There's plenty of competition for weirdest passage in the Bible, but we may have the winner here. Exodus 4 is plenty weird overall, but it contains an interpolation which is weird, bizarre, and very very strange. The chapter is also very problematic theologically, but I think most interpreters pretty much ignore the problems. I won't.
Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”
2 Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
3 The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the Lord
said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses
reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff
in his hand. 5 “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
6 Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.
7 “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
8 Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. 9 But
if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some
water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take
from the river will become blood on the ground.”
That God depends on these cheap conjuring tricks to get people to believe seems rather disappointing, at least to me. This is the sort of thing charlatans do -- faith healers, Sai Baba. Of course Jesus will ultimately do some of this as well.
10 Moses said to the Lord,
“Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the
past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and
tongue.”
11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
14 Then the Lord’s anger burned
against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I
know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. 17 But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
I don't have to point out the contradiction. God first says that he can make Moses eloquent, but then Moses talks him into assigning part of the project to Aaron who is more naturally eloquent -- this despite God's anger at Moses for trying to duck out.
18 Then
Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me
return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.”
Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”
19 Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” 20 So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.
21 The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”
Let's be clear here. Pharaoh might be disposed to free the Hebrews, but God intends to harden his heart so that he will not. Then God will commit atrocities in order to force Pharaoh to do what he was inclined to do in the first place.
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.)
Okaaaay. God has big plans for Moses but all of a sudden God intends to kill him. Given that God is almighty, you might think he would have succeeded. Exactly how we, Moses and Zipporah know that God is about to kill Moses is unstated. We don't know the form of the apparition. We can infer that the motive for God's murderous intent is that this unnamed son was uncircumcised. It was not the norm for mothers to circumcise their children but apparently the act satisfies God. This being so, however, instead of trying to kill Moses, God could have just said "Circumcise the kid." Footnote c says the meaning of the phrase is uncertain, but they don't want to tell you what's uncertain about it, so I will. It may mean that she touched Moses's genitals with the foreskin. (KJV has her throwing it at him.) The meaning of "bridegroom of blood" (KJV "bloody husband") is entirely mysterious. I note that Cecil B. omitted this scene, and I doubt you will hear many sermons preached on it.
27 The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.
29 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, 30 and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, 31 and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.
1 comment:
The part about God almost killing Moses is bizarre.
This theme of God bargaining with various men in the Pentateuch comes up repeatedly. Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed, but Nineveh was not? The reason given is that people repented in Nineveh, but in S & G there couldn't even be found ten righteous men. But Noah was apparently the only righteous man alive in his time and was saved, though, as you've pointed out, "righteous" was loosely defined in his case!
The idea of an all-powerful God is expressed repeatedly in Jewish prayers, but prayers probably came well after the Pentateuch--after the temple was destroyed for the second time and animal sacrifice was superseded by the thrice-daily prayers of Shacharit, Minchah and Maariv. In the Torah itself, God is jealous, vengeful, capricious, arbitrary.
It would make no sense for an omnipotent deity to bargain with mortals--unless he was a shrewd psychologist. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one. But the light bulb has to WANT to change. And perhaps in the Torah's stories, God is trying to get people to change by themselves. I realize this is a stretch, since they're always being ordered around. But, as you pointed out, there's Jacob wrestling the angel ... and Jonah getting second chances ...
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