The Book That God Wrote, Exodus Part 1

Welcome everyone to the latest entry in "The Book That God Wrote" series. Today we start on the second book of the Bible: Exodus. In this part of the story God decides it's time to show off a bit (guess the Israelites have gotten a bit jaded since that gullible Abraham), where we meet the dumbest ruler in all history, we meet the Clint Eastwood/Batman/Gandalf of the Hebrews who doesn't take kindly to his people being enslaved, and God finally thinks its a good idea to lay down some ground rules (other than the "absolutely no foreskins allowed" one they already have). So, when we last left the Israelites, they had settled down in Egypt, how did that turn out? Yeah, not so well, read on to see what happens next. Here's the story so far: Genesis and a little introduction. Unsurprisingly, I think I've already offended a few serious adult types, you really should read the introduction first, you'll know where I'm coming from and if you should continue.

Moses, the Wizard of God:

So what happened to the Israelites in Egypt? What made things so bad? It should seem familiar to anyone reading this actually. The Hebrews prosper for a few generations, being fruitful, multiplying, pretty much getting along with the Egyptians who are ruled by good Pharaohs, Pharaohs that remember who Joseph was and how badass he was, and how badass his people (along with their God) are. Then the inevitable happens, the shittiest Pharaoh ever weasels his way into power, he's a real ignorant asshole who hasn't read up on his history, he doesn't know that he owns all of Egypt now because of this Joseph guy. He doesn't care about all of that, or what his officials' opinions are (he's a god incarnate after all), or that there have been generations of peace with the Israelites. He looks out at Goshen (where the Israelites settled) and fabricates trouble, "They'll soon grow too great, too many, and then we'll be fucked when they decide to attack us. Or they'll ally with our enemies." Wow, not paying attention to history, not listening to his advisors (as we'll see), thinks he's god (to be fair all Pharaoh's did), fabricates paranoid conflicts where there are none ... that sounds so familiar, where have I heard this before? Hrm ... oh right,

Har har, ok, sorry I can't help myself sometimes (and it isn't exactly a fair comparison). So, anyway, Pharaoh decides to enslave all the Israelites and work them to death. But as hard as he works them he can't stop them from breeding, God told Abraham his offspring would number the stars and he wasn't fucking kidding (the Israelites sure didn't think so, that's for damn sure). Even more worried, Pharaoh tells all the midwives to kill every Hebrew male when they're born, which they don't of course, their job is birthing people, not killing them. It's so awesome when Pharaoh calls the midwives in to ask them why they haven't been killing off the males. "Oh, Hebrew women are different than Egyptian women, they pop those fuckin kids out faster than we can even walk down there to do our job. By the time we get there it's too late." Pharaoh believes this, I mean who wouldn't? Those Israelites breed like fucking rabbits, they've got a lot of work to do before they number the stars after all. "Whatever," Pharaoh thinks, he just orders his soldiers to bomb out there and drown every young male they can find in the Nile. Killing kids? I know we all have the urge sometimes, but seriously? You're really asking for it now asshole, and little do you know, a Hebrew super badass is about to be born and raised right under your nose.

During this time of batshit infanticide is when Moses is born, and he's spared from massacring soldiers in an interesting way. His mother throws him in a little floating baby basket hidden in some reeds in the Nile. I love that he's saved from being thrown into the Nile by being thrown into the Nile. Anyway, Pharaoh's daughter finds the basket and apparently can't contain herself, "Aww, a Hebrew baby. Hey Mom, can I keep it? Pleeeeeease?" And so Moses is raised by this woman in Pharaoh's entourage, and somehow with this upbringing he grows into a badass protector of the Israelites. Don't believe a man of God can be badass? One day he's strolling around in the desert and sees a Hebrew slave being beaten by an Egyptian soldier, he stops, narrows his eyes, "Not on my watch mother fucker." Moments later the soldier is dead, beaten to a bloody pulp and then buried in the sand by Moses. It's probably no surprise now when I tell you that Moses is the great great grandson of Levi. If he sees some shit going down he doesn't like he'll just kill the mother fucker and move on, not the smartest thing in the world to do as we'll see. Later, Moses tries to break up a fight between two Hebrews who aren't very appreciative, "Who the hell do you think you are? Batman? Are you going to kill us like that Egyptian?" Whoops, seems that kind of news travels fast, and like a true descendant of Jacob he gets the fuck outta dodge before Pharaoh's police cops can pick him up.

So Moses, like many of his descendants did generations ago, wanders around in the wilderness for a while and eventually comes across a well. He drinks some water and goes to chill in the shade a bit before moving on. While he's there a bunch of girls show up and start drinking/watering their flocks. Moses probably hasn't seen any women at all since he left Egypt (no telling how long ago that was) so he's really enjoying the show. Who wouldn't? Pretty girls jumping around throwing water all over themselves and ... their animals. So ok he's not paying attention to the animals part (unless he's one of those guys). Then a bunch of douchebag shepherds show up and start giving the girls trouble, and not even the kind you'd expect. No, they're trying to drive the girls away, and probably using the whiniest voices possible, "Hey this is our well, get out of here you hot wet girls. Shoo! We don't want your kind arou-" CRACK! That was the sound of Moses' staff smashing the lead shepherd's skull in. He's not happy with these douches and makes short work of them, all "Crouching Tiger" style I like to imagine, and sends them fucking packing. Ok, so now there's two things you don't do around Moses: mess with Israelites or mess with girls. Yes, Moses is badass, and for his act of "kindness" the girls' father invites Moses home. Pop is so pleased with Moses that he even gives one of his daughters away as a present. So Moses marries Zipporah and has a son named Gershom.

Alright, back to more cool Moses stuff. One day he's wandering around in the mountains, probably doing his morning workout of scaling cliff sides, when in the distance he sees a giant burning bush. So he thinks to himself, "Hmm that plant is on fire, but it's not burning up ... think I'll take a closer look," (unlike what I would have thought "AAH fire!"). Thus he runs towards something on fire, whatever, if it's a forest fire he'll just blow it out right? When he approaches, the flaming bush starts calling him by name. "Moses. Moses." And what does Moses say? "I'm here," that's all, not running and screaming, just a simple "I'm here, whatcha want?" He's fucking terse with a talking tree that's magically on fire. The bush tells him that it is, in fact, God appearing to him. God's gotten pretty theatrical, he used to just show up and tell his people shit, now he has to catch a bush on fire to get someone's attention. The Israelites have gotten so jaded, but hey, he'd have to appear through a flaming iPhone on a special celebrity episode of American Idol to get any attention these days, so it hadn't gotten that bad yet. So Moses looks away because he's scared of looking at God. This might not seem very badass, but seriously, if I stumbled on a flaming bush that knew my name and then said it was fucking God all mighty I would probably run into oncoming traffic waving my arms screaming "I Am A Jedi!" I think Moses handled this shit like a champ ... or he's a psychopath, you decide.

The flaming God bush (which again sounds so familiar to me) tells Moses that he's heard the cries of the Israelites in Egypt (bout damn time) and he plans to do some serious shit about it; and that plan includes Moses being badass. Moses is very confused by all this, sure he's badass, but he doesn't think he's the one to free the Hebrews from Egypt. "They're not going to listen to me, what do I tell them? That a fucking fiery bush told me to save them?" The flaming bush sighs, "Fine, throw your staff on the ground." So Moses throws his staff on the ground and POOF it turns into a snake. This scares the shit out of Moses and he runs away. Seriously? You're a killer, a beater of shepherds, a talking fiery bush doesn't scare you, but a snake does? Oh, well even Indiana Jones was scared of snakes. "There, there's a magic trick you can use to prove that you're working for the fiery bush God." The flaming bush also teaches Moses two other tricks just in case. He can turn his hand all leprous and gangrenous at will and back again with a simple wave, and he can pour water on the ground and it will turn into blood. Apparently this will prove that Moses is the Wizard of God, somehow this means he's for real. I don't get it, if someone showed up and said they were working for God and to prove it they turned their staff into a snake, their hand all leprous, and then water into blood, I'd probably punch them in the face and run away (fight and flight bitches). This kind of behavior is usually practiced by people opposing God right? Like sorcerers and witches? That or untrustworthy charlatans. But the Bible calls them miracles, maybe it's because it's the "good" God making these things happen that makes them okay.

In any case Moses still isn't all that excited, "Seriously God, I'm not much of a talker," which is so true, Moses usually just busts in skulls first and asks questions later. Finally, flaming bush God snaps, "Would you just nut up already and do this? Fine, meet with your brother Aaron, he'll do the talking for you. Now would you please get off your whiny little ass and go rescue my people from Pharaoh already." So, off Moses goes with his wife and son to meet Aaron on the way to Egypt to spread a little ass kicking abolitionism. Now you'd think the actual trip would be pretty straight forward right? Wrong. "At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him (Ex 4:24)." What? But you just said, wait what? "But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it (Ex 4:25)." What? "'Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,' she said. So the Lord left him alone (Ex 4:25-26)." What?! What the fuck just happened? So after all the "Moses being the chosen one" shit God decides to check whether or not the guy's son is circumcised? Maybe God just assumed the kid was, and he just kinda noticed it out of the corner of his eye, "What? He has a foreskin, that little asshole." God can't afford to look like a weak idiot at this crucial time, and that is the only law the Hebrews have right now, and Moses broke it. Well anyway, if God ever bombs into your house to kill you, here's a way to stop him in his tracks. Cut off a piece of someone's penis and throw it at your feet. Actually that's a great way to get anyone to leave your house, just whip out the knife and a penis and get to hacking. Guaranteed to get any unwanted guests out of the house.

The Ten Plagues:

So Moses meets Aaron and they bomb into Egypt to tell Pharaoh what's what. But Pharaoh isn't impressed, in fact he just makes his slaves' jobs harder (impossible actually). Which immediately changes the Israelites' tune from "Yay Moses!" to "Argh, way to go fucktard." So God tells Moses and Aaron to try one of their hat tricks, so Aaron approaches Pharaoh and says "Hey check this shit out," and drops Moses' magic staff on the ground and POOF it turns into a snake. Pharaoh just chuckles, "Child's play, is that supposed to scare me," and he calls in his Egyptian sorcerers who all turn their staves into snakes of their own. Basically a "Neener, your God has lame tricks," move, except then Aaron's snake eats all the other sorcerer's snakes. "Our trick might be lame, but our snake is better than yours." Pharaoh still isn't impressed and sends the men packing. Actually I want to stress this, it says specifically that God hardens Pharaoh's heart. Many times the guy's about to change his mind and let the Israelites go, but God hardens his heart and he changes his mind. Why is God doing this?

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians ... and that you may know that I am the Lord." (Ex 10:1-2)

Uh huh, so at some point halfway through you couldve had your people free but you weren't done showing off yet? This wouldn't bother me that much if it weren't for that last plague, like always, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

So what are these miraculous signs? One: Aaron strikes Moses' magic staff into the Nile and turns it into blood, the whole fucking Nile, along with all other water in all of Egypt is now blood. Man, that's badass, imagine how terrible that would smell. Pharaoh's not impressed though, and his sorcerers show that "Yeah we can do that with our secret arts too, try again newbie." Two: Aaron takes the magic staff and stretches his arms over the waterways of Egypt and legions of frogs come barreling out. All of Egypt is covered in frogs, you can't take a step without squishing a few. Again, Pharaoh's sorcerers are not impressed, "We learn that shit at Hogwarts our first year, try again asshole." Three: Aaron strikes the ground with the magic staff and turns all of the dust in all of Egypt into gnats that swarm over the entire country. Now the sorcerers are impressed "Holy hell, we can't do that, this God guy is for real." But God hardens Pharaoh's heart. Et cetera, et cetera, more plagues continue and Pharaoh's heart is hardened. I'm about to become what I hate here, see the plagues were always my favorite part of the Moses story and I hated it so much when the movies skipped over a bunch of them. But after reading through them all I can see why, they aren't all that interesting. A few more I like though: Six: Moses and Aaron take soot from a furnace and toss it into the air where it creates a huge dust cloud that covers the entire land. This dust causes every Egyptian to break out into horrible boils. Seven: Moses stretches his hands out over the land and hail tears down from the sky. This isn't your typical hail storm either, the hail strips trees bare and kills anything caught out in it. Nine: Moses stretches his hand to the sky and the world becomes dark, a "darkness that can be felt (Ex 10:21)," as the Bible puts it. What I find more interesting is that some of the plagues come with warnings from Moses, "Hey better let my people go or God's going to send locusts," but some of them don't and they just happen. Also, some plagues require Moses or Aaron to actually do something (i.e. strike the staff on the ground or hold their hands out) while some of them just happen. I'm not sure if this means anything, I just found it interesting.

Ok, so far so good, pretty awesome shit so far, and nothing extremely cruel. I mean it's cruel, but it's pretty apt punishment for oppressors, especially for ones this dumb. So the Egyptian people are ready to shake these pests off, but Pharaoh still isn't budging, and let me be clear, the Bible specifically says multiple times that it's God hardening Pharaoh's heart. So what does God do? He tells his people to mark their doors with lamb's blood, because he plans to bomb through the entire country and kill every firstborn child. The blood on the door will be the sign for him to passover that house (which is where the feast comes from). "There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt -- worse than there has ever been or ever will be again (Ex 11:6)." I don't know how I feel about this, I mean sure, a comparable thing was done to the Israelites, but as far as I can tell that was Pharaoh's doing. I understand lashing out at Pharaoh, even killing him and all his children, and any other family that did specific harm to the Israelites. But God is talking about killing all firstborn sons of all Egyptians, even the children of the officials who opposed Pharaoh's actions, even the Egyptians who had nothing to do with any of this shit, even the other (non-Hebrew) slaves under the Egyptians. God even says, and I fucking quote, "Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill (Ex 11:5)." Something about this doesn't sit right with me, especially when Pharaoh was ready to cave a few plagues ago but God went out of his way to harden his heart, just to keep the plagues rolling. That's a real dick move God, it'd be different if Pharaoh didn't budge on his own, or if the Egyptian people were just as guilty, but by this point they were actually rooting for Moses and his people, seriously check out Exodus 11:3.

So when Moses approaches Pharaoh for the last time, his dead son in his hands, Pharaoh tells him to get the fuck out, him and all his horrible people. "Hope you're happy with the psychotic God you've chosen," I hear Pharaoh screaming after Moses. And off the Hebrew people go, but before they leave they take silver and shit from the Egyptians. By this point the Egyptians are probably fucking terrified of the Hebrews, so when they say, "Hey, I want your silver and your fancy clothes," the people just hand it over, nothing's worth losing more children over right? So freed of slavery the Israelites plunder Egypt and take off towards the promised land. I guess payback's a bitch, but what kills me about this is that Abraham through Jacob had slaves, I suppose slavery is a-ok until it's your own people enslaved huh God?

The Red Sea and the Escape:

So 430 years after the Israelites settled in Egypt they leave as free people with most of the Egyptians' stuff and the bones of Joseph. Yeah I know, cool huh? Moses carried the bones of Joseph with him, I like to think he made some creepy witch doctor clothes out of them. Anyway, they leave Egypt and an angel of God leads them through the wilderness. Whew, it's good to be back in the wilderness again, I don't feel at home in the Bible unless the characters are bombing around in this desolate expanse. Now two things about this angel, first it has two forms. During the day it's a huge cloud, and during the night it's a huge fireball, but it's always leading the way towards the promised land. Second, it must think that everyone can fly since it's leading the Israelites "as the crow flies" and runs them right into the vast Red Sea. Whoops, "Damn Moses, we should've brought a map too."

Meanwhile, Pharaoh has another change of heart, the Bible implies that he wants to get his slaves back but I don't buy that. No, he's been seething for days, he's buried (er mummified) his firstborn son, and watched his entire country do the same. He wants revenge, his people want revenge, so he gets his army ready to tear ass after those responsible. Does Pharaoh know that he's heading out to his death? Here's a better question, does he fucking care? I know I wouldn't, I'd tear out there to carve my name into a few Hebrews, to hell with the consequences, to hell with their God. If Pharaoh's going to die sometime he might as well die stabbing that asshole Moses in the face right? So Pharaoh gathers his finest charioteers and races them out to meet the Israelites on the field of battle. They catch up to them at the Red Sea right as the Israelites are trying to see if someone has a decent map. "Should we try to get around it on the left side or the ... hey what's that?" It's the Egyptian charioteers cresting the hill, ready to carve their firstborn sons out of your whiny skulls, that's what. Whiny? The Israelites? Hell yeah they are, after actually seeing everything God's done for them to help them escape what do they do? "Damnit Moses, why did you bring us out of Egypt, we were happy as slaves, it was better than dying out here will be." Ugh, these are the people of God? So Moses tells them to shut the fuck up, God's going to save them, and unsurprisingly he does. The angel moves in between the two forces, so the Egyptians can't attack unless they feel like charging through a pillar of fire. Then Moses climbs up on a big rock, opens his arms over the sea, strikes his staff on the sea and it fucking parts. A dry path forms from his staff at one end all the way to the other bank, and off they go through the Red Sea on a path bordered by gigantic walls of water. Sit the fuck down Gandalf, there's a new man in town.

As if God hadn't fucked with the Egyptians enough already, right as the Israelites begin to reach the opposite side, the pillar of fire disappears, leaving them free to pursue their charge. Tell me this, after seeing everything you've seen so far, as a charioteer in Pharaoh's army, or hell even as Pharaoh, would you charge after them? Let me rephrase that, would you charge after them expecting to live through it? Of course not, but on they charge anyway, driven by revenge, hate, and humiliation. The ground at the bottom of this path is wet and muddy, miserable for chariots, but on they go. With wheels and hooves sinking in the mud, on they charge towards their prey. Once the Israelites are safe on the opposite bank, about when the Egyptians are halfway through, the Red Sea unparts. The watery walls collapse and sweep the Egyptians away once and for all. I imagine them not caring that much though, I imagine them still trying to charge forward towards their revenge as the Red Sea carries them to their deaths. The fierce grimace of revenge stamped on their faces until the very end, even as the cleansing water crashes down around them, on and on, "We'll make them pay for what they've done or we'll die trying."

The Israelites are finally free and safe with the Red Sea between them and their former oppressors. But what do they have to look forward to on this side of the water? They've run right into a desolate chain of deserts, with only the food on their backs and the water they can carry. How long can they possibly survive in this wasteland? How long before the whiny kids of God finally drive Moses to bashing in a few skulls? How long before God finally hands down a real system of laws? Find out in part two of Exodus, where the real exodus through the desert starts and God finally gets fed up with his people and leaves forever. Really? You'll have to read on later to find out. Look for part two in the near future.

 

I always thought the whales were a nice touch in that movie.