Now, the story goes like this. The Hebrews somehow all came to be living in
Egypt (originally it was only Joseph and his family) and were the slaves of
the Egyptians. There is absolutely no historical support for this, but never
mind4. The Egyptians are said to actually fear the Hebrews because they
had become so numerous so as to outnumber the Egyptians (Exodus 1:811). It was this numerical superiority which caused them to be enslaved. It’s
probably the only example in history of a majority being enslaved by a
minority – and we are not talking political or economic enslavement here,
but actual whips and chains5 and “make-me-another-mud brick” slavery.
So YHWH eventually hears the lamentations of his chosen people and sends
Moses to sort things out. Why didn’t he stop them from being enslaved in
the first place, you might ask? But such logic would ruin the story and fore
thinking and compassion are never YHWH’s forte anyway. As an aside,
Moses is an Egyptian name meaning “son” or “child,” and is not a Hebrew
name in any sense of the word – think of TuthMOSES, AhMOSE, and all the
variations on “mes” which is another English transliteration of the same
Egyptian word for “son” used in the names RaMESes. By the way, see this
blog about Moses for some interesting things you probably didn’t know about
him, like his African wife who was disliked by his brothers – I bet you missed
that one in your Yeshiva….
So slavery is bad and YHWH destroys everyone who practices it… well not
quite. It’s bad for the Egyptians to be masters of the “chosen” people, but
otherwise slavery is all good with YHWH, as confirmed numerous times in
the Hebrew Bible6. Also, according to the Midrash, YHWH needs to get the
chosen people moving on to their Promised Land now, since it was promised
to Abraham (father), Isaac (son) and Jacob (grandson). Somehow, YHWH
never quite got around to making good on the promise to Abraham, so he
needed to bring the chosen people out of Egypt so this could finally be
accomplished – better late than never, right? No more lounging around in
the comparative paradise of the abundantly fertile Nile Valley making mud
bricks.
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