Exodus 7-12: 10 plagues of Egypt

I've heard this story before, and I imagine most everyone else has too. Here's Penn & Teller covering the basics of this story, in their amazing way.



That clip also contains one of my all-time favorite quotes: "God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways." From what I've seen so far... so true.

There is one pretty major detail in this story, though, that Penn & Teller do not touch on, and for all the many, many times I've heard this story in church and sunday school, I've never heard of this either. God says repeatedly that he is "hardening the Pharaoh's heart" so that he won't let the Israelites go. Yeah, seriously.

Exodus 7: 3-4 "But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you."

Exodus 9:12 "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron"

Exodus 10:1 "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials"

Exodus 10:20 "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go."

Exodus 11:9-10 "The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country."

If this is true, then I want to know... what the goddamn hell is the point of all of this??? I mean, seriously. The Pharaoh might have let the people go of his own free will at any point (probably long before God ruthlessly slaughters all the Egyptian firstborns). But no, God "hardens his heart." WHY??? Is this all a game?? Is God some kid playing with dolls? Is this all just a roleplaying game, with God as the sadistic DM? I don't get it!!

I haven't ruled out the possibility that this is all just the usual arbitrary cruelty, but the story does give a couple of hints...

Exodus 7: 3-5 "But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it."

Exodus 10:1-2 "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD."

Exodus 11:9-10 "The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country."

So... God is just looking for an excuse to show off? Or actually no, even worse: God is manufacturing an excuse to show off. What the effing crap is that all about? Gah!

This is possibly the worst thing I have ever heard of. God slaughtered Egyptian children, which is horrible no matter what. But he himself created the circumstances that led to it, which is even worse. But, even worse than that, God apparently slaughtered these children just to show off, which is what makes this officially the worst thing I have ever heard of.

Let me just say right here, I am glad that God does not exist. This is complete bullshit.

So anyway, let me see if I can calm down enough to finish.

While God is giving the Israelites instructions for painting their doors with lamb's blood on the night of this reprehensible slaughter of innocents (apparently God can't tell who is Israelite and who isn't), he also gives some instructions about celebrating Passover. Yeah, apparently we're supposed to celebrate that God killed everyone else's kids but not our own.

First and foremost, NO YEAST! God goes on and on about this. "Whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel." Harsh. Also, if any foreigners want to celebrate, they have to be circumcised. All right then.

Exodus 3-6: Back to work you lazy slaves!

Well, now that God has been alerted to the situation (because apparently that has to happen), he starts bothering Moses. Moses is out tending the flock when he sees a bush that is somehow on fire but not burning. He goes over to check it out, when suddenly the bush demands that he remove his sandals. After that, the bush announces that it is God, and it is very concerned about the suffering of the Hebrews in Egypt. The bush has big plans to take the Hebrews to "a land flowing with milk and honey." Also the bush would really like it if Moses would do all of this so it doesn't have to.

Well, I do hope someone remembers to dig up Joseph's corpse and take it with them...those were his final wishes ya know.

Anyway, Moses is like, "Why me?"

And God says, "I will be with you." (Way to dodge the question, God.)

Moses asks God what his name is (ballsy).

God says, "I am who I am." (again, nice dodge)

God tells Moses to go tell the elders of the Israelites about all of this. Then Moses and the elders are to go tell the Pharaoh that they would like to take a 3-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to God. Apparently God knows that the Pharaoh will not let them go unless "a mighty hand compels him." Therefore, God will "strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them." Hmm, I think I know where this is going...I don't think 'wonders' is the word I'd have chosen.

God also encourages the Hebrews to "plunder the Egyptians" by asking their neighbors (their Egyptian neighbors?) for gold or silver, or clothing, which they should dress their children in. OK, whatever.

Moses asks God what he should do if no one believes him. So God imbues him with the power of 3 cheesy magic tricks: he can throw his staff on the ground, where it becomes a snake; he can put his hand in his cloak, and it comes out leprous, then put it back in the cloak and it comes out fine; and he can make water turn to blood when he pours it on the ground.

Then Moses says, "I am slow of speech and tongue."

God says, "Go; I will help you speak and teach you what to say."

Moses says, "please send someone else."

God gets pissed and says fine! I'll get your brother Aaron to help you.

God apparently also told Moses that it was safe to go back to Egypt because everyone who was trying to kill him had died. Bwah ha ha! So Moses packs up his wife and son and goes back to Egypt.

Prepare yourself for Exodus 4:21-26 - the most confusing reading known to mankind (or maybe just to me).

God is apparently coaching Moses for his confrontation with the Pharaoh. God says to be sure to do all 3 of your cheesy magic tricks. But it won't work anyway, because "I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go." Then what the goddamn hell is the point, I would like to know.

So after the magic tricks fail, Moses is supposed to say "This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, 'Let my son go, so he may worship me.' But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son."

Huh... Israel. Is that Jacob? Is that all of the Israelites?

So Israel (whoever that is) is... God's firstborn son? Moses's firstborn son? WTF? Neither one makes any sense at all.

All I can figure is this must be about how they were planning to ask for a 3-day journey to make a sacrifice to God. But Pharaoh will refuse (because his heart had been hardened by God), therefore, God is going to kill the Pharaoh's son. That makes no fucking sense. You refuse what I ask, because I made you refuse, therefore I will punish you. Gah, I think my head just exploded. Seriously, I would expect this scenario to come up when some sadistic 5 year old is playing with his dolls (or action figures!), not when the Creator of the universe is trying to free his chosen people.

Then, Moses and his family are lodging somewhere on the way to Egypt, when suddenly God shows up and tries to kill Moses. Yeah, seriously. WTF. Why, God...is your bloodlust so insatiable that you apparently have to kill your own people??? So obviously his wife cuts off their son's foreskin and touches it to Moses's feet. God is apparently satisfied that Moses has foreskin on his feet, and leaves him alone. For fuck's sake.

OK, that was Exodus 4:21-26. Moving on...

Then God goes and tells Aaron to meet Moses in the desert. They find each other, and Moses tells Aaron about what God told him to say, and his fancy new magic tricks. They go to the elders of the Israelites, and they believed them.

Then Moses and Aaron go see the Pharaoh, and ask him to let the Hebrews go worship God in the desert for a while. The Pharaoh says, (paraphrase) "I don't know God! So why should I obey him!" They say, (paraphrase) "But God told us to take a 3 day journey into the desert! He might punish us if we don't go!" The Pharaoh says, (paraphrase) "Get back to work!" Hmm, they forgot to say the bit about how God would kill the Pharaoh's son. That surely would have closed the deal for them.

Then the Pharaoh decides that the slave's problem is they are lazy, so he tells the foremen to stop providing them with straw to make bricks with, so the slaves will have to go gather it themselves. Then they beat the slaves when they can't make as many bricks as usual. Hmm.

The Isrealites complain to the Pharaoh...yeah we can't make as many bricks, but it's your own fault for not giving us straw. The Pharaoh says, (paraphrase) "Back to work you lazy slaves!!"

So now all the Israelites hate Moses and Aaron. Awesome.

Moses asks God, "why have you brought trouble upon this people?" I did what you said and things are worse than ever! Waah!

Then God told Moses, "Because of my mighty hand he will let them go." Well that's just fucking great, God, why didn't you do that before?

God also told Moses about the covenant that he established with Abraham, and apparently now that he's strung those guys along for 3 generations, and then vanished entirely for who knows how long, now he is ready to make good on his promise!!! Oh joy.

Moses told this to the Israelites, but somehow they fail to be excited by it. Perhaps they're too busy being beaten for not making enough bricks.

Then God tells Moses to go ask the Pharaoh to let them go again. Moses says, seriously old man? he won't listen to me.

Then there's a random segue into the genealogy of Jacob and his sons.

Then God tells Moses, just say what I tell you to say, for fuck's sake. But Moses is still like, "I speak with faltering lips!" Holy shit, that Moses complains.

So, Genesis gave me the impression that God is sort of a bumbling, inept idiot who would much rather kill people than make them better.

After reading this last bit I am reforming that impression.... God is a temperamental 5 year old and we are all his dolls.

Exodus 1-2: Hebrew enslavement, enter Moses

Exodus seems to be pretty much a direct continuation of Genesis. At this point in the story Jacob and his 12 sons are dead, but their descendants (the 'Israelites') are "exceedingly numerous."

Egypt gets a new Pharaoh, and apparently someone forgot to tell him how awesome Joseph was, because he really hates the Israelites. He is concerned about how numerous they are, so he makes them all into slaves. Yep, that'll shut them up. But somehow, "more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread." That seems unlikely, but whatever. So the Egyptians hate them more than ever, and make them work even harder.

Then the Pharaoh decides to tell the midwives to kill Hebrew babies (if they're boys). The midwives "feared God" and don't kill any babies. The Pharaoh is like, "What the hell? Why aren't you killing babies like I asked?" The midwives lie; they tell him that the Hebrew women are so "vigorous" that they give birth before they get there. This is a lame-ass lie if I ever heard one.

So the Pharaoh tells the midwives to throw the Hebrew baby boys into the river. How exactly is that different than "kill them?"

Some Hebrew chick gave birth to a boy, and she "saw that he was a fine child" so she hides him for 3 months. So what, if he wasn't a "fine" child, she would let him be thrown in the river?

Anyway, 3 months later she couldn't hide him anymore for some reason, so she put him in a basket and put him in the Nile. He is found by the Pharaoh's daughter, and she feels sorry for him and keeps him for her own son...she names him Moses. (Hey, I've heard this story before!)

Suddenly, Moses is all grown up. Apparently, even though he's been raised by Egyptians, he knows he's really Hebrew. He's hanging out one day watching the Hebrew slaves. He sees an Egyptian beating a slave, and it pisses him off. So, obviously, rather than using his influence as the Pharaoh's adoptive grandson to put a stop to this, he stupidly murders the Egyptian.

News of this gets out, and the Pharaoh tries to kill Moses. But Moses runs away to Midian. He's moping near a well when he "came to the rescue" of some girls who get chased off by some shepherds.

The girls leave him there and go home, and their father is like, "What'd you leave that nice boy there for? Bring him here."

Moses apparently stays there for quite some time. He marries one of the girls, Zipporah, and they have a son named Gershom.

During all this time, the Pharaoh dies.

Also, the Israelites "groaned in their slavery and cried out ... God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."

Well that's sweet. Wait, I think I mean 'bullshit'. Why, oh why, did God apparently "forget" about his covenant with Abraham et al? The covenant that was oh-so important that God literally didn't have anything else to say for 3 whole generations? For fuck's sake.

Of course, God did tell Abraham in a dream that it was part of his mighty plan that the Israelites be enslaved until the people already living in the promised land were evil enough to destroy (Genesis 15). So, if that's the case, why is he so surprised that they are slaves now? And why does he care that the Israelites are "groaning?" If this is all part of his plan, either it's time for them to be liberated or not. Who cares whether they are suffering.