An Atheist Explores the Bible Part Twelve: Moses and Aaron: Magical Terrorists (Exodus 6-10)

Exodus 6-10

Moses and Aaron: Magical Terrorists

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. 

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Exodus 6

“Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.”

This is a bit of an odd chapter that feels likes some cutting and pasting has gone awry. It starts off reasonably enough, with God reiterating to Moses who He is and that He has remembered His covenant with the children of Israel. Now, this is all very well, but I wonder why God drops the ball concerning the Israelites after Joseph’s success. What was He doing when they sunk into slavery? It’s not even pitched, as set-backs often are in the bible, that God was testing His chosen people in some way, or that the humans lost their way, it’s written as if God says “Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry, I’ll make it up to you now.” Which I find amusing.

Also of note here is this is the first mention of the “name” of God, Jehovah. Those of us not currently remembering Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade may now continue to recall that this is a Latin-isation of Yahweh, itself one interpretation of the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH, which may originally have been meant as “to be” or “to exist”, which gibes with “I Am who I Am” from the previous chapters. It’s not, as I wondered, a name as such that therefore indicates one figure in a pantheon that has risen to supremacy and singularity via tradition, but a more philosophical construct. Which I find interesting.

The chapter then unravels somewhat by including yet more genealogical information and then returning to the beginning, with Moses still claiming to be unworthy of the leadership role, because he is of “uncircumcised lips”. Which sounds pretty unpleasant, although I presume (and really hope) that we’re speaking metaphorically here. I guess Moses is uncircumcised because he was raised by Egyptians and not Hebrews. Actually this is a bit more than a throwaway point – if male circumcision is a demonstration of the covenant between God and the people of Abraham (the one which God put at the bottom of his To Do pile and forgot), it’s interesting that the person with whom He decides to work to re-instigate the covenant doesn’t bear this physical sign.

Exodus 7

“When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent”

This is the first time supernatural powers have really occurred on the human level. Prior to this, the various actions of God, bar sending messengers and occasionally communicating in person, have been on a large scale, either the cosmological events of the creation or massive destruction like the flood and Sodom. Before this, there’s not been a lot in the way of miracles conducted by the faithful. In this chapter we see Moses and Aaron demonstrating the power of their god to the Egyptian pharaoh by first turning a rod into a serpent and then water into blood. The use of the magic staff here is interesting – the origins of a wizard’s staff, perhaps? Also that there are Egyptian magicians who can do the same kind of thing, but are unable to counter Aaron and Moses’ magic (or rather, the power of their God). Which makes it a kind of magical duel, and raises some questions; if the effects can also be replicated by the Egyptians then the acts themselves are perhaps not the impressive thing – hey, the old snake-staff trick, everyone knows that. I suspect the implication will be that the Egyptian’s magic tricks are just that – tricks – whereas with Moses and Aaron it’s the real deal; we shall see.

But the other thing that stands out at me in this chapter is V3 “And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt”. The implication here, and throughout, is that the reason the pharaoh refuses to listen to Moses and free the Hebrew slaves is because God has made him behave like this. Which is a strange thing to do, if this is the meaning. It removes any kind of free will and agency from the pharaoh, but also suggests that all the bad things that happen to the innocent Egyptians (such as the lack of water in this chapter) are caused because God wants  them to suffer; after all He could have prevented it by not hardening the pharaoh’s heart. To bring that element into the narrative  not only makes God’s actions seem morally dubious, but also removes any of the human aspect of the story, with Moses and the pharaoh merely puppets. In a way I can see this as an attempt to deal with the problem of evil in a worldview with an omnipotent god – if the god can do anything, why is there evil? This issue still hasn’t been addressed head-on in the bible, which perhaps is why the task has fallen to secondary authors and commentators to discuss. Here it’s a kind of compromise, later in this sequence it becomes more like the attitude of Genesis, where it seems that God has no ability or desire to prevent humans from doing stupid and unwise actions.

Exodus 8

“And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs”

In this chapter, as opposed to the previous one, it is made more explicit that it is the pharaoh who is “hardening his heart” under his own actions, and that God has merely predicted this to Moses, not caused it, which makes me feel a bit better.

Essentially this chapter follows the good old folk tale Rule of Three. Aaron uses his magic rod to bring forth first a plague of frogs, the lice, then flies (although given that the frogs begin to rot the pague of flies is not unexpected). Each time the pharaoh tells Moses that he will free the slaves if only Moses ends the plague, and then reneges on his deal each time. At least get it in writing, Moses!

The role of the “magicians” is ambiguous here, as they seem to be trying also to create the plagues (i.e. matching Aaron spell for spell), rather than trying (and failing) to undo it. A lot of that ambiguity is in the KJV language, for example V18 “And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast”. Previously the expression “bring forth” has been used to mean “summon” or “create”, but I guess it’s meant to mean “extract” or “draw out” in this context.

Exodus 9

“So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation”

The plagues continue. First all Egyptian livestock (but not Israelite livestock) is struck with a disease, then a plague of boils, and finally hail that destroys all the crops that had grown. The magicians by this time have pretty much given up. Apart from being unable to act due to having boils themselves they make no efforts to counter Aaron’s magic. Once again the pharaoh goes pleading to Moses and promising to release the slaves if Moses will end the plagues, only to change his mind again once everything was okay again. This really isn’t going to work out well for him, I think.

Exodus 10

“And Pharaoh's servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?”

See, even the pharaoh’s servants think that he’s taken this too far. More of the same kind of thing in this chapter – a plague of locusts and a darkness that covers the land. Of all the plagues so far these two are quite well written with some great apocalyptic writing describing the effects of the two plagues. Storywise it’s business as usual with the pharaoh agreeing to Moses’ demands only for as long as the problem lasts, although there are signs that he’s beginning to weaken at the end of the chapter as he says that Moses can take all his people, but not their livestock, which Moses finds unacceptable (because then they wouldn’t be able to sacrifice to their god), and so negotiations come to a close. Otherwise the pharaoh is doing a very good impression of the kind of idiot venal ruler who places concern about losing face over the needs of his people. On the other hand, it could be argued that Moses and Aaron are waging a kind of supernatural terrorism here. Okay, there are few who would argue that the cause – ending the slavery of his people – is a just one, but they are using acts of violence against a civilian population in order to extort a political outcome. Just sayin’.