Exodus
Adam Kissel
3/31/1998
This book is also called "The Names" (these are the first words of the book). It's mostly about liberation, slavery, law, justice, and the people of Israel vs. the other peoples (esp. Egypt). Does the law given by God show a reaction to the "permanent human difficulties" of the stories of Genesis?
Some themes from Genesis
Main story of Exodus: Israel goes out of Egypt. (cf. founding of other nations, e.g. United States)
Ch. 1 -- "sons of Israel": take this both literally and politically: the people of Israel; the nation of Israel.
v. 7, severfold account of the multiplication of the people. 7-8, Joseph has no lasting effect on Egypt, though he has had a huge effect on Israel. Pharaoh forgets Joseph and does not know God.
9, Pharaoh and Israel as ingroup versus outgroup; the nations exist in context with each other, and each derives part of its definition from the other, which it is not. What is a nation without its enemies? God will put Israel in Canaan and give law, a real content independent of the enemies which will be driven out of Canaan.
15, Pharaoh seeks to kill the male children, for these are the potential warriors against him. This will completely wipe out the Hebrews in one generation, for there will also be no husbands, if there is no intergenerational marriage and no interracial marriage. Note that this shows that P is concerned about the present generation; otherwise he could just as well have killed all the female children and prevented the existence of the following generation. Also, if P wants to get rid of the Hebrews, he at least wants them to build the stuff with the bricks, first, so he must expect that one final generation of Hebrew slavery will do the job. If Pharaoh's program is carried out consistently, then Moses must be the youngest male of the Israelites at the time of the exodus--at age eighty! (see Ex 7:7). But note that Israel has both sons and daughters in 10:9. Anyway the midwives who don't go through with P's first plan get named and honored for their fear of God, their cleverness, their rhm [compassion].
Ch. 2 -- the emphasis on females continues, with the actions of M's sister and mother and the princess and her maids. M's ark recalls the "macroscopic" (see Cassuto) saving of the world in Noah's ark. 6, weeping of the child moves the princess to rhm. 10, she gives M a Hebrew name. Though Cassuto believes that she doesn't know Hebrew, it in fact seems like a perfectly normal thing for her to learn foreign languages; she might even have personal Hebrew servants. "Moses" also sort of means "son" in Egyptian, but note that she draws on a Hebrew etymology, possibly to emphasize his Hebrew birth. Also note that it's unclear who exactly was the "she" who did the naming. If it was the mother, then the woman who put the son in the water is also the one who lifted him out of it.
Moses gets the education of a prince. What does this consist of? Magic? Oppression? High culture? Meter out of justice (2:14)? Land management? [see Education of Sirus for Egyptian custom in this regard, from a later time] But Moses later shows two very important skills that are vital to the passing on of the Law: memory and literacy -- these are just the kind of skills that Egypt has and can teach, being a culture preoccupied with the eternal, while the brickmaking and shepherding Israelites (and Midianites) lack and need to learn these very skills. The Law (in addition to God) is the one thing that the Hebrews have that is eternal. Moses also remembers Joseph's command to get his bones out of Egypt (Ge 50:25, Ex 13:19). Also, it is possible that because Moses has a good memory, he only can speak what he has memorized, or what God has given him to say; this would be why he says he is a bad orator. Is he no more than God's prophet, i.e. God's mouthpiece, not necessarily having much to do with virtue?
11, things happen when you go out seeing--cf. Dinah, Ge 34! In the stories of smiting, it is clear that Moses is a Hebrew and that he himself identifies as one. He shows his sense of justice and rhm for the oppressed. 13, cf. Cain and Abel. Moses also has shame, 12, for taking the law into his own hands (cf. Ge 34), and fear, 14 (cf. Adam and Eve, and the question, Ge 3:9-10, and compare Ex 2:15 with Ge 9:6). These are good qualities for him to build on as a leader. But he also has committed the sin of over-reaction in his righteous indignation--just like Cain, and Simeon and Levi [the named ancestors of Moses] in Ge 34. Moses also shows prudence in burying the dead (and also Hebrew sensibility).
13, Between the first and second smiting stories, perhaps M has gained an enlightened sense of justice. He seeks peace through questions and reasoning, even rhetorical strategies, about the conflict (nobody wins a war), also solidarity among the Hebrews. Is this an oblique turn from a personal sense of justice to philosophy?
18 -- cf. 3:1, the priest of Midian has two names (see Cassuto: these are two ways of referring to the same person). The Midianites are the ones who first took Joseph into Egypt, though they are named after a relative of Abraham.
15-22, cf. the stories of Jacob and Rachel at the well, and Rebekah at the well. Here too M chooses the side of the oppressed daughters of the priest, even though there is no close kinship relation.
Secondary Sources
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine
If those who are called philosophers, especially the Platonists, have said things which are indeed true and are well accommodated to our faith, they should not be feared; rather, what they have said should be taken from them as from unjust possessors and converted to our use. Just as the Egyptians had not only idols and grave burdens which the people of Israel detested and avoided, so also they had vases and ornaments of gold and silver and clothing which the Israelites took with them secretly when they fled, as if to put them to a better use. They did not do this on their own authority but at God's commandment, while the Egyptians unwittingly supplied them with things which they themselves did not use well. In the same way all the teachings of the pagans contain not only simulated and superstitious imaginings and grave burdens of unnecessary labor, which each one of us leaving the society of pagans under the leadership of Christ ought to abominate and avoid, but also liberal disciplines more suited to the uses of truth, and some most useful precepts concerning morals. Even some truths concerning the worship of one God are discovered among them. These are, as it were, their gold and silver, which they did not institute themselves but dug up from certain mines of divine Providence, which is everywhere infused, and perversely and injuriously abused in the worship of demons. When the Christian separates himself in spirit from their miserable society, he should take this treasure with him for the just use of teaching the gospel." Likewise, this is why we read that Moses "was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22). "That which was done in Exodus was undoubtedly a figure that it might typify these things." (II.xl.60, pp. 75 f.) "To the extent that the wealth of gold and silver and clothing which that people took with them from Egypt was less than that they afterwards acquired at Jerusalem, . . . the knowledge collected from the books of the pagans, although some of it is useful, is also little as compared with that derived from the Holy Scriptures." (II.xlii.63, pp. 77 f.)