7th page of 10 pages
3.1.4. The God of the Hebrews
The word "Hebrew" is not found often in the Old Testament (11), mainly in Exodus. God of the Hebrew is Yahweh, Israel's God. The enemy of God of the Hebrews is the Pharaoh, and the two peoples Israel and Egypt are different in "people of God" and "oppressors" (12).
The stories of Exodus date from the early post-exilic period (13) and are
projection in a distant past. From the time the end of the 2end Millennium
BC in Israel have been found no evidence of the name "Hebrew".
From Egypt we know the word pr.w, prisoners of war from different originis (12).
They were used for public works (14), as a letter of Ramses II shows, for
example:
Give cereal rations ... pr, who pull the stones of Miamum for the great pylon of (..) Ramses (15).
These prisoners of war are called hap/biru in cuneiform sources. The Hapiru were marauding gangs, who destabilized the Orient.
In the Old Testament, the terms "Hebrew" or "God of the Hebrews" frequently occur in texts which are about women or the Great Mother in her fertile and terrible aspect, which Erich Neumann had described (16): The Pharaoh orders the midwives Siphra and Pua to kill all boys, who are born by Hebrew women (Ex. 1,15-22). A chapter later a daughter of Pharao finds the little Moses in a basket floating on the Nile:
When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrews’ children." Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, "Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, "Go." So the girl went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, "Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he becameher son. She named him Moses, "Because," she said, "I drew him out of the water." (Ex. 2,6-10).
Regardless of her father's order the princess led his mother feed the little boy and took him later to the court, where she adopts him and, according to an ancient custom of mothers, she named him "Moses".
The plagues which God sends to the Egyptians belong, according to Erich Neumann, to the terrible aspect of the Great Mother; for example the water turns to blood:
And you shall say to him, Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, "Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. But so far, you have not obeyed." Thus says Yahweh, "By this you shall know that I am Yahweh: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. (Ex. 7,16-17).
Also the plagues of frogs and the two black plagues over animals and men, the darkness and the murder of the male first-born belong to the sphere of the Great Mother (18).
In the stories of plagues it is special too, that Moses always appears accompainied by his brother Aharon in front of the Pharao. In the text, which is handed down to us, Aharon is the voice of Moses:
Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh,
"Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may hold
a feast to me in the wilderness.'" But Pharaoh said, "Who is Yahweh,
that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, and moreover,
I will not let Israel go." Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us.
Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to
Yahweh our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword." (Ex. 5,1-3)
In fact, it seems that Aharon only had originally the power to transform the walking-stick into a serpent, and caused the wonders.
"When Pharaoh says to you, 'Prove yourselves by working a miracle,' then you shall say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.' (Ex. 7,9).
There are certain tensions who has the real authority over the rod, Moses or Aharon. We read in Exodus 7,15-20: First, Yahwe commands Moses to beat the stike over the water. Two verses later, God gives Moses the special order to ask Aharon to swing the stick:
Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Pharaoh’s heart is hardened;
he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is
going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take
in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. And you shall say to him,
"Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, "Let my people go, that they may
serve me in the wilderness. But so far, you have not obeyed" (Ex. 7,14-16).
And Yahweh said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out
your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and
their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood,
and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels
of wood and in vessels of stone.' Moses and Aaron did as Yahweh commanded.
In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the
staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned
into blood (Ex. 7,19-20).
The duplication shows, that the gift had originally belonged to Aharan, which the author corrected in and assigned Moses in his story of call.
It is quite strange anyway, that four consonants appear repeatedly in
main texts: AHRN.
- From Exodus 4 Aharon accompanies Moses
- In the inner sanctum of the Temple stood the Ark (Aaron). It had been once the sanctuary of the tribal community and was brought to Jerusalem by David (II Samuel 6).
- When once Yahweh ordered king David to number the people, David met the Arauna, the Jebusite, by the threshing floor (II. Sam. 24,16). Later, at exactly the same location Salomon built the Temple of Jerusalem, as is reported in II. Chr. 3,1.
- In Deuteronomium Moses stows the two tablets of Commandments in the Ark (Aaron).
In the Pentateuch Aharon is Moses' brother. But Heinrich Valentin could not shown anywhere in his book "A Study of Aaron in the pre-priestly Tradition", that Aharon ever had existed. Among experts, the name Aharon is an eponym and represents a foreign religion. H. Seebass thinks, Aharon's importance and his strictly subordination to Moses means:
that Aharon was a representive of an originally foreign faith and that they only could absorb it by strictly bond its representivative to Moses (p. 21).
As I illustrate in other essays, the name Aharon/Aaron go back to the name of the Hittite sun goddess of Arinna (19). In the 2nd millennium BC, the Hittite Empire was a superpower. Its center was situated in Anatolia and extended over the whole of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine.The Hittites and her main sun goddess ruled also in the cities of Palestine (20).
On the other hand, at the end of the 2nd Millennium BC, some Semitic
tribes joined together in a tribal confederation to be able to hold their
own against the well organized cieties. Their central sanctuary was the
deity, whose name has come down to us as "Aruna". What happened? Cities, states and
their prosperities always have had a enormous attraction to less organized
groups, tribes and nations. Because every tribe had his own gods, demons and
ancestors before the Israelite tribal confederation, it must found a
superior deity who represented the superordinated confederation. In
addition, the Israelite tribes had matrilocal structures, as Leo Frobenius
reported in details (21). In this situation the goddess of the Hittite
empire was convenient as superior mother for the Israelites. She replaced
the mother of the individual tribes. But with this substitute the power of
the mothers were broken. Because ancient Near Eastern kingdoms were
organized patriarchic and had expanded in cruel wars. Anybody who
wanted to resist them, had to adapt their system, both the structur of the
cities and the war. The Israelite tribal confederation had to hold their own
against the Empire of the Hittites and of Egypt, but also against the
Philistines and the tribes of Midianites, who were the first with camels on
raids. For the cohesion of the Israelite tribal federation a leader and
warrior was needed, and the matrilocal structure gradually gave way to the
patriarchal order. Also the sun goddess of Arinna lost her power. In Israel
she was banished by king Salomon in the Holy of Holies, in a dark
dungeon. During the period of Judean kings the goddess of Arinna was a deity
of fertility and death. The Deuteronomist turned her into a "Case of the 10
Commandments" and in the Priest Code she is on the one hand the "Ark" made
of acacia wood, on the other hand she appears as brother of Moses and high priest Aharon.
But back to the term "Hebrew", Abraham is specifically called a Hebrew (Gen. 14,13). His god and the god of his sons was, as mentioned above, El Shaddaj.
God spoke to Moses and said to him, "I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shaddaj*, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners (Ex. 6,2-4).
* Instead of Elohim (plural), as usual, here is written El Shaddaj (p. 22).
After this statement el Shaddaj was the god or more precisely the goddess of the Hebrews.
Joseph was also called a Hebrew (23) and jailed because of Potiphar's wife. There he interpreted the dreams of a baker and a butler, and later the dream of the Pharao. Dream interpretations belong to the realm of the Great Mother. She evidently caused his fate from the house of Potiphar into prison and from there to the highest position in Egypt under the Pharaoh. His journey from Israel to Egypt, his fall and rise is like a path of mystery caused by the Great Mother (24).
Text and Design: Esther Keller-Stocker, Horgen, Zürich (Switzerland)
Last correction on 07.02.2010.
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