The “Good” Book?: Chapter Ii Book Ii Exodus 1-40

Copyright © 2011 by M. W. Collier.

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Exodus Prelude:

Dedication

For my family, and my friends, thank you.

Exodus Prelude:

The existence of a God has seldom been based on physical evidence; typically our belief in their reality has been based solely on what we were taught as children to believe. This friend I do believe to be a fact, and even if we do not believe in God people will still be born, still grow, and still die. As a species living upon our earth we will still find ways to create and do amazing things, we will also manage to still find a way to kill one another using the most brutal techniques we can envision. None of these things requires a belief in God; they require only the human mind.

Throughout our history there have been several Gods who we believe have heard our call. Sometimes, well, most of the time the majority of these prayers I believe have been the prayers of desperate people living within desperate times. When rulers of our past led armies conquering cities and nations did they pray to the same God as their victims? Some of them have, while their soldiers raped and plundered throughout much of the ancient world many of these conquerors called to the same Gods as their victims.

While crusaders slaughtered the people who lived within the so-named Holy Lands they called to our God. The Church of their time would often give these men absolution from their sins if they went on crusade and killed. The Church, buying murder and paying for the rape of untold numbers of people through the use of the word God, sad, yes it is. Though, when we think about it not the only crime as many of the people who were being killed and raped prayed to the same God as the people who were sent to destroy them. When we look around today on the surface of all we see before us we can try to say things have changed. Have they though?

Have we somehow changed so much that we can no longer see? Have we ever honestly been able to really see? Or, have we in this generation grown so accustomed to the violence and the savagery that we no longer see it as what it is? How many years must a war rage before we admit some in this world have refused to allow the rest of us to evolve? How many bombs have to be detonated before we wake up to the reality of our species as a whole? How many innocents must pay the ultimate price for our salvation? How many more lifetimes do you think we can sit and watch God’s children die in this world before we say enough? Then having said the word stand up and back it up, because within this world society there really is right and then there is wrong.

This is such a simple statement, yet, it seems impossible for us to follow its path. Whether we give in to the night and the evil on our shores through lack of concern or because we are afraid does not matter. If we cannot or will not stand up for those who need us we will have lost everything we could have ever had. Standing up does not mean have another war; it does not mean more and more blood until we have nothing left to take, and even less left to give.

We have to stand up in a way that makes sense in the most senseless of situations; we have to be the better people in the middle of every argument. If we cannot solve or resolve a problem without killing or threatening life then we have all already lost. The source book for so many who are religious, the King James Bible offers us so many examples of the wrong way. All we have to do today is acknowledge as a world that our religions may be flawed. We need to accept and then begin to understand God may have created everything we see upon this, our home, as well as everything in the sky, but he does not interfere with our lives as we seem to have spent the last several thousand years claiming he does.

If we stop blaming or crediting God exactly what is it we are left with, men, human beings killing, murdering and worse throughout this world all under the false pretense of claiming their evil is the will of God. If we take God out of our lives then we must admit we are the ones with blood on our hands. If we remove God from the battle then we must tell those who have died they died for another man’s glory. It is because of these things and many more that these commentaries are being written. If you have skipped the first of these first two then I hope this one serves to open your eyes. If you have read the first then may this book hopefully continue to inspire or enlighten you to a better life for us all.

Exodus 1:1. Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.

Exodus 1:2. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

Exodus 1:3. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

Exodus 1:4. Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

Exodus 1:5. And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.

Exodus 1:6. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.

Exodus 1:7. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.

Exodus 1:8. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

Exodus 1:9. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

Exodus 1:10. Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

Exodus 1:11. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.

Exodus 1:12. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

Exodus 1:13. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:

Exodus 1:14. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

Exodus 1:15. And the king of Egypt speak to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other was Puah:

Exodus 1:16. And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.

Exodus 1:17. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.

Exodus 1:18. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?

Exodus 1:19. And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

Exodus 1:20. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.

Exodus 1:21. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.

Exodus 1:22. And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

Most of us may have learned only parts of the previous chapter of verse while we were yet children. Sitting wide eyed and innocent upon the pews of our various congregations, we would have been told about how the evil Pharaoh killed the sons of the people he enslaved. Anyway, this was the memory in my mind’s eye since the earliest moments of my life. As an adult I find myself placed into a strange and at times not so enjoyable position. In this position there is a need inside me to point out things maybe others have not. If at any time these things have been spoken of, well, then I am sorry, maybe the previous writers or speakers did not say them loud enough for all of us to hear them.

Most of us know the line about killing the sons; we also may have learned the line about throwing the babies into the river to drown. What most people tend to overlook is the previous verse ends with the Pharaoh ordering the deaths of every son born. This command as quoted here is meant for all of his people. This means he ordered the deaths of every male born in Egypt, not as most of us were taught when we were being raised the deaths of only the Hebrew children.

Why is this important? It should change things a little when you think about it. The Pharaoh: as did many in their time, and ours, had serious issues, and he had serious power. Had this (presumably) man ordered the deaths of every Hebrew living in his land, then every Hebrew living there would have been killed, or failing that they would have been forced to flee. Let’s ask a few simple questions now that we have begun thinking a little differently.

If there were so many children of Israel living in Egypt that the Pharaoh felt threatened enough by them to have their male babies killed, then why is it there were only two midwives for all of these Hebrews? Some among us in the past have suggested in an attempt to explain this curiosity away that these two midwives who have been named were the head of an organization of midwives. Saying it this way means there would have been more of them living and performing the duties of the so-called office, just not named within the Bible. I don’t believe this explanation, and I hope you do not either.

Today debates still rage over the names of the Pharaohs mentioned in the Old Testament, since we have the names of the only two midwives it seems a little odd the names of the Pharaohs have not been included. Because we know through the application of commonsense the children of Israel have at this point of the story been in Egypt maybe less than seventy five years, in fact probably less than fifty years, how is it then there were enough of them to frighten a man whose army would have outnumbered their citizenry by what must have been a very large number? Why do I say this? Well friends, the Pharaoh in this story ordered, sorry, if he ordered the death of the innocent then he ordered the deaths of the second generation to be born in his country. So I ask again in a different way, how could they have been any threat to anybody with the power Pharaoh would have had?

Remember Moses’ mother was his great aunt also, and this woman was not born in Egypt, so he was part of the first generation born in Egypt on his Mother’s side and the second generation to be born in Egypt on his Father’s. Of course this apparent truth leads us to a rather serious question. Serious in the sense that the correct answer could destroy the personal beliefs many hold concerning the story of Exodus. Or, seeing how most people will never change their opinions of things, even if we were to use correct math their opinions of things will remain as they are, resolute in their incorrect opinions.

Joseph saw his sons’ children to the third generation before he died. This is a rather simple statement, yet, if used correctly has mind numbing connotations. Such as, which boy in the four generations to come after him died at the hands of Pharaoh? Since the second generation born was the one supposedly hunted down and killed, then how did Joseph see his descendants all the way up to the fourth generation without our being told he witnessed the slaughter of an innocent child somewhere in there? He did not, again with a short answer, I know, but we cannot keep trying to have things the way we might want them. The truth is true, turn it left, hold it right, flip it around bottom to top, nothing we do with it matters, because in the end truth is truth. Those firstborn males of the second generation were the ones supposedly killed, because of this the third or fourth would have been the ones who fled. Hard to say there was a third or fourth then during the life of Joseph, who, again, is said to have seen the fourth generation of his descendants.

We have been told Joseph was dead, we are told a new Pharaoh rises who knew not Joseph, we are told Joseph saw his descendants to the fourth generation, do you see it yet? Joseph would have been around when Moses lived; in fact he may have been around long enough to be a part of the exodus from Egypt. Moses’ children would have been the third generation, so in theory Joseph should have been around long enough to have potentially seen them and their children as well. You do not have to accept the truth as it has been written, you can ignore the reality of it just as we have been doing for thousands of years.

Exodus 2:1. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

Exodus 2:2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

Exodus 2:3. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.

Exodus 2:4. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

Exodus 2:5. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.

Exodus 2:6. And when she opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.

Exodus 2:7. Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

Exodus 2:8. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother.

Exodus 2:9. And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.

Exodus 2:10. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

Exodus 2:11. And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

Exodus 2:12. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

Exodus 2:13. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smites thou thy fellow?

Exodus 2:14. And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.

Exodus 2:15. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.

Exodus 2:16. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.

Exodus 2:17. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.

Exodus 2:18. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?

Exodus 2:19. And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

Exodus 2:20. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.

Exodus 2:21. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

Exodus 2:22. And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

Exodus 2:23. And it came to pass in the process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of their bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of their bondage.

Exodus 2:24. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

Exodus 2:25. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

What would happen if we learned she attempted to sacrifice her child as all of the people of Egypt had been ordered to do by Pharaoh? Think of the consequence if this had been the reason her child had been placed into the river, not necessarily to save him as we have all been taught. There have been so many misconceptions preached to us about this and every other part of the Holy Bible. Because of this I know it is a difficult thing to overcome the instruction of our youth, but overcome we must. Too many