10th page of 10 pages
Chapter 4
Yahweh, God and Plague (pqd)
Exodus 3,15-22: Translation
God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, 'Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, "I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey."' And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God.' But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians."
5. Visitation (pqd)
The Yahwist was also a preacher in front of the faith community. He told the story of the Sabbath from the burning bush and wanted to offer his idea from the beginning of the Exodus out of Egypt with Moses: Moses who was keeping the flock of his father-in-law and came backside of the desert. The preacher located this place at the mountain of God, at Mount Horeb. The community is called for attention, becauxe the mountain of God, Horeb, they know from previous storiesof a God, who appears with a big ado on this mountain. In our text God does not appear in a vulcanic uproar and thread, but as a messenger of Yahweh out of a burning bush. Tree and the celestial being the community knows very well, it is the tree-goddess. In the tree she offers the wayfarer with food and drink. But also the goddess offers herself in her sexual fire for the earth fertility. Exactly this notion the author wants to give another turn. Not a goddess appears to Moses, but a male messenger who representes Yahweh.
But who is this one God, the preacher wants to speak about? Without waiting for a question of Moses, God introduces himself: "I am the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob". Can the community do anything with this statement at all? Inasmuch this God of their fathers has been the mother-goddess El Shaddaj, as the preacher admits in Exodus 6.
Times have changed. Under the Babylonian reign one did not ache for the goddess no longer, neither as mother-goddess nor as goddess of love nor as cruel fighter. No, one longed for a battle-tested God who comes out as winner against the superior force.
In Exodus 3,16 Moses receives the divine order to go to the elders of the Israelites on duty of Yahweh, the God of their fathers. Moses is to tell them this God has observed them truly: Observe, in Hebrew pqd, has written twice in Exodus 3,16, one in infinitiv "to observe", "to afflict" and once "I have observed", both together means "Truely I have observed". Frequently Yahweh's observation (pqd) is a martial act. Pqd can also mean "to father", as I have shown in my essay Genesis 18. In Exodus 3,16 "pqd" means "to observe and to decide". W. Schttroff translate Exodus 3,16 also positively as "to accept the people" (1).
The prophet Zecharja, who was living at the same time as the Yahwist, describes the divine will similarly but in other words:
I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. (Zech. 1,14-15).
According to the prophet Zechariah, Yahweh was "just a little jealous" (In the German translations: "just a little angry") for Jerusalem. And the other nations support this anger.
In the sermon from the "burning bush" the faith community knows very well, what could "to visite" (pqd) mean in the sense of a divine tribunal. The rule of Babylon, the destroyed countries of Judah and Israel, the destroyed capital of Jerusalem and especially the ruined Temple of Solomon. Actually, a God is not presented any longer in the country and here the Yahwist as preacher proclaims the word pqd in the positive sense: "Yahweh, God of our fathers truely looks at his abused people. Thereby he projects, perhaps to avoid attracting attention to the Babylonian authority, the current situation in the distant Egypt, back in past time. Just as at that time God will free us from the oppressors and bring our relatives back from the distand Babylon, back to the land of our fathers, in a land where mild and honey flows.
"The land flowing with milk and honey" is a saying of the Deuteronomist (2), which is adopted here. It is a promise, which the preacher has put in the mouth of the dying Joseph:
And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Gen. 50,24).
In Exodus 32,34 the people will also be visited but now in a negative sense, because they had poured a golden calf.
But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. Then Yahweh sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made (Exodus 32,34f.)
Again, a doubling of pqd (pqd-i w-pqd-ti), but for the purpose of punishment. Other texts in the Pentateuch, in which pqd explicitly occur in the sense of divine punishment:
In Leviticus 18 are given detailed instructions for custom and order. For non-compliance with these regualtions - that order is violated by some people, is clear. About that the text is living.
And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants (Lev. 18,25: w-a-pq-o-d).
In Leviticus 26,16 is written:
then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
In II Chronicles 24 Yahweh sees King Joash kill his son and visites him. A year later, the king has been strangled by a priest in bed (II. Chron. 24,17-25).
Prophets rant with the word pqd in the sense of punishment for adultery, pride and foreign regime. For example Hosea 4:
And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken Yahweh to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding. My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin (Hos. 4,9-14).
Yahweh's punishment is prostitution and drunkeness. It means prostitution and drunkeness does not bring the punishment but ARE the punishment, an idea which is thought also by Paulus of Tarsus. Hosea describes even a ritual, a survey of tree and staff. It is the same motif as in Exodus 3 and 4. But this motif by Hosea has a negative pagan sense. Ambiguous is "I will not pqd your daughters. In Hosea 4,14 pqd means punish, but compared to Sarah (Genesis 21,1) and Hannah (I. Samuel 2,21) pqd call also means to impregnate. Because in Hosea 4,10 is written: "they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken Yahweh." - Thence Yahwe will not pqd (punish or beget) them.
The date of the text
Can the text say something about the period, in which the narrativ in Exodus 3 could be written? For a comparison the book of Zechariah (circa 520 BC) is suitable. Zechariah has solved the theme similarly. The messenger of Yahweh appears often by the prophet. In the first vision we read:
On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of Yahweh came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, "I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. Then I said, 'What are these, my lord?' The angel who talked with me said to me, 'I will show you what they are.' So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, 'These are they whomYahweh has sent to patrol the earth.' And they answered the angel of Yahweh who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, 'We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.' Then the angel Yahweh said, 'O Yahweh Zebaoth, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?' And the Yahweh answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. So the angel who talked with me said to me, 'Cry out, Thus says Yahweh of Zebaoth: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. Therefore, thus says Yahweh, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares Yahweh of Zebaoth, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. Cry out again, Thus says Yahweh of Zebaoth: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and Yahweh will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.'"(Zech, 1,7-17)
Between Zechariah and Moses is a certain similarity:
| Zechariah | Moses |
|---|---|
| Zecharia asks, who were the horses. The horses are the messengers of Yahweh, which explore the situation of the world. | Moses asks in Exodus 3,2, who was the appearance in the burning bush. Moses himself is sent to Egypt by the appearance. |
| The Wrath of Yahweh is directed against the pagans, who destroyed Jerusalem and Zion. Yahweh awards salvation to the town. | Yahweh will punish Egypt for the suppression of the Israelites, and they escape from their slavery. |
In other chapters too Zechariah also askes, who are the appearance in his visions, for example:
And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns! And I said to the angel who talked with me, "What are these?" And he said to me, "These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem." (Zech, 1,18f.; see, see the lantern in Zech, 4,2).
The questions of the prophet Zechariah in his visions are an intention. Moses are at the far side of the desert, not in our word, that could also be interpretated as a vision. Both of them share the vision of the reorientation of God, he frees his people from their oppressors, in Zechariah from the present rulers, the Yahwist projects the rescue at the beginning of Israel's history. To go back to one's roots in a time of shock, is natural for the people.
Only at the end of the 3rd chapter Moses asks who God is. This, however, he does not so directly as Zechariah. He formulates the question in doubt of his acceptance among the Israelites:
Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Ex. 3,13-14).
Not animals nor objects embody the will of Yahweh, and there is not any messenger of Yahweh, who speaks or explains. No, God himself defines himself philosophically as a being. A new thought, or where have you ever find a similar passage in the Old Testament? And why Moses does not ask directly? Maybe the author lost his courage, for he is the man and the god, who asks and gives the answer. "I am who I am", to lessen this new idea of God, he let indirectly the people ask this question. Thereon the author let God himself proclaim the new of his theology. Another stylistic device is to put the new understanding of God to the beginning of the Israelites, before the exodus out of Egypt began. This exodus had a long tradition and in this tradition the author, the Yahwist, embedded his new idea of God,
Text and Design: Esther Keller-Stocker, Horgen, Zürich
(Switzerland)
25.01.2010,
esther@estherkeller.ch
