After reading chapter 18:
*Apparently, Moses had sent his wife and two sons back to Zipporah's father, Jethro, the priest of Midian. Jethro had received the news of the Israelites' exit from Egypt and was pleased. He took his daughter and grandsons back to Moses. When he arrived at the camp, Moses told him about everything that had happened. Jethro praised Yahweh and said that now he knew Yahweh was greater than all the other gods. A funny thing about the Hebrew word ha-elohim, translated as " other gods" in this passage. In almost every other passage in the Old Testament, it is translated as the singular God with a capital G. What if all those other passages should have been translated as gods, plural, instead? At any rate, it is obvious from verse 11 that other gods were believed to exist.
*Jethro, being a priest, brings a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God. Wait! This God is the hebrew word Elohim, a plural word usually translated as singular. Was Jethro sacrificing to "the gods" or to "God?" It doesn't say he was sacrificing to "the lord" which is how Yahweh is translated into English. Even more telling is the next line that says Jethro, Moses, Aaron, and the elders ate bread in the presence of God. God here is the same Hebrew word, ha-elohim, that was translated as "other gods" in verse 11. You can see this for yourself if you look up the text in an online interlinear version. I usually use Bible Hub. First do a search for the verse, then click on INT in the version selection bar.
*Why would translators choose to make the word mean gods in one instance and God in another? Is there any chance they were not willing to show that the early Hebrews believed in other gods as well as Yahweh?
*The next day, Moses began to act as a judge for the Israelites. He was bombarded with cases of disputes from morning to night. Jethro asked him why he was doing this. Moses replied that the people came to him to seek God's will. ( Elohim, not Yahweh.) Moses would judge the cases and inform the people of God's laws. (Ha-Elohim, not Yahweh.) Whose laws was Moses dispensing?
*Anyway, Jethro told Moses he was working too hard and micromanaging over a million people. He needed to delegate authority. He explained how to go about it and Moses took his advice. Capable men were made leaders over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Moses only got the hard cases. Then Jethro returned to his own country.
Edited.
Showing posts with label Zipporah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zipporah. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Exodus chapter 4 part 2
*Now the story turns weird, in case you didn't already think so. When Moses and his family stopped at some place on the way to Egypt, yahweh met Moses and was about to kill him. To prevent that, Moses's wife whips out a knife and cuts off her son's foreskin! Then, she touches Moses's feet with it and declares," you are a bridegroom of blood to me, " which is a phrase referring to circumcision, according to my study bible. This saved Moses's life.
*There all sorts of things to say about this passage. First of all, my study bible says " feet" here is a euphamism for genitals. The weirdness continues. Was Moses himself ever circumcised? Why did God want to kill him after he gave him a job to do? Some people seem to think Zipporah acted in anger, even though the text does not say that. Maybe she knew that's what God wanted. Why does circumcising a child and touching his father's genitals, or feet, with the cut off piece of skin save Moses's life? Also, according to verse 20, there is more than one son. As usual, there are dozens of traditional and speculative answers to these questions, none of them in the text. By modern standards, this is crazy stuff.
*Yahweh tells Aaron to go to the desert to meet Moses. They meet at "the mountain of God" and Moses tells Aaron about everything. They go together and tell the elders of the Israelites and show them the magic tricks. They all believed and worshipped Yahweh when Moses told them God was concerned about them.
*What I notice about this story: the Israelites are collectively called Yahweh's "first born son" implying that they are the first worshippers of that God. If the mountain of God was such an important place why is there no way to know for sure where it actually was?
*There all sorts of things to say about this passage. First of all, my study bible says " feet" here is a euphamism for genitals. The weirdness continues. Was Moses himself ever circumcised? Why did God want to kill him after he gave him a job to do? Some people seem to think Zipporah acted in anger, even though the text does not say that. Maybe she knew that's what God wanted. Why does circumcising a child and touching his father's genitals, or feet, with the cut off piece of skin save Moses's life? Also, according to verse 20, there is more than one son. As usual, there are dozens of traditional and speculative answers to these questions, none of them in the text. By modern standards, this is crazy stuff.
*Yahweh tells Aaron to go to the desert to meet Moses. They meet at "the mountain of God" and Moses tells Aaron about everything. They go together and tell the elders of the Israelites and show them the magic tricks. They all believed and worshipped Yahweh when Moses told them God was concerned about them.
*What I notice about this story: the Israelites are collectively called Yahweh's "first born son" implying that they are the first worshippers of that God. If the mountain of God was such an important place why is there no way to know for sure where it actually was?
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Exodus chapter 2
After reading chapter 2:
*At this time, a Levite man married a woman, also from the tribe of Levi. This will be important later. My question is, how did a bunch of illiterate shepherds keep track of who belonged to which of the original 12 tribes, especially over a span of 400 years? Think of the difficulty we have today tracing our ancestors back even 200 years. That is with physical records and technology.
*The Levite woman had a baby boy and hid him for three months. Then she put him in a waterproofed basket and set him in the river among the reeds. His sister stayed nearby to watch what happened. The Pharoah's daughter came to the river to bathe, and saw the baby. She felt sorry for him. The baby's sister volunteered to go get someone to nurse him, then ran off and got her mother. Clever! So the baby's mother was paid to nurse her own child. When he grew old enough, he was taken to the Pharoah's daughter and became her adopted son. She named him Moses.
*When Moses was grown, he apparently knew he was an Israelite. When he saw one of his own people being beaten, he secretly killed the offender, or so he thought. Later, when he tried to break up a fight between two Israelites, they asked why they should listen to him, a murderer. Pharoah heard of it and tried to kill Moses, but he ran away to Midian. There he met seven shepherd girls at a well and defended them from some rude shepherd men. (Wells were obviously a great place to meet women in ancient times.) When the girls got home, they told their father Reu-el a Midianite priest, about Moses. He was invited to eat with the family and ended up staying and marrying Ruel's daughter Zipporah. They had a son together.
*Meanwhile the Pharoah died and was replaced. The Israelites were still being oppressed and cried out to God, who remembered his promise to Abraham and became concerned. It was about time!
*The el at the end of Reuel's name tells which God he worshipped. Sticking the name of your God at the end of people and place names was common throughout that whole region. We see it in Egypt as well with names that end in ra, aten, and amun.
*At this time, a Levite man married a woman, also from the tribe of Levi. This will be important later. My question is, how did a bunch of illiterate shepherds keep track of who belonged to which of the original 12 tribes, especially over a span of 400 years? Think of the difficulty we have today tracing our ancestors back even 200 years. That is with physical records and technology.
*The Levite woman had a baby boy and hid him for three months. Then she put him in a waterproofed basket and set him in the river among the reeds. His sister stayed nearby to watch what happened. The Pharoah's daughter came to the river to bathe, and saw the baby. She felt sorry for him. The baby's sister volunteered to go get someone to nurse him, then ran off and got her mother. Clever! So the baby's mother was paid to nurse her own child. When he grew old enough, he was taken to the Pharoah's daughter and became her adopted son. She named him Moses.
*When Moses was grown, he apparently knew he was an Israelite. When he saw one of his own people being beaten, he secretly killed the offender, or so he thought. Later, when he tried to break up a fight between two Israelites, they asked why they should listen to him, a murderer. Pharoah heard of it and tried to kill Moses, but he ran away to Midian. There he met seven shepherd girls at a well and defended them from some rude shepherd men. (Wells were obviously a great place to meet women in ancient times.) When the girls got home, they told their father Reu-el a Midianite priest, about Moses. He was invited to eat with the family and ended up staying and marrying Ruel's daughter Zipporah. They had a son together.
*Meanwhile the Pharoah died and was replaced. The Israelites were still being oppressed and cried out to God, who remembered his promise to Abraham and became concerned. It was about time!
*The el at the end of Reuel's name tells which God he worshipped. Sticking the name of your God at the end of people and place names was common throughout that whole region. We see it in Egypt as well with names that end in ra, aten, and amun.
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