I've mentioned the Jews a couple of times now, so I guess I should tell you their story. The Jews lived a long time ago. They still live now, but back then they were the Israelites. Or the Hebrews. They had a funny god named Yahweh who liked them so much, he said he was going to treat them special. And if there's one thing you don't want as an Earthling, it's to be treated special by Yahweh. He had some issues. They have whole books of it.
He liked them because of this one guy, Abraham, and told him he was going to make a whole country out of how many kids he was going to have. Then he forgot about it and wandered off. And Abraham's kids moved to Egypt. They were there for a while, but the king of the Egyptians, Pharaoh, started to get nervous because the Hebrews were breeding like rabbits. So he made them work harder, thinking they'd have less time for sex. But they kept at it. So he made them work even harder. But I guess the Hebrews really liked sex. So Pharaoh said, “Well, I guess I'm going to have to kill some of them, then. Just the kids, though.”
Luckily there was one Hebrew woman who had no concept of probabilities. She put her kid in a basket and sent him floating down the river.
* * * * *
The things that could go wrong with you floating your baby down a river:
- Basket leaks, baby drowns - likely
- Alligators - likely
- Death from exposure - likely
- Just keeps floating out into the ocean and is never heard from again - likely
- Somebody just as bad off as you will find it and raise it – really, the best that could be hoped for.
- A rich Egyptian woman will find it and raise it – not likely at all
* * * * *
So a rich Egyptian woman did find the baby and raised him as her own. She called him Moses. And he grew up to be a big guy in Egypt until he killed another Egyptian for beating on a Hebrew. So Moses beat feet out of Egypt and hid out as a sheep raiser.
It was round about then that Yahweh remembered the Hebrews and how he was supposed to give them a big piece of land to live in. He looked around and saw they were all down in Egypt and Pharaoh was being hard on them. Yahweh took this personally because he thought it meant that Pharaoh didn't think he was much of a god and could treat his people any way he wanted.
So Yahweh looked around some more and saw Moses tending his flocks and dropped down to visit him as a burning bush.
* * * * *
Right here, this should have been a big tip off for Moses. Of all possible incarnations, Yahweh chooses this one? I can imagine him sitting in his – office? on the pot? garden? I really don't know where Yahweh did his thinking. But he's going over his list of how to appear to Moses.
- Jackal-headed man
- Pure, non-blinding light
- Blemish-free white bull
- Storm cloud (good, but might want to save that one)
- Old, but muscular, man
- Fawn
- Frog (May cause confusion later)
- Fire (hmmmm...)
- Shrub? (Hey!)
- Burning Shrub!!!
And Moses doesn't even question this. I think if I was out tending my flocks and a burning bush started talking to me, I'd think I'd been out tending my flocks too long. But Moses buys right in. Of course this is Yahweh, the god of my people. How else would you explain it?
* * * * *
So Yahweh goes, “Moses. Over here.”
“No, not behind the burning bush. I am the burning bush. I appear to you as a burning bush – for reasons that are my own. For who is more inscrutable that the Lord?”
“Surely no one.”
“You got that right. Anyway, I'm glad you're here. I need your help with a problem. My people are suffering down in Egypt.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just there.”
“And you're going back.”
“Eesh. Love to, but I can't. Things are a little hot for me down there right now. You see, I -”
“Yes, I know what you did. Don't worry about it. I'll protect you. I need you to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go.”
“You can't do that?”
“No. It won't work if I do it.”
“How come?”
“Because I'm not going to let him let my people go.”
“Oh, okay.” Moses said. “Really? What? You're not going to let him let your people go?”
“No. Because I want to show him what a tough guy I am. I'm going to send him all these plagues and frogs so everybody learns not to mess with me.”
“Really? What about your people?”
“I'll get to them. Don't worry about them. I've go this really sweet piece of real estate picked out for them. Place literally flows with milk and honey. You're going to love it.”
“Wow. And no one else has found it yet?”
“Actually – well, we'll get to that later. First you've got to go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. I need you to get up in his face and go, 'Let my people go! Let my people go!' ”
“But you're not going to let him let your people go.”
“At first? No. But eventually. It's all in the plan.”
“Okay, but why do I have to keep going to him when you're not-”
“Jesus Christ, will you just do it? I don't have to explain everything to you. You know enough. You've just got to trust that I've got it all worked out.”
So Moses went up to Pharaoh. The first time, Moses turned his stick into a snake to put a little fear into him. And Pharaoh is like, “Whoop-di-doo. Even my guys can do that.” I don't think Yahweh even had to harden his heart on that one.
The next time, Moses turned all the water in Egypt into blood. Like something from a horror movie. But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart and he said, “No, you can't go.”
The time after that, Yahweh hit them with a plague of frogs. Frogs everywhere.
“I woke up and there” - this is Pharaoh talking now - “There was one staring me right in the eye. I freaked. I was, like, 'Blah! Blah! Get out of here!' Then I jumped out of bed and almost skidded out the window. Those things are slick. You ever step on one? Gross. And they were all over. You can't walk anywhere because you have to watch every step. I was in a meeting and one jumped up and hit a eunuch right in the face. That was funny, though. It was like a big wet slap in the face. Psshh.”
And Moses goes, “So let my people go.”
And Pharaoh starts to waver, because it's, like, frogs.
* * * * *
How do you even come up with that? In a hundred years of coming up with bad things to do to people, I would never come up with frogs. Or, if I did, I would just giggle and move on. Frogs. Jeezus.
* * * * *
But, anyway, just as he was about to give in, Yahweh hardened his heart.
“You know what? This is bad. So why don't you – no.”
“No?”
“No, you can't go.”
“But you were about to say something else.”
“Yeah, I was gonna – No.”
Moses looks up at the sky, then back at Pharaoh.
“You're sure?”
“Ah, to hell with – No.”
The time after that, I think it was locusts. They are bugs that eat everything.
And by the third time, Moses was just like, “Let my people go.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
And he started to go, but Pharaoh goes, “You know, it really doesn't seem like your heart is in this anymore.”
“Huh? Oh, no, no. I meant it. It's just that – well, I guess our god has got some issues to work out. And I need to apologize for that.”
“Oh, gods. Pshaw. Don't get me started. We've got gods with bird heads. I mean, you've heard of bird-brained? These guys have whole bird heads.”
Moses nods. “Yeah. Yeah. You know, when this whole thing is over, we should sit down and have a beer. Our god – Well, if I had known going in, I might have, well – Never the easy way with this one, I'll say that.”
“Yeah, and you know – and definitely about that beer by the way – but I'm really sorry about this whole not letting you go thing. 'Cause it's weird. Every day I wake up and say, 'I really should let these people go. I mean, I really have no reason to keep them.' But then it's like somebody flips a switch and I get all jerk about it.”
Moses just nodded and left.
“I'll call you about that beer. That's one thing I'll miss about this place. You guys brew some kick ass beer.”
Next came hail. Which had to be a hard threat to sell for Moses. What did Pharaoh know from frozen water? He lived in a desert. Regular water falling from the sky was rare enough, but frozen water falling from the sky? So Moses had to explain hard bits of water falling from the sky, which he had never seen himself.
“Hard water? I don't get it. Water isn't hard. Look, I can put my had right through it.”
“Right, but this is going to be water you can't put your hand through.”
“Why not?”
“Because it's hard.”
“What do you mean, 'it's hard'? Water is water. It doesn't get hard.”
“But – Look. From what I understand it's going to be almost like rock falling from the sky.”
“So rocks are going to fall from the sky.”
“No. Hard water.”
“Okay, look. Whatever. We've had water fall from the sky before. It doesn't happen often, but, to tell the truth, I kinda liked it. It's breaks up the monotony of sun, sun, sun all the time. So Yahweh can make hard water fall from the sky for forty days and forty nights for all I care. Bring it on.”
* * * * *
Really, if you're going to make a threat, you have to make sure the guy understands the threat, or else it doesn't work.
* * * * *
So this is when things really started to get dark. Yahweh told Moses to smear lamb's blood over all the Hebrews' door jambs because he's going to kill all the first born in Egypt, Earthlings and cows. (Yahweh had a thing for firstborns.) The lamb's blood would tell him which houses to skip. (I know. This from Mr. Omniscient.)
So Moses did this and Yahweh did his thing, after which he finally let Pharaoh let the Hebrews go. Oh, but with one little kicker. Yahweh told Moses to tell the Hebrews to go to their neighbors to ask to “borrow” all their gold and silver. This is going to work because Yahweh is going to soften their hearts. Like using that skill wouldn't have helped right at the beginning of all this. And the stereotype of the Hebrews being covetous of gold is one they will surely live down in time. Nice thinking ahead, brainiac.
Anyway, they packed up their stuff and headed off into the desert. And Yahweh led the way as a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire at night. Till they go to the sea of reeds. There, Moses turned around to see how they all were doing. And he saw a cloud of dust in the distance, but headed their way. He looked back at Yahweh. He looked at the dust. He looked at Yahweh. He made a gesture that seemed to say, “And just when were you going to tell me about this little part of your plan?”
Yahweh shrugged sheepishly. “Don't worry. This is going to be epic. Legendary.”
* * * * *
I'm guessing at this point Moses wished he'd gotten some credentials from the burning bush.
* * * * *
“It's Pharaoh, isn't it?
“Yup.”
“Brought the whole army, didn't he?”
“Yup.”
“We're trapped against the sea here, you know.”
“You think you're trapped against the sea here.”
“You hardened his heart again, didn't you? I don't believe it.” Moses shook his head. “Whatever. Forget it. You're going to do it anyway. Let's hear your idea.”
“No, let's see it.”
Yahweh took a huge breath, held it, then let it out, slowly but firmly, from his nostrils. He pointed at the sea, which rippled, then parted, revealing a stretch of dry land reaching all the way across. Moses was pretty amazed.
“How long can you keep this up for?”
Yahweh indicated that they should probably hurry.
So they did. All the Hebrews charged into the gap. And a short while after, Pharaoh and all his chariots charged in after them, none of them seeming to notice the weird guy on the side blowing a jet stream of air from his nose. (I wonder if any of them got any god-snot on them?) It was a pretty cliffhanger situation, because the Hebrews just made it across when Yahweh's breath ran out. The water rushed back in and crashed into Pharaoh and his men.
* * * * *
There's a lot more to this story, but I'm going to end here for now. I'll pick it up again in another report. This one was hard because I had to read a lot and think about it.
Observer003 – Earthlings
