Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Sunday Sermonette: Take the long way home

Exodus 13 is short enough to handle in one dose. We have seen before how awkwardly contrived this whole plot is, but this is probably the crudest example. In case you don't have a clear picture of the geography of the region, keep in mind that modern day Israel and Egypt share a border. The straight shot from Cairo to Beer Sheba is overland, through the Sinai desert. Joseph was first brought to Egypt along this trade route. You can also follow the Mediterranean coast if you like. Goshen was apparently in the northeast of Egypt so it's even closer.

Political Map of the Sinai Peninsula


The Lord said to Moses, “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.”
Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. Today, in the month of Aviv, you are leaving. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month: For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord. Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders.
Note that the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorite, Hivites and Jebusites already live in that land. Too bad for them, huh? Again, this incessant, eternal harping on not leavening the bread seems bizarre.
On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand. 10 You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.
The rabbis later interpreted this passage, in conjunction with some later ones, to produce the tefillin, little boxes containing Torah verses that orthodox Jewish men strap to their hands and foreheads for morning prayer, even though this passage refers to only an annual, not daily observance and is stated metaphorically, not literally..   Oddly,  the word tefillin is  nowhere in the Torah. The origin of the word is obscure. (The English word phylacteries that you may have encountered is derived from Greek for amulet.)
11 “After the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your ancestors, 12 you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. 13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.
14 “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ 16 And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand.”
So when your children ask you why you are killing the lamb or breaking the donkey's neck, tell them it is because God murdered hundreds of thousands of Egyptians. Pharaoh's stubbornness, as we have been told many times, was contrived by God so that he would have an excuse to do this.
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.[a]
 The Philistines were a seafaring people who did not arrive in the Levant until at least 1,500 years after these events purportedly took place. In any case check the map. In order to get to the shores of the red sea, the people had to go a good 150 miles out of their way, which in those days was considerable. I see that the pillar of fire enabled them to travel by night but didn't they need to sleep? As I noted previously, Sukkoth and Etham are not the names of real places in Egypt. God actually thinks that if the Israelites face war they're going to chicken out and return to Egypt, but what does he expect to happen when they confront the Canaanites, the Hittites, Amorite, Hivites and Jebusites? In case you are wondering, we will find out soon enough.
The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.
19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.”[b]
20 After leaving Sukkoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

Footnotes:

  1. Exodus 13:18 Or the Sea of Reeds
  2. Exodus 13:19 See Gen. 50:25.

2 comments:

Don Quixote said...

And we haven't even gotten to the part about the 40-year trek.

I was always taught it was so the old members of the tribe, broken by slavery, wanted to just return to good ol' Egypt for their three squares a day.

But apparently it takes eleven days to walk from where they were supposedly captives to Eretz Canaan. So WTF?

Cervantes said...

The purpose of this is to set up the miracle of parting the waters. It's a plot contrivance, as I say.