Exodus 7: Let the Plagues Begin

Today's Podcast

Previously:

God sent Moses and Aaron to Egypt to ask Pharaoh to free the slaves, armed with a few neat sounding powers. Pharaoh responded to this request by punishing the slaves harshly. Moses was discouraged and wanted to give up, but God assured Moses that his people would be freed from Egypt.

Moses and Aaron Before Pharaoh (v. 1-13)

God says he has made Moses like God to Pharaoh and Aaron is like a prophet.

I'm not sure what this means, but I have two guesses. The first is that the powers that Moses was given in chapter 4 are what makes him like a God. The problem with this thought is that Moses had those powers in chapter 5 and Pharaoh didn't look at him as a God then (although I guess Moses didn't use those powers then, what's up with that?). The only other thing I can think of is the genealogy thing in chapter 6, since that happened right before this declaration perhaps it is related. My understanding is that genealogy played a big role in their lives back then, perhaps God telling Moses his true family line is supposed to make a difference to him and also to Pharaoh. Hopefully the commentaries will weigh in on this.

Guzik says that this means God will be talking to Pharaoh through Moses. Does that sound wrong to everyone else? It could just mean that I'm completely misunderstanding what is written in the bible (wouldn't be the first time), but shouldn't being like God to someone mean you have power over them, or perhaps that they are in awe of you? Not just that you are a conduit for God to talk to them. 

Guzik goes on to say that if Pharaoh rejects Moses, that Moses shouldn't take it personally, because this will just mean that Pharaoh is rejecting God. He then makes the connection to Christians of today by saying

In the same way, God will make us "as God" to people we encounter who are rejecting God. If they harden their hearts or reject us, we shouldn't take it personally.

And there we go. Christians shouldn't take it personally if they can't convert people, they aren't rejecting you, just your God. I suppose I could put that in the morals of the story section if I didn't think Guzik was so far off base here.

Matthew Henry seems to agree with Guzik here somewhat, although he clarifies that it is not just that Moses is speaking for God, but that he has godly powers. This lines up with my first guess, and it also seems to mess up Guzik's moral of the story. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown have a similar interpretation to Matthew Henry.

God says he will tell Moses and Aaron what to say and ask Pharaoh to release his people, but God will harden Pharaoh's heart so he won't comply. Then God will multiply his signs and wonders throughout Egypt and bring his people out with great judgement.

So basically, God is going to prevent Pharaoh from releasing his people and then punish him for not releasing them. I thought God was supposed to respect free will. And how the hell is this just? It would be like holding a gun to someone's head and forcing them to commit a crime, and then punishing them for that crime.

We see the same nonsense about this from Guzik as in chapter 4. 

We remember that God will not harden Pharaoh's heart against Pharaoh's own desire. It is not as if Pharaoh wished to have a tender heart towards Israel but God would not allow him. God confirmed Pharaoh in his wicked inclination against Israel.

Instead, Pharaoh revealed his heart when he refused the humble request of Moses back in 5:1-4; now, God will merely strengthen Pharaoh in the evil already chose.

This just makes no sense, if it is already Pharaoh's own desire, then God wouldn't have to harden his heart, his heart would already be hardened against God's people. Guzik then quotes from the text and continues

"So that I may lay My hand on Egypt … and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD": This explains why the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart - essentially, to bring righteous judgment upon Egypt: Pharaoh and the Egyptians said they didn't know who the LORD was; God is going to let them know.

Even if we give Guzik his ridiculous premise, it says that Pharaoh was coming around and God put him back on his original path, for the purpose of punishing him and his people more. Who in their right mind would classify this as "righteous"? Guzik also applies this logic to our lives

God can do the same today. In our rebellion, we may reach the place where God will strengthen us in the evil we desire

Why is this acceptable? Let's say I want to do something evil, (Oh I don't know, let's say my older brother died before he and his wife had a kid and I don't want to have sex with his wife so that he can have an heir). But then after some reflection, I realize that it would be something that God would really want me to do, but just as I am about to make the decision God "hardens my heart" against the idea and I don't wind up doing it. Then later, God punishes me for not changing my mind. Is that fair? God prevented me from doing the "right" thing here, how can he punish me? Even interpreting this in Guzik's way, the way God acted is still reprehensible.

Perhaps Wisely, the other Christian commentaries that I read didn't even address this as a problem. They just mention that God hardened Pharaoh's heart as a matter of fact.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When they went to Pharaoh, Aaron proved they were with God by throwing down his staff and having it become a snake. Pharaoh then summoned his wise men and magicians and performed the same trick with secret arts. Aaron's staff/snake swallowed the rest. Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he still didn't listen to them.

The snake trick is pretty cool, what is the deal with Pharaoh having people who are able to do the same thing? I guess that Aaron's snake eating the others shows his is more powerful, but you would think God would be more original. This really just boils down to being a better version of a trick the Pharaoh has already seen.

Of course, it was Satan (again Guzik)

In the midst of an unmistakable miracle, Satan provided Pharaoh with a reason to doubt - and Pharaoh seized on the doubt and hardened his heart.

Notice what he does here with Pharaoh's hardened heart, the way Guzik writes this, it sounds like Pharaoh hardened his own heart. He must have been reading ahead to the next section.

The First Plague: Water Turned to Blood (v. 14-25)

God tells Moses that Pharaoh's heart is hardened, and he refuses to let the slaves go free.

I noticed a bit of a change of tone here, previously God kept talking about how He was going to harden Pharaoh's heart, but now he's just saying that his heart is hardened. Compare these older verses:

• v3: I will harden Pharaoh's heart
• ch4 v21: I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go

to these verses

• v13: Still Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them
• v14: the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go

It's like God goes from "I will keep him from releasing your people" to "Hey look, Pharaoh's being a dick and not letting your people go". 

Aaron changes the water of the Nile into blood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

God had Moses turn the water in the Nile (as well as all water in canals, ponds and pools of water) into blood in the sight of Pharaoh. All of the fish in the river died, and the Nile stank, so the Egyptians couldn't drink the water. They had to dig along side the Nile to find water to drink instead. But Pharaoh's magicians were able to do the same trick so Pharaoh's heart was still hardened.

Where shall I start? I suppose I'll ask why it was necessary for God to ruin all of the other water in the place. Doesn't turning the Nile into blood prove your point? Why ruin water that people had collected the day before? 

Won't tons of people die here? Not only did they lose their water supply, but if all of the fish died I imagine a lot of people lost their food source as well, not to mention the fishermen's livelihoods. 

Pharaoh's magicians could do the same trick? Who the hell are these guys, and why did God do generic tricks that any random magician can do? Also, how did they do the same trick? Moses turned all of the water in Egypt to blood, then the magicians also turned the water to blood? But all of the water is already blood, so that makes no sense. Are we to believe that the magicians had done this previously? Why the hell would they want to do that?

And finally, verse 22 says that Pharaoh's heart was hardened because his magicians could do the same trick, not because God hardened it. So which is it?

A few interesting things from Guzik here

God did not plague Egypt because Pharaoh would not let the children of Israel go; but because Pharaoh refused to recognize and honor God

Why do Christians find this kind of reasoning acceptable? Bring it down a few levels, suppose we have a father who has a couple of kids who are getting beat up in school. What if he was upset at the bullies because he felt disrespected instead of the simple fact that his children are being attacked? What would you think of that father? He's a piece of shit right? But for some reason it's acceptable when it is God.

Specifically, this first plague was directed against the numerous Egyptian river deities. The Nile itself was virtually worshipped as a god by the Egyptians, and the LORD God shows that He has complete power over the Nile, not some river god.

Now that is actually really interesting.

Moral of the Story

Apparently the moral of this story is recognize and honor God or you could face God's wrath. Essentially worship God or else. I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one that I find this completely unacceptable.

For the Verses of Note post:

--Free Will--

Exodus 7:2-4 God hardens Pharaoh's heart to prevent him from following God's command

"..you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you..."

--Justice--

Exodus 7:3-4 God punishes the Egyptians because God prevent Pharaoh from listening to him

"But I will harden Pharaoh's heart...Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment."

--Magic--

Exodus 7:10-11 Aaron and Pharaoh's men all turned their staves into snakes

"Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts."

Exodus 7:20,22 Moses turned all of the water in Egypt into blood, as did Pharaoh's men

"Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood....But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts."

Things Not to Say to a New Parent

As many of you probably know, I'm a relatively new parent as my son is 3 months old. Things are generally going quite well. He's happy and healthy which are the most important things. I've read some stories about babies who cry for hours on end, who won't sleep through the night going on a year, or other difficulties that don't seem to be coming up for me. Which is great, on the whole I feel very lucky. On the other hand, having a baby is extremely difficult, and sometimes I complain about things. I'm generally looking for a "wow, that sucks man" or possibly some real advice if I'm searching for solutions to some problem I'm having online somewhere. More often than not, I seem to find answers that just tick me off more than anything. Here are a few of the highlights that just really get under my skin.

1. Just enjoy this time with him

This is the number one response that pisses me off, and I see it everywhere regardless of the question that is being asked. Most recently I found it as an answer to what to do to get your baby to take naps. My son very rarely takes naps during the day, but he needs naps and since he's not getting them he gets crankier and crankier throughout the day. I am enjoying him, but not right now, because he's crying, because he doesn't understand that he's tired and I am having trouble getting him to sleep. I'm asking for help to learn how to get him to take naps, why is this non-answer here? (BTW, we are starting to figure out his cues better, I don't get it right every time, but he usually gets at least 1 good nap a day, things are improving here)

2. When he starts talking he'll just start talking back

This was at about 1 month, I was lamenting that his only form of communication was to cry, regardless of the problem. Whether he's hungry, tired, cold, hot, bored, or has a wet diaper, all he can do is cry. I was wishing that he could tell me what was wrong. I find this answer thoroughly unhelpful. Yes, there will be difficulties later, that doesn't negate difficulties now.

3. Think about how much sleep you'll lose when he's driving

It's no secret that new parents don't get that much sleep. As someone who has insomnia and therefore has spent a lot of his life on insufficient sleep, I thought I'd be pretty much okay. I'm not, it's really hard. The problem is you never get the chance to catch up. It's almost impossible to catch a nap during the day, and he wakes up every night to eat (my wife feeds him and I burp him). We can cope, but it's hard. I'm just looking for a "dude that sucks" and possibly "it will get better soon once he gets a bit older". Fuck you people who think you're being clever who say "just wait until _____, you won't be sleeping at all, hahaha". After we are getting regular sleep again and we are looking back these jokes will probably make me chuckle, right now keep it to yourself.

4. What did you expect?

One of the most difficult things has been lack of time to do...well...anything. It's hard enough to keep up on everyday chores (of which the baby contributes a lot, babies go through a ton of laundry, and washing bottles and pump parts takes more time than you would think) let alone something recreational like a blog (I've been working on my Exodus 7 post for almost 2 weeks). But don't complain about it to the wrong person or all you'll get is "babies are hard, you should have known that, what did you expect?" I expected to have no free time, but this is worse than I thought it would be. But even if I had expected exactly this, it doesn't make it suck any less to be constantly working your ass with no end in sight.

I think people just don't know what to say or they are trying to be funny, but seriously, all you need to say is "dude, sounds rough" or perhaps "yeah, that first part is hard, but it gets better" or "soon you'll be able to read him better and it won't even matter that he can't talk". These answers have made me really want to tell some people to fuck right off.

[Note: Yesterday (when I started writing this) was a really shitty day. Today was actually a pretty damn good day, and it feels a bit weird to post this. Meh, I'm sure I'll be grumpy again in a few days and this post will seem appropriate again]

Highlights

I have been very unsuccessful in finding time to get my Bible posts written. Exodus 7 is just sitting in my drafts half written. For now, here are a few one-liners I liked in the last few weeks.

A great line from Sheldon in a great post about abortion

This one is from geeks without god ep 63 at around 29min. 

Guest on Bitchspot Report

I joined Cephus this week on his podcast. We did a few news stories (my favorite was about a guy who is in hiding because people thought his epic mustache goes against Islam) and then talked about atheist parenting.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cephus, he is a conservative atheist who has an atheist blog as well as a geek blog in addition to the podcast which I mentioned up above. His blog first caught my attention because of the rarity of conservative atheists, anything that separates itself from the pack is worth a look in my opinion. I really like his stuff, and he's one of the few bloggers who I read most of what he writes. If you haven't already done so, I recommend checking out his stuff.

Anything Can Be Inspiring

source

What inspires you? Perhaps a moving speech, a heroic act you want to emulate, a perfectly executed piece of music that makes you want to pick up an instrument? When I think of being inspired this is the kind of thing I think of. Hell, I myself was inspired to start this blog in large part due to several well done blogs and podcasts, The Atheist Experience being chief among them. But these are the kinds of things that inspire us when we aren't expecting it. When I found TAE, I was just bored and looking for something to fill the time while I was commuting. The fact that it had such an effect on me was actually quite a shock.

But what happens when we go out and look for inspiration? It seems to me that when we want inspiration we will find it anywhere. If you hear a vague statement, you will read into it what you need. This is basically how cold readings work, isn't it? The "psychic" throws out a bunch of random crap and people will latch onto whatever they can.

It gets worse when you expect something to be inspirational, in those cases, you can find inspiration in things that should be repulsive to you. Look at many of the stories in the old testament, Noah's Ark for example. A story about God murdering nearly every person on the planet has been turned into a children's story. People come in expecting it to be good and so they see it as good, even though the content of the actual story is pretty horrific.

I think many Christians do this a lot when they read the bible, they expect wisdom on every page and that is what they find. Much of the time there is nothing there, and yet they see brilliance. You can see this play out for yourself if you follow a bunch of Christians on twitter like I do. They will often tweet bible verses, which I had originally expected to be all about love, compassion, and so forth. What I see, however, is quite different, they seem to tweet any random verse at all. It almost seems like they opened their Bible to a random page, picked a random verse on that page, and tweeted it. It got me wondering if that is pretty close to what really happened, they asked God for inspiration, opened their Bible randomly (In their mind they are guided by God's hand I'm sure) and started reading. After doing this, they found the inspiration that they desperately needed, regardless of what verse they landed on. This verse now holds some meaning to them and they tweet it out. This is obviously some wild speculation on my part, but it is the best explanation I have come up with for the constant stream of random verses I see posted to twitter.

Exodus 6: God Promises Deliverance

Today's Podcast

Previously:

God sent Moses and Aaron to Egypt to ask Pharaoh to free the slaves. Pharaoh responded to this request by punishing the slaves harshly.

God Promises Deliverance (v. 1-13)

God says that he will do something to Pharaoh and the slaves will be driven out of the land. He reminds Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and that he has promised the Canaanite land to their descendants. He has heard the groans of these people and remembered his covenant and he will now deliver on that promise.

God tries to remember (pic source)

I highlight these words just because it suggests a God who isn't omnipotent. It's easy enough to dismiss these things (such as it being how Moses understood God and not how God really is), but I still find it very interesting that a much more human seeming God is depicted in the bible than the abstract and perfect God that is often thought of nowadays.

I looked through all of the commentaries on my list for this point, and no one even tries to address the idea of an omniscient God remembering something.

Also, I mentioned in my reading of chapter 5 that the strategy of simply asking that the slaves be let free for a few days to worship their God was poor. It seems to me that God is intentionally using a poor strategy so that he will be justified in punishing Pharaoh.

Moses told the Israelites this news, but their spirit was broken because of their harsh slavery and broken spirit.

I'm sure a large part of the broken spirit is due to what happened to them last time.

God told them that since the Israelites won't listen, Moses and Aaron should go right to Pharaoh. Moses complains, but then God gives them a charge to do it anyway.

I'm not actually sure what "gives them a charge" means, but it seems like God is telling them to go do it anyway, even thought they don't want to. Moses really doesn't seem to have a ton of faith in God here does he? 

Moses complains that Pharaoh won't listen to him because he has "uncircumcised lips"

I have no idea what the hell this means.

According to Guzik

This may refer to Moses' idea that he has a speech problem, or it may be that he recognized that he is a sinful man, and therefore unworthy to be used.

Fair enough, I suppose in either case Moses is saying he is unworthy of this task, which does make sense given the context.

The Genealogy of Moses and Aaron (v. 14-30)

Yeah...

Moral of the Story: 

I. Don't be of the world, instead trust in God

According to Guzik's commentary, the centuries of slavery had made the Israelite people think as slaves rather than people of the covenant. They thought of Pharaoh as bigger than God.

Many Christians find themselves in the same place. They find it hard to trust God and believe that He is for them. This is why Paul says we must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The children of Israel needed their minds renewed, and we do also.

I remember hearing this kind of stuff growing up a lot, it's basically just saying "don't be bad", but simultaneously saying that all good things are "of the church" and all bad things are "of the world". I hate this kind of non-specific nonsense.

II. Don't give up so quickly (endurance and perseverance)

God wanted Moses to keep plugging away; to not look at Pharaoh, to not look at the children of Israel, to not look at even himself - but to look at God and God alone.

Moses wanted to give up after the first setback. God had much to do in his heart before Moses is ready to deal with all the discouragement ahead as he leads the people to the Promised Land.

God is building endurance in Moses, the ability to stick with God's plan and will even when it doesn't seem to work. This is faith; this is patient endurance in the LORD.

Well, obviously I'm not a fan of all of the leaning on God, but I do like the idea of endurance and perseverance.

---

Sorry for the uneventful post. I was planning on doing chapters 6 & 7 together given that half of this one was wasted with genealogies, but partly due to the addition of the moral of the story section I ran out of time this week.

The Moral of the Story

When I started my blog, my intention was always to try to give as fair a reading of the bible as possible. I want to look at the good things of the bible next to the bad things of the bible and compare. Pretty much across the board I have found the good parts lacking and the bad parts to be plentiful, but nevertheless I try to give the bible the benefit of the doubt and I keep my eyes open for little bits of the story to praise. Even if the main thrust of the story is offensive in my opinion, if there is one little part that is a good lesson I point it out.

I have found that increasingly difficult to do since I have been reading the Old Testament. I have repeatedly asked myself "how can anyone read this book and see it for anything other than a horrible, horrible book?" This is clearly a bad perspective to have while doing this project, and yet all I see are bad characters doing bad things. But it can't be all bad, people have been getting meaning out of this book for thousands of years, what can they see that I can't?

So I have decided to add a new section to my bible posts, the moral of the story. In this section I will comment on what lesson is supposed to be learned from the story. Luckily, the Christian commentaries that I read almost always include something that will fit in this category. This seems like it might run the risk of overlapping with my blue text, but that has typically been checking if the Christian commentaries have responses to my criticisms. This new green text will be of a different flavor.

One final thought. As anyone who has followed my blog for very long at all will know that I get ideas like this fairly often. It has resulted in quite a few things that I like a lot and have stuck around (the podcast and the Christian commentaries for example), but there have also been quite a few ideas that didn't turn out to work and disappeared pretty quickly. We'll just have to see which category this lands in.

***Edit: Another thought***

The church I grew up in considered the Bible the divinely authored perfect word of God. Every word of it was supposed to be literally true. This is the perspective I generally take as I'm reading the bible, partly because of my background and partly because I know a good portion of the country looks at it this way.


But it's also possible to look at it more like a book of fables that are intended to teach us lessons rather than a book of things that actually happened. From this perspective, it might be easier to look past a horrible thing that happens to see the lessons one character or another is supposed to learn from the situation. This will be what I have in mind when writing the moral of the story segment.