Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Women of the Word, May 12


Today, with Rev.Lisa Hamilton leading us, we explore the first chapter of Exodus which we are encouraged to look at as a "memory book," and in so doing to give it some "redactive" thinking. (I didn't know either. Webster: "Redact: 1. To write out or draw up; frame. 2. To arrange in proper form for publication.") Consider what the editors were thinking. Why did they include this or that," thoughts this writer has often had.

Some people think of Moses as an analogy to Israel and its struggles and trials for birth and existence. This is just one of many such symbols in the book of Exodus.

We are urged to notice the importance of women's activities in the coming chapters.

Joseph and his generation have long since died and the Israelites, still in Egypt, have been fruitful and industrious, even though they are treated miserably, given the hardest work to do and repressed by the Egyptians. The Egyptians began to hate them, for they just couldn't keep them down. Pharoah got nervous. What could he do? Aha! He could kill off the baby boys! He urges the midwives to kill the boy babies of the Hebrew women as soon as they see them on the birthstool. (There ensued a long discussion on birthstools.)

But the midwives were God-fearing women and did not obey Pharoah. Observant fellow that he was, he could not help but notice that baby boys continued to survive. He quizzed the midwives, who lied and told him that Hebrew women were stronger that Egyptian women due to all their hard work, that they had their babies fast before the midwives could get there.

Pharoah's Plan B: "Throw all the boy babies into the Nile."

So let's see how that works out.

Moving into Chapter 2, we learn that a Levite man married a Levite woman who born a fine son and she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she put him into a papyrus basket plastered with bitumen and pitch and tucked it into the reeds along the river.

An aside here: pitch and bitumen are mentioned only one other time in the Bible, and that is in the building of Noah's ark, so there is another analogy here. "Ark " and "basket" and the same word in Hebrew.

It so happened that Pharoah's daughter was bathing in the river and saw the basket. She sent one of her handmaidens to get it, and took pity on the crying baby in it. She realized it must be one of the Hebrew's babies. The baby's sister, who had been standing by watching the whole procedure, asked the Pharoah's daughter if she should get somene to nurse the baby, and whom did she get but the baby's own mother, who then was paid by Pharoah's daughter for nursing her own child. Such a deal.

The boy grew and Pharoah's daughter, forever nameless herself, named him Moses, meaning "He who draws out," because she drew him out of the water. Another symbol here: Moses drew the Israelites out of Egypt."

Submitted by Betty Jean Miller

1 comment:

  1. Preparing today for tomorrow's Women of the Word--your feedback on last week's session or ideas for tomorrow's session very much appreciated. What would you like more of? Less of? Thanks--and Blessings!

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