I, Moses
First-Person Transcriptions From The Old Testament Patriarch
by Edwin Walhout
Published by Edwin Walhout
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout
Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.com)
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Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Discovering My Origin
2 Internal Conflict
3 In the Land of Midian
4 A Burning Bush
5 Objections
6 Making Plans
7 Confronting Pharaoh
8 Frogs, Gnats, and Flies
9 Pestilence, Boils, Hail, and Locusts
10 Darkness and Death
11 The Angel of Death
12 Exodus
13 Marah, Elim, and Manna
14 Rephidim
15 Sinai
16 Torah
17 Golden Calf
18 The Tabernacle
19 Scouts to Canaan
20 More Troubles
21 Writing
22 Moving On
23 Moses’ Last Days
This is now the fourth major trip I have made in the time machine on behalf of the West Michigan Institute for Time Travel. Several years ago our first foray into the past was to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. In our calendar time that would be about 580 B.C. Our next project went much farther back in time, to Abraham, in approximately 1750 B.C. or earlier. I visited King David, around the year 960 B.C., and now it has been my pleasure to talk with Moses (c. 1200 B.C.).
In our planning we could not find any time near the end of Moses’ life when he would have sufficient leisure for a long series of interviews. We decided that I should split my visits into three different times: first, when Moses was a shepherd in the land of Midian; second, at Mount Sinai just before the Israelites began their journey to the land of Canaan; and third, while the Israelites were east of the Jordan River making final preparations to enter into Canaan.
* * * * *
I am meeting Moses now in the prime of life. He is young, strong and vigorous. We are in his tent in the land of Midian, within sight of the peaks of Mt. Sinai to the north. Moses is by training and education an Egyptian nobleman, but in his heart he is an Israelite, and this is a huge problem for him. He is constantly thinking about his family in slavery, and wants to get them out of Egypt. He would like to get all the Israelites out if possible.
(Based on Exodus 1:8 - 2:10)
I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I first learned I was not a native Egyptian. Maybe fourteen or fifteen, something like that.
I grew up with all the other young boys in the royal court of Pharaoh, and I had no inkling whatever that I was any different from them. They all had fine homes and wealthy parents, and so did I. My mother was the daughter of the king, and my father was an important official in the government. My friend Tutankhamen would probably be the Pharaoh one day. I learned how to read and write along with other boys of my age.
But as I grew up into the teen years I heard remarks that seemed strange to me, veiled hints that I was different and not really entitled to all the respect and privilege of Egyptian life. One day I asked my teacher in religion if he knew anything about it. This trusted teacher promised to look into it and talk to me about it soon.
Later I learned that he knew all along about my true origin, but did not want to be the first to tell me. Instead he went to my Egyptian mother and discussed the advisability of telling me. My teacher received permission to tell me about my origin. I was not a born Egyptian but was an adopted Hebrew, rescued from drowning by Pharaoh’s daughter. If she had not adopted me I would either be dead or a slave working on Pharaoh’s buildings.
That is how I learned that my Israelite parents were people named Amram and Jochebed, and that I had a brother named Aaron and a sister named Miriam. I was the son of slaves, not of a royal prince and princess.
The information did not bother me right away. I was accepted well enough in the court of Pharaoh. My friends were not any more hostile or disrespectful than before. Some of the other boys and girls I grew up with had fuzzy parentage as well.
But it did have some influence on my understanding of the world and of life. I took seriously the things our lovable old priest was teaching us about the gods, and I learned the great stories of how the gods created the world. We even had some interesting things to read from other countries. I remember particularly one strange story – it came from a foreign land, Babylon – about the gods and how one god assassinated the old matriarch god and created the world out of her body.
I began to think more seriously about how the world was running. Here I was, a rich and powerful noble merely because an Egyptian princess decided to keep me from drowning. Otherwise, if I survived at all, I would have been making bricks or dragging huge stones, a slave with miserable living conditions, no education, no authority, no real life. How does it happen, I remember thinking, that some people have all the power and wealth while other people have little or nothing?
When I grew up I was given a position of responsibility, supervising the slaves who were building one of Pharaoh's projects. I thought more and more about the injustice I was seeing: enormous wealth and power on one side, and miserable poverty and drudgery on the other side. I was on the privileged side; yet my mother and father and brother and sister were on the oppressed side. How just is that?
So, learning about my origin didn't produce any great change in my life. But it did trigger a sense of injustice in the way the world worked. It was years before I did anything about it. However, that is a story for next time.
* * * * *
I met with Moses at three different times in his life, so that in these early interviews he does not himself know what will happen later in his life, although we do from the Bible. Moses cannot understand that I come from the future. He thinks I am an angel from God.
(Based on Exodus 2:11-15)
We had to keep slaves down. If they made trouble we whipped them. If they were a threat to our authority we killed them. I saw it happen again and again.
We gave the slaves enough food to have energy for their work. We allowed them to build shelters in which they could live, but they never had enough income or free time to do much else besides work.
After I learned my parents were slaves, I became a little more concerned for these slaves as people. I did not want to be cruel to them. These were human beings, I recognized, just as much as I am.
When I talked this way I would sometimes get into arguments. Some of my friends insisted we had to keep these folk down no matter how we did it. But I did not see much use in enforcing policies that simply made the people angry and rebellious.
I then became more interested in religion. Why did the gods make life the way it is? Why are our gods more powerful than the gods of the slaves?
A few years ago one of our Pharaohs tried to abolish all the old gods and have us concentrate on just one god. Actually, as best as I can understand it, he combined two gods into one: Amun, god of life, and Re, god of the sun. This new god’s name, accordingly, became Amun-Re. That was my first contact with the idea of only one god.
I knew, of course, that there is a Father god and a Mother god, and that every country has a High God, a god who ruled over the others. Among the Canaanites, for example, the High God was named El, plural Elohim. I learned these things from the priests who taught me and from reading manuscripts from other countries.
But I was not really content with the way life was going. It did not seem right the way we lived in luxury and the way the slaves lived in poverty. Not knowing what to do about it, however, began to make me a little irritable, and I found myself taking out my inner tensions on people close to me.
That’s what finally got me into such bad trouble that I had to flee for my life.
It happened like this. I was supervising a construction job. One of the slaves objected to something his foreman told him to do. The foreman picked up his whip and struck the slave.
Common enough. I didn’t like it much but it had to be done. Slaves must be compelled to obey. But then the slave said something that the foreman didn’t like, and the foreman became so angry that he kept whipping the man mercilessly. If this kept on the slave wouldn’t be able to work at all.
I ordered the foreman to stop the whipping. But he kept on beating that slave almost to death. I stepped closer and pushed the foreman away. He snapped his whip at me, of all things.
So then I lost my self-control too and fought the foreman until I killed him. I beat that man to death; the very thing I was trying to stop him from doing to the slave.
When my superiors heard of this incident they were angry with me, so angry in fact that in order to avoid being arrested and executed, I had to run way. Pharaoh would have killed me if I stayed.
Let me stop at this point. I’m still emotional about it when I relive that crisis, not very many years ago. I’ll continue later. Can you come back tomorrow?
* * * * *
People keep asking me what these ancient people really look like. Unfortunately it does not work to send photographs back. Today Moses is remembering those strange years, so different from life in Egypt, when he had to learn how to live as a shepherd in the wilderness of Sinai.
(Based on Exodus 2:15-22)
I found a camel and loaded it down with as many supplies as I could gather – a tent and some clothing and a lot of water and food. Money. I had no idea where I was going, just that I had to get away from Egypt.
I did, however, manage to tell my birth parents, Amram and Jochebed, what was happening. I couldn't simply hide with them in the land of Goshen. Sooner or later the Egyptian soldiers would find me and kill me, and probably kill them too.
So I moved on, going east until I reached a country far away from Egypt. Soon I discovered it was called Sinai and was occupied by people known as Midianites.
But what was I to do? I had never had to work hard for a living. I decided to find some prosperous desert sheik in the region and ask him to take me on as a helper.
I came to a well, and it was obvious that a lot of people used it. The grass was trampled and there were footmarks of sheep and other animals all around. So I watered my camel and then sat down to wait.
After a while some girls came by with a flock of sheep. They began to draw water out of the well and pour it into the stone troughs so that the sheep could drink. But they hardly got started when some other shepherds came along with their flocks. These shepherds were men, and they simply pushed the girls out of the way in order to get their own animals to the troughs.
I became angry and stepped up in defense of the girls. I would have fought those men if they resisted, but they knew they were in the wrong, and they retreated.
So I helped the girls water their flocks and then they left for their home. The men shepherds could now come up to do their work. I didn't speak to those men, however, since I wouldn't live with people like that if I could help it.
I was still wondering what to do when a couple of the girls whom I had helped came back and invited me to come with them to their home. Their father had sent them back to invite me for a meal as a way to thank me.
As it turned out the man’s name was Reuel and he had a family of seven daughters but no sons. I explained who I was and why I was out there in the country. He agreed that I could stay with him and help him in his work. Besides being a desert sheik, Reuel was also a priest for a tribe of Midianites in the area.
I have been here with Reuel many years now, and I learned many important things from him. Our conversations over the years were of great help to me. I learned the ways of the wilderness.
But even more important, I learned to understand all of my life in terms of responsibility to just one God. I learned that it was not enough to make religion just an add-on to the rest of my life. God gradually became a part of everything I do.
After some time, when he knew me better, Reuel discussed the matter of marriage. I suppose I was twenty-five or so years old already and his daughters were old enough to be married. Reuel suggested that I might wish to marry one of them. I agreed to marry the one named Zipporah. In a year or so God gave us a son whom we named Gershom.
I have one or two things yet to say about my life here. I have lived here in Midian a long time. Many years. It is a custom among us that when we don't know exactly how long some period lasted, we generally say it was forty years, half a lifetime. A long time in Egypt first, and now another long time in Midian.
But enough for now. The next story I want to tell you will have to wait until your next visit. I trust you will come back tomorrow?
* * * * *
I wanted to bring Moses and his family some kind of modern food. My colleagues in Michigan sent me a few bananas, and that worked out fine. Moses liked the banana he ate, so I will bring more for his household later on. Today Moses told me about a very strange event that had a profound effect on him.
(Based on Exodus 3:1-22)
I’m glad to see you again, my friend. I don't have much time to talk right now, because the sheep need attention, but I will tell you about an incident that happened just a couple of months ago and that I'm still struggling to figure out.
As I told you yesterday, I learned how to take care of sheep. Sometimes I have to go rather far from home to find good pasture for the flock, and this time I was miles from home, actually quite near the huge mountains that you can see there to the north.
I have plenty of time to think when I’m with the sheep. I often think about God and the world and how it all came to be the way it is. I was thinking then about my real father and mother and brother and sister, about the Israelite slaves building cities and temples for Pharaoh, about why God made me what I am, a slave by nationality, a prince by adoption, well educated, with experience in managing people and programs, but now a lowly shepherd in the land of Midian. I wondered what it’s all about and what God wants me to do.
I must confess that, after such a long time in the royal court of Pharaoh, I'm not altogether comfortable and happy to be living in the wilderness caring for sheep. There's a pressure in me telling me that I ought to be doing something more than care for sheep, something that will help my people. But I don't know what. What can I, just one person, do to change things, especially way out here in Sinai?
Here’s what happened. I was thinking about these things when I noticed a bush some distance away. It was on fire. That wasn't unusual; I saw similar things from time to time. But I kept looking at this bush and it didn't stop burning, even after it should have been burned up. I kept looking from time to time and it just kept on burning and burning but never was burned up.
I was curious about that, so after a few minutes I went to look at it closer. Suddenly I heard a voice – I can’t tell you whether it was in my mind or actually a sound – but I heard it and I knew immediately it was the voice of God.
God called me by name, Moses, Moses.
I replied, Here I am.
God said, Don’t come any closer; the ground on which you are standing is holy ground. Take off your sandals.
I did that, got on my knees, and listened to what God had to say to me. God told me that the people of Israel were his people, people for whom he had a glorious destiny. God told me that he was well aware of the suffering the people were undergoing in Egypt; that they were crying out for relief from the crushing burdens imposed by the Egyptian overlords.
I was happy to hear that. God knows what is going on. But I wondered why God was telling me these things. Why tell me? I soon found out.
God said to me, Moses, I want you to go back. Go back first to your people, the elders of Israel. Tell them that I, the Lord their God, am going to get them out of slavery, out of Egypt altogether. Then take some of these elders of the people and go to the new Pharaoh and ask him to let the people go into the desert to worship God. There will be a lot of trouble, and it won’t be easy, but I will do what is necessary to get them out. Moses, you do that.
I'm sorry, my friend, but I have to stop here. I have to get outside to look after the sheep. But I will tell you tomorrow how I am trying to deal with all that.
* * * * *
God has just summoned Moses to go to Egypt and get the Israelites out of slavery. Moses figures he can't do it. Here he tells about his feelings. He is full of objections, reasons why he is not the person to do it. This is the last of the interviews I had with Moses at this point in his life. I will return to him when he is back here with the whole nation of Israel, about two or three years later.
(Based on Exodus 3:11 - 4:18)
How often, alone out there in the wilderness, I tried to invent ways in my mind of how the Israelites might get out of Egypt. How earnestly I prayed that God would figure out a way to get it done. But year after year passes and nothing happens. Now God is telling me, It's time, you go do it. How do I deal with that?
God is not letting me off the hook. He gave me good training in the court of Egypt, training to supervise people, training to see the larger dimensions of life and government. And I suppose there is a good reason why he brought me here to this land of Midian, learning how to survive in the wilderness.
But I just can't do what he is asking me to do. I can't go to Pharaoh and demand that he let the Israelites go free. I just can't do it.
I am beginning to think God was preparing me to do the very thing I was praying that he would do – deliver the people out of Egypt. Not the way I had dreamed up in my wild fantasies. But I have no idea how to go about it.
Here is what I am thinking and how God is answering me.
Moses, God is saying, you have been praying a long time for me to take the people out of Egypt. I am now saying to you, Moses, you do it.
Me do it? How can one obscure shepherd go to Egypt and get the people out? I would need a whole army to do that. Me do it?
Yes, Moses, you do it. I will help you. You don’t need an army, you only need me. Are you willing to put your life on the line for what you want me to do?
But, Lord, I have a speech defect; I can’t speak persuasively. Nobody will listen to me. You had better look for someone else to do it, someone better equipped than I am.
There is no one better equipped than you, says God, but, all right, I’ll get your brother Aaron to go with you. He can do the speaking if you think you can’t do that.
I don’t think the two of us would be very persuasive, even so, I replied.
No, perhaps not, God replies, but I will help you. Take that stick you have in your hand and throw it down on the ground. I did that and it changed into a snake. Now grab the snake by the tail. I did that and it became a stick again.
Now put your hand inside your cloak. I did that and my hand became white with leprosy. Now do it again. The hand became healthy.
Now do you understand? asks God. I will be with you and I will persuade Pharaoh. He will not want to yield to your request, and he will threaten your life, but if you keep at it he will eventually give in. When that happens, you will lead the people out of Egypt and in due time you will bring them right here to this mountain and you will worship me here. Will you do it, Moses? That's what God is asking me right now.
But how can I do it? Could you do it? I am supposed to do something only God can do? Get a whole nation out of slavery?
So I come up with yet another objection. How can I persuade the Israelite leaders themselves to support me? I am just Aaron’s fugitive brother. Why would they even consider listening? Even if I tell them I’m coming in the name of God, they will ask, What God?
God replied, Tell them you come in the name of Yahweh, the God of their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For that is the name now by which I want to be known, by you as well as by my people Israel.
The elders of Israel would not know this name for God. They would know only El Shaddai, God Almighty. So I would have to explain to them that the name Yahweh means that he is the only God who exists. Yahweh means I Am, I Exist. So we must come to Pharaoh in the name of the only God there is, the only God who really exists.
I wasn’t sure how persuasive that would be, but how could I continue to argue with God?
* * * * *
The Time Machine jumped me forward a few years and I am now talking with Moses after the Israelites have come to Mount Sinai. Moses is telling me how things went after I met him last, about meeting his brother Aaron to make plans for confronting Pharaoh and getting the people out of Egypt.
(Based on Exodus 4:18-31)
One day a stranger came to our camp. Imagine my surprise when I recognized my own brother Aaron! How delighted I was to see him and he to see me. We exchanged hugs and I introduced him all around.
How did my brother know where to find me? Earlier I had met some traders who were going to Egypt on business. I asked them to find my family in the land of Goshen and tell them where I’m living. They actually did that, and now Aaron came back with them to visit me here in the land of Midian.
Why did he come to visit me? The traders told him that I wanted to make plans to get the people out of slavery.
Aaron and I spent many hours talking the matter over. But Aaron had to be persuaded that it could be done. I demonstrated what God had shown me earlier, my staff becoming a snake, and my hand becoming leprous. That was enough to persuade Aaron.
We decided that we would first go to the elders of Israel to get their support. We had to persuade them first that it could be done.
When we arrived, Aaron did the same thing with his staff in front of the elders of Israel. He threw it on the ground and it began to wriggle like a snake. Then he picked it up and it was solid again. He also repeated the other sign, his hand becoming leprous and then being restored again. So the elders of Israel were persuaded also that God was in it.
The next step was to go to Pharaoh and ask for permission to go for three days to worship God in the wilderness.
Everyone would understand that this was a roundabout way of asking to be released from slavery altogether. We wanted to get away from Egypt and find somewhere to settle down ourselves and begin our own independent country. We wanted to go to the land where our ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob lived, the land of Canaan.
We couldn't simply refuse to work and start moving out of Egypt. That wouldn't work because Pharaoh would send his soldiers to force us back, and then punish us severely for trying to escape. We had to get Pharaoh’s consent, or it wouldn’t happen. The problem was how to get that consent. We had to ask for it and somehow find strong reasons to make Pharaoh agree.
I suppose we all wondered whether our demonstration of divine power would be enough to persuade Pharaoh. But at least we had the elders' approval to begin negotiations. I’ll tell you next time about what happened when Aaron and I came to Pharaoh with our request. It wasn’t pretty.
* * * * *
Moses grew up in the royal court of Pharaoh, so he knew how to go about speaking to Pharaoh. He told his brother Aaron how to do it. But he was very tense as he spoke to me, and I could feel his strong emotions as he relived the experience.
(Based on Exodus 5 and 7:8-25)
Plans were all set. Aaron and I asked for a conference with Pharaoh – it was Rameses II. Aaron dressed in his best robe and made an eloquent plea to allow the Israelite people, after all these years of loyal service to Pharaoh, to have a few days vacation to worship their God.
Rameses knew there was more to our request than merely a short vacation, that what we really wanted was complete emancipation. He said he would consider our request, and then dismissed us.
After we were gone, however, Pharaoh summoned the men in charge of the slave labor and told them to make our work even harder than it was before.
So the supervisors came to our people and said, You have to make just as many bricks as before, but now you have to find your own straw as well. We are no longer going to provide the straw. But your quota will still be the same. That’s Pharaoh's answer to your request for a vacation.
So that is what happened. Instead of getting some vacation time the people were compelled to work harder than before. The slaves complained to the elders. The elders complained to me and Aaron. We complained to God. All our bright plans for getting out of Egypt resulted in the opposite, making things worse instead of better.
Now what do we do? My popularity with the Israelite people was not exactly high, as you can well imagine. Now God, what do we do next? Do we dare go back again, and if we do, what do we say this time?
God told us to go back to Pharaoh with the same request, so we did. But this time we wanted Pharaoh to know that it was not just two ordinary men he was dealing with but with almighty God.
Pharaoh challenged us to prove that we came with the power of God on our side. It was just what we wanted. Aaron tossed his staff on the ground and it became a snake. Then he picked up the snake by the tail and it turned back into a staff.
Pharaoh Rameses called it a magician’s trick. He summoned his own magicians, and after Aaron showed them what God could do with his staff, Pharaoh told his magicians to do the same. They did, throwing down their own staves, and sure enough, they also turned into snakes. God could do it for them as well as for us.
For a moment it appeared that the Egyptian gods were just as powerful as our God, Yahweh. But then a startling thing happened. Aaron’s snake swallowed all the other snakes! When he picked up his snake by the tail there weren’t any other snakes to be seen. The magicians lost their staves. The supposed power of the Egyptian gods disappeared before the sovereign power of the Lord God of Israel.
But Pharaoh was not impressed and sent us away.
Next day God told us to go back to again and demand that he let the people go into the wilderness. He will refuse, God told us, but then go to the river and tell Aaron to stretch out his rod over the Nile. The water will turn to blood, the fish will die, and the people will not be able to drink it.
And that's what happened. Pharaoh saw what happened to his sacred river and saw demonstrated before his own eyes that the Israelite God was powerful enough to change the water into blood. People could not drink that polluted water, for it made them sick.
Pharaoh wasn't impressed with that either and denied our request for a vacation. But we did continue to come back again until he gave in. I'll tell you some more about that tomorrow.
* * * * *
It was only about two years ago that the things happened that Moses told me about today. So it was all fairly fresh in his memory. He could smile as he looked back, knowing that God had given success in bringing the people out of Egypt.
(Based on Exodus 8:1-22)
If it weren’t such a serious business, I would have to smile about what happened during the next month. Pharaoh and his people were so smug about their gods and how much better they were than the miserable God of the Israelites. Our gods made us wealthy and powerful, they said; your god let you become poor and weak. That was their attitude. I know very well because I was once one of them.
But they would soon learn different. For the next several weeks we would show proud Pharaoh how wrong he was and how weak his gods are and how strong Yahweh is.
Aaron and I went back to Pharaoh with the same demand. Let our people go. We told him what would happen if he refused. God would send frogs out of that holy river of theirs – dozens and hundreds of frogs. Thousands.
Predictably Pharaoh refused our demand and didn’t seem much concerned at all about our warning about the frogs. Who cares about a few frogs? We expected as much, Aaron and I, figuring that there would have to be a long sequence of demonstrations of Yahweh’s might before Pharaoh would relent and let us go.
So that very night the frog invasion began. There wasn’t enough room in the river for them all, they multiplied so fast. So out they came and hopped through the weeds into the streets of the cities, out of the streets into the gardens and through the open windows and doors of the houses. Into kitchens and pots and pans. Into bedrooms and on the beds. Into toilets and bathtubs. The Egyptians could not walk in the streets without squashing the critters under their sandals. What an unholy mess!
Pharaoh called us in and pleaded for us to stop the invasion of the frogs, promising to let the people go if we did. So we prayed for the invasion to stop, and it did.
But Pharaoh did not believe that it was God who stopped the frogs. He did not believe God sent them either. He figured it was just an unusual event of nature, and as soon as it ended he canceled his promise to let the people go.
The same kind of thing happened twice more. We returned to Pharaoh, reminded him of his broken promise, and warned that this time it would not be frogs but gnats. [I’m going to refer to them as mosquitoes.]
When Pharaoh refused, God sent clouds of mosquitoes into the air. All over the country, people were slapping them right and left and nobody escaped. Little babies had tiny welts on their faces and arms. Boys and girls scratched until the blood began to run.
The Egyptian people in general did not yet know that these were plagues from Yahweh, but we gradually spread the information and the people began to wonder about it. If the Israelite God can control nature like this, is he a greater God than our sacred deities?
When the swarms of mosquitoes finally disappeared and Pharaoh refused again, we warned him that next it would be a swarm of flies. Big flies they turned out to be, biting dogs and cats and horses and people. Biting the great nobles of the land as well as Pharaoh and his wife and children. They could not swat them fast enough.
Pharaoh promised to let us go, so we prayed to God to stop this plague also, and it did stop. And Pharaoh changed his mind once again. It was getting very discouraging, since it seemed Pharaoh would never give us permission to leave.
Something so bad would have to happen that everybody would clamor to get rid of us. But people were beginning to see that our God Yahweh was indeed very powerful.
* * * * *
9 Pestilence, Boils, Hail, and Locusts
You are always happy when you can look back and things have turned out all right, but when you are in the middle of it and don't know what will happen you can get quite anxious. So that's what is happening now. Moses can look back on it happily but while he was doing it he could get a bit impatient and uncertain.
(Based on Exodus 9:1-26 and 10:12-20)
This frustrating process went on for about two months and we were no closer, it seemed, to getting out of Egypt than we were when we began. Aaron was getting discouraged, and to tell the truth, the elders of our people were not very supportive either.
More than once we were tempted to give up when Pharaoh made a solemn promise and then cancelled it. But the Lord wouldn’t let us quit, in spite of the seemingly overwhelming odds against us.
So back we went again, Aaron and I, and told Pharaoh the plagues would be getting worse now. Not only that, but now the Israelites wouldn't get the troubles, only the Egyptians. Pharaoh didn't believe that could happen. If there was going to be trouble how could some people escape it?
This time we told Pharaoh God would send a disease that would kill the animals of Egypt. But, we told him, the disease will not kill the animals of the Israelites. Their animals will escape.
Carefully we explained it’s the Israelite God who is doing this. We told Pharaoh, Your gods are no gods at all, with no power whatsoever. This plague of disease will prove it.
It happened exactly as we said. Egyptian animals caught some disease and large numbers of them died. But the Israelite animals did not catch the disease. None of them died.
But when the plague was all over, Pharaoh figured that's all behind us now, forget it. He refused to let us go, plague or no plague.
So we went back again after a while, this time with the threat of boils. I took some ashes from one of the nearby kilns, tossed them into the air, and told Pharaoh that this symbolizes that God will send impurities in the air; everyone will be contaminated and break out in boils all over their body.
The earlier disease had affected the animals, but now this plague will affect people. Not kill them but make their lives extremely uncomfortable. But not the Israelites.
In the meantime we were continually circulating the story among the Egyptian people that all these disasters were coming from the God of Israel. Maybe some of the people believed it, maybe not, but at least they were thinking about it. When they weren’t scratching their skin they were trying to find ointments to stop the itching. Terribly uncomfortable.
But that plague didn’t work either; it didn't change Pharaoh’s mind. He promised as he had done numerous times before, and just changed his mind once the disaster was ended.
God told us to make the plagues worse. The diseased animals had cut into the food supply, and now there would be two more plagues to attack their food. God sent a really severe hailstorm that shredded their corn and wheat and oats and cotton. Farmers know what a disaster hail can be.
And when that didn't change Pharaoh’s mind God sent another plague on what was left of the crops in the field. Millions of locusts blew into the country on an east wind. They ate everything in sight. No one could stop them. Except God.
When Pharaoh seemingly relented, God changed the direction of the wind and blew the locusts into the sea.
The Egyptian food supply was now severely threatened. But it didn't change Rameses’ mind. Whatever plague God might send, sooner or later it will end, and we will survive. That’s how he thought.
The Egyptian people were getting upset over this constant succession of storms and plagues which they now knew came from Israel's God. It wouldn't take much more to persuade them to let the slaves go; but Pharaoh still needed a little more persuasion. I’ll tell you next time what finally did change Pharaoh’s mind. Two more plagues.
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Moses is noticeably more upbeat today. He is telling me how the Lord Yahweh overcame the stubbornness of Pharaoh, and how the Egyptian people were so anxious to get the Israelites away that they were willing to give them all kinds of money and equipment.
(Based on Exodus 10:21-27 and 11:1-8)
The people of Egypt knew very well what was happening. They knew that the God of Israel was sending all these disasters, and they knew Aaron and I were God’s spokesmen. They could see very well that their own Egyptian gods were not protecting them. We weren't functioning secretly. We wanted the people to put pressure on Pharaoh to let us go.
We kept telling them our God has determined that it is time for the Israelites to become free people once again. Every time there was another plague more people sided with us.
Pharaoh Rameses would not be pressured into letting any of his slaves go free. If we left, other slaves would want to go also. Then who would build his great monuments?
Nonetheless, we could tell, Aaron and I, that matters were approaching a climax. Next we came to Pharaoh and told him there would be three days of absolute darkness. I suppose Pharaoh thought, Who cares about that? Three days and then it's done, and nobody is any the worse off. We can easily survive three days of darkness.
But, you see, this was a direct attack on the High God of Egypt. We had attacked the god supposedly in charge of the Nile River, the god in charge of fertility and crops, the god of weather, and now the most popular god of all, Re, the god of light, the sun god. The Israelite God was about to shut down the god of light.
It happened just the way we predicted. Three days of darkness. And I mean real darkness. Not just diminished light, not just twilight or moonlight, but no light at all. For practical purposes everyone was blind, totally and completely blind. How do you prepare your food when you cannot even see it? How do you do your daily work if you cannot see what you are holding in your hand? How do you manage to walk anywhere without stumbling? Three days of it. Darkness so deep and intense it seemed as if you could touch it.
The people were terrified. How is it, they asked, that it is absolutely dark here but not dark at all where the Israelites live? Why can’t our gods do something about that? Get these people with their awful God out of here.
Pharaoh was upset too, but not enough to send us away.
We told Pharaoh God would send one more disaster. The firstborn child in every household would die, as well as the firstborn animal of their herds and flocks. Yahweh would show the Egyptians that he was the God of life who controls birth and death and who is now demanding that his people Israel shall be set free.
Pharaoh became extremely angry. He roared at us never again to show our faces in his court. We knew then this would be the end of Pharaoh's stubbornness.
It was. Next morning every household in the land found somebody dead, including the family of Rameses himself. When they went out to their pastures they found lambs and calves and little camels dead.
But it did not happen to the Israelite slaves.
Terror swept the land and the people demanded that Pharaoh let us go. This time he did.
But before we went we did two things: 1) we performed a ritual which later became known as Passover, which I will tell you about later, and 2) we went to our rich Egyptian neighbors to borrow all the money and clothing and animals and other goods we could get, all the things we could not purchase ourselves because of our slavery. We had been abjectly poor in Egypt, but when we left we were wealthy.
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More than once Moses had to stop to get his emotions under control. He is telling about the angel of death and the event that persuaded Pharaoh to let them go.
(Based on Exodus 12:21-36)
The year the Lord delivered us out of Egypt is Year One for us. It's the year we became an independent nation; the exodus from Egypt. No one who wasn't there can possibly imagine the power of that event in our lives.
How terrible that last plague was for the Egyptians. They woke up in the morning and found the oldest child dead. And they knew it was the God of Israel who did it. How terrified they were. How anxious to send us on our way. They gave us anything and everything we asked for: food, jewelry, money, furniture, clothing, blankets, donkeys, tents, whatever we asked for they gave us. Just get out of here so that these awful tragedies will stop.
But how hopeful that event was for us as Israelites. For a hundred years and more we had been praying God to get us out of this wretched slavery, and now it was happening. For decade after decade our prayers went unanswered. But now the time of our deliverance has come.
I knew it was important to have the people make a very clear expression of their trust in the Lord Yahweh. They must know God is not our servant, he is our Lord. They must listen to what he says and must learn to obey what he asks.
So that’s the way it went, that last night before the firstborn children died. God provided a test for them, and I explained it all to the elders of the people. It was simple enough.