The Exodus Begins

(Exodus 12:34 - 13:16)

The Israelites packed their bread dough before it could be leavened, bundled the bread pans in their cloaks, and carried them on their shoulders.  They did had Moses had bid: they procured from the Egyptians vessels and jewelry of gold and silver and apparel.  Jehovah had induced the Egyptians to view them favorably and so they complied with the Israelites and gave them whatever they demanded.  (Indeed, the departing Israelites despoiled the Egyptians of their wealth and possessions.)

The Israelites thus journeyed from the city of Ramses to Succoth.  They numbered about 600,000 men on foot, not counting children and the motley crew of people who accompanied them or the herds and flocks and the large amount of livestock.  The Israelites baked the unleavened dough they had taken with them when they left Egypt and made flat bread.  (They did not have time to leaven the bread since they undertook their journey in haste: they dared not delay and had no time to prepare a proper meal.)

The nomadic wanderings of the people of Israel who dwelt in Canaan and in Egypt comprised 430 years.  At the end of that time, to the day, the people of Jehovah  marched out of the land of Egypt arrayed in military formation.  This then was a night to remember, when Jehovah led them out of Egypt -- a night to be commemorated by future generations.

Jehovah told Moses and Aaron, "This is the ceremonial feast of Passover.  No stranger may take part in it and eat, but the purchased slave, if he has been circumcised, may join in it, but not the foreigner or the hired hand.  The feast shall be consumed within the house and nothing taken outside to eat nor should any bone be broken.  The entire Israelite community must observe these rules.  If a foreigner lives with you and is willing to observe the Passover, he must circumcise all male members of his family; then he may celebrate it in the same manner as native Israelites.  But if any man remains uncircumcised, he must not partake of the Passover meal.  These same rules will apply to the native as well as to the foreigner who lives among you.  The children of Israel abided by what Jehovah had told Moses and Aaron.

And so on this very day Jehovah ushered the people of Israel out of Egypt like an army.

And Jehovah told Moses, "Reserve for me all the firstborn, the offspring that emerges first from the womb of Israel, both of man and beast.  It shall be mine!"

Moses proclaimed to his people, "Remember this day when you left Egypt where you were slaves, for it was by the power of Jehovah that you were brought out of bondage.  (Therefore, keep in mind you shall eat no leavened bread.)  You were freed in the month of Abib.   So when Jehovah guides you into the land of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he promised to your forefathers -- a land abounding in milk and honey, you must celebrate this event during this month in the years to come.  For seven days you will eat unleavened bread and on the seventh day there will be a feast to Jehovah.  Unleavened bread will be eaten for seven days; there will be no leavened bread in your possession, nor shall there be any leaven at all in your homes.

"On the day of the Passover feast, you will explain to your children. ‘We observe this custom because of what Jehovah did for us when we left Egypt.  It is intended to remind you like a stamp on your hands or a mark on your forehead that the commands of Jehovah should always be on your mind.  For it is by the power of Jehovah that you were brought out of Egypt.  You will, therefore, observe this tradition at this time of the year for all the years to come.' 

“When it comes to pass that Jehovah will lead you into the land of the Canaanites, which he promised to your forefathers, and settle you there, you will set aside all the firstborn animals, those who emerge first from the womb.  The males will belong to Jehovah.  The firstborn foil of a donkey may, however, be spared if a lamb or kid be offered in its place.  Otherwise, you must kill it by breaking its neck.  All of your firstborn sons may similarly have their places taken by sacrificial animals.

"And when the time comes that your son will question you, 'What is all this for?,' you will say to him, 'Jehovah brought us out of Egypt and freed us from slavery with his power.  When the Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, Jehovah killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and animals.  That is why we sacrifice to Jehovah all the firstborn males, the offspring first out of the womb, although the firstborn of our children we redeem with a substitute sacrifice.’ It will be a reminder like a stamp on your hand or a mark on your forehead that it is through the power of Jehovah that we were brought out of Egypt."

Notes
1.  Several times it is mentioned that the departing Israelites "asked" their Egyptian neighbors to "borrow" their gold and silver -- according to most translations.  It's rather absurd.  First of all, the Israelites lived segregated from the Egyptians in Goshen; therefore, they would have no Egyptian neighbors.  Secondly, it is preposterous that the Egyptians would willing lend their precious items of gold and silver or clothes to absconding slaves who had brought catastrophe after catastrophe upon their country.  (Would a modern employer, when the Latina maid wants to go back to Mexico, "lend" her the family silver and the wife’s wardrobe after the maid had used magic to burn down the house and murder the baby?)  It is obvious that the Israelites, perhaps not too unjustly vengeful, plundered the country and looted its citizens with the sanction of their god Jehovah, who has yet to say anything against stealing.  This seems particularly cruel to the Egyptians who had suffered so much and who had died in vast numbers owing to the Israelites and to their Pharaoh's stubbornness.  Jehovah expresses no sympathy for the Egyptians: he is obviously not the god of "do unto others," "forgive your neighbor his trespasses," and "love your enemy."  Quite the contrary!

2.  The cities of Ramses and Succoth are in northeastern Egypt, the delta region, but the reference to them is probably anachronistic.  It is a foolish mistake, made by most who try to date the Exodus, that the place names accurately reflect names and locations that were current at the time of the story, rather than the time of the storyteller.  The Exodus, though not exactly as described in the Bible, could only have occurred during an intermediate period in Egyptian history, most likely the period between the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom.  The plagues may date to this period.  The emigration of the Israelites may have been part of the expulsion of the Hyksos at the beginning of the New Kingdom.  (The biblical narratives furnish a large number of jigsaw puzzle pieces, but they really can't be put together in any way that creates the picture on the box.)

3.  The wanderings, or sojourns of the Israelites, who had no country of their own but were forced to settle in foreign lands for various periods of time, are recorded as lasting 430 years.  It is unlikely that this means the duration of time the Israelites stayed in Egypt, but rather the time from their departure from Ur in Mesopotamia.  Some versions of Exodus (eg. the Samaritan Pentateuch) actually include Canaan in this sentence, as I have.   Calculated from Abraham’s emigration from Mesopotamia, the number of years is 215.  Even this less lengthy stay in Egypt is contradicted by the stated number of generations.  Moses is only a great grandson of Levi.   If Moses were really 80 years old, or 81, at the time, then that still makes less than 150 years as an upper limit for the time of their residence in Egypt, allowing a generous gap between generations.  But if Moses at the time of the Exodus were, say, 40 years old, which is more likely, the time spent by the Israelites in Egypt could easily amount to less than 90 years.  The protracted number of years is credible only if one permits the impossible longevity of all the biblical patriarchs.  It is certainly possible that a remarkable man of ancient times might live to be 90 or even 100 and that he might have children at an advanced age, but that all his descendants would do so is too improbable to be accepted.      

4.  The number of generations also makes preposterous the level of the Israelite population said to have participated in the Exodus -- 600,000 men, probably 2 million persons overall.  (Ancient sources always seem to exaggerate numbers, whether it is the number of soldiers in a battle or the number of years a past event occurred.)  Such a number could form a queue stretching from Egypt to Canaan!  Considering they all got ready to go in a single night, actually just the wee hours of the morning, credibility is pushed to the breaking point.  Such a vast movement of population en masse would simply not be possible for reasons that will be obvious.  It seems more likely that if the Exodus ever took place, it probably consisted of a few thousands persons, the number that would normally be produced in the number of generations cited.

5.  Jehovah's obsession with unleavened bread and his harping on the Passover feast is past annoying.  Amid the epic calamities in Egypt and the forthcoming liberation of his people, this, incredibly, seems of paramount importance to him.  --- So far, he has created two rules for his people, neither of them having anything to do with moral conduct.  The first is that males must be circumcised and, secondly, all must eat unleavened bread on the Passover.  (Violate the first and you will be put to death,  violate the second and you will be kicked out of the tribe.)  Then, he creates a third, every firstborn male belongs to him.  You wonder if he has the time, the appetite, and the capacity to consume all the animals to be sacrificed to him or to enjoy the smoky smell of their roasting flesh.  And you wonder how a poor tribe could afford this vast sacrificial waste of livestock.

6.  Abib is the first month of the ancient Jewish lunar calendar, occurring in March or April.

7.  It  might be mentioned at this point, concerning the origin of the Hebrew people, that while most modern historians believe the Exodus never occurred and that the Hebrews never lived in Egypt, but came from Canaan, most ancient historians ascribed the emergence of the Hebrews as a distinct people to their expulsion from Egypt.  The Roman historian Tacitus (circa 110 A.D.), who seems to have done some research on the subject, offers several fanciful theories as to their origin, but ends up agreeing with the first-century B.C. Greek historians Chaeremon and Lysimachus of Alexandria and Diodorus of Sicily that the Israelites were expelled from Egypt because they were diseased.  Moses emerged as their leader and saved them from perishing in the desert.  A less glamorous view of history than the one presented by Exodus!  (I might mention that more than a century ago a fraudulent genealogist foisted upon my mother’s family, the Blaisdells, a phony history  concerning its origins.  The bogus account claimed that their immigrant forefather was a Sir Ralph Blaisdell of Welsh descent, with royal connections, a coat of arms, and a ship of his own.  The family bought it until the truth was eventually revealed.  Ralph was just plain Ralph, bless him, a Lancashire tailor and tavern keeper who illegally left England and landed on a the coast of Maine in a ship that was then immediately wrecked by a storm.  --- I like the real story better!) 

8.  Among those who credit the Exodus, various dates have been suggested for it from the 16th to the 13th Centuries B.C., or even later.  A very long book could be written examining (and debunking) every claim.  The very fact that the Exodus cannot be dated is a tip-off to its fictional or, at best, semi-mythical provenance.  Confirming this is the fact that the Pharaoh of the Exodus is never named and bears no resemblance to any historical figure (least of all to Ramses the Great, generally believed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, courtesy of Cecil B. De Mille.)  Archaeological evidence is entirely missing, as is any confirmation from Egyptian historical sources.