Category: Exodus/Shemot

Haftarat Terumah—1 Kings: From Volunteers to Conscripts

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the Israelites, and they will take voluntary contributions for me. From everyone whose heart makes him willing, you may take my voluntary contributions.” (Exodus 25:1-2)

Hebrew Women Offering their Jewels,
by Bernardino Luini, 16th century

After that opening, this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), lists the contributions that people can give: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread made of wool, linen, and goat’s hair; two kinds of tanned leather; acacia wood; olive oil; incense spices; and precious stones.

Then the text says what the materials are for:

“Let them make a holy place for me, and I will dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8)

Later in Exodus, Moses invites anyone whose heart is moved to bring materials and donate labor to build a portable tent sanctuary for God.

And everyone whose mind was uplifted and everyone whose spirit made him willing brought voluntary gifts for God, for the work of the Tent of Meeting … (Exodus 35:21)

Then all the skilled artisans in the community volunteer to weave and embroider cloth, tan leather, shape wood, forge tools, and assist the master craftsmen Betzaleil and Oholiav in making the holiest objects. When the sanctuary is complete, God moves in.1

The haftarah (accompanying reading from the Prophets) for this week’s Torah portion is 1 Kings 5:26-6:13, which tells how King Solomon acquires wood and stone to build the first permanent temple for God in Jerusalem. This time the labor is done by conscripts instead of volunteers, but God promises to move in anyway.

The king imposes compulsory labor

And God had given Solomon chokhmah, as [God] had spoken. And there was peace between Chiram and Solomon, and the two of them cut a covenant. (1 Kings 5:26)

chokhmah (חָכְמָה) = technical skill; good sense; wisdom from accumulated knowledge.

The best translation of chokhmah here is probably “good sense”. Solomon exhibits good sense when he maintains the alliance of his father, King David, with one of his richest neighbors, King Chiram. Chiram was a 10th-century ruler of the city-state of Tyre, on the coast of a forested region called Lebanon (now a nation by the same name). During his long reign, Chiram turned Tyre into the premier Phoenician city by building a vast trade network.

The first trade agreement between Chiram and Solomon calls for Chiram to provide Solomon with all the cedar and cypress logs he can use, and Solomon to provide Chiram with annual shipments of wheat and olive oil. An exchange of labor is also involved.

And King Solomon raised a mas from all Israel. And the mas was 30,000 men. And he sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 per month; by turns [each man was] a month in Lebanon and two months at his own house. (1 Kings 5:27-28)

mas (מַס) = compulsory labor, forced labor.

Kings in the Ancient Near East often conscripted their citizens to serve in the military, like governments today. But it was also common for kings to conscript people for mas, a less prestigious form of service.

Solomon exhibits chokhmah,good sense, again in this haftarah by limiting his mas of Israelite laborers in Lebanon to every third month. This arrangement leaves the men free to return home and work on their own families’ farms and businesses the other two months, making the mas a tolerable burden.

~ 900 BCE

The Israelite conscripts working in Lebanon every third month are felling cedar and cypress trees and hauling the trunks to the coastline under the supervision of King Chiram’s men. The men of Tyre then lash the logs into rafts and sail them to a place where King Solomon’s men will pick them up and transport them to Jerusalem.2 In Jerusalem, the wood is used in the construction of God’s temple, and later in King Solomon’s palace and associated buildings.

Solomon’s building projects also require a lot of stone, but he can get good stone from the hills of Israel.

Solomon also had 70,000 porters and 80,000 quarriers in the hills …  And the king gave the order, and they moved great stones, expensive stones, for the foundation of [God’s] house: hewn stones. (1 Kings 5:29)

The haftarah does not say whether the quarriers and porters working in the hills are paid employees, or conscripted for mas. A king in that civilization was more likely to use conscripts, who would be fed, but would not be free to quit their mas until their terms of service were completed.

After the basic structure of the temple has been erected, but before there are any interior walls or furnishings, God speaks to King Solomon.

Then the word of God happened to Solomon, saying: “This house that you are building—if you follow my decrees and you act [according to] my laws, and you guard all my commands, following them—then I will fulfill with you my word that I spoke to David, your father. And I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will never forsake my people Israel.” (1 Kings 6:11-13)

Israelites as volunteers versus subjects

In this week’s portion from Exodus, God tells Moses: “Let them make a holy place for me, and I will dwell among them.” The people deserve God’s protective presence because they willingly donate their time, skills, and valuables to make a place for God. The relationship is between God and all the Israelites. But in this week’s haftarah from 1 Kings, God tells Solomon: “If you follow my decrees and you act [according to] my laws, and you guard all my commands …” God uses the singular form of “you” throughout the clause beginning with “if”; the contractual relationship is between God and the king. In return, God promises to support Solomon as king, and also to “dwell among the Israelites”. In other words, God promises to be present among the Israelites for the sake of their king’s obedience to God. Perhaps the assumption is that if the king of Israel obeys God’s rules, he will also enforce them among his people.

Who is conscripted?

Later during King Solomon’s reign, well after this week’s haftarah, he adopts the more traditional policy of favoring his own ethnic group over the people the Israelites conquered:

All the people who were not from the Israelites—those who were left from the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizites, and Chivites, and the Jebusites, their children … whom the Israelites were not able to dedicate to destruction, Solomon laid on them a mas of slavery until this day. But Solomon made no Israelite a slave. Instead they became men of war, and his servants, and his commanders, and his captains, and the officers of his chariots and his horsemen. (1 Kings 9:20-22)

Mas hauling stones,
Palace of Sennerachib, Nineveh

According to earlier books in the bible, the Canaanite peoples that were not wiped out were subject to a permanent mas starting with the conquest of Joshua.3 Kings in the Ancient Near East normally imposed mas on defeated enemies, relocating them to wherever brute labor was needed; for example, the Neo-Assyrian King Sennerachib did this when he conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.4

The policy of giving conquered enemies either mas or death is laid out in the book of Deuteronomy:

And if [the town] answers you with peace and opens to you, then all the people you find in it will be yours for a mas, and to serve you. (Deuteronomy 20:11)

Ironically, in the book of Exodus God helps the Israelites to escape from Egypt and conquer Canaan because they are suffering so much from the mas two pharaohs in a row imposed on them.5

When mas is too much

During the first twenty years of his reign, Solomon completes the temple for God, and God fills it with a cloud of glory to prove that God is in residence.6 But during the second half of his forty-year reign, Solomon exhibits less chokhmah. He takes 700 foreign wives, far more than needed to be strategically connected by marriage with every kingdom in the Ancient Near East, and builds shrines to some of his wives’ gods.7

Apparently he also institutes harsher mas on the ethnic Israelites—at least on the ten tribes that live more than a day’s journey north of Jerusalem.

Late in his reign, King Solomon appoints a capable man named Yeravam (Jereboam in English) to be in charge of the conscripts for mas from the tribes of Efrayim and Menashe in the north. Then a prophet predicts that someday Yerevam will be the king of the ten northern tribes.8 Shortly after that Yeravam flees to Egypt, apparently because King Solomon finds out and orders his execution.9

After Solomon dies, his son Rechavam (Rehoboam in English) goes to Shekhem, a city north of Jerusalem, to be anointed king. Yerevam returns from Egypt in time for the ceremony. He and his Israelite supporters tell Solomon’s son:

“Your father made our yoke hard. And you, now, lighten the hard labor of your father and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.” (1 Kings 12:3-4)

Rechavam tells them to come back in three days for his answer. When they do, he says:

“My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke! My father flogged you with whips, and I will flog you will scorpions!” (1 Kings 12:14)

The northern Israelites then renounce any fealty to Solomon’s son.

And King Rechavam sent Adoram, who was over the mas. But all the Israelites pelted him with stones and he died. (1 Kings 12:18)

Rechavam flees back to Jerusalem, where he rules only the southern Kingdom of Judah: the arid territory belonging to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. But Yeravam becomes the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel, reigning over the more fertile land belonging to the other ten tribes of Israelites—just as God’s prophet had predicted.

When I was a teenager, most of the boys in my high school lived in the shadow of the valley of death. Though they did not admit it to girls, they were afraid of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to die.

Many of their fathers were veterans of World War II, and considered military service something to be proud of—at least during the early part of the roughly ten years when the United States was fighting on the side of South Vietnam. But a large number of younger Americans were morally opposed to sending Americans to kill people in Vietnam.

In the culture of the Hebrew Bible, and in many other times and places, being in the military was an honorable condition. Men returning from war were treated as heroes because they had risked their lives for their cause or their country—whether they were volunteers or conscripts.

But the teenage boys I knew in Massachusetts saw conscription for the war as an ignoble mas, forced labor in the jungle leading to death for no good reason. They would have preferred carrying heavy stones and logs to a construction site for a temple or palace.

The more body bags Americans saw on television, the less popular the war became.

When the pharaoh subjected Israelite men to mas for too many years in the book of Exodus, they cried out to God and God rescued them. When King Rechavam threatened the northern Israelites with a more severe mas in the first book of Kings, they renounced their allegiance and chose a king of them own. When a burden is too severe, it cannot be imposed forever.

  1. Exodus 40:33-38.
  2. 1 Kings 5:22.
  3. Joshua 16:10, 17:13; Judges 1:28-1:35.
  4. 2 Kings 17:6, 17:23-24, and 18:11 report Neo-Assyrian King Sargon II capturing the capital of the Kingdom of Israel and relocating tens of thousands of Israelites in the eastern part of its empire. Foreigners are depicted doing heavy labor for Neo-Assyrian kings on relief sculptures.
  5. Exodus 1:11-14, 3:7-10.
  6. 1 Kings 8:10-11.
  7. 1 Kings 11:1-10.
  8. 1 Kings 11:26-39.
  9. 1 Kings 11:40.

Yitro & Va-etchanan: Whose Words?—Part 2

How did the Ten Commandments get into the two accounts of the revelation at Mount Sinai?

Eruption of Vesuvius,
by Pierre-Jacques Volaire, 1774,
detail

In last week’s Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23), God manifests on the mountain as fire, smoke, thunderclaps, and horn blasts. The Israelites are terrified.

The story of this epiphany is interrupted by what we call the “Ten Commandments” or Decalogue. When the narrative resumes, God’s manifestation is intensifying, and the people experience synesthesia, SEEING the sounds of thunder and horns.

And they said to Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen. But may God not speak to us, or else we will die!” (Exodus/Shemot 20:16)

In other words, the people have not heard God delivering the words of the Decalogue. They are afraid of any communication from God, especially in words. So they beg Moses to speak for God. (See my post Yitro & Va-etchanan: Whose Words?—Part 1.)

And the people stood at a distance, and Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. And God said to Moses: “Thus you will say to the Israelites …” (Exodus 20:18-19)

Then God tells Moses a long series of civil and religious laws on a variety of specific topics, a law code that runs from Exodus 20:19 through 23:33.

So why is the story interrupted by the Decalogue?

A later insertion

According to modern source criticism, the Decalogue was written in a different style and vocabulary than the text before and after it, and therefore that section was inserted later by a redactor.

The story does read smoothly if the Decalogue section, Exodus 20:1-14, is simply deleted. Then we have:

And God said to [Moses]: “Go down! Then you may come up, you and Aaron with you; but the priests and the people may not break through to come up to God, lest [God] burst out against them.” Then Moses went down to the people, and he spoke to them. (Exodus 19:24-25)

Then all the people were SEEING the kolot and the flames and the kol of the horn and the mountain smoking. When the people saw, they were shaken and they stood at a distance. And they said to Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen. But may God not speak to us, or else we will die!”  (Exodus 20:15-16)

kolot ( קֺלֺת or קוֹלוֹת) = thunderclaps.

kol (קֺל or קוֹל) = a noise, sound, voice.

Moses goes back up the mountain, where God gives him the law code in Exodus 20:20-23:33.

If a redactor inserted the Decalogue into Exodus, where did that text come from?

Ambiguity in Deuteronomy

The only other place in the Torah where the Decalogue appear is in Deuteronomy, the book in which Moses tells the next generation of Israelites what he remembers of the exodus from Egypt. Moses introduces the Decalogue in the Torah portion Va-ethchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) by saying:

Face to face God spoke with you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire—I myself stood between God and you at that time to tell you the words of God, since you were afraid in the face of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain—saying: (Deuteronomy/Devarim 5:4-5)

The Decalogue follows. In this account, God speaks and Moses either repeats God’s words, or translates God’s communication into words.

The Decalogue in Deuteronomy is similar, though not identical, to the version in the book of Exodus; the biggest difference is the rationale for the commandment about Shabbat.1 After reciting the commandments, Moses says:

Moses and the Tablets,
by Ephraim Moshe Lilien, 1908

These words God spoke to the whole assembly on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the dark cloud, a great kol, and did not add more. And [God] wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. (Deuteronomy 5:19-20)

This sounds as if Moses remembers God speaking all the words of the Decalogue to the Israelites, and identifies them as the text on the stone tablets. (Exodus describes Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with two stone tablets that God had inscribed, but that book never says what God wrote.2 After Moses smashes the two tablets at the sight of people celebrating the Golden Calf, God tells Moses to prepare a second pair of tablets. The commandments Moses writes down on these stones include two of the “Ten Commandments” (on idols and Chabbat), but also command observing three annual holidays, redeeming or sacrificing firstborn livestock, and not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.3)

No matter what was written later on the stone tablets, did the Israelites really hear God speaking the whole Decalogue? After reporting that God inscribed those words on the tablets, Moses says:

And it happened that you heard the kol from the midst of the darkness, and the mountain was blazing with fire, and you came up to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said: “Hey! God, our God, has shown us his impressiveness and greatness, and his kol we heard from the midst of the fire! This day we have seen that God spoke and humans lived. And now, why should we die because this great fire consumes us? If we ourselves listen to his lips, the kol of God, our God, any more, then we will die! … You go closer and listen to everything that God, our God, says, and then you speak to us everything that God, our God, spoke to you, and we will listen and do it.”  (Deuteronomy 5:21-24)

Moses says that God agreed, and then moves on to his next topic. In Moses’ account in Deuteronomy, the Israelites heard God’s kol, i.e. the sound or voice of God. But, as in Exodus, they begged Moses to tell them what God said, so they could avoid hearing God speak in words.

The mysterious source of the Decalogue

In the portion Yitro in Exodus, the transition to the Decalogue is ambiguous, so we do not know whether Moses pronounced them to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. In the portion Va-etchanan in Deuteronomy, the Israelites do not hear God’s words, but Moses does pass on the Decalogue at the mountain.

However, twenty-first century commentator Cynthia Edenburg argued that a redactor spliced the Decalogue into Deuteronomy as well as Exodus.

“In neither … does YHWH indicate that part of the event will be the revelation of laws to the people of Israel. And, indeed, when the day arrives, the text focuses its description on the impressive visual and auditory elements of the theophany.”4

In the first two or three commandments (including the prohibitions against “having” other gods or idols) in both Exodus and Deuteronomy, God speaks in the first person. Then starting with the third commandment (on swearing falsely by God’s name), God is referred to in the third person. The Talmud explained the switch by saying that the Israelites heard only the first two commandments before they begged Moses to be the go-between.5

But Edenberg pointed out that neither text indicates an interruption in the transmission of the Decalogue. The style of the writing in the first few commandments matches much of the book of Deuteronomy, so the redactor of Exodus could have borrowed them from Deuteronomy. But then where did the rest of the commandments come from?

Edenberg, citing the work of Erhard Gerstenberger,6 proposed:

“The basic form of the Decalogue as we now know it came into being as scribes attempted to reinterpret the essence of the Sinai/Horeb revelations in Exodus and Deuteronomy. They accomplished this by adding the YHWH commands now found at the beginning of the Decalogue to a list of moral instructions of universal validity, transforming it into a theological statement of principles for one group—Israel. The rules were now presented as a foundational agreement between Israel and their national god, established in the wilderness period.”4

Jews who insist that God dictated every word of the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy—along with everyone who insists that the entire bible is the word of God—have to either overlook the bad transitions and contradictory passages, or resort to forced explanations. I cannot help but believe that the bible has many authors. When possible, I prefer to trust the redactor of a biblical book, and read it as a complete work. But sometimes the seams show too much.

We can notice where the Decalogue is stitched into Exodus and Deuteronomy. We can agree that the first commandments, about our relationship to God, come from a different source than the remaining commandments, about our relationship with other humans.

But none of this reduces the importance of the commandments. Other lists of laws in the Torah are more specific, narrower in scope. Many were suited to ancient Israelite society, but not to our lives today. The Decalogue, on the other hand, presents basic, general rules that still deserve our attention.

  1. Exodus says “Because in six days God made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and [God] rested on the seventh day; therefore God blessed the day of Shabbat and made it holy” while Deuteronomy says “so that your male slave and your female slave may rest as you do; and remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and God, your God, brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm; therefore God, your God, has commanded you to do the day of the Shabbat”. (Additionally, the commandment in Exodus begins “Remember the day of the Shabbat” while in Deuteronomy it begins “Observe the day of the Shabbat”.)
  2. They are called “two tablets of the eidut (pact, written witness)” in Exodus 31:18 and 32:15. Exodus 34:28 reports that “he” (either God or Moses) wrote on the second pair of tablets “the words of the covenant, the ten words”. The Torah does not say what the “ten words” are. Later commentators declared they were the commandments in the portion Yitro, and since then people have labored to turn the information in the Decalogue into exactly ten commandments.
  3. Exodus 34:17-28.
  4. Dr. Cynthia Edenberg, “The Origins of the Decalogue”, https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-origins-of-the-decalogue.
  5. Talmud Bavli, Makkot 23b-24a.
  6. Erhard S. Gerstenberger, “Covenant and Commandment,” Journal of Biblical Literature 84 (1965): 38–51.

Yitro & Va-etchanan: Whose Words?—Part 1

Moses often hears God talking to him. It begins when God speaks to him out of the burning bush on Mount Sinai:

“Moses! Moses! … Do not come closer! Remove your sandals from upon your feet, because the place where you are standing, it is holy ground.” (Exodus/Shemot 3:4-5)

The Death of Moses, Providence
Lithograph Co. 1907
(Still listening to God)

And it ends with God’s final words before Moses dies on Mount Nevo overlooking Canaan:

“This is the land that I vowed to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying: ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over there.” (Deuteronomy 34:4)

For roughly 41 years in between,1 the private conversations between God and Moses continue, and God also uses Moses as a middleman. Over and over again, God speaks to Moses and gives him new information or instructions, and then Moses passes God’s words on to the Israelites.

Moses’ brother, Aaron, only hears God speak 18 times.2 God speaks only once to their sister, Miriam, and once to Aaron’s son Elazar.3

The other Israelites hear God once, in this week’s Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23). Following God’s instructions (and God’s pillar of cloud and fire),4 Moses leads the refugees from Egypt to Mount Sinai before heading north toward Canaan. After they reach the mountain,  God tells Moses:

“Here I am, coming to you in a thick canopy of cloud, so that the people will hear my words along with you, and also [so that] they will trust in you forever.” (Exodus 19:9)

Nevertheless, the Israelites may not hear God speaking in words, the way God speaks to Moses and his brother, sister, and nephew.

The voice of God: thunderclaps and horn blasts

And it was morning on the third day, and there were kolot and lightning flashes, and a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very strong kol of a shofar; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. (Exodus 19:16)

kolot ( קֺלֺתor קוֹלוֹת) = thunderclaps. (Singular kol (קֺל or קוֹל) = a noise, sound, voice.)

shofar (שֺׁפָר) = a loud wind instrument made from the horn of a ram or goat.

Moses leads the people out of the camp and stations them at the foot of the small mountain, which resembles an erupting volcano.

Vesuvius in Eruption,
by Jacob More, 1780 (detail)

And Mount Sinai was smoking, all of it, from the presence of God that had come down upon it in fire. Its smoke rose like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled very much. And the kol of the shofar went on and was very strong. Moses would speak, and God would answer him with a kol. And God came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, and God called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:18-20)

So far, the people at the foot of the mountain have heard no words, only sounds like thunder and horns. When Moses climbs to the top of the mountain, he and God have a brief conversation about whether the people below are standing far enough away for safety.

An ambiguous transition

And God said to [Moses]: “Go down! Then you may come up, you and Aaron with you; but the priests and the people may not break through to come up to God, lest [God] burst out against them.” Then Moses went down to the people, vayomer to them …  (Exodus 19:24-25)

vayomer (וַיֺּמֶר) = and he said. (Less frequently, when there is no object of the verb, vayomer = and he spoke.)

Should vayomer be translated here as “and he spoke”, implying that Moses passed on God’s instructions in the previous verse about who was allowed to climb the mountain? Or should it be translated as “and he said”, implying that the next verse is what Moses said? The answer determines whether the punctuation after “to them” should be a period or a colon.

The next verse is:

Vaydabeir, God, all these words, saying: (Exodus 20:1)

vaydabeir (וַיְדַבֵּר) = and he spoke.

“All these words” turn out to be the basic rules known as the “Ten Commandments” or Decalogue.

So what is the correct punctuation at the end of “Then Moses went down to the people, vayomer to them”—a period or a colon?

The only punctuation in Biblical Hebrew is a sof passuk (which looks like a colon) at the end of a verse. These punctuation marks were added by the Masoretes about a thousand years ago—thus defining the verses, though not assigning any numbers to them. A sof passuk can be translated as a period, a colon, an exclamation point, a question mark, or even a dash.

In the 16th century, Christian bibles began dividing the text into chapters and numbering the verses in each chapter. Jewish bibles adopted their convenient system.

Exodus 19:25 could end with a colon. But since the next verse was assigned the number 20:1, starting a new chapter, most translations end Exodus 19:25 with a period. And because of the period, vayomer is translated as “and he spoke” instead of “and he said”.

The effect of translating vayomer as “and he spoke”, followed by a period and a chapter break, is to make it sound as if first Moses speaks, reminding the people not to climb the mountain, and then God speaks, telling the people the basic commandments.

But what if there were no chapter break after “Then Moses went down to the people, vayomer to them”? And what if the sof pasuk, the punctuation after this clause, were translated as a colon? Then we would have:

Then Moses went down to the people, and he said to them: “God spoke all these words, saying: I am God, your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, the house of slavery. You will have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 19:25-20:2)

In this version, Moses tells the people the Decalogue, quoting what he heard God say at some unspecified earlier time.

I was attached to this alternative translation, until I started wondering if the Israelites at Mount Sinai heard the words of the Decalogue at all.

Back to the story

Immediately after the tenth commandment, the one about coveting, the Torah returns to the narrative:

Then all the people were seeing the kolot and the flames and the kol of the shofar and the mountain smoking. When the people saw, they were shaken and they stood at a distance. (Exodus 20:15)

In this description the Israelites are not hearing God speak words. They are experiencing synesthesia, seeing the sounds of thunderclaps and horn blasts along with the  flames and smoke.

And they said to Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen. But may God not speak to us, or else we will die!”  (Exodus 20:16)

Here the people only know they are afraid of any communication from God, and they beg Moses to speak for God. Therefore they have not yet heard the Decalogue from either God or Moses.

And the people stood at a distance, and Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. And God said to Moses: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites: You yourselves saw that I spoke with you from the heavens. You must not make me silver gods or gold gods; you must not make them for yourselves. You must make me an altar of earth, and slaughter on it your rising-offerings …” (Exodus 20:18-19)

After a few more instructions about sacrifices at the altar, God goes on (in the next Torah portion, Mishpatim) to lay out a long series of civil and religious laws on a variety of specific topics. These are the rules God tells Moses to pass on to the Israelites.

So how did the Decalogue get into the Exodus account of the revelation at Mount Sinai?

See my next post, Yitro & Va-etchanan: Whose Words?—Part 2.

  1. The book of Exodus does not say how much time passes between Moses’ return to Egypt and the departure of all the Israelites for their 40-year journey to Canaan. If all of God’s ten plagues occur during the year preceding their departure, the story is more dramatic and the pressure on Pharaoh is more intense.
  2. To Aaron alone in Exodus 4:27, Leviticus 10:8-11, and Numbers 18:1-24; to Aaron and Miriam in Numbers 12:5-8; and to Aaron and Moses in Exodus 7:8, 9:8, 12:1-20, and 12:43-49, in  Leviticus 11:1-47, 13:1-59, 14:33-57, and 15:1-32, and in Numbers 2:1-2, 4:1-20, 14:26-38, 16:20-22, 19:1-22, and 20:12.
  3. To Miriam in Numbers 12:5-8, and to Elazar in Numbers 26:1-2.
  4. See my post Beshalach: Pillar of Cloud and Fire.

Beshalach: Who Is Like You?

Pharaoh thinks his army of charioteers has trapped the Israelites on the shore of the Reed Sea. The Israelites think they are going to die. Then God splits the water long enough for them cross over on dry ground, and for the Egyptians to follow them onto the sea bed. At that point in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), the water rushes back, and all the Egyptians drown.

The Waters Are Divided, by James Tissot, circa 1900

The Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. And the Israelites saw the great power that God had used against the Egyptians, and the people feared God … and they trusted in God and in God’s servant, Moses. That was when Moses and the Israelites sang this song to God. (Exodus 14:30-15:1)

The 18-verse “Song of the Sea” that follows may be the oldest text in the bible; Hebrew scholars date it to roughly 1100 B.C.E. (The rest of the book of Exodus, judging by the language, was written well after 900 B.C.E.) The song differs from the prose account leading up to it, but it does include descriptions of God drowning an army of Egyptian chariots.

This is the first time anyone sings in the bible, as well as the first time a human character addresses God with words of praise (instead of pleading or questions).

In the first part of the “Song of the Sea”, verses 4-10 describe God drowning the Egyptian charioteers (with no mention of Moses). In the second part, verses 14-16 describe the fear of the surrounding kingdoms when they hear about it (a theme that is premature at this point in the Exodus story). In between these two themes, there is a verse that Jews still sing at every morning and evening service:

Mi khamokhah ba-eilim, Adonai!
Mi kamokhah, nedar bakodesh,
Nora tehilot, oseh feleh!

  Who is like you among the eilim, Y-H-V-H!
  Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
  Too nora for praises, doing wonders! (Exodus 15:11)

eilim (אֵלִם) = Plural of eil (אֵל) = a god; the name of the father god in Canaanite mythology; a title of the God of Israel.

nora (נוֹרָא) = feared, fearsome, awesome. (A form of the verb yareh, יָרֵא = fear, be afraid.)

The verse beginning “Mi khamokhah” (often transliterated as mi chamocha) certainly counts as praising God. But what kind of praise is this, comparing God to other gods? Or saying that God is too fearsome to praise? In the book of Exodus, the Israelites who travel from Egypt to Canaan believe that there were many gods, all inhuman and frightening, and the best they could hope for was that their own God was the most powerful, and would help them—if not for their own sake, for the sake of God’s reputation. The straightforward translations of eilim as “gods” and nora as “feared” or “fearsome” match their point of view.

Nobody is like you

The Song of the Sea is not the only biblical text that contain references to other gods—usually serving under the God of Israel, who is the supreme creator and judge. The idea appears in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and Job. (See my posts Yitro & Psalms 29, 82, & 97: Greater Than Other Gods and Bereishit: How Many Gods?)

However, two biblical books, Deuteronomy and Isaiah, present clear statements of monotheism.1  For example, God says:

And there are no gods [elohim] except for Me.  (Isaiah 44:6)

Because I am Eil, and there is no other.  (Isaiah 45:22)

Jewish theology was almost exclusively monotheistic by the first century C.E., when Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish Platonist, analyzed the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic laws in terms of Greek philosophical categories. Philo dealt with archaic ideas in the bible, such as an anthropomorphic god and references to other gods, by explaining that they were allegorical.

But Talmudic and medieval commentators were more attached to taking the bible literally. They strained to find alternate interpretations for the scattered references to other gods, including the comparison between God and the eilim in the Song of the Sea.

One ploy was to treat the word eilim (אֵלִם) as if it were a misspelling of the Hebrew word ilam (אִלָּם) = mute, unable to speak. This was a legitimate move, since the Hebrew in the bible was written without the diacritical marks commonly called vowel pointing until the Masoretic text was fixed in the 7th-10th centuries C.E. Theoretically, the Masoretes could have misinterpreted a word spelled simply אלם in the Torah scroll.

So the Talmud, extant around 500 C.E., reports:

“The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught that the verse: “Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods” (Exodus 15:11), should be read as: ‘Who is like You among the mute’, for You conduct Yourself like a mute and remain silent in the face of Your blasphemers.” (Talmud Bavli, Gittin 56b)2

Rashi, 16th century woodcut

Rashi (11th-century Rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki) went farther afield when he suggested reading eilim (אֵלִם) as its homophone eilim (אֵילִים), which is the plural of ayil (אַיִל) = ram; metaphorically, a powerful man or a mighty tree.

 “באלם means ‘amongst the mighty’, just as (Ezekiel 17:13) ‘and the mighty of (אילי) the land he took away’.” (Rashi)2

Other rabbis chose to consider the eilim angels, i.e. celestial beings who have no existence apart from God. Ramban (13th-century Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) wrote that “among the eilim” means “among those who serve before Thee in heaven”.2

An 18th-century commentator explained the events at the Sea of Reeds as a battle between the God of Israel and the guardian angel of Egypt:

“Israel describes that they had seen the guardian angel of Egypt die; hence they could say that absolutely no celestial force compares to the Lord our God.” (Or HaChayim)3

But in the 19th century, Rabbi Samson Raphel Hirsch identified the eilim as powerful natural forces:

“True, there are אֵלִם, active and effective forces in nature; but though men may worship them as gods, they are subject and bound by powerful bonds to the order You have ordained for them. You alone are free; You are not bound by the was of nature, the work of Your own hands.”4

The “Mi Khamokha” verse in modern prayerbooks is often translated so as not to raise questions about monotheism. Rashi’s proposal, “Who is like you among the mighty?” is a common translation. The traditional Artscroll Siddur goes with: “Who is like You among the heavenly powers?”

I like the approach in Rabbi David Zaslow’s prayerbook, Ivdu Et Hashem B’Simcha, which retains the literal definition of eilim as “gods” but adds a explanatory phrase: “Who is like you among the gods that are worshipped?”5

Too fearsome to praise

After the difficult question “Who is like you among the eilim?”, the rest of the verse extols God by saying:

Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

Too fearsome for praises, doing wonders! (Exodus 15:11)

A strictly literal translation of the phrase “Nora tehillot” would be “fearsome praises”, but the oldest Biblical Hebrew omits many of the connecting words we rely on in English. The consensus of translators is that the sense of the phrase is “too nora for praises”. But does the word nora (a past participle used as an adjective) carry its primary meaning of “feared” or “fearsome”? Or its secondary meaning of “treated with awe” or “awesome”?

Many medieval rabbis analyzed the phrase “Nora tehillot” in terms of being afraid of God.According to Rashi in the 11th century:

“Thou art an object of dread, so that people do not recount thy praises, fearing lest these may be enumerated less then they really are, just as it is written (Psalms 65:2) ‘To Thee, silence is praise’.”2

12th-century Rabbi Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra added:

“However, they are obligated to praise Him because He alone does wonders.”2

In the 13th century, Ramban had another explanation for the use of the word nora:

“In my opinion, nora t’hilot means: “fearful with praises, for He does fearful things and He is praised for them, as when He wreaks vengeance on those who transgress His will, and thereby helps those who serve Him. Thus He is [both] feared and highly praised.” (Ramban)2

But in the 16th century, Rabbi Obadiah Sforno (who lived in Italy during the Renaissance) commented on the verse in terms of awe rather than fear.

“Anyone aware of the marvelous attributes of His cannot fail but recite these praises in awe, not because he is afraid of being punished but because the very nature of God inspires awe and reverence.”2

Yet in the 19th century, S.R. Hirsch wrote sternly:

“Songs of praise to God that do not lead to the fear of God, or that are even intended as substitutes for the fear of God, are nothing but a profanation of God’s Name.”6

Most modern prayerbooks translate nora (נוֹרָא) as “awesome”, rather than “feared” or “fearsome”, probably so as not to make God sound harsh and unloving.

I believe that literal translations of the Hebrew Bible reflect the viewpoint of the original authors, and are appropriate for everyone except readers who do not grasp concepts such as allegory or cultural history, and insist on taking every word in an English translation of the bible as a simple directive from God.

But in a Jewish prayerbook, literal translations of quotes from the bible are more problematic. Some readers are comfortable with the evolution of the religion, and can mentally adapt the ancient words—even while singing them—so that the prayer becomes worthy vehicle for their heartfelt feelings. For other readers, this approach seems unnatural, difficult, or contrary. Why should one sing or recite a prayer one does not believe in literally?

For these people, it might be better to adjust the translations of Hebrew words in prayers so as to avoid raising objections about whether there is only one God, or whether God is kind rather than frightening. Then they, too, might be able to use prayer to express gratitude for the wonders of creation.

  1. Deuteronomy 4:35, 10:14, and 32:39; Isaiah 37:16, 37:20, 41:4, 43:10-11, 44:6, 44:8, 45:5-6, 45:21-22, and 48:12. (Isaiah from chapter 40 on is called second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah, and was written in the 6th century C.E.)
  2. Translations from www.sefaria.org.
  3. Or HaChayim, by Rabbi Chayim ben Moshe ibn Attar, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  4. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemot, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2003, p. 247.
  5. Ivdu Et Hashem B’Simcha, compiled and edited by Rabbi David Zaslow, The Wisdom Exchange, 2010, pp. 81 and 82.
  6. Hirsch, ibid., p. 248.

Bo: Plague of Darkness

The days are short and dark now, for those of us who live north of 45o in the northern hemisphere. But even at night we do not experience true darkness. A single lamp, a single flame, generates a lot of light.

Pitch darkness, the complete absence of light, means blindness at first, then death. Without light, no plants can live, and no living thing can survive. No wonder the first thing God creates in the book of Genesis is light.

And no wonder darkness is such a frightening plague in this week’s Torah portion, Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16).

The darkness plague

Plague of Darkness, Haggadah by Judah Pinhas, 1747

Pharaoh does not let the Israelites leave Egypt until God has afflicted the land with ten miraculous disasters or plagues. The ninth plague is darkness.

Darkness is the only plague that does not bring death or disease to any living thing. Yet three days of utter darkness alarm Pharaoh and all the Egyptians more than anything but the tenth and final plague: death of the firstborn children.

And God said to Moses: “Stretch out your hand toward the heavens, and choshekh will be over the land of Egypt, a choshekh one can touch.” And Moses stretched out his hand toward the heavens, and there was a dark choshekh in all the land of Egypt for three days. No one could see his brother, and no one could get up from his spot for three days. But for all the Israelites, light was in their settlements. (Exodus 10:21-23)

choshekh (חֺשֶׁךְ) = darkness. (Like the word “darkness” in English, the word choshekh is used not only for the absence of physical light, but also for the absence of enlightenment or goodness.)

What is a darkness one can touch?

Medieval commentators wrote that the darkness was thick—a thing with its own palpable substance. Ibn Ezra wrote: “The Egyptians will feel the darkness with their hands.”1 Ramban described the darkness as “a very thick cloud that came down from heaven … which would extinguish every light, just as in all deep caverns.”2

And Rabbeinu Bachya explained: “The darkness was not a kind of solar eclipse. On the contrary, the sun operated completely normally during all these days. In fact, the whole universe operated normally; the palpable darkness was as if each individual Egyptian had been imprisoned all by himself in a black box. … Once this stage had been reached, God intensified this darkness to the extent that it was felt physically, preventing people from being able to move without ‘bumping’ into darkness at every move they tried to make.”3

Faced with this kind of darkness, the Egyptians stopped moving. No one got up for three days. People in the same room might speak to each other, but they could not help each other. So each one suffered alone; “no one could see his brother” (Exodus 10:23). If the plague had continued for a few additional days, all the Egyptians would have died of thirst by darkness.

19th-century rabbi Hirsch pointed out: “This plague was the most sweeping, in that it shackled the whole person, cutting him off from all fellowship and from all possessions, so that he could move neither his hands nor his feet to obtain the necessities of life.”4

As usual, Pharaoh asks Moses to beg his God to end the plague.

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses … (Exodus 10:24)

How does he summon anyone, when neither he nor any of his servants can “get up from his spot”? Perhaps the person who wrote down that verse did not think through the implications of the miraculous darkness. Or perhaps Moses has not left the palace courtyard since raising his hand to summon the darkness, and he can hear Pharaoh calling to him. Being an Israelite, Moses could still see and move, so he walks over to where Pharaoh sits. And he finds out whether Pharaoh is at last willing to let the Israelites go.

Darkness as metaphor

The Hebrew word choshekh, like the English word “darkness”, is used as a metaphor for gloominess, death, ignorance, or evil.

Since darkness means the absence of visible light, it also means ignorance, the absence of enlightenment.

Inform us of what we can say to [God]!
    We cannot lay a case before him from a position of choshekh. (Job 37:19)

And in both Biblical Hebrew and English, light is associated with goodness, while darkness is associated with evil.

They forsake the paths of the upright
    To go in the ways of choshekh. (Proverbs 2:13)

Pharaoh’s darkness

When Pharaoh’s father was on the throne (in Exodus 1:8-2:22), he conscripted all the Israelite men to do corvée labor on royal building projects.5 Corvée labor was common in the Ancient Near East, as common as governments conscripting their citizens into military service in modern times. But in the book of Exodus, the Israelites’ term of service never ends, under either the first pharaoh or his successor. Then God gets involved.

Making Bricks, tomb of Vizier Rekmire, 1459 BCE

And the Israelites groaned under the servitude and they cried out. And their plea for rescue from the servitude went up to God. And God listened to their moaning … (Exodus 2:23-24)

The solution God devises is to send Moses to act as a prophet, and the plagues to force the new pharaoh to recognize the power of God and let the Israelites leave Egypt.

With each plague, Moses asks Pharaoh to let the Israelites go for at three-day walk into the wilderness to worship their God. Each time, Pharaoh refuses to give them even a few days off. They might as well be slaves.

If being in the dark is being unenlightened, blind to reality, Pharaoh always lives in darkness. He believes he can mistreat the Israelites without any personal consequences. He believes that their God, who keeps afflicting Egypt with disastrous miracles, cannot really destroy him or his kingdom.

Earlier in this week’s Torah portion, after Moses warns the court about the eighth plague, locust swarms, Pharaoh’s courtiers urge their king to give up.

And Pharaoh’s courtiers said to him: “How long will this be a trap for us? Let the men go so they can serve Y-H-V-H, their god! Don’t you realize yet that Egypt is lost?” (Exodus 10:7) 

But Pharaoh still tries to bargain. He asks Moses which Israelites would go to worship Y-H-V-H, and Moses replies:

“With our young and with our old we will go, with our sons and with our daughters we will go, with our flocks and with our herds we will go, because it is our festival for God.” (Exodus 10:9)

Pharoah insists that he will let only the men go, so he and Moses are at an impasse again, and God sends the plague of darkness.

If darkness is a metaphor for evil, Pharaoh fits the bill. Not only does he refuse to give the Israelites even a few days off from work, he also increases their workload so it is impossible for them to meet their quotas.8 This gives his overseers a reason to whip them at any time.

Moses warns Pharaoh about each plague, but Pharaoh refuses, again and again, to let the Israelites go. This harms the native Egyptians, who suffer from thirst, vermin, agricultural collapse, and multiple diseases.

During the plague of darkness, Pharaoh summons Moses and says:

“Go, serve Y-H-V-H! Only your flocks and your herds must be left behind. Even your little ones may go with you!” (Exodus 10:24)

Pharaoh is still bargaining, but he has made a concession. Although he knows the Israelites will not come back, he is now willing to give up his free labor force—as long as they leave their livestock behind. Of course, he knows that the animals are the Israelites’ wealth and means of livelihood. And he probably doubts that they will get very far through the desert without at least the milk from their cattle, sheep, and goats.

But Pharaoh may also be considering the welfare of the native Egyptians for the first time. All of their livestock died during the fifth plague, cattle disease.5 The eighth plague, locust swarms, consumed the last green leaves in Egypt,6 so the Israelite livestock have nothing to eat (except for any hay the Egyptians might have stockpiled inside barns). But at least the Egyptians could eat the Israelites’ animals. The meat would keep them alive for a while, until Pharaoh came up with another plan.

Moses, however, refuses to make any concession to Pharaoh. He replies:

“You, even you, must place slaughter offerings and rising offerings in our hands, and we will make them for Y-H-V-H, our God. And also our property must go with us; not a hoof can remain behind …” (Exodus 10:25-26)

Then God steps in—or perhaps what steps in is Pharaoh’s pride and the power of habit.

Then Y-H-V-H strengthened Pharaoh’s mind, and he did not consent to let them go. (Exodus 10:27)

Three days of blindness and immobility are not enough to make Pharaoh completely change his mind. With the help of a little mind-hardening from God, Pharaoh holds out until his own firstborn son dies in the tenth plague, the one that God has planned all along as the finale.7

Does Pharaoh deserve the death of his firstborn son? Yes, the classic commentary answered, because Pharaoh is evil. (His son, and the other Egyptian firstborn and their parents, may be innocent. But the tales in the Torah focus on individual characters, using the reset of the people as background.)

Metaphorically speaking, Pharaoh always sits in darkness. No wonder he qualifies his permission to let the Israelites go, even after the life-threatening plague of darkness. No wonder God can easily harden his attitude so he refuses to let the Israelites take their livestock with them.

Darkness itself blinds and paralyzes him, but Pharaoh does not change his attitude. After all, he has lived in darkness his whole life.

One of the participants in a class I am teaching on Exodus pointed out that if you state a position once and get negative feedback, it is not too hard to change your mind. But if you stick with your unpopular opinion, it gets harder to change every time it is questioned. You find yourself fiercely defending your position to others—and refusing to reexamine it yourself.

Pharaoh’s mind keeps hardening because he is human. God’s assistance in hardening it is the human nature we are endowed with.

May we all pay attention to what we are doing, and seek enlightenment lest we slip into utter darkness.

  1. Abraham Ibn Ezra, 12th century, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  2. Ramban (Rabbi Moshe Nachman), 13th century, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  3. Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher ibn Chalavah, 1255-1340, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  4. Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, 19th century, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemot, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, p. 144.
  5. The pharaoh in Exodus 1:8-2:22 also attempted to reduce the population of Israelites in Egypt by commanding the murder of male Israelite infants.
  6. Exodus 10:15.
  7. See God’s speech to Moses in Exodus 4:21-22.
  8. Exodus 1:8-22.

Va-eira: Snake Staff, Part 2

The first time God changed Moses’ staff into a snake was on Mount Sinai, when God was giving him the signs he would use to convince the Israelites in Egypt that he was a genuine prophet. (See last week’s post, Shemot: Snake Staff, Part 1.)

The second time God transformed the staff was at the meeting Aaron set up between his brother Moses and elders of the Israelites in Egypt.

And Aaron spoke all the words that God had spoken to Moses, and he performed the signs in the sight of the people. And the people trusted him, and they heard that God had taken up the cause of the Israelites and had seen their misery and noticed them. And they bowed to the ground. (Exodus 4:30-31)

So far, so good. The next step was to persuade Pharaoh that God had sent them.

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh: “Thus says Y-H-V-H, the God of Israel: Let my people go so they will celebrate a festival for me in the wilderness.” But Pharaoh said: “Who is Y-H-V-H, that I should listen to his voice and let the Israelites go? I do not know Y-H-V-H, and furthermore, I will not let the Israelites go.” (Exodus 5:1-2)  

This might have been a good time for the brothers to use the magic staff to demonstrate that they are real emissaries of a real god. But God had not ordered it. Moses and Aaron merely talked a little longer, and then Pharoah decided to increase the workload of the Israelites instead.

The Israelites lost faith in Moses and in the promised rescue from Egypt. The Torah portion Shemot ends shortly after the Israelite foremen complain to Moses and Aaron:

“May God examine you and judge, since you made us smell loathsome in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his courtiers, putting a sword in their hand to kill us!” (Exodus 5:21)

Marvel in the palace

This week’s Torah portion, Va-eria (Exodus 6:2-9:35), opens with some repetitions of the story line and a genealogy.1 Then God finally tells Moses and Aaron to demonstrate the transformation of the staff to Pharaoh.

And God said to Moses and to Aaron: “When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying: ‘Give me your marvel!’ then you will say to Aaron: ‘Take your staff and cast it down in front of Pharaoh!’ It will become a tanin.” Then Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and they did just as God had commanded; Aaron cast down his staff in front of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and it became a tanin. (Exodus 7:8-10)

tanin (תַנִּין) = sea monster, crocodile, snake.2

When God transformed Moses’ staff on Mount Sinai (in a tale some scholars attribute to an E source), it became a nachash (נָחָשׁ) = snake, serpent. Now (in the tale from a P source) it becomes a tanin. Different source stories used somewhat different terminology.

And Pharaoh also summoned his wise men and his sorcerers, and they, also they, the chartumim of Egypt, did this with their spells. (Exodus 7:11)

chartumim (חַרְטֻמִּים) = literate Egyptian priests with occult knowledge.

The word chartumim is often translated as “magicians”, but these Egyptian dignitaries were not magicians in the modern sense: people who create illusions and trick their audiences. The ancient Egyptians believed that the gods created and maintained the universe with “heka”, a cosmic power that priests could also tap into and use to manipulate reality.)

Aaron’s Road Changed into a Serpent, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Charles Foster Bible Pictures, 1860

Each one cast down his staff, and it became a tanin. But Aaron’s staff gulped down their staffs. (Exodus 7:12)

The Egyptian priests use “heka” to produce the same marvel that God makes: a staff turning into a tanin. But the magic of the God of Israel proves superior to the magic of the Egyptian priests, since God’s staff swallows their staffs.

This is a significant coup, considering the nature of the crocodile and snake gods in Egyptian theology.

The crocodile in Egyptian theology

Egyptian god Sobek, Kom Ombo temple

The transformation of a staff into a crocodile would remind Egyptians of their crocodile god, Sobek, credited with both creating the Nile and giving strength to the pharaoh. If the God of Israel has power over Sobek, Pharaoh and the whole country are in danger.

The concept of a staff becoming a crocodile would not seem strange to the Egyptians. In an Egyptian tale written as early as 1600 B.C.E., the Egyptian priest Webaoner made a wax crocodile “seven fingers long”, and when his assistant threw it into a lake it became a real crocodile and swallowed up the priest’s enemy. When the king arrived, Webaoner caught the real crocodile, and it shrank and turned back into wax.3

The snake in Egyptian theology

Egyptian Priests Holding Serpent Staffs, Tomb of Sennufer, 15th c. BCE, photo by Scott B. Noegel, detail

The idea of a staff changing into a snake may have come from Egyptian rituals in which priests carried rods with heads shaped like snakes, as depicted in a 15th-century B.C.E. tomb painting.

The sudden appearance of a snake in Pharaoh’s audience chamber would remind the Egyptians of the snake god Apep. Apep was the god of chaos, evil, and darkness, the enemy of the sun god, Ra. Ra was the god of order and light, and crossed the sky from east to west every day. Every night the sun went down in the west and Ra traveled through the underworld to where the sun was due to rise again in the east. During this nightly underground crossing, Ra fought Apep, who lived in the underworld of the dead. For centuries Egyptian priests helped Ra in the battle by making wax models of Apep and spitting on them, mutilating them, or burning them while reciting spells to kill the evil god.4 

Nehebu-kau, Spell 87 of the Book of the Dead of Ani

Another Egyptian snake god was Nehebu-kau, a variant of Apep who had become a benign underworld god by the 13th century B.C.E., when the Exodus story was set. Nehebu-kau ws one of the 42 gods who judged the souls of the deceased. (Another was the crocodile god Sobek.) When souls of the dead passed the test for good behavior during life, Nehebu-kau gave them the life-force ka so they would have an afterlife. (Apep, on the other hand, was called “Eater of Souls”.)

When Aaron’s snake swallows the Egyptian priests’ snakes, it signals that the whole Egyptian cosmic order is in danger. Can Ra defeat a god even more powerful than Apep? Will there be any afterlife if Nehebu-kau is overthrown?

Pharaoh versus his priests

But Pharaoh’s mind hardened, and he did not listen to them, just as God had spoken. (Exodus 7: 13)

The next step is the first of the miraculous plagues that will destroy Egypt, just what God predicted to Moses in the Torah portion Shemot .

We can assume the Egyptian chartumim in the book of Exodus are shocked and alarmed when Aaron’s snake-staff gulps down all of theirs. It is an obvious omen that the God of Moses and Aaron will triumph over their pharaoh, and over all Egypt. But they do not want to believe this omen, so they return to do more magic for Pharaoh. They gamely use “heka” to reproduce God’s plagues of blood and frogs, at least in miniature.5 But they cannot replicate God’s third plague, lice.6 And at that point they acknowledge that the power behind the plagues is a serious danger to their world.

And the chartumim said to Pharoah: “It is a finger of a god!” But Pharaoh’s mind hardened, and did not listen to them. (Exodus 8:15)

Modern Torah readers are familiar with the idea that God is omnipotent. For us, the magic tricks that God arranges with a shepherd’s staff might seem like a sideshow before the main action of the ten plagues begins.

Yet it is necessary for Moses to prove to both the Israelites and the Egyptians that he really is speaking for a powerful god, and that his God is more powerful than any Egyptian god or Egyptian magic. Otherwise the Israelites will never follow him out of Egypt. And otherwise the pharaoh will attribute the plagues to other deities.

Some people are better than others at noticing signs and drawing long-term conclusions. Moses notices the subtle miracle of the bush that burns without being consumed, and walks right over to find out more.

The chartumim a a bit slower. They do not warn Pharaoh that Egypt is doomed right after the snake-staff demonstration; they are probably hoping to uncover an explanation consistent with their world-view. But when they cannot replicate God’s miraculous plague of lice, they give up. After that, the chartumim do not seem to be present at any other confrontational meetings between Moses and Pharaoh.7

But Pharaoh continues to assume that no matter what happens Egypt will go on, he will stay on the throne, and he must keep the Israelites as his slaves. Whenever Pharaoh’s faith is shaken, he recovers—until the final blow, the death of his own first-born son.

The longer you hold a belief, the harder it is to give up. What does it take before you admit you were wrong?

A single unexpected event, like the sight of a bush that burns but is not consumed?

Several demonstrations that the power structure you depend upon has been subverted?

The destruction of your world because of your failure to change?

  1. According to modern source criticism, a redactor of the book of Exodus patched in some material from a different account. The portion Shemot recorded mostly J and E traditions of the tale. Exodus 6:2-7:13 comes mostly from P sources, with some explanatory additions.
  2. The word tanin appears 14 timesin the Hebrew Bible. Half the time it means a sea-monster—or perhaps a crocodile (Genesis 1:21, Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9, Jeremiah 51:34,  Psalms 74:13 and 148:7, Job 7:12, and Nehemiah 2:13). Twice a tanin is a snake (Deuteronomy 32:33 and Psalm 91:13), and twice it is a misspelling of “jackals” (tanim, in Lamentations 4:3 and Nehemiah 2:13). The remaining three occurrences of the word tanin are in the P story about the meeting with Pharaoh. (The word tanim, תַּנִּים, also occurs 14 times in the Hebrew Bible. In 10 of those occurrences it means “jackals”. But it is used as an alternate spelling of tanin in Isaiah 13:22 (snakes), Ezekiel 29:3 and 32:2 (crocodiles or sea monsters), and Psalm 44:20 (sea monsters).
  3. Prof. Scott B. Noegel, “The Egyptian ‘Magicians”, www.thetorah.com.
  4. One of the rituals in The Book of Overthrowing Apep, circa 305 B.C.E.
  5. Exodus 7:22 and 8:3.
  6. Exodus 8:14.
  7. No chartumim are mentioned in the passages about the next two plagues. The story of the sixth plague, boils, says: The chartumim were not able to stand in front of Moses because of the boils. (Exodus 9:11) After that they are absent from the rest of the book of Exodus.

Shemot: Snake Staff, Part 1

Moses hears God speak out of the burning bush on Mount Sinai, and learns that he must act as God’s prophet and lead the Israelites out of Egypt. He tries four times to get out of the job in this week’s Torah portion, Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), and one of his efforts leads to God making his staff magical.

First Moses hints that he is not qualified, saying:

“Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out from Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)

Instead of saying why Moses meets the job qualifications, God replies:

“I will be with you, and this will be your sign I myself sent you.” (Exodus 3:12)

In other words, Moses will be frequently reminded that God sent him on this mission, because God will be present for him. As the story continues, God’s presence with Moses is indeed obvious, since God continues to speak to him.

Next Moses asks what name he should call God when he speaks to the Israelites, and God answers at length, giving him more information about his mission as well as about who God is. Then Moses makes his second protest:

“And if they do not believe me, and do not listen to my voice, but say: Y-H-V-H did not appear to you?” (Exodus 4:1)

This time God responds by showing Moses three “signs” he can perform in front of the Israelites to demonstrate that Y-H-V-H1 is with him. The first sign turns out to be the most important.

God said to him: “What is this in your hand?” And he said: “A mateh.” (Exodus 4:2)

mateh (מַטֶּה) = a shepherd’s staff; a staff serving as an official symbol of authority over a tribe or country; a tribe. (Plural: mattot, מַטּוֹת.)

Moses is holding a shepherd’s staff because he has just led his father-in-law’s flock through the wilderness all the way to Mount Sinai. But this is his last undertaking as a shepherd. After he returns to Egypt, Moses will use his staff to signal divine miracles. He will also become the leader of the thousands of Israelites who follow him out Egypt.

From Charles Foster Bible, illustration by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860

Now God demonstrates that Moses is no longer holding a mere shepherd’s staff.

Then (God) said: “Throw it to the ground.” So he threw it to the ground, and it became a nachash, and Moses fled from it. Then God said to Moses: “Reach out your hand and grasp it by its tail.” And he reached out his hand and took hold of it, and it became a mateh in his palm. (Exodus 4:3)

nachash (נָחָשׁ)= snake, serpent. (Words from the same root include the verb nichash, נִחַשׁ = practice divination, the noun nachash, נַחַשׁ = bewitchment, magic curse, and nechoshet, נְחֺשֶׁת = copper, copper alloy.)

Then God gives Moses two more signs for the Israelites. For the second sign, is he puts his hand into the fold at the bosom of his robe, and when he pulls it out his hand looks white and scaly. When he repeats the action, his hand returns to normal.2 For the third sign, God says,  Moses will pour some water from the Nile on dry ground, and it will turn into blood.3

Once Moses has demonstrated the signs to the Israelites, God says, they will believe that God appeared to him.

Moses does perform all three signs in front of the elders of Israel when he arrives back in Egypt, and they believe he is God’s prophet.4 But the only one of these signs he uses in front of Pharaoh is the staff trick. (See next week’s post, Va-eira: Snake Staff, Part 2.)

But the three signs are not enough for Moses, who does not want to be a prophet in the first place. So he makes two more attempts to talk God out of giving him the job. He says he is a slow and clumsy speaker, but God promises to tell him what to say. Finally, Moses simply begs God to send someone else.5 God gets angry, then promises to appoint his brother Aaron to help him. And Moses resigns himself to returning to Egypt.

Moses’ staff could turn into anything surprising, and the transformation would prove that he is a channel for the miraculous power of God. So why does God choose a snake for this sign?

Snake as deceiver

Adam, Eve, and Snake, Escorial Beatus, ca. 950

One explanation is that a snake is the opposite of a staff. A snake is a flexible animal that moves with whiplash speed. It can shed its dead skin and emerge alive. And in the story of the Garden of Eden, the snake is clever and deals in deception and half-truths.6

Some early commentators claimed that the first time God changed Moses’ staff into a snake, it was a personal message to Moses that he had slandered the Israelites when he said they would not believe him—just as the snake in the Garden of Eden had slandered God by implying that God had lied about the effects of eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.7

A staff, on the other hand, is a long stick of dead wood, hard and inflexible. It is reliable, strong enough to lean against without breaking—and therefore a good symbol for a chieftain or a king. 19th-century Rabbi S.R. Hirsch wrote:

“… מטה [mateh] denotes (a) an extension of the hand, upon which man can lean for support as he stands on the ground; (b) an extension of man’s sphere of power; it is a symbol of his authority. This sign in Moshe’s hand will show the people that, if God so desires, the thing on which a person leans for support and with which he wields his authority can turn into the very opposite: a serpent. … Conversely, if He so desires, God can take a hostile force that is feared and shunned by man and place it into his hand as an accommodating support and tractable tool.”8

Snake as phallic symbol

Both a staff and a snake are obvious phallic symbols. I suspect that when this story was told orally, the verbal image of a snake stiffening into a staff in Moses’ hand drew snickers from the audience.

The staff and the snake represent two aspects of power. The staff stands for legitimate authority. The snake stands for creative subversion—the power of the trickster. Perhaps one way God uses the staff and snake is to demonstrate, first to Moses and then to the Israelites, that ultimate power over everything belongs to God.

Furthermore, God only makes the snake harmless enough for Moses to pick up with his bare hand when a demonstration of Moses’ status as God’s prophet is required. This demonstration happens first to Moses himself on Mount Sinai, then to the Israelites, then to Pharaoh and his court.

When Moses sets off for Egypt with his wife Tziporah and their two small sons,

Moses took the mateh of God in his hand. (Exodus 4:20)

Moses’ staff is now called the staff of God because God has imbued it with the power to miraculously turn into a snake (and to signal or initiate other miracles in the future).

An incident on Moses’ journey to Egypt shows that the snake can also be dangerous as a phallic symbol.

On the road, at a lodging-place, God confronted him and sought to kill him. Then Tziporah took a flint, and she cut the foreskin of her son, and she touched it to his raglayim, and she said: “Because a bridegroom of blood you are to me!” (Exodus 4:24-25)

raglayim (רַגְלַיִם) = a pair of feet, a pair of legs—or a euphemism for genitals.

The Torah does not say how God “sought to kill him”. But since the next sentence refers to a foreskin and genitals, the Talmud and Exodus Rabbah imagined the angel of death swallowing Moses from his head down to his genitals, where Moses’ circumcision stops the process.9 Rashi wrote:

 “The angel became a kind of serpent and swallowed him [Moses] from his head to his thigh, spewed him forth, and then again swallowed him from his legs to that place. Tziporah thus understood that this had happened on account of the delay in the circumcision of her son.”10  (For a fuller discussion of the “Bridegroom of Blood” episode, see my post Shemot: Uncircumcised, Part 1.)

The staff that turns into a snake and back is God’s phallic symbol, not Moses’. Moses is merely another of God’s tools. In next week’s Torah portion, Vayeira, God makes Moses use the staff to impress the simple-minded people in Egypt, from Israelite slave to Egyptian monarch. It would be easy for me, as a feminist, to mock these displays of male power. Yet perhaps they are necessary to get some people’s attention.

And once they are paying attention, they might consider the difference between a man with a staff of office on whom you can depend, and a man in authority who is more like a poisonous snake. Which kind of authority is Pharaoh?

What about our leaders and authority figures today?

  1. For an explanation of God’s personal name, indicated by Y-H-V-H, see my post Lekh-Lekha: New Names for God.
  2. Exodus 4:6-7.
  3. Exodus 4:9.
  4. Exodus 4:28-31.
  5. Exodus 4:13.
  6. Genesis 3:1-6.
  7. C.f. Ramban on Exodus 4:3. (Ramban is the acronym of 13th-century Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, also called Nachmanides.) For the snake’s implication that God was lying when God said eating from the Tree of Knowledge would result in death, see Genesis 3:2-5.
  8. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, Sefer Shemos, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2005, p. 50. (Hirsch was a 19th-century German rabbi and commentator.)
  9. Talmud tractate Nedarim 32a, Exodus Rabbah 5:8, both written circa 300-600 C.E.
  10. Translation from www.sefaria.org. Rashi is the acronym for 11th-century Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki.

Pesach: Four Questions

Question: Why do Jews celebrate Passover?

Answer: To teach children the story of the exodus from Egypt.

This answer is in both the Torah and the Talmud, along with the need for adults to recall the story of liberation in an unforgettable way.

Two rituals in Exodus

Passover/Pesach begins this Wednesday at sunset. Jews around the world will gather at dinner tables and perform an elaborate ritual that is quite different from the two observances required in the book of Exodus.

In the book of Exodus, God orders the Israelites to gather in their houses for dinner on the 14th of the month of Nisan, which begins at sunset. That night, God will afflict Egypt with the last of the ten plagues: death of the firstborn. Each Israelite household must slaughter a year-old male lamb or goat; smaller households should combine and share one.

Painting the Blood, History Bible, Paris, c. 1390

And they must take some of the blood, and they must put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they will be. And they must eat the meat on this night, roasted in fire, and matzot on bitter herbs they must eat. You must not eat it raw, or cooked by boiling in water, but rather roasted in fire, its head on its lower legs and on its entrails. And you must not leave any for yourselves until morning; and [any] leavings from it in the morning you must burn in the fire. And thus you must eat it: your hips girded, your sandals on, and your staffs in your hand. And you must eat it in haste. It is a pesach for God. (Exodus/Shemot 12:7-11)

matzot (מַצּוֹת) = plural of matzah (מַצָּה) = unleavened bread; dry flatbread baked quickly to avoid sourdough action.

pesach (פֶּסַח) = “Passover” offering. (From the verb pasach, פָּסַח = hop (in 1 Kings 18:21); protect (in Isaiah 31:5); skip over, spare (in Exodus 12:23).)

Presumably the Israelites were enacting this ritual on the first night of Passover when Exodus was written down.  As God’s instructions continue, the ritual about daubing blood and eating a whole lamb standing up is followed by seven days of eating matzot:

Seven days you must eat matzot; indeed, on the first day you must remove the leaven that is in your houses, since any soul eating leaven must be cut off from Israel from the first day through the seventh day. (Exodus 12:14-15)

Pilgrimage festivals ceased after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. But the seven days without leaven is still a widespread Jewish observance during the week of Passover.

The Seder Table, Ukrainian print from Lubok, 19th century

However, painting your door frame with blood, eating a whole lamb including the head and entrails, and/or eating standing up with a staff in hand are rare today. Instead, on the evening of Nissan 14 (and sometimes on subsequent evenings during the week of Passover), Jews sit around the dinner table going through a Haggadah (הַגָּדָה = telling), a guide to saying blessings, singing songs, telling traditional stories, doing show-and-tell rituals, and eating ritual foods (as well as dinner). The event is called a seder (סֵדֶר= order, arrangement) because all these ritual acts are done in a prescribed order.

The reason for doing this is not only to remind ourselves of the story about God bringing us out of slavery in Egypt, but to teach it to our children.

Children in the Torah

The section of the Haggadah called “The Four Sons” or “The Four Children” paraphrases questions and answers in the Torah, imagining a different type of child corresponding to each answer.1 Three of the four biblical instructions on what to tell children are given in Exodus on the eve of the final plague and the liberation from Egypt:

When a child asks why we paint blood on our doorframes every year on Nissan 14, say:

“It is a pesach slaughter-sacrifice for God, who pasach over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when [God] afflicted the Egyptians, but saved our households.” (Exodus 12:26)

When everyone has to eat matzot instead of leavened bread for a week, say:

“On account of what God did for me, when I went out of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:8)

When a firstborn son is ransomed in a ritual at the beginning of Passover, say:

“With a strong hand God brought us out from Egypt, from the house of slavery …” (Exodus 13:14)

The first of the Four Children in the Haggadah is based on the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses posits a son who asks about all the rules God has given. What Moses (unlike the Haggadah)2 tells you to answer begins:

“We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God brought us out …” (Deuteronomy 6:20)

But the biblical questions and answers are not enough. Before the Four Children section, the Haggadah makes sure children are engaged with a section called “The Four Questions”.

The Four Questions in the Talmud

Most of the traditional Haggadah3 is described in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Pesachim, including the Four Questions, which appear in the older part of the tractate, the mishnah.4  The mishnah dates to the early third century C.E. and records what the Israelites in Babylonia were already practicing; therefore the Four Questions, like the Four Sons, has been an important part of the Passover ritual for about 2,000 years.

And for about 2,000 years, the purpose of the Four Questions has been to make the children at the seder pay attention.

Asking the Four Questions, German Haggadah c. 1460

All four questions are amplifications of the basic question:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

But the content of the four amplifications has changed somewhat since Talmudic times.

The original Four Questions (or amplifications) in the Talmud are:

On all other nights, we eat leavened bread or matzah, but on this night only matzah.

On all other nights, we eat other vegetables, but on this night only bitter herbs.

On all other nights, we eat meat roasted, stewed, or boiled, but on this night only roasted.

On all other nights we dip [vegetables] once, but on this night we dip twice.

The mishnah continues: “And according to the son’s understanding, his father instructs him.”5 (Perhaps this remark inspired the creation of the section traditionally called “The Four Sons”.)

By the 10th century C.E., the question about how the meat is cooked had been dropped from the list, and replaced with a different question:

            On all other nights we eat sitting up or reclining, but on this night only reclining.

Reclining instead of sitting up was already a requirement by the time the mishnah of Pesachim was written.6 The Talmudic rabbis cited in the gemara (the part of a Talmud tractate written during the 3rd through 5th centuries C.E. as commentary on the mishnah) argued about the technicalities of reclining. They agreed that:

Lying on one’s back is not called reclining. Reclining to the right is not called reclining, as free men do not recline in this manner. People prefer to recline on their left and use their right hand to eat, whereas they find it more difficult to eat the other way. (Pesachim 108a)

After some argument, they also agreed that reclining was necessary not only while eating matzah, but also while drinking each of the four cups of wine, since only free and independent people got to recline while drinking—the opposite of “We were slaves” in the retelling of Exodus. But nobody had to recline while eating the bitter herbs.

When the requirement about reclining replaced the method of cooking meat in the Four Questions, the order of the questions also changed.6 During the last 1,000 years, the most common order has been:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

  1. … but on this night we dip them twice.
  2. … but on this night only matzah.
  3. … but on this night only bitter herbs.
  4. … but on this night only reclining.

Today, after we pour the second cup of wine and come to the page in the Haggadah with the Four Questions, all the questions are sung by the youngest person at the table who can manage it. Some children relish the job; others complain. But someone has to do it.

And if even his wife is not capable of asking or if he has no wife, he asks himself. And even if two Torah scholars who know the halakhot of Passover are sitting together and there is no one else present to pose the questions, they ask each other. (Pesachim 116a)

The Talmud offers additional ways to prompt children to ask about the unusual things they see in the dining room. Following Rabbi Akiva, Pesachim recommends giving the children roasted grains and nuts, “so that they will not sleep and also so they will ask the four questions at night.” (Pesachim 109a)

Another technique was to grab the matzot and wolf them down, “so that, due to the hasty consumption of the meal, they will not sleep and they will inquire into the meaning of this unusual practice.” (Pesachim 109a)

One prompt in the Talmud is to actually remove the dinner table from the room before the main meal!

Why does one remove the table? The school of Rabbi Yannai says: So that the children will notice that something is unusual and they will ask: Why is this night different from all other nights? The Gemara relates: Abaye was sitting before Rabba when he was still a child. He saw that they were removing the table from before him, and he said to those removing it: We have not yet eaten, and you are taking the table away from us? Rabba said to him: You have exempted us from reciting the questions of: Why is this night different [ma nishtana], as you have already asked what is special about the seder night. (Pesachim 115b)

Another rabbi quoted in Pesachim, Rab Shimi bar Ashi, explained:

Matza must be placed before each and every participant at the seder. Each participant in a seder would recline on a couch at his own personal table. Likewise, bitter herbs must be placed before each and every participant, and ḥaroset must be placed before each and every participant. And during the seder, before the meal, one shall remove the table only from before the one reciting the Haggadah. The other tables, which correspond to the seder plates used nowadays, are left in their place. (Pesachim 115b)

I have never been to a Passover seder in which each person reclines on a couch at a separate table, as at an ancient Greek symposium. And since we are all sitting at one big table (leaning to the left uncomfortably at the appropriate times), I have never seen the table removed.

But I have witnessed other devices to keep children—and even adults—awake and asking questions. If you were leading a seder, what would you do?

  1. See my post Pesach: Changing Four Sons.
  2. The reply to the first son (or child) in the Haggadah is to summarize only the rabbinic rulings (halakhah) about Passover, up to the ban on eating anything after the afikomen, the final piece of matzah.
  3. Modern Jews have added new ritual elements to the seder, and therefore new pages of text and songs in the Haggadah, while retaining all the important elements of the traditional Haggadah that is still used by more orthodox Jews.
  4. Pesachim 116a. (All translations from tractate Pesachim in this post are from The William Davidson Talmud on www.sefaria.org.) The mishnah in each tractate of the Talmud is the oral law collected by Yehudah HaNasi at the beginning of the third century CE.  Later rabbinic commentary on the mishnah, the gemara, was added over the next few centuries.
  5. Pesachim 116a.
  6. Pesachim 108a. The question about reclining is added to the Four Questions in the writings of both Saadiah Gaon  (10th-century rabbi Saadiah ben Yosef Gaon) and Rambam (12th-century philosopher Moshe ben Maimon, a.k.a. Maimonides).
  7. This is the order of the four questions according to Saadiah Gaon, Rambam, and the first extant printed haggadah (Soncino, 1485).

Pekudei & 1 Kings: Is the Ark an Idol?

The ark and the curtain in front of it are the last two things Moses puts into the new Tent of Meeting in this week’s Torah portion, Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38). Then the portable sanctuary that will be God’s new dwelling place is complete.

Then Moses finished the work. And the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the kavod of God filled the Dwelling Place. And Moses was not able to enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud rested on it and the kavod of God filled the Dwelling Place.  (Exodus/Shemot 40:33-35)

kavod (כָּבוֹד) = weight, magnificence, honor, glory.

Thus all the Israelites who made things for the portable sanctuary, from the golden ark to the woven walls, did it right. God approved, and manifested inside.

The last thing King Solomon puts into the new permanent temple for God in this week’s haftarah (the reading from the Prophets that accompanies the Torah portion) is the ark. Then the first permanent temple for God in Jerusalem is complete.

And it was when the priests went out of the holy place, and the cloud filled the house of God. And the priests were not able to stand and serve in the presence of the cloud, because the kavod of God filled the house of God. (1 Kings 8:10-11)

Thus all the people who built and furnished the temple for King Solomonalso did it right; God approved, and manifested inside.

In both the tent and the temple, the ark is brought into the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber in back. In both Exodus and 1 Kings, the ark is a box or chest with a lid and four feet. In both stories, it is carried by means of two poles that run through the rings attached to its feet. And in both stories, the ark contains the two stone tablets Moses brought down from his second forty-day stint on Mount Sinai.

Yet the two stories do not seem to be talking about the same ark.

The ark in Exodus

The master artist Betzaleil makes the lid of the ark in last week’s Torah portion in the book of Exodus, Vayakheil:

Then he made a kaporet of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And he made two keruvim of gold; he made them hammered out from the two ends of the kaporet. One keruv out of this end and one keruv out of that end; from the kaporet he made the keruvim, from its two ends. And the keruvim were spreading wings above, screening off [the area] over the kaporet with their wings. And they faced each other, and the faces of the keruvim were toward the kaporet.(Exodus 37:6-9)

kaporet (כַּפֺּרֶת) = the lid of the ark in Exodus and Numbers; the lid of the ark as the seat of reconciliation or atonement with God in Leviticus. (From the root verb kafar, כָּפַר = covered; atoned, made amends.)1

keruvim (כְּרוּבִים) = plural of  kervuv (כְּרוּב) = “cherub” in English; a hybrid supernatural creature with wings and a human face. (Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, keruvim are guardians, steeds, or part of God’s heavenly entourage.)2

Moses and Aaron Bowing Before
the Ark, by James Tissot, ca. 1900

The bodies of the gold keruvim in Exodus are never described. Since each keruv sculpture has only one face, which gazes at the lid of the ark, it represents a different sort of hybrid creature from those in Ezekiel’s visions. The book of Ezekiel describes a keruv as having four faces, four wings with human hands under them, a single leg like a calf’s hoof, and eyes covering its whole body.3

The two gold keruvim on the ark in Exodus face one another, but they are looking down at the center of the lid. They might be guarding the stone tablets inside, or they might be guarding the empty space above the lid and below their wings. Earlier in the book of Exodus, God tells Moses:

And I will meet with you there and I will speak with you from above the lid, from between the two  keruvim … (Exodus 25:22)

That means the gold keruvim in Exodus are not idols. In the Ancient Near East, an idol was a sculpture of a god that the god sometimes entered and inhabited. At those times, worshiping the idol was the same as worshiping the god.

But Exodus is careful to explain that God will not enter the ark or the keruvim sculptures on top of it; God will only manifest in the empty space between kaporet and the wings of the keruvim.

The ark and its lid are only two and a half cubits long—just under four feet (just over a meter)—so the empty space for God is not large. According to Exodus, God manifests there as a voice, but according to Leviticus 16:2, God appears there as a cloud.

The two small keruvim that Betzaleil hammers out of the extra gold on the ends of the lid of the ark are not mentioned again anywhere in the Hebrew Bible except once in the book of Numbers:

And when Moses came to the Tent of Meeting to speak with [God], then he heard the voice speaking to him from above the kaporet that was on the Ark of the Testimony, from between the two keruvim; thus [God] spoke to him. (Numbers/Bemidbar 7:89)

Here, too, the Torah clarifies that neither the keruvim nor the kaporet nor the ark are idols.

The ark in 1 Kings

Many generations pass before David creates the first kingdom of Israel, and his son Solomon builds the first permanent temple for God.  By the time King Solomon brings the ark into his new temple, there do not appear to be any keruvim on its lid. The first book of Kings reports the two large statues of keruvim in the Holy of Holies, and small keruvim decorations carved into the walls of the rest of the temple, but no keruvim on the ark.

Solomon has two colossal wood statues of keruvim brought into the Holy of Holies before the ark is carried in. Each keruv is ten cubits, about 15 feet (four and a half meters) tall, with a ten-cubit span from wingtip to wingtip.4

Then he placed the keruvim inside the House, in the innermost [chamber]. And the wings of the keruvim spread out so the wing of one keruv touched the wall, and the wing of the second keruv was touching the second wall, and in the middle of the chamber their wings touched. And he overlaid the keruvim with gold. (1 Kings 6:27-28)

Meanwhile the ark remains in King David’s tent of meeting, in another part of town, until the rest of the temple and its furnishings are completed.

That was when Solomon assembled the elders of Israel—all the heads of the tribes, chiefs of the fathers of the Children of Israel—before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant from the City of David … And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests lifted the ark. (1 Kings 5:1-3)

Solomon Dedicates the Temple,
by James Tissot, 1902

King Solomon leads the sacrifice of livestock on the altar outside the new temple.

Then the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of God into its place, into the back chamber of the house, to the Holy of Holies, to underneath the wings of the keruvim. For [each of] the keruvim was spreading a pair of wings toward the place of the ark, so the keruvim screened off the ark and its poles from above. (1 Kings 8:6-7)

Here the empty space reserved for God is larger than in Exodus, since the gap between the lid of the ark and the wings of the colossal statues of keruvim is about 11 feet (three and a half meters). Yet the Hebrew Bible does not mention God speaking from this space. Nor does a cloud appear there after God’s inaugural cloud of kavod has faded.

The contents of the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple seem to be merely symbolic. There is no mention of God manifesting in the empty space between the wings of the keruvim and the ark. Neither a statue nor the ark becomes an idol that God inhabits. According to one Talmudic source, ordinary Israelites can see the ark and the keruvim without any harmful consequences.5

Perhaps 1 Kings emphasizes that God does not inhabit the ark inside the new temple when it says:There was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets that Moses set down there at Chorev [a.k.a. Sinai] which God cut … (1 Kings 8:9)

The ark as an idol

Exodus and 1 Kings reflect two different traditions about the relationship of the ark to its guardian keruvim. Current scholarship suggests both books were written in the 6th century B.C.E., and the descriptions of the Tent of Meeting in Exodus were modeled on the descriptions of Solomon’s temple, with adjustments to make the tent-sanctuary smaller and more portable. The descriptions of the ark in Exodus through Numbers are also more awe-inspiring than the bare mention of the ark in 1 Kings.

Both descriptions of the ark and the pair of keruvim make it clear that these furnishings are not idols. Yet other stories in the Hebrew Bible do treat the ark like an idol inhabited by God.

In the book of Joshua the priests carry the ark across the Jordan River, as the Levites had carried the ark (always covered from view by three layers of fabric)6 from Mount Sinai to the eastern bank of the Jordan. But then the priests carry it in a military parade around the walls of Jericho until God destroys the city.7

After the Israelites are unexpectedly defeated in a battle later in the book of Joshua, the ark apparently sits on the ground out in the open, rather than inside the tent-sanctuary:

And he fell on his face on the ground in front of the ark of God until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. (Joshua 7:6)

In the first book of Samuel the ark is inside a sanctuary again: the temple at Shiloh, which has solid walls and doors, but a tent roof. However, the sons of the priest Eli take the ark out of the temple and onto the battlefield, where it is captured by the Philistines. In Philistine territory, the ark initiates two plagues and smashes an idol of the Philistine god Dagon.8  The God of Israel is working magic through the ark, which functions as an idol.

Ark Sent Away by the Philistines,
by James Tissot, 1902

The Philistines send the ark back into Israelite territory, where its magic power kills at least 70 Israelite men who look inside. The ark is removed to a private house where the owner’s son is consecrated as a priest to guard it.9

This version of the ark can be safely seen from outside, but must not be opened—or touched, except by its attached carrying poles. When King David sets out to retrieve the ark and transport it to Jerusalem, its two current priests load it on a cart. Partway to Jerusalem the oxen pulling it stumble, and the priest who touches the ark to steady it dies instantly.

And David was afraid of God that day, and he said: “How could I bring the ark of God to myself!” (2 Samuel 6:9)

Although it is possible to interpret this verse as indicating David’s fear of a remote God who chooses to kill anyone who touches the ark, it makes more sense if David conflates God and the ark, treating the ark as an idol God is inhabiting. Fear of God and fear of the ark are the same thing.

Three months later King David succeeds in bringing the ark the rest of the way to Jerusalem, and installs it in the new tent-sanctuary he has set up there for God.10 This is the ark that King Solomon brings into the Holy of Holies in his new temple, and positions under the wings of two new statues of keruvim. At that point the ark is no longer an idol, but merely a sacred object, the most sacred object in the temple.

Which version of the ark appeals to you the most:

The holy work of art in Exodus and Numbers, which only a priest is allowed to see?

The idol that travels around naked in Joshua and the two books of Samuel, zapping people right and left?

Or the piece of furniture in 1 Kings, which must be treated as sacred because it contains the two stone tablets, the way an ark in a synagogue today is treated with respect because it contains the Torah scroll?

  1. The only occurrence of the term kaporet  in the bible outside Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers is when 1 Chronicles, written about 200 years later, says King David gave his son Solomon plans for the temple including “the shrine of the kaporet” (1 Chronicles 28:11). This is not a locution used in Exodus through Numbers.
  2. Keruvim are definitely guardians in Genesis 3:24 and Ezekiel 28:14-16. A keruv is a steed for God in 2 Samuel 22:11, Ezekiel 9:3, Psalm 18:11, and 1 Chron. 28:18. Keruvim are part of God’s large supernatural entourage in Ezekiel 1:5-14, 10:1-20, and 11:22.
  3. Ezekiel 10:1-20 and 1:5-14.
  4. 1 Kings 6:23-26.
  5. Talmud Bavli, Yoma 54a.
  6. See my post: Bemidbar: Don’t Look!
  7. Joshua 3:3-4:18, 6:4-13.
  8. 1 Samuel 4:3-6:12.
  9. 1 Samuel 6:19-7:1.
  10. 2 Samuel 6:13-17.

Beshalach & Ki Tisa: Dancing

How do you thank—or appease—the God of Israel? Burning offerings on an altar is the primary method in the Hebrew Bible. But for women, another way is to grab your tambourine and do a chain dance.

Celebrating the right way in Beshalach

As soon as the Israelites walk out of Egypt, Pharaoh pursues them with chariots in the Torah portion Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16). Then a wind from God dries out a path across the Reed Sea. After the Israelites cross over, God makes the waters return and drown the Egyptian army.1 

Miriam, by Anselm Feuerbach, 1862

Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with mecholot. And Miriam sang call-and-response to them: “Sing to Y-H-V-H, for [God] is definitely superior! Horse and its rider [God] threw into the sea!” (Exodus 15:20-21)

mecholot (מְחֺלוֹת) = plural of mecholah (מְחֺלָה) or mechol (מְחוֹל) = chain dance or circle dance. (From the root verb chol, חול = go around in succession; do a circle dance or chain dance.)

In a mecholah, dancers form a line behind a leader, with each dancer using one hand to touch the next. The line moves in a circle, a spiral, or some other curving pattern s the dancers copy the steps of the leader.

In this first example of mecholot in the Torah, each woman on the shore of the Reed Sea is carrying her tambourine, but her other hand is free to touch the shoulder of the woman in front of her. Percussion and singing are integral to the dancing.

This first chain dance is a heartfelt celebration of a divine miracle that saved the Israelites from being killed. Even the words the women sing are a tribute to God.

Celebrating the wrong way in Ki Tisa

The Israelites also think they are celebrating God’s presence with the second mecholot in the Torah,which occur in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35). But they are deluding themselves.

A pillar of cloud and fire from God led the Israelites our of Egypt, across the Reed Sea, and all the way to Mount Sinai. But there the pillar disappeared, and God manifested as terrifying noises and volcanic fires. At least the people still had Moses as an intermediary—until after the revelation and covenants at Sinai, when Moses disappeared. From Moses’ point of view, God invited him into the cloud on top of the mountain for forty days and nights of divine instruction. But the Israelites below see only fire at the top of the mountain.2 When Moses has not returned after 40 days, they give up on ever seeing him again. How can they continue traveling to Canaan without either the pillar of cloud and fire or the prophet Moses to lead them?

And the people saw that Moses was shamefully late coming down from the mountain, and the people assembled against Aaron, and they said to him: “Get up! Make us a god that will go in front of us, since this man Moses who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him!” (Exodus 32:1)

What the Israelites are asking for is an idol: a statue that a god will magically inhabit. After all, other religions in the Ancient Near East depend on idols inhabited by gods to grant good fortune to their worshipers.

Worshipping the Golden Calf, Providence Lithograph Co. Bible card, 1901

Aaron melts down the gold earrings that the Israelites took from the Egyptians on their way out, and makes a golden calf.

… and they said: “This is your god, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” And Aaron saw, and he built an altar in front of it, and he called out and said: “A festival for Y-H-V-H tomorrow!” And they rose early the next day, and they offered up burnt offerings and brought wholeness offerings. Then the people sat down to eat, and they drank, and they got up letzacheik. (Exodus 32:4-6)

letzacheik (לְצַחֵק) = to make merry, to have fun, to mock, to laugh, to play around.

Aaron should have known better. Yes, using the four-letter personal name of the God of Israel would at least remind the people which God brought them out of Egypt. And Aaron cannot be held accountable for knowing the second of the Ten Commandments, which forbids idols, since this list of commands is inserted into the Torah portion Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) in the middle of the story of God’s frightening volcanic revelation.3

Nevertheless, right after the revelation God tells Moses:

“Thus you must say to the Israelites: You yourselves saw that I spoke to you from the heavens. With me, you must not make gods of silver or gods of gold …” (Exodus 20:19-20)

A long list of additional rules follows.

Then Moses came and reported to the people all the words of Y-H-V-H and all the laws. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said: “All the things that Y-H-V0H spoke we will do!” And Moses wrote down all the words of Y-H-V-H. (Exodus 24:3-4)

So by the time Moses disappears for forty days, everyone, including Aaron, knows that God absolutely rejects gold idols. And they make one anyway.

In this week’s Torah portion, when Moses finally hikes back down Mount Sinai carrying the two stone tablets, he hears raucous singing.4

And he came close to the camp, and he saw the calf and mecholot. And Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the bottom of the mountain. (Exodus 32:19)

Naturally Moses would be angry at the sight of the golden calf, which was exactly the kind of idol God prohibited. But why was he upset by the sight of chain dancing?

Rashi5 proposed that the Israelites were dancing lewdly. He cited the first description of the Israelites’ revelry in front of the golden calf, which says “they got up letzacheik” (to play; see Exodus 32:6, above). The word letzachek, Rashi pointed out, has a sexual connotation in the book of Genesis, when Potifar’s wife accuses Joseph of attempted rape. She says: “… he came into our house letzachek with me!” (Genesis 39:17).

Yet the dances reported in this week’s Torah portion are mecholot, in which the only physical contact is between one person’s hand and the back of the next person’s shoulder. It is not even partner dancing. I think Moses is enraged to see the dancing simply because the people are celebrating the manufacture and worship of an idol, when they ought to feel ashamed of disobeying God.

Thousands of the dancers die in Ki Tisa6 because they convince themselves that they are celebrating the return of their God with perfectly acceptable acts of worship: burnt offerings, feasting, drinking, and innocent mecholot. They cannot bring themselves to believe what Moses told them: that their God, the God who brought them out of Egypt, is not the normal kind of god that inhabits idols.

Denial—pretending that a reality does not exist—is human nature. We often long for something we cannot have, and postpone doing what we must to make the best of it. Sometimes we get away with it for a while, and when we feel stronger we grapple with our problem again.

But some forms of denial are too extreme to get away with, even in a world without a Moses or a God to inflict direct punishment. Today we may die if we neglect clear warnings about our health. Our hopes and plans may die if we fail to face reality in our relationships, our jobs, our finances, our habits.

Before we join a dance of celebration, may we consider whether we are celebrating something real.

Next week: more dancing

I hope my Jewish readers had a happy Purim!

  1. See my blog post: Bo & Beshalach: Winds.
  2. Exodus 24:16-17.
  3. From the viewpoint of source criticism, the Ten Commandments were clearly inserted by a later editor. But even if the biblical narrative were a continuous whole with one author, there is no indication that anyone except Moses heard the Ten Commandments at that time.
  4. Exodus 32:18.
  5. Rashi is the acronym for 11th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
  6. Three thousand are slain by Levites in Exodus 32:26-29, and an additional number are killed by a plague from God in Exodus 32:35.