Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
4:1 VA YA'AN MOSHEH LEMOR VE HEN LO YA'AMINU LI VE LO YISHME'U BE
KOLI KI YOMRU LO NIRA ELEYCHA YHVH
וַיַּעַן
מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר וְהֵן לֹא יַאֲמִינוּ לִי וְלֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ בְּקֹלִי כִּי
יֹאמְרוּ לֹא נִרְאָה אֵלֶיךָ יְהוָה
KJ: 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.
BN: And Mosheh answered and said: "They are not going to not
believe me, and they are not going to do what I tell them. What they are going
to say is: 'YHVH has not appeared to you.'"
Implying that they know perfectly well who YHVH is; which makes a nonsense of the entire previous section, at least from the point of view of narrative - no need to introduce the god that everyone already worships. But from the Redactor's point of view absolutely essential, as per Exodus 6:3, which insists that they did not know who YHVH was until Mosheh introduced him.
Sadly the English translations fail to capture the tone of Mosheh's response in this first encounter. In the previous chapter we heard him almost sarcastic: "and when they think I'm completely nuts, and mock me by asking, and which god is this, by the way, who has sent you...?"; these are not the words, but they reflect the tone of the words, when translated literally, rather than "into literature". Here, the same: "And Mosheh answered and said, 'And when they don't believe me, when they refuse even to listen to me any more, and when they say, sorry Mo, you haven't seen any gods..."; this is actually much closer to a literal translation than you might imagine (though perhaps not the sort of tone we might expect a man to use in conversation with the supreme deity; unless "supreme deity" is simply a metaphor, and this is really Mosheh talking to himself, inside his head).
HEN: is not an abbreviated form of HINEH = "behold", as most translators assume, but the 3rd person plural "they"; it is unusual for Yehudit to include the pronoun, and here it is even more confusing, because it is the feminine rather than the masculine (HEM).
4:2 VA YOMER ELAV YHVH MA ZEH VE YADCHA VA
YOMER MATEH
וַיֹּאמֶר
אֵלָיו יְהוָה מַה זֶּה בְיָדֶךָ וַיֹּאמֶר מַטֶּה
KJ: And the LORD
said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.
BN: And YHVH said to him: "What is that in your hand?"
And he said: "A sceptre."
MATEH: Crucial word this, and it tells us for absolutely certain that this ceremony at Chorev is Mosheh's anointment as the tribal sacred-king, just like Ya'akov's "wrestling-match" at Penu-El in Genesis 32 - and both of them linked to the Pesach, the rebirth of the year in the spring. What exactly is a "rod", if that is what Mosheh is
carrying? A shepherd's crook presumably, some kind of staff or walking stick -
except that Mosheh is a healthy young man, so the former is a possibility but
the latter less likely. But Mosheh is here as an ordained priest, in process of
being anointed as the sacred-king, or in some form anyway the leader, of his
people, and what leaders of their people carry in their hands is usually
a sceptre.
In these rather more primitive times it had not yet become the silver rod of
the monarch, and was likely the still more primitive wicker-branch of the shaman;
as we will see in the next verse, and again when his brother Aharon arrives,
with all the shamanistic powers of what started as the shaman's "magic
wand".
In the long version of the Egyptian Am-Tuat, "The Book of Gates", "Maten Osher" is the term used for "the staff of Osher"; so it is possible that MATEH was the Egyptian and SHEVET the Yehudit word.
But, and this is why the word is so crucial, a MATEH is also a tribe (cf Numbers 1:49, 1 Kings 8:1), though the preferred word is SHEVET, which also means a "rod" or "sceptre" (cf Isaiah 10:15, Job 9:34 et al). Presumably the tribal connection is because, when the tribal chieftains met in conference, each carried his personal sceptre as a symbol of his office. Joshua 13:29 uses both MATEH and SHEVET for tribes.
In mediaeval mythology, and sometimes in earlier tales, the
sceptre is transformed into the wielded sword, as with Arthur's magic sword Excalibur, or that of Gradlon, in the Celtic lore.
4:3 VA YOMER HASHLIYCHE'HU ARTSAH VA YASHLICHE'HU ARTSAH VE YEHI LE NACHASH VA
YANAS MOSHEH MI PANAV
וַיֹּאמֶר
הַשְׁלִיכֵהוּ אַרְצָה וַיַּשְׁלִכֵהוּ אַרְצָה וַיְהִי לְנָחָשׁ וַיָּנָס מֹשֶׁה
מִפָּנָיו
KJ: And he said, Cast
it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and
Moses fled from before it.
BN: And he said: "Throw it on the ground." And he threw
it on the ground, and it turned into a serpent; and Mosheh ran away from it.
Mosheh asked for a sign, and was given one in Exodus 3:12,
but what was given (see the note there) was not really a sign; this now is, and
it is the first appearance of Mosheh's sacred symbol, which will
re-appear as "fiery serpents" in Numbers 21:4-5,
become the banner that he will carry into battle (Numbers 21:4-9),
and which, reduced by then to mere idolatry, will be destroyed by King
Chizki-Yah (Hezekiah) in 2 Kings 18:4.
Now a mere serpent - given the Eden tale
in Genesis, can we really say "mere serpent"? - by then
the full NECHUSHTAN.
For more detail on the significance of the serpent, and through it a better
understanding of the deity in this tale, see the Dictionary of Names page
for TEHOM as
well. But in the meanwhile note, likewise from the Eden tale, that the serpent is the oracular ikon of the mother-goddess, not the male god, and confirms, with the CHEREV guarding her gate (see my notes to Exodus 3:1), that Mosheh has not simply noticed a bush burning by spontaneous combustion on a hillside, but has entered the precincts of a sacred shrine.
4:4 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH SHELACH YADCHA VE ECHOZ BI ZENAVO VA
YISHLACH YADO VA YACHAZEK BO VA YEHI LE MATEH BE CHAPHO
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה שְׁלַח יָדְךָ וֶאֱחֹז בִּזְנָבוֹ וַיִּשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וַיַּחֲזֶק
בּוֹ וַיְהִי לְמַטֶּה בְּכַפּוֹ
KJ: And the LORD
said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put
forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand:
BN: Then YHVH said to Mosheh: "Put out your hand, and take it
by the tail..." - and he put out his hand, and took hold of it, and it was
transformed back into a sceptre in his hand -
BI ZENAVO: Or BIZNAVO?
It is not obvious why Mosheh was surprised by this (though his fear of touching a snake is entirely empathisable). Divination by serpents was the norm in those days, the Python of Delphi for example, but especially in Mitsrayim where the cobra was used, and still is - indeed, when Aharon performs the serpent-trick in front of Pharaoh, Pharaoh will simply summon his own shamen to do the same (Exodus 7:10 ff). The indication is that Chorev was itself a serpent shrine -but given what we know of the ancient world, every shrine with a moon connection was in some degree a serpent-shrine, the priestess or oracle or soothsayer enmasked as a serpent.
It is also not obvious why a god who can perform miracles, who can send plagues, who is worshipped as the source of the Creation of the universe and the secretary of the Book of Life, why such an awesome and almighty divinity needs to use music hall tricks to convince a slave-people that they should follow Mosheh to freedom? Would the staff turning into a sword not be rather more convincing - as in the mediaeval versions? So again, behind my facetiousness, we can see how powerful was the serpent image, and so we need to go back again to the Eden tale and re-examine it. As with that "snake" Judas in the Jesus myth, the serpent is never the bad guy, but a necessity of the divine intention to achieve the divine outcome.
4:5 LEMA'AN YA'AMINU KI NIR'A ELEYCHA YHVH ELOHEY AVOTAM ELOHEY
AV-RAHAM ELOHEY YITSCHAK VE ELOHEY YA'AKOV
לְמַעַן
יַאֲמִינוּ כִּי נִרְאָה אֵלֶיךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתָם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם
אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב
KJ: That they may
believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.
BN: - "...and with this they will believe that YHVH, the god of their
ancestors, the god of Av-Raham, the god of Yitschak, and the god of Ya'akov has
appeared to you."
LEMA'AN: Splitting this into verses, as the Christian version has done, sometimes impacts negatively on the syntax. I have placed three dots and a hyphen after "tail" in the last verse, to indicate an authorial interjection in the divine sentence, which now resumes at LEMA'AN.
As noted now several times, this statement (and the very fact
that the statement gets repeated so often seems to endorse it) is in
contradiction of Exodus 6:3.
4:6 VA YOMER YHVH LO OD HAV'E NA YADCHA BE CHEYKECHA VA YAV'E YADO
BE CHEYKO VA YOTSI'AH VE HINEH YADO METSORA'AT KA SHELEG
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהוָה לוֹ עוֹד הָבֵא נָא יָדְךָ בְּחֵיקֶךָ וַיָּבֵא יָדוֹ בְּחֵיקוֹ
וַיּוֹצִאָהּ וְהִנֵּה יָדוֹ מְצֹרַעַת כַּשָּׁלֶג
KJ: And the LORD
said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his
hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous
as snow.
BN: And furthermore YHVH said to him: "Now put your hand into
your bosom." And he put his hand into his bosom. And when he took it out,
behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow.
CHEYKECHA...CHEYKO: Choice of vocabulary, as usual, so precise.
Really the CHEYK is the whole upper torso, including the arms, from the root
that gives the verb "to embrace", in the physical sense. But the
intention here is to touch the area around the heart (cf Psalm 35:13)
and that we would call the bosom or the breast - but the bosom or the breast in
Yehudit is SHAD (שד), and that would be much too close to El Shadai for
this particular passage. At the same time Eshet (Isis) and Mir-Yam,
the key female deities in this tale, are not
fertility goddesses - cf Dinah, Asherah, Ishtar,
who are always depicted as multi-breasted because they are fetility goddesses. So CHEYK is a
necessary substitution.
And speaking of Mir-Yam. Go directly to Numbers 12:10, do not pass the Pharaoh's palace, do not collect 200 dollars worth of jewelery from the Egyptians...
12:10 VE HE ANAN SAR ME AL HA OHEL VE HINEH MIRYAM METSORA'AT KA SHALEG VA YIPHEN AHARON EL MIRYAM VE HINEH METSORA'ATוְהֶעָנָן סָר מֵעַל הָאֹהֶל וְהִנֵּה מִרְיָם מְצֹרַעַת כַּשָּׁלֶג וַיִּפֶן אַהֲרֹן אֶל מִרְיָם וְהִנֵּה מְצֹרָעַתKJ: And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.
BN: And when the cloud had lifted from over the Tent, behold, Miryam was leprous, as white as snow; and Aharon looked at Mir-Yam; and, behold, she was leprous.
[Just as a side-issue, because I know the skeptics among you will question this; most volcanic ash is black, not white. I know. But that is because it depends on the base minerals in the magma of the mountain. Sinai is predominantly calcium in sandstone, where Krakatoa and Vesuvius, for example, are predominantly basalt. Click here for the full science, and note the picture at the top left.]
And then add this thought: if the serpent symbol was insufficient to tell us who the goddess of this shrine really was (the shrine, not the mountain), surely the whiteness that will be Mir-Yam's leprosy later on is already the whiteness that is Eshet (Isis) now, and eternally? She is the white moon, after all, HA LAVANAH, which translates into the Celtic as Guinevere, the White Goddess. See any number of notes and references in Genesis and elsewhere.
And one question, which I do not think the Rabbis have ever
tackled: would Mosheh or the Ivrim of Mediterranean Mitsrayim have had the
faintest notion what snow was? The Beney Yisra-El of Kena'an would
- it regularly snows in Beit Lechem and Yeru-Shala'im,
and every year the Golan is
covered in it, Mount Chermon a
ski resort - but snow in Mitsrayim (Egypt)?
Actually, yes, it does happen - but very rarely - click here.
4:7 VA YOMER HASHEV YADCHA EL CHEYKECHA VA YASHEV YADO EL CHEYKO
VA YOTSI'AH ME CHEYKO VE HINEH SHAVAH KI VESARO
וַיֹּאמֶר
הָשֵׁב יָדְךָ אֶל חֵיקֶךָ וַיָּשֶׁב יָדוֹ אֶל חֵיקוֹ וַיּוֹצִאָהּ מֵחֵיקוֹ
וְהִנֵּה שָׁבָה כִּבְשָׂרוֹ
KJ: And he said,
Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again;
and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh.
BN: And he said: "Put your hand back into your bosom."
And he put his hand back into his bosom, and when he took it out of his bosom,
behold, it was transformed back into his normal flesh.
4:8 VE HAYAH IM LO YA'AMINU LACH VE LO YISHME'U LE KOL HA OT HA
RISHON VE HE'EMINU LE KOL HA OT HA ACHARON
וְהָיָה
אִם לֹא יַאֲמִינוּ לָךְ וְלֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ לְקֹל הָאֹת הָרִאשׁוֹן וְהֶאֱמִינוּ
לְקֹל הָאֹת הָאַחֲרוֹן
KJ: 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.
BN: "So it will be that, if they do not believe you, or heed
the voice of the first sign, then they will believe the voice of the latter
sign...
Unusually a piece of speech is given without an introductory
"and he said".
The notion that "signs" have "voices" can
only be understood as an augury delivered as an oracle; which again confirms
that this is a priestess shrine, because (until the time of the Prophets)
oracles were only delivered by priestesses, usually wearing a serpent mask and
using a serpent as part of the ceremony (cf Shakespeare's account of Macbeth's
visit to the "witches").
ACHARON: Is there a deliberate pun here, hearing AHARON (אהרון) when one hears ACHARON (אַחֲרוֹן)? Aharon is Aaron, Mosheh's brother, and in exactly the same way, when they do not believe Mosheh, or heed the voice of his sign, they will believe the voice of Aharon? This kind of word-game, used as a form of prefiguration, is a standard technique throughout theTanach; we can assume from it that Aharaon is about to be introduced - and lo and behold, the outcome of the very next exchange...see verse 14.
4:9 VE HAYAH IM LO YA'AMIYNU GAM LI'SHNEY HA OTOT VE LO YISHME'U
LE KOLCHA VE LAKACHTA MI MEYMEY HA YE'OR VE SHAPHACTA HA YABASHA VE HAYU HA
MAYIM ASHER TIKACH MIN HA YE'OR VE HAYU LE DAM BA YABESHET
וְהָיָה
אִם לֹא יַאֲמִינוּ גַּם לִשְׁנֵי הָאֹתוֹת הָאֵלֶּה וְלֹא יִשְׁמְעוּן לְקֹלֶךָ
וְלָקַחְתָּ מִמֵּימֵי הַיְאֹר וְשָׁפַכְתָּ הַיַּבָּשָׁה וְהָיוּ הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר
תִּקַּח מִן הַיְאֹר וְהָיוּ לְדָם בַּיַּבָּשֶׁת
KJ: 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.
BN: "And it will be that, if they will not even believe these
two signs, nor heed your voice, that you shall take some water from the river,
and pour it on dry land, and the water which you take out of the river will
turn to blood on the dry land."
Previsaging the plagues, and perhaps modifying our view of the
plagues - are the two tricks, the serpent and the volcanic ash, in fact the first two
"plagues", thereby making twelve in all (twelve, not thirteen, the blood here is repeated in the blood which is the first of the ten; Exodus 7:20) - which, in truth, is what we
would expect there to have been?
More important is that this is now the second
association with water: first his rescue in the bulrushes; now this. And later,
the crossing of the sea, the waters of Merivah, etc etc. Water, which is the
complementary opposite of desert, predominates throughout the Mosheh legend, and
ultimately becomes his nemesis (Numbers 20).
The water is always Mir-Yam's territory.
4:10 VA YOMER MOSHEH EL YHVH BI ADONAI LO ISH DEVARIM ANOCHI GAM
MITMOL GAM MI SHILSHOM GAM ME'AZ DABERCHA EL AVDECHA KI CHEVAD PEH U CHEVAD
LASHON ANOCHI
וַיֹּאמֶר
מֹשֶׁה אֶל יְהוָה בִּי אֲדֹנָי לֹא אִישׁ דְּבָרִים אָנֹכִי גַּם מִתְּמוֹל גַּם
מִשִּׁלְשֹׁם גַּם מֵאָז דַּבֶּרְךָ אֶל עַבְדֶּךָ כִּי כְבַד פֶּה וּכְבַד
לָשׁוֹן אָנֹכִי
KJ: And Moses said
unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast
spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of
speech, and of a slow tongue.
BN: Then Mosheh said to YHVH: "With respect, my Lord, I am not
a man of words. I wasn't yesterday, nor the day before yesterday, and I haven't
suddenly become one since you spoke to your servant. What I am is heavy-lipped
and slow-tongued."
No indication of this in any of the words we have heard him speak
thus far. Nor does the phrasing suggest that he stammers, though this has
become part of Mosaic folk-lore, mostly through the Midrash referred to in my
note to Exodus 2:11 (and see Exodus 6:12).
Compare also Yesha-Yahu's statement at the time of his calling (Isaiah 6:5),
which may in fact be the source of the Mosaic Midrash. Particularly interesting
in this is that Yesha-Yahu describes himself as TEM'E SEPHATAYIM (טְמֵא שְׂפָתַיִם), which is usually mis-translated as "uncircumcised
lips" - interesting because a ceremony of circumcision is about to take
place.
4:11 VA YOMER YHVH ELAV MI SAM PEH LA ADAM O MI YASUM ILEM O
CHERESH O PIKE'ACH O IVER HA LO ANOCHI YHVH
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהוָה אֵלָיו מִי שָׂם פֶּה לָאָדָם אוֹ מִי יָשׂוּם אִלֵּם אוֹ חֵרֵשׁ אוֹ
פִקֵּחַ אוֹ עִוֵּר הֲלֹא אָנֹכִי יְהוָה
KJ: And the LORD
said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or
the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?
BN: And YHVH said to him: "Who gave Man a mouth? And who
makes a man dumb, or deaf, or able to see, or blind? Is it not I, YHVH?...
Strongly reminiscent of
the rebukes in Job 41,
but, interestingly, actually even more reminiscent of the language of Deutero-Isaiah,
where references to YHVH making the dumb speak and the blind see, far too many
to list here, are central to the messianic imagery. Deutero-Isaiah (chapter 40 onwards)
was with the surviving tribes of Yehudah and Bin-Yamin in Babylon during
the exile (586-536 BCE), immediately before the time of Ezra and
the redaction of the Yehudit Bible,
and as such a major influence on the language, and especially the
poetic-symbolic-mythologic language, used in the final text.
4:12 VA ATAH LECH VA ANOCHI EHEYEH IM PIYCHA VE HOREYTIYCHA ASHER
TEDABER
וְעַתָּה
לֵךְ וְאָנֹכִי אֶהְיֶה עִם פִּיךָ וְהוֹרֵיתִיךָ אֲשֶׁר תְּדַבֵּר
KJ: Now therefore
go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.
BN: "So now - go - and I will be with your mouth, and I will
instruct you what to say."
IM PIYCHA: Not that he will "be your mouth", but that he will "be with your mouth", some kind of support mechanism, his prompt perhaps.
4:13 VA YOMER BI ADONAI SHELACH NA BE YAD TISHLACH
וַיֹּאמֶר
בִּי אֲדֹנָי שְׁלַח נָא בְּיַד תִּשְׁלָח
KJ: And he said, O
my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou
wilt send.
BN (provisional translation): And he said: "O Lord, send, I pray you, by the hand of he
who you would send."
The Yehudit is really quite difficult here, and the translations
above (neither of which are mine) do not clarify it. What I hear is that
Yiddish manner that occurs so often in these dialogues, the way that Tevya the Dairyman addresses
the heavens in the Sholem Aleichem tales: a conciliatory wave of the hand,
vertically, and an "Uch" deep in the throat, followed by "With
respect, Lord, you'll send whoever it is you decide to send";
understanding that this means that he, Mosheh, has got the job, even though he
clearly doesn't want it. The hand-gesture, or more likely a huge shrug of the shoulders, is included in the tone of the phrase as well!
4:14 VA YICHAR APH YHVH BE MOSHEH VA YOMER HA LO AHARON ACHIYCHA
HA LEVI YADA'TI KI DABER YEDABER HU VE GAM HINEH HU YOTS'E LIKRA'TECHA VE
RA'ACHA BE LIBO
וַיִּחַר
אַף יְהוָה בְּמֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר הֲלֹא אַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ הַלֵּוִי יָדַעְתִּי כִּי
דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר הוּא וְגַם הִנֵּה הוּא יֹצֵא לִקְרָאתֶךָ וְרָאֲךָ וְשָׂמַח
בְּלִבּוֹ
KJ: And the anger
of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not
Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold,
he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his
heart.
BN: At which YHVH was furious with Mosheh. But he said: "Is
that not Aharon the Levite, your brother?
Now I know that he is a very good public speaker. And also, look, here he is,
coming here to meet you. And when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart...
And if my commentary is correct, then no surprise that the
response of the deity is first of all anger; followed immediately by the
recognition that a reluctant leader is a prediction of a failed leader, so even
deities sometimes have to make compromises. Which leads to: "What about
your brother Aharon? He's a Levite. He's got the gift of the gab. And guess
what (and what an amazing stroke of chance, given that he's a slave in Mitsrayim and
we're several hundred miles away in Midyan!) here he comes now. I bet he'll be pleased
to see you"; which I think, minus the parenthesis, makes for a better translation
than the rather more formally literary one I have given above.
Why is YHVH angry with him anyway? Is there no empathy in Heaven? Is it not obvious that any man, summoned from his shepherding duties to be the general of a slave army that is going to take on the full might of the Egyptian Pharaoh, is likely to have a reservation or two about his ability. Even today's corporate executive, not particularly renowned either for empathy or sympathy, will probably do some buttering-up in preparation, have Human Resources send an expert to sit in on the promotion discussion, and offer the position gently, encouragingly, and not simply announce it and then be furious when the head-hunted "candidate" has questions. But... and this is the point of my analogy... this permanently angry, this angry for no obvious reason but always so, this furious deity who seems to suffer from some divine form of Tourette's Syndrome, this is precisely the deity that we encounter through Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah), and he is always volcanic, always inclined to long periods of sedate tranquility and then, rumble and boom, an eruption of anger that is pure fire and brimstone.
There is also an element of anachronism here, because YHVH uses the term Levite with the full inference of its priestly role, but the priestly role does not yet exist, and won't until after long the giving of the commandments at Mount Sinai. Both Mosheh and Aharaon are indeed Bene Levi, but only in the sense that they are members of the tribe (Mosheh questionably, but leave that debate for now): it is still an ethnic and not yet a religious denotation.
That we have not been told before that he had an elder brother has never been considered an issue; he has an older sister, why not an older brother too? But is it not worth considering that, yet again in the Yisra-Eli legends, the younger brother appears to have supplanted the elder brother, taking the tribal chiefship that ought, surely, to be Aharon's by "birthright"?
And that
he should be named AHARON, which is Haroun in the Arabic, with its etymological
link to Hor (Horus), the god who is ikonised in .... a Golden Calf. Hmmm!
And how utterly bizarre, as per my parenthesis above, that Aharon
should turn up here, in the supposed context of Mosheh stumbling quite by
chance upon a burning bush in the middle of the wilderness, close to Midyan,
when surely Aharon is a slave without an exit visa, far away in the Siberia of Mitsrayim.
Whoops, Mr Redactor! No, what we can now say for certain is that the journey
from Midyan to the shrine at Chorev was a planned visit; and if it was, as we
have suggested, Mosheh's initiation ceremony, then Aharon's arrival, presumably
with familial accompaniments, is entirely logical. And indeed, his
presence is taken as matter-of-fact by both of them, as though Aharon's
presence here is inevitable. "What, my brother Aharon, who I have never
actually seen, because my mother gave me back to Pharaoh's daughter when I was
still an infant and so I do not even know what you look like but recognise you
anyway. What are you doing here? Is it not dangerous for you to have left
Mitsrayim to come here - and who would have thought that leaving Mitsrayim was
that easy?" But we get none of that. Why not? Because Aharon's presence at
Chorev, like Mosheh's, is liturgical, not historical. Aharon is already a
priest of the cult of Mount Chorev, and Mosheh is being initiated or ordained
now. The Ivrim were never slaves in the sense that we think of African negroes
in the colonial New World. We are on the cusp of the revival of pre-Hyksos Egyptian
religion, and at its heart will be the Great Keruv (cherub),
the symbol of Hor himself,
the animal who will appear blood-red as the heifer of purification later
(Numbers 19):
the Golden Calf.
VA YICHAR APH: Once again divine anger is expressed through the bull-like flaring
of the nostrils, appeasable by the incense of sacrifice - the sacrifice of a
red heifer, actually! Two more Golden Calves!
Though the speed at which he calms down again is, on this occasion, most unusual - the next verse is positively compromising.
4:15 VE DIBARTA ELAV VE SAMTA ET HA DEVARIM BE PHIV VE ANOCHI
EHEYEH IM PIYCHA VE IM PIY'HU VE HOREYTI ET'CHEM ET ASHER TA'ASUN
וְדִבַּרְתָּ
אֵלָיו וְשַׂמְתָּ אֶת הַדְּבָרִים בְּפִיו וְאָנֹכִי אֶהְיֶה עִם פִּיךָ וְעִם
פִּיהוּ וְהוֹרֵיתִי אֶתְכֶם אֵת אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשׂוּן
KJ: And thou shalt
speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and
with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.
BN: "And you will speak to him, and tell him what to say; and
I will be the spport for your mouth, and for his mouth, and I will show you
what to do...
Divine ventriloquism, and at one mouth remove! This needs
clarifying though. The intention, as hinted above, is for Mosheh to
function as the Prophet and the Sacred-King, which is both the Merlin and the Arthur role, and will later separate when Shmu-El
(Samuel) has the Merlin relationship to Sha'ul and
David's Arthur; while Aharon plays the role of High Priest, carrying out the
ceremonial and liturgical duties. The difficulty at this stage, as we shall see
throughout the forty years, is that the Merlin and Arthur roles are not combinable,
indeed require to be separate, in the same way that an effective Democracy
requires complete separation of the Legislature (Prophet), the Judiciary
(Priesthood) and the Executive (Sacred King). Mosheh's inability to let his
dual-role go, or even to delegate key parts of it, will lead to the rebellions
and mutinies that lie ahead.
Did the Ezraic scribes know this, when they wrote down the Torah in the mid 5th century BCE, almost exactly the same moment when, just across the Ionian Sea, the great playwrights of classical Greece were composing their mythological dramas, showing through the tales of Orestes and Medea and Electra, as Homer had done previously in his books, how the Greek world evolved from the primitive to the Hellenistic, stage by stage of improvement and progress? If we are able to step back from the pseudo-historical lens and see these tales in their original mythological forms, it seems to me that we can trace a similar development, both in the evolution of the Omnideity from the Polytheon, and of societal organisation from the tribal of Genesis, to the duosplit of the Mosaic, via the period of the Judges to that of the Prophets, and then the complete separation of the priesthood from the secular leadership by the time of Ezra and the later Hasmoneans.
4:16 VE DIBER HU LECHA EL HA-AM VE HAYAH HU YIHEYEH LECHA LE PHEH
VE ATAH TIHEYEH LO LELOHIM
וְדִבֶּר
הוּא לְךָ אֶל הָעָם וְהָיָה הוּא יִהְיֶה לְּךָ לְפֶה וְאַתָּה תִּהְיֶה לּוֹ
לֵאלֹהִים
KJ: And he shall be
thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt
be to him instead of God.
BN: "Thus he shall be your spokesman to the people; and it
shall come to pass that he will be your mouth, and you shall stand in the same
relation to him that I, Elohim...
LELOHIM: In what way will Mosheh be "instead of
Elohim" to him? This sounds like the setting up of a special kind of
priestly relationship, in which one takes on the god-role, and the other is the
voice; this is familiar in the oracular cults, where the sacred-king stands in
place of the god and the shaman delivers the interpretations; we see it for
example with Devorah giving
her serpent-oracles in Judges 5. But
this is not the model that the Beney Yisra-El will use after Sinai, when the
priest will give the oracle through the Urim and Tumim.
It does seem however to be an early model for the division between the Kohen
and the Levi, except that that takes place one level down, so to speak: the
Kohen retaining the oracular-spokesman role and the Levi having the
administrative. Mosheh in place of Elohim is only seen on one occasion after
this, when he comes down from the mountain with the law, and his horns are
visible (Exodus 34:29).
So let me ask the question again: in what way will Mosheh be
"instead of Elohim" to him? Once again we have to assume
that there is another, probably much earlier version of this tale, not
completely expurgated here, in which Mosheh reverts to being fully Osher (Osiris),
and is therefore the god of this tale, and in which the wicked Pharaoh reverts
to being, so to speak, Sha'ul to
his David, Set in
the original, the one who will gore Osher to death in the earliest Pesach
rituals that later become Ya'akov at Penu-El and
Jesus at Calvary. The Michelangelo sculpture of Moses with horns is actually
far more accurate than modern art critics, and Jewish commentators, like to
think: it returns Mosheh to his role as the mature Osher, who is now
called Horus in
Greek, Hor in Egyptian, and whose priest was named Haroun or Aharon-Aaron. Golden Calf horns, obviously!
4:17 VE ET HA MATEH HA ZEH TIKACH BI YADCHA ASHER TA'ASEH BO ET HA
OTOT
וְאֶת
הַמַּטֶּה הַזֶּה תִּקַּח בְּיָדֶךָ אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה בּוֹ אֶת הָאֹתֹת
BN: And thou shalt
take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs.
KJ: "And now take in your hand this sceptre, with which you
shall perform the signs."
Again this needs clarifying, especially as it will be Aharon whose rod bursts into flower etc (Exodus 7:19; 8:5 and 16). What signs are intended? The plagues?
OTOT: "signs" is accurate, but incomplete; OTOT in the Genesis Creation tale are the signifiers of sabbaths and festivals, whereas a sign could be the indication of almost anything mundane, from a roadsign to a shopsign to an advertising hoarding. What Mosheh will perform will be liturgy, ritual, ceremonial - all of a religious nature, all of it established long, long ago. I even find myself wondering if the story of the killing of the overseer was perhaps a late addition, and he was actually sent away to Midyan, to be an apprentice at the religious school of the priest Re'u-El, specifically to be prepared for this role at the heart of the palace rituals.
pey break
4:18 VA YELECH MOSHEH VA YASHAV EL YETER CHOTNO VA YOMER LO ELCHAH
NA VE ASHUVAH EL ACHAI ASHER BE MITSRAYIM VE ER'EH HA ODAM CHAYIM VA YOMER
YITRO LE MOSHEH LECH LE SHALOM
וַיֵּלֶךְ
מֹשֶׁה וַיָּשָׁב אֶל יֶתֶר חֹתְנוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ אֵלְכָה נָּא וְאָשׁוּבָה אֶל
אַחַי אֲשֶׁר בְּמִצְרַיִם וְאֶרְאֶה הַעוֹדָם חַיִּים וַיֹּאמֶר יִתְרוֹ לְמֹשֶׁה
לֵךְ לְשָׁלוֹם
KJ: And Moses went
and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray
thee, and return unto my brethren which are in
Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in
peace.
BN: Then Mosheh left, to return to
Yeter his father-in-law, and said to him: "Let me go please, and return to
my brothers who are in Mitsrayim, and see if they are still alive." And
Yitro said to Mosheh: "Go in peace."
VA YELECH: Does Aharon go straight back to Mitsrayim, or accompany Mosheh to Midyan? Odd to introduce him, state that he is there, but not to require an actor to play the role as he has neither lines nor actions.
YETER: Exodus 3:1 named
him YITRO (יִתְרוֹ), as does the second half of this verse, so we have to assume
that YETER at the start of this verse is a manuscript error. Mosheh's father-in-law
will eventually have seven names (or Mosheh will eventually have seven
fathers-in-law, as he had seven handmaidens at his discovery in the bulrushes
and seven shepherdesses when he first came to the well in Midyan): Re'u-El, Yeter,
Yitro, Keni, Chovav (Hobab - though Numbers 10:29 makes
him Re'u-El's son), Chever, and Puti-El, according to Michilta, Yithro 1:1.)
HA ODAM CHAY: Aharon he already knows is alive. Nothing
later in the text suggests that he had any other brothers. So the only
"brothers" he can mean are the Beney Yisra-El as a tribe; and the
question in their regard is simply absurd, because he was among them not so very
long ago.
Note that he asks his father-in-law's permission, not his wife's. And then, see verse 20, we will be surprised to discover that he takes his wife and children with him - surprised in part because it is such a dangerously unlikely thing to have done, but also because, later on, when Yitro comes to meet him in the desert, he will bring with him the wife and kids that Mosheh hasn't seen since he left Midyan, here, now. Textual error possibly? But it can't be - this was written by the deity himself. See Exodus 18:2, which appears to have recognised the anomaly and tried to correct it: apparently Tsiporah and the boys went with Mosheh, but at some point "he sent them home".
Pey break; end of fifth fragment
4:19 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH BE MIDYAN LECH SHUV MITSRAYIM KI METU
KOL HA ANASHIM HA MEVAKSHIM ET NAPHSHECHA
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה בְּמִדְיָן לֵךְ שֻׁב מִצְרָיִם כִּי מֵתוּ כָּל הָאֲנָשִׁים
הַמְבַקְשִׁים אֶת נַפְשֶׁךָ
KJ: And the LORD
said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead
which sought thy life.
BN: Then YHVH said to Mosheh in Midyan: "Go, return to
Mitsrayim; for all the men are dead who sought your life."
MITSRAYIM: Grammatically this should be MITSRAYIMAH (מצרימה), with the dative ending: "to Mitsrayim". Narratively, this verse should surely have come before he asks Yitro's permission, not after it.
KOL HA ANASHIM: Inferring that it was not just Pharaoh who wanted his life after the incident of the overseer, but others too; sadly we are not told who these were: lower officials at court? his half or step-brothers? jealous rivals? Ivrim connected with those who informed on him? the family of the overseer he murdered? Strangely, Midrash is silent on this too.
4:20 VA YIKACH MOSHEH ET ISHTO VE ET BANAV VA YARKIVEM AL HA
CHAMOR VA YASHAV ARTSAH MITSRAYIM VA YIKACH MOSHE ET MATEH HA ELOHIM BE YADO
וַיִּקַּח
מֹשֶׁה אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֶת בָּנָיו וַיַּרְכִּבֵם עַל הַחֲמֹר וַיָּשָׁב אַרְצָה
מִצְרָיִם וַיִּקַּח מֹשֶׁה אֶת מַטֵּה הָאֱלֹהִים בְּיָדוֹ
KJ: And Moses took
his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of
Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.
BN: So Mosheh took his wife and his sons, and set them upon a
donkey, and he returned to the land of Mitsrayim; and Mosheh took the sceptre
of Ha Elohim in his hand.
VE ET BANAV: The first we have heard that he has sons, plural; until now we only knew of Gershom, his eldest.
AL HA CHAMOR: On innumerable occasions in my commentary on Genesis, I noted that the mentioning of camels was an anachronism; good to see that Exodus still seats its folk on donkeys, mules and asses, which would have been the norm back then.
MATEH HA ELOHIM: We are still in the realm of the pantheon. But what is returning is not an outlaw; it is an initiated sacred-king.
4:21 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH BE LECHTECHA LASHUV MITSRAYIMAH RE'EH
KOL HA MOPHTIM ASHER SAMTI VE YADECHA VA ASIYTAM LIPHNEY PAR'OH VA ANI ACHAZEK
ET LIBO VE LO YESHALACH ET HA AM
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה בְּלֶכְתְּךָ לָשׁוּב מִצְרַיְמָה רְאֵה כָּל הַמֹּפְתִים
אֲשֶׁר שַׂמְתִּי בְיָדֶךָ וַעֲשִׂיתָם לִפְנֵי פַרְעֹה וַאֲנִי אֲחַזֵּק אֶת
לִבּוֹ וְלֹא יְשַׁלַּח אֶת הָעָם
KJ: And the LORD
said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all
those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden
his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
BN: And YHVH said to Mosheh: "When you go back to Mitsrayim,
see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have placed in your
hands; but I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go....
Why? This is actually two very different questions. The first
asks: what is YHVH's purpose in making like so difficult for the Ivrim by
making life so difficult for the Mitsrim? The second asks: what is YHVH's
purpose in making life so difficult for the Mitsrim by making life so difficult
for the Ivrim?
In fact, YHVH's primary purpose in this appears to be the
enforcement of the plagues and the presentation of the miracles, for the simple
purpose (which yet again reflects Yesha-Yahu very closely) of showing the world
how great and wonderful and powerful he is, and not to have Mosheh take the
people out, or only as a secondary consequence.
4:22 VA AMARTA EL PAR'OH KOH AMAR YHVH BENI VECHORI YISRA-EL
וְאָמַרְתָּ
אֶל פַּרְעֹה כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה בְּנִי בְכֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל
KJ: And thou shalt
say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my
son, even my firstborn:
BN: "And you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says YHVH: Yisra-El
is my son, my first-born...
The statement of primogeniture again. We need to go back to Kayin (Cain), Esav (Esau), Yishma-El (Ishmael), Zerach, Re'u-Ven, Er, Menasheh, and remember what happens to the first-born sons - Jesus too, in this regard, and actually Aharon in this tale as well? In one form or another they are all sacrificed; sometimes physically, but most often symbolically. And of course, when the plagues do come, all the first-born of Mitsrayim will be sacrificed. Does this not then make us question whether being YHVH's first-born is not in fact a negative rather than a positive? Or is the "sacrifice" (the "making sacred") the whole point of the Pesach rituals?
VECHORI (בכרי): On the other hand, VECHORI does indeed mean "first-born", but LIVCHOR (לִבחוֹר with a CHET - ח - rather than a CHAF - כ) means "to choose", and so, in an aural pun, we hear the notion of a "chosen people" inside this statement of a "first-born son". It is an aural pun that will haunt the Beney Yisra-El forever after.
The statement of primogeniture again. We need to go back to Kayin (Cain), Esav (Esau), Yishma-El (Ishmael), Zerach, Re'u-Ven, Er, Menasheh, and remember what happens to the first-born sons - Jesus too, in this regard, and actually Aharon in this tale as well? In one form or another they are all sacrificed; sometimes physically, but most often symbolically. And of course, when the plagues do come, all the first-born of Mitsrayim will be sacrificed. Does this not then make us question whether being YHVH's first-born is not in fact a negative rather than a positive? Or is the "sacrifice" (the "making sacred") the whole point of the Pesach rituals?
VECHORI (בכרי): On the other hand, VECHORI does indeed mean "first-born", but LIVCHOR (לִבחוֹר with a CHET - ח - rather than a CHAF - כ) means "to choose", and so, in an aural pun, we hear the notion of a "chosen people" inside this statement of a "first-born son". It is an aural pun that will haunt the Beney Yisra-El forever after.
4:23 VA OMAR ELEYCHA SHALACH ET BENI VE YA'AVDENI VA TEMA'EN LE
SHALCHO HINEH ANOCHI HOREG ET BINCHA BECHORECHA
וָאֹמַר
אֵלֶיךָ שַׁלַּח אֶת בְּנִי וְיַעַבְדֵנִי וַתְּמָאֵן לְשַׁלְּחוֹ הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי
הֹרֵג אֶת בִּנְךָ בְּכֹרֶךָ
KJ: And I say unto
thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go,
behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.
BN: "And I say to you: 'Let my son go, that he may serve me;
and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will slay your son, your
first-born."
VA OMAR: usually translated in the past tense as "I have
said to you", but it isn't the past tense; it's a direct threat, now.
YA'AVDENI: "He will serve me", transferring the servitude in Egypt? Or "he will worship me", the wilderness journey being to Chorev for that purpose? The Yehudit is ambiguous.
TEMA'EN: translated as "refused", though the word is
also used to mean "unwilling" - a subtle difference, but in this
contect a significant one.
HINEH: This verse is disturbing though. It reads, somewhat
mafia-like, as: "You try to touch my first-born and I'll get yours
first". All these verses appear to act as a prefiguration of the plagues,
so we have to read it as liturgy. Is it still part of the ceremony of Mosheh's
initiation, or a different ceremony?
BECHORECHA: Contrasting YHVH's love for his own first-born, Yisra-El, with the first-born of Mitsrayim; almost as though the killing of the first-born of Mitsrayim is an eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth act of revenge: you did this to my first-born, so I shall do this, and more, to yours. The vengeful god - once again, pure Yesha-Yahu.
4:24 VA YEHI VA DERECH BA MALON VA
YIPHGESHEHU YHVH VA YEVAKESH HAMIYTO.
וַיְהִי
בַדֶּרֶךְ בַּמָּלוֹן וַיִּפְגְּשֵׁהוּ יְהוָה וַיְבַקֵּשׁ הֲמִיתוֹ
KJ: And it came to
pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
BN: And it came to pass along the way, at one of the stopping-places, that YHVH
met him, and sought to kill him.
One of the strangest verses in the entire Bible. My reading - and the verse after this is even more significant as evidence - is that this is the
Mosaic equivalent of Penu-El, but reduced to this by the Redactor in order to evade the authentic, partly because, by Ezraic times, the ancient practices were no longer acceptable to those chosen for the various roles, but mostly because a different kind of ritual immolation had been introduced, and this was a sacrifice made by every male, not just the sacred-king - see the next verse. But in whatever form the immolation ceremony that every sacred-king experienced as part of his "coronation" - sometimes full castration (cf Genesis 32:26), sometimes the binding of the heels (a heel in Yehudit is Ekev, whence the name Ya'akov) to prevent the feet from walking flat on the earth, making the king go on tip-toe like a Geisha or a ballet dancer, the verb for which, in Yehudit, is LIPHSO'ACH, whence Pesach. The story of Achilles' "sacred heel", and the meaning of the name Oedipus ("swollen-foot"), derive from the same practices. A fuller account of the practices can be found here.
All of which allows us confirm the initiation rite before as actually being a
fully-fledged coronation rite; and then confirm his "magic rod" as
the staff of sacred-kingship: either a Caduceus pole like Hermes', or the one associated with Asclepius, one that
didn't so much turn into a serpent when thrown on the ground as one that was
carved with either one or two serpents intertwined along its shaft. We can also presume the
missing parts of the ceremony: the scarlet robe, the placing on his head of a crown made from the scarlet or kerm-oak - the mock-crowning of Jesus in Matthew 27 reflects this in full detail - but not the ritual wounding in either the thigh or below the fifth rib, because that is replaced here by the act of circumcision. It is interesting that YHVH
comes himself on this occasion, rather than sending a surrogate in the form of
a man or angel.
The only other reading that makes sense is that some human tried to kill him, and it is being described here as an "act of God" - less for the insurance claim than for the theological. And again, and this is becoming tedious I know, but this is precisely the theology of Yesha-Yahu, and it is a very different theology from the other Prophets, or other parts of the Yehudit Bible, including most of the Mosaic.
MALON: We have seen this before with KJ, and other modern
translations. You have to understand the words in their context, not your own.
Undertaking the translation in London, meeting in the afternoon before going to
The Globe to see the new play by Shakespeare, popping into a pub in Southwark
or by Nonsuch Palace on London Bridge, a MALON might well be an
"inn". In Biblical times, travelling across the desert from Midyan to
Mitsrayim, perhaps a Bedouin caravanserai, perhaps the guest-room in some oasis
shrine. But not an "inn".
4:25 VA TIKACH TSIPORAH TSUR VA TICHROT ET
ARLAT BENAH VA TAGA LE RAGLAV VA TOMER KI CHATAN DAMIM ATAH
LI
וַתִּקַּח
צִפֹּרָה צֹר וַתִּכְרֹת אֶת עָרְלַת בְּנָהּ וַתַּגַּע לְרַגְלָיו וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי
חֲתַן דָּמִים אַתָּה לִי
KJ: Then Zipporah
took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at
his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to
me.
BN: Then Tsiporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her
son, and cast it at his feet; and she said: "Surely a bridegroom of blood
are you to me."
But there is also a third element, and this is new, though still connected to Penu-El in exactly the same way that "Pidyon ha Ben" is connected to
the Akeda: in the Akeda, Av-Raham went with the intention of killing Yitschak,
but sacrificed a ram instead; from this evolved the custom of "Pidyon ha Ben", in
which a sum of money is donated to "redeem" the first-born child (and
note that this is, again, about the first-born son, as have been several verses
prior to this). So, here, the act of circumcision appears to stand as the
"donation", redeeming the father through the first-born son - I am presuming that Mosheh has also just been circumcised, though whether by Tsiporah, or in the same confusion as Genesis 17:23 and 24 that suggest he may have done it himself. Either way, the full castration is reduced to the symbolic snipping of the foreskin.
And this, as the anthropologists will confirm, is a
universal evolution: the sacred-king sacrificed at the earliest stage; the sacrifice them reduced to immolation; his
first-born son as his substitute next; a ram next, then circumcision; Pidyon ha
Ben last of all. So the same act of dedication is completed, but at each phase
with increasing humanity (or should that be decreasing barbarism?) Only Christianity, which returns to the primitivity of formal sacrifice, differs in this regard.
And a fourth element, because we can also see that there is something still more taking place here, and it is not something that could have been present in the Midyanite version. Let us try to imagine a Kohen or Levi of the Second Temple, fully convinced of the proto-Judaics of all this, saying "Hang on a minute, Mosheh the Ivri is going to Mitsrayim with a Midyanite wife, a shiksah, and what must therefore be regarded as her mamzer son. This cannot be." At which point a Midrash is created, to get Gershom circumcised, and then the Midrash in redacted into the text. Gershom, after all, is going to be a priest, and a Goy cannot be a priest.
Why does Tsiporah perform the bris, and not Mosheh or a mohel? In Genesis 17:10-14 Av-Raham
circumcised himself as well as his entire tribe. And why does this not
establish a precedent for the mother to perform the circumcision le olam va ed
and dor la dor - forever afterwards?
CHATAN DAMIM: I am not happy with the translation "Bridegroom of blood", but at least it has the virtue of being literal. And it hints at the real meaning of circumcision, long before its use as a substitution for child-sacrifice, which is the sacrificing of a piece of the phallus, to make the phallus sacred, and thereby bestow fertility.
But it also poses a question: is this a liturgical statement of great positivity, endorsing the nature of the Berit, the covenant, which "commits" the boy to his god for life in the same manner as a man and wife when they commit to marriage; or is a statement of Tsiporah's horror at something that she regards as barbaric, and out of which her opinion of her husband is radically diminished? The text is decidedly ambivalent on this. And still more so when she says it again in the next verse.
It is also significant that Gershom is already a good deal more than eight days old, so we can assume that the eight-day-rule was not yet in force and that, like Yishma-El (and still today in the Moslem world where 7 days, 7 years, or the 13th birthday seem to be the favourite dates - click here for more detail), the circumcision is in fact taking place at, and as, his Bar Mitzvah.
4:26 VA YIREPH MIMENU AZ AMRAH CHATAN DAMIM
LA MULOT
וַיִּרֶף
מִמֶּנּוּ אָז אָמְרָה חֲתַן דָּמִים לַמּוּלֹת
KJ: So he let him
go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of
the circumcision.
BN: So he let him alone. Then she said: "A bridegroom of
blood in regard of the circumcision."
VA YIREPH: Who let who go, or alone? YHVH let Mosheh alone? YHVH
or Mosheh didn't kill the boy, but symbolically circumcised him instead? And
where should the quotation marks go? After "blood" or after
"circumcision". If the former, it is grammatically incomplete but
logically correct, a kind of ceremonial statement like the bride saying "I
do" at a marriage ceremony. Some other text needs to come before and
after, but they are missing. Either that or v25 and v26 are repetitions, one of
which is unnecessary.
But there is still the possibility that Mosheh and Tsiporah just had a massive row, and that she carried out the circumcision because he told her to, and because in those days wives were submissively obedient to their husbands; but then she told him what she thought of this barbarism.
And is it even possible that she didn't carry out the circumcision, but threw the flint to the ground in refusal? No, that would require TIREPH, in the feminine, and this is YIREPH, in the masculine. But it is YIREPH MIMENU, "from him", so something has to be taken and "cast down". Maybe she refused, Mosheh tookup the flint to do it himself, she called him a brute, and he let the flint drop. It all depends on the precise meaning of the root RAPHAH; and the only way to resolve that is by finding its other uses. So:
Judges 19:9, where it is used for the day drawing down into the evening
Isaiah 5:24 which also uses MIN, where it is used for hay being thrown into the fire.
Judges 8:3, in which anger is abated.
Nehemiah 6:9, which has men "desisting" from work because their hands have lost their strength, which is echoed in 2 Chronicles 15:7, which has the hands sinking down as a poetic expression of laziness, much the same as in Exodus 5:8 and 17
In 2 Samuel 4:1, rather like Isaiah 13:7, Jeremiah 6:24 and 50:43 and several others, it is a man's courage that has been thrown down - we would probably say "thrown up" in contemporary slang, as in throwing up a potentially good opportunity for lack of bravery to take the risk - feebleness, or weak hands, being the reason on each occasion.
2 Samuel 24:16 is worth noting, because it uses HAREPH YADECH to mean, quite explicitly, the holding back of hands that were about to engage in stopping of destruction.
As to the MIN, Joshua 10:6 adds it, and it means to desert or abandon or forsake, which is also the case with Judges 11:37 and Deuteronomy 9:14.
Where does this leave our current verse? I think we have to go back to verse 24 first, where something of a violent nature happens to Mosheh, quite possibly his circumcision. And then to verses 22 and 23, where the potental killing of the first-born son was raised as a threat to be made to Pharaoh; this echoes the Akeda, and the firstborn son in that case was redeemed through the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb. We too are at the start of Pesach, and symbolically Gershom represents both Yitschak, the firstborn son of Av-Raham, at the Akeda, and Yisra-El, the firstborn son of Yitschak as a consequence of stealing this, his birthright, before Pharaoh. Tsiporah definitely circumcises him in verse 25, but her disgust at what she has been made to leads her to throw the severed foreskin at his feet - the verb used for this being TICHROT, not YIREPH. So shocked is Mosheh by his wife's reaction that he, who has Gershom sandakked on his lap for the ceremony, literally goes weak at the elbows, and drops the boy on the ground, which leads to her saying again what she has already said in the previous verse.
pey break
4:27 VA YOMER YHVH EL AHARON LECH LIKRA'T MOSHEH HA MIDBARAH VA
YELECH VA YIPHGESHEHU BE HAR HA ELOHIM VA YISHAK LO
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהוָה אֶל אַהֲרֹן לֵךְ לִקְרַאת מֹשֶׁה הַמִּדְבָּרָה וַיֵּלֶךְ
וַיִּפְגְּשֵׁהוּ בְּהַר הָאֱלֹהִים וַיִּשַּׁק לוֹ
KJ: And the LORD
said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him
in the mount of God, and kissed him.
BN: Then YHVH said to Aharon: "Go into the desert to meet
Mosheh." And he went, and met him at the mountain of Ha Elohim, and kissed
him.
Again the sense of an editor picking up an error in the text and seeking a way to correct it; but on this occasion adding error to error. This
verse would be better placed around verse 13, when Aharon is seen arriving,
perhaps in response to the summons in this verse.
HAR HA ELOHIM: Which infers that the circumcision is taking place at the same location as the initiation ceremony, at the shrine of the "burning bush". Did he then go back to Midyan after the ceremony, collect his family, and return to the same shrine? Looks like he did.
HA ELOHIM: Yes, still, plural.
4:28 VA YAGED MOSHEH LE AHARON ET KOL DIVREY YHVH ASHER SHELACHO
VE ET KOL HA OTOT ASHER TSIVA'HU
וַיַּגֵּד
מֹשֶׁה לְאַהֲרֹן אֵת כָּל דִּבְרֵי יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר שְׁלָחוֹ וְאֵת כָּל הָאֹתֹת
אֲשֶׁר צִוָּהוּ
KJ: And Moses told
Aaron all the words of the LORD who had sent him, and all the signs which he
had commanded him.
BN: Then Mosheh shared with Aharon the full programme that YHVH
had outlined to him, and all the symbolic signs that he had made available to
him.
DIVREY YHVH: Once again the complexities of this word. Given
what YHVH has charged Mosheh to do, words and actions, wonders and symbolic
acts, simply translating it as "words" is insufficient. My
translation is obviously not literal or strictly accurate, in the way the KJ version is;
but hopefully my version conveys the full intent.
4:29 VA YELECH MOSHEH VE AHARON VA YA'ASPHU ET KOL ZIKNEY BENEY
YISRA-EL
וַיֵּלֶךְ
מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן וַיַּאַסְפוּ אֶת כָּל זִקְנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
KJ: And Moses and
Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel:
BN: And Mosheh and Aharon went and gathered together all the
elders of the Beney Yisra-El.
VA YELECH: Which is singular, whereas Mosheh and Aharon are
plural, so it should be VA YELCHU (וילכו).
Where, and how? If they were truly slaves, such a gathering
would surely have been difficult. Imagine doing the same in Auschwitz or the
Gulag - instant arrest, at the very least. And even done in secret, the risk of
informers. But if slaves only means "bondsmen" or "fellow-worshippers"... and that would also help explain how come Mosheh and Aharon appear to know each other so well, because an Egyptian prince is unlikely to have been paying visits to his biological family unless they had the freedom to make this viable. Nat Turner gathered his associates together in deepest secrecy, knowing that the lynch-rope awaited if they were discovered.
4:30 VA YEDABER AHARON ET KOL HA DEVARIM ASHER DIBER YHVH EL
MOSHEH VA YA'AS HA OTOT LE EYNEY HA'AM
וַיְדַבֵּר
אַהֲרֹן אֵת כָּל הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה וַיַּעַשׂ הָאֹתֹת
לְעֵינֵי הָעָם
KJ: And Aaron spake
all the words which the LORD had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the
sight of the people.
BN: And Aharon spoke all the words which YHVH had spoken to
Mosheh, and performed the signs in the sight of the people.
Meaning presumably that he threw his own sceptre down and it
became a serpent, and he gathered up some of the water of the Nile, and it
turned to blood when it touched dry land. Most likely this story, like so many,
was read from hieroglyphs and wall-paintings, but by someone not terribly
conversant with the Egyptian pictograms. The serpent rod has already been
explained; what was the water that turned to blood? Or wine, in the Jesus
version. Presumably some form of the eucharist - and note that the ceremonies
immediately above were both eucharistic: the coronation and the circumcision,
the latter denoted explicitly as such by Tsiporah.
ASHER DIBER YHVH: yet another complication in the text, that the mountain is the domain of HA ELOHIM, but the deity with whom Mosheh has contact is the singular YHVH. Not in itself a problem, if the Beney Yisra-El world is still polytheistic; one can go to Valhalla and speak to Wotan without speaking to Freya or Loge or Brunhilde. But yes a problem if we are to argue, as orthodox Judaism does, that the Beney Yisra-El world was already monotheistic in Mosheh's time.
4:31 VA YA'AMEN HA AM VA YISHME'U KI PAKAD YHVH ET BENEY YISRA-EL
VE CHI RA'AH ET ANYAM VA YIKDU VA YISHTACHAVU
וַיַּאֲמֵן
הָעָם וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ כִּי פָקַד יְהוָה אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְכִי רָאָה אֶת
עָנְיָם וַיִּקְּדוּ וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ
KJ: And the people
believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel,
and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.
BN: And the people believed; and when they heard that YHVH had
heeded the cries of the Beney Yisra-El, and that he had seen their affliction,
then they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves.
Why do some translations render YISHTACHAVU as "bowed their
heads"? It is correct for YIKDU, but not for YISHTACHAVU. SHATACH is the
root, and it means "ground". They did not bow, they prostrated
themselves.
YA'AMEN: The root of the word Amen. It came to mean
"intellectual belief", but in Biblical times it was probably more
subjective - "faith".
Note that it is not the circus tricks that convince the Beney Yisra-El, but simply the fact that YHVH has remembered them.
Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
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