Hello everyone,
Yes, I'm still moving this project forward. I may not have the time or energy to post a new thread every day, but the way I figure it, I have the rest of my life to complete it. So what's the rush? In any case, I covered Exodus 8 & 9 here and now I cover Exodus 10, 11, and 12. And as always, my source is https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9871.
What is Pharaoh saying here? Is he playing word games with Moses and Aaron? In verse 10 he seems to be conceding to allow the children to go to worship the lord (Whose children? Those of Moses and Aaron only? All the children of Israel?), and says something about evil being before their faces? (<-- ???
) Then in verse 11, he says "Not so" and allows the men to go out and worship, claiming that it's what Moses and Aaron requested (even though they requested a lot more). So in verse 10 Pharaoh allows the children to go, and in verse 11 he allows the men to go. So both the children and the men? Or is he changing his mind mid-sentence, first saying the children can go, then saying "not so" and saying only the men can go (to be honest, the phrase "not so" strikes me as the colloquial "NOT" that kids would say in the early 90s as a facitious negation of a dubious statement). I have a feeling the correct interpretation hinges on what "see that evil is before your faces" means.
In any case, I assume it's because of these games--Pharaoh falling just shy of Moses' full request--that God decides to bring on the locusts.
There goes God again, strengthening Pharaoh's heart. As discussed in my last thread (here), this seems to be a tactic to "go the whole 9 hards" so to speak. That is, God decides that if Pharaoh refuses on his own accord to concede to Moses' and Aaron's demands after the first 5 plagues, God would see to it that Pharaoh refuses for all remaining plagues. And this seems borne out by the way Pharaoh admits to having sinned after the last two plagues (though not all of the last 5 plagues), demonstrating the weakening of his heart, and thus requiring God to strengthen his heart if he is to see this through to the bitter end.
Wow! Is this Moses upping the ante?
In response, Pharaoh says this:
Sounds like Pharaoh has had enough. But the strange thing is, Moses seems to know something Pharaoh doesn't. What does Moses know about the next time they will (or won't) meet? The plague of darkness was, after all, the second to last plague, so we as readers who are familiar with the story know that the next plague will be the one to break Pharaoh, but how does Moses know that? And why wouldn't they meet face-to-face one last time if for no other reason than to bring closure to this whole ordeal?
An interesting discussion about this very question which might shed some light on the subject can be found here: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questi...0no%20more.
Turning now to Exodus 11...
Again, this seems to corroborate my interpretation of Exodus 9:13-16. God is saying that even now, on the eve of this 10th plague, he will strengthen Pharaoh's heart and not allow him to heed to Moses' and Aaron's demands, and the reason being to increase his miracles in the land of Egypt.
Chapter 12...
So starting a new calendar.
I see passages like this very often in the Old Testament, passages that go into great detail laying out very specific instructions about how something is to be done. I mean, the Lord could have made it much simpler--maybe just mark somewhere around your doorway the blood of the lamb, and have a great feast with the meat of the lamb that night, and that's it--but the Lord gets very specific with the details--specifying that the lamb shall not be eaten rare or boiled but roasted, and it shall be eaten with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand. <-- That's pretty specific. And this is not the only passage in the Old Testament where God gets so specific. Why is this? What horrible catastrophe would happen if, say, someone ate the lamb with their shoes off, or with leavened cakes instead of unleavened cakes? One guess that comes to mind is to distinguish between the true adherents to God and those attempting to imitate. If, for example, an Egyptian caught wind of what the Hebrews were doing and tried to mimic their routine in order to be spared from the upcoming plague, he would literally have to have been there when Moses was giving out these instructions (taking notes!) in order to get it right. Otherwise, he would only be able to roughly mimic their behaviors and, perhaps, not notice that every single Hebrew happen to be wearing their shoes when eating the lamb. Idunno.
Is there any discipline in the study of ancient Hebrew text or history or culture that goes into these questions? It would be fascinating to see what scholars on the subject dig up as to the reasons why God gets so specific with his instructions on how to perform this or that ritual or practice.
Hmmm... the destroyer... who is the "destroyer"? Are there other passages in the Torah or the Bible in general that reference the destroyer? Or explain this reference in more detail? Is it one of the angels? Like Gabriel or Michael? It sounds as if the Lord will go ahead of the destroyer to see which household to smite and which not to, or maybe the Lord will go with the destroyer, saying "smite this household" and "Passover that household". Or maybe the Lord is the destroyer? Determining which household to smite and which not, and only when identifying a household to smite, then becoming the destroyer? Again, Idunno.
So Pharaoh and Moses did meet face-to-face one last time. Or was this not face-to-face? The phrasing "called for" seems to imply Pharaoh sent out an agent to pass on the message, but then again "call for" also implies "summon" which means to request or command a person to come to meet one's self. Again, the discussion at https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questi...0no%20more might prove enlightening.
At first, this sounds like it confirms my assumption from an earlier thread about the number of Hebrews let out of Egypt, but here it mentions only that the men counted about 600,000. It explicitly excluded the children and implicitly the women. So in total, can we estimate 600,000 men, 600,000 women, and (assuming 2 per household on average) 1,200,000 children--for a total of 2,400,000? <-- That seems excessively huge.
So here the Lord really seems to want to make a clear distinction between the Israelites and non-Israelites. He really wants to emphasize that the Israelites are his chosen people. But what does it mean that "no estranged one may partake of [the Passover]"? What would happen if an estranged one did partake of it? Or does it simply mean no Israelites may invite or tolerate an estranged one participating in the Passover? Or at least invite or tolerate an estranged one into their household to partake in the Passover (I mean, how can they stop one from participating in the Passover in the privacy of their own household)?
Yes, I'm still moving this project forward. I may not have the time or energy to post a new thread every day, but the way I figure it, I have the rest of my life to complete it. So what's the rush? In any case, I covered Exodus 8 & 9 here and now I cover Exodus 10, 11, and 12. And as always, my source is https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9871.
Exodus 10 Wrote:8 [Thereupon,] Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, "Go, worship the Lord your God. Who and who are going?" 9 Moses said, "With our youth and with our elders we will go, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our cattle we will go, for it is a festival of the Lord to us." 10 So he [Pharaoh] said to them, "So may the Lord be with you, just as I will let you and your young children out. See that evil is before your faces. 11 Not so; let the men go now and worship the Lord, for that is what you request." And he chased them out from before Pharaoh.
What is Pharaoh saying here? Is he playing word games with Moses and Aaron? In verse 10 he seems to be conceding to allow the children to go to worship the lord (Whose children? Those of Moses and Aaron only? All the children of Israel?), and says something about evil being before their faces? (<-- ???
) Then in verse 11, he says "Not so" and allows the men to go out and worship, claiming that it's what Moses and Aaron requested (even though they requested a lot more). So in verse 10 Pharaoh allows the children to go, and in verse 11 he allows the men to go. So both the children and the men? Or is he changing his mind mid-sentence, first saying the children can go, then saying "not so" and saying only the men can go (to be honest, the phrase "not so" strikes me as the colloquial "NOT" that kids would say in the early 90s as a facitious negation of a dubious statement). I have a feeling the correct interpretation hinges on what "see that evil is before your faces" means.In any case, I assume it's because of these games--Pharaoh falling just shy of Moses' full request--that God decides to bring on the locusts.
Exodus 10:20 Wrote:But the Lord strengthened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go out.
There goes God again, strengthening Pharaoh's heart. As discussed in my last thread (here), this seems to be a tactic to "go the whole 9 hards" so to speak. That is, God decides that if Pharaoh refuses on his own accord to concede to Moses' and Aaron's demands after the first 5 plagues, God would see to it that Pharaoh refuses for all remaining plagues. And this seems borne out by the way Pharaoh admits to having sinned after the last two plagues (though not all of the last 5 plagues), demonstrating the weakening of his heart, and thus requiring God to strengthen his heart if he is to see this through to the bitter end.
Exodus 10:25 Wrote:But Moses said, "You too shall give sacrifices and burnt offerings into our hands, and we will make them for the Lord our God.
Wow! Is this Moses upping the ante?
In response, Pharaoh says this:
Exodus 10 Wrote:28 Pharaoh said to him, "Go away from me! Beware! You shall no longer see my face, for on the day that you see my face, you shall die!" 29 [Thereupon,] Moses said, "You have spoken correctly; I shall no longer see your face."
Sounds like Pharaoh has had enough. But the strange thing is, Moses seems to know something Pharaoh doesn't. What does Moses know about the next time they will (or won't) meet? The plague of darkness was, after all, the second to last plague, so we as readers who are familiar with the story know that the next plague will be the one to break Pharaoh, but how does Moses know that? And why wouldn't they meet face-to-face one last time if for no other reason than to bring closure to this whole ordeal?
An interesting discussion about this very question which might shed some light on the subject can be found here: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questi...0no%20more.
Turning now to Exodus 11...
Exodus 11:9 Wrote:The Lord said to Moses, "Pharaoh will not heed you, in order to increase My miracles in the land of Egypt."
Again, this seems to corroborate my interpretation of Exodus 9:13-16. God is saying that even now, on the eve of this 10th plague, he will strengthen Pharaoh's heart and not allow him to heed to Moses' and Aaron's demands, and the reason being to increase his miracles in the land of Egypt.
Chapter 12...
Exodus 12:2 Wrote:This month shall be to you the head of the months; to you it shall be the first of the months of the year.
So starting a new calendar.
Exodus 12 Wrote:3 Speak to the entire community of Israel, saying, "On the tenth of this month, let each one take a lamb for each parental home, a lamb for each household. 4 But if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor who is nearest to his house shall take [one] according to the number of people, each one according to one's ability to eat, shall you be counted for the lamb. 5 You shall have a perfect male lamb in its [first] year; you may take it either from the sheep or from the goats. 6 And you shall keep it for inspection until the fourteenth day of this month, and the entire congregation of the community of Israel shall slaughter it in the afternoon. 7 And they shall take [some] of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they will eat it. 8 And on this night, they shall eat the flesh, roasted over the fire, and unleavened cakes; with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 You shall not eat it rare or boiled in water, except roasted over the fire its head with its legs and with its innards. 10 And you shall not leave over any of it until morning, and whatever is left over of it until morning, you shall burn in fire. 11 And this is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord.
I see passages like this very often in the Old Testament, passages that go into great detail laying out very specific instructions about how something is to be done. I mean, the Lord could have made it much simpler--maybe just mark somewhere around your doorway the blood of the lamb, and have a great feast with the meat of the lamb that night, and that's it--but the Lord gets very specific with the details--specifying that the lamb shall not be eaten rare or boiled but roasted, and it shall be eaten with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand. <-- That's pretty specific. And this is not the only passage in the Old Testament where God gets so specific. Why is this? What horrible catastrophe would happen if, say, someone ate the lamb with their shoes off, or with leavened cakes instead of unleavened cakes? One guess that comes to mind is to distinguish between the true adherents to God and those attempting to imitate. If, for example, an Egyptian caught wind of what the Hebrews were doing and tried to mimic their routine in order to be spared from the upcoming plague, he would literally have to have been there when Moses was giving out these instructions (taking notes!) in order to get it right. Otherwise, he would only be able to roughly mimic their behaviors and, perhaps, not notice that every single Hebrew happen to be wearing their shoes when eating the lamb. Idunno.
Is there any discipline in the study of ancient Hebrew text or history or culture that goes into these questions? It would be fascinating to see what scholars on the subject dig up as to the reasons why God gets so specific with his instructions on how to perform this or that ritual or practice.
Exodus 12:23 Wrote:The Lord will pass to smite the Egyptians, and He will see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and the Lord will pass over the entrance, and He will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to smite [you].
Hmmm... the destroyer... who is the "destroyer"? Are there other passages in the Torah or the Bible in general that reference the destroyer? Or explain this reference in more detail? Is it one of the angels? Like Gabriel or Michael? It sounds as if the Lord will go ahead of the destroyer to see which household to smite and which not to, or maybe the Lord will go with the destroyer, saying "smite this household" and "Passover that household". Or maybe the Lord is the destroyer? Determining which household to smite and which not, and only when identifying a household to smite, then becoming the destroyer? Again, Idunno.
Exodus 12:31 Wrote:So he called for Moses and Aaron at night, and he said, "Get up and get out from among my people, both you, as well as the children of Israel, and go, worship the Lord as you have spoken.
So Pharaoh and Moses did meet face-to-face one last time. Or was this not face-to-face? The phrasing "called for" seems to imply Pharaoh sent out an agent to pass on the message, but then again "call for" also implies "summon" which means to request or command a person to come to meet one's self. Again, the discussion at https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questi...0no%20more might prove enlightening.
Exodus 12:37 Wrote:The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot, the men, besides the young children.
At first, this sounds like it confirms my assumption from an earlier thread about the number of Hebrews let out of Egypt, but here it mentions only that the men counted about 600,000. It explicitly excluded the children and implicitly the women. So in total, can we estimate 600,000 men, 600,000 women, and (assuming 2 per household on average) 1,200,000 children--for a total of 2,400,000? <-- That seems excessively huge.
Exodus 12 Wrote:The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "This is the statute of the Passover sacrifice: No estranged one may partake of it. 44 And every man's slave, purchased for his money you shall circumcise him; then he will be permitted to partake of it. 45 A sojourner or a hired hand may not partake of it. 46 It must be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the meat out of the house to the outside, neither shall you break any of its bones. 47 The entire community of Israel shall make it. 48 And should a proselyte reside with you, he shall make a Passover sacrifice to the Lord. All his males shall be circumcised, and then he may approach to make it, and he will be like the native of the land, but no uncircumcised male may partake of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who resides in your midst."
So here the Lord really seems to want to make a clear distinction between the Israelites and non-Israelites. He really wants to emphasize that the Israelites are his chosen people. But what does it mean that "no estranged one may partake of [the Passover]"? What would happen if an estranged one did partake of it? Or does it simply mean no Israelites may invite or tolerate an estranged one participating in the Passover? Or at least invite or tolerate an estranged one into their household to partake in the Passover (I mean, how can they stop one from participating in the Passover in the privacy of their own household)?