Exodus 35-40: Exiting Exodus

The end of Exodus feels a little like a reprise. The business with the golden calf having been worked out, and Moses having secured a second copy of God's laws, the community turns to building the Tabernacle according to the plans laid out in Exodus 25-31. Many of the material specifications and measurements that were laid out just a few chapters back get repeated here. This is an example of the kind of thing that makes many readers find the Bible repetitious, but in this case there is clearly a point to the repetition: that the Israelites built the Tabernacle exactly to code, down to the last cubit.

A few details stand out. The point is made several times that all of the materials for the Tabernacle were freely given. This all-volunteer system produces more than enough metals, fibers, gems, incense, oil, and so on; in fact, Moses eventually has to tell everyone to stop donating already, there's already enough stuff for the Tabernacle. (36:6-7)

The total volume of gold, silver, and bronze used in the project (1, 3 3/4, and 2 1/2 tons respectively) is carefully accounted for in Exodus 38:21-31. There is no general discussion of who gave what, but in a wonderfully random and seemingly out-of-place detail, we learn that They made the bronze basin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. (38:8)

In the last few verses of the book, after Moses has inspected the newly-erected Tabernacle, the "glory of the Lord" -- the presence of God -- inhabits the central Tent of Meeting, where the Ark of the Covenant is kept. This presence is marked by the same thick cloud, which at night is seen to be filled with fire, that appeared when God conversed with Moses on Mt. Sinai. This cloud, we are told, then accompanies the Israelites throughout the rest of their travels.


The Book of Exodus

It took me half a year to get through Genesis, but only two months to read Exodus. I am clearly picking up the pace. A lot of the difference, of course, is that I have got my act together and set aside a regular weekly time for the project. But too, the structure of Exodus is a lot easier to deal with. Where much of Genesis is episodic, Exodus is a straight-through narrative; and where Genesis is full of seemingly parenthetical digressions into genealogy or real estate transactions, Exodus is relatively single-minded in telling its story.

That story, in outline, goes something like this: Moses is appointed by God to lead the captive Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. Because of the Pharaoh's reluctance to lose his labor force, as well as God's determination to make a spectacular display of his power, Egypt must be subjected to wave after wave of horrific ecological disasters, as well as a crippling military debacle, before the Israelites make it to the desert. In the desert, they are kept alive by a series of miracles until they reach Mt. Sinai, where God reveals a set of laws to Moses. These laws encompass morality, civic conduct, and religious practice. After getting off to a bad start, when the Israelites build a false idol in direct contradiction of the new laws, they face a series of punishments. Moses then is issued a replacement copy of the laws, and the Tabernacle is built in elaborate and exact obedience to the laws governing religious practice.

So, what does this story tell us in regards to the four official Michael Reads the Bible questions? Let's take a look:

1. Is God a Republican? In thinking about this question, I am especially interested in the specific laws that God lays down for his people. All in all, I have to say that the civil law in Exodus struck me as surprisingly even-handed. God certainly comes of as a Republican, a Texas Republican even, in his unabashed support for the death penalty. The death sentence is mandated not just for sociopathic crimes like murder, kidnapping, or attacking your parents [which reminds me -- Happy Father's Day, Dad!!], but also for working on the Sabbath, or getting a little too affectionate on those lonely nights spent tending the flock. On the other hand, the Party of Lincoln might have trouble with the practice of slavery allowed by the laws of Exodus.

2. Is God Good? In Genesis, God was dangerous and highly unpredictable. In Exodus, God is still pretty dangerous, but with the law in place divine action begins to seem a little more consistent. The Israelites pay a truly hair-raising penalty for the golden calf incident, but it's a penalty for breaking an unambiguous and straightforward command. Other than that, God is certainly good from the perspective of the Israelites, intervening repeatedly to save their rear ends during the flight out of Egypt.

The most troubling aspect of Exodus for me is God's insistence on using the most powerful possible shock-and-awe tactics against the Egyptians, even once they have basically capitulated. Long after Pharaoh's magicians have given up trying to keep pace with Moses, long after Pharaoh seems willing to say "uncle," God keeps "hardening his heart" in order that he can keep the plagues coming. If it is a non-sequitor to judge the actions of God, it is still fair to say that amongst humans this kind of behavior would be considered more than a little unsporting.

3. Is there an afterlife? Exodus does not mention an afterlife. Indeed, the first two books of the Bible have been almost completely silent on several topics that a naive reader like myself would expect to be tripping over right and left. Heaven and angels were mentioned very obliquely in Genesis, but with no implied connection to a life after death. Hell, Satan, devils? Not a word.

4. What are God's Family Values? After the familial shenegans of Genesis, things have calmed down considerably in Exodus. Moses himself seems to have a stable marriage, and is blessed with a good relationship with his in-laws. The laws of Exodus certainly endorse a strong family structure, with one of the first of the laws -- the traditional Fifth Commandment -- mandating the respect and honor of one's parents.

This Biblical emphasis on respect of parents is opposite in some ways from the "Conservative family values" that we hear so much of in the current day. These modern family values share with Fifth Commandment thinking an emphasis on the importance of family structure, but place emphasis on the respect and honor of one's children, rather than one's parents.


Next week, Michael Reads the Bible starts on Leviticus, the book in which.... well, I don't really know what happens in Leviticus. I guess that's the point. So, I'll see you Sunday night at michaelreadthebible.blogspot.com.

Exodus 32 - 34: Faces of God

The thing you want more than anything else from the Bible might well be to get a read on the nature of God. Who is God? What is God like? But perhaps it's reasonable to expect that God would be very complex, very hard to pin down.

Walt Whitman sang of himself, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" And Walt was a mere human, speaking on behalf of mere humans. If we contradict ourselves, you might conjecture that an entity in whose imagine we were created would contradict itself on an even grander scale. God sends mixed signals, to put it lightly; tonight's reading is rife with them. Reading these contradictions, it is hard not to find them... what? Disappointing, maybe. Shabby or silly, even, or evidence against the veracity of the text.

They are not really that, though. To suppose a creater-of-all is not to say that this creator would have to act in a consistent or (to us) coherent way. And yet, the idea of an all-powerful being that didn't act consistently or predictably is fairly terrifying. We want God to act recognizably human, so we know what to expect, but we don't want God to mimic the frightening or disturbing aspects of human behavior that are so familiar to us. It's a contradiction.


The Golden Calf


You will of course remember that, while Moses is up on the mountain for his long conversation with God, the Israelites down below give up on him and talk Aaron into making an idol, a golden calf, out of their spare jewelry. You will also doubtless remember that when Moses comes down and sees what's up, he throws down the tablets on which the covenant has been written, breaking them to pieces. But do you remember what else happens?


Pop Quiz: How are the Israelites punished for building the Golden calf? (Hint -- there are three stages to the punishment. )

Answer: The punishments are as follows:

• First, Moses burns the calf to powder, mixes it with water, and makes the people drink it.


• Second: 27 Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' " 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, "You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."


• Third, the Israelites are struck by a plague.

A younger version of myself read this chapter at some point, and made notes in the margin to the effect that these are horrific, excessive punishments. And I really can't say that my current self disagrees. There is a seriously draconian element in God here, punishing with blood and disease this infraction of the law.

But that's not the whole story, because God's original intent upon seeing the golden calf is to destroy the Israelites outright. He changes his mind only because Moses argues with him, using logic and arranging a sort of plea bargain. So at the same time that we have a stern and unyielding God, we also have a God who can be talked to, change his mind, be wheedled. It is, as we used to say in grad school, an interesting duality.

(By the by, the Brick Testament version of the Golden Calf Story is characteristically brilliant.)

God's Friend

In Chapter 33, Moses talks God into changing his mind again. God initially says that, in light of the Golden Calf incident, he will send an angel with the Israelites for the rest of the trip, but won't be making the trip himself. He is afraid that he will get pissed off again, and destroy everyone out of hand. (Which is, interestingly, pretty much a direct admission from God that he has a temper problem. Does he regret some of those Genesis smitings? Maybe, but he's not saying.) Moses talks him out of it:

15 Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"
17 And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."

This business of "presence" opens up another interesting point. God seems to have a discrete physical location throughout Exodus. He comes down to specific points -- the top of Mt. Sinai, or a meeting tent outside of the main camp -- for his chats with Moses, where The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. (33:11) To outside onlookers, the presence of God is marked by visible phenomena, such as pillers of cloud or localized storms. All of this, as well as the very notion that God could sit out the trip to the promised land, paints a very different picture of the one taught me as a child, that God is everywhere and in everything.

Finally, the notion that God and Moses would speak "face to face" is contradicted at the end of Exodus 33, when Moses suddenly demands to see God. God responds by saying:

"I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

21 Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

So, God is impassive yet approachable, infinite but localized, perceptable but unseeable, familiar yet unapproachable. Does he contradict itself? Very well then, he contradicts himself.

The Ten Commandments

God commands Moses to create a copy, from dictation, of the tablets that were smashed in the Golden Calf incident. Moses climbs the mountain yet again, but before the dictation begins again, God presents himself to Moses as promised. As he does, he offers what is essentially a summary statement of his own contradictions:

"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

Then, after a quick reprise -- the 11th? -- of the basic covenant, God reprises ten of the many laws that he had handed down to Moses several weeks earlier. They are as follows:

1. Don't make treaties or intermarry with non-Hebrews (I think this is a new one, actually)


2. Don't make idols


3. Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread


4. The first offspring of every womb belongs to God


5. No one is to appear before God empty handed (this is a new one, too)


6. No work on the Sabbath


7. Celebrate the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Ingathering


8. Don't mix blood and yeast in a sacrifice, or leave Passover sacrifices overnight


9. Sacrifice the first fruits from your crops to ripen


10. Don't cook a goat in its mother's milk

After this recitation, in Exodus 34:28, Moses wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Command- ments. And this is very interesting, because this is the first time that this phrase -- "The Ten Commandments" is mentioned, implying that the Ten Commandments are the ten items just mentioned.

And, since it's come up, what we usually think of as "The Ten Commandments" are neither ten in number -- there are 15 to 20 injunctions that can be fairly arbitrarily split into ten Commandments in a number of different ways -- nor are they set off substantially from the rest of the body of law that follows. So, based on what I have read so far -- and remember, there's a whole lot of Bible left -- I would have to suggest that we have the Ten Commandments all wrong. The actual Ten Commandments would seem to be the above list, unless I'm missing something.

Feel free to help me out here, gentle readers, because it's a very different list indeed and it seems kind of unlikely that I would be the first to notice the mistake......

Next Week: Finishing up with Exodus

Exodus 23:20 - 31:18: Getting Religion

I've been surprised over the course of this project by how un-boring the Bible has been. Which is not to say it is the gripping potboiler that many pastors disingenuously imply it is when they try to lure teens in with promises of sex and violence. But, patiently read, and excepting the occasional limning of a family tree, it has been consistently interesting and provided much food for thought.

Until tonight. Tonight, your humble explorer found himself repeatedly asleep on the couch, the Bible having fallen open on his chest.

This is not entirely the fault of the text. For one thing, I rode my bike out to Troutdale this morning -- long story -- and the house is still baking after four days of unseasonal heat, so I may not be in prime Bible study mode. Then too, much of today's reading is basically blueprints in written form. And when you read through blueprints in written form, you really understand why most modern architects and engineers prefer to use some form of diagram for their more complex plans.

But First, a Covenant

I wish I had realized how often God was going to make his covenant with the Israelites -- you-know, the now-familiar covenant in which they are promised much of the Eastern Mediterranian. I have unfortunately lost count. I believe the version that begins today's reading is more or less the tenth itteration.

This time, God promises that an angel will join the Israelites as a kind of advance guard against the people who are, inconveniently, already settled on the land in question. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. (23:23) My inner cultural ecologist finds it very interesting that this is planned as a gradual process, since the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you (23:29) if everyone was wiped out at once. No, other groups can continue to work the land until the Israelite population grows large enough for it. THEN they'll be wiped out.

Moses returns to the people and explains the body of law that God has revealed to him (see the entries for the last three weeks). The people agree to obey. A ceremony is held to commemorate the covenant, with bulls slaughtered and everyone sprinkled with the blood. Then, Moses goes back up the mountain to talk with God again, this time for a marathon 40 days and 40 nights.


It's a New Religion

God's instructions to Moses this time around, as recounted in Exodus 25 through 31, are essentially the blueprint for a new religion. And I mean blueprint in the very most literal sense. The Israelites are instructed to pool their resources, wealth, and skills, and to create the physical infrastructure for a form of worship.

Exodus 25, for instance, lays out the measurements and materials for the famed Ark of the Covenant, as well as the less well-known Table of the Covenant and Lampstand of the Covenant. Exodus 26 lays out exact specifications for the Tabernacle, dwelling so much on the particulars of yarn color, goat-hair curtains, and framework positioning that it took me quite some time to answer the main question I had: What on Earth is a Tabernacle? Turns out it's a large, elaborate portable shrine. A travelling temple, so to speak.

Exodus 27 goes into more particulars about furnishings -- the alter for offerings, the courtyard, protocols for keeping the lampstand burning -- before Exodus 28 addresses the specifics of priestly garments. Exodus 29 talks about how to consecrate a new priest, a process involving the slaughter and specialized disassembly of an alarming number of young bulls. Exodus 30 covers an alter for incense, atonement offerings, a washing basin (plus stand), and recipes for annointing oil and incense.

Finally, Exodus 30 specifies two foremen for the whole project -- Bezalel and Oholiab (underused Biblical names, for any of y'all who are thinking about what to name the next baby) -- and reaffirms the importance of the Sabbath. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death, says God, twice. (14 & 15) Note: blogging is fun! Not like work at all!


But isn't filigree expensive?

Now, the main thing that jumps out as you read through this stuff is the sheer wealth involved. Constructing the Tabernacle and its furnishings is a massive project! The specs for much of the furniture call out highly expensive materials, including gold plating not just for the Tabernacle and Table but even for the poles that will be used to carry them. This passage, describing a priest's breastplate, gives you an idea of both the extravagence and the specificity of the instructions:

15 "Fashion a breastpiece for making decisions—the work of a skilled craftsman. Make it like the ephod: of gold, and of blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and of finely twisted linen. 16 It is to be square—a span long and a span wide—and folded double. 17 Then mount four rows of precious stones on it. In the first row there shall be a ruby, a topaz and a beryl; 18 in the second row a turquoise, a sapphire and an emerald; 19 in the third row a jacinth, an agate and an amethyst; 20 in the fourth row a chrysolite, an onyx and a jasper. Mount them in gold filigree settings.

The obvious question here is, how could they possibly afford all of this stuff (not to mention the routine sacrifice of two sheep daily, a part of Exodus 29 I neglected to mention)? Didn't they just flee from slavery? To which there are at least two reasonable rejoinders.

First, we have a tendancy to think of the Israelites as numbering about as many people as could be mustered as extras for a Hollywood Old Testament blockbuster. But, as alert readers will remember from an earlier discussion, the Israelites are described as numbering at least a million, and perhaps twice that. So, there would be a little more wealth and labor in the camp than you might at first think.

Secondly, what was the last thing the Israelites did in Egypt before they hit the road? Remember? I'll remind you: they "borrowed" all of their Egyptian neighbors' belongings, and skeedaddled with them! So, it's reasonable to assume that much of the Tabernacle is going to be built with loot purloined on the way out of the Greater Cairo metro area.

Ooh, Foreshadowing!

Exodus 30 ends with a teaser:

18 When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

I'm curious to find out what's on those tablets, aren't you? Perhaps we'll find out next week, here at Michael Reads the Bible.

Exodus 23: 1 - 19 -- That's It, That's the Law, That's the Whole of the Law

Michael Reads the Bible was very excited this week by the first comment posted to the blog by someone not personally known by michael5000. Thank you Barry W. for your thoughts. It is encouraging to know that I am not just spouting off to my pals. I may, of course, still be just spouting off -- but it's to the global community!

In celebration of the blog's coming of age, I have disabled the feature that had me read every comment before it was posted. Now, if you want to talk back, you'll have the satisfaction of instant publication. You know I always love to hear your ideas. But hey, I understand that you're busy, too.

Other housekeeping knickknacks:

• Michael Reads the Bible is now registered at both ORBlogs, a community of Oregon bloggers, and at the massive Technorati site. The former is a very nice site for anyone interested in Oregon and, you know, blogs; the latter you probably already know about.


• I continue to be amazed by how few people are blogging the Bible! There are of course plenty of blogs that offer sermon-like Bible-readings-of-the-day, and plenty of blogs by theology students talking about highly technical issues of Biblical scholarship. But, except for the guy at Slate, nobody else seems to be doing a sequential reading with commentary. It's kind of disappointing, as I expected I would have all sorts of fellow travelers to compare notes with. So, I'm asking all you Michael Reads the Bible gentle readers to keep an eye out for similarly-minded blogsters, and report back to base if you find anybody.


• State of the Craft, my quilt blog, has reopened for business.

More Laws

So, after all that, we'll only cover 19 verses in today's post (which, incidentally, borrows its title from a massively excellent Yo La Tengo song). The first half of Exodus 23 wraps up the laws that God gives to Moses atop Mt. Sinai. It is basicly the end of the long statement of rules and regulations that began at Exodus 20 with the Ten Commandments. In the second half of Exodus 23, the narrative kicks in again, so we'll hold off on that until next week.

The first subset of Exodus 23 laws govern fairness and justice, and have a quality of common-sense liberalism that I find quite heartening. Here's the gist of them:

-- Don't slander people, and don't lie to help somebody do something they shouldn't be doing.

-- Don't do something you shouldn't, just because everybody else is. Actual words: Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. Just like Mom said! See, she knew more than you gave her credit for, didn't she.

-- Don't tell lies in order to make yourself popular when you are testifying at a lawsuit. Reasonable, but suprisingly specific.

-- If you are on the jury of a lawsuit, don't side with the poorer party just because they're poor. Again, suprisingly specific, but not a pointless commandment. When I was on the jury of a lawsuit a few years ago, I found it very hard not to side with the poor plaintiff against the large, rich organization, even though the organization was clearly in the right.

-- If you find your enemy's lifestock wandering off, take it back to him. If you see your enemy's donkey collapsed under its load, help out and get donkey and cargo where they need to be. The underlying notion here, that you should be civil even with those assholes whom you can hardly stand, is an important one. It's the frame of mind that benignly stares down prejudice, road rage, office politics, ethnic cleansing, chat room trolling, and all of the other social pathologies brought on by the love of having enemies, and makes something resembling a civilization possible.

-- If you are on the jury of a lawsuit, don't side with the richer party just because they're rich. Don't frame someone, and definitely make sure you never execute an innocent person. Exodus 23: 6 - 7 is another passage that I would like to see included with any representation of the Ten Commandments that gets put up on public property.

-- No bribes.

-- Don't oppress foreigners. Worded a little differently at Ex 22:21 and Ex 23:9, this is nevertheless the Commandment so nice, God gave it twice. Congress, take note!

Sabbath Laws

-- Every seventh year, let your field/vineyard/orchard lay unused, so poor people can use it and wild animals can hang out on it. Wow! That last part, and the wild animals may eat what they [the poor people] leave (11) comes perilously close to an enironmental directive. The passage as a whole implies that property rights must be tempered with responsibility to the community and with responsibility to the stewardship of nature. Imagine that!

-- Take every seventh day off. So that your ox, donkey, and slave can be refreshed. All work and no play....

-- Don't invoke the names of other gods. Wait a minute. What other gods?

Three Annual Festivals

-- For the Feast of Unleavened Bread, no one is to eat yeast for a week.

-- Celebrate the Feast of Harvest when the first crops of the year are ready.

-- Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering when the last crops of the year are in.

-- When sacrificing, use the best specimans from the crops. Don't mix blood and yeast. No leaving sacrifice fat out all night. And, no cooking baby goats in their mother's milk.

The concept of animal or even vegetable sacrifice is beyond the pale of modern sensibilities, making the bits about sacrifice in the Old Testament uncomfortable to read through. Demands for sacrifices, and odd rules about sacrifice procedure, make God seem frankly alien, weird, barbarian, and cultish. The feasts are no problem, and the injunction to use the best specimens for sacrifices makes as much sense as sacrifice in general, I suppose. But a demand not to mix blood and yeast? It seems both occult and dazzlingly arbitrary to a modern reader.

The great canon of law as revealed to Moses, having started with the Ten Commandments and continued through a surprisingly comprehensive code of law and, in the material we covered today, calls for social justice, ends with a picayune non-sequitor of a regulation that completely fails to inspire. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. Um... no worries, God. I promise I won't.

Next Week: an Ark, a Tabernacle, a Covenant, and other highly Old Testament action.

Exodus 21 & 22: Laws, with the Commentary of Michael Thereon, V.I

In previous installments of this blog, I have complained that the Bible, so often touted as a sort of guidebook or handbook to good living, seems to offer remarkably little guidance on how We Mortals are actually supposed to conduct ourselves. But now comes Exodus 21 and 22, and shut me up -- the guidance is now coming thick, fast, and unambiguous.

It turns out that the Ten(ish) Commandments are really just the first ten (or so) laws that God hands down to Moses on Mount Sinai. They will now be extended, clarified, parsed, and given teeth over the next several chapters.

As a whole, the laws in chapters 21 and 22 seem pretty much what you would expect as the basic code of conduct for a society of nomadic herders. Many of the laws seem to be perfectly pragmatic standards of behavior for a harsh physical and hostile social environment, if perhaps draconian by modern standards.

Which is all very fine and good, except that I and you, gentle reader, are not nomadic herders. For us, these laws seem like a mixture of the obvious, the old-fashioned, and the bizarre. If we are to hold to the literal truth of the Bible, as many claim to do, these laws would presumably still be on the books. Yet, can we really imagine our society really adopting, or re-adopting, them?

As the laws of human behavior as dictated by God seem especially important, I am going to enumerate them for you. I hope this not disappoint anyone who wants to get back to the narrative action, or who is on tenterhooks wondering what happens next to the Israelites. But for me, this is the real meat of the thing. All of the previous adventures have been more or less interesting, but always with a certain sense of "so what?" about them. But laws -- them's the real deal. So here goes.

Laws regarding Servants

• If you buy a male Hebrew servant, you can only keep him for six years. If you give him a wife, you can keep the wife and kids once he's free, but if he comes with a wife from the get go, he gets to keep her and their kids.


• But, a servant can decide to waive his right of freedom. He then gets his ear pierced, and is a servant for life.


• If you buy a female servant, she's yours for life.


• But, if she doesn't "please" you, you have to let her "be redeemed," whatever that means. You definitely may not sell her to foreigners.


• And if you bought her to marry her to your son, you have to treat her like any other daughter or daughter-in-law.


• AND, if you bought her to marry her to your son, but he ends up marrying somebody else, he's still responsible for feeding her, clothing her, and taking care of her, uh, "marital rights." Otherwise, she gets to go free.

OK, this is a tough set of laws to integrate with contemporary mores, and it is a bit awkward that they are featured so prominently in the code, before such biggies as the prohibition of murder. Modern labor law is hostile to the "buy a laborer for six years, keep his kids" plan, and the idea of buying a bride for your son would seem a little unsavory to many Americans, what with the women's lib and all. I think I can safely go as far to say that fewer than 5% of Americans would support the legality of purchasing women for life. And yet it is the law of God. Tricky.

One wonders, too, how these laws would work in the current economy, in which the traditional functions of the servant have been largely spun out to service companies. Since the modern master shares his landscaping crew, caterer, housecleaner, nanny service, security patrol, drycleaner, and pool boy with the other little aristocrats of his gated community, he can't really have exclusive rights to all of them for six years at a shot, now, can he? Paying his share of their Social Security alone would eat him alive.

Personal Injury Law

• Murder is punishable by death. Manslaughter is punishable by exile.


• Attacking your parents is punishable by death.


• Kidnapping and human trafficing, punishable by death.

I have enormous problems with capital punishment, but it is hard not to sympathize with the gist of these laws. They address sociopathic behavior that merits a strong response. Of course, the devil is in the details. One immediately wonders about killing in self-defense, or the child resisting parental abuse, and wants to add exceptions and clauses and clarifications. And before one knows it, one has invented the legal profession!

• Cursing your parents, punishable by death.

Yikes! Everyone curses their damn parents every once in a while, at least during the teen years. Or, does this mean casting a formal curse on your parents, perhaps using a pentagram or a bucket of ox's blood or similar exotica? Because I never went that far, myself.

• If you assault someone or get in a fight with them, you are responsible for their medical bills and for compensating them for lost time while they are out of commission.

The very essence of the modern lawsuit.

• If you beat a slave to death, you should be punished. But if you only beat them to the point where they are out of commission for a few days, well -- hey, your slave, your business.

This is hard to reconcile with modern sensibilities. It is also really rather unfair to the slaveholder who, in trying in good faith to beat a slave within an inch of his life -- a perfectly legal act -- happens by random chance to sever a jugular or send the slave into a fatal shock reaction, and is suddenly through no fault of his own guilty of a major crime.

• If you are fighting, you hit a pregnant woman, and she gives birth prematurely, the woman's husband can demand any fine he wants, subject to judicial review. If you physically harm the woman, you are to be harmed in return, according to the famous eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth formula. (It continues: "hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.")

This is a VERY specific application of the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth concept. Unless we see it again later, I'd have to conclude that it is over-quoted.

• If you put out your servant's eye or knock out their tooth, you have to let them go free.

Don't you wonder how many servants helped a tooth along in order to qualify for this one?

Animals Rights Law

• If a bull gores someone to death, it must be stoned to death and eaten. The owner is off the hook.


• Except, if everybody know that this bull was dangerous and the owner didn't take precautions, then the owner must be put to death.


• UNLESS payment is demanded of him (by whom?), in which case if he can scare up the cash he's cool. Either way, the bull still gets stoned to death.


• Oh, and if it's just a slave that got gored, it's only a fine of 30 shekels of silver (about 12 ounces, roughly $154 at Friday's close on the silver market). But, we still get to throw rocks at the bull.


• If you dig a hole and an ox or donkey falls in, you've bought the ox or donkey. You have to compensate the owner, but you get to keep the dead animal.


• If your animal kills my animal, we sell your animal and split both the cash and the carcass of my animal. Except, if you knew your animal was dangerous, and didn't take adequate steps, I get to keep your live animal and you are stuck with my dead animal.

This all sounds reasonable enough to me, although the $154 figure is kind of a cold-blooded "value of human life" assessment. And stoning a bull to death seems like it would present practical, not to say aestetic, challenges.

Property Law

• If you steal an ox and kill it or sell it, you have to pay back five cattle. If you steal a sheep, you have to pay back four sheep.

This seems like a law that will needlessly provoke a lot of argument. Wouldn't a simple penalty of four (or five) times the value of the thing stolen create less confusion?

• If you kill a thief while he is breaking into your place, that doesn't count as murder; but, if you kill a thief "after sunrise" -- which presumably means after he is subdued or has ceased to be a physical threat -- that's murder.

Sounds fair.

• If you can't make restitution for what you have stolen, you yourself are to be sold to raise the necessary funds.

Is it just my mood, or does this actually sound kind of reasonable?

• If somebody steals an animal and doesn't sell it or kill it, they only have to pay back double.


• If your animal grazes on my land, you have to let me graze my animal on your land.


• If a fire damages crops, the person responsible for the fire must make restitution.


• When property is stolen, the thief must pay back double. When property is disputed, judges will determine a rightful owner, and the other party must pay double the item's value.


• If an animal dies or is eaten by wild beast while being taken care of by a neighbor, it's owner is just going to have to deal.


• But if the neighbor has borrowed the animal, then he should compensate the owner.


• But if the neighbor rented use of the animal, and the owner was present, then the owner will, again, just have to deal.

This emphasis on theft being punished by paying back double or more is quite attractive. It certainly is fairer to victims than the modern system, and does not lead to overcrowded prisons and the social and financial costs thereof. Nice! And, it seems like it would work really, really well in a society where everyone knows each other, the average family owns about 10 items, and missing goods will inevitably resurface eventually. It might be hard to make it work in the hypermaterial modern millieaux, though. Plus, the system relies on being able to squeeze slave equity out of your poorer class of thief, and that just doesn't work with contemporary sensibilities.

Miscellaneous Laws

• If a man seduces a virgin, he has to pay the bride-price and marry her. If her father wants to keep her, the seducer still has to fork over the bride-price.


• Sorceresses must not be allowed to live.

Both of these are tricky, in that our society does not recognize the bride-price, and there is no such thing as a sorceress.

• Anyone having sex with an animal must be put to death.

Bummer for an estimated five percent of the population, which is as far as I can tell about the proportion of Americans who have had such an adventure. To be sure, it is a potentially alarming topic to research on the internet.

• Anyone sacrificing to a god other than God must be put to death.


• Mistreating or oppressing foreigners is forbidden.


• Widows and orphans are not to be mistreated. (In fact, God says he will punish this one himself, in person.)


• Charging interests on loans is not allowed. Keeping a person's clothing as collateral on a loan is forbidden, since he needs it to keep him warm.

These are provisions which unambiguously render capitalism -- and all other forms of economy since very early in the dark ages, as far as I'm aware -- flagrently opposed to God's law. It would be interesting if the folks who pay for monuments commemorating Exodus 20:3 - 17, the Ten Commandments, also included Exodus 22: 25-27 on there: 25 If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. 26 If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, 27 because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in?

• Don't blaspheme God or curse your ruler.

Not even that damn Bush?

• Another puzzling one: 29 "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. 30 Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day.

I think I get what's going to happen to the calves and lambs, but what's going to happen to the little boys? Surely the idea isn't that we're supposed to go all Abraham-and-Isaac on them?

• Don't eat the meat of an animal that has been killed by wild animals.

No problem.

Questions for the Biblical Bar Exam

1. Brad seduces a sorceress, Judy. After Judy's execution, her father, John, sues Brad for her bride-price. Is Brad liable? Discuss.

2. The village discovers that Wayne has cursed his parents. Unfortunately, there is not enough money in the public treasury to fund an execution. Janet offers to loan the village money for the execution at a 5% rate of interest. If you are the village's legal councel, what do you advise?

3. You are a man are fighting with a buddy, and you accidentally strike a pregnant woman, causing her to give birth prematurely. She is wounded in the incident, losing a breast. Are you off the hook?

4. You are taking care of your neighbor's ox. Your neighbor knows that the ox is prone to gore, but has not told you about this. While it is in your care, the ox attacks your father's donkey, driving it into a hole that you recently dug, where it dies. Also, you covet the ox. Who owes whom what?

In Conclusion....

Nope, no conclusions yet -- we're not quite done with the laws yet. We'll round out the list next week, and see if there are any good generalizations to be made.

I was at Powell's, the landmark bookstore here in beautiful Portland, Oregon, City of Roses, today, and ran across a copy of "The Bible for Dummies." Don't think I wasn't tempted.

Like your faithful blogster, "The Bible for Dummies" works its way through the text sequentially, summarizing and commenting as it goes. Now, having completed Exodus 22, we are now nearly finished with page 58 out of the 923 in my particular Bible, or roughly 6.3% of the way through the text. In "The Bible for Dummies," however, the Ten Commandments were about 30% of the way into the coverage. Whether this means that we are heading into a whole lot of filler, or what, I dare not speculate. I haven't read that far yet.

Exodus 19 - 20: The Ten Commandments

Three months to the day after leaving Egypt, the Israelites arive at Mount Sinai. They make camp near the base of the mountain, while Moses makes a series of climbs to the top of the mountain, sometimes with Aaron, to receive the laws of God. If the Hebrews obey these laws, God says,

then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (19: 5-6)

Now, I hope I do not seem unduly cynical if I point out that God's meetings with Moses were not exactly carried out with transparency, public scrutiny, and neighborhood forums for public input. God descends on Mt. Sinai in fire, so the meetings take place behind a smoke screen, if you will. It's the original smoke filled room, except without the room. While the meetings are taking place, the Israelites are told:

'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. 13 He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.'

Now, I am not sharpshooting here. Exodus 19 is really all about how and why nobody was able to see what was going on while Moses and Aaron were communing with God. To any modern person over the age of 9, it can not but raise a series of snotty, sceptical questions. So, the interesting thing about Exodus 19, really, is that it is in the Bible at all. After all, if you -- yes, you, dear reader -- were going to start a religion, would you include passages in the holy texts about how you didn't want anybody around for the key sacred events?

OK, that's a dumb question. But you see my point.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, Mt. Sinai. And it is on Mt. Sinai where Moses is given:

The Ten Commandments

I'd always wondered: God just speaks the commandments. There is no scriptural reference to two tablets shaped like old gravestones with five commandments on a side.

But before we go on, it's quiz time for the MRTB readers -- if there even are still MRTB readers at this point. Without peeking below or anyplace else, how many of the Ten Commandments can you name? Post your score as a comment; the best score gets a free year's subscription.

When you hear about the Ten Commandments in the media so far this century, it is usually in reference to an attempt to have them displayed in a public place. There was of course the Alabama judge who married self-promotion and religious populism with his courtroom display of the commandments. Wasn't he fun? There have been scads of states, including MRTB's own beloved Oregon, in which legislatures have toyed with the idea of mandating, or suggesting, or "permitting" the display of the commandments in classrooms. (State legislators involving themselves in the decoration choices of schoolteachers is exactly the kind of bombastic micromanagement that really sticks in my craw. But I digress.)

When advocates of commandment posting encounter the argument that, since separation of church and state is one of the first principles of our form of government, it might be good to exercise caution when displaying religious materials, they are quick to clarify that the Ten Commandments are not so much a religious text as THE FOUNDATION OF WESTERN AND AMERICAN LAW.

I have heard that argument many times, and have always bought it to an extent. Sure, I've noted the hypocracy of its use by people who are so religiously fired up about the issue that they are on the verge of peeing their pants. I've noted the lack of similar campaigns in support of posting the Code of Hammurabi or the Magna Carta. But I always took it as read that they had a point about the commandments being a critical underpinning of our legal code.

But, on closer inspection -- actually, on very casual inspection -- they ain't. They just ain't. Here, I'll show you:

Commandment I: You shall have no other gods before me.
In American law: Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of American law. Citizens are welcome to have as many other gods before God as they like.

Commandment II: You shall not make for yourself an idol.....
In American law: Citizens may manufacture, transport, purchase, sell, collect, display, distribute, or worship idols to their heart's content. There's no law against it.

Commandment III: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God....
In American law: It is considered bad form for public officials to use religious expletives, but it's certainly no crime. I myself have been known to use a religious expletive in a moment of weakness. Haven't you?

Commandment IV: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
In American law: Oh please.

Commandment V: Honor your father and your mother, which reminds me:

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!!

In American law: Well, I honor MY parents, and I'm sure you do too. But we wouldn't have to if we didn't want to.

Commandment VI: You shall not murder.

In American law: Yeah, we have laws against that. Kind of like EVERY OTHER SOCIETY THAT EVER WALKED THE SURFACE OF THE PLANET. The idea that one specific religion, or religion in general, is all that stands between humanity and random sociopathic behavior is demonstrably silly.

Commandment VII: You shall not commit adultery.
In American law: This is the one where there may be a grain of truth to the assertion. Most human cultures are pretty down on adultery, but not all of them to the extent that we are. A handful are downright down with adultery. So in that sense, you could argue that this commandment is the foundation of our adultery laws. You know, our archaic adultery laws. Our flouted, anachronistic, meaningless adultery laws. Those.

Commandment VIII: You shall not steal. (Anybody else here missing the King James language?)
In American law: Yeah, this one really separates us from the world's many pro-theft cultures.

Commandment IX: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
In American law: ....and the pro-libel, pro-perjury cultures.

Commandment X: You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
In American law: Covet away! This one is pretty hard to enforce, anyway. You can't slap irons on every dude who gazes longingly at his neighbor's ox.


So, more fool I for believing the hype. The nicest thing about reading the Bible is that I'm realizing how much of the common understanding of the Bible is strictly traditional, with no reference to what is actually written in the text.

My own take? I actually have no problems with the Ten Commandments being posted in public places. They really are culturally important, but also so iconographic as to not be too intimidating, in and of themselves, to someone not of an (ahem) Abrahamic faith. In terms of pushing religion, well, it ain't exactly passing out Watchtowers, is it? And nobody is going to have a charismatic conversion experience on the strength of You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Someone who posted the Ten Commandments in their workspace would be well-advised to make absolutely sure they weren't pushing a religious agenda, of course, lest their decorating choices be cited as evidence against them. But the essence of my belief is that people should have control of their workplace, so that the labors of the day may pass more pleasantly. Teachers, judges, and anybody else should be able to decorate however they want.

Next Week: It's not just 100 good ideas -- it's 100 laws!

Exodus 12:31 - 18: Into the Desert

Leaving Egypt

So the Pharaoh finally gives up. "Leave my people, you and the Israelites!" he shouts. "Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me," he says. No matter how mad this guy gets, he can't pass up the chance for a good blessing.

The Israelites pack to leave. In addition to their own belongings, they also "borrow" household goods and clothes from their plague-impovershed and bereived Egyptian neighbors: The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians. (12: 36) Wait, I'm confused. Who are the good guys again?

Now, when you picture Noah leading the Israelites, how many Israelites do you imagine? A few thousand, maybe? Yeah, me too.

But no: There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and birds. (12: 37-38) Wow! This is a big undertaking!

So, this column of more than a million people heads for the Red Sea, God being afraid that if they run into the Philistines who are occupying their putative homeland, they'll get attacked, chicken out, and go running back to the Egyptians.

But before they get to their famous crossing, God lays down a few laws. For instance, several diverse policies about Passover are lain down: no foreigner can take Passover (oops! I had no idea!), although a slave is all right if you have had him circumcised; all Israelites have to take part; it has to take place indoors; and you can't break bones. There is also a law that every first-born male animal must be "redeemed" and every first-born male human must be "consecrated." There is no guidance at all to what this means, however, which leaves me somewhat at a loss for how to redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey. (13:13) We're finally getting clear directives, but they're like those machine-translated instructions that come with discount electronic goods.

The Red Sea

In the last entry, I talked about God's disturbing habit of "hardening Pharaoh's heart," then unleashing scorching devastation on the Egyptian people to punish them for Pharaoh having such a hard heart. He is not done with this trick. Behold!

Then the Lord said to Moses.... "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue [the Israelites]. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord." (14:1-4)

Which means that the well-known destruction of the Egyptian army that follows, from which not a single Egyptian soldier survives, is another punishment given out by God not because Egyptians were being willfully evil in this instance, but just because God wanted to do some punishing. Because punishing sends a message of power. Is God good? It is really hard to view this whole episode as to his credit.

The mechanics of the Red Sea crossing gives pause for thought. It is accomplished in a single night. And remember, this is more than one million people on foot, plus their flocks and herds; animals aside, that means that they are crossing at a rate of 100,000 people per hour, or more than 1500 a minute. It begs the question of which is more impressive, the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, or the miracle of the immaculate logistics. (The Bible doesn't make a big deal out of the fact that they are crossing over a body of water that averages 280 kilometers in width, so neither will I.)

Pharaoh's poor army. God toys with them for a while, first breaking off their chariot wheels and throwing them into panicked retreat back towards Egypt, away from the Israelites, before drowning them. You just can't say "Uncle" to this guy, if you're an Egyptian. And this isn't a couple hundred soldiers, either; this was a force that was deemed adequate to capture and return a fleeing population in excess of 1,000,000 people. Their destruction is a slaughter of, well, Biblical proportions. Afterwards, the Isralites sing a long and rather gloating song of celebration about the event, which takes up more text than the event itself did.

Grumble, Grumble, Grumble

There is a lot of grumbling that goes on as the Israelites head off into the desert. It quickly falls into a repeating pattern:

1. Israelites grumble at their terrible situation, asking Moses why they ever let him lead them into this mess.


2. God provides a miracle to save the Israelites' skin, and to prove his might.


3. Israelites rejoice at the mightiness of their God, then find something new to grumble about.

The pattern is regular enough that I wonder if it might be some kind of Bronze Age comedy bit. Here is a synopsis of the action:

The Complaint: We're doomed! The Egyptian army is coming! The Miracle: The Red Sea parts, then contracts.

The Complaint: The water is too bitter! The Miracle: God gives Moses a piece of wood which, when thrown into the water, makes it drinkable.

The Complaint: "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." (16:3) The Miracle: Manna (and, often overlooked, quail) from heaven.

The Complaint: We're thirsty! Are we there yet? The Miracle: Water from a rock, when Moses smacks it with his staff.

The Amalekites v. the Israelites

We're not sure why, but a group called the Amalekites show up and offer battle to the Israelites. One Joshua leads the troops, while Moses, Aaron, and somebody named "Hur" climb up on a neighboring hill, and the battle gets fought like so:

11 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 12 When Moses' hands grew
tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

I can imagine Joshua's grunts, down there dealing and suffering lethal broadsword wounds in the blistering Sinai heat, might object to this version of the battle, in which Moses so heroically keeps his arms lifted. One wonders if it might work for the Ducks?


Delegation is the Key to Good Management

The final event before the Israelites make it to Mount Sinai is a visit from Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, who is something of a clear thinker and immediately notices in Moses a tendancy to micromanage. He watches as, the day after his arrival, Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. (18:13) And remember: more than 1,000,000! Anybody with a gripe, Moses was handling it. "That's nuts," says Jethro -- "you need some assistants." So together, they set up a hierarchy of civil offices, with Moses no longer sweating the small stuff. He retains the positions of Commander-in-Chief, High Priest, and one-man Supreme Court.


Did Someone Say "Supreme Court"?

We are often told that the Ten Commandments are the "foundation of Western and American law." Are they? Let's take a look this Sunday night, May 13, in a very special Mother's Day episode of Michael Reads the Bible.

Exodus 5 - 12:30: Plague, a Doozy!

Note: I had better clarify that the title of this post is a lame play on the name of the great early 90s Lawrence, Kansas band Plague of Daisies, of which I was the guitarist and lead long-haired dude (as shown here, at right). Sometimes you just have to be your own pop culture reference.

The Plagues of Egypt! It's a story of how a country's leadership, determined to pursue an increasingly untenable policy despite rapidly accumulating evidence of a situation in which it can not possibly prevail, exposes citizens to hardships, injury, and death and puts ruinous long-term burdens on the national economy. This is the kind of thing that sometimes transpired in ancient times; fortunately, nothing like that could ever happen now.

Exodus is turning out to be classic Bible. It is laying out one of the most familiar and important of the Old Testament tales, with a narrative density that is.... just about what you'd expect! There is none of the hypercompression of the earlier episodes in Genesis, nor the sprawling detail of the Joseph story, but about the volume of text you might see in, say, some hypothetical Big Book of Bible Stories. And if the action is occasionally interupted for some quick laying out of family trees, that is just part of what you expect from a good Bible reading, right?

It doesn't hurt, either, that the action of today's reading follows the rhythms of our most primal literatures, such as children's storys, many song forms, and most jokes: a repeated cycle of action where each instance is a little more exagerated or severe until you finally build to a climax or resolution. The little pigs build three houses before they find a building material that's up to code. The rope gets kicked out of the bar several times before it thinks to become a frayed knot. Stan writes to Eminem three times before he drives off the bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk. And God sends ten plagues to Egypt before the Israelites are able to start their long, long hike back to the promised land.

Let's take a look.

Plagues -- the Rough Guide

I find two things really interesting about the Plagues: the reaction of the Egyptian court magicians to them (an aspect of the story that isn't generally emphasized, I'm thinking) and how Pharaoh's reactions to them are described. But before we talk about that, lets take a quick plague-by-plague survey.

Plague #1

The Unpleasantness: The Nile and all other bodies of water turn to blood.

The Magicians Respond: We can do that, too.

Damage Report: Massive fish dieoff. Water crisis requires emergency welldigging program.

Pharaonic Response: Irritation. Will not engage in dialogue.

Plague #2
The Unpleasantness: A massive infestation of frogs.

The Magicians Respond: We can do that, too.
Damage Report: Unclear. The frogs seem more of an annoyance than anything else. (Ironically, when God lifts the plague, Egypt is stuck with huge piles of rotting frogs, which almost seems worse than the plague itself.)
Pharaonic Response: Agrees to Moses' demands (that the Hebrews to be allowed several days' leave for a major religious observance out in the desert), but reneges once the frogs die.

Plagues #3&4
The Unpleasantness: Great clouds of gnats and flies.
The Magicians Respond: Whoa. Frogs we can do, but flying bugs are out of our league. Be careful, Pharaoh, this Moses guy has big guns on his side.
Damage Report: Nobody likes being swarmed by bugs. Oh, and those gnats might actually be lice, depending on who's doing the translating.
Pharaonic Response: Negotiates partial agreement to Moses' demands, but reneges again once the crisis is past.

Plague #5
The Unpleasantness: All of the livestock animals in Egypt drop dead.
The Magicians Respond: The magicians, apparently laying low after their inability to produce results during the bug crisis, do not weigh in.
Damage Report: Presumably, a near-lethal blow to the domestic economy and food supply, both directly and through loss of animal power in the fields.
Pharaonic Response: An unwavering commitment to his policy of no time off for Hebrew slaves.

Plague #6
The Unpleasant -ness: Boils. Everyone has festering boils. (As do all of the animals, which is a little weird because, hey, didn't they all die in the last plague?)
The Magicians Respond: They could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them... (9:11).
Damage Report: Ew.
Pharaonic Response: The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses. (9:12) Which is interesting! In previous plagues, it was the Pharoah himself being stubborn. This time, God is making him stubborn. Curious.

Plague #7
The Unpleasantness: Pelting hail rages down throughout Egypt.

The Magicians Respond: Not mentioned.
Damage Report: Widespread injuries to humans and livestock (although, again, I thought the livestock was all.... oh, never mind). Destruction of the flax and barley crops. Major damage to orchards. Wheat and spelt crops relatively intact.
Pharaonic Response: Abject capitulation, followed by another reneging after the weather returns to normal.

Plague #8
The Unpleasantness: Swarms of Locusts
The Magicians Respond: All of Pharaoh's officials are ready to cave at this point.
Damage Report: Massive damage to all crops left standing after the hail.

Pharaonic Response: the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. (10:20)

Plague #9
The Unpleasant -ness: Three days of total darkness.
The Magicians Respond: None.
Damage Report: Not discussed. But, you can imagine everyone was pretty freaked out.
Pharaonic Response: Initial agreement to allow the religious celebration shot down when the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go. (10:28)

Plague #10

The Unpleasantness: All firstborn sons of Egypt die.

The Magicians Respond: Presumably by weeping over their dead sons, like everyone else.

Damage Report: Significant blow to current and future labor force and pool of potential business, political, and religious leaders. Further loss of morale.

Pharaonic Response: the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Isralites go out of his country. (10:28)

Magicians

The business about the magicians is interesting because they are able to keep pace with God for a while. Before the plagues start, they match Moses' trick with the staff that turns into the snake, and then they are able to duplicate the first couple of plagues. In so doing, they provide Pharaoh with some very bad intel, causing him to badly underestimate the national security risks of taking on God.

It's no surprise that God eventually outclasses the magicians. What's surprising is that there are even representatives of an alternative supernatural force involved in the first place. There's something subtly polytheistic about this, it seems to me. If God is providing the supernatural power that backs up Moses, who's backing up the magicians? It would almost have to be... like.... some other god. Wouldn't it?

God vs. the People of Egypt

I mentioned last week how peculiar I find it that God sends Moses to make demands of the Pharaoh, but also possesses Pharaoh to refuse to grant those demands. Looking at the breakdown above, you can see that Pharaoh was willing to say "uncle" after the boils (wouldn't you?), and then again after the locusts, darkness, and deaths of the firstborn -- but God won't let him. Despite the fortuitous composition of fats in the Mediterranian diet, God keeps hardening Pharaoh's heart, to the endless woe of Egyptians of all classes and occupations.

Why would God do this? Well, he actually tells Moses why, in chapter 11, verse 9: Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you -- so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt. God wants as big a showdown as possible, it seems, so that he can demonstrate his power and the word will get out.

This begs two questions, I think. One is, why does the demonstration of power have to be a demonstration of destructive power? Couldn't God make his point by, say, making the crops superabundant, while special cows that yielded ice cream suddenly appeared throughout the land? Or if that is too over the top, don't you think he could have got impressive results through a simple program of detailed skywriting?

The other questions is, why does God want the Egyptians to be impressed with him? Is he after new worshippers? That doesn't seem likely; you wouldn't normally try to draw people into your sphere by destroying their food supply and whacking their kids. No, this seems to be more about exposing the humiliating helplessness of the Egyptians. Which kind of implies -- this might be a stretch -- a humiliation of the gods whom the Egyptians relied on for protection. Which gets us back to that whole polytheism thing again. Curious and curiouser.

Next week: Let's Go! Sinai.

Exodus 1 - 4: Meet Mr. Moses!

When we last saw the Israelites, at the end of Genesis, I was a little confused by how well they seemed to be doing. With Joseph basically running Egypt for the Pharoah, his kinsmen looked to be in pretty good shape. With their flocks happily grazing on the lush fields of Goshen, they were living well, multiplying fruitfully and the whole bit. You certainly didn't get the impression that they needed to led away from oppression and subjegation in a biblical epic starring Charlton Heston.

As Exodus opens, however, a generation has passed, and we are told that in the meantime things have not gone well for Jacob's descendants. A new administration has come to power, and shows no interest whatsoever in courting the Israelite vote. Consolidating his power by exploiting anti-immigrant sentiment -- a strategy that has proved sadly durable -- the new Pharaoh encourages the enslavement of the group that is now called the "Hebrews."

In a particularly grim piece of public policy, the new Pharaoh further decrees that all male Hebrew babies must be killed by being thrown in the Nile. One Hebrew woman interprets this loosely, throwing her baby into the nile in a waterproofed papyrus basket, whereupon he is found a way downstream by Pharaoh's daughter, and... well.... you know how this goes, right?

Moses

There is nothing written about Moses' upbringing in the royal family. We meet him as a young man, when he kills an Egyptian who is beating a Hebrew. The episode seems incomplete, in that Egyptians were by this point apparently beating Hebrews pretty ubiquitously, but no matter. Moses dodges the rap by getting out of town. He goes and lives in the Sinai, where he marries a nice local girl, Zipporah, and settles down to work in his father-in-law's business, which is of course herding.

It is at work, tending herd, that Moses sees the famous burning bush, from which God speaks to him. Moses and God have a long conversation, in which Moses is charged with the responsibility of going to Egypt and leading the Hebrews to the land that they have been promised so often. [This property, interestingly, is referred to twice (3:8, 3:17) as the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. That God is giving the Hebrews a territory which already belongs to six other nationalities, none of whom are privy to the deal, is ominous foreshadowing of certain troubles that will crop up over the next 4000 years.]

God has an answer to both of Moses' main objections. Because he worrys that he will not be believed by the Hebrews, God provides him with a magical staff that can, among other things, turn into a snake. And because Moses is not especially articulate, God fetches his brother Aaron, who will function as the mouthpiece and press secretary. So, Moses and Aaron return to Egypt, and rally the Hebrews.

Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles

It's interesting that God, who I was always taught pretty much demands faith up front, is going to offer the Hebrews miracles to extablish Moses' credentials. It kind of begs the question, why can't we get some miracles to reassure us of God's existance?

Now there are of course people about who claim to have experienced miracles, but it is important to emphasize -- with all due respect to their experience and belief -- that they are dead wrong. They were, in whatever circumstances they wish to report, merely very lucky. A miracle is not required to enjoy good luck. To call one's own good luck a miracle is to claim God's favor relative to those suffering bad luck, which is really, when you think about it, self-serving at best and potentially quite odious. So cut it out, y'all, with claiming miracles.

Unless, that is, you want to say something along the lines of "every [sunrise / waterfall / look at my baby's face / container of Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream] is a miracle." I recognize this kind of thing as a fine and healthy sentiment. It does rather dilute the concept of "miracle," however.

A miracle, a true miracle, needs to be a twist in the laws of physics or of the line between life and death. And really, it makes perfect sense that God wouldn't want to hand them out like candycorn. If everyone got to witness a miracle every time their faith was a little shaky, they would be so common that they would no longer be a violation of the basic laws of the universe. (and you know how we are. We'd just want one little miracle -- but then, a year later, we'd want some kind of confirmation that what we'd seen was real, or that God still existed -- and before long, we'd be wanting them as a regular part of the Sunday service. We're annoying that way, we humans.) They would become merely one of those things that happens sometimes, something encompassed by rather than outside of the basic constants that dictate how the world works.

So if you buy all of that, we can assume that God would be pretty sparing in playing the miracle card. His use of it here suggests that this is a pretty important point in his overall plan, but it doesn't show a lot of confidence in Moses' ability to get the team fired up with his natural leadership skills.

Solitaire on an Epic Scale

We naturally think of the coming conversations between Moses and Pharaoh as being a dialogue carried out between the leaders of two communities, each acting with their personal and political agendas at heart. But if you were to strictly follow the text, it's something closer to a puppet show.

Moses, preparing for his journey, is heavily coached by God, who tells him not to worry, I will help you speak and will tell you what to say. (4:12) He is told that he must tell Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. But, says God, I will harden [Pharaoh's] heart so that he will not let the people go. (4:21) So, God is controlling not only the message, but the reaction to the message, which would seem to really reduce any active role that they humans are playing in all this. It's a bit like God is playing ping-pong with himself.

Trippy Passage of the Week

Then, there's Exodus 4:24-26, for my money the oddest passage since Jacob wrestled with God back in Genesis 32. If any of you gentle readers can give me some idea of what this is all about, you will be officially ordained as a MRTB Biblical Scholar, with a certificate suitable for framing.

Ready? Here goes. Moses and his family are on the road back to Egypt. But before they get there,

24 At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. 26 So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)

I hope somebody can clear this up for me. Speculations, or for that matter wild guesses, are encouraged.

See ya next week.