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 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
2:1 VA YELECH ISH MI BEIT LEVI VA YIKACH ET BAT LEVI
וַיֵּלֶךְ אִישׁ מִבֵּית לֵוִי וַיִּקַּח אֶת בַּת לֵוִי
KJ (King James translation): And there went a man
of the house of Levi, and took to
wife a daughter of Levi.
2:2 VA TAHAR HA ISHAH VA TELED BEN VA TER'E OTO KI TOV HU VA TITSPENEHU SHELOSHAH YERACHIM
וַתַּהַר הָאִשָּׁה וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן וַתֵּרֶא אֹתוֹ כִּי טוֹב הוּא וַתִּצְפְּנֵהוּ שְׁלֹשָׁה יְרָחִים
KJ: And the woman
conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him
three months.
Significant that the text uses YAREYACH rather than CHODESH for "month"; he is, after all, a moon-child. At what point did the Beney Yisra-El use which word? See my note to Exodus 1:5
Why three months? Is there anything in the Osher (Osiris) legends that would explain this? Three of course is the symbolic number: the trinity at the summit of the Egyptian pantheon included Osher, with Eshet (Isis) and Hor (Horus); three days is the time of darkness between the waning of the old moon and the waxing of the new one (whence Jesus' three days in the underworld after the Crucifixion); the moon itself comes in three phases, reflected in the Three Graces, Greek at that link, Christian at this one, and the three Daughters of al-Lah in pre-Islamic Arabia, of King Leir in the Celtic; et cetera... But none of these on this occasion; quite simply, as Christians will know from their own calendar (Christmas, Lent, Easter, Whitsun), the lunar-solar marriage operates in equinoxes and solstices, each one three months apart, and Osher's parents are the moon-goddess and the sun-god. We can even make the mythological assumption that she would have conceived the child at the spring equinox, given birth at Sol Invictus, and taken him "out of hiding", probably on the day after the Spring equinox, which was, as we shall see shortly, in ancient Egypt, the festival of the corn-god, Passover.
2:3 VE LO YACHLAH OD HATSPIYNO VA TIKACH LO TEVAT GOM'E VA TACHMERAH VA CHEMAR U VA ZAPHET VA TASEM BA ET HA YELED VA TASEM BA SUPH AL SEPHAT HA YE'OR
וְלֹא יָכְלָה עוֹד הַצְּפִינוֹ וַתִּקַּח לוֹ תֵּבַת גֹּמֶא וַתַּחְמְרָה בַחֵמָר וּבַזָּפֶת וַתָּשֶׂם בָּהּ אֶת הַיֶּלֶד וַתָּשֶׂם בַּסּוּף עַל שְׂפַת הַיְאֹר
KJ: And when she could not
longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime
and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the
flags by the river's brink.
What is taking place here is the transference of the Egyptian legend of the birth of Osher to Mosheh; and not surprisingly, because Osher was understood to be reborn in the Pharaoh, and Mosheh as Mousa is the son of the Pharaoh and stands in line for the throne. Much of the early part of the Mosheh story appears to reflect a native Egyptian uprising against the rule of the Hyksos, a reactionary-conservative attempt to restore the former dynasty by removing the conquering invader; with the focus not on political action but on a desire to restore the ancient forms of worship by taking the people to the sacred mountain of the god Hor (Horus is the Greek form of his name, as Osiris is to Osher and Isis to Eshet), in order to perform a ceremony of covenant renewal, at the same time as celebrating the festival of Passover, or possibly as an integral part of that celebration. The impulse for this may have been political, but more likely superstitious, revolving around the impending volcanic eruption of Mount Chorev (Horeb).
LO YACHLAH OD HATSPIYNO: Mythologically, the period between the winter solstice and the "passing over" of the "angel of death", who is the Winter, is also a time of darkness, and so, again mythologically, the reborn Earth is invisible in the evening-night sky. But then Spring comes, the clocks are metaphorically moved forward an hour, and the day is still light when the moon appears in the sky, nursing her three-month-old child. So she can be seen, even before the sun has set. So the child is no longer hideable. For a more detailed account of this conflict, seen at every stage of the annual cycle, read the tale of the sun-god Shimshon and the mon-goddess Delilah, in Judges 16 ff.
TEVAT: Ark. Look at the words for No'ach's Ark (Genesis 6:9 ff) and that of the Tabernacle, which is also called an Ark; the former is TEVET (תבת), as here; the latter is MISHKAN (משכן), entirely different, and the confusion is caused in the translation, not the original. The story about to be told is that of the birth, and then the life of Osher, which tale is an epic journey akin to that of Helios or Phaeton, travelling in his sun-ark across the heavens, a journey from which YHVH will desist precisely by leaving his home in the heavens and becoming "settled" (the precise meaning of MISHKAN) in an "ark" which will function as a litter, so that he can make the equivalent epic journey, but on the Earth now, eventually giving up the momadic life for a rather splendid palace in Yeru-Shala'im.
What is meant by an "ark" in this context anyway? A nursing basket made of reeds? And does it require us to rethink that unsailable cube of No'ach, and the equally unsailable boat of Utnapishtim, in their respective Creation myths. In many mythologies, the sun is represented as an ark, floating across the waters of the firmament. Again, look at the Am-Tuat: the tales of the sun-ark, both No'ach's and Utnapishtim's, explain how the sun gets across the sky from east to west each day, and why it is both born and dies in what appears to be blood; the Am Tuat, like the longer "Book of the Gates", explains how the sun gets back again each night.
What is meant by an "ark" in this context anyway? A nursing basket made of reeds? And does it require us to rethink that unsailable cube of No'ach, and the equally unsailable boat of Utnapishtim, in their respective Creation myths. In many mythologies, the sun is represented as an ark, floating across the waters of the firmament. Again, look at the Am-Tuat: the tales of the sun-ark, both No'ach's and Utnapishtim's, explain how the sun gets across the sky from east to west each day, and why it is both born and dies in what appears to be blood; the Am Tuat, like the longer "Book of the Gates", explains how the sun gets back again each night.
GOM'E: and sometimes it is hard to determine whether the coincidences are just coincidences, or if indeed the mythologies are as universal as they appear. So GOM'E is the Egyptian word for bulrushes, and will become the Yehudit word for the papyrus made from those rushes (Isaiah 18:2). The root is GAMAH, which actually means "to absorb", or "to swallow", presumably because the rushes drink such vast amounts of river-water. In French "to swallow" would be AVALER, the root-word for the island-in-the-water to which Arthur's death-ark carried him, and from which his birth-ark is prophecied to bring him back, one day: Avalon.
SLIME AND PITCH: This is also how the slaves would make their bricks later on; see Exodus 1:14. No'ach, at Genesis 6:14, used CHOPHER, or possibly GOPHER - see my notes there.
SUPH: Suph means "reeds", or specifically here "bulrushes", which are the symbol of Osher in his capacity as vegetation-god. When the Beney Yisra-El come to flee Mitsrayim we are told (Exodus 14:2) that YHVH said "Speak to the Beney Yisra-El, that they turn back and encamp before Pi Ha Chirot, between Migdal and the sea, before Ba'al Tsephon, over against it shall you encamp by the sea." Jewish tradition maintains that this was the Red Sea, but this would have entailed a desert journey of many weeks, and probably months given the numbers. The land of Goshen, where they were living, was a marshy region in the delta of the River Nile, comprised of dozens of streams, brooks, small rivers, and straightforward swamp; and this they would have had to cross immediately. So a Red Sea crossing is simply implausible, and rendered even more so when we register that they came immediately afterwards to Mount Sinai, which is on the edge of Goshen; they would have had to make another journey of several weeks or months to get there. Why is this significant here? Because the marshes of Goshen were known as Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, and Yoseph's name can be read equally as Yoseph ("he who counts" from the gathering of the corn in the silos and its distribution during the famine) or Yah Suph (the Lord of the Sea of Reeds, an Osiric title, but also a sobriquet for the Viziership of Goshen, which he held).
2:4 VA TETATSAV ACHOTO ME RACHOK LE'DEY'A MAH YE'ASEH LO
וַתֵּתַצַּב אֲחֹתוֹ מֵרָחֹק לְדֵעָה מַה יֵּעָשֶׂה לוֹ
KJ: And his sister stood
afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
ACHOTO: His sister. The "three daughters" reflect the three phases of the moon, who is Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty in the first ten days of the month, falls pregnant and fulfils her Madonnahood in the second ten days, but then grows into Hecate the Snow Queen as she ages and dies in the final ten days. So, familially, in phase one she is his sister, in phase two his mother, in phase three his wicked step-mother. As noted at Exodus 1:14, Mir-Yam is a variant form of the water deity of the "Bitter Lakes". Her name, properly Mar-Yam, means "the bitterness of the sea", reflecting its saltiness, but also her tears that she will shed when her beloved brother-spouse-son is killed and goes down into the Underworld (the equivalent tale, told of Tammuz in Beit Lechem and Yeru-Shala'im, is the source of the name Mor-Yah, whence the Christian Mary). The sea here is in fact a river that flows into the sea, but that is splitting hairs; in ancient Egypt the Nile and its delta was always more significant than the Mediterranean Sea which it abutted.
LE'DEY'A: Once again we have Yehudit grammar that is unfamiliar to us, though whether it belongs to an earlier or later era will require a specialist in the language to determine. The differences are available even for the non-specialist to see. LE'DEY'A instead of LADA'AT; YE'ASEH instead of YA'ASU, the latter of which would anyway be better translated as "what they would make of him". In fact we know what they would make of him: corn dollies, the Spring equivalent of the "straw man" (the Guy Faux or Guy Fawkes if your French pronunciation isn't very good) that would be burned in effigy at the autumn harvest.
2:5 VA TERED BAT PAR'OH LIRCHOTS AL HA YE'OR VA NA'AROTEYHA HOLCHOT AL YA HA YE'OR VA TER'E ET HA TEVAH BETOCH HA SUPH VA TISHLACH ET AMATAH VA TIKACHE'HA
וַתֵּרֶד בַּת פַּרְעֹה לִרְחֹץ עַל הַיְאֹר וְנַעֲרֹתֶיהָ הֹלְכֹת עַל יַד הַיְאֹר וַתֵּרֶא אֶת הַתֵּבָה בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת אֲמָתָהּ וַתִּקָּחֶהָ
KJ: And the daughter of
Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the
river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the
ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
NA'AROTEYHA:Literally "young women".
VA TISHLACH: not to be confused with TASHLICH in chapter 1; this has a CHET (ח) not a CHAF (כ) for its final letter.
AMATAH: Not the same word used for Hagar, nor the one used for Bilhah and Zilpah in Genesis. Hagar is a Shiphchah (שִׁפְחָה) in Genesis 16:1 ff, as are Bilhah and Zilpah in Genesis 29. 1 Samuel 25:41 has "amat'cha le'shiphchah (אֲמָֽתְךָ֙ לְשִׁפְחָ֔ה)", which means "your housemaid who is a slave-girl", inferring "amat'cha" as "handmaiden" and "shiphchah" as "slave-girl", rather than the other way around.
Mir-Yam's role in this, in the Yehudit version, is purely sisterly; but in the Egyptian she takes the role of Eshet, and the goddess' association with water will be retained throughout the wilderness journey, right up to the point of her death, which will coincide with the striking of the rock at Merivah (Exodus 20).
The Redactors were confronted with a difficult problem: how to have their Egyptian hero, Mosheh, who was brought up in Pharaoh's palace and was clearly a grandson of Pharaoh, become transformed into a Beney Yisra-El (which may or may not have been the same thing as an Ivri/Habiru), and not by political empathy or the need for a sub-class to manipulate in his pursuit of power, but by birth. This episode achieves the transformation.
2:6 VA TIPHTACH VA TIR'EHU ET HA YELED VE HINEH NA'AR BOCHEH VA TACHMOL ALAV VA TOMER MI YALDEY HA IVRIM ZEH
וַתִּפְתַּח וַתִּרְאֵהוּ אֶת הַיֶּלֶד וְהִנֵּה נַעַר בֹּכֶה וַתַּחְמֹל עָלָיו וַתֹּאמֶר מִיַּלְדֵי הָעִבְרִים זֶה
KJ: And when she had
opened it, she saw the
child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said,
This is one of the Hebrews'
children.
2:7 VA TOMER ACHOTO EL BAT PAR'OH HA ELECH VE KARA'TI LACH ISHAH MEYNEKET MIN HA IVRIYOT VE TEYNIK LACH ET HA YELED
וַתֹּאמֶר אֲחֹתוֹ אֶל בַּת פַּרְעֹה הַאֵלֵךְ וְקָרָאתִי לָךְ אִשָּׁה מֵינֶקֶת מִן הָעִבְרִיֹּת וְתֵינִק לָךְ אֶת הַיָּלֶד
KJ: Then said his sister
to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women,
that she may nurse the child for thee?
Let us not forget that Pharaoh has instructed that all male children be cast into the river and drowned; it would be reasonable for Mir-Yam to assume that Pharaoh's daughter supports her father in this, and therefore jumping in like this is naive to say the least. She can surely expect the curt response:"What is this child doing here – alive? No, don't bring any nurse. Bring soldiers. Drown this infant as the law requires. And who are you anyway to be interfering in this matter? Arrest her!" But Mir-Yam asks "that she may nurse the child for you" – which is either an offer to give the child up to Pharaoh's daughter as a gift, or the text struggling with its transformations again, because in fact (fact? a logical speculation, shall we say?) this is actually Pharaoh's daughter's child, and everyone except her father knew she was pregnant, and now it is born, and a boy, and it should be drowned too, like every other male child in Mitsrayim (see Exodus 1:22) - an edict to be remembered when it comes to the tenth plague! - but she does not want to give it up, and how convenient to say "daddy, I found this sweet little boy by the river. O please can I keep him, daddy. Please."
2:8 VA TOMER LAH BAT PAR'OH LECHI VA TELECH HA ALMAH VA TIKRA ET EM HA YELED
וַתֹּאמֶר לָהּ בַּת פַּרְעֹה לֵכִי וַתֵּלֶךְ הָעַלְמָה וַתִּקְרָא אֶת אֵם הַיָּלֶד
KJ: And Pharaoh's daughter
said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.
At this stage we have not been told the parents' or the sister's names.
Note the use of ALMAH = "maiden", which will become a word of much contraversy when it is generally translated incorrectly in Isaiah 7:14. At the mythological level of the Yehudit version, it may actually be that Mir-Yam is herself the mother of Mosheh, "Pharaoh's daughter" needing to be made Bat Yisra-Eli for the "historical" purpose of the tale.
2:9 VA TOMER LAH BAT PAR'OH HEYLIYCHI ET HA YELED HA ZEH VE HEYNIKI'HU LI VA ANI ETEN ET SECHARECH VA TIKACH HA ISHAH HA YELED VA TENIYKE'HU
וַתֹּאמֶר לָהּ בַּת פַּרְעֹה הֵילִיכִי אֶת הַיֶּלֶד הַזֶּה וְהֵינִקִהוּ לִי וַאֲנִי אֶתֵּן אֶת שְׂכָרֵךְ וַתִּקַּח הָאִשָּׁה הַיֶּלֶד וַתְּנִיקֵהוּ
KJ: And Pharaoh's daughter
said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy
wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.
If it is her child, and the story is just a cover, then sending it away with the Hebrew wet-nurse makes some sense. If it is not her child, but one she just happens to have found and thought rather darling to keep, why would she send it away, unless just for a few days, a few weeks at most? (One potential answer to this lies in the biography of Muhammad, who was sent for three years to be wet-nursed, on the principle that he was born into an aristocratic family, and aristocratic women did not suckle their own children).
HEYLICHI: Word-games, always word-games! The root is HALACH - "to go", and we saw in chapter 1 that the word MELECH was used on several occasions, rather than PAR'OH, for the Pharaoh. Mosheh will of course be responsible for the Halachah, the "way" of Judaism, later on, the word sourced in this root; but for the moment the reason is different - see my note about Saturn in the very next verse. HEYLICHI ET HA YELED could be translated with perfect correctness as "make this child the king", using HALACH in the Hiphil or causative form. The verb that we would expect her to use for "take the child away" is LAKACHAT, and TIKACH is precisely what the mother does later in the verse.
VA TIKACH...YELED: What happened to the ET that denotes the accusative?
2:10 VA YIGDAL HA YELED VE TEVI'EHU LE VAT PAR'OH VA YEHI LAH LE VEN VA TIKRA SHEMO MOSHEH VA TOMER KI MIN HA MAYIM MESHIYTIHU
וַיִּגְדַּל הַיֶּלֶד וַתְּבִאֵהוּ לְבַת פַּרְעֹה וַיְהִי לָהּ לְבֵן וַתִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ מֹשֶׁה וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי מִן הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ
KJ: And the child grew,
and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she
called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.
But she does not send him away for just a few weeks; "the child grew" implies months at the very least. Possibly she needed that long to lose pregnancy weight and appear before her father again. Possibly she needed time for the political atmosphere to change and having a baby boy be safe again. Possibly she needed, because this is still mythology, for the period of the equinox to pass into the period of the solstice - three months. The fourth possibility, that the child was never hers, simply does not work here. But in any case, the child is hers now.
There is a slight possibility of reading "she" as the mother, rather than as Pharaoh's daughter; though the sense of the sentence does not give this; only the grammar. But really it is Pharaoh's daughter, not the Ivri woman, who names him Mosheh, which is Mousa in the Egyptian, the then Pharaoh's own name being Ra-Mousa or Ra-Meses in the Yehudit, and a very common name amongst Egyptian Pharaohs; and yet the aetiology is rendered here as though it were "Ivri". In Egyptian "Mousa" simply means "son", though it also connects to the root "deliver", and "deliverer" or "redeemer" is a sobriquet of both Osher and Mosheh. If he was truly an "Ivri" child, and not merely wet-nursed by one, he would have received an "Ivri" name, used later even if not at this stage of the story, and surely we would have been told it at some point. In brief, Mosheh never actually gets an "Ivri" name, because Mosheh never was an "Ivri". And now see my note to Exodus 12:21.
A minor point: she says "water", not "river"; MAYIM (מים) rather than YE'OR (יאר).
2:11 VA YEHI BE YAMIM HA HEM VA YIGDAL MOSHEH VA YETSE EL ECHAV VA YAR VE SIVLOTAM VA YAR ISH MITSRI MAKEH ISH IVRI ME ECHAV
וַיְהִי בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה וַיֵּצֵא אֶל אֶחָיו וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם וַיַּרְא אִישׁ מִצְרִי מַכֶּה אִישׁ עִבְרִי מֵאֶחָיו
KJ: And it came to pass in
those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and
looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his
brethren.
The Buddhist moment (click here)! From the safe cocoon of the palace to his first step in the world; where Buddha saw an old and dying man, Mosheh sees Man's inhumanity - and both will spend the rest of their lives seeking the Bodhi tree of Enlightenment. (Or maybe I should have said the "Gnostic moment"; there are significant similarities between Egyptian Gnosticism and Buddhism; see especially the Gospel of Mani and the Egyptian Gnostic Gospels.)
Suddenly we leap forward a dozen and a half years, or perhaps even more, and find Mosheh grown up. We are given precisely nothing about Mosheh's childhood, and this is unfortunate, because it would inform the story considerably. We are also left to wonder: How does he know they are his brothers? In the humanist sense, then, not the familial.
For more on his childhood, look at the various Midrashim on Mosheh - far too many to hyperlink here. One is worth telling though, because it relates both to this verse and, perhaps more significantly, to both Exodus 4:10 and 6:12. According to one Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 1:31), as a very young lad Mosheh was once seen throwing Pharaoh's gold crown down to the ground. Upon learning of this apparent act of insolence, Pharaoh devised a test to see if the child understood the implications of his actions. He therefore commanded that a platter with a piece of gold and a glowing piece of coal be brought before Mosheh, and ordered the little boy to choose one. If Mosheh chose the gold, it would imply that he understood its value, and therefore he would be killed. On the other hand, if Mosheh chose the burning coal, he would be spared, since he was unable to differentiate between gold and a glowing piece of coal. Mosheh began to reach out for the gold when an angel pushed his hand aside and he grabbed the coal instead. Mosheh then immediately put his hand in his mouth, but that burned his lips and tongue so badly that he had a permanent speech impediment as a consequence. This tale closely parallels Yesha-Yahu's (Isaiah's) moment of calling to the prophetcy (Isaiah 6:6) in a ceremony that looks remarkably like Selichot - and see also my note to Exodus 6:12 as well as here for other Midrashim, including Moslem versions.
What all the Midrashim emphasise is that Mosheh was Pharaoh's daughter's accepted child, grew up in the palace, knew the Pharaoh as his grandfather, spoke Egyptian, was accustomed to the ways of the court, dressed as a prince, was known by everyone at court, and lived a protected and privileged life. The Moslem version gives his name as Mousa or Musa, and includes a tale in which it is predicted that a child will be born who will grow up to take the throne from Pharaoh, and that this was why Pharaoh ordered the killing of all male children (the same story is told in Matthew 2 about Herod and Jesus, and both reflect the Greek myth of Saturn, which I have explained in more detail below, and mentioned in a note at the very end of chapter 1*). It also states that there were seven handmaidens who opened the ark on the bulrushes, and that Pharaoh's daughter was immediately cured of leprosy when she looked at the baby: a tale that also reflects Mir-Yam's leprosy later on, and her role as priestess or possibly even goddess of the "bitter waters" of healing. The seven handmaidens alerts us to this as a liturgical tale of Osher (and see also verse 16 below), as well as providing yet another instance of the significance of the number seven.
* Canto14 of Dante's "Inferno" records how, when Saturn heard a prophecy that one of his sons, yet to be born, would overthrow him, he took to devouring them as soon as they emerged out of the womb. But Rhea, his wife, when she fell pregnant once again, retreated to the summit of Mount Ida (i.e "became hidden"), and gave birth there, and made a cradle for the boy, whose name was Jupiter. Then, the better to conceal his presence there, she summoned the Corybantes, the crested dancers who performed each summer at the sacrifices, and every time the child screamed she had them scream, to drown him out, and later wrapped a stone inside a set of swaddling-clothes, which Saturn duly ate, and which killed him. Is this perhaps a version of the Pharaonic order to kill the boy-babies and the Herodian equivalent in Jesus’ time?
2:12 VA YIPHEN KOH VA CHOH VA YAR KI EYN ISH VA YACH ET HA MITSRI VA YITMENE'HU BA CHOL
וַיִּפֶן כֹּה וָכֹה וַיַּרְא כִּי אֵין אִישׁ וַיַּךְ אֶת הַמִּצְרִי וַיִּטְמְנֵהוּ בַּחוֹל
KJ: And he looked this way
and that way, and when he saw that there
was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
Wonderful piece of psychology, dealing with guilt. In Jewish tradition, it is said that looking "here and there" is only a part of what is necessary; more important is the looking inward, and the looking upward: i.e to one's own conscience, and to the conviction that the deity witnesses everything.
Our first encounter with the Great Leader, and he is already a tainted human being, with blood on his hands. Classic Judaism! A world without superhoeroes.
2:13 VA YETS'E BA YOM HA SHENI VE HINEH SHENEY ANASHIM IVRIM NITSIM VA YOMER LA RASHA LAMAH TAKEH RE'ECHA
וַיֵּצֵא בַּיּוֹם הַשֵּׁנִי וְהִנֵּה שְׁנֵי אֲנָשִׁים עִבְרִים נִצִּים וַיֹּאמֶר לָרָשָׁע לָמָּה תַכֶּה רֵעֶךָ
KJ: And when he went out
the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to
him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?
BA YOM HA SHENI: Could be either "a second day" or "two days later"; but not "Tuesday", which would be YOM SHENI, not YOM HA SHENI.
NITSIM: A colloquial translation would have them "having a punch-up", but "striving together" will do; cf Numbers 26:9, and Psalm 60:2 especially, whose first word uses this same verb in the Hiphil form for "waging war".
LA RASHA: But this time I am sure that it has to be pure coincidence, because the hymn in question wasn't written for another three thousand years! But still I cannot resist mentioning it - I didn't, at verse 10, when the word YIGDAL was used, because it meant "and he grew up", and had absolutely nothing to do with the great hymn known as Yigdal, which is based on Maimonides' "Thirteen Principles of Faith". And then, here we are with "La rasha", and it has a definite liturgical echo: "Gomel le ish chesed ke mifalo, noten le rasha ra ke rishato", verse 11 to be precise, of the Yigdal. "He rewards the righteous man for his deeds, and punishes the wicked man for his evil."
RE'EYCHA: How do we translate this? As "fellow", which tells us nothing but infers "fellow-Ivri"; or again simply in the broad humanist sense?
2:14 VA YOMER MI SAMCHA LE ISH SAR VE SHOPHET ALEYNU HA LE HARGENI ATAH OMER KA ASHER HARAGTA ET HA MITSRI VA YIYRA MOSHEH VA YOMER ACHEN NODA HA DAVAR
וַיֹּאמֶר מִי שָׂמְךָ לְאִישׁ שַׂר וְשֹׁפֵט עָלֵינוּ הַלְהָרְגֵנִי אַתָּה אֹמֵר כַּאֲשֶׁר הָרַגְתָּ אֶת הַמִּצְרִי וַיִּירָא מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמַר אָכֵן נוֹדַע הַדָּבָר
KJ: And he said, Who made
thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst
the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.
Given that he looked carefully to see there was no one watching, how do they know? And why is he not surprised? Again, there is something positively Buddhist about the way Mosheh comes from the privileged life of the palace, sees real life for the first time, is shocked, and acts. But of course something "now being known" means that it is "no longer hidden", so again the language-play driven by the key ideas dictate the needs of the storyboard, and not the other way around, as in the commercial novel.
Mosheh, the grandson of Pharaoh, is worried that an Ivri slave saw him kill a Mitsri overseer, and is going to... what?.. report him? At the very least, this is bad psychology by the writer.
SAR VE SHOPHET: On the other hand, it is great story-telling, because it prefigures the rebellion of Korach, and the protests against his leadership style by Aharon and Mir-Yam, and other questions of the same order, that will recur later; and allows us to see ahead of time why he is himself reluctant to accept the leadership role.
But note also the careful choice of vocabulary, the avoidance of any permutation of HALACH. In Genesis 37:8, when Yoseph recounts his dream to his brothers, their response uses HALACH not once but twice.
2:15 VA YISHM'A PAR'OH ET HA DAVAR HA ZEH VA YEVAKESH LAHAROG ET MOSHEH VA YIVRACH MOSHEH MI PENEY PHAR'OH VA YESHEV BE ERETS MIDYAN VA YESHEV AL HE BER
וַיִּשְׁמַע פַּרְעֹה אֶת הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה וַיְבַקֵּשׁ לַהֲרֹג אֶת מֹשֶׁה וַיִּבְרַח מֹשֶׁה מִפְּנֵי פַרְעֹה וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּאֶרֶץ מִדְיָן וַיֵּשֶׁב עַל הַבְּאֵר
KJ: Now when Pharaoh heard
this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh,
and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.
DAVAR: As noted many times previously, DAVAR can mean "word", but it can also mean "thing", and it is used as a generic term to cover dozens of places where more precise vocabulary had not yet been created. So, in this instance, my translation as "incident".
YEVAKESH: Does not mean "sought", but "asked" or "enquired", or, in some contexts "criticised". Had he simply "sought" him, we would have expected YECHAPES (יחפש). The inference of YEVAKESH is that some sort of formal enquiry took place, Pharaoh wanting to know what happened to the missing overseer, with the death penalty looming if he is dead as suspected.
And if you disagree with my reasoning, see this from a different perspecive: an Ivri slave has turned informer, and Pharaoh takes the word of that slave without even questioning his own grandson, sentencing him to death without a judicial procedure? Implausible.
YEVAKESH: Does not mean "sought", but "asked" or "enquired", or, in some contexts "criticised". Had he simply "sought" him, we would have expected YECHAPES (יחפש). The inference of YEVAKESH is that some sort of formal enquiry took place, Pharaoh wanting to know what happened to the missing overseer, with the death penalty looming if he is dead as suspected.
And if you disagree with my reasoning, see this from a different perspecive: an Ivri slave has turned informer, and Pharaoh takes the word of that slave without even questioning his own grandson, sentencing him to death without a judicial procedure? Implausible.
But there is a third element to this, the use of the verb LAHAROG. Translated here as "kill", which immediately makes us think of the Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:12); but that says LO TIRTSACH (לֹא תִּרְצָח), and RETSACH is not the same as HARAG. Like most languages, Yehudit has a number of alternatives, to distinguish the various good and bad reasons for killing (self-defense, in war, for food, premeditated, genocide, etc). Broadly speaking (because none of these is ever absolutely precise), LIKTOL (לִקְטוֹל) is used for the culling of animals in the wild, LESHACHET (לְשַׁחֵת) when it takes place in the abattoir or on the Temple altar, LEHAKOT (לְהַכּוֹת) when the weapon of killing is a club or the fists, LAHAROG (לַהֲרוֹג) if it is manslaughter, and LEHAMIT (לְהַמִית) for the death penalty. LIRTSO'ACH (לִרְצוֹחַ), the one in the Commandment, has the meaning of "willful and deliberate murder".
Having said which, does this not rather undermine my previous comment, that Pharaoh conducted a judicial procedure, the outcome of which was the death penalty? I have to say that, yes, I think it does; but at the same time it requires a retranslation of this as a tantrum of the Pharaoh, with YEVAKESH having him respond rather in the manner of Henry II in his quarrel with Thomas Becket: ""Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
When in doubt, ask Rashi! "and he sought to slay Moses: He delivered him to the executioner to execute him, but the sword had no power over him. That is [the meaning of] what Moses said, 'and He saved me from Pharaoh’s חֶרֶב ' (Exod. 18:4). [From Mechilta, Yithro 1, Exod. Rabbah 1:321] - click here for my source (but remember to click the "show" button at the top of the page).
PENEY: Yes, that word yet again, in yet another variation.
MIDYAN: As we will see later on, huge amounts of the Mosaic story are sourced in Midyani legends, myths, and possibly history, so it is necessary for Egyptian Mosheh to make the complete wilderness journey in rather less than forty years, so that the connection can be established.
Do not forget that it was Beney Midyan who brought Yoseph down to Mitsrayim (see below for fuller details on the place), and in marrying a Midyanite Mosheh is about to marry out, at least from a Beney Yisra-El perspective.
The fact that he sits down by a well takes us, yet again, into the water goddess tales of the pastoral tradition: Eli-Ezer encountered Rivkah in Genesis 24, and Ya'akov encountered Rachel, by a well; Hagar and Yishma-El, on both occasions of her flight, rushed to a well - see my note at Genesis 21:14, which also includes the third well in her story, the Moslem version, the Zamzam); and we know from his birth that he is connected to water himself, as is Mir-Yam/Mar-Yam his sister.
BN: Now the priest of Midyan had seven daughters; and they came to draw water, and filled their pitchers to water their father's flock.
U LE KOHEN: Note the use of the word "Kohen" for priest; it is highly unlikely that the Egyptians would have used this word, which came originally from the Monghol leaders of Afghanistan, and was adopted in India and Persia, though at what precise time it entered the Yehudit language is uncertain - the priests of Persian Zoroastrianism were called Magi, not Khanin or Kohanim, so this could be a very late editing of the text. Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan (sorry, couldn't resist that link; you can look up the historical figure yourself) are probably the best-known occurrences of its name, at least in the western world. The Egyptian priesthood were probably known as "hem-netjer", which means "servants of the deity", while those with the administrative duties given by Mosheh to the Leviyim were known as "wab", and the equivalent of the chazan, the one who read or sang the holy liturgies, was "cheri=heb" (click here for more detail).
BN: And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Mosheh stepped up and helped them, and watered their flock.
BN: And when they came to Re'u-El their father, he said: "How come you're home so early today?"
BN: And they said: "An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and what's more, he drew water for us, and watered the flock."
BN: And he said to his daughters: "And where is he? How come you've just abandoned the man? Call him in. Give him something to eat."
LAMAH: Why LAMAH this time, but MADU'A before?
BN: And Mosheh was content to dwell with the man; and he gave Mosheh Tsiporah his daughter.
2:22 VA TELED BEN VA YIKRA ET SHEMO GERSHOM KI AMAR GER HAYITI BE ERETS NACHRIYAH
BN: And she bore him a son, and he named him Gershom; and he explained that it was because "I am a stranger in a strange land."
BN: Now it hapened in the due course of those many days that the Pharaoh of Mitsrayim died; and the Beney Yisra-El sighed from their servitude, and cried out, and their cries about their servitude reached the ears of the gods.
BN: And Elohim heard their groaning, and Elohim remembered his covenant with Av-Raham, with Yitschak, and with Ya'akov.
BN: And Elohim saw the Beney Yisra-El, and Elohim took cognizance of them.
2:16 U LE KOHEN MIDYAN SHEVA BANOT VA TAV'ONAH VA TIDLENAH VA TEMAL'ENAH ET HA REHATIM LEHASHKOT TSON AVIHEN
וּלְכֹהֵן מִדְיָן שֶׁבַע בָּנוֹת וַתָּבֹאנָה וַתִּדְלֶנָה וַתְּמַלֶּאנָה אֶת הָרְהָטִים לְהַשְׁקוֹת צֹאן אֲבִיהֶן
KJ: Now the priest of
Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water,
and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.
U LE KOHEN: Note the use of the word "Kohen" for priest; it is highly unlikely that the Egyptians would have used this word, which came originally from the Monghol leaders of Afghanistan, and was adopted in India and Persia, though at what precise time it entered the Yehudit language is uncertain - the priests of Persian Zoroastrianism were called Magi, not Khanin or Kohanim, so this could be a very late editing of the text. Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan (sorry, couldn't resist that link; you can look up the historical figure yourself) are probably the best-known occurrences of its name, at least in the western world. The Egyptian priesthood were probably known as "hem-netjer", which means "servants of the deity", while those with the administrative duties given by Mosheh to the Leviyim were known as "wab", and the equivalent of the chazan, the one who read or sang the holy liturgies, was "cheri=heb" (click here for more detail).
SHEVA BANOT: Seven daughters, like the seven handmaidens in the Moslem version of Mosheh's birth, and in the Midrashic version as well (see verse 11 above), a sign that we are at a shrine (which we know anyway on this occasion, because their father is a priest); but a shrine to the god of the number seven, which is normally YHVH.
VA TIDLENAH: And they drew water. Again and again the story connects and will continue to connect with water, which is the inverse of the desert which is the tale's principal location. If the name Mosheh means "drawn from the water", as most etymologists insist, why is TIDLENAH used here, and not a verb from the root MASHACH (משח)?
As noted above, this is the tale of Eli-Ezer, and that of Ya'akov at the well, repeated. I mention it again, only because the next verse will echo it very closely.
TAVONAH...TIDLENAH...TEMAL'ENA: Note again the variant grammatical form.
2:17 VA YAVO'U HA RO'IM VA YEGARSHUM VA YAKAM MOSHEH VA YUSHI'AN VA YASHK ET TSONAM
וַיָּבֹאוּ הָרֹעִים וַיְגָרְשׁוּם וַיָּקָם מֹשֶׁה וַיּוֹשִׁעָן וַיַּשְׁקְ אֶת צֹאנָם
KJ: And the shepherds came
and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their
flock.
HA RO'IM: The Hyksos carried the sobriquet "shepherd-kings". Given the parallels, is there a scene missing from the reference to the shepherds and the rock in the Ya'akov version? This is obviously a traditional tale of the arrival of the Risen Lord at the shrine of the water goddess, retold in many variants; including, when Jesus arrives at his equivalent, the expansion of the well to become the entire Sea of Galilee! His woman of course is also Mir-Yam: Mary of Migdal; and we cannot note that fact, but then ignore the instruction to Mosheh later on - and see again my notes to verse 3 above as well as Exodus 14:2 - that he was to make his first pause in the wilderness "before Pi Ha Chirot, between Migdal and the sea." A different Migdal, and any fortified town could have that equivalent to the Latin "castra", but still yet another interesting coincidence.
2:18 VA TAV'ONAH EL RE'U-EL AVIYHEN VA YOMER MADU'A MIHARTEN BO HA YOM
וַתָּבֹאנָה אֶל רְעוּאֵל אֲבִיהֶן וַיֹּאמֶר מַדּוּעַ מִהַרְתֶּן בֹּא הַיּוֹם
KJ: And when they came to
Reuel their father, he said, How is
it that ye are come so soon to day?
Again reflecting the arrival of Ya'akov at the well in Padan Aram where he met Rachel.
RE'U-EL: see the link. Unfamiliar readers should now start counting to see how many fathers-in-law Mosheh will acquire, and by how many names, and yet with rather fewer wives; an error by the Redactor in the co-mingling of the various tribal versions. Later we will be told that Tsiporah's father is named Yitro, though here it is definitely Re'u-El.
MADU'A: Evidently their problems with the shepherds are frequent.
2:19 VA TOMARNA ISH MITSRI HITSIYLANU MI YAD HA RO'IM VE GAM DALOH DALAH LANU VA YASHK ET HA TSON
וַתֹּאמַרְןָ אִישׁ מִצְרִי הִצִּילָנוּ מִיַּד הָרֹעִים וְגַם דָּלֹה דָלָה לָנוּ וַיַּשְׁקְ אֶת הַצֹּאן
KJ: And they said, An
Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough
for us, and watered the flock.
MITSRI: No question that they believe he is a Mitsri, not an Ivri. We can assume that he was dressed as a Mitsri, but also that he spoke Mitsri. We know very little about Midyani as a language, as they left no written records, but their geographical location makes it more likely that they would have spoken a proto-Arabic dialect, and not Egyptian, which is a very diffeent language; Yehudit and the languages of Kena'an, on the other hand, are also akin to proto-Arabic, so a man brought up among the Beney Yisra-El would have been more likely to use Yehudit than Egyptian in their company, unless he wanted to be taken as an Egyptian.
DALOH DALAH: The root really has to do with things "hanging down", like fruit from trees or men from gallows, or the flap of a tent-door, or hair in Song of Songs 7:6, and Psalm 141:3 even uses it poetically for the lips. And here, the hanging down of the bucket into the depths of the well, in order to draw water. TIDLENAH at verse 16 comes from the same root.
2:20 VA YOMER EL BENOTAV VE AYAN LAMAH ZEH AZAVTEN ET HA ISH KIR'EN LO VA YOCHAL LECHEM
וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל בְּנֹתָיו וְאַיּוֹ לָמָּה זֶּה עֲזַבְתֶּן אֶת הָאִישׁ קִרְאֶן לוֹ וְיֹאכַל לָחֶם
KJ: And he said unto his
daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have
left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.
LAMAH: Why LAMAH this time, but MADU'A before?
AZAVTEN: uses the more familiar form. An anachronism? KIREN in the next sentence goes back to the variant grammar.
LACHEM: Why does the pointing give LACHEM when it is obviously LECHEM?
2:21 VA YO'EL MOSHEH LASHEVET ET HA ISH VA YITEN ET TSIPORAH BITO LE MOSHEH
וַיּוֹאֶל מֹשֶׁה לָשֶׁבֶת אֶת הָאִישׁ וַיִּתֵּן אֶת צִפֹּרָה בִתּוֹ לְמֹשֶׁה
KJ: And Moses was content
to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
TSIPORAH: meaning "little bird".
2:22 VA TELED BEN VA YIKRA ET SHEMO GERSHOM KI AMAR GER HAYITI BE ERETS NACHRIYAH
וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן וַיִּקְרָא אֶת שְׁמוֹ גֵּרְשֹׁם כִּי אָמַר גֵּר הָיִיתִי בְּאֶרֶץ נָכְרִיָּה
KJ: And she bare him a son, and
he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange
land.
GERSHOM: see the link for the variations of Gershom and Gershon. The intention here is an amalgamation of two words, GER ("stranger" or "foreigner"), and SHAM ("there"), though it also describes the land as NACHRIYAH, for which see the link here. The statement of strangerhood will become fundamental later on, when the laws are given: most of them are promulgated precisely on the notion of being strangers in a strange land, and dozens refer specifically to the way strangers should be treated, so having his firstborn carry this idea within his name is an act of considerable generosity to the scholars at the very least.
However! There is also the verb LEGARESH, which means "to expel", or "drive out", and Mosheh is indeed in that condition.
However! There is also the verb LEGARESH, which means "to expel", or "drive out", and Mosheh is indeed in that condition.
And then there is the very important question (for theologians anyway): were the Beney Midyan a matrilocal or a patrilocal people, regardless of Mosheh's legal predicament? Because, if the former, then Gershom counts as Midyani, not Ivri, or Yisra-Eli. Note what would be Gershom's life later on: a chief in the secular aspects of the tribe, but with no religious role at all; that would be given to Eli-Ezer, his younger brother - which may be yet another example of the elder brother being supplanted, but is more likely a recognition that he was not technically a Levi, because Mosheh had married out.
However! Note that it is Mosheh, not Tsiporah, who names the child; look back at the many comparable occasions in Genesis, and you will see that some are named by the mothers, some by the fathers, and some differently by both.
However! Note that it is Mosheh, not Tsiporah, who names the child; look back at the many comparable occasions in Genesis, and you will see that some are named by the mothers, some by the fathers, and some differently by both.
2:23 VA YEHI VA YAMIM HA RABIM HA HEM VA YAMAT MELECH MITSRAYIM VE YE'ANCHU VENEY YISRA-EL MIN HA AVODAH VA YIZ'AKU VA TA'AL SHAV'ATAM EL HA ELOHIM MIN HA AVODAH
וַיְהִי בַיָּמִים הָרַבִּים הָהֵם וַיָּמָת מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם וַיֵּאָנְחוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן הָעֲבֹדָה וַיִּזְעָקוּ וַתַּעַל שַׁוְעָתָם אֶל הָאֱלֹהִים מִן הָעֲבֹדָה
KJ: And it came to pass in
process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed
by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by
reason of the bondage.
HA ELOHIM: "the gods", rather than the specific god Elohim; though this will change in the next verse. And still no mention of YHVH.
AVODAH: Again note the distinction between bondage (bondsmenhood/serfdom) and slavery; we appear now to be speaking of slavery, though I have chosen to call it servitude, which is subtlely different, and closer to the description of the structure established by Yoseph in the latter chapters of Genesis.
Is there an inference that the death-sentence passed on Mosheh in his absence lapsed when the old Pharaoh died?
2:24 VA YISHMA ELOHIM ET NA'AKATAM VA YIZKOR ELOHIM ET BERITO ET AV-RAHAM ET YITSCHAK VE ET YA'AKOV
וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים אֶת נַאֲקָתָם וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת בְּרִיתוֹ אֶת אַבְרָהָם אֶת יִצְחָק וְאֶת יַעֲקֹב
KJ: And God heard their
groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with
Jacob.
What if any is the connection between the king dying and the complaint about bondage? Hope that a new king will free them? The two sentences do not seem to be logically connected. And why does it matter? Because the inheritance is everything, for the Mosaic story. If the new king is the son of the old king, then he is Mosheh's brother, or half-brother, or step-brother, which may be good or bad depending on relationships, but at the very least his "mother" will still be at court; if the new king is a new dynasty, then everything potentially changes. A new king who is a Hyksos might take a different view from a new king who wants to restore the old dynasty, etc. Every permutation is possible, and we cannot know. But we do know that the Pharaoh who was angry with Mosheh over the killing of the overseer is dead.
NA'AKOTAM: Hugely significant this, as a piece of foreshadowing, and essential that we keep it in mind later on. Throughout the desert journey, the Beney Yisra-El will moan, and complain, and protest, and kvetch, incessantly, just as they are doing now, in the latter case wanting to return to "the fleshpots of Mitsrayim" - and here they are, inhabiting those fleshpots, and crying so loud about it that Elohim, who calls them ingrates and stiff-necks when they do so later on, comes to their rescue now, like... like Mosheh rescuing Tsiporah and her sisters from the shepherds.
ET: used here to mean "with".
BERITO: ideally this should be in the plural, reflecting "covenants", because the covenant with each of the three patriarchs was significantly different; this should be read in the global sense of Shomer Yisra-El, "the guardian of Yisra-El".
2:25 VA YAR ELOHIM ET BENEY YISRA-EL VA YEDA ELOHIM
וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֵּדַע אֱלֹהִים
KJ: And God looked upon
the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.
samech break; end of chapter two, end of third fragment.
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 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
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