Exodus 35-37

The Israelites begin construction of the sacred objects for worship of God. I don't have much to say about this, but I did note the following:

Exodus 35 begins with a discussion of the importance of physical rest on the Sabbath. Since what follows are the construction of the sacred items, it seems that the implicit message is "when you build these things, do not work on the Sabbath. Even those these items are ultimately for the worship of God, take a break from their construction and rest on the Sabbath."

We also get a new specific rule of resting on the Sabbath - do not start a fire. I think this is the basis why modern Orthodox Jews do not flip light switches or push elevator buttons on Saturday. I've heard that some hospitals in NYC have elevators that automatically go to every single floor in one long continuous loop for this purpose.

My editorial - building a fire in the wilderness before the invention of matches took far more work than flipping a light switch in the modern era.

Bessael does the metalworking after he is filled with God's spirit of metalworking talent. Maybe we should all pray for such abilities in our respective vocations.

Oholiab makes the linens for the tabernacle.

The people bring all the necessary things to build the objects. There seems to be a large spontaneous outpouring of donations and they even had leftover material. The people are instructed to donate as to the level of they feel freely in their heart. However, the people may have been acting out of guilt from having recently built the golden calf, but this indicates there is at least some turnaround and a desire to follow God.

My French Bible says they used 30 kilograms of pure gold for the lamps.

Exodus 34

The Covenant, like the initial tablets, were broken before they had any life to themselves. Perhaps by breaking the tablets, Moses destroyed whatever was left of the initial Covenant. If so, God is actually quite patient with Moses for destroying the tablets.

We need new tablets. We need a new Covenant.

God tells Moses to chisel out two blank tablets and go up the mountain. The mountain is again super-holy and no one else is allowed be on the mountain and flocks are not even allowed to feed in front of it. God plans to make new tablets that have the same writing as the original tablets.

Moses begs for forgiveness on behalf of the people and God's response is to make a Covenant. This suggests that the initial Covenant was in breach by the Golden Calf and, like the tablets, must be remade.

God's offer: I will drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, allowing you to take possession.

God makes Moses write 10 things. Is Moses writing on these new tablets (he has a chisel)? Is Moses writing in the original Book of the Covenant (from Ex. 23)? I cannot discern from the text. These 10 things are:

^{1. you shall destroy the altars, idols, and Asherah poles of Canaan (v. 13)}

^{2. for you shall worship no other god (purpose of prior command) (v. 14)}

3. you shall not make no molten gods (v. 17)

4. you shall keep the Feast of Unleavened bread (v. 18; v. 23)

5. the firstborn belong to God (v. 19); the firstborn shall be redeemed (v. 20)

6. six days to work you shall rest on the seventh day, including during the plowing and harvest season (v. 21)

7. you shall observe the Feast of Weeks and Feast of Ingathering (i.e., harvest feasts) (v. 22-23)

8. you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven nor leave Passover sacrifice until morning (v. 25)

9. The first-fruits of your shall you bring to the house of they Lord (i.e., tithing) (v. 26)

10. you shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk (v. 26)

These are not the Ten Commandments that everyone thinks of, but there 10 and Moses is required to write them down. They appear to be high points from the general commandment and code list from before.

Since the focus of these is about refraining from pagan practices, perhaps boiling a kid (goat, not human) in the mother's milk was a pagan practice.

I also suspect that God making Moses (1) chisel out new tablets and (2) write this new list is Moses' punishment for breaking the original tablets.

Finally, Moses back down the mountain after a second 40 days and his face is glowing. This would give credibility that it he was with God, and not just making all this stuff up.

Exodus 32-33

Meanwhile, back at base camp, the people approach Aaron and say, "we don't know what happened with Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt. Let us make a god that will walk before us."

Aaron's response - "everyone bring me their gold and we'll make a golden calf. Tomorrow we're having a feast for the Lord."

What?! What just happened? Things I see:

At this time, we can assume the manna is still falling every morning and there is this giant, mysterious cloud over Mount Sinai. The Israelites know that God is still watching them, but it is true that they don't know what happened with Moses. So, from their perspective, they need Moses. Perhaps they have come to come to think that Moses is equal as God, which is analogous to the Egyptian belief in their god-king Pharaoh.

Aaron's response seems to suggest that he wants to build a idol of God (Yahweh/Lord/God). If this is true, then I think this is the only occurrence in the entire Bible where someone wants to build an idol to God. All the other idols are built of other gods.

Lastly, the gold that they are using to make the calf is probably the same gold that God intended to be used for the construction of the tabernacle and the sacred objects, the blue prints of which Moses is concurrently getting from God. As if the calf idol is not enough, this would be another slap in the face for God.

Back on the mountain, God interrupts Moses and relays this news, but God omits the part about Aaron leading them in this. God now plans to kill them all and start over with Moses. Moses talks God down off the cliff (budabump) and to hold back his wrath. When Moses goes back down and sees for himself what is going on, he gets filled with wrath.

Moses heads down the mountain carrying the two tablets with the "commandments of God". He is met partway by Joshua who thinks there is a battle noise from the camp, which suggests that Joshua thinks the Israelite camp has been invaded. At the very least, Joshua is not implicated in this rebellion. He's been a good boy, waiting patiently for Moses' return.

Moses heads to camp and sees the calf with people dancing. He smashes the stone tablets on the ground (foot of the mountain), throws the calf into the fire, and the leftover bits of gold go into the main Israelite water supply. He confronts Aaron who confesses everything.

Although God is not going to kill them all, there still is a punishment coming.

Moses heads to the camp entrance and says, "whoever is for God, come to me.". The text only says that all the Levites came to him, but based on the instruction, I think others from other tribes did. However, it was the entire tribe of Levi that came to him. Moses instructs them to kill their fellow Israelites, which they do and are then consecrated as a group for their loyalty. In fact, they kill 3,000 die.

The next day, Moses begs God for forgiveness. God seems to agree to this, but Got will blot out those who sinned against God. Then the people are hit with a plague as punishment. We don't know what the disease was, but use of the word "plague" suggests that it was fatal and contagious.

God also plans to continue as before and let them take possession of Canaan. God says that an angel will go before them and then adds that "I will go not go with you.". This seems to suggest that God will send an angel to escort, but God will not be with the people. The people don't like this and mourn and the text states they took off their ornaments at Mount Horab. (33:6)

I don't understand. I thought they were at Mount Sinai. Mount Horab was where the water flow happened right before Joshua led the battle against the Amalekites.

These chapters end with God promising Moses that God will let Moses see God in all God's glory, but only God's backside as God passes.

Exodus (As and Ds)

Exodus 14:19 - As Pharaoh's army moves to the Israelite camp, the angel of God gets between Pharaoh's army and the Israelites. The pillar of cloud follows.

Exodus 25:18-20 - 2 golden cherubim with stretched out wings cover the Ark of the Covenant

Exodus 26:1, 31 and 36:8, 35 - cherubim are interwoven in the curtains of the tabernacle

Exodus 33:2 - God will send an angel before the Israelites

Genesis (As and Ds)

I'm keeping in track of references to the spirit beings throughout the Bible. What do angels and demons do?

Genesis 3:1-5 - A serpent lies to Eve. It is commonly assumed this serpent is the devil.

Genesis 3:15 - God puts enmity between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed.

Genesis 3:24 - cherubim with a flaming sword guard the way to the Tree of Life.

Genesis 16:7-12 - An angel meets Hagar by a fountain of water and tells her to go back to Sara. The angel also provides a prophecy about Ishmael, with whom she is pregnant.

Genesis 18 - Abraham converses with God, who is accompanied by two angels.

Genesis 19 - the same angels that accompanied God now act as scouts to the city of Sodom. Lot converses with them and protects them against the riotous crowd. The angels blind the crowd and later tell Lot to escape the city before it is destroyed.

Genesis 28:12 - Jacob has a dream in which he sees the angels of God going to and from Heaven on a ladder.

Genesis 32:1-2 - Jacob is met by angels after leaving Laban and before he meet with Esau. He names the place "Mahanaim", meaing "camp of God".

Genesis 32:22-30 - Jacob wrestles with an invisible being, who is identified to be God (v. 28; v. 30).

Exodus 27-31

This recounts more details of what God expects with offerings, sacred objects used in the ceremonies, priests, and ends with a bit more about the Sabbath.

A couple highlights that stand out to me:

1. The altar is basically a BBQ. It is made of acacia wood and entirely overload with bronze. This would make it light enough to transport, but prevent the altar itself from burning up.

2. God likes the smell of burning meat for the offerings. It seems like a strange thing to say, but really, so do we. The smell of a summer BBQ perks people up and itself makes people hungry.

3. Aaron is selected to be high priest. We get a huge amount of detail of the priestly garments with precious stones that have the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel engraved on each. When Aaron dies, one of his sons is to become high priest and so forth. The sad irony of this - Aaron is currently doing something very bad with the rest of the Israelites He's the high priest alight, but of worship for the golden calf.

4. God appoints two men, Bezalel and Oholiab, as artisans to lead the construction of all these items.

5. God explains the purpose of the Sabbath - a sign between God and the Israelites. This statement would imply that Abraham and Isaac were not required to observe the Sabbath rules as outlined later on, since they logically could not be "Israelites" as it was their descendant Jacob who became Israel.

Anyone who violates it by working and not resting will be put to death. So, how much work is too much? All we know now is that manna gathering is too much. We'll soon see that collecting firewood is too much work.

6. In Exodus 31:18, God gives the two tablets of stone to Moses. I know this is commonly interpreted to be the 10 Commandments. However, the text (NIV) says "covenant law" and not "10 Commandments." Various other English translations use the term "testimony". I don't remember seeing the 10 commandments and only the 10 commandments being written onto the stone.

This is clarified in Deuteronomy 5, where it states that the 10 Commandments and only the 10 Commandments were written on the tablets.

Exodus 24-26

Exodus 24 is the conclusion of the Covenant. Moses goes back down the mountain, writes down everything God said, and tells the people all the laws that God spoke to him. They reaffirm their agreement to the Covenant. There still are a lot more rules and regulations to come, but at least they have an overall sense of what makes God different from the Egyptians gods. Prior to this, all they know about God was that God performed 10 plagues on Egypt, split the Red Sea, and brought them a very long walk through the wilderness.

Moses builds the altar that was mentioned before and the people. They perform sacrifice and Moses reads the "Book of the Covenant" to the people and they again affirm their agreement.

Moses takes some of the sacrificial blood and sprinkles it on the people and says this is the blood of the Covenant. What is not stated is whether he did this on a few people, selective representatives, or the entire multitude.

God calls Moses back up the mountain with the leading elders. We also see that Joshua is his aid and goes up with him. This shows that Moses might be grooming Joshua to succeed Moses, but also that Joshua is taking over some of the privilege that Aaron had.

The elders and Joshua hold back from going all the way up and are to manage the disputes of the group. Moses goes up alone, close to the giant cloud presence of God. After 6 days, God calls Moses to enter the cloud where he stays for 40 days.

What's he doing there for 40 days? God has a lot more details to go over.

Exodus 25 covers more details about offerings, the ark of the Covenant, a ceremonial table and a lamp stand. I believe each of these are still used after the construction of the temple. In contrast, Exodus 26 has details on the construction of the tabernacle, which I believe is later replaced by the temple.

A lot of the items require pure gold and acacia wood. The ark will house the 10 commandments as well as a place for God to dwell. It also is to have gold cherubim on its lid. I'm not sure of the reason for this, but it is somewhat shocking since it comes from a God who hates idols. My guess is that they are replicating a heavenly throne and the cherubim represent angels before God's throne in the heavens.

The lamp stand holds 7 lamps and it reminds me of the 7 lamps for the 7 churches at the beginning of Revelations.

Exodus 22-23

The lawyer in me is quite fascinated with the differences between our modern society and theirs. In some ways, it reminds me of studying British colonial common law for the bar exam.

In Exodus 22-23, we see a lot more laws of the Israelite society. Some of them have parallels in our society, but many do not.

"no stealing" made the audible "initial 10" (i prefer that since they were not called 10 commandments in Exodus 20) and here's what happens if someone steals:

If cattle is stolen, repay it 5 times; if a sheep, repay it 4 times. The thief is not sent to jail (what we would do).

A night time burglar in your home can be killed, but not daylight burglar. This is similar to our "castle doctrine," but we do not make a time distinction.

Any other theft or property damage is compensated to the victim but other than the cattle/sheep, we don't see many more specifics of multiple damages. Our society does have multiple damage (punitive fines, treble damages) for situations that are egregiously bad.

If the person cannot pay, he is sold into slavery. Since we don't have slavery, we don't do that.

If you seduce a virgin, you have to pay the bride price and marry her. However, the father can refuse the marriage. We don't do bride price, so I guess this would be equivalent to giving her a diamond ring. It is still common to ask for the father's permission to marry his daughter; how often they refuse, I don't know.

We get some more death penalty crimes - sorcery, sex with animals, and idolatry (in that order). This is immediately followed by a requirement to be nice and hospitable to foreigners in your land. I read that to mean that the immediately preceding death penalty crimes only apply to Israelites and not foreigners. I also see a potential modern parallel with illegal immigration.

Be nice to widows and fatherless. If you're mean to them, God will avenge them with your blood. Uh oh.

Be fair in your business deals and don't take advantage of people.

Don't eat the meat of animal slain by other animals. It sounds like a health regulation, but it is immediately preceded by a clause on being a holy people, eating "animal kill" probably has a holiness effect on them.

Exodus 23 begins with examples of dealing honestly. It also repeats be nice to foreigners.

Then we move to Sabbath rules, which emphasizes rest. It even applies to land - rest your land every 7th year. Farmers still do crop rotation and fallowness today.

You have six days to work and rest on the seventh so that (i.e., the purpose) for your servant and beast. So you can't rest and make everyone else work.

Part of what I think is going on with the Sabbath is that God is implementing something revolutionary, but we take for granted today - a weekend. In the initial 10, it's holiness was defined in terms of not working and resting.

There will be three festivals:

Unleavened Bread (in the spring with Passover)

First fruit harvest (early autumn, I assume)

Final harvest (late autumn, I assume)

We get some sacrifice rules. In the midst of them appears: do not cook a young goat in it's mothers milk. I'm not sure what that means, its purpose, or how it can be applied today.

At the end of the rules, God reiterates the promise of the land in preparation for the Conquest. God will drive out the inhabitants and not just the Canaanites. They are not to bow down to their gods.

It appears to me that God wanted this generation to fulfill the Conquest. We know what happens and this generation dies out beforehand, but here, the text reads like a call to arms.

We also see a greater territorial boundaries than actually occurs. Basically, the land from the Red Sea to the Euphrates. It reminds me of one of the territory details that Abraham was promised.

But the Israelites don't take possession of that much land. Why not? My guess is maybe God wanted to give them that much land, but since they ended up worshiping the gods of the people they conquered, the process was arrested. In other words, their borders would have been that of a major contemporary empire, had they not worshiped the idols.

Exodus 20-21

ust what exactly were all the rules the Israelites agreed to? We only saw one so far - don't touch the mountain. This chapter starts the rules.

The rules begin with the same introduction the offer for covenant did - "I am the God that brought you out of Egypt." This is immediately followed with what later become known as 10 commandments.

It begins with you shall have no other God's before me. Relatedly, no images that you bow to. In God's explanation of why not, we also see something peculiar, God punishes the children of sinful parents to the 3rd and 4th generation, whereas God blesses the children of good people for a thousand generations. Whoa. We have already seen some generational blessings/ punishments - Adam, Shem/Canaan, and Abraham. As for the modern equivalent, I think of things like child abuse, parental temper tantrums, or domestic violence, where children see the parents act terribly and then grow up and do the same.

As for # 4, Sabbath rest, I have wondered what exactly it means to keep a day 'holy'. Holiness seems to have a contextual definition. But here it is defined - no work, for you, your family, your animals. It is interesting that the animals are supposed to rest. Out in the wild, I don't think animals take a day off from rest. For instance, a gazelle is not going to say to the wolf, "I'm not going to run from you today because it is the Sabbath.". But I think this speaks to domesticated transport animals - don't ride your camel 30 miles, give it a day off.

After God's top 10, the people are trembling with fear and want God to talk to Moses directly. Thus, it appears that the 10 commandments were heard audibly by the entire multitude. Therefore, they are all on notice about God's expectations, at least the top 10 ones.

Moses tries to calm them, but ends up going alone to converse directly with God. God repeats to Moses that no idols are allowed, but God does want an altar made of natural, uncut stones for sacrifices. By the way, don't go up the altar on steps or your private parts may be seen. Is God referring to exposing our private parts to other people? Or to the altar? Given that cutting tools would defile the altar, I am not entirely sure.

Afterwards, what follows are rules that seem especially out of date to us, but perhaps had more significance throughout most of human history. Basically, if buy a Hebrew servant (i.e.,slave), you are to release him or her after six years of work. What?! We also get a bunch of details about if the slave has kids or a wife. It even has a bunch of rules about when a man sells his daughter into slavery. Whoa?! What?! It says nothing about non-Hebrew slaves.

We don't see an absolute prohibition of the practice. Since this generation had just come from slavery, there probably was a strong tendency to want to be re-enslaved, to enslave your neighbor, or to enslave your daughter. It was probably the norm in Egypt and something that they had culturally deeply engrained.

This is probably the first great example of rules we're glad did not carry into the New Testament era.

I think the placement of the rules right after the initial 10 commandments speaks volumes itself. I would guess that in the weeks or months since the Red Sea, the Israelites were already making slave contracts. "I'll trade you my daughter for that goat" kind of stuff.

God does not outlaw the practice, while in contrast the 10 commandments immediately before were full of "thou shall not" prohibitions.

Likewise, there is no age requirement for slave freedom, only a time requirement. Therefore that young daughter who was sold by her father for the goat would have to be freed after 6 years of work. Similarly, they cannot mistreat the slaves. In the physical injury rules, they must free the slave if during punishment, the slave loses an eye or tooth. Uh oh, what about when slave kids are loosing their baby teeth?

This all begs the question of whether God is enabling this practice by making rules to contain it rather than prohibiting it. I see potential analogies for more modern things like condoms v. abstinence, taxes on alcohol (or other sin taxes), etc...Even if we stick with slavery, rules to contain slavery were tried leading up to the American Civil War.

But let's be honest, this is not indentured servitude. This really is slavery. It is watered-down as freedom is guaranteed after 6 years of work. But it is slavery. For example, Exodus 21:4 says:

"If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."

After Hebrew slavery, we see some rules on physical injuries - you get the death penalty for murder (ok, we do that), but we don't do the death penalty for the others - attacking your parent, kidnap, cursing your parents.

Nonlethal injuries get financial restitution or freedom, as in the case for slaves.

Exodus 19

God tells Moses to lead the people from Rephidim to Mount Sinai. If the Amalekites wanted the water source, they just had to wait for the Israelite to pass on.

At Sinai, Moses ascends and God tells him to relay the offer. "I brought you out of Egypt. If you obey me and keep my covenant, I will separate you from among the peoples of the world. You will be my treasured possession and I will bless you."

Moses runs back down the mountain, tells the elders, and the people agree. The lawyer in me would say, "could I please find out more details on what I am to obey before accepting". The Israelites don't do this, but just agree and jump into the covenant. We'll soon find out, God has a lot of rules for them. We'll also see them break the covenant, which makes you wonder where their hearts are at this point in time.

As Moses runs back up the mountain to relay their acceptance, God says "I'm coming in a cloud so the people will see and hear our conversation.". Moses says, "by the way, we accept."

God tells him to go back to the people, to tell them to consecrate themselves and wash their clothes by the third day. By the way, you better post a boundary at the bottom of the mountain, for if anyone touches the mountain, they are to die. Only after the ram's horn blasts may they approach.

Moses goes back down, relays the message, but also adds, "no sex."

The third day comes. The presence of God descends on Mount Sinai. Smoke, fire, thunder, and loud trumpet blasts is heard. Moses watches this among the people, who are all trembling.

I think there is a stereotype that "Old Testament God" is like this - fire, brimstone, thunder, clouds, etc...But really, this is also to get the attention of 500,000-1,000,000 people all at once. It's going to be big and spectacular.

But really, if we look at the prior encounters with God up to this point, they are far more intimate, but the element of the supernatural remains:

Adam - God is walking through the garden, granted, this is right before Adam and Eve get kicked out.

Abraham - talking with God and the two angels; God predicts his barren, 90 year old wife will have a child.

Jacob - wrestles with an invisible person, but it's an encounter with God.

Moses - meets with God, who is in a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire.

Back to the story, God tells Moses to come back up where God warns Mose to tell the people not come up and even the priests must consecrate themselves or they'll die. Moses' reply, "you've already told us this, God.". Maybe God knows that they people need a second warning or perhaps God is clarifying that the trumpet blast is not the ram's horn.

God tells Moses to bring up Aaron, but not the priests, or they will die.

Mount Sinai is just getting started.

According to Wikipedia, Mount Sinai is about 7500 feet high and is not the highest mountain in the immediate area. We could probably guess that it took Moses 2-3 hours to climb up and maybe one hour to go down, each time he had to go up and down.

Exodus 16-18

This recounts a few more stories of desert survival before the events of Mount Sinai.

The Israelites leave the oasis at Elim, with all its palm trees and 12 springs. The head to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai.

It sounds like they have eaten up all the unleavened bread they made in Egypt because they start complaining about food. With all the walking they're doing, it's a wonder that they made it that far before asking about it.

God sends bread from the sky, Manna. They are supposed to collect it fresh in the morning, lest it go bad the next day. This prevents hoarding as well as keeps people dependent on God on a daily basis. The leftover manna may have also been a food source for all their animals. The exception to gathering enough for a day is preparation for the Sabbath, where they collect two days worth. This also is the first time we have seen in the Bible thus far since Creation Week anything about resting on the seventh day. Did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph rest on the seventh day? The text was silent.

God also sends them quail to eat. Yum yum. We find out later that quail is a "clean" bird, fit for Israelite consumption. Actually it is not listed as unclean, as for the birds, the list is unclean, rather than what makes it clean (compare the rules regarding land animals and seafood).

Not a bad life. They're free from Egypt, no army chasing them, they get fresh bread and quail. The wilderness of Sin seems to work well for them, so what else can go wrong?

God tells them to leave and head for the steps of Refidim. They run out of water and actually start talking about stoning Moses. That got bad fast. Aquaman made the bitter water potable at Mara, and now they want to stone him? God intervenes and tells Aquaman to strike a rock on Mount Horeb with his staff, which unleashes water. If the rock was on a mountain, then it sounds like it created a waterfall and being elevated, the entire multitude could see it at once.

We also see for the first time some elements of administration. Before doing this, God tells Moses to pick some of the elders to go with him.

The waterfall may have also attracted some unwanted guests, the Amalakites. The Amalakites come to attack the Israelites at Refidim. Their motivation is not stated, but I think this newfound great water source would make sense. Moses directs this great rising star Joshua to assemble a force to fight them off.

A side question - where did they get their weapons. The most likely source would have been from the Egyptian army as they washed up on shore. If that's the case, then it would likely be the lighter weapons, spears, bows, arrows, as opposed to heavier things like swords and shields, as those would have sunk. That said, if God wanted to wash the heavier weapons onto shore, it would have happened.

Fight as men they must, but if Moses keeps his hands in the air, they'll win. Moses watches the battle with Aaron and Hour from atop the mountain, which might indicate that this skirmish is about water after all. The Israelites win and Moses builds an altar to God.

Selecting Joshua for a human battle is radically different. First, instead of relying on God to use miracles of nature to destroy the enemy, they must fight as men. However, God is still on their side. We know that Joshua becomes a great military leader. However, this battle does not fit Moses' pattern of massive miracles of nature, but it does fit Joshua's pattern that we see later on. My guess is this event was not so much about Moses, but rather raising up Joshua. This seems to also be confirmed because this is a time of other leaders rising up among the Israelites.

This actually reminds me of an event that happened to me in high school. I played lacrosse for my high school and at one game in particular, we were struggling to pull of a win. It was the fourth quarter and everyone was dropping balls and not catching passes. It looked bad. Suddenly, I remember this battle of Joshua against the Amalakites with Moses on the sidelines. I thought, just cheer. So, I cheered and yelled and we started winning. I got tired of yelling, so I stopped, and we started playing poorly again. So I resumed cheering and yelling and eventually won the game. Coincidence? I have no idea. But it stuck with me through all the years.

Moses' father in law come to the group. Moses recounts his stories and Jethro is converted. We also find out that Moses' wife is named Sephora.

Finally, the last thing before going to Sinai - Moses delegates his judicial authority to settle the quarrels of all the Israelites. They create groups of 10, 50, 100, and 1000 with appointed judges to decide cases among them. This will save Moses a lot of time.

Exodus 14-15

God tells Moses to lead the people to the Red Sea and encamp next it. God says that this course will confuse Pharaoh as it seems that the Israelites have become lost in the desert. God also plans to harden Pharaoh's heart to pursue the Israelites. We last saw Pharaoh emotionally broken over the loss of his first born Son. Now, he wants to pursue the Israelites. For revenge or to re-enslave them, we do not know. But we know that God is encouraging it and hardening Pharaoh's heart. The reason - so that the Egyptians will know that God is sovereign. So, what happens next was intended by God to be a witness to the Egyptians, not just protecting the Israelites.

It occurred to me that even today, there remains a strong Christian community in Egypt - the Copts. The Coptic Christian community has survived throughout the centuries despite the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and of course, Islam. They are regularly the focal point of Islamic persecution. I have heard, but do not know for a fact, that their Mass services are in a dialect of ancient Egyptian, a language similar to what the Pharaohs spoke. So, despite the violence of the Exodus directed against the Egyptian people, God had a plan to redeem the Egyptians themselves, which may have included the later-founded Coptic church.

Within the pages of the Bible itself, Egypt largely loses its hostility to the Israelites, and ally with them during the time of the kings. Egypt even becomes a land of refuge again and hosts infant baby Jesus.

First, God must finally defeat the man-god, Pharaoh. Otherwise, the Egyptians will not know that the Israelite God is stronger than their god, Pharaoh, without this final battle. For the Israelite-Egyptian relationship, this is Armageddon. Pharaoh brings his army, 600 of his best chariots plus all an unstated number of non-best chariots and horsemen.

The Israelites panic. "why have we come to the desert to die? Didn't we tell you, Moses, to leave us alone and let us serve the Egyptians?"

In some ways, it is understandable since they are an unarmed population against the mightiest of Empires in the day, plus they are next to the sea and they have no boats. On the other hand, they quickly forgot the 10 plagues that not only wreaked havoc on the people pursuing them, but demonstrated the sovereignty of their God over the Egyptian gods. They also forgot that Egypt was literal death for their male children.

Moses tells the people to not be afraid. God then tells Moses to get his act in gear. In other words, "you are Aquaman" and then explains what to do. Aquaman raises his hands. Mighty winds blow and split the Red Sea apart. It is stated that it happened all night long, which I think means that it took all night for the Israelites to cross, as opposed the winds blew all night and then seas parted.

Meanwhile, the angel of God moves the cloud to bring darkness to the Egyptian army.

The Israelites cross on dry land. It is later stated that after crossing, they are in the desert of Shur. According to Biblical maps, this would mean that they did not cross the sea at its thickest point, but rather one of the smaller inlets.

The Israelites finish crossing and the Egyptians pursue them into the sea. God causes their chariot wheels to malfunction and the Egyptian army starts to panic as they realize that God is fighting for the Israelites.

Shortly before dawn (last watch of night), Aquaman raises his hands and the seas cave in on the Egyptian army. It does not say that Pharaoh was among them, but all those that went into the sea were killed.

Exodus 15 has a long spontaneous worship song that springs up from the Israelites. We find out that Miriam is a prophet. Miriam is Aaron's sister. So, she might be the same sister that watched infant Moses in a papyrus basket. She grabs a tambourine and leads women in spontaneous worship.

Three days later, this massive party has turned to worrying about the elements in the desert. In particular, they want water. According to Wikipedia, the Red Sea has a 4% salinity than most ocean water, so they did not refill their canteens from there.

They come upon an oasis called Mara. Unfortunately, the water is too bitter to drink. God directs Aquaman to throw a piece of wood into the water, which makes it potable. They next go to Elim which is a better water source, as demonstrated by its 12 springs and 70 palms.

Hey being Aquaman is pretty handy if you're leading people around a desert.

Exodus 10-13

It begins with God explaining why God hardened the hearts of Pharaoh and his ministers. The reason - so Moses may tell his children and grandchildren about how God dealt harshly with the Egyptians, performed wonders, and that they may that God is the Lord.

It still seems like it might be unfair. The Egyptian people are innocent, yet had to live with the plagues - including physical pain, hail from the sky, and soon, the loss of their firstborn. Are they not pawns in this chess match between Moses/God v. Pharaoh. That's a difficult question, but it is not too entirely different from what happens 40 years later in Canaan. Compared to that, the Egyptians a getting off easy. Also, the Egyptian populace are not entirely innocent, as they enslaved the Hebrews, including killing the male babies. Lastly, on a spiritual level which I have not fully discussed yet, this same Egyptian population worships Pharaoh. They have a chance to turn to the God of the Hebrews in all this, or even take refuge in Goshen but for as well can tell, they're sticking with their god, Pharaoh.

Another thought, if Pharaoh lost his complete free will at plague 7, after 6 times voluntarily hardening his heart, then it would seem God's decision to do plagues 7-10 would have already been made. At some point during plagues 1-6, God decided Pharaoh had enough chances and the punishment would be 10 total. Further, in between 7-8, God says the Israelites are to remember it. This seems that God already had in mind Passover and unleavened bread despite it being several plagues away. Finally, plagues 7-10 really leave Egypt crippled, so maybe they should be seen as one long plague to cripple the country after 6 lighter plagues where Pharaoh had voluntary chances avoid the nation getting completely hosed.

Moses and Pharaoh discuss the terms of avoiding the next plague.

Pharaoh: "You can take the men for the three day festival, but not the women or the children."

Moses: "No, it's all or nothing -all the people plus their animals."

Pharaoh: "you have bad intentions. This conversation is over."

It is not stated as such, but we reasonably believe that Pharaoh thinks that the three day festival is a rouse to just leave. It seems hat Pharaoh is softening up. Too bad the next few plagues are some of the worst.

The next plague - swarms of locusts come. They devour everything that the hail storm left standing. This would leave Egypt looking a lot like the desert regions on either side of the Nile. This would have completely destroyed Egypt economically, is all vegetation and hence, their food supply is gone. It might also put a complete work stoppage on the Hebrew construction projects as those required hay, which we can presume was affected by the locusts (it said that anything green was eaten, hay is not green, but comes from green things).

Pharaoh softens, but the Lord hardens his heart and we jump to plague nine - darkness. For three days, the land is pitch black. We don't hear much detriment this had other than people could not move around.

Pharaoh and Moses discuss the terms of leaving. Pharaoh has really softened up as he allows the entire Hebrew population to leave, but they cannot take their animals. This would make economic sense, for if the Egyptian grain supply has been decimated by locusts, the Israelite animals would make a secondary food supply until grain production resumes.

Moses' reply - no, the animals are needed for sacrifices. Pharaoh is now really mad and threatens to kill Moses should they see each other again. Surprisingly, Pharaoh waited until 9 plagues to do this.

The tenth and final is about to happen, but before it does, God lays out a lot of instructions for Moses which he must relay to the Hebrew. Everyone must take a goat or sheep, cook it entirely with its head and paws, partner up with neighbors if your household is too small. Then, put. its blood on the doorposts.

A few other details:

1. ask your Egyptian neighbors for gold and sliver. Remarkably, the Egyptians agreed to this as the Israelites were favorably disposed to the Egyptians.

2. For the carbs, we're eating unleavened bread.

3. Eat the meal fully dressed and wearing your walking sandals.

4. We will reenact this every year in remembrance of our flight from Egypt. The Passover lamb and unleavened bread stuck around, but the asking the neighbors for money, Passover goat, and blood on the doorposts aspects of this event did not.

After laying out all the details of what to do and how to remember it, God takes action. At midnight, God smites the firstborn male of people and animal alike in the land, unless there was blood on the doorposts. Those households were sparred.

There is massive crying. Pharaoh summons Moses and directs him to take their people and leave. They do. We can presume they left in haste in the middle of the night as they ate the meal with their shoes on and unleavened bread (bland, but hastily made).

Their initial trip: Ramses to Sukkoth, then from Sukkoth to Etham, a desert border region. God specifically chose course to avoid the Philistines because they might turn around if they faced war. So, God is taking them to the Red Sea for a crossing. This shows that Aquaman's parting of the Red Sea was God's plan, regardless of the Egyptian army's action.

Meanwhile, we also get a few more details about how to remember Passover and finally a timestamp - the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years.

The are also bringing Joseph's bones for burial in Canaan. Therefore, Joseph's body has deteriorated. So, this means one of two things:

1. Joseph was not mummified, but simply buried.

2. Joseph was mummified, but his grave had been desecrated.

Exodus 8-9

Seven days have passed since the Nile was turned to blood. So, was the Nile blood this entire time? The next plague will require it to be water, so it probably is back to normal.

My theory - the NIle was turned to blood and gradually returned to normal over the next seven days. If you think about it, blood oxidizes and clots when exposed to air. So, we can guess that's what happened to the Nile. The top layer was gross and nasty while the lower layers were less thick than the top, but more viscous than water. The Nile delta is a tidal estuary, so over time, this nasty mess was broken up and taken out to sea. Meanwhile, fresh water from upriver came and helped push it out.

I picture this as the Chernobyl meltdown of the ancient world, a huge environmental disaster in a densely populated area.

Pharaoh was not impressed with all that blood. But there is something far worse than a river of blood. It is an unspeakable horror that can keep him awake at night. Frogs!

God tells Moses and Aaron to warn Pharaoh about frogs, but in the next verse, God tells them to just bring the frogs. If they warned Pharaoh or God decided it would not help, we don't know.

Aquaman's brother raises the staff and swarms of frogs come up from the Nile. Bullfrogs, small frogs, the poison dart frogs - we don't know which kind, but we do know that Pharaoh hates them. They get into his palace, his bed, and even into the ovens and the kneading dough.

Pharaoh begs Aquaman to take away the frogs. "Go, do your festival in the desert. Just stop these frogs."

Aquaman agrees and prays for the frogs to stop. They die - everywhere. Their little corpses litter the land and we can probably surmise, they died in his bed, in he ovens, and in the kneading dough. That's probably more gross, but at least there are not new ones replacing them.

We are also told that Pharaoh's magicians can summon frogs. However, they obviously cannot stop a plague of frogs sent from God.

Pharaoh changes his mind. Then the third plague comes - gnats. In some translations, they are lice. It impresses the magicians, but not Pharaoh. "gnats? After a river of blood and......those evil, little green devils. Gnats aren't worse than frogs, this is a step down."

I would agree if they were indeed gnats. A swarm of gnats? Annoying, but probably less annoying than a river of blood or an invasion of frogs. But they were a swarm of lice? That would be more annoying.

Then the next plague comes - flies. Flies are larger and more annoying than gnats or lice. Pharaoh hates flies. Maybe the gnats were a warning that bigger insects - flies - would be next. A swarm of regular flies would be more annoying than a swarm of gnats, but less annoying than a swarm of lice. However, if they are biting flies, that would be far more annoying than either. The English translations do not seem to specify if they were biting flies or not, but the French translation suggests that they were as it calls them "pricking". A further indication that they might be biting flies is that they do sufficiently annoy Pharaoh that he relents. Throughout all the plagues, he seems indifferent to the suffering of others, but it is only when he personally is hurt or annoyed that it matters. I think biting flies would more of a personal impact on Pharaoh than non-biting flies.

This time around, God makes a point of sparring the land of Goshen from the plague. Did the land of Goshen experience blood, frogs, and gnats? Maybe or maybe not. Later on, in the plague of hail, there is no explicit statement beforehand about sparing Goshen, but we find out it happened. That said, why be specific when Goshen was spared unless it was not spared by the early plagues?

Pharaoh first tells Moses to do the festival in the land. He is afraid they'll leave and not come back. This is unacceptable to Moses. If the Egyptians see us sacrificing to another God or gods, they will stone us. After all, this is the land of Osiris and Ra, the Pharaoh is "god".

Pharaoh agrees. "Go into the wilderness, but not far. Now, pray for me."

Aquaman does so and Pharaoh changes his mind.

The next plague comes - a mysterious disease sweeps through all the livestock of the land, but spares those of the Israelite. I did not slaves could own livestock. Nevertheless, Pharaoh is not impressed.

The next plague comes - a plague of boils so strong that they physically incapacitate Pharaoh's sorcerers. We also see for the first time that "God hardened" Pharaoh's heart. We see encouragement by God. What?! My sense is that God is only encouraging Pharaoh to do something that Pharaoh already wants to do - keep his heart hard. This is the sixth plague and Pharaoh's pattern of hardening his own heart is clearly established.

Pharaoh's advisers are sprawled out on the floor as they cannot stand from all the boils. We can pretty much guess what their advice to Pharaoh would be. The text itself is silent as to whether Pharaoh himself had boils. This might suggest that Pharaoh was not personally hit by a boil, as he would probably be begging Moses to go. My guess is that Pharaoh sees his advisors in pain and they beg for him to release the Israelites. Since he's not personally affected by the boils, it's only his pride that stands in the way. Nevertheless, it says that God encouraged the hardening of Pharaohs heart.

The next plague - hail and lightning. The hailstorm appears to do more damage than the lightning. Aquaman prayed and meteorites of ice fall from the sky, killing people, animals, and vegetation. Trees are stripped of branches and crops are destroyed.

Pharaoh is impressed. Frogs, flies, and hail are too much. "stop the hail. Go if you must.". Moses agrees, but does not initially pray for it to cease. The text seems to suggest that he prays once he left the city.

The hailstorm stops and Pharaoh and his ministers harden their hearts. See, he never needed God's heart-hardening encouragement after all.

Exodus 5-7

Moses and Aaron go to up to Pharaoh and say "let my people go.". That's what everyone remembers, but they also said, "we need to do a three day festival in the wilderness. If we don't do this, God might strike us down and kill us by disease and/or war.". Unstated is whether or not they would return. But if the festival is for three days, then presumably that means they would return.

Pharaoh does not care. Conditioned like that, why would he? If he doesn't let them go, then [their] God would kill them. Pharaoh even tells Moses and Aaron to get back to work. I think that is only point in all this where Moses and Aaron are identified as being rebellious slaves. Why didn't the Egyptians do more of an effort to get them, Moses and Aaron, to work?

Pharaoh is mad at this exchange and takes away all the straw from the Israelites in their straw brick construction. Yet, they are still expected to meet the same daily quota of bricks. So, this means they have to first search for straw and then make the bricks. Pharaoh hopes this makes them so busy they forget about this three day festival.

Moses complains to God and God renews the promise on two separate occasions between the initial meeting with Pharaoh and the first plague. Moses even complains that the Israelites themselves won't listen to him. The story breaks and we get Moses and Aaron's genealogy. It starts off by going through the sons of Reuben, Simeon, and then Levi. It almost seems like we'll get the sons of all 12 tribes of Israel, but it stops with details about Levi. We also find out that Simeon had a Canaanite wife.

Why is that there? My guess is because it is a quasi-answer to Moses' complaint immediately before. The genealogy highlights Moses' and Aaron's firm Hebrew roots, which gives them some credibility before other Israelites. But it is not a total answer, that can only come from God.

Moses and Aaron return to Pharaoh. Aaron throws down his staff, it becomes a snake. Pharaoh's magicians to do the same, but Aaron's staff-snake eats up theirs. Pharaoh is still not impressed.

Now it's time for Aquaman. Pharaoh is taking a bath by the river. Moses and Aaron walk up to him. Apparently, there was public access to Pharaoh's bathing point by the river (and Pharaoh's daughter, that's where Moses was found). Aaron strikes the water and the entire river turns to blood. All the fish died and it stinks. The people have to dig along side the river to find drinking water. So, it does not sound like all the water in the land became blood, just their main source of the water.

The Egyptians loved this river and it was the foundation of their culture. All their cities are up and down the Nile as it is desert on either side. Here, this entire river is now blood. You can't drink it, you can't catch fish in it, and the smell is toxic. This action probably caused a work stoppage in the brick building by the Israelites, as you need water to make mud.

Pharaoh is still not impressed.

Exodus 2-4

Moses is born a Levite, one of the two tribes that would be scattered among Israel.

His family hides him from the Egyptians for three months. Afterwards, they put him in a basket made of papyrus reeds and hide him among the reeds. What will happen? Will the basket turn over? Will a crocodile eat him? Moses is found by Pharaoh's daughter. She knows the boy is a Hebrew and presumably, why the boy was abandoned. She has pity on him and takes him in. God further blesses the situation because Pharaoh's daughter hires Moses' mother to care for him. Woah. Talk about a turnaround. I wonder if Pharaoh's daughter knew this woman was his mother.

Pharaoh's daughter names him Moses, for she took him from the river. In other words, she names him Aquaman. (I'm actually somewhat serious, Exodus 2:10 -

And she called his name Moses [that is, Drawn out], and she said, "Because I drew him out of the water.")

Aquaman grows up in Pharaoh's household, but he understand that he is a Hebrew. He has a short vigilante career. He sees a Hebrew getting beaten by an Egyptian, so he kills the Egyptian and hides the body. He is Aquaman, not Batman. Someone sees him do this and it becomes the talk around town. The next day he tries to break up a fight between two Hebrews and they ask him if he will kill them like he did with the Egyptian. Uh oh!

An Egyptian in Pharaoh's house who actually is a Hebrew and this Hebrew killed an Egyptian to protect a Hebrew? This is not good. Pharaoh seeks to kill him and correct the error of years ago (i..e, letting him live as a child).

He runs off to hide in the land of the Midianites. Immediately, he returns to his vigilante ways and saves his future wife and her sisters from marauding shepherds and helps to water their animals. This impresses their father who gives him a daughter in marriage. If only it were that easy to today.

Years later, he sees a burning bush that is not consumed. Even more remarkably, the burning bush speaks to him. He figures it is God, so hides his face to not look. Through a conversation with fire, Aquaman gets a mission fit for a vigilante - take on Pharaoh and free the Israelites. He also gets his powers - (1) a staff that turns to a snake, (2) the ability to control leprosy, and (3) the ability to turn water (yes!) into blood.

It seems commonly understood that the staff would turn into a cobra, but I am not aware of any translation that says this. I think the assumption comes from the ancient Egyptian obsession with cobras, for instance Cleopatra was killed by an asp and all the cobras on the hieroglyphs. So, if Egyptians are obsessed with cobras, it would make sense that his staff could turn into a cobra to show the dominance of God over the Egyptians.

Through the burning bush, we also find out that he has a brother, Aaron. How did he survive the slaughter of the newborns?

Aquaman takes his wife and kids on the road and head back to Egypt. They are staying at an inn when God comes to kill him. God is not stated as being angry, either. What?! His wife intervenes, circumcising his child, and then wiping the blood on his feet. This really is a strange twist. Didn't God know that his child was uncircumcised before delegating supernatural abilities? Yes, I think that's the point. Aquaman/Moses got a huge dose of God's spirit and this was incompatible with a man who was in violation of the Abrahamic covenant. Another possibility is that he had to fully embrace his Israelite heritage and fully reject his Egyptian culture in order to be a proper leader to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

It also shows that maybe his wife was not entirely on board with this mission. She is angry and blames him. Perhaps she was instrumental in delaying circumcising the child.

Exodus 1

A dark cloud has fallen over Egypt. What was once a land of refuge and blessing is now...as if the Nazis have won.

From Exodus 1, we do not know the span of time. All we know is a new king has come about, who does not know the Israelites.

That alone is enough. He is threatened. The starting population of 72 has swelled to uncontrollable numbers.

He implements population control, in particular killing the newborn male children. OK, if you really, really want to wipe out the Israelites, kill their female children. Jewish heritage passes through the female, plus even today, it is known that female fecundity is more important than male. Or yet, kill both their male and female children.

If none of this makes sense...consider this, who do you kill and eat, a cow or bull? If you have more than one bull, you kill and eat as many bulls as you have, but save one. It is the female distribution among the population that will keep the species alive.

So, why kill male children but not female? This action will kill off future Israelite leaders, but will keep their race alive.

Two wise women among the Israelites step in to stop this. In other translations, they are midwives. They claim that the Israelite women are so strong they don't need midwives, so they can't kill the male children.

This is total BS.

Ethical question - is it OK to lie to save a man's life? Is it OK to lie repeatedly to save an entire race of children? That is the unanswered question here.

In the French translation, these women are "wise", so maybe that answers the question.

The chapter ends with the Israelites becoming more numerous despite Pharaoh's genocide on children.

Genesis 46-50

Jacob is starting his third major move to reunite with his long-lost favorite son, but it seems he is more apprehensive than excited. His does sacrifices and God appears to him in a vision and says don't worry. Why would he be worried? The move from Laban back to Esau was more dicey. I guess because this time around, he's bringing about seventy people. His flocks (and wealth) are likely decimated by the famine, and he's so old he has to ride in the carts with the small children.

We also find out that Benjamin isn't this helpless little kid, although Jacob treats him like it. Rather, he already has ten sons of his own. That's almost as many as daddy.

Judah goes ahead to find out where exactly is Goshen. That would be helpful knowledge for the caravan. Joseph meets up with his dad and cries and cries.

Joseph warns his family that shepherds are viewed negatively in Egypt. But nevertheless, he tells them to be honest about it in front of Pharaoh. That seems odd, but my guess is that shepherds are viewed negatively because of the famine. Sheep require food, which people need. Justifiably, people thought that flocks of sheep should be eaten, not fed. We later find out that the famine is bad that people are selling themselves into slavery just to survive. So, a large group of sheep or cattle would garner quite a bit of jealousy.

Pharaoh blesses this, even saying that they should watch over Pharaoh's herds.

We get quite a lot of details about how the Pharaoh is getting a lot more powerful due to the famine. First, he gets everyone's gold, then everyone's cattle, then the people themselves as slaves.

Jacob meets Joseph's kids and adopts them as his own. There is no indication he did this with any of his other grandkids. I can think of a reasons why he would do this. First, the favoritism for Joseph has returned. Second, they are half-Egyptian (the text reminds us of this fact here) so he's giving a blessing on that. Finally, he might have the spiritual blessing in mind and this is a formality to give an even special blessing to Joseph.

He gives a blessing to Joseph's kids, Ephraim and Manasseh. He intentionally gives the firstborn blessing to the younger, which is what Jacob got at Esau's expense through trickery.

Afterwards, he gives the spiritual blessing to his twelve sons. He is still really mad at Reuben for sleeping with his wife and basically takes away his firstborn privileges. He's not happy with Simeon and Levi because their wrath has caused too many problems. He says they will be scattered among the Israelites. For Levi, God turns this around as an honor and makes them a priestly tribe. The other sons that we have not heard of seem to do well with the blessings. It's couched in vague language, but some things that stand out to me - Judah is a lion and has a never-ending scepter, Benjamin is a hungry wolf, and he gives the great port city of Sidon to Zebulon.

Before dying, Jacob tells Joseph that he wanted be buried back in Canaan. We also find out that Joseph's mother, Rachel, is buried by Bethlehem. Jacob dies and is embalmed by Egyptian doctors. Uh oh. This probably means mummification. In other words, his organs are taken and put in a jar and he's wrapped in cloth. A massive funeral party that includes Egyptians goes up to Canaan to bury him.

When they return to Egypt, Joseph's brothers freak out and think he'll kill them. They beg for their lives and pledge themselves as slaves to Joseph. Here, we see forgiveness and Joseph is not mad. He accredits it all to God's plan.

Joseph dies and he is placed in a coffin. As Egyptian elite, he probably got the proper mummification ritual and a nice sarcophagus somewhere. We know what happens in Exodus. Based on that, if he got a fully stocked sarcophagus, it would likely be ransacked and pillaged by the birth of Moses.

Genesis 42-45

Joseph and his brothers

This is a very emotionally charged series of events. I think Joseph has not completely forgiven his brothers, but rather the hoops he puts them through are his way of exacting revenge. I think he crosses the line a few times, particularly in that he drags Benjamin and Jacob into it. Eventually, he lets them off the hook and the ending is very powerful.

It is about two years into the seven year famine. Joseph's family heard there is grain in Egypt and Jacob sends his ten eldest sons. Benjamin remains with dad, in a similar way to how Joseph remained with dad while his brothers watched the flocks by Shecham. We get two different reasons for the preference for Benjamin - Jacob had him in his old age and that Benjamin is the son of Jacob's favorite wife Rachel.

Benjamin is still alive, so the other ten did not act with jealousy and sell Benjamin off to slavery. Perhaps they learned their lesson after doing it with Joseph.

Judah is also with him, so he may have returned to the family after the events with Tamar.

Upon their arrival, Joseph immediately recognizes them, but they don't recognize him. They bow to him, fulfilling the gist of both his dreams. Note, the son, moon, and 11 stars bowing to him cannot precisely happen as we know his mother, Rachel, is long dead. But the gist of both dreams happen repeatedly in that the brothers bow to him. Another possibility is that God's decision about his mom and dad bowing to him might not have been a final one, as that element only happened once in the dreams. It was the eleven brothers bowing that was common between the two dreams of his youth.

He talks to them without an interpreter. He accuses them of spying and throws them all in jail for 3 days. Joseph weeps in private as he is overcome with emotion. The ten brothers are in jail, which gives him some time to think of his next move. Likewise, each of the ten in jail had a role in him being sold to slavery.

Meanwhile, the brothers make the connection that this is punishment for what they did to Joseph. We get a flashback to the anguish on Joseph's face when they sold him into slavery and they claim they feel the same anguish now. On no, Joseph is just warming up.

Joseph releases all but one of them (Simeon) on the condition that they bring Joseph's younger brother Benjamin next time.

They return to Jacob, but discover that the money used to buy grain is with the actual grain. I suppose they got hungry along the way and opened the sacs eat some of the grain.

Jacob fears he lost a second son, Simeon, and refuses to let Benjamin go. OK. The issue is settled. Simeon is going to just sit in jail for a while. Eventually, they run out of food and have to return to this issue.

The nine brothers refuse to go back to Egypt unless they take Benjamin. Reuben puts the lives of his own sons up for collateral for the life of Benjamin. Overheard ifrom Reuben's house - "what?!". Jacob declines this offer but asks "why did you guys even tell him you had a younger brother?" Judah speaks up, saying he will just go alone with Benjamin, which would protect the lives of the other eight brothers should things turn south. Judah's reaction seems to show some maturity after the Tamar incident.

Eventually, Jacob relents, and tells them to return the original money, plus take gifts of the finest produce from Canaan. Considering a famine has raged the land for two years, these items were probably quite valuable.

The ten brothers return to Joseph. Simeon is released and treats them like guests, their feet are washed and invited to a big banquet with him. They are arranged in birth order which freaks them out. This is a light-hearted prank among much more serious events of his quasi-revenge. Birth order would have been impressive to guess for eleven guys from four different mothers (people have actually asked if my younger brother is older than me). But Joseph knows the order and I can picture Joseph hiding behind a curtain to catch their reaction to that.

Joseph sends them on their way again, filling their grain sacs with the money and putting his silver cup in Benjamin's bag. They don't check their bags before leaving and this time, Joseph sends police to stop them, and upon searching the bags, they are brought before Joseph again. It is interesting that it is stated that the traffic cops says that silver cup was used for divination.

Finally, Joseph had enough tormenting his brothers and when alone with them, he reveals himself. He repeats himself and the brothers just stand there. He weeps so loud that people outside the room hear him and soon all Egypt talks about his weeping. We a closeup of Joseph embracing Benjamin. We get Jospeh's reaction, b but not Benjmain's but we can guess since he believed his older brother has been dead for years.

He sends them back to Jacob with carts or grain and tells them to move to Goshen, Egypt. Jacob at first does not believe the story, but the carts of grain help prove its veracity.

Genesis 40-41

Joseph remains in prison and time passes by. Eventually, Pharaoh's butler and baker anger Pharaoh and join Joseph in prison. They have dreams that spook them out and look for an interpreter. They find Joseph who interprets the dreams. He first does the butler, who is promised to be restored to his job in three days. The baker hears this, perks up and wants his dream interpreted. Surely it is a favorable interpretation, right? No. He will be executed in three days.

This all happens at Pharaoh's birthday, which was in three days. If you're Pharaoh or king, executing people on your birthday sounds kind of creepy, unless that person really made you mad. Then I would probably do that as well.

Two years go by and the Pharaoh gets spooked by a series of dreams. He can't find any interpreters, but the butler remembers Joseph had this ability, although he credits it to God. The Pharaoh summons Joseph, who gets clean clothes and nice clean shave before appearing before Pharaoh. I love details like those, it makes it seem real.

He interprets the dreams. As it turns out, both dreams have the same meaning - a famine is coming to Egypt after several years of plenty. Because they were two dreams with the same meaning, this means that God has definitively made up his mind.

Two dreams mean that God has made up his mind? This is an interesting thing for Joseph, dream boy, to say. He had two dreams where his family bowed to him. Since those dreams, he was sold into slavery, accused of attempted rape, and then thrown in jail. I imagine he had a long time to think about what was up with those dreams. Why would anyone bow to him when he's a slave or worse, an imprisoned slave? How can he see his family when he's locked in a prison cell 100s of miles away from them?

I think the whole 2+ years in prison is a great example of faith and patience. Joseph had dreams years ago about his family bowing to him, but the result of his life is slavery and prison. Yet, he never gave up on God. I probably would have given up on the dreams, but he patiently waited them, even confidently saying to Pharaoh - two dreams mean that God has made up his mind and it will happen.

The Pharaoh is highly impressed with the interpretation and Joseph's advice on what to do to prepare. So, he makes Joseph second-in-command of all Egypt to get ready for this famine.

What?! This is incredible.

Joseph, a former slave of a government official, was in jail for attempted rape of the same official's wife, is now second-in-command of the entire country. We in America are hesitant to hire people with criminal records, let alone violent felonies. He's not being let out to clean streets or some other manual labor (like build pyramids), but given a significant amount of power.

I suppose that turns on several things. Ultimately, it was God's plan for Joseph to be elevated, but also 1. Pharaoh must have been really spooked by the dream, and 2. Joseph not only interprets the dream but provides wise and practical advice on what to do next.

As second-in-command, he now outranks Potifar and probably could have killed him. It's not recorded, but his first conversation with Potifar would have been interesting. "Hey dude, you know your wife set me up and that's why I went to prison, right?". "Yeah, I sort of figured that out. Sorry, please don't kill me."

Speaking of which, it is also interesting why he was not put to death during his 2+ years in prison. By contrast, the baker did not last nearly as long. Obviously, God protected Joseph, but I wonder if Potifar had doubts about the rape accusations and did not insist on Joseph's execution.

Genesis generations

So, we saw 3 generations of God's people live and die. Here are some things I noted about this family.

Isaac

I don't think we saw him grow past from the child that was placed on the altar to die. As an adult, he was very passive and not assertive. His dad found him a wife for him, which he accepted. He never stood up and said, "I have a huge crush on Jenny on the Canaanite. Marry my cousin! Blah! If there is anything you can do about Jenny, or I can go up to her dad. I domt cafe. But this is what I want".

No. The opposite happens. Abraham decrees "no Canaanite women. I will send a messenger to get you a cousin to marry."

"OK. I will agree as I am Isaac and I don't make decisions for myself."

This pattern of passivity continues into adulthood. He was run out of town by the Philistines and then pushed from well to well. I think this explains why Esau is his favorite while Jacob is Rebecca's favorite.

Esau

Esau is a mighty hunter. He is firstborn of uncontested inheritance. Later in life, he leads an army of 400 men as he reunites with Jacob. I think he has more of his paternal grandfather Abraham in him than does Isaac, his father. Isaac is the anti-Abraham, while Esau, Isaac's firstborn son is a lot like Abraham. Certainly, Esau makes up for the inadequacies, or differences, between Isaac and Abraham.

Jacob

Jacob is not Esau, nor is he Abraham. He is something very different. Hie does not lead armies, nor hunts, but rather is agricultural and has uncanny street smarts. This is precisely why Rebecca likes him over Esau. Jacob reminds Rebecca of where she came from, particularly her brother Laban.

Laban has street smarts and relies on this to survive. Actually his street smarts cross into social manipulation, where he controls people and situations to fit his advantage. Rebecca grew up with this guy until she left on a camel to meet rich spoiled boy, Isaac. After they have kids, Esau and Isaac, one is a dumb jock while the other has uncanny street smarts, akin to her brother. Through this lens, I think it is easy to understand why she favors Jacob over Esau.

Rachel

Beloved Rachel, how I worked 14 years to win your hand in marriage.

First, during the marriage with Leah, who Jacob thought was Rachel, notice there is no statement where is Leah? Jacob thinks he is marrying Rachel. Surely, the older sister is present to watch, but the text is silent. Where is she? I assume Jacob didn't care or notice so neither do we as a reader, as the story is from Jacob's perspective. He's marrying Rachel - oh wait, he jus married Leah, maybe he should have asked this question.

Second, why does Rachel take the idols when the clan leaves? One possible reason is out of revenge for making her wait 14 years. If they believed that gods had regional authority, then her family gods would do no good where they are going. On the contrast, Jacob does not seem to be convinced of God's supremacy - and intimacy - until he wrestles with God and lives. So I doubt Jacob at this point would have cared whether Rachel brought the family idols or not. Still though, she would know what she was doing, in that her father would feel he's unprotected, it would then be the perfect parting insult. She had lived her entire life under this crazy, manipulative father, she's going to take the family idols as a way to win her first battle against her father.

Just a theory.

Regardless, these three generations of people who lived 4,000 years ago feel so human.

Genesis 39

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Joseph is now a strapping young lad working in Potifar's home. Potifar loves this guy and gives him lots of free reign around the home.

Potifar's wife takes notice of this pool boy with his gilded bronze tan and barb-wire bicep tattoo. She asks for him to put suntan oil on her back, then her legs, and woah! She had other things on here mind. She begs for sex twice, the second time he flees and leaves his garment.

She accuses him to Potifar of trying to rape her. Understandably, Potifar gets mad and throws him in prison.

Even in jail, Joseph's presence blesses those around him. The head jailor loves Joseph too and gives him some authority.

It occurred to me that up to now in the Bible, Egypt has actually been a place of refuge. Abraham went there to escape a famine, Isaac almost did the exact same, and later Jacob and his family do the same. It's not Egypt's fault that Joseph's brothers sold him to slavery or that Potifar's wife lied and Joseph was imprisoned as a result. Things get really bad later, so bad that Egypt will forever be viewed synonymously with slavery. But as this point, Egypt is viewed favorably.

Genesis 38

Judah and Tamar

This story is the most sexually graphic story we found this far in the Bible.

Judah marries a Canaanite woman (uh oh!) and has 3 sons. The first, Er, marries a woman named Tamar, but Er angers God and God kills him.

Judah tells his second son, Onan, to marry Tamar. This happens. This might seem kind of gross, but we hear more about this in the Mosaic law. I wonder if this was a custom that had already been established, or this event was the precedent that was later codified in the Mosiac code.

Don't get mad at me for talking about this now, as it's in the Bible, but Onan does not want to have a kid with Tamar because this kid would be Er's heir and not Onan's. So, Onan spills his seed on the ground. Woah! God is angry and kills off Onan. Woah! I mean, woah!

One could read this as an anti-masturbation story, but I think that's wrong. Rather, God's anger seems to be directed at the attitude towards the widow.

Here's what I think is going on. This is an agrarian, patriarchal society where the firstborn son gets the larger inheritance (the birthright that Jacob usurped from Esau). Children, particularly sons, are one's retirement as the children take care of the parents when the parents become too old to work in the field. Agrarian societies today still have large families.

Er died without kids. He would have received the birthright from Judah, but since he died without kids, it now passes to Onan. If Onan had a son with Tamar, then that son would get the birthright as if Er never died. Then, Onan loses the birthright if he has a child with Tamar.

However, Tamar is a widow and needs a child to take care of her when she gets older. So, in a very real way, Onan's action is a death sentence to Tamar, his brother's widow. That's why God intervenes and strikes down Onan.

Back to the story, Judah has a third son who appears to be too young to get married. So, Judah sends Tamar back to her own family as a widow. Tamar waits, and waits, and waits, but it doesn't look like Judah is coming back. When she hears he's coming to visit the area, she dresses like a prostitute and gets Judah to sleep with her. We get the negotiation details, she'll get a sheep out of the deal, plus gets to hold onto his personal staff as collateral. Woah!

This reminds me of Jacob's marriage to Leah - how did either man not know who he was having sex with? Yes, they're wearing veils, but they do speak and you might be able to recognize the voice. The veils must be more like Muslim burqas.

Afterwards, this girl disappears with Judah's personal items. Judah has a sense this could get ugly if publicly known (sucker! It's in the Bible!) and tries to keep it under wraps. Tamar gets pregnant and when she starts to show (it says 3 months later) it is discovered, she's accused of prostitution and Judah wants to kill her. As it turns out, it was her all along and she has Judah's stuff as proof.

Busted!

Why is this in the Bible to begin with? Aside from showing how badly out of control Jacob's kids become, I suspect it served as a reminder to the Israelites to take care of widows, particularly if there is a family connection.

A final note - according to Matthew 1:3, the union of Judah and Tamar produces the lineage of David and Jesus. I'll also note that it's not stated whether Tamar is Canaanite or not.