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
3:1 U MOSHEH HAYAH RO'EH ET TSON YITRO CHOTNO KOHEN MIDYAN VA YINHAG ET HA TSON ACHAR HA MIDBAR VA YAVO EL HAR HA ELOHIM CHOREVAH
וּמֹשֶׁה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת צֹאן יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ כֹּהֵן מִדְיָן וַיִּנְהַג אֶת הַצֹּאן אַחַר הַמִּדְבָּר וַיָּבֹא אֶל הַר הָאֱלֹהִים חֹרֵבָה
KJ: Now
Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he
led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
YITRO: Usually rendered in English as Jethro. But immediately before this, in 2:18, we were told that his father-in-law was Re'u-El, not Yitro; and very soon he will be Hovav (click here for a theologian's attempt to solve the problem).
Genesis 36:26 has a Yitran, while Judges 8:20 has Yeter as the son of Gid'on (Gideon), and probably the three are the same name, in the way that Guy, Bill and William are all derived from the Norman-French Guillaume. As to the meaning, there is a word YETER used for any "remainder", which probably derives from YATAR, meaning "abundance", and might therefore suggest that Re'u-El was his name but Yitro - "rich man" - how he was referred to behind his back. Unlikely, but we have to explore all options; and Exodus 4:18 will name his father-in-law as Yeter, first, and only at the second mention as Yitro. There is also a second YETER, completely unconnected, which has to do with ropes and cords and bow-strings, for which see Judges 16:7, Job 4:21 and Psalm 11:2; which would of course connect to that complicated play on words DALOH DALAH in Exodus 2:19.
CHOREV: Mount Horeb. Given here as HAR HA ELOHIM: "the mountain of the gods". What gods were worshipped on this mountain? Note that it is Chorev, where the 10 Commandments will later be given, and that we are in Midyan, not the Sinai desert (see the map in the link to Midyan). Given that Midyan lies east of the north-east prong of the Red Sea, and Sinai between but north of its two prongs, we might want to suggest that this was not the geographical area of the Midyan that we think it was? East of the Red Sea takes us into the southernmost part of what is now Jordan, or even beyond, into the Hejaz of what is now Saudi Arabia - a journey which the Muslims believe Ibrahim (Av-Raham) made to found Mecca (al-Hajj 22:26, al-Baqarah 2:127 et al), but is simply implausible for the Beney Yisra-El of this tale, especially at it thereby places Mount Sinai there, rather than in the Sinai desert.
On the other hand, it does help us understand why tradition has translated Yam Suph as the Red and not the Reed Sea; Midyan would be precisely where they arrived, but we would need to locate Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments, not in the Sinai Desert between Mitsrayim and Yisra-El, but in southern Jordan or northern Saudi Arabia.
This then leads to several questions.
a) If the hegemony of Midyan extended from east of the Red Sea to Mount Chorev, then it covered the entire geography of the 40-year wilderness journey; Mosheh was therefore taking the people through his own clan-territory the entire time, supported by Yitro (or Re'u-El, as per Exodus 2:18) the priest of Midyan, one of his fathers-in-law, who happened to be a descendant of Av-Raham as well, through Keturah (see Genesis 25:1ff).
b) ACHAR HA MIDBAR: "The farthest end of the wilderness": Chorev is only "the farthest end", if one is looking from Midyan; from Mitsrayim, it is the near beginning. So this furnishes a second piece of evidence in this verse that we are reading a Midyanite legend, not an Egyptian or a Yisra-Eli one.
c) This tale makes Chorev the holy mountain of the Mitsrim, the Beney Yisra-El, and especially the Beney Midyan, despite the fact that they worshipped entirely different gods. Having said which, they did really worship the same gods - the sun, the moon, the forces of Nature, in this case the volcanic mountain, but they knew them by different names - which may also be the explanation for Yitro, Re'u-El and Hovav.
CHOREV: From the same root that yields ET LAHAT HA CHEREV in Genesis 2:24. The "flaming" sword on that occasion - a first hint of the volcanic nature of both the mountain, and the deity who lives in/on it.
ELOHIM: Note the reference to Elohim, continuing what has been the name of the deity throughout Exodus until now; but it is about to change.
3:2 VA YERA MAL'ACH YHVH ELAV BE LABAT ESH MITOCH HA SENEH VA YAR VE HINEH HA SENEH BO'ER BA ESH VE HA SENEH EYNENU UCHAL
וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה אֵלָיו בְּלַבַּת אֵשׁ מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה הַסְּנֶה בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ וְהַסְּנֶה אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל
KJ: And
the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of
a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed.
The first appearance of YHVH in Exodus, and note that his arrival coincides with an outbreak of fire from the side of the volcanic mountain, suggesting - and we saw the same in the Edomite version of the volcanic eruption, at Genesis 19 - that the original YHVH was the volcano-god.
MAL'ACHIM: "angels", at least in the English translations; but angels belong to a very different era of theology, and not really to Judaism at all. A Mal'ach is a "messenger", from the root LA'ACH = "to depute"; but where normally those messages are emanations of light from the stars, here they are emanations of light from a bush that appears to be burning without the bush being consumed.
Some translations render VA YERA MAL'ACH as "the angel", but there is no definite article in the Yehudit. This is one, inferring one of many. As noted previously, references to angels are unlikely to have entered Yisra-Eli folk-lore before the 6th century BCE, being sourced in the Zoroastrianism of the Persian Medes.
As noted above, one of the meanings of CHOREV is "heat" or "glow", inferring that the mountain was once volcanic: HAR HA CHOREV should thus translate as "the fiery mountain". The fire causing the burning bush would have been an early indication of volcanic activity, with molten lava beginning to issue through fissures in the hillside lower down than the crater.
There is, however, an entirely feasible second interpretation of the above, which picks up the "flaming sword" of Eden, placed at the gateway alongside the Keruvim (cherubim), "to guard the way to the Tree of Life" (Genesis 3:24). Exactly like Yoseph, Mosheh is now married to the daughter of the high priest, and unless this is a high priest in the Av-Rahamic sense of a tribal sheikh who serves as sacred king, then the "flocks" are more often people than sheep. And so here (perhaps) is Mosheh, exactly as we will see him later, taking his flock for a holy ceremony to the shrine at the holy mountain; and at the entrance to the shrine, guarding the way to the holy tree - the World Tree - that stands at its centre, is a swastika, a fire wheel; and no doubt a pair of keruvim as well, but they do not get mentioned. Mosheh, take off your shoes, you are walking on holy ground! (Don't worry, he will, in a couple of verses time.)
And of course, both explanations, taken as two parts of a single explanation, is also viable.
HA SENEH: The article should be indefinite surely; then why isn't it? Because it isn't just any bush; this bush is meant to burn; this bush burns eternally, like the Ner Tamid in the Temple. And what is an "angel" of YHVH doing in this tale? The angel is the fire. SENEH, incidentally, will have been a thorn bush, like the one that Joseph of Arimathea is said to have planted in Gleistonbury when he brought the Holy Grail there, and which served as the World Tree in the Arthurian versions of the same comsic mythology (served, past tense - click here for an explanation); from the root SANAH = sharp. And yes, the name Sinai derives from that very root. How? Look at my notes to Nehemiah 3:3, and then at the text of 1 Samuel 14:4.
Some commentators reckon that Sinai are Horeb are interchangeable, the one from Sin, the Babylonian moon-god, the other picking up the "heat" and "glow" meanings, and thereby making it the home of the sun god. But why Sin and why not SANAH? Or is it simply an attempt to evade the volcano by superimposing the solar? The probability is that Sinai was the range and Chorev one of its peaks, in the way that there is Everest, and there are the Himalayas.
3:3 VA YOMER MOSHEH ASURAH NA VE ER'EH ET HA MAR'EH HA GADOL HA ZEH MADU'A LO YIV'AR HA SENEH
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אָסֻרָה נָּא וְאֶרְאֶה אֶת הַמַּרְאֶה הַגָּדֹל הַזֶּה מַדּוּעַ לֹא יִבְעַר הַסְּנֶה
KJ: And
Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is
not burnt.
The use of Asurah-na, meaning "I shall turn aside", is perplexing. NA usually means "please" or "let me". Is he perhaps asking the guardian of the shrine for permission to go in? In which case it should be translated as "Please may I come in and..."
YIV'AR: From the root BA'AR (בער), meaning "to consume", and usually used in the context of fire (Numbers 11:3, Psalm 106:18, Jeremiah 20:9); not to be confused with BE'ER (באר), meaning "a well", which is spelled with an Aleph (א) not an Ayin (ע).
3:4 VA YAR YHVH KI SAR LIR'OT VA YIKRA ELAV ELOHIM MITOCH HA SENEH VA YOMER MOSHEH MOSHEH VA YOMER HINENI
וַיַּרְא יְהוָה כִּי סָר לִרְאוֹת וַיִּקְרָא אֵלָיו אֱלֹהִים מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּנִי
KJ: And
when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the
midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
An extraordinary sentence, in which both YHVH and Elohim manage to make an appearance, the first the god of the burning bush, the second the voice that calls him. Scholars of the Documentary Hypothesis would argue that this is a merging of a Yisra-Eli with an Ephrayimite version, the former favouring YHVH, the latter Elohim, but this is a speculation which TheBibleNet rejects - the principal evidence for it being incorrect lies in the books written long after Ephrayim had vanished into obliion, the Books of the Return From Exile. What is clear from them is that Elohim is the pantheon, YHVH the name of a specific deity. Here it is even more clear, though YHVH is not yet the full deity; this is rather more the role of Logi or Loke in the Nibelungen mythologies.
As always, the traditional opening of every dialogue with the gods.
HINENI: See the link.
3:5 VA YOMER AL TIKRAV HALOM SHAL NE'ALEYCHA ME'AL RAGLEYCHA KI HA MAKOM ASHER OMED ALAV ADMAT KODESH HU
וַיֹּאמֶר אַל תִּקְרַב הֲלֹם שַׁל נְעָלֶיךָ מֵעַל רַגְלֶיךָ כִּי הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עוֹמֵד עָלָיו אַדְמַת קֹדֶשׁ הוּא
KJ: And
he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy
ground.
ADMAT KODESH: The notion of "holy ground", and the reason for taking shoes off, needs no explanation. Note that it is merely a language-coincidence on this occasion, the appearance of ADMAT with its hints of both Eden (through Adam) and Edom.
Who is the "he" here? YHVH or Elohim? We have to assume from the order and phrasing of the previous verse that it is Elohim, though Chorev will turn out to be YHVH's holy mountain. The nextverse will confirm it.
3:6 VA YOMER ANOCHI ELOHEY AVIYCHA ELOHEY AV-RAHAM ELOHEY YITSCHAK VE ELOHEY YA'AKOV VA YASTER MOSHEH PANAV KI YAR'E ME HABIT EL HA ELOHIM
וַיֹּאמֶר אָנֹכִי אֱלֹהֵי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב וַיַּסְתֵּר מֹשֶׁה פָּנָיו כִּי יָרֵא מֵהַבִּיט אֶל הָאֱלֹהִים
KJ: Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
BN: Moreover he said: "I am the god of your ancestors, the god of Av-Raham, the god of Yitschak, and the god of Ya'akov." And Mosheh hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon ha Elohim.
But he isn't looking upon his god; he is looking into a burning flame, which he regards as a messenger of the gods; and in the second part of the sentence it is the general HA ELOHIM, and not the specific ELOHIM; the full pantheon.
Given our knowledge of the ancient rites, we ought to be able to reconstruct a fuller picture of the shrine on Mount Chorev. The burning bush as the flaming sword that guards the way to the sacred tree at the centre of the shrine; used as vestal fire for sacrifices. The speaking voice of Elohim is either the oracle himself (herself?) or a priest(ess). Note the Islamic ritual of shoe-removal and full prostration (I am assuming that Mosheh "hid his face" against the ground, fully prostrate, rather than in his hands or simply by looking away; but see my note to YASTER PANAV below).
ELOHEY AVICHA...: God, or gods? The text is unclear but the inference is plural, because we know from our reading of Genesis that the 3 patriarchs either were different gods themselves, and/or worshipped different gods. The central phrase is the source of the opening verse of the Amidah or Shemoneh Esreh, the central prayer in every Jewish t'filah.
YASTER PANAV is unexpected here. In later Judaism the explanation of the existence of evil in the world is that Elohim "HISTIR PANAV", "turns his face aside". This denotes a sun god, and is linked to the Yevarechecha blessing of Numbers 6:24-26; in the latter the god turns his face to shine on his people, so that good things can happen; in the former he turns his face aside, and while the cloud metaphorically obscures the sun, evil can slip in. What then is the phrase doing here? Pre-dating the concept, and merely descriptive? Or is Mosheh, as first son-in-law of the high priest, here in some priestly capacity?
There is a strong case to be made for this episode, and that of the Ten Commandments, to be viewed as alternate versions of the same ritual; but here in a Midyanite version. The Egyptian prince-priest of Osher (Osiris) bringing his people to the shrine on the holy mountain for a liturgical purpose: the one thing missing from this version is the icon of the deity, the Golden Calf; the burning bush at the entrance to the holy ground is present in the other version, but in a different form, as we shall see when Mosheh meets his god on the mountaintop (Exodus 19).
We also need to see this verse in relation to verse 15 below, and both these verses in relation to Exodus 6:3, which merely qualifies this verse to some degree, but overtly contradicts 3:15.
3:7 VA YOMER YHVH RA'OH RA'IYTI ET ANI AMI ASHER BE MITSRAYIM VE ET TSA'AKATAM SHAMA'TI MIPNEY NOGSHAV KI YADA'TI ET MACH'OVAV
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה רָאֹה רָאִיתִי אֶת עֳנִי עַמִּי אֲשֶׁר בְּמִצְרָיִם וְאֶת צַעֲקָתָם שָׁמַעְתִּי מִפְּנֵי נֹגְשָׂיו כִּי יָדַעְתִּי אֶת מַכְאֹבָיו
KJ: And
the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their
sorrows;
YHVH again. The voice of the flame speaking.
What ceremony or act of reflection has Mosheh come for? As in the Sinai episode, we can read the purpose from the divine responses. Men go to their gods to ask for things, not to find out what it may be in the god's mind to give them. Unstated here, either he, alone, in his exile, or possibly the people who are with him if that was the intention of "flock" at verse 1, have asked for a sign that freedom will come, which in the context of the history is not the Beney Yisra-El so much as whoever constituted the Habiru-Ivrim, which is to say all those Mitsrim who had been conquered and enslaved; equivalent to saying "all those impacted by Soviet Communism"!
RA'OH RA'IYTI: The use of repetition for emphasis is a conventional technique of Yisrae-Eli poetry. "I have seen the seeing" would be a more literal translation, but the sense is "again and again...". The same poetical construction will be seen with PAKOD PAKADETI in verse 16.
TSA'AKATAM: He has heard them, but we have not. Only from the story of Mosheh killing the overseer, and from the narrative, can we guess it was a widespread complaint. We have to imagine the manner in which the people worshipped here at Chorev: much wailing and lamenting. And probably there is a text somewhere which sadly we do not have.
3:8 VA ERED LE HATSIYLO MI YAD MITSRAYIM U LE HA'ALOTO MIN HA ARETS HA HU EL ERETS TOVAH U RECHAVAH EL ERETS ZAVAT CHALAV U DEVASH EL MEKOM HA KENA'ANI VE HA CHITI VE HA EMORI VE HA PERIZI VE HA CHIVI VE HA YEVUSI
וָאֵרֵד לְהַצִּילוֹ מִיַּד מִצְרַיִם וּלְהַעֲלֹתוֹ מִן הָאָרֶץ הַהִוא אֶל אֶרֶץ טוֹבָה וּרְחָבָה אֶל אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ אֶל מְקוֹם הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַחִתִּי וְהָאֱמֹרִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי וְהַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי
KJ: And
I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring
them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with
milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the
Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
VA ERED: The pantheon in all ancient religions inhabits the holy mountain, be it Machu Picchu or Olympus, Valhalla or, on this occasion, Chorev.
LE HATSIYLO: The first occasion of a key conflict within the telling of the tale. When he first goes to Pharaoh (Exodus 5:1), Mosheh is quite explicit in his request: he is not asking to take his people permanently out of Mitsrayim, but only to go to the holy mountain for the three-day Passover ceremonies, and then to return. In that version, it is only when the Mitsrim pursue him that he realises that return is impossible, and so he plans a journey onwards. Yet here the exodus to Kena'an is already stated. Does that make this the later version of the story, anachronistically placed to further the ideological purpose of the text as a whole?
RECHAVAH: This word is strange in this context. In terms of size, Kena'an has nothing on Mitsrayim, and in fact it is geographically the very opposite of "wide": it is incredibly narrow. So it cannot mean what we think it means.
ZAVAT CHALAV U DEVASH: To which god or goddess are these symbols attached? We have seen all three words before. The milk might be sheep (Rachel) or cow (Le'ah), the honey definitely belongs to Devorah, Rivkah's wet-nurse. As to the promise, it belongs to the great deity of all political manifesto writers, the god Ponzi.
3:9 VE ATAH HINEH TSA'AKAT BENEY YISRA-EL BA'AH ELAI VE GAM RA'IYTI ET HA LACHATS ASHER MITSRAYIM LOCHATSIM OTAM
וְעַתָּה הִנֵּה צַעֲקַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָה אֵלָי וְגַם רָאִיתִי אֶת הַלַּחַץ אֲשֶׁר מִצְרַיִם לֹחֲצִים אֹתָם
KJ: Now
therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I
have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.
Mitsrayim used as a plural, which is grammatucally correct because the word is a multiple plural, but usually multiple plurals take the singular verb.
3:10 VE ATAH LECHAH VE ESHLACHACHA EL PAR'OH VE HOTSE ET AMI VENEY YISRA-EL MI MITSRAYIM
וְעַתָּה לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֶל פַּרְעֹה וְהוֹצֵא אֶת עַמִּי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָיִם
KJ: Come
now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth
my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
Now we know what the ceremony was, and it may indeed be that Mosheh has come alone, though more likely he has brought with him those Midyanites whose families were sold into slavery in Mitsrayim, like Yoseph (and remember that it was Midyanites who brought Yoseph to Mitsrayim). Two-fold. Mosheh is being initiated into the priesthood, following his marriage to either Re'u-El's or Yitro's daughter; and probably priestly initiation was one of the terms of that marriage. At the same time, in taking his priestly vows, Mosheh is dedicating himself to the task of liberating the Midyanites in Mitsrayim, and possibly his own Ivrim too, if he even knows about them (to answer that, we need to look at Muhammad's upbringing with his foster-mother Halima).
BENEY YISRA-EL: I strongly suspect that this concept did not exist at that epoch, but was a creation of a much later period; much more logical that Mosheh saw his task as the liberation of the Habiru, which would have included any of the many tribes, clans, peoples envassaled in Mitsrayim.
3:11 VA YOMER MOSHEH EL HA ELOHIM MI ANOCHI KI ELECH EL PAR'OH VE CHI OTSIY ET BENEY YISRA-EL MI MITSRAYIM
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל הָאֱלֹהִים מִי אָנֹכִי כִּי אֵלֵךְ אֶל פַּרְעֹה וְכִי אוֹצִיא אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָיִם
KJ: And
Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I
should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel
out of Egypt?
MI ANOCHI: "Who am I"?: see the note to Exodus 2:23 below.
On the one hand this is a great question: Mosheh is on the wanted-for-death list for the crime that brought him here in the first place, a fact which Ha Elohim should have taken into consideration before deciding to send him back. On the other hand, this is simply the conventional oath and first speech, like Caesar turning down the Empire three times. Mosheh is a prince of Mitsrayim, with access to the court (assuming that he can deal with the warrant that may or may not still be out for him). Compare Isaiah 6 (I shall return constantly to Yesha-Yahu, because I am reasonably convinced that he - or his "school" - was the author of Exodus).
3:12 VA YOMER KI EHEYEH IMACH VE ZEH LECHA HA OT KI ANOCHI SHELACHTIYCHA BE HOTSIY'ACHA ET HA AM MI MITSRAYIM TA'AVDUN ET HA ELOHIM AL HA HAR HA ZEH
וַיֹּאמֶר כִּי אֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ וְזֶה לְּךָ הָאוֹת כִּי אָנֹכִי שְׁלַחְתִּיךָ בְּהוֹצִיאֲךָ אֶת הָעָם מִמִּצְרַיִם תַּעַבְדוּן אֶת הָאֱלֹהִים עַל הָהָר הַזֶּה
KJ: And
he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall
be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast
brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
This is not really a sign; it is much more an outcome. A sign would be a rainbow, or a staff that turned into a serpent when thrown on the ground. And which god? Because later he will serve YHVH, but here it is still Ha Elohim.
KI EHEYEH IMACH: Which connects to EHEYEH ASHER EHEYEH in verse 14.
OT: See the first version of Creation (Genesis 1) to understand what an OT really is. Nor is it much of a sign. What Mosheh is hoping for, and will get, are meaningful signs: plagues, miracles, magic snakes. The sign he actually gets now is nothing: merely an invitation to come back and resume worship afterwards.
3:13 VA YOMER MOSHEH EL HA ELOHIM HINEH ANOCHI VA EL BENEY YISRA-EL VE AMARTI LAHEM ELOHEY AVOTEYCHEM SHELACHANI ALEYCHEM VE AMRU LI MA SHEMO MA OMAR ALEYHEM
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָא אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתִּי לָהֶם אֱלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם וְאָמְרוּ-לִי מַה-שְּׁמוֹ מָה אֹמַר אֲלֵהֶם
KJ: And
Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come
unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers
hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name?
what shall I say unto them?
ELOHEY AVOTEYCHEM: This really should be translated as "the gods of your ancestors ", because, as we saw in Genesis, they were three very different gods, or at least three very different versions of god, whom Av-Raham, Yitschak and Ya'akov worshipped, and in each case they too worshipped a pan, or even perhaps a polytheon. And the grammar invites it too. But the response, and the completion of the question, are just as clearly singular.
And if he was indeed the god of their fathers, then they wouldn't need to ask his name, because they would already know it. So the inference is either that we have a plurality of peoples, unified only by their "gulag" designation as Habiru or Ivrim; or that Mosheh is bringing a new god, and the god will confirm this by stating that he was known to the three patriarchs by quite other names. Which god then? Horus in replacement of Ra, or vice-versa? A Midyanite deity (who the Midyanites worshipped is unclear; is it possible that Mosheh is introducing YHVH to the Ivrim as a Midyanite god?). Having said which, if this is about the revival of the former Egyptian pantheon, following two centuries of Hyksos rule, the names may well have been lost.
3:14 VA YOMER ELOHIM EL MOSHEH EHEYEH ASHER EHEYEH VA YOMER KOH TOMAR LIVNEY YISRA-EL EHEYEH SHELACHANI ALEYCHEM
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם
KJ: And
God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
EHEYEH: see verse 12 above. But what does it mean? I feel a strong impulsion to answer this with a strong Yiddish accent and a large shrug of the shoulders: "I am whoever I choose to be"? The gods, plural, can take any form they like, anthropomorphic, as "angels" in the burning thorn-bush or the light of the stars, as miracles of Nature. No specific god is named here.
Though we can now see, for the first time, where the concept of YHVH begins. Here the first person singular is used, as is logical; but in speaking about this deity to the Beney Yisra-El, we can imagine Mosheh transferring to the third person singular, "he will be whoever he will be" (a response that has the same quality of informality as Moshes's own question) = YEHIYEH ASHER YEHIYEH (יהיה אשר יהיה). We have seen before how the Yud (י) and Vav (ו) are interchangeable: so there is little distance to reach (יהוה אשר יהוה) for the name YHVH to emerge.
We can also now see more clearly the connection between YHVH as male-creator and CHAVAH (Eve - חוה) as female-creatress. The Hey (ה) in one becomes a Chet (ח) in the other, two letters very difficult to tell apart; more significantly, LEHIYOT = "to be, live" where LECHIYOT = "to exist"; not very far different in meaning either - those familiar with the Spanish Ser and Estar will find this more easy to comprehend: essentially it is the existential difference between essence and existence: the former is life in its basic form, as elements and molecules, the latter is the manifestation of those elements and molecules as trees and plants, animals and birds, fishes and humans, planets and stars.
To understand this in its full Yisra-Eli paradigm, we have to separate in our minds the Yisra-Eli concept of YHVH described here from the Greco-Roman concept of Jehovah, though the two have become confused, primarily because Christian theology has always favoured the latter. Jehovah is a variant of Jove, the Roman Zeus, who is also Jupiter (the Latin equivalent, incidentally, of Av-Ram: "great father"). When he becomes head of the pantheon, somewhere around the 6th century BCE, YHVH Tseva'ot will become equivalent to Jove; not yet in Mosaic times, and not the Omnideity who rules alone until at least the 3rd century BCE. And in this verse it is still Elohim who is uing the phrase EHEYEH ASHER EHEYEH; YHVH derives, but he does not yet rule.
EHEYEH: Taking a concept such as this to the Beney Yisra-El will also be very different from taking it to Pharaoh. In the Egyptian world it would have been a reminder of a particularly anomalous moment in their history, the reign of Pharaoh Amen-Hotep IV in the middle of the 14th century BCE, the first known proponent of what is not yet monotheism, but at least a polytheistic precursor to monotheism, a universal deity who unifies in himself all existing deities. Amen-Hotep depicted this deity in the form of a sun-disc, and changed his own name to Akhen-Aton in its honour, imposing the religion on Egypt, with its capital at Heliopolis, either at, or very soon after, the time of Yoseph. The famous Nefertiti was his wife, and the even more fanous Tutan-Khamun their son.
3:15 VA YOMER OD ELOHIM EL MOSHEH KOH TOMAR EL BENEY YISRA-EL YHVH ELOHEY AVOTEYCHEM YHVH ELOHEY AVRAHAM ELOHEY YITSCHAK VE ELOHEY YA'AKOV SHELACHANI ALEYCHEM ZEH SHEMI LE-OLAM VE ZEH ZICHRI LE DOR DOR
וַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל מֹשֶׁה כֹּה תֹאמַר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם זֶה-שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר
KJ: And
God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my
name for ever, and this is my memorial
unto all generations.
See my final note to 3:6 above, and then look at Exodus 6:3, which contradicts the statement here in its entirety.
The conventional translation puts the last sentence inside the line that Mosheh is to deliver to the people; but this is surely wrong. He is telling Mosheh only.
ZICHRI: is usually translated as "memorial", but that makes no sense. There is nothing in these instructions that suggests a memorial, either physical or metaphorical. My translation above is based on the reading that here, right here, the concept of YHVH is being initiated - though probably retroactively, by the Redactor.
By using the word YHVH now, this appears to confirm the hypothesis above, though some scholars reckon the use of the name became extinct during the Hellenic period (3rd century BCE).
3:16 LECH VE ASAPHTA ET ZIKNEY YISRA-EL VE AMARTA ALEYHEM YHVH ELOHEY AVOTEYCHEM NIR'AH ELAY ELOHEY AVRAHAM YITSCHAK VE YA'AKOV LEMOR PAKOD PAKADETI ET'CHEM VE ET HE'ASU'I LACHEM BE MITSRAYIM
לֵךְ וְאָסַפְתָּ אֶת זִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם נִרְאָה אֵלַי אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב לֵאמֹר פָּקֹד פָּקַדְתִּי אֶתְכֶם וְאֶת הֶעָשׂוּי לָכֶם בְּמִצְרָיִם
KJ: Go,
and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of
your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me,
saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that
which is done to you in Egypt:
ASAPHTA: Impossible to overlook the connection between ASAPHTA AND YOSEPH. And of course the repeated use of LECH should take us back to the call of Av-Ram at the start of Genesis 12.
PAKOD PAKADETI: The same poetical construction that we saw in verse 9. PAKOD is a complex root, and we shall see in the chapters that follow that it has many meanings, including TAPHKID, which is a position of authority, military, secular and religious; and more significantly it is the principal word used whenever there is a census (cf Numbers 1:49). So complex is it, Gesenius' lexicon requires two full pages! "Visited" is definitely amongst the meanings, but the use of repetition for emphasis makes it much stronger than this: "I have been, I have witnessed, I have gathered evidence, I am in no doubt that what is being groaned up to me is what is happening on the ground" - something of this order.
3:17 VA OMAR A'ALEH ET'CHEM ME ANI MITSRAYIM EL ERETS HA KENA'ANI VE HA CHITI VE HA EMORI VE HA PERIZI VE HA CHIVI VE HA YEVUSI EL ERETS ZAVAT CHALAV U DEVASH
וָאֹמַר אַעֲלֶה אֶתְכֶם מֵעֳנִי מִצְרַיִם אֶל אֶרֶץ הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַחִתִּי וְהָאֱמֹרִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי וְהַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי אֶל אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ
KJ: And
I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land
of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and
the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
To a land flowing, also, with the discontent of those indigenous people, who will not be happy to have a huge wave of foreign migrants, of unwanted Habiru indeed, coming into their land and establishing their settlements... but none of this is mentioned now!
3:18 VA SHAM'U LE KOLCHA U VA'TA ATAH VE ZIKNEY YSIRA-EL EL MELECH MITSRAYIM VA AMARTEM ELAV YHVH ELOHEY HA IVRIYIM NIKRAH ALEYNU VE ATAH NELCHAH NA DERECH SHELOSHET YAMIM BA MIDBAR VE NIZBECHAH LA YHVH ELOHEYNU
וְשָׁמְעוּ לְקֹלֶךָ וּבָאתָ אַתָּה וְזִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם וַאֲמַרְתֶּם אֵלָיו יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי הָעִבְרִיִּים נִקְרָה עָלֵינוּ וְעַתָּה נֵלְכָה נָּא דֶּרֶךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים בַּמִּדְבָּר וְנִזְבְּחָה לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ
KJ: And
they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of
Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the
Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days'
journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.
BN: "And they will hear your voice. And you will come, you and the elders of Yisra-El, to the Pharaoh of Mitsrayim, and you shall say to him: 'YHVH, the god of the Ivrim, has summoned us. And now we are asking you to let us go on a three day journey into the desert, so that we may offer sacrifices to YHVH our god'...
ATAH VE ZIKNEY YISRA-EL: But he never does take the elders with him, at any point; only himself alone, or Aharon.
Soncino points out here that YHVH should be pronounced YEHOAH on this occasion; also that Ivriyim has two Yuds. It is not obvious why.
3:19 VA ANI YADA'TI KI LO YITEN ET'CHEM MELECH MITSRAYIM LAHALOCH VE LO BE YAD CHAZAKAH
וַאֲנִי יָדַעְתִּי כִּי לֹא יִתֵּן אֶתְכֶם מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם לַהֲלֹךְ וְלֹא בְּיָד חֲזָקָה
KJ: And
I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.
Prefiguring the YAD CHAZAKAH that YHVH himself will wield later, though it is not entirely clear whether YHVH is describing the Pharaoh's power, which is how I have translated, or playing down his own, which is the King James preference. The point anyway is the prefiguration.
LAHALOCH: yet again a variant form of grammar; normally it would be LALECHET.
3:20 VE SHALACHTI ET YADI VE HIKEYTI ET MITSRAYIM BE CHOL NIPHLE'OTAI ASHER E'ESEH BE KIRBO VE ACHAREY CHEN YESHALACH ET'CHEM
וְשָׁלַחְתִּי אֶת יָדִי וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶת מִצְרַיִם בְּכֹל נִפְלְאֹתַי אֲשֶׁר אֶעֱשֶׂה בְּקִרְבּוֹ וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן יְשַׁלַּח אֶתְכֶם
KJ: And
I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do
in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.
VE SHALACHTI: Alas the Ezraic scribes who wrote this down in the mid 5th century BCE were working in what had become a foreign language a century and more before, and they really hadn't learned it very well. Probably LAHALOCH in the previous verse reflects the same problem. VE SHALACHTI is the past tense, being attempted as a kind of reverse Vav Consecutive; but there is no reverse Vav Consecutive. It should be VA ESHLACH.
The three day journey into the desert to pray at Chorev will become a Passover covenant renewal ceremony, of which the ten plagues and the matzah were, as we shall see, already an integral part, long before Mosheh.
The text becomes still more problematic here: YHVH is planning the ten plagues, the pursuit across the sea, and the drowning of the Egyptians; the miracles too, but they are not the matter of concern just now. He is planning the negatives: in the realm of an omniscient deity who writes human destiny in a book of life - we have to say "planning". Mi ba eysh u mi ba mayim - who by fire and who by water. So do we read this as another No'ach text, another Sedom text, another Yonah text - yet one more act of barbarous destruction by the deity of Mercy and Compassion - and place it in the context of a festival of selichah (forgiveness), or one of Creation? As we shall see later, it is neither: the festival always was the Pesach, though perhaps not yet the Passover.
YADI: We do need to say something more about this Yad, both the Yad Chazak and the Yad in general. Yad va Shem obviously, which is now the Holocaust Memorial in Yeru-Shala'im, but the concept existed long before it was adoped as that. Yad means "hand", and the symbol of the hand becomes the Hamsa, with the Eye of Horus embedded in its palm, an Egyptian symbol long before it became a Jewish one. Shem means "name", and it is precisely the naming of the deity that has been the subject of these last several verses. Sacred kings take new names when they are anointed, as we saw with Ya'akov at Penu-El, and that coronation rite was itself an occurrence of the Pesach (see my note to Genesis 32:22 in particular), the ritual immolation as part of the ceremony of anointing. So Mosheh, acquiring his new leadership role here at Chorev, and about to set off to participate in the full rites of Pesach, but first bringing the Midyanites to a special ceremony for the "coronation" of the god, including the oath of loyalty of the people. Hinted at in earlier comments, it can be stated now, with the preceding text to help us understand it. But we can also state that, given the "advance knowledge", the story that is about to be told is in fact liturgy, mythology, not history.
3:21 VA NATATI ET CHEN HA AM HA ZEH BE EYNEY MITSRAYIM VE HAYAH KI TELECHUN LO TELCHU REYKAM
וְנָתַתִּי אֶת חֵן הָעָם הַזֶּה בְּעֵינֵי מִצְרָיִם וְהָיָה כִּי תֵלֵכוּן לֹא תֵלְכוּ רֵיקָם
KJ: And
I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come
to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
VE NATATI: Or perhaps my commentary on VE SHALACHTI in the previous verse was in error, and there is a reverse Vav Consecutive, used when the deity is announcing the future, but using the past tense to do so because the future was established long ago. But this only works if my last comment on the previous verse is correct, that Mosheh is preparing as a priest to participate in an annual ritual ceremony, the rites of Pesach, entirely liturgical, entirely mythological, not history at all.
TELECHUN: variant grammar.
REYKAM: another important prefiguration. One of the big questions among Bible scholars is: how come the Beney Yisra-El, who fled in the night without even having time to finish baking their bread, and who had been slaves for centuries, were able to take enough gold and jewellery with them to make the Golden Calf and the priestly vestments and adorn the Mishkan? The Redactor had no answer, and so he inserted this. In fact, we do have an answer; we now know (see commentary above) that they were not slaves at all, in the normally understood meaning of that term; they had mortgaged themselves as bondsmen, and so they had wages, may even have done well enough in some cases to own property unmortgaged (or unforeclosed!), and in some cases, were probably affluent if not actually wealthy. And in addition (see next verse)...
3:22 VE SHA'ALAH ISHAH MI SHECHENTAH U MI GARAT BEITAH KELEY CHESEPH U CHELEY ZAHAV U SEMALOT VE SAMTEM AL BENEYCHEM VE AL BENOTEYCHEM VE NITSALTEM ET MITSRAYIM
וְשָׁאֲלָה אִשָּׁה מִשְּׁכֶנְתָּהּ וּמִגָּרַת בֵּיתָהּ כְּלֵי כֶסֶף וּכְלֵי זָהָב וּשְׂמָלֹת וְשַׂמְתֶּם עַל בְּנֵיכֶם וְעַל בְּנֹתֵיכֶם וְנִצַּלְתֶּם אֶת מִצְרָיִם
KJ: But
every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her
house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your
sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
BN: "But every woman shall ask of her neighbour, and of her that sojourns in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and you shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters; and you shall spoil Mitsrayim."
BN: "But every woman shall ask of her neighbour, and of her that sojourns in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and you shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters; and you shall spoil Mitsrayim."
SHA'ALAH: This will come to fruition in Exodus 11:2, and there too the King James will translate the text as "borrow", which infers an intention to give back, which infers an intention to return to Mitsrayim after the 3-day festival; which then leads to my comment about "spoilage" below. But Sha'al does not mean "borrow", even without the equivocal inferences and implications: it means "to ask".
Why is it the women who will do the asking?
The fact that they have "sojourners" in their houses confirms the suggestion of house-ownership in the commentary to the previous verse; and even if they didn't own the houses, clearly rent was being paid.
Silver and gold for what purpose, if not to build a Golden Calf, the ikon of Hor (Horus), one of their principal gods? If they are returning after the ceremony, they don't need it? If they are returning, then "spoiling" the Mitsrim is not going to be appreciated when they get back? So it can't be spoil. And what raiment? Are they naked? No, we are talking about special raiment, the garments of a pilgrim. This is the Hajj, not the Exodus; the Pesach always way a "pilgrim festival".
VE NITSALTEM: Only here and in Exodus 12:36 is the word translated as "spoil", which may well have been a good translation in the days of King James, but the English word has changed its meaning since. These are the "spoils", as in "the spoils of war", and not in our modern sense of your best blouse that even dry cleaning won't get out the stains, nor in the sense of your little brat of a child who you should have been stricter with from the outset. Elsewhere (and there are innumerable examples) it means "snatch", or "take away", and this is the intention here. Which takes us back to the KJ translation of SHA'ALAH as "borrow". If money and jewelery are being given willingly, then they are not spoilage. What YHVH is telling Mosheh is either: a) that he will create the climate of fear from which the Mitsrim will be only too pleased to see you go; and you will then be able to clean out their coffers and build a Treasury, ready for the tasks ahead; the same manner by which Drake and Raleigh built the British Empire! Or b) the Habiru are heading off to complete the Pesach rituals with a covenant renewal ceremony in the shadows of the holy mountain, which may be about to erupt, and those who are not able to join them on this pilgrimage are encouraged to make donations anyway, so that they can feel that they have participated meaningfully, even in their absence.
Which leaves only one more issue to resolve: if all this is liturgy, and the Pharaoh has a role in it, why does he "change his mind" and lead his military out in hot pursuit? Two options: a) the realisation that these pilgrims were using the Pesach as an opportunity to debunk, and had lied about coming back after the festival; or b) the Redactor, creating this as history centuries later, needed to amalgamate the defeat and pursuit of the Hyksos by Ach-Mousa into the tale of the pilgrimage to Chorev - which itself may well be an amalgamation of the ancient Pesach with the triumph of Ach-Mousa - though historically all three were in fact comletely separate events.
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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