Exodus

I'm probably going to be a touch more serious with this book because, where Genesis can be quite ambiguous and open to interpretation, much about Exodus claims for itself to be fact, and in result directly relates to "extremist" Christians and the root of the more barbaric culture that is Islam today.  The book of Exodus (along with Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) are extremely important because it is constantly referenced all throughout the Bible.  

Early Years of Moses

Here's where we get into the popular story about Moses.  The Pharaoh saw that the Israelites were growing in number, so he enslaved them and slaughtered their firstborn sons to keep their population down.  When Moses was born, his mother set him in a basket and sent him through the reeds down the Nile river to escape this fate.  Pharaoh's daughter found him and adopted him as her son.  When Moses grew up, he killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew, and when Pharaoh found out, he tried killing Moses.  So Moses ran away from Egypt and got married to the priest - Jethro's - daughter and had a baby and became a shepherd.  One day, he came to Horeb - the "mountain of God" (3:1) anybody else thought of Mount Olympus? - and there God appeared to him in the form of a burning bush, revealing to Moses his actual heritage as a Hebrew rather than an Egyptian.  He told Moses that he will be in charge of delivering the Hebrews out of Egypt.  And Moses was like "Yeah, okay, and what am I supposed to tell the Israelites when they ask who this god is that has ignored their cries and pain and torture until now?"  God replies,

I AM THAT I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you'.  (3:14)

Thanks for clearing that up, God.  Then God says,

The elders of Israel will listen to you.  Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, "The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us.  Let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God."  But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.  So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.  (3:18-20)

Note: Letting his people go wasn't a part of the original deal.  God just wanted them to pay tribute to him for a quick minute.

So, God grants Moses special powers to be able to turn his staff into a snake, turn his own hand leprous after sticking it in his pocket, and turn water into blood to prove to the Egyptians that God is real.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do.  But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.  Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you "Let my son go, so he may worship me."  But you refused to let him go, so I will kill your firstborn son.'"  (4:21-23)

Let's just break this down a bit, in case you didn't catch all of it.  First of all, God says that he will "harden Pharaoh's heart" so that he won't let the Hebrews go... on purpose!  Why?  So he can then stretch out his hand and strike Egypt will all his wonders.  Not just Pharaoh, no.  But all innocent people within Egypt.  (Although, even if it was just Pharaoh, there still raises the moral issue of, well, Pharaoh didn't have any choice but to refuse Moses because GOD HARDENED HIS HEART!)  Why?  To instill the fear of God in the world and to make himself known.  Yup.  God sure is a swell guy, ain't he?

So, Moses went back to Egypt and performed these miracles to the Israelites so they would believe him.  He reunited with his biological brother, Aaron, and together they went to Pharaoh and said,

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert."  (5:1)

Pharaoh replied by saying "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go."   (5:2)   Pharaoh became irritated with this nuisance and, in retaliation, basically doubled the Hebrew slaves' work load to try and keep them from rising against him.  The Israelites grew angry at Moses for worsening their problems as a result, and refused to listen to him.  But, diligently, Moses tried again.

The Plagues

He went and turned his staff into a snake and the Nile into blood.  Oddly enough, Pharaoh's priests could conjure up the exact same magic, so Pharaoh was unimpressed and continued to ignore Moses' demands (remember, because God hardened his heart).  A week later, God tells Moses to begin doing God's wonders with his staff and bare hands.

• Plague of Blood
• We've already covered this when Moses turned the Nile into blood
• Plague of Frogs
• Pharaoh says to Moses, "Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord."  (8:8)  But when there was relief, God hardened Pharaoh's heart again and wouldn't let the Hebrews go.
• Plague of Gnats
• Here's where the magicians were like "We quit!  This is the finger of God!"
• Plague of Flies   
• Again, Pharaoh asks Moses to pray for him and take the plague away.  "I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the desert, but you must not go very far.  Now pray for me."  (8:28)  And again, God hardened his heart and made Pharaoh take back his agreement.
• Plague of Livestock
• Plague of Boils
• Plague of Hail
• God says he sends this plague "so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth... I have raised [Pharaoh] up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."  (9:14&16)
• Plague of Locusts
• God said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart... 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 how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord."  (10:1-2)
• This plague was to "devour what little you have left after the hail".  (10:5)
• Pharaoh quickly begged again when this plague began, "I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you.  Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the Lord your God to take this deadly plague away from me."  Again, God hardened his heart.
• Notice a pattern here, that Pharaoh in his natural state does want to let the Hebrews go?  He keeps repenting, but God won't allow it just so he can smite the world out of pride.
• Plague of Darkness
• Here Pharaoh get's so enraged that he tells Moses to make sure he doesn't appear before him again, or he will have Moses killed.  Moses replies, "Surely as you say, I will never appear before you again."  (10:28&29)
• Plague on the Firstborn
• God said to Moses, "I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt.  After that he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely."  (11:1)
• This is the first time that full-on deliverance from Egypt is mentioned
• God said, "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt.  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, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.  There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt - worse than there ever has been or ever will be again.  But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.  Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel."  (11:4-7)
• The Passover -  Moses told the Israelites what God had told him, to go at once and take the blood of a lamb and smear it around the doorframes to their houses.  No one should go out of their homes until morning.  "When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the... doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down."  (12:21-23)
• There's a destroyer that God needs to permit to go forward with their actions?  Could this be our angel of death and not actually God himself?
• (12:30)  "...and there was a loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead."

During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me. (12: 31&32)

(I lol'd at that last part there.)

Alright, let's take a break from the plot for a moment to discuss what just happened.  So, God endows Moses with all these awesome powers to bring on plagues and things - not to try and persuade Pharaoh to let his people go, because Pharaoh's just God's zombie finger puppet who's only purpose is to give God a forged and fixed justification to be angry and smite an entire country to prove he's better than everyone else.  Pharaoh otherwise repetitively has a change of heart and permits them to leave, while begging for forgiveness.  It's God who keeps hardening his heart so that all these people may suffer and die so God can flaunt his big dick around.  It goes to such an extent where God kills (or has someone else kill) every single firstborn son in Egypt.  All the innocent children.  Dead.


Now let's take a break from all this drama and try to adjust back to reality before we press on.  Yeah, so, this never really happened.  At best, it's a hugely dramatized version of a migration of peoples from one place to another toward the end of the Bronze Age and begin a basic pilgrimage over the course of several generations.  At best!  Even still, there's hardly any room for an actual Moses, given the timeline is all fucked up and there really isn't much (if any) real evidence to support such a claim.  If anything, this story is more likely to be a historical novella.  [1]

But, real or not, it's important to understand that approximately 2.3 billion people around the world not only buy into this shit, but support it.  How sick is that? [2]

So now we can proceed a little more lightheartedly.  ^_^

The Red Sea

Anyway, so God turned himself into a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide the Israelites' to the Promise Land of milk and honey (Canaan) as they head out of Egypt toward the desert.  Then God decided to change his mind and harden Pharaoh's heart again, instead of just leaving well-enough alone.

And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. (14:4)

Of course, close to total genocide to the point of even destroying their cattle wouldn't suffice. And yeah, to avoid being slaughtered on the Passover, slaughter something else and smear your house with its blood. That's not enough. Must-Kill-More!

Pharaoh and his army chased the Israelites to the Red Sea, where God told Moses to raise his staff and part the waters so that they stand up as walls to create a path for them to travel though.  (In the meantime, the "angel of God" stood between the armies and the Israelites to keep them safe.)  When the Hebrews made it to safety, Pharaoh's army was able to pursue them again into the opened sea, and God closed the sea so that it devoured them.

Well on their way, the Israelites started complaining that they were hungry - so hungry that they were saying that it would've been better if they'd stayed in Egypt.  So God decided that he'd rain down bread from heaven every day except Sunday, because they needed to just sit around and not do anything in gratitude for the day that God rested after he created the world in six days... or some such nonsense.
It's rainin' bread!  Hallelujah!  It's rainin' bread!  *dances*
 He does the same thing with water, basically, only Moses has to smack water out of a rock when the Israelites are thirsty.  Although Moses gets all pissy when his people start complaining about how they're literally dying of thirst, like they're spoiled brats or something.  (17:2&3)
Not everybody was a prince of Egypt MOSES!

Well, I bet you're probably thinking, Gee, maybe this god really ain't so bad.  He gives them bread and water when they're dying and leads them to the Promised Land.  Well, stay tuned kids.

In The Desert on Mount Sinai - The Ten Commandments

Incidentally, when God wasn't looking, the Amalekites attacked the Israelites and killed off a bunch until Moses figured out that if he lifted his hands in the air then they could win the battle for some odd reason.

God decides that Moses should climb to the top of Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights while God tells him what the Ten Commandments are (although if you look - Chapter 20 - it never actually refers to them at the Ten Commandments, only the header does).  In the meantime, everybody else has to sit at the bottom of the mountain or else they'll die.  I'm sure you know how this goes:

1. Thou shall have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shall not worship false idol.
3. Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
5. Honor thy father and mother.
6. Thou shall not murder
7. Thou shall not commit adultery.
8. Thou shall not steal.
9. Thou shall not lie about thy neighbor.
10. Thou shall not covet they neighbor's wife.

Relatively familiar, right?  Nevermind the laws about sticking a Hebrew Servants' ears to a door by piercing an awl through their lobe in order to declare them yours forever, or the "eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth" business.  (Chapter 21 if you want to know.)

Completely disregard the law that if a guy sleeps with a virgin, she must marry him; to kill sorceresses and those who worship other gods; to be nice to aliens and offer them hospitality before sending them on their way; don't charge interest on a loan; and especially forget about the law where you have to sacrifice a lamb in place of your firstborn sons - unless you don't have a lamb then you are to wring its neck (Chapter 22).

Oh, and there's totally nothing important about the Three Annual Festivals we're supposed to have.  You know, to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread (because God has an allergy to yeast or something), the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of one's crops, and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather your crops.  (23:14-19)

I hope you've figured out by now that I'm being sarcastic.  Because it is important.
I also would just like to point out all of these sacrifices that are going on, like, with all these awesome blood baths and playing with animals' innards and smearing them on shit.

The Ark of the Covenant is kind of important, because people carry this bitch around everywhere.  It's a little ark where they put the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments in, and you have to make sure you don't touch the ark because if you do, you die.

The Golden Calf and The New-and-Improved Ten Commandments

Well, all this time that God is on this mountain telling Moses what the Law is (yes they're still on the mountain) and to write all this shit down on a couple of stone tablets - remember this took 40 days and 40 nights - the Israelites got all nervous and thought that God ate him or something.  So they decided to toss their gold into the fire and make a Golden Calf and worship that.  Considering God has been out to lunch for the past month and a half, the idol would probably serve a better purpose.  Not long after, Moses finally comes down the mountain and sees his people worshiping a Golden Calf, and he gets so pissed that he smashes the Ten Commandments and Miscellaneous Laws tablets into pieces.  Then he tells the Israelites a God-inspiring command - to take their swords and slaughter each other.  Whoever comes out victorious... well... lives.  Three THOUSAND people died.  Well, I suppose that's better than the original alternative, which was to just kill them all.  Isn't God thoughtful?

So, then God told Moses to come back up on the mountain to try this tablet thing again, since he smashed the last two.

God says not to trust the people who live in Canaan (the Promised Land of milk and honey) but they're to break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.  Now, watch closely at what's happening.  (34:14-26)
                *Just to note: Asherah is the goddess of the Canaanites (among others)

1. Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.  Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods... and when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons... they will lead your sons to do the same.
2. Do not make cast idols.
3. Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  For seven days eat bread made without yeast.
4. The first offspring of every womb belongs to me.
5. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
6. Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest.
7. Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
8. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifices from the Passover Feast remain until morning.
9. Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.
10. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

Still don't quite grasp the gravity of the situation?  Well, why should I explain it for you when the Bible can do a perfect job all by itself!

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."  Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water.  And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant - the Ten Commandments.  (34:27&28)

BOOM!  What?!  OMGGGG!!!  
Yeah, I went there.  Break out the torches and pitch forks.  These are the new and improved Ten Commandments.  These are the ones that are in the Ark of the Covenant!  These are the ones in the temple of Jerusalem!  These are the commandments that won wars and formed settlements, these are the actual commandments that we are supposed to follow!  Because, remember, the original "Ten Commandments" only lasted for about five fucking minutes.

Alright, moving on and summing shit up.  So they make a bunch of crap and decide that it's holy.  There's really nothing important you need to know about all the holy crap they make, aside from the fact that there's a bunch of random crap that we're supposed to do that we're not actually doing; like have a special lampstand and table, and how to make a tabernacle, and priestly garments, and other random crap like that.  Let's see... Oh, and Aaron appoints himself as high priest and decides that only his decedents can be priests.  (Yes, remember that kids.)

In Conclusion

Well, we got to learn about the beginning of Moses.  Oh yeah, we still have a long way to go before this dude buys the farm.  We get to experience the vanity, pride, and short temper of God and how poorly he treats his people.  When you put this into perspective of all the people in the world who support this mythology, it really makes you wonder about humanity as a whole.  Tune in next time, and we'll get to see some real no-fucking-around laws in our next book.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses#Historicity

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/