Exodus 11-13

Happy New Year bible enthusiasts! I hope your holidays have been cheerful. That's probably enough small talk. Onward.

Chapter 11:

As you might remember, God has been playing weird puppet-master mind games with the slave children of Israel and the Egyptians. Moses gets to be God's secretary and relay his messages back and forth between God and the Pharaoh keeping the COI under slavery. God keeps telling Moses to pass on threats to the Pharaoh and then God keeps hardening the Pharaoh's heart on purpose to make him say no anyway then all the Egyptians suffer for it, then the Pharaoh says that he'll totally change his mind if God stops the suffering so God does then the Pharaoh's all "psyche" then God comes up with another creative way of punishing the Egyptians. It's been a weird little game.

Now God has the ultimate punishment to threaten the man who's heart he intentionally hardens, he's going to kill all the Egyptian first borns babies.

The days of childish God pranks are over now. No more frogs. No more bugs. No more turning phallic objects into snakes. Now God is going to commit infanticide to make a point. All the Egyptian first borns babies are going to be taken out. Even Egyptian cow babies. What's that you say? Cows can't pick religions and haven't actually oppressed the Hebrews? What else is that you say? Babies aren't capable of oppressing people either and have nothing to do with this? In fact, most of the Egyptian parents who are about to lose their children have nothing to do with the Pharaoh (whose heart is being hardened by God) not letting the COI go? All logical arguments. Unfortunately your logic has no business here.

Chapter 12:  

Now, if the Hebrew parents want to keep their first borns alive, they must kill a lamb and put its blood on their doors. When God sees the blood on the door, he will pass them over. They also have to eat unleavened bread for 7 days. God's all about the dietary restrictions. 

Things get pretty horrible:

"And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was no one dead"

After the Egyptian babies are smoted, the Pharaoh kindly suggests that the COI get the hell out of his country. And to take your cows too. He even throws this suggestion in:

"and bless me also"

The 600,000 COI (not including women or children or cows) rushed out of their homes to leave Egypt for good. They didn't have time to wait for their bread to rise but they did manage to find the time to loot the Egyptians for their gold and silver.

The COI make a holiday to celebrate this day in the future called "Passover" and God tells them how they can celebrate this holiday with strangers who might like to join in the future:

"And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised"

The COI don't break unleavened bread with foreskin wearers.


Chapter 13: 

Moses gets excited about future party planning and lets all the Hebrews know that the whole week long unleavened bread thing is going to be a tradition  and so is the circumcision thing. All the boys have to get their foreskin removed with a lovely flint knife to maintain their covenant with God. For once, I'm super fine with women being overlooked.

Moses carries around Israel/Joseph/Loki's bones with them so that he may remain with his children. The COI do a lot of desert wandering in search of the promised land of milk and honey. Sorry lactose intolerant Hebrews, you don't matter. God protects the COI with a pillar of a cloud during the day and a pillar of a fire at night. It's luxury desert travel.

Exodus 8-10

Chapter 8:

The magic pranks continue as God's glorified secretary, Moses, goes back and forth between God and Pharaoh. Here's what goes down:

Moses talks to God.

God says he's going to bring on the frogs.

God brings on the frogs.

Pharaoh says take away the frogs and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the frogs.

Pharaoh: just kidding I'm still going to be a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on the lice.

God brings on the lice.

Pharaoh says take away the lice and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the lice.

Pharaoh: just kidding I'm still going to be a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on the flies.

God brings on the flies.

Pharaoh says take away the flies and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the flies.

Pharaoh: just kidding I'm still going to be a dick.

What reading this chapter was like. 

Chapter 9: 

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to kill the Egyptian cows but not the Israel cows.

God kills the Egyptian cows.

The Pharaoh continues to be a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God tells Moses to throw dust in Pharaoh's face.

Moses does this.

Egyptians get particularly nasty acne.

Pharaoh's fancy magicians can't do shit about this one. Acne stumped them. They fall before Moses.

God still continues to harden Pharaoh's heart. That's right. It's straight up God's fault. He's a bored little puppet master. He's doing this so the people can see the extent of his powers. The ability to give and take nasty magic pranks away. This way people will start talking about him and spread his name around the world. God wants everyone to know his name. Blogging wasn't invented yet so this was the best he could do.

God sends out another nasty prank. This time it's a hail storm. The fiery kind.

If people don't stay in for the day and take the warning seriously, they're going to die. As we have learned in previous chapters about God. He may not always be consistent i.e. sometimes people get away with raping their fathers but when he gives a direct order like "Don't look back" or "Stay inside" or "Don't eat that apple" he is not fucking around.

God brings the fire.

Pharaoh asks if they would kindly stop that and this time he is for sure going to stop being a dick.

God takes away the fire.

Plot twist: The Pharaoh is still a dick.

Chapter 10: 

Are you sensing a pattern yet?

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on the locusts.

God brings the locusts.

aaaaand you see where this is going?

Pharaoh says please take away those locusts and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the locusts.

Pharaoh continues being a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on total darkness.

God brings on total darkness.

Pharaoh actually becomes marginally less dickish and tells Moses he can take all the COA provided they leave their cattle, since all the Egyptian cattle are now dead. Moses politely declines. The Pharaoh is displeased and continues to keep the COA as slaves. He tells Moses to get out of his face before he murders it.

Exodus 5-7

Heya people who read my blog. I think you guys deserve an endearing pet name. I'll try to think of one for all three of you for the next Bible Tuesday. Anyhoo, you might remember last time that I struggled with some bad transitioning in Chapter 4. It was a bit of a circumcision interlude and circumcision mystery.:

"And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art though to me. So he let him go: then she said, a bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision."

I wanted to know what was up with this section and Leslie, one of my three fans, had answers. In so many words, she explained that Moses didn't know he was one of the Hebrew people his whole life because he was raised up by the Pharaoh's daughter as Egyptian, which actually makes him a little more noble in his efforts to try and stop the Egyptians from abusing the Hebrews. Because Moses hadn't known about his roots, he didn't know about the rules of circumcision. If Moses is going to lead his Hebros he needs to be foreskin free. Moses still failed to do this because he's, as Leslie suggested, either wimpy, lazy, or forgetful, so the Lord confronts him about. Moses can't lead the Hebrews if he's not like one of them. Zipphorah, Moses's wife, gets the job done instead. She takes a flint knife and removes Moses's foreskin. Perhaps this was just the excuse Zipphorah needed to express her dissatisfaction with someone leaving the toilet seat up. I'm sure it was all very quick, smooth, and painless for Moses. Here's what a flint knife looks like:

I can feel your wincing from here gentlemen. 

Now I understand the badly transitioned passage. Though it's sort of like when people try to fill in Star Wars plot holes with explanations from the expanded universe. 
____________________________

Chapter 5: 


Moses and his brother/spokesman Aaron go off to the Pharaoh, Moses's adopted grandfather, and ask for the children of Israel to be let go to go on a field trip for a few days in the wilderness, to worship the Lord and whatnot, like Boy Scouts but with circumcisions. Anyway, the Pharaoh, as God predicted, is a dick about it. The Pharaoh doesn't know who God is or why he'd have any kind of authority. Only doctor's notes are accepted in Egypt, no God notes.

He decides that if the COI (children of Israel) have the time to go worshipping, they must be too idle. He decides to take away the COI's materials to build with. They must find their own materials to do his slave work but they must also manage to accomplish as much work as they did before in a day. I'm guessing that there are current company CEOs out there that wish they could get away with the kind of shit the Pharaoh did.

Everyone is naturally super pissed off at Moses now. Moses goes whining to God about it.

______________________________

Chapter 6: 

God says a lot of pretty words which can be summarized to "I've got your back Moses." Moses passes along the message to the COI but they still don't care. Moses goes back to whine some more and God tells him to talk to the Pharaoh again. Moses whines some more and wonders how he can accomplish this if the Hebrews don't believe him still and he also utters this gem:

"how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?"

Oh look, Moses forgot to circumcise his lips too. What a coward.

Then we get a history of how Aaron and Moses were begatted into existence. Annoying and boring but it answered my question about whether Aaron was an adopted Egyptian brother or a long lost Hebrew brother; he is the latter. Also this is just thrown in:

"And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses."

They must have some interesting family reunions.

The chapter ends with Moses still being concerned over his uncircumcised lips.
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Chapter 7: 

God tells Moses to go freak out the Pharaoh with his horrifying pranks, though God points out that he himself will continue to harden the Pharaoh's heart against actually freeing the people...God is into some weird roleplaying games.

Aaron gets to do the rod-snake trick to the Pharaoh but the Pharaoh gets wise men to do the same trick and turn everyone's rods into snakes too, thereby making God's magic less impressive. Now it's a magic off! Aaron outdoes everyone by having his snake eat all the other snakes because obviously God would have the biggest snake. God probably has an anaconda. Pharaoh still doesn't really care. That's when things get bloody.

Aaron and Moses turn the waters of the Nile into blood, killing all of the fish and making it impossible to drink. Pharaoh's wise men did the same trick...somehow...even though the water has already been turned to blood. Again the Pharaoh is still unimpressed with God who's pranking can be done by his own wise men. End.

Until next time.

I'm sorry I didn't have very many pictures or gifs in this installment. To make up for it, here's a bunch more pictures of lego people getting circumcised I found on this magnificent website http://www.bricktestament.com/home.html:

by Brendan Powell Smith. all rights reserved "The Brick Testament" 
http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html

Exodus 3-4

Chapter 3:

Moses is hanging out doing shepardy things and runs into a burning bush. He does not put out the fire because that burning bush talks to him. There is an angel in the burning bush. Whenever you come across something on fire, before you run off trying to put it out, give it time to talk to you, just in case. God might be sending a message.

Just give it a minute.

God introduces himself though the burning bush and tells Moses to take his damn shoes off because he's on holy ground now.  God gives Moses the spiel about being the God of his father's father's fathers. God has heard the Hebrew slaves cries and will now help them by bringing them to a land flowing with milk and honey which sounds messy, sticky, and unpleasant but I guess the Hebrews are into that. God tells Moses to go to the Pharaoh and get to saving his He-bros with God's help.

Moses wants to know why he was chosen to be the leader which may be the first time anyone has asked that in this book. Everyone else has just been like "Build an ark in 2 weeks? Got it." "Go travel back and forth around the country, build altars and remove my foreskin? I'm your man." Moses wants to know what he should tell the children of Israel. Who should he say sent him? What should he call God? And God's all:

"I AM THAT I AM."

Which is sooooo gangster.  He tells Moses just to go on up to the Hebrew slaves and inform them that he will be their leader and he was chosen by the God of their forefathers. Then go tell the Pharaoh to let everyone go. No biggie. God let's Moses know that he knows the plan won't work because the Pharaoh's going to be a dick about it but Moses should ask just to be polite and when that doesn't work God will do some smiting.

Chapter 4: 

Moses is naturally still skeptical. He asks God how anyone is going to believe him. He knows better than to go around telling people he's been talking to all mighty beings in burning bushes. God's all "hey what's that in your hand?" Moses notices a rod in his hand. God snuck a rod in Moses's hand...which uh...then turns into a snake. Is that like the hole in the popcorn trick? Moses jumps away from the snake. God tells him to pick it up again by the tail and it turns back into a rod.

God messes with Moses some more. "Hey put your hand on your bosom." Then:

"When he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow."

Do you see what happens when you get skeptical? Snakes and leprosy. Moses puts his hand back on his bosom and is just fine. God tells Moses that these 2 weird tricks should convince people but if that still doesn't work to take water from the river and pour it on dry land and that water will turn into...blood. Is God an 8 year old boy?! Can't he do nice tricks?

Moses is then concerned over his public speaking skills. He isn't eloquent and talks slow. God gets sassy:

"Who hath made man's mouth?"

i.e. Hey dummy. I made your mouth. I can make it do whatever I want.

God then informs Moses that he will be with Moses's mouth always:

"Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth"

Moses is still being whiny and suggests that God send someone else. God gets pissed off but says something along the lines of "FINE your brother will speak for you. Have I solved all your problems yet?" Moses runs out of things to bitch about and sets off to Egypt with God's rod in his hand. God tells Moses to demonstrate his neat new tricks to the Pharaoh but tells him that it's not going to work because God himself is going to harden the Pharaoh's heart?:

"When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go."

 So like...is he just fucking with everybody? Like a bored little puppet master?

Anyway, God also tells Moses to tell the Pharaoh that the children of Israel are God's children. Israel was his first son so if the Pharaoh does not let God's first son go or he'll kill the Pharaoh's firstborn.

Then, there's some really shitty transitioning and a section that makes no sense. Just no sense at all people:

"And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art though to me. So he let him go: then she said, a bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision."

1. What did I just read?
2. Who is the "him" God is suddenly trying to kill? Moses? Moses's son?
3. Why would God try to suddenly kill Moses or his son?
4. What?

If someone could explain this all to me. That'd be great.

Now back to the ...story. I guess. God talks to Moses's brother and future spokesperson, Aaron. He tells Aaron to meet Moses in the wilderness. The brothers meet and kiss and get on to talking to the Hebrew elders. They did their special tricks and the elders are excited.

That chapter was super long and frustrating. Until next time.