Exodus 20-21

It's time for God to come on down and tell his holy chosen COI (Children of Israel) all the rules they now have to follow now that they're in a relationship with him. There's a lot of them. Nobody seems to question them. I might have raised my hands a few times.

This is me the whole time. 

Chapter 20: 

They can't have any other Gods. This is a monogamous relationship. God doesn't want them to worship any other idols. This is where things get a little intense:

"Do not bow down to them or worship them, because I, the LORD your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents' sins even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."

See what I mean about the intensity of this relationship? I would like to direct the COI to this article about the early warnings signs of an abusive relationship. Some of those signs are "He will want to commit--quickly" and "He will want you all to himself."

God doesn't want the COI to go throwing around his name like it doesn't have any meaning. He doesn't want them working on Sundays which sounds fine to me. I'm all for vacations where I can tell people I physically can't work or my God boyfriend will absolutely lose his shit. God wants you to honor your father and mother. This is where I would raise my hand and ask things like "What if my mother and father hate you and are cheating on you with other Gods? Should I still honor their wishes then? Or does it even matter because you said earlier that you would punish me for the sins of my family whether or not I actually committed those sins?" But nobody in the book asked that question so I'm not sure what God would have to say to that one.

Other basic rules involve not killing, committing adultery, stealing, and lying about your neighbor. Here I would shrug and mostly agree. Mostly. Then comes the more hand raising parts like not desiring your neighbor's house, wife, servants, ox, donkeys, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. It's not the gist of it that bothers me so much as the part where he threw in the neighbor's wife as a belonging equal to donkeys and servants...

Apparently God doesn't make time for a question answer session and leaves the COI shivering in fear with a thunder and lightening display before peacing out. The COI suggest that maybe only Moses talks to them from now on because God is super intense and kind of freaks them out. Moses is all "He's cool guys. You've just got to get to know him. And never ever break one of his many rules or contradict him and everything will be ok."

God passes some more rules along to Moses about worship. It's all basically just "I want you to make the worshipping altar out of this material instead of this kind" some might call him high maintenance but he's just been around long enough to know what he wants, you know? Then there's this sentence thrown in there:

"Don't climb onto my altar using steps: then your genitals won't be exposed by doing so."

Make what you will out of that.

Chapter 21:

This is a section on what to do with your slaves. It says "Free them. It's wrong to own human beings." Just kidding. The instructions are very very detailed. You can own a male Hebrew slave for 6 years but on the 7th year, you have to free him. If he started out single, he leaves single. As in if the slave married some other slaves and had children with her, the wife and children must still remain slaves. If the male slave does not want to leave his family behind, and remain a slave, he has to get an ear piercing and remain a slave for life.

See above: A slave. 

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, a different sort of sweet sixteen tradition, she is not to be treated the same way as a male slave. Of course. If she doesn't please the master, whatever the hell that means, she must be sold back to the family where I'm sure she'll be welcomed with open arms. If he makes her his son's wife, she must get daughter benefits which I'm sure are awesome. Basically what I'm getting from this is lady slaves remain slaves for life vs. the male slave's 6 years unless they displease the master in some way.

Next there's a section on human violence. Basically if you kill or hit anyone you die. If you kill someone on accident, the Lord will bring you to safety. So remember if you're a jury member on a murder trial. If they didn't do it, God would have hid them away and the police never would have found them in the first place. Glad we could save everybody so much time and taxpayer money with that one. If you hit your mother or father, you die. It's cool if they hit you though because children are barely people. If you kidnap someone, you die...which is totally different from buying someone as a slave against their will. Two totally different things.

If you hit someone with a stone or your fist and they die, you die but if they're only knocked out for a couple of days, you're totally fine you just have to pay off the labor costs they missed out on. If you hit a slave with a rod and they die on the spot, you will be punished, not die, just punished but if the slave is only out cold for a couple of days, you're totally fine, no fines to pay because that slave is your property. If fighting people injure a pregnant woman and cause a miscarriage, they have to pay a fine to be determined by the husband.

Then there's this really ominous quote:

"If there is further injury, then you will give a life for a life, (unless it's a slave because slaves don't count) an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a bruise for a bruise, a wound for a wound."

Then the chapter ends on a section that is entirely too long about the semantics of oxen violence and fines. Like just so long and detailed. Way more detailed than what happens to violence against actual human beings.

Next time on the bible blog: More rules. Just so many rules.

Exodus 17-19

Hi Bible readers. I know I mentioned this before but in case you missed it, there's also a facebook page  if you'd like to like it so you can be updated when there's a new blog. I try to blog every Tuesday but sometimes things get weird. Like last week, when I didn't blog at all. Sorry about that. Anyway, onward.

Chapter 17:

The COI (Children of Israel) get super whiny again about being thirsty, again. Moses literally says:

"Why are you arguing with me? Why are you testing the Lord?"

Which sort of sounds like something a parent would say to a whiny child.

Moses talks to God about the water problem and rather than drop bottled water from the sky, God decides to give Moses an elaborate set of instructions because he can. He tells Moses to gather all the Israelite elders and go to a rock where God will be chilling, then Moses will strike the rock with his mighty staff and water will come out. They do all this and the COI drink water and probably whine about something else about 2 seconds later.


There is a battle between the COI and Amalek. There is no explanation of the conflict. All you have to know is that the COI are the good guys because God is on their side and Amalek probably had it coming.

Moses looks over the battle and helps much like an orchestra conductor. When he raises his hand, the COI start winning the battle. When he lowers his hand, the COI start losing. Eventually Moses's arms get tired so they pull up a rock for him to sit on and literally hold his arms up for him until the battle is won. I picture it like this.

Chapter 18: 

This chapter feels a little out of place. It's much too simple, straight forward and logical. People solve their problems peacefully. There's no incest, no secret seductions, no removal of foreskins, just people talking it out and solving problems.

Moses's father-in-law Jethro decides "hey Moses is free now, he'd probably like to see his wife and kids." So he just brings them out to Moses even though I thought they were all kind of lost in the desert, Jethro can just navigate right to them for the weekend. This part feels more in line with what I've come to expect from this book. The next logical weird part is coming.

Jethro sits down and has a nice chat with Moses and asks his son-in-law what it's like to be a leader of thousands of people and talk to God and stuff. Moses tells him it's ok. Then people keep coming to Moses to sort out their minor issues and Moses tells them about how to resolve it through God's rules. Jethro tells Moses that this is too stressful for him, that Moses should pick other leaders among his people to help sort through minor issues like this and they can save the big issues to take to Moses. This had not occurred to Moses because he doesn't understand how politics of any kind work. So they do that and at least in this chapter, nobody dies.

Chapter 19: 

God tells Moses that he's going to come and have a meeting with him in front of everyone in 3 days, so that the COI will trust Moses forever. God is going to come down on a cloud on Mount Sinai. There must be a fence to go around the mountain because if anyone touches it before the 3rd day, they have to die because reasons. And if you touch someone who touched the mountain, then you have to get stoned but not in a good way. Also everyone must make themselves holy by washing up and not getting it on. Also when God arrives, no one can get too close because otherwise Lord God will "break loose against them." It sort of sounds like they're preparing for the arrival of a werewolf.

Buffy nerds anyone?

Exodus 14-16

I've been told by a few people that the version of The Holy Bible I was reading by King James and Jesus would be missing some interesting parts so a good friend of mine gave me another one called The Common English Bible because the one I was reading really wasn't long enough. Hopefully this one will mention something about the rock monsters.

Chapter 14:

The COI are still wandering the desert and God tells his secretary Moses to go to a certain area so that they seem like they are wandering aimlessly to trick the Pharaoh. Because you see, God is going to pull the puppet strings on the Pharaoh once again to harden his heart and make him go after the Hebrews with 600 elite chariots and all the other less elite chariots that Egypt has to offer to capture...600,000 Egyptian men (not including the women, children, and cows and the cows will put up a serious fight) God specifically says:

"I'll make Pharaoh stubborn, and he'll chase them. I'll gain honor at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD."

This scenario reminds me of something...

I think God is sort of doing the D.EN.N.I.S. method of dating with the Hebrews. God makes the Pharaoh's heart harden so he continually harm the Hebrews that way the Hebrews will rely on God to save them. i.e. when Dennis slashes women's tires so they have to call him for a ride or in a really eerily spot on analogy pretending to be an angry neighbor that calls and harasses the woman. This isn't a healthy relationship you guys.

When the Hebrews see the Egyptians coming, they start bitching about how Moses never should have saved them in the first place, how they’d be better off as slaves. Moses assures them that if they get into a relationship with God, that God will totally make these angry neighbors go away. He cries out to God and God’s all “Why are you bothering me? Just raise that fancy stick I gave you. Try some independence for once.”

Moses does this and parts the whole red sea! Waaaaay cooler trick than snake tricks, bloody rivers, and infanticide. So the COI walk on dry land surrounded on either side by a wall of water which is probably even cooler then those tunnel things they have at the aquarium. The Egyptians try to follow and when they’re far enough in, God jams their chariot wheels so they can’t turn back and he tells Moses to let the waters go and all the Egyptians straight up drown. 

All of the Egyptian soldiers die and the COI see their corpses wash up to shore and see the awesome power of their new boyfriend who they really better not piss off. 

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

Chapter 15: 

The COI sing a grisly victory song in God’s name. There’s a whole lot of lines about God throwing Egyptians in the sea and their bodies sinking like stones. Here are some highlights:

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he hurled into the sea”

“The deep sea covered them; they sank into the deep waters like a stone”

“you overthrow  your opponents; you send out your hot anger; it burns them up like straw”

Then Aaron/Moses’s sister Miriam sings gets really into it and grabs herself a tambourine with all the other women. Presumably because singing the song celebrating the grisly drowning of hundreds of people with the men would be sinful. 

It doesn’t take long for the celebrations to end and for the COI to get whiny again. They have nothing to drink for 3 days until they come upon Marah who’s water was bitter. God throws a tree in the water that sweetens it up then says more stuff that sounds like something an abusive boyfriend might say: 

“If you are careful to obey the LORD your God, do what God thinks is right, pay attention to his commandments, and keep all of his regulations. then I won’t bring on you any of the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians. I am the LORD who heals you.” 

As long as you don’t talk back like my ex-girlfriend did, I’ll take care of you baby. 

Chapter 16:

The COI continue to bitch:

“Oh, how we wish that the LORD had just put us to death while we were still in the land of Egypt. There we could sit by the pots cooking meat and eat our fill of bread. Instead, you’ve brought us out into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death.” 

Hebrews really don’t like hiking. 

God tells Moses that he’s going to make it rain bread but they can only gather enough to last for the day. He really likes his little food tests. He tells the people that he will give them enough bread in the morning to last them for the day and give them meat at night. Moses lets them know that they shouldn’t try to save any extra, to only gather and eat what they need for the day. Some of them don’t listen, of course, and try to save the bread for the next day only to find it covered with worms. On the 6th day, God gives them enough food to last for 2 days because he is going to take a break on the 7th day, the Sabbath, and they should all take a break and stay inside too. Some people don’t listen, and try to go out on the break day to gather food and find nothing. God’s all “Why the fuck don’t they listen?” to Moses. 

Anyway this goes on for 40 years. The COI eats the special bread called Mana for 40 years. This is still preferable to 7 years of eating corn. 

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.
________________________________________

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.