As Bob Marley said, "Exodus, movement of Jah people". I still to this day can't say Exodus without singing the rest of Marley's line in my head. In fact, Jah is a Rastafari short-form version of the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh or Jehovah (as God reveals his name to be in Exodus 6:3), and Bob Marley was in fact a member of one of the most liberal Mansions of Rastafari, or denominations, called The Twelve Tribes of Israel, which split its followers into 12 groups (each named after one of Jacob's sons) according to which month of the year in which they were born.
Back to the Bible, the main thrust of the early chapters of Exodus is Moses becoming anointed by God to be the man to lead the Hebrews back out of Egypt to their promised land. The plot starts with an edict by the Pharaoh declaring that every newborn son of Israel should be killed, but the Egyptian midwives charged with this act refuse, and a woman (married to the son of one of the Hebrew tribes, the House of Levi) builds an "ark" for her son and lets him float away on the Nile. He was named Moses, meaning "drawn out", as he was rescued from the river by the Pharaoh's daughter.
Moses grows up and later kills an Egyptian for "smiting" (hitting) a Hebrew, but gets away with murder by hiding away, and his crime is forgotten when the Pharaoh dies. At 2:24, God remembers his covenant with his chosen people (did he forget?) and a series of events unfold that eventually deliver the Hebrews out of their slavery. In 3:4, God calls out to Moses from a burning bush, and promises him and his people a land "flowing with milk & honey" (3:8). When Moses asks who this heavenly voice belongs to, God replies, "I AM THAT I AM" (3:14). Perhaps it's a little sacrilegious to say this, but the saying reminds me strongly of Gloria Gaynor in her pomp.
We then enter the realm of magic and miracles, as God turns Moses' rod into a snake (4:3) to prove to him who he is and encourage Moses to undertake the mission of taking the Hebrew people on a three-day journey into the wilderness. After this episode, we get an insight into the back-breaking building work forced on the Hebrew people and the harsh bondage of slavery the Egyptians imposed on them. There's one particularly notable passage (5:19) in the King James Version:
"And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task"
Translated into the ESV (English Standard version), this means:
"The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, 'You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day'"
I run into similar troubles of comprehension with the KJV in Chapter 9, especially words like "murrain" (9:3) and "blains" (9:9). Respectively, they mean plague and sores (I should have guessed the latter, thinking of chilblains). Both words give a flavour of what's about to befall the Egyptians, though in passages (like 6:6) it's as if God admits to taking his eye off the ball, in allowing his chosen people to be enslaved by the Egyptians. To make up for his neglect and counter the situation, God appoints two agents on earth, Aaron and Moses (6:25), both Levites (sons of Levi).
Pharaoh and the people of Egypt are then punished severely, starting with a dramatic vision of rivers of blood across the land (7:21). God then tells Moses (8:2) to threaten Pharaoh that he will "smite all thy borders with frogs" if he doesn't let the Hebrews escape from slavery. God also set flies upon the Egyptians and kills all their cattle, followed by hail and a plague of locusts that eat all the crops and vegetation (10:13). This passage, in which Moses uses his rod to stir up the winds that bring the locusts, must have inspired the image we have of magicians today, with their magic wand (or rod).
As the miseries mount up, Pharaoh keeps conceding defeat, but then God continually "hardens his heart" against letting the Hebrews leave. I couldn't stop asking myself, why? If God has the power to inflict this misery and also the power to control the Pharaoh's behaviour, then why allow it? Surely his actions here can't be seen as anything other than vindictive. Anyway, back to the text, and there's a passage in book 12, chapter 15 of Exodus that really interested me, as it explained the origin of the Jewish passover feast. God gives instructions about unleavened bread (nobody must eat leavened bread for 7 days from the 14th to 21st of every month, for fear their "soul shall be cut off from Israel"), and this time is marked by a passover feast during which Hebrews put "blood upon the lintel [top of a door frame] and on the two side posts" so that God knows to "pass over" (or spare) them from his vengeance, as he sets out on his mission to kill all the firstborn children and cattle of Egypt.
In Chapter 13, we finally see Moses as leader delivering the Hebrews from bondage, "in the month Abib" (the first of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, around spring equinox in late March). To mark this occasion, God instructs the Hebrews that, from now on, "thou shalt set apart unto the LORD all that openeth the matrix" (13.12), which means that every firstborn boy should be dedicated to God and reminded, when they're old enough to understand, that God delivered their people from slavery. Moses then ventures out of Egypt "through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea", but is chased down by the Egyptians on chariots, at which point Moses is encouraged to use his rod to part the sea and close it back in on the Egyptians, drowning them all. Bearing witness to this act of mass murder was a turning point for the Hebrews in making them truly fear and respect their God ("And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses", 14:31).
Back to the Bible, the main thrust of the early chapters of Exodus is Moses becoming anointed by God to be the man to lead the Hebrews back out of Egypt to their promised land. The plot starts with an edict by the Pharaoh declaring that every newborn son of Israel should be killed, but the Egyptian midwives charged with this act refuse, and a woman (married to the son of one of the Hebrew tribes, the House of Levi) builds an "ark" for her son and lets him float away on the Nile. He was named Moses, meaning "drawn out", as he was rescued from the river by the Pharaoh's daughter.
Moses grows up and later kills an Egyptian for "smiting" (hitting) a Hebrew, but gets away with murder by hiding away, and his crime is forgotten when the Pharaoh dies. At 2:24, God remembers his covenant with his chosen people (did he forget?) and a series of events unfold that eventually deliver the Hebrews out of their slavery. In 3:4, God calls out to Moses from a burning bush, and promises him and his people a land "flowing with milk & honey" (3:8). When Moses asks who this heavenly voice belongs to, God replies, "I AM THAT I AM" (3:14). Perhaps it's a little sacrilegious to say this, but the saying reminds me strongly of Gloria Gaynor in her pomp.
We then enter the realm of magic and miracles, as God turns Moses' rod into a snake (4:3) to prove to him who he is and encourage Moses to undertake the mission of taking the Hebrew people on a three-day journey into the wilderness. After this episode, we get an insight into the back-breaking building work forced on the Hebrew people and the harsh bondage of slavery the Egyptians imposed on them. There's one particularly notable passage (5:19) in the King James Version:
"And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task"
Translated into the ESV (English Standard version), this means:
"The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, 'You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day'"
I run into similar troubles of comprehension with the KJV in Chapter 9, especially words like "murrain" (9:3) and "blains" (9:9). Respectively, they mean plague and sores (I should have guessed the latter, thinking of chilblains). Both words give a flavour of what's about to befall the Egyptians, though in passages (like 6:6) it's as if God admits to taking his eye off the ball, in allowing his chosen people to be enslaved by the Egyptians. To make up for his neglect and counter the situation, God appoints two agents on earth, Aaron and Moses (6:25), both Levites (sons of Levi).
Pharaoh and the people of Egypt are then punished severely, starting with a dramatic vision of rivers of blood across the land (7:21). God then tells Moses (8:2) to threaten Pharaoh that he will "smite all thy borders with frogs" if he doesn't let the Hebrews escape from slavery. God also set flies upon the Egyptians and kills all their cattle, followed by hail and a plague of locusts that eat all the crops and vegetation (10:13). This passage, in which Moses uses his rod to stir up the winds that bring the locusts, must have inspired the image we have of magicians today, with their magic wand (or rod).
As the miseries mount up, Pharaoh keeps conceding defeat, but then God continually "hardens his heart" against letting the Hebrews leave. I couldn't stop asking myself, why? If God has the power to inflict this misery and also the power to control the Pharaoh's behaviour, then why allow it? Surely his actions here can't be seen as anything other than vindictive. Anyway, back to the text, and there's a passage in book 12, chapter 15 of Exodus that really interested me, as it explained the origin of the Jewish passover feast. God gives instructions about unleavened bread (nobody must eat leavened bread for 7 days from the 14th to 21st of every month, for fear their "soul shall be cut off from Israel"), and this time is marked by a passover feast during which Hebrews put "blood upon the lintel [top of a door frame] and on the two side posts" so that God knows to "pass over" (or spare) them from his vengeance, as he sets out on his mission to kill all the firstborn children and cattle of Egypt.
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| Cosimo Rosselli's depiction of the crossing of the Red sea |
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