"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.
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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.
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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 |
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