OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 7

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

Where did Moses get his name from? The text itself says that the etymology of his name is כִּי מִן-הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ (lit. because from the water I drew him)But there are a few slight problems with saying that Pharoah's daughter named him "Moses," "Because I drew him from the water." First, the probability of Pharaoh’s daughter naming the child with a Hebrew name is slim for two reasons. The first is that naming him with a Hebrew name would give away his identity as a Hebrew...and remember, her Dad is killing Hebrew boys at the moment. The second reason it's improbable is that she's not Hebrew! It's not very likely at all that she would have known Hebrew. The conquoring country rarely learns the language of the conquored country. Secondly, the term itself is more easily taken from the Egyptian noun ms ‘boy, child’ as a cognate of the Egyptian verb msỉ ‘to bear, beget’ and appears in such names as Ptahmose, Tuthmosis, Ahmose, and Harmose.

But then why did the Jewish author record the Hebrew etymology and not the Egyptian etymology of the name? To say that it was obviously due to the ignorance of the author of the Egyptian derivation misreads the purpose of the text and certainly isn’t obvious, contra Durham.

On the contrary, it is quite possible (and likely) that the purpose was theological and literary. Naming in the whole of the Old Testament was a highly theological and literary enterprise and is used by the writer on more than one level and for more than one purpose. “Moses’ name meant for the Israelites (and therefore for God, whose Spirit inspired the writers) that he was drawn out of water and would draw them out of water” (Peter Enns, Exodus, 64-65).

So maybe it’s not the validity of the answer that should cause worry but whether or not we are even asking the right questions. There is much more meaning, for the reader today and especially for the ancient Jewish reader, in the Hebrew etymology of the name than in the Egyptian, not that the Egyptian etymology shouldn’t be recognized. The problem comes when we start thinking that the only thing that is truly "meaningful" is modern notions of history and "what really happened."

But the origin of the name of Moses seems to be an intentional foreshadowing. This foreshadowing in the name of Moses as one drawn out of the water only to later himself ‘draw’ his people out of the water is also supported by the placing of Moses "in the reeds" (בַּסּוּף)in 2:3 and "in the midst of the reeds" (בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף)in 2:5. And later he will in fact lead God’s people through the "sea of reeds" (יַם-סוּף).

Then there is a final, broader connection that comes by way of the overall structure of the stories. Just as Moses begins outside of the house of Egypt (raised in the court of Pharaoh), then enters the house of Israel, then is dealt harshly by Pharaoh who tries to kill him and then chases him out, so goes the story of Israel in Egypt (cf. the story of Joseph and Exodus 1:1-14:31).

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 6)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

Was Moses's Mom That Superficial?

2:2 of Exodus: "The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months."

This of course begs the question: If Moses was ugly would she have not hidden him and left him to be found by Pharaoh to be killed?

Well, actually, there is much more going on in this verse than the English translations allow. The verse literally says, "Then the woman conceived and bore a son and when she saw him, that he was good (ki-tov), she him him for three months." This is exactly the phrase we heard over and over at the beginning of Genesis, "and God saw that it was good (ki-tov)." It seems then that the author is taking us back to the creation story and making some sort of connection with Moses.

But what does it mean for Moses's mom to see "that he is good?" Many translators have tried to decide:

NIV: "When she saw that he was a fine child"
NASB: "When she saw that he was beautiful"
JPS: "When she saw how beautiful he was"
NLT: "She saw that he was a special baby"
KJV: "When she saw that he was a goodly child"

I think that the NLT is probably the closest to the point that the author of Exodus was trying to get across, this Moses is special. It's not trying to say that he was such a great baby, he never cried, never spit up on his dear parents. Nor is it trying to say that Moses was cute or beautiful. But the point is that God is now engaged in the life of his people and is going to work through a special child, Moses.

But why do so many versions translate the verse as talking about his looks? It actually comes from the Septuagint, or Greek version of Genesis. This would have been the Bible that the writers of the NT would have used since many of them probably didn't know Hebrew anymore, or at least not nearly as well as they would have known Greek. So they used a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, similar to the way we use an English translation.

And in the Greek translation the word is asteion or "handsome." In fact, this is the word Stephen uses when he recounts to the story of Moses in Acts 7:20.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 5)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

"Just as the men of Egypt cast their sons into the river, so He took revenge on one million, and one thousand strong and ardent men perished on account of one infant whom they threw into the midst of the river."
-Jubilees 48:14

At the end of the first chapter of Exodus we have Pharaoh commanding all male children (even Egyptian?) to be cast into the Nile. It has not failed interpreters, ancient and modern, to make a possible connection between the watery death of Israelite boys and the watery death YHWH brings on the Egyptians at the Exodus (see Exodus 14). Many Jewish interpreters saw this as an explicit demonstration of the Law, specifically the famous lex talionis, or "eye for an eye" law (Exodus 21:23-25).

Other sources that make this same connection:
Wisd. 18:5
Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 9:10
Mekhilta deR. Ishmael, Shirta 4

Interestingly, James Kugel also points out in his The Bible As It Was, that there was also a tradition that it was actually the decision of Pharaoh's counselors to drown the children because these wise men had consulted the Hebrew Scriptures and determined that drowining would be the safest method against divine recompense. Kugel quotes b. Sota 11a, where after deciding that fire and sword are out because Isaiah 66 says that "the Lord shall come with fire...and by his sword [he will punish] all flesh," the counselors say, "Let us therefore sentence them [to die] by water, for God has already sworn that he will nevermore bring a flood into the world..."

What a creative gap-filling midrash.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 4)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus

Today I just want to point out how Pharaoh is depicted here in the first chapter of Exodus. And, well, it's not looking good. Basically, he is shown to be two things: a sort of "anti-God" who acts against God's creation mandate and secondly, as a sort of "royal boob" (to quote an old He-Man movie) who is naive and foolish in light of God (see I Corinthians 1:19, alluding to Isaiah 29:14), despite his prominence and power among people.

1. Pharaoh as Anti-God: The picture of Pharaoh as the "anti-God" is painted most explicitly in 1:10 where Pharaoh tells his people, "Come, let us deal wisely with these Israelites or else they will multiply..." So Pharaoh is against the very thing God had told the Israelites to do in the creation narrative ("be fruitful and multiply," same word used here). But as we'll see, Pharaoh is no match for God and his purposes.

2. Pharaoh as Foolish: We see here in the first chapter of Exodus 3 failures on the part of Pharaoh in his futile attempt to keep Israel from fulfilling their mandate to be fruitful and multiply.

The first failure comes in verse 12: "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied." Shouldn't the opposite be true? God's wisdom confounds the wise. Pharaoh's first attempt fails.

The second failure comes in 17: "But the midwives feared God and didn't do what Pharaoh had commanded them." Since Pharaoh's first attempt fails he gets a little more desperate: let's get the midwives to kill all the boys. But he gets outsmarted...By women! Of course, this could be read in a feminist way (which I am not averse to when it's warranted) but I think here the sense is this: "Pharaoh's plan has no hope, even the women outsmart him!" Also remember that a theme throughout the Hebrew Bible (OT) is that God is so powerful he often uses the weakest to defeat the powerful to show that it is His power and not ours. God's wisdom confounds the wise. Pharaoh's second attempt fails.

The third failure comes in the birth of Moses (Ex 2:2): After the two failed attempts by Pharaoh he gets frantic and outraged. Now, every son (possibly even the Egyptian?) is to be thrown into the Nile to die! Instead, a son comes out of the Nile to live! This is the climax of Pharaoh's failed attempts. God's wisdom confounds the wise. Pharaoh's third and final attempt fails, a savior is born.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 3)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus

One thing I love about ancient Jewish readers of the Hebrew Bible (OT) is that they paid attention to the smallest details of a text. So our two examples today, about the midwives of the Hebrews (Exodus 1:15-21), will take their cue from ancient midrash.

First, I suggested in the last post that the midwives might have actually been Egyptian and not Hebrew (see below). Well, there is an ancient Jewish interpretation that suggests that they were Jewish. Not only were the midwives Jewish but they were none other than Jochebed and Miriam, the mother and sister of Moses! Now, there a few good reasons to think that it probably wasn't Jochebed and Miriam, including the fact that they are actually given other names in the text, but it's interesting to see how these interpreters filled in the "gaps" in the Bible. They took the names given for the midwives in the text to be "nicknames" or "descriptors" (like Jacob being called "heel-grabber") rather than their given names. Jewish interpreters loved doing this sort of thing (see Paul's use of Jannes & Jambres in II Timothy 3:8). Here is the passage in Jewish literature that relates the two:

"The Hebrew midwives (Exodus 1:15) were Yocheved and [her daughter] Miriam. Miriam, who was only five years old then, went with Yocheved to assist her. She was quick to honor her mother and to serve God (Eitz Yosef), for when a child is little, its traits are already evident. The name of the second (i.e., Miriam) was Puah (ibid.) for she gave the newborns wine and restored the babies to life when they appeared to be dead, she lit up Israel before God by teaching the women, she presented her face before Pharaoh, stuck up her nose at him, and said, "Woe is to the man (i.e., Pharaoh) when God punishes him!" Pharaoh was filled with wrath and would have killed her, but Yocheved appeased him, saying, "Will you pay attention to her? She is only a child, she has no understanding" (Shemot Rabbah 1:13)

Secondly, several Jewish interpreters noticed how improbable it was that there were only two midwives for all of the Jewish women (who were, if you remember, "increasing greatly"). So some suggest that these were simply the heads of the group of women who served as midwives. So they weren't the only ones, just the ones in charge. Of course, there are other explanations as well, although I think this is a pretty good one.

Old Testament Thoughts - Exodus (Part 2)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.
Yesterday I posted we looked at some of the creation language and the significance of such language. Today we'll look at the "Account of the Hebrew Midwives," in Exodus 1:15-22.

Hebrew or Egyptian

Are the midwives of Hebrew or Egyptian descent? The verse is actually inconclusive about the nationality of the midwives. It literally says "Then the king of Egypt said to the midwives of the Hebrews..."

וַיֹּאמֶר מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם, לַמְיַלְּדֹת הָעִבְרִיֹּת

Now, although it could go either way, here are a few reasons to support the view that they are Egyptian for three reasons:

1. The rest of the story reads like the women are not Israelites. They are referred to twice as "fearing God," a term often used for non-Israelites who nonetheless recognized God as God.

2. It also makes the story more believable. Why would Pharaoh believe Hebrew women, his slaves, when they said that they couldn't get to the women in time? Or why would Hebrew women even have midwives if they knew this was the case? Of course, some think that this is precisely the point, that Pharaoh is being portrayed as a complete oaf. While there is a trend here of women tricking Pharaoh throughout, I don't think that warrants taking the midwives as Hebrew instead of Egyptian.

3. The word "vigorous" or "lively" (כִּי-חָיוֹת) might be a negative way of referring to Israelite women. So the Egyptian women would be saying something like this, "Hebrew women are less refined and more animal-like than Egyptian women, they give birth quickly and don't even need a midwife." So the Egyptian women would be slamming the Hebrew women to more easily pull the wool over Pharaoh's eyes.

Of course, again, the answer is inconclusive and it doesn't really matter to the story, but some of the best things about a story can be found in the smallest details.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (part 1)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

After finishing up Jonah, I have been agonizing over what Scripture to talk about next. There are so many things to choose from and I don't really want to get bogged down with too many technical details of the text. So I landed on the first 2 chapters of Exodus, just up to the Burning Bush. I have already posted several of these on the other blog where I am a regular contributer ( Encounter blog ) so today I will just post all them successively to get caught up on this blog.

First up today, the first evidence of "creation language" in the first chapter of Exodus...

As we'll see throughout this series, the writer of Exodus 1-2 uses a lot of images and language that was also used in the creation narrative (Genesis 1-3) up through even the pre-Abraham narrative in Genesis 11. So when I say "creation language" I only mean that the writer of Exodus 1-2 seems to be consciously using images and language that was used in Genesis 1-11. The writer probably has a theological reason for doing this, namely, that the story of Exodus 1-15 is the story of the creation of God's people, the Israelites (see Ex. 4:22). Adam has failed as God's representative on the earth, so Israel has now been given the task.

For my post today I am only going to give one example, to further explain what I mean by "creation language."

In Exodus 1:7, the beginning of the story after the genealogical introduction, we have this: "The Israelites were fruitful and multiplied and became extremely numerous, so that the land was filled with them." Sound familiar? What do we have in Genesis 1:28 following on the heels of the creation of humankind?

"God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth..."*

So Israel is fulfilling the duty God gave to the first couples.

*N.B.: I will be using my own translations in all of these posts, as I did with the Jonah posts. If you have any questions about why I translate something the way I do, let me know, I'd be happy to explain it. Otherwise, just know that I will oftentimes translate in a way that emphasizes the connections being made in Hebrew (something most mass produced translations do not do) but I will never translate anything in a way deemed "unacceptable" by scholars.