of the chapter recounts another episode where the wandering Israelites find themselves short on provisions, this time specifically water, and they “complained against Moses”. This happens in a spot called Marah where there actually was water, but it tasted nasty and nobody wanted to drink it. God has Moses toss a hunk of wood into the water and that makes the water taste good. Charcoal filtration perhaps. They keep going until…

“27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water.”

        Sounds like a lovely little oasis, doesn’t it? But I just can’t get the “six hundred thousand men” plus women and children figure out of my head, and twelve creeks and seventy trees just seems a little inadequate to me.

 

Next time on “Book by Book” we’ll see exactly what Manna from Heaven is all about, and Zipporah’s dad Jethro will share some excellent advice with his son-in-law.

 

*Yes, that’s the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. We saw him in March at Footprint Center in Phoenix. Great show, but last time we subject ourselves to an arena concert. 

Exodus Pt 3

 

 

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I Bring You Plagues

 

But before we get to the most famous plagues that might have been, let’s have a quick look at Chapters 5,6 and 7.

        In Chapter 5, Pharaoh, who is beginning to exhibit some signs of impatience with Moses and his “Let my people go” campaign, decides to make the Israelites’ lives even more difficult. It seems that the primary task the taskmasters have been having them do is making bricks, which for most people is probably not the most fulfilling way to spend one’s time. Unless, of course, you’re making bricks to build your own home, or a dry goods store that will be in the family for generations, or a tricked out she-shed.

        Sorry, I said I was going to be quick about this.

        The brick building enterprise previously been set up so regular deliveries of straw, one of the essential ingredients for a quality, Egyptian brick, were made to the Israelites, who then added water and soil and whatever other decorative elements like gravel, stones, or horse dung dictated by the current orders. (I got the gravel, stone, and horse dung info from my five minutes of research.) But now that Moses has gotten Pharaoh’s dander up, the Egyptian Deity/Chief Executive decides the Israelites can forage for the straw themselves and the expected quota of bricks will remain the same. Sounds like the sort of boss I think most of us have encountered at some time in our lives. And we might have done exactly what Moses does at the end of Chapter 5 when he turns to God and asks just when the promised delivery of his people might commence, because things are getting worse, not better.

        God answers in Chapter 6 in what I think by now we can safely say is his usual way of responding to one of his favorite humans who just doesn’t understand that mysterious wonders move at a pace truly mysterious indeed: He reminds Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and that he made a promise—sorry, covenant—with those distinguished gentlemen, and if he said he is going to do something, he does it. On his own schedule. So just tell Aaron to keep telling Pharaoh to let my people go, and leave the rest to me.

        Most of the rest of Chapter 6 is a genealogy lesson about the Moses and Aaron clan. The part that caught my eye is in verse 20…

Amram married Jochebed his father’s sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram’s life was one hundred thirty-seven years.

        The very end of Chapter 6 segues into Chapter 7 with a repeat of the initial conversation between God and Moses when Moses tried to wriggle out of the “Let My People Go” job by claiming to be a poor public speaker and God accommodating him by enlisting Aaron. Once again, we have God telling Moses that part of his ingenious plan to free the Israelites is that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart so God has a good excuse to “multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt” by which he means…

        Plagues! Although at this point God is using the term “great acts of judgment.”

        In verse 7 we’re told Moses was 80 years old and brother Aaron was 83 while all this was happening. Just in case we were wondering.

        Verses 8-13 tell us how Aaron performs his staff to snake bit for the Pharaoh and his entourage only to have the court magicians produce staff snakes themselves. The fact that Aaron’s snake eats the other ones doesn’t convince Pharaoh to let anyone go. But then how could it when God has hardened his heart so he, God, has an excuse to trot out some really impressive plagues?

Plague #1:  Water to Blood.

        Moses tells Pharaoh that if he doesn’t let the people go he will turn the water in the Nile to blood. And not just the river water, but all the water in Egypt, including any already in buckets or jars or barrels, every single ounce is turning to nasty blood. Aaron raises his magic staff, and sure enough, all the water turns to blood and everything in the water dies and things get really rank. But the magicians do the same thing, so Pharaoh is unimpressed.

        Side note: This is where I’m left wondering just how the magicians were able to turn water to blood when it had already been turned to blood by Aaron and his Miraculous Rod**? Did they turn it back to water and then to blood? Did they bring all the fish back to life and then kill them again just to show they could do it? If so, what was the point of that?

        Seven days pass.

        The people are not let go.

Chapter 8

Plague #2: Frogs (Not the Aristophanes play, real frogs)

        A whole slew of frogs come hopping up out of the river, which apparently has shifted back to the water standard and recovered its life supporting properties after only a week. The frogs pester the Pharaoh, his people, and his officials. Not to be outdone, Pharaoh’s magicians also produce a battalion or three of frogs just because. Pharaoh tells Moses that he’s ready to negotiate but only if Moses arranges for all the bothersome frogs to stop hopping about. God makes the frogs die, and they all get swept into piles, which only makes the place smell even worse than when the river was blood. Pharaoh’s heart calcifies and he doesn’t come to the bargaining table.

Plague #3: Gnats

        Aaron strikes the dust with his staff and boom! Gnat City. “All the dust of the earth turned to gnats.” This time the magicians come up empty and they advise Pharaoh he’s up against the “finger of God”. He doesn’t care, his heart is too hard.

Plague #4:  Flies

        This is the first time we’re told that the land of Goshen is being declared off limits to the Plague of the Day. So when the flies swarm all over the place, they concentrate all of their pesky behavior on the native Egyptians. Pharaoh tries to act like he’s a reasonable guy open to compromise and maybe Moses will agree his people can just perform their sacrifices locally so they don’t lose any valuable brick making to travel time, but that’s a hard no from Moses. So Pharaoh says, okay, just don’t go too far, all I ask is you get rid of the damn flies. The flies are dismissed, but it doesn’t matter, Pharaoh’s heart has moved another notch up on the Mohs scale of hardness. Somewhere around Flourite by now.

Chapter 9

Plague #5: Livestock Diseased

        All the Egyptians’ cows and donkeys and horses and camels and Flemish Giant rabbits get sick and die. The Israelite livestock, being previously vaccinated, survive. Pharaoh is still being stubborn.

Plague #6: Boils

        Moses tosses a bunch of kiln soot into the air and all the people and (remaining) animals in Egypt break out in painful boils, even the magicians. Pharaoh doesn’t care.

Plague #7: Thunder and Hail

        In perhaps the most terrifying of the plagues so far, a traveling opera company visits Egypt and begins to perform Wagner’s Ring Cycle non-stop.

        Just kidding.

        Moses warns Pharaoh to secure all the livestock “and everything you have in the open field” because the heaviest hail imaginable is about to come tumbling out of the sky, although by now I’m wondering what in the way of agricultural resources there are left to protect. A few of the Egyptians take heed and do their best to shelter themselves, their animals, and their plants, but the most everyone else remains unconvinced that the blood, frogs, gnats, flies, dead cows, and boils had been anything other than easily explained away natural phenomenon, all part of Horus’s Great Plan, and they, their critters (once again, what critters?) and their crops end up getting pounded into the ground by the hail.

        Pharaoh makes as if he’s finally coming to the realization he might be on the losing side, but it’s just a show to make the hail stop. Soon as it does, he tells Moses to go pound sand.

Chapter 10

Plague #8 Locusts (One of the more famous plagues)

        God tells Moses to tell the Israelites that God is making the Egyptians’ lives pretty miserable and if they weren’t convinced about his street cred before they ought to be coming around now.

        Moses warns Pharaoh that locusts are on the way and anything that somehow escaped being pounded to dust by the hail is on the menu. Some of Pharaoh’s executive team suggest now may be a good time to show a bit of flexibility, but he’ll only go as far as letting the Israelite men go into the wilderness for their sacrifices, none of the women and children can go. And so, an east wind brings locusts.

        Again, Pharaoh makes like he’s about to cry “Uncle” and again he…well, you know.

Plague #9: Darkness

        For three days it is pitch black in Eqypt, but not in Goshen. Pharaoh tells Moses all the people can go, but they have to leave the livestock, which I guess were excluded from the Diseased Livestock Plague. Moses says no deal. Pharaoh warns Moses not to show his face around the palace anymore. Moses says “Fine with me!”

Chapter 11

Plague #10: But first, a Warning

        God tells Moses that the next one is going to be a real doozy, the one that finally does the trick. Not only will Pharaoh let the people go, but he will hand them their collective hats, give them an encouraging boot in the backside, and slam the door behind them. But before that happens, the Israelites should go door to door in the Egyptian neighborhoods, ask to be given all the objects of silver and gold, and expect it to be handed over no questions asked.

        Disregarding Pharaoh’s threat of grievous bodily harm, Moses shows up at the palace once more and delivers notice of the worst plague of them all. All firstborn in Egypt, from high to low, even including the livestock (there they are again, where did these cows and horses and Belgian Giant rabbits spring up from?) are doomed, Israelites excepted of course. Pharaoh’s heart has reached Moh’s ten by now, so he isn’t thinking straight at all, and he tells Moses to skedaddle.

Which brings us to Chapter 12 and The First Passover aka Plague #10

        God gives Moses instructions on how the Israelites are to mark their doorposts and lintels so when he descends upon Egypt to kill all the firstborn he will know which houses to skip. There’s more about unleavened bread and how to cook a lamb and instructions not to leave leftovers.

        God also tells Moses that the day when he kills all the Egyptian firstborn will be a day of remembrance that shall be celebrated “throughout your generations…as a perpetual ordinance.” Instructions are given regarding unleavened bread and a day of rest.

        Good as his word, at midnight “the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” and finally, finally, Pharaoh summons Moses and says,

“Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelities
! Go, worship the Lord, as you said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And bring a blessing on me too!”

        Not sure where he gets off asking for a blessing, but I suppose since God was responsible for the hard heart that facilitated all this death and destruction, he felt he was due some compensation.

        The Israelites bundle up their unleavened dough, the silver and gold (and fine fabrics, by the way) they had swindled the Egyptian people out of, and they take to the road. It must have been a sight, because the Bible tells us there were “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children.” How many women? It doesn’t say.

        God gives out more instructions regarding how the Passover celebration is to be administered, mostly to make sure there are no foreskins present at the festivities. And the whole episode is wrapped up in verse 51…

That very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, company by company.

We will pick things up with Chapter 13 in our next installment. Get ready for more unleavened bread, pillars of cloud and fire, and one of Hollywood’s great special effects, the Parting of the Red Sea.

*I thought that a nice picture of some calla lilies would perhaps help take the sting out of all these plagues.

**”Aaron’s Miraculous Rod” is a subtitle contained within Chapter 7. Honest.

 

       

       

Exodus Pt 2

 

  

 

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It All Starts With

A Burning Bush

 

At the end of Chapter 2, Moses has fled Egypt to avoid prosecution for murder, gotten himself married to a nice young woman name of Zipporah and had a son they name Gershom; the Israelites have cried out to God for help against their Egyptian taskmaster and God has taken notice of them.

 

Which brings us to Chapter 3 and one of those familiar Bible Stories many of us recall either from Sunday School or the David Steinberg routine on his “Disguised as a Normal Person” LP: Moses and the Burning Bush. I’ll try to stick at least a bit closer to the version in the New Revised Standard Version than Mr. Steinberg does in his hilarious comedy routine. But it’s easy to see how he was inspired.

Anyway…

Moses is in Midian, tending to a flock of sheep belonging to his father-in-law Jethro, when he spots a bush on fire. Entertainment of any variety being at a premium to a shepherd, he goes over to check it out and is surprised to see that the bush is not being affected in any way by the flames, kind of like the ceramic logs in a gas fireplace, although we can be confident he didn’t make that connection. Then, when the voice of God comes out of the bush, his curiosity is really piqued and he tries to get even closer, but God tells him to take his sandals off first on account of it being holy ground. This is where Steinberg has a bit of fun with the idea that God gleefully exclaims “Got another one!” when Moses scorches his bare feet, but we’re not going to go there.

Just to make sure Moses knows who he is talking to, God identifies himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, which causes Moses to cover his face out of fear of looking God of all those important ancestors in the face. As there isn’t anything in the next few verses to indicate otherwise, it seems Moses keeps his eyes covered for the rest of their conversation. But as God does most of the talking it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

First God tells Moses that the Israelites are having a rough time in Egypt, and he has a plan to get them out of there. Not only that, but he will lead them to a land of milk and honey that is currently inhabited by some undeserving Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who probably have no idea that an eviction notice is in their future. The person he wants to make the arrangements with Pharaoh for this emigration from Egypt is, you guessed it, Moses.

Moses is none too keen on the plan and he starts to come up with reasons why he’s not the right man for the job. Reason one being he thinks it very unlikely the Israelites will believe him if he comes strutting back home with some story about being appointed by God to lead them out of Egypt. What if they ask him God’s name, just to make sure he’s not working for one of the less reliable deities? This is where God delivers one of his signature lines, a real corker that the author delivers in all upper case,

“I AM WHO I AM. Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

One must admit it is simple, catchy, memorable, especially when delivered in the sort of rolling, thunderous voice one would associate with burning but not consumed bushes. Give it a try and see how it rolls off the tongue. “I AM WHO I AM!” See? Sounds impressive. But then if you step back and reread that bit it’s unclear as to whether the name is supposed to be “I AM” or “I AM WHO I AM”, if you see what I mean. But Moses, eyes closed, feet warm, and possibly wondering what the sheep are getting up to while he’s being distracted, likely doesn’t have the presence of mind at the time to inquire further. Fortunately, God gives him more to work with.

“Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.”

That should answer any questions the elders back home have about the authenticity of his commission.

God repeats his milk and honey promise and tells Moses that he wants him to go to Pharaoh and ask for permission to take the Israelites three days’ journey out of town to worship God. God says that Pharaoh is unlikely to agree to this unless he is “compelled by a mighty hand”. He promises to supply said mighty hand “and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will perform in it; after that he will let you go.” And then he says the Israelites should knock on the doors of their Egyptian neighbors and ask for any gold, silver, and fine fabrics laying around the house and expect it all to be forked over with no objections because “I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians.”  

(Possible Spoiler Alert and Personal Quibble) We all know that the “wonders” God is alluding to is a series of plagues involving frogs, boils, locusts and other inconveniences that will affect not just Pharaoh but darned near everyone in Egypt. So why in the world would the Egyptian people cheerfully hand over their family heirlooms to the folks they could with complete justification blame for their water turning to blood and all their firstborn children dying? Or does “into such favor” mean something other than what it sounds like to us, like “The Egyptians will give you anything, just to see the backside of your donkey heading into the East.”?

Moses still isn’t crazy about being recruited into the job, and Chapter 4 opens with him once again trying to beg out of the job.

“But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me,”

God, who I’m thinking isn’t too happy at what could be considered a mild form of insubordination, keeps his cool and has Moses do a couple of simple things with his staff and his hands that turn into nifty feats of legerdemain. “See?” he says. “With me on your side you can turn your staff into a snake and back to a staff, and your hand a nasty leprous white and back to glowing with health. That’ll convince ‘em. And if all else fails, I’ve got this one where you turn water into blood. No, you don’t need to do it now, but trust me, it never fails.” (I’m paraphrainge)

But Moses isn’t done trying to weasel out. He claims a lack of eloquence, saying he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (not a paraphrase). God, getting just a little testy at this resistance, reminds Moses who he is speaking with. “Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” (Also, not a paraphrase. I think it should be pretty easy to spot the difference by now, so these parenthetical asides are being retired unless I think one is really necessary.)

Moses isn’t ready to give up yet and he just flat out says,

“O, my Lord, please send someone else.”

But once God sets his mind on bringing someone into the company, he’s usually stubborn about getting his way, so he tells Moses he can have his brother Aaron, a charter member of the Goshen Chapter of Toastmasters, do the actual public speaking for him. God will tell Moses what to tell Aaron to say and that should be the end of the discussion, don’t make me have to step out of this bush, if you know what I mean?

Moses takes the assignment. He asks his employer/father-in-law for some personal time to visit the extended family in Egypt, and heads out with his wife, their sons (notice the plural here, so Gershom now has at least one sibling), a donkey, and, of course, his magical staff, and turns toward Egypt. On the way he gets some additional details from God about what to expect. For one thing, he should expect Pharaoh to be difficult about the whole thing and the reason Pharaoh is going to be difficult is because God will “harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” When this happens, Moses (through brother Aaron I suppose) is to tell Pharaoh that since God considers the Israelites his firstborn, if Pharaoh won’t let them go God will kill Pharaoh’s firstborn son.

This is what I like to call Old Testament diplomacy.

Then, in verses 24-26, we have a little scene that, although I’ve read it over more than a few times, I just don’t quite get what is going on. Here it is verbatim. See what you think.

24  On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met him and tried to kill him. 25  But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!”  26  So he let him alone. It was then she said, “A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.”

So God tried to kill Moses and was thwarted by a foreskin? Or was it Gershom (or Gershom’s brother?) God snuck up on with bad intent because he hadn’t been circumcised yet and Zipporah took away his motive just in time? What’s all this about being a bridegroom of blood? And what was going through Moses’ mind when his wife was dabbing at his feet with a freshly amputated foreskin?

Let’s wrap up this chapter.

Chapter 4 ends with Moses meeting up with Aaron and the two of them making their case for abandoning the Land o’ Goshen to the elders and general population, who find their arguments convincing.

 

Next up I will try my darndest to get us through the plagues in one piece.

 

 

*The Mission at Santa Barbara. Pretty, isn't it? There's a nice rose garden nearby.