The Force in Scripture?

Exodus 8:22-23

I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between My people and your people.

Exodus 9:4-7

And the Lord will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. So nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.” ’ ” Then the Lord appointed a set time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.”

So the Lord did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died. Then Pharaoh sent, and indeed, not even one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead.

Exodus 9:25-26
And the hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.

We do not actually know if the locusts were held from Goshen, it’s just something we think is mostly implied. However, we do know that during the ninth plague, Israel had lights in their home which kept them from dealing with the darkness.

Put yourself in the position of the Israelites. From what we can tell, until Moses entered the scene, they were not quite exposed to God the same way as their ancestors. Assuming you were privy to everything that was going on, from Moses to the Magicians, what would you think of the situation?

Alethea Thompson wrote:
Exodus 8:18-19
Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said.

1) It may be more appropriate to say they stated it was the figure of A god, rather than God Himself. However, over at Force Academy, my friend Luciana (who majored in Anthropology with an Abrahamic focus) notes that it is quite possible the selection of the word "elohim" was meant to relay that the magicians acknowledged what was happening as the "Finger of Creation". With that in mind- If you were one of these magicians, what would you think of this situation?

First, imho, I think we would get a lot more out of this story by assuming a negative sort of stance against Moshe (only) because of the default positive stance in which history has always painted this picture. Moshe is a terrorist, making the same sort of claims as modern day extremists, practicing deception. We are, in effect, (and I'm using this word carefully and intentionally) "SEDUCED" to the dark side by taking the side of Moshe and his tactics in order to achieve his aims. For the Sith, this makes perfect sense. If you are Sith and you feel chained then you seek power in order to break those chains. el=God literally translates from Hebrew to "power".

I'm not one who believes that all of the ancient believers and priests all believed their gods were literal entities. So question one is a very good question in light of this. We're making the assumption that it is a "battle of gods" when in reality it may have been a "battle of power"; Moses vs the Priests. Moshe has knowledge of the Israelite's theology because he was raised in part by his own mother as part of a deceptive plot.

Exodus 2
6 And when she had 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.

Notice, how Pharaoh's daughter was not in the least deceived. She knew Moshe was Hebrew, but being a baby, this allowed her to use the situation (and Kemitic theology) to justify saving him (somewhat like the Presidential pardon on the Thanksgiving turkey). But regardless of the result... this whole thing was a deception because Moshe's mother wanted to make him look like he was a gift from their gods. The fact that Pharaoh's daughter doesn't fall for this could mean that they were not superstitious like more common folk tend to be. They were more educated so they didn't seek as many supernatural explanations as those who were uneducated; many of which were likely illiterate.

I carry the daughter's wisdom over to her father because if she wasn't deceived it is unlikely that he was either and that he allowed her to have Moshe as a personal gift/favor. But... you would not forget the ploy and the deception. Now this isn't the same Pharaoh which is also, imho, important to the story. This new pharaoh would have had his own feelings about Moshe. Disney may have gotten it right with the Prince of Egypt movie. OR... Pharaoh could have been raised with resentment, anger, and jealously that Moshe, a son of deception, was allowed to be in an elevated station that rightly belonged to him because of his blood.

When people of different ethnicities collide in such a negative way, even if one side is abusing the other via low wages or, in this case, the Israelites may have been working off years of debt as they were only able to survive because of the wealth of Egypt through the long famine. Recall from Mosaic law that it was only the time of Jubilees that freed slaves bonded to Israelite families from a lifetime of work to pay off a debt. And it should be said that it looks like Israel would have been just as harsh on slaves as Egypt if it wasn't for their experience, being slaves. But we should question the type of slaves that they were.

The theme of deception runs all through this story but it's not always easy to pick out because it's beneath the surface. Moshe practices deception in asking for the Israelites to go because his pitch is a temporarily release so that they could merely worship this god. Pharaoh may have hardened his heart because he already knew (or at least strongly suspected) that this was a lie and that they were trying to use their "god" as a tactic to escape servitude. And if THAT was a lie then why wouldn't Moshe also be lying about this deity? After all, these are miracles of the same "type" that the Egyptians could also do.

If we follow the theory that this whole story is premised on deception then what loyalty do we have to believing the narrative given to us? What I mean by that is...

How do we know this was Moses vs the Priests? Moses was #1 gone a long time, and #2 interacted with both his Hebrew family and his new wife's family. Not only this but the bible says it was a mixed multitude that left Egypt so what if he stirred up political dissent and achieved a sort of political power that even some Egyptians followed? What if Moses conned his way into the Galactic Senate and lead a no confidence vote on the Pharaoh. Catch my drift? We're simply reading the propaganda of Moses. So what if Moses taught others how to achieve these plagues and, on his command, multiple people were doing things to cause the effects of his plagues to be greater. The priests would not have used people who weren't supposed to have that knowledge. Their knowledge was "classified" and for the elite. If the masses had this knowledge there would be no need for priests who acted as middlemen between the masses and the gods. Moses wasn't under this restriction at all being that he was Hebrew. He didn't have any loyalty to their system. He wanted a new system. And he got a new system in which there was no king but he, acting as the ultimate priest, held all the power.

So, lol, all that being said...

If I were one of those Kemetic priests I would have a few suspicions as to how Moshe was pulling this off but ultimately Moshe was playing my game, only better. I wouldn't be able to say "this guy is lying because this is the secret behind this miracle." No. These secrets are the very foundation of my identity as a priest. No one can know that our science exists independently of any supernatural forces because the people believe in those supernatural forces more than they believe in us. So even if Moshe uses this to his political advantage... we have no choice but to go along with his deception because it exposes our own deception. If anyone can do our tricks/miracles then our nakedness appears. Also, being that I am Egyptian I really don't have a desire to cause plagues on my own people that can affect my own friends and family and the family of the noble houses. It would be politically dangerous for me, even if I did know how, and even if I could be more destructive with my scientific knowledge, to use my knowledge to its fullest extent because I would make as many enemies as Moses. And ultimately, he would win anyway. And I know... just like he probably knows... that affecting a large area would make it so that taking the plague away would require a REAL miracle. And this is why Pharaoh asks Moshe to take the frogs away which he could not do.

I think you’re assigning too much on the Egyptian Princess.
It is easily that she knew he was a Hebrew by his skin color. Or that she recognized only the Hebrews would cast a son into the river. After all, it was literally the decree of the Pharoah that this should happen at the end of Exodus Chapter 1. The logical leaps aren’t difficult to make from there.

2) If you were Pharaoh, what would you think of your magicians? If you have grown up with them this entire time, and then saw how a man unaligned with your gods had greater command over nature, how might your understanding change?

As a royal, I pretty much live with these people. I see their faults. I see their lust for power. I see them in ways they don't know I see them. And because they are so close to the king in terms of being advisers I know that they often right but sometimes wrong. And I see their maneuvers to keep themselves relevant. But I do respect their knowledge relative to others in the kingdom.

As a royal, I've also seen Moses. I've seen his faults. I've seen him lie. I've seen him deceive. I've witnessed the deception of his family. I don't respect him. He's a terrorist and he isn't afraid to kill my citizens. He has no loyalty to Egypt. We were the life support that kept his people from starving but he chooses to repay us by spreading sickness and disease. By making a show of this farce he's attacking me politically. I know politics. I understand the fundamental deceptive nature of it. He's using me, to gain power even among his own people. He's not their leader. They don't follow him. They will only follow him if I give in to his demands and make him seem like a hero. If I order his death then I make him a martyr and cast even more doubt on the power of the gods of Egypt. If our people are more afraid of his god than ours they'll rebel against me; perhaps even my own generals. I need to hold the line; hold the standards and traditions of our people no matter what.

Does he have greater command over nature? Is that really what this is? Or is he simply better at deceiving people than my own priests? And if that's so I'd prefer the deceptions of the priests that cause less harm than the deceptions of this terrorist who seeks to turn my people against me. I know some of his tricks but exposing them would expose my own priests. If I tell my people he's lying it would be like telling them our priests are lying. I'll just have to wait until he's outside of our borders and can no longer use tricks against us, claiming that it's his bogus god that hasn't lifted a finger for hundreds of years. Once he's outside... we can take him out and say that his god was a false god.

I think you’re assigning too much on the Egyptian Princess.
It is easily that she knew he was a Hebrew by his skin color. Or that she recognized only the Hebrews would cast a son into the river. After all, it was literally the decree of the Pharoah that this should happen at the end of Exodus Chapter 1. The logical leaps aren’t difficult to make from there.

I could be assuming too much. True.

However, the scene itself is too suspicious to take seriously. Let's think about it this way. There's a baby in the river. Someone put it there. Someone made this basket. And someone is close by, there on hand, and before the text even states a decisive course of action on the princess's part...

"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?"

So someone, who just happens to be here, is telling us (putting ourselves in her sandals), a royal, what to do as if it is an offer when in reality you're obviously hoping we will do as you suggest. The amount of coincidences here are comical. A Hebrew child. An unattended Hebrew girl. Wherever the child came from it was probably the same place that the girl came from. Do Hebrew girls bath in the same part of the Nile that the royals do? We think not.

"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 women took the child, and nursed it.

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."

We may not be a genius but we could use some basic logic here. Who else would the girl be, except his sister? Who would the girl fetch except his mother? How would a baby end up with a girl who is unrelated to it? What was their game plan if not to make me think he was a gift of the Nile (hence the name Moses)? If it were otherwise, the little girl would have simply handed us the basket with the baby, not go through the charade of putting the basket in the water. An uneducated Hebrew mother was smart enough to put this deceptive plan together. It is reasonable to assume that a well educated princess could have seen (all the way) through it.

Alethea Thompson wrote:
Exodus 8:22-23

I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between My people and your people.

Exodus 9:4-7

And the Lord will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. So nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.” ’ ” Then the Lord appointed a set time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.”

So the Lord did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died. Then Pharaoh sent, and indeed, not even one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead.

Exodus 9:25-26
And the hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.

We do not actually know if the locusts were held from Goshen, it’s just something we think is mostly implied. However, we do know that during the ninth plague, Israel had lights in their home which kept them from dealing with the darkness.

Put yourself in the position of the Israelites. From what we can tell, until Moses entered the scene, they were not quite exposed to God the same way as their ancestors. Assuming you were privy to everything that was going on, from Moses to the Magicians, what would you think of the situation?

Good question. I'd have to say that Moses should be and is probably an atheist. If growing up in pharaoh's house taught him anything it should have been the relationship between royalty, the priests, the people, and their gods. The people believed in the gods. The gods gave the royals authority to make and execute decisions voiced by the priests. Moshe had already chosen to intervene when he killed the taskmaster. That wasn't God. That was him. That was him, specifically, not waiting on a god to save them. When modern day extremists act, they are acting on their own but using the "name" (reputation) of their God as being somehow involved in what THEY are doing. And that's important because without a "God" intervening you are left with just a man and who are people more likely to follow? Once you've established gods that judge the activities of humans humans actually have to pretend to be gods to use that system of checks and balances. So they act as gods, they make the rules and assume the authority of the gods they speak for. Moshe learned this in Egypt and then became everything he learned when the Israelites followed him.

And somewhere in his mind he didn't have this idea that every Israelite life was sacred. He saw at least a percentage of them as being disposable as long as it meant they were going to achieve some goal. This goal doesn't actually crystallize until we start recording all the spoils of war.

I think Moses used Yahweh the same way a radical Islamic terrorist uses Allah and the Koran. But I think he was only capable of this because he wasn't afraid of any real god, whether it was his own or whether it was the gods of Egypt. He wasn't afraid because he didn't believe in them. I think he was either told or figured out, through his education or through watching the priests and learning their ways, that there was a certain level of political BS that supported this whole system.

We assume that terrorists are true believers, even when some of the 911 terrorists went to a strip club first. But if they were believers, truly, then the fear of Allah would be upon them, keeping them from actions that he did not command. Even if they assume that the command went to someone else like a cleric, many of the fighters themselves already have reasons (personal and nationalistic) to fight and consider that as divine permission. And even if the commoners are doing these things based on their belief, that doesn't mean the leaders, the one's to whom God is supposedly speaking to, are honest actors. This is how I feel about Moses and Aaron. Aaron supposedly was involved in these miracles but he is the one who fashions the golden calf and then lies about it to avoid responsibility and punishment. And even though Moses punishes the Hebrews with sickness and death he does not treat his brother equally because he's not afraid of any deity holding him accountable.

Another interesting point...

"4 And the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel."

What cattle of Israel? I thought they were slaves? They had land and cattle. What's this mean? They could feed themselves, clothe themselves, trade/barter, etc. They may have had to pay taxes on the land (remember from previous story that the people sold the land to the government in exchange for food through the famine) that at some point amounted to more than what they could afford to pay. This is mere speculation; however, it seems that many of them had decent lives. It is likely that one or more audacious building projects precipitated a need for free or low cost labor to make and move bricks.

Again, if it wasn't clear from what I said before, I believe that there were Hebrews working together (perhaps in cells) to poison the lands of the Egyptians which they could do because they worked in those lands while having land of their own. As long as they claimed it was the work of their angry god then Egypt would't simply return the favor to their own lands and cattle. There was nothing preventing this reciprocation other than the narrative that it wasn't the Hebrews but rather their angry god.

Curious, ZealotX- if it was mere science, can you explain to me how he and a few cells created hail?

Alethea Thompson wrote: Curious, ZealotX- if it was mere science, can you explain to me how he and a few cells created hail?

Naturally, I can only give you my theory because I wasn't there.

But what I think happened is that the story is written in hindsight, taking credit for a natural but rare occurrence. I believe that what they saw was a volcano. I've never seen a volcano outside of pictures and the shared experiences of other people. Imagine if you were superstitious or you were leading a group of superstitious people and you saw a volcano off in the distance. It would appear as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Growing up I had always imagined this as a disembodied fire and cloud. But when you pair it with the whole "mt. Sinai" thing and how holy the mountain was and no one but Moses could go up there... and think about it... as much as Yahweh is imagined as touching down on this mountain in fire... this happens at no other time in Israel's history.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3301214/Biblical-plagues-and-parting-of-Red-Sea-caused-by-volcano.html

Exodus 9:23 And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt.

http://all-geo.org/volcan01010/2013/04/egu2013dirty-volcanic-hail-geology-blogging-open-source-science-and-fracking/

Fire would run along the ground if the hail wasn't simply hail, but rather volcanic hail could definitely cause the symptoms witnessed. Different cultures would have seen this event but would have different explanations for it.

There's also part of the story where there are "thunderings" that the people interprets as the voice of God and the people are afraid. There are correlations to other passages that makes it look like their culture was seriously impacted by this event and so was their impression of God. God wasn't simply personified as a man because they didn't know what else to use. He's personified more as a mountain on fire with thunder and lightning because this is the image that they were all afraid of. Who wouldn't be?

Exodus 20:18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

Psalm 18:13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
Psalm 77:18 The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.
Psalm 78:48 He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

Isaiah 29:6 Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

I'm just posting multiple examples to show a pattern.

Revelation 4:5 And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
Revelation 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

I believe this legendary event created an image of God that they carried all the way through to the end of the bible. But it was a mixture of their ignorance of nature and their superstition that natural disasters were caused by supernatural forces. Remember why Jonah got fed to the whale? It was only because the seas were unusually rough and the sailors, not believing in Yahweh but being superstitious, drew lots and sacrificed Jonah in an effort to appease the gods. What's angrier than a volcano?

Exodus 20
18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

And you know when Moses face was lit? Imagine they're near this mountain and its dark and there's a sudden flash of lightning and they're all looking at Moses. Wouldn't his face reflect the light from the lightning?

These things all appear to us as miracles and magic because the writer is telling his opinion of the events and the mythical story that is seasoned by superstition. There's no way they saw a volcano and thought "yeah, that sure is crazy looking but I'm sure it has nothing to do with God." Impossible. And if you research the gods of the region you see that mountain gods are a common for that area.

wikipedia: W. F. Albright, for example, says that El Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû ("mountain") and shaddā`û or shaddû`a ("mountain-dweller"), one of the names of Amurru. Philo of Byblos states that Atlas was one of the Elohim, which would clearly fit into the story of El Shaddai as "God of the Mountain(s)."

also...

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/67843/holy-mountains-canaanite-myth-bible

point is... there is what I would call an obsession with mountains. One can see "God" in all of nature: trees, flowers, rivers, etc. But for people who used fear to conform a society to a particular religion... a volcano is about as powerful an image as you're going to find and it can cause the plagues we saw in Egypt. The other stuff were things the Egyptian priests were able to do. But this? A superstitious mind could hardly escape the power of this frightening image and they would have given credit for such an event to the most powerful God. Think about Zeus with his lightning bolt on mount Olympus. Again... one event seen and interpreted by very different people who would have attributed it to different gods and blamed it on different people just as it was with Noah's flood. And to answer the question I know people will ask. Was there a volcano near the time we believe the Exodus refers to?

The answer is yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption

"Although there are no clear ancient records of the eruption, it may have inspired certain Greek myths,[7] caused turmoil in Egypt,[8][9] and been alluded to in a Chinese chronicle. The exact date of the eruption is disputed (see below), although the eruption is believed to have occurred during a summer."

I know this is a lot but I hope it answers your question. And keep in mind this is all written AFTER the fact, not as things are occurring. That means they can easily conflate events and use one event to explain another as well as add fabricated explanations and detail to events that really happened. People look to religion for answers that known science doesn't have. This very demand for answers inspires others to supply that demand. And this is how religions dominate even in spite of the availability of scientific explanations.

If it was a natural occurrence, which scientists have been able to explain the sequence of events as being exactly to this order, then your theory regarding a coordinated terrorist attack is completely out the window. It only requires one learned individual to figure it all out.

The magicians, then, don’t need to reproduce the phenomena at all. They can simply explain it. You yourself have made the assertion that the Egyptians were not nearly as superstitious as Christians are led to believe. And in fact, it would be more appropriate for the magicians to chalk up each plague to the natural occurrences over the whim of an angry god.

When you strip the gods from the narrative, it loses power altogether. Then the only thing they have to explain is the rod to a snake (which they absolutely reproduced).

At this point, ZealotX, you’re theories only work if this story is that Moses is as real as Paul Bunyan (which is to say, he’s not real at all).

And if it’s nothing more than folklore, then I have to say, you’re coloring Moses too much by your modern interpretation of progressive society. Today we know that we can use non-violence to get our way (eventually). But a lot of areas in the world still have to fight for their freedoms in a physically violent manner. Moses’ story is about a man who saw an systemically oppressed people and fought against their tyrants who saw them as sub-human.

If you look at their situation as being similar to the institutionalized racism of today, then it absolutely is true they were a form of slave. If you look at it as only the Hebrews were given the laboring jobs, and Egyptians the jobs that could afford them the ability to thrive- is that not still a form of slavery?

People fight for their freedom. I’m afraid not all who are terrorists are unjustified in their concerns. It’s only in recent times that humanity has saw fit to make an effort to distinguish between Civilians that don’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire and military or government personnel who volunteered (or were born to) support the oppressive system. Thus, today, we have the luxury to judge his actions by our standards. But in truth, it’s a bad idea to judge him by modern thought, and instead judge the story as though it is just that- a story. And from there, decide what values can be taken from the story, and what can be tossed.

In my own opinion, if we were to reduce this to a story about a man vs. another man, no gods at all, then I believe Moses was right to fight for his people. But I don’t believe he went about it the right way. He could have changed it from the inside, if he had not killed the taskmaster.

But if it’s the story of gods going at each other, then I cannot daily either party for their actions. Moses, despite having committed a sin (murder) was still the only person who could carry out the mission because of who he was to Pharoah. It’s rather reminiscent of “Arjuna’s Dilemma” from the Bhagavad Gita.

We’re analysing this story 3000+ years after the event. We understand the difference between science, nature, magic, the supernatural and religion - or at least we like to think we do. People 3000 years ago in Egypt did not differentiate things / phenomena like we do now. To assume that we can know how Pharoah, the magicians or the Israelites felt is highly presumptuous. The things we now regard as science, they regarded as magic or luck or supernatural power. Things they took for granted, we now view as supernatural.

More problematic is that none of us are Orthodox Jews (as far as I am aware). Jewish morality typically allows the breaking of commandments for the greater good, and is more nuanced than the moral absolutes that are beginning to pervade our outrage culture.

Terrorism has gone on forever and it has always been those in power who get to define who is the terrorist and who is the courageous freedom fighter. I don’t find it a helpful lens to view current events, let alone those 3000 years ago.

People need an origin story, and most people through history have needed a common enemy to come together. Many have moved beyond that now - thank The Maker. There are lessons we can learn here but they probably aren’t what the stories were intended for originally.

The crucial question is - does it matter whether these events really happened? I don’t think it matters at all - the power is in the truth of the message, not in the truth of the events.

Whilst it’s legitimately interesting to guess at the purpose of these stories for people 3000 years ago - I’m more interested in what they say to us today. I don’t agree with Zealot X’s interpretation but it’s very interesting (and horizon broadening) to hear what these stories say to different people.

I just want consistency. In one view he had it that it was terrorists cells doing all this stuff, then when challenged he switched gears to the scientific phenomena.

The baseline needs to be established before one can truly dissect the text at all. And everything has to be explainable for it to work. If you cannot explain one part in the story so that it matches with the rest, then it just looks like you're trying to fit the evidence into your mold rather than letting the evidence spell out the picture for you.

I actually have no issues with him looking at Moses as toting snake oil. But we have to get everything straight before we can even dive in that direction.

I agree. It would be great if we could get a baseline consistency but the Bible is not internally consistent! It wasn’t designed to stand-up to the rigours of modern critical analysis, or for us to impose our 2019 AD morals on it. It was allegedly written by Moses, about Moses which alone makes it historically questionable. The earliest copies we have date to approx 100BC - we’ll over a thousand years after the events of Exodus.

The best we can hope to do is analyse the book in different ways and learn the lessons that emerge.

I think the idea of this thread was to find evidence of The Force, in scripture. To me that means searching for examples in which love, compassion, empathy, sacrifice and fortitude lead to positive narrative outcomes. On the flip side it means discussing the times when hate, revenge, selfishness and the abuse of power lead to negative narrative outcomes. Whether those narratives make sense scientifically, theologically, magically, morally etc is interesting but sort of misses the point of what we’re trying to find, doesn’t it?

What I find fascinating about the early books of the Old Testament is that the Israelites (through Moses) seem to be trying to work all this out - over time. Yahweh is meant to be good, but he is also Chaotic, vengeful and sadistic. He even makes self-diagnosed mistakes.

It’s like God is learning to understand the Force too . . .

You yourself have made the assertion that the Egyptians were not nearly as superstitious as Christians are led to believe. And in fact, it would be more appropriate for the magicians to chalk up each plague to the natural occurrences over the whim of an angry god.

Actually, you're conflating the magicians with the Egyptian people. In any culture there is always gap between the wealthy who tend to be the best educated and common folk who run the rat race trying to survive. The magicians/priests serve a political role because they are advisers to the king. Their advice is valuable to the people because they speak for the gods. The king needs the illusion that the gods support his rule because as long as the people believe this they will not rebel or assassinate him. But this illusion isn't necessarily unknown to the ruling class, especially not the king. Think about, for example, the Roman emperor Constantine. Did he switch religions because he actually believed in the God of the Hebrews and in their messiah, Yeshua/Jesus? Or did he simply read the political tea leaves and didn't want to lose support from his people? Furthermore, if his conversion was genuine, why did he call the bishops together to force out a unified version of Christianity so that everyone could be on the same page? Was he interested in the truth, or merely on the effect of seeming to have the truth; the unity of having one religion and one church?

I'm proposing that the person shoveling BS is the one who knows its BS. And if BS is your business and if it is passed down to you from king to king, then you go along with it even though you know what it is. So I think that even if the magicians thought it was all science that doesn't mean they could expose the science to the common folk because their whole mystic as being priests was based on the foundation that they were exploiting people's superstition. Without this it would be like the DOD not being able to do research because tax payers were no longer funding them. The priests would have to get "real jobs". In order for them to practice "science" they had to play the game of fitting it inside the realm of superstition and gods. Like you both said... it was a different time. Even today, many superstitious and ultra religious people still persist in rejecting scientific theories.

When you strip the gods from the narrative, it loses power altogether.

Not exactly. In my view they were not stripping the gods away; rather they didn't use gods the same way certain religions do today. Case in point... is Buddha a god? If by god you mean divine being then Buddha is a god. Many gods were myths and legends. Some of them I'm sure had real origin stories while others were thought up in order to represent a certain part of nature. I believed these gods were used by ancient scientists as symbols/variables for concepts where this god mating with this god equals this new god which represents a synthesis of the parents. So basically, in their understanding they didn't necessarily regard them as real beings but the common folk were more likely to. An example of this is what happened when Pharaoh Ahkenaton tried to innovate on their religious system and bring in monotheism. He may not have thought it was a big deal because for him maybe it was an intellectual question according to his education. But that doesn't mean the people were ready to swallow it. Every major government today has "state secrets" that they do not trust their citizens to have. We accept this because we understand why this need exists. What I'm proposing to you is that there were "state secrets" at play in the Egyptian religion because of the superstitions of the common people. If they knew those secrets they would have less fear of the king. This is why many kings claimed to be gods as it protected them from being challenged. Even if the challenger was completely atheist they would have to think twice because the support of the people would follow their own beliefs. So this uses religion as a political weapon.

Pause: Just want to offer a reminder that what I say is but my humble opinion and I'm not trying to push an agenda or make these views seem like facts. They're not facts.

At this point, ZealotX, you’re theories only work if this story is that Moses is as real as Paul Bunyan (which is to say, he’s not real at all).

I hate disagree but I don't feel this way at all. First of all... I don't believe us humans are really that inventive; meaning that elements of any story, fact or fiction, are usually based in fact. These true elements make the story relatable. Paul Bunyan is a lumber jack. Lumber jacks exist. Cows exist. Axes exist. Even giants to some degree, exist. Most of comedy is exaggeration. We're entertained by exaggerations. We assume that people have a need for their stories to be 100% factual. But that is an assumption. The people who originally read Exodus may have known it belonged more in the fiction section of the library because the events were more contemporaneous to them and they had a better sense of what happened to divide out the things that likely did not, were exaggerations, etc. Hercules was probably inspired by a real person but that doesn't mean he had super strength. And people did in fact worship other humans as gods and demigods. So it wasn't outside the box to take a certain figure, give them xmen powers, and say they were a son of a god. This is why the story of Jesus is very similar to other stories of other people. We are assuming that we're supposed to take it literally even though the intention or idea is to gain a spiritual product. And this is where I absolutely agree with Loudzoo, does it matter if the story is real or not? No. Most of the shows we actually watch on TV are dramatizations of fictional stories based in real world situations. Why are we allowed to do this and not the writers of the ancient world?

And if it’s nothing more than folklore, then I have to say, you’re coloring Moses too much by your modern interpretation of progressive society.

You're right. The question is why? The answer is that I say this man in a completely different light when I was part of his religion. He was a hero. It's hard to imagine why Adolf Hitler was so popular... and still is so popular to so many people... What I see is not just Moses but the ability of humanity to perceive a different Moses based on our situation. But were there two Moseses? Or was there one? Did his actions change? Or did my perception of his actions change? You could say Moses wasn't MLK and I can accept that. I'm African American so a large number of us understand both the MLK and Malcom X perspective. Our optimism loves MLK but our pessimism loves Malcom X. X thought violence was necessary for our protection and did not soften until he experienced people from every race taking part in his religion. But there's a big big difference between X and Moses. X never advocated genocide against his own people. When we say Moses how many think of the word genocide? Genocide is something tyrants do, is it not? And yet, did he not preside over that very thing? It is only because the reader attributes the genocide to God that it is "whitewashed".

Palpatine started as a senator fighting for the protection of Naboo. If you eject the DVD at that point and toss it in the garbage Palpatine is a champion for Justice. And those around him helped him to higher position because they only saw him in that positive light. He operated under the very noses of the Jedi who could only see the good in his actions and did not question his motives. We all know what happened as a result. Now if you knew that Palpatine was going to become the Emperor... if you knew that he was a Sith and that he manipulated people to get into that position... then you can look back in hindsight and say wow... he really manipulated and deceived everyone and he was (the whole time) the "bad guy".

If you see Moses as fighting against slavery I feel you. My people were enslaved for nearly 400 years and still (to lesser degrees) suffer under white supremacy. So it's not that I don't see that. I'm now choosing to see Moses in the greater context of his life, his rule, his laws, the totality of his actions. Israel had laws establishing slavery. Israel's slaves were treated as property. Literally, the bible says the slave is his master's money. The mosaic law talks about how to treat one's slaves and perhaps this was an upgrade over Egypt but perhaps it wasn't. Men could have multiple wives because women were also treated as property. I don't need to make excuses for them because of the time. Why? Because they claimed that their God was real. So I judge their version and representation of God. Was their God evolving along with them? Were the morals of God developing along with his creations? Because if God was morally on the same level as they were then why did they need him? What difference did it make? They still conquered and enslaved and demanded tribute. They still counted women taken in battle as spoils of war. They still took land that belonged to others and prioritized their own survival above other people. Do I blame God for this? Or do I blame the people who claimed they were speaking for God as Moses did? So no... I do not give Moses a pass. I think he was extremely dishonest and deceptive and he wanted power even at the cost of human life; even at the cost of the lives of his own people who had no choice but to believe (or at least say so publicly) in Moses's God. They had no choice. If they rejected God the verdict was death. The purpose was to make them live in fear of God via Moses. They were freed from Egypt only to be enslaved to Moses and forced to fight other nations for their land. So long story short, Moses was a Sith and Israel was his Galactic Empire. They lived by the sword and were eventually conquered by a better sword.

The story though... is so powerful that it makes them look like Jedi serving the Force. The truth is, my mother is a devout Christian and if I listed the actions of Moses and gave him a different name should would say the man was evil. But as a central bible character... well, you know.

In my own opinion, if we were to reduce this to a story about a man vs. another man, no gods at all, then I believe Moses was right to fight for his people. But I don’t believe he went about it the right way. He could have changed it from the inside, if he had not killed the taskmaster.

One of the most fundamental human temptations (maybe the only one) is power. Perhaps he started with good intentions and was twisted over time into a religious dictator but he seemed arrogant enough to speak for God from the very beginning. And in that case it was a strategic battle for control of an uneducated population (who must have stolen weapons from the Egyptians?? How did they get enough weapons to fight the people they were just slaves to?) where everyone fighting knew the "state secrets". I believe Moses was smart enough to understand that the Golden calf was a challenge to his authority. If the people gave credit to that god instead of Moses's invisible God Moses would lose all of his power. But hold on. At this point the people were already free. Mission accomplished! So why did he still need to control them and force them to accept his God which he spoke for? Why not just let them go and do whatever their hearts desired? He had an opportunity to avoid genocide but he couldn't take it. It was his own brother that fashioned the idol so his own brother was willing to give them what they wanted. Why not Moses?

But if it’s the story of gods going at each other, then I cannot daily either party for their actions. Moses, despite having committed a sin (murder) was still the only person who could carry out the mission because of who he was to Pharaoh. It’s rather reminiscent of “Arjuna’s Dilemma” from the Bhagavad Gita.

Hmmm... sounds like you are limiting the power of God to require that a man had to be born and educated in Pharaoh's house, so that he was basically an Egyptian, had to be the savior. Why not have Jesus born to Mary and a Roman centurion rapist, not being funny, raised in a roman house, educated in roman state affairs, and do miracles in Rome to show that his God was the true God and that the Israelites should be released from Roman occupation? I mean, God hardened pharaoh's heart which means that none of the conflict was at all necessary. He could have just did a ventriloquist act on the king and ordered that the Israelites go free. But instead he used Egypt as a pawn to turn the Israelites into believers. And then threatened them with death (which is arguably much worse than slavery) if they legitimately didn't believe he existed or wanted to serve a different god. This is like 2019 Zealot X going to the indigenous people of some previously undiscovered part of the world with my laptop and a solar panel all to get them to believe that my way was better for them because I am righteous. And then I threaten them to give me 10% of everything they have, build me a city to live in, kill other tribes, and worship me, or else I will instruct their fellow natives to kill them. I'd rather think that Moses was a power hungry dictator than to think that a divine being far more mature, would do such a thing or even pick such a person. And at the end of the day that God was willing to kill every last one of those people he was supposed to save except for Moses and Joshua. That says a lot. The story is too human for me to believe that gods were involved.

I think we can and absolutely should apply 21st century critical analysis to these ancient stories so that we don't end up accidentally reinforcing immorality on others based on the idea that God said it was okay. Slavery was never okay. Treating women as property (slaves of a different kind) was never okay. Stealing lots of land from lots of people at once was never okay. In order for these things to change our perception must change.

Thank you for clarifying your points. It seems I misunderstood a few things you were attempting to say.

Alethea Thompson wrote: Thank you for clarifying your points. It seems I misunderstood a few things you were attempting to say.

Thank you for being fair and considerate.

I just want consistency. In one view he had it that it was terrorists cells doing all this stuff, then when challenged he switched gears to the scientific phenomena.

This point is more than fair.

The story of Noah's ark is written from a 3rd person omniscient viewpoint. How does the writer know the extent of the flood? The writer isn't even one of the people in the story. And what do we know about these people in general? We know that they weren't always monotheistic. We know, even from the text, that they were often seduced by other cultures. So we can surmise that as cultures collided the stories mixed together. We don't live in Mexico but we can get Mexican food from businesses that aren't owned by Mexicans. All it takes is for someone to like something that came from somewhere else. Add to this the fact that if I believe in my gods and not yours then I must explain every natural event based on my own theology, not your local theology because in my theology your gods aren't real. So if something happens in your city then it must be the judgment of my God and you must have been sinful because those are the rules. If something supernatural happened in Sodom and Gomorrah we don't need to play Clue to know that it was my God who did it. Could it have been an asteroid or comet? Nope! I deny all scientific explanations because in my theology (putting myself in ancient sandals) all the things that are strange and out of the ordinary are the work of God. Again... Jonah... storm on the water = divine intervention. Even in America a lot of religious people were saying that major flooding was God judging those places. If that's how humans think today with science at the level that it is... can you imagine the amount of superstition used to explain things that their priests and philosophers hadn't seen yet.

Considering how everything in (my) theology must be the work of my God(s)... Is it impossible that this story was combined with other stories? In other words... the same way that I might adopt, adapt, appropriate my own creation story that features my God (not yours) as the Creator... the same way I might appropriate a flood story and other stories to provide continuity for the idea that my God is choosing to intervene in human affairs. It is absolutely necessary that my God gets credit for events that seem supernatural if for no other reason than to say it wasn't your gods, their gods, any other gods. In order to convince a population that their god is THE GOD... you have to establish your story as THE STORY.

So, is it impossible that this story, written after the fact, could have included elements of real events that happened and gave credit for those events posthumously to Moshe? You certainly wont find an Egyptian version of this story that matches the Hebrew version. Of course, would they have reason to cover it up? "State secrets"? Sure. Absolutely. But if there was a massive volcano they would have to say something about that.

It is only when the Israelites leave Egypt.... that these natural miracles jump in orders of magnitude to things that simply cannot happen in science. The parting of the red( or reed) sea for example. How do we explain that? We can't. So what I propose is that artistic license was used to achieve the purpose of the whole story.

Ex 13
21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Ex 14
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 24 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, 25 clogging[c] their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”

what is the purpose of the whole story?

4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”

at this point fact-checking is out the window. They're in the middle of the desert so there isn't a whole population to testify against whatever the writer creates in this space. And now God does miracles that Israel will never again witness throughout its entire history.

But Zealot X... that's not fair. The Israelites were also witnesses to these events.

Were they? After wandering in the desert for 40 years to purposefully kill off a generation (or 2 depending of lifespan and disease) who could really claim these things never happened if they never saw what happened and never read the story of what happened? I'm just saying... Israel had "state secrets" too. And we are under no pain or law that says we must not question the writer of the story.

Before I close this segment (I'll start the next segment next week):

That word "kabad" in the Hebrew is interesting- because "glory" and "honor" are certainly associated with it- but so is the word "Heavy". It's in the Niphal Imperfect.

Actually the whole "upon" thing throws it off. I will be "heavy" upon Pharaoh makes a great deal more sense in the whole verse. It's basically God saying that he's going to prove himself to Pharaoh just before his downfall that Pharaoh indeed was dealing with God himself, and that his fate was written before time.

But here's the thing, something most people won't even consider- the Egyptians had every shred of evidence then that YHWH was powerful....and yet further down the line of their story in the Bible...they didn't turn to God. So it seems to me, that God failed in bringing honor to himself in this instance. But being heavy upon them certainly did happen in the context of the story.

We all know the last plague. The death of the firstborn happens. Now, up to this point God has demonstrated that He can protect Israel. Nothing is required of them for this to be the case….So why was it important that the Israelites use the blood of a blemish-less lamb or goat to mark their homes?

Closing Statement


We rushed through the Plagues, but I encourage each of you to go back and read the whole of the story- because there is at least one more interesting point of reference in all of this I hope you will find.

But for now, as we are closing out, let me leave you with this: The theological significance of the 10 Plagues has been linked to an epic supernatural battle to establish the difference not only between God’s People and the Egyptians, but also between God’s Force and his opposition which the Egyptians worshipped. In the beginning we see that the Pharoah’s magicians have the initial ability to perform the same miracles as Aaron. Though, if the first miracle- a staff into a snake- is any indication, the other miracles performed by Aaron are much greater in scale than that of the magicians. Then we see that the magicians are stripped of all ability, as though their gods have abandoned them, or someone- god or magician- has been completely cut off from their power source, yet the source has not been withheld from Aaron or Moses.

Thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again next week.

Welcome back! We are in the next segment of “Finding the Force in the Bible”. Today’s study will carry us into the desert following the 10 Plagues. I wanted to start this study off with an observation from the last study. Last week I asked you to go back over the 10 Plagues and see if there was anything else to be observed from the text. This week, I want to share with you what I noticed- at least in the context of this study.

If you look at the miracles, you’ll see that Aaron is responsible for the rod to a snake, waters to blood, the frogs and the lice. If you recall, the lice was set off in a less than public display as well. From what we can glean from the text, this is only one of the instances when God does not have Moses go before Pharaoh to make a grandstanding entrance of the plague.

Then we look at the flies and diseased livestock. In these two plagues, we do not see God tell anyone to stretch out their hand and cause something to come about. Moses is just told to deliver a message that it will happen. We know for a fact that these two plagues did not reach Goshen. 

In the next set, God switches from Aaron doing this stuff, to Moses being responsible for the ritual. We are not explicitly told that the Boils did not reach Goshen, but it seems implied by the fact that the Hail did not reach Goshen. Though, again, with the Locusts, it is not explicitly stated that Goshen was protected. And finally there was the Darkness, which we do know invaded Goshen, as they specifically had light within their dwellings to combat the darkness.

The final plague is one we can be led to believe was solely executed by God, as He again, does not ask for anyone to stretch out their hand, though He did instruct Moses on what to tell the Israelites to do so they could be saved from the plague.

Although the evidence to suggest a transition between three players may be a mere neglect of the author, there is certainly something to be said of the transition from Aaron to Moses as ritual bearer. As Moses grew in his own faith towards God, he was given more responsibility to enact God’s Will. And this is where we pick up our study today, please turn with me to Exodus 14 verse 10.

Exodus 14:10-14
And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”
And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

Before I hit the next two verses, let’s just take note of the amount of faith Moses demonstrates before the congregation.

Exodus 14:15-16
'And the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. ‘

Now look at this whole passage. In your opinion, what just happened?

NOTE: Scholars agree that verse 15 denotes that Moses, having been told earlier in the chapter that this whole thing was going according to plan, offered up a prayer to God. Some believe that the prayer may have been to ask God to forgive Israel for their disbelief, to prove to them that God was worthy. This theory is based on the word “cry” in the verse.

Exodus 14:19-22
'And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. ‘

Picture this scene in your head. What do you see as going on here? And why do you think each of these pieces are important?

Before I move on, I wanted to add my personal comment to the segment just above:

The first thing is what leads me to believe that the ninth plague was definitely executed solely by God. The angels will only obey God. No man can ask for them to do anything- they simply will not respond. Christ mentions something very similar to this in

Matthew 26:52-54
'But Jesus said to him, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?”'

Christ states in this passage that he will need to ask God to dispatch the Angels on his behalf, he does not say he can dispatch them himself.

So, it seems to me, God commands the Angels, and by parallel, God uses Moses ritual over the Red Sea to demonstrate Moses is meant to command Israel. By delegating authority, and even power, to a trusted prophet, God can be assured that He has secured His ability to rule as He sees fit.

Moving on-

Exodus 15:23-25.5
'Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” So he cried out to the Lord , and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.

We know that we can change the properties of water by adding something to it. The taste can change when you put in tea, or honey or lemon or sugar, whatever has some flavor to it. So the question I pose to you now: Do you think this was a geniune miracle? Or do you feel like maybe the tree was full of Maple syrup which could swiftly change the taste of the water?

I wanted to give other people time to respond and share their interpretations before come with any suspicions, assumptions, etc. based on the fact that I really see Moses and Aaron as liars and corrupt leaders willing to kill their own people in order to control them. Since it's been about a month though... I'd like to respond as I do find this whole story incredibly interesting and probably the most important story in the bible. If we don't see eye to eye I apologize.

First, you noticed some switching between Moses and Aaron. Let's recall back to before this "rescue operation" even started. Moses complained that he wasn't a good speaker. What does that mean, exactly? Was Aaron more like a politician? Were they going there to play politics? Were they trying to convince Pharaoh to do something? This is important imho for the same reason that pastors to this day feel the need to be articulate and many of the same cadence and mannerisms just coincidentally form around these people. But why? Isn't the persuasion supposed to be the work of the holy spirit?

God didn't correct Moses and say "You really don't need Aaron. I got this." And this isn't something the reader readily thinks about. We don't necessarily think "well why didn't God do A, B, or C". It's given to us as a complete story and we justify it as we read through it instead of critically analyzing what's going on as we read through it. That's because we're trained not to question God. And by the time we read this we're usually already believers. The Egyptians weren't and that's why all this is relevant to the story.

How does a NON believer react to a someone else's god taking a hostile position against them? That's the key question. Pharaoh didn't see a burning bush. No one (else) did. If we believe everything Moses says then sure... there was a burning bush. But at this point we really have no reason to believe Moses and believing Moses is NOT THE SAME as believing God or believing IN God. This distinction is very important to this story. Pharaoh knew Moses better than we know Moses and better than Moses knew YHWH. If Pharaoh didn't trust or believe MOSES then he had reason not to. We shouldn't throw that out. We should instead look for the scam (even if we don't find it) because Pharaoh was looking for the scam. And regardless of what's written in his one version of history what we know is that Pharaoh had "some" reason not only to doubt Moses and these "miracles" but he had enough doubt to persue them with his military. At the same time, at what point in the story did the Israeles obtain weapons and/or armor? How much freedom did they have in Goshen? I am a descendant of slaves and at no time were they ever allowed to own weapons that could kill their masters.

So this "heaviness" that was upon Pharaoh. How temporary was it supposed to be? What was the point? It's not like Pharaoh was convinced. He came after them. And as a matter of fact didn't they leave on a lie? They were supposed to be gone for 3 days in order to sacrifice. Pharaoh didn't let them go because he had no reason to believe this was an honest request. This would be like a slave on a southern plantation asking the master to let him go 3 days north so he could pray. How far could you get in 3 days? Not only is Moses told by YHWH to ask for this 3 days but YHWH tells Moses to loot/spoil the Egyptians on the way out. So in the same breath he's told to lie to Pharaoh, and it is a lie because they were not coming back, he also says rob them. In fact the word translated into borrow in verse 22 is sha'al or sha'el which was translated 4 times in the KJV as "demand". To say "borrow" is even worse imo because they had no intention of giving it back. You may ask your friend to borrow $5 but you would never ask to borrow his wife or all his gold and jewelry. Were they owed the money? Sure. But this assumes they weren't being paid to work and it assumes that somehow the people were responsible and not just the government. This wasn't a democracy. If a Native American (not that they ever would) robbed me for "reparations" I'd be like... "woah I had nothing to do with that! Somebody owes ME reparations!" And even though that's true you can't TAKE reparations. It has to be given. Taking it is just stealing.

Now Pharaoh doesn't know what Moses is thinking. He's not aware of Exodus chapter 3.

First verse of Chapter 4 Moses is stating the obvious in response to lie to Pharaoh and rob the Egyptians on the way out on a "3 Day" journey:
4 And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.

Why would Pharaoh assume that Moses hadn't seen what he said? For one thing YHWH didn't appear to him. The bible says no man has seen YHWH at any time. And it wasn't until later that Moses claimed to see his "hind parts" which... also makes no sense. How do you know which way God is even facing? And if he changed forms so hat Moses could "see" something then there was no need to turn around. Even Moses is telling us here that he has no credibility on this issue.

So that's why YHWH tells him to do magic tricks in the first place. But why then are these same tricks things that Pharaoh's guys can duplicate? Did Moses find and read some scrolls he thought they had long forgotten? Was Moses a scientist, doing science that he learned from Egypt, masquerading as religion?

Now this is interesting...

8 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

This makes NO SENSE. Why? Because why would God know that the second sign would definitely work and not know whether or not the first sign would work? Why would he be sure that he would have to harden Pharaoh's heart when he wasn't sure about what it would take to convince him? And if you weren't sure about thing 1 then what's the point of doing it? Skip to thing 2! Obviously thing 1 would simply be hurting your argument. But he didn't want to start with 2 and go to 1 because he thought 2 was more impressive. But why? Is it not because of the "degree of difficulty"? I would think on a scale of 1 to impossible turning an inanimate object into any kind of animal would be more more impressive than "oh you see my hand? No I'm going to take it out of sight and when I show you again.... viola!! its a different color now!".

But wait...

After saying "they will believe the voice of the latter sign" YHWH throws in yet another "if" like he's really just not confident at all about any of this actually working.

9 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.

hmmmm.... but if you pour clear water on reddish soil what color is it going to appear to be? Look I'm not even suggesting that this miracle was that amateurish that Pharaoh would have to have been mentally challenged not to see through it; but rather that the 3rd sign, which is supposed to be more impressive than the first 2, isn't like this big leap of like "wow! that looks like blood and not just red muddy water!". I mean this is supposed to be the Creator. Why not push a seed into the desert sand, raise your staff, and BOOM! Tree. Why is it a contest at all? I'll give you another one. Have Moses walk on water and make it rain on a perfectly sunny day. Have Moses ride down on a flying chariot and destroy one of the pyramids. There are so many grandiose things that I can think of and instead we seem to be about parlor tricks to soften Pharaoh up for perhaps what we knew was coming because we were coming from out of the country.