Women of the Word

Exodus 4:27 – 6:30

            While Moses and his family traveled, at the Lord’s command, back to Egypt, they met with his older brother Aaron.  Together they assembled the elders of Israel, and Aaron told them what the Lord had said, after which Moses performed the signs God had given him (Ex. 4:2-9).  The elders were convinced and agreed to leave with the two men after they had spoken with Pharaoh. 

            Well, no one said this was going to be easy, and at this point the brothers ran into their first snag.  Moses and Aaron’s request that the king let the Hebrews go on a three-day “pilgrim-feast in the wilderness . . . to offer sacrifice to the Lord our God” was met with scorn and outrage.  In fact, said Pharaoh (who, since he was considered to be a god by the Egyptians, was not impressed at this juncture with the Hebrews’ God), since you are getting way too uppity for slaves, it’s obvious that you are all too lazy and have too much time on your hands.  Therefore, he ordered his overseers to stop supplying the Hebrews with the straw needed to make bricks but to require them to collect the straw themselves, to chop it, but to still produce the same number of bricks per day that they had made previously.  When this task became, obviously, impossible, the Israelite foremen were flogged.  Their complaints to Pharaoh fell on deaf ears.  In their anger, they found Moses and Aaron and cursed them, saying that the two brothers had “put a sword in [the Egyptians’] hands to kill us.” 

            This story of the mistreatment of the Hebrew slaves (Ex. 5:6-18) in Egypt is an explicit description of what it means to be a slave.  It also underscores, once again, that Israel’s freedom will come at God’s hands, not Moses and Aaron’s.

            Chapter 5 gave us the J (Yahweh) writer’s version of Moses’ first meeting with Pharaoh.  In Chapter 6, we return to the Priestly writer, with his version of Moses’ call by God to lead Israel out of Egypt.  In this story, there is no burning bush and no series of signs but a direct statement, “I am the Lord. . . . I will adopt you as my people, and I will become your God” (Ex.6:7).  The use of the term “adopt” is significant; in ancient law, a biological child could be disinherited but an adopted one could not.   Also, here, God reiterates his covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17).

            (Chapter 6 in Exodus also signals a change in the Priestly writer’s use of God’s name.  Up to now, the J writer has been referred as the Yahwehist, because this is how he refers to the Lord’s name, whereas the Priestly writer has used the descriptor El Shaddai.  At this point, however, both the J and P writers begin to use the term Yahweh or Jehovah.) 

            This time when Moses repeats God’s words to the Israelites (ver. 9), they refuse to listen because they had become “impatient” over their slavery.  Some translations use the term “broken in spirit” instead of “impatient,” which may better describe the Hebrews’ plight.

            Verses 14-25 are an interjection with a partial genealogy, a favorite task of the Priestly writer.  He lists the heads of the families descended from Jacob, starting with Reuben and Simeon; however, once he gets to the third son, Levi, all the rest of the brothers are abandoned.  The Levites are the priests, and the writer takes pains to show that Aaron and Moses are descended from Levi.  Once this has been established, the others, including such luminaries as Joseph and Benjamin, are ignored.

            At the end of this chapter, the writer gives a second, truncated, version of God’s call to Moses, although in this scenario, Moses is already in Egypt.  However, he’s still complaining about being a “halting speaker,” and trying to get God to send somebody else.

Submitted by Karilyn Jaap