Chapter 3Exodus & the Covenant of Sinai

Historical basis for Hebrew slavery in Egypt Hebrew alphabet was different from Egyptian symbols Original Hebrew word for God was “El” “El” has been found in a mine dating to about 1,500 BCE in a mine in Egypt The words were in Hebrew script in a prayer format “El, save me” indicating slavery conditions Historians believe the slaves lived, worked and died in that mine

Where did the Jews live?• Not all Jews worked in mines• Archaeologists have found a major Hebrew

slave city near a major Egyptian city development site at the right timeframe for Exodus

• Hebrew slaves were used to cut and move massive stones

• The Egyptian city was Pi Ramses was located on a branch of the Nile where water does not flow today

• Remains of Pi Ramses can still be seen today

What triggered Exodus?• Conditions for Hebrews in Egypt had changed in the

450 years from the death of Joseph• Israelites had gone from citizens to slaves• Then a Pharaoh issued an order that all Israelite

males babies must be killed at birth

Moses – Egyptian or Hebrew

• Biblical story of Moses, the reed basket and the Pharaoh's daughter to explain how he avoided Pharaoh’s order to kill all newborn Hebrew males

Moses continued• Brought up in his own Hebrew house until an adult• Then introduced to the Egyptian court as a Royal

Price – how?• Moses is aware of his Hebrew lineage• He sees an Egyptian overseer hurt a Hebrew slave

and kills the Egyptian• Aware that his crime is know and that even his

Royal status will not protect him flees to the Eastern desert, home of the nomadic Midians

• Meets a priest, marries his daughter and settles down to be a shepherd

Meanwhile back in Egypt• Nothing improves for the Hebrew salves• They forget about their God by and large but continue

to cry out to El for help• But their God has neither forgotten nor abandoned

them• God appears to Moses in a burning bush not

consumed by the flames and orders Moses to return to Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free & take his brother Aaron along

• Moses asks by what name he should refer to God and God reveals His sacred name Yahweh meaning “I am who am”

The Hebrews and Yahweh

• The Hebrews in Egypt had degraded into small groups of families and tribes and had lost any cohesion they might have had before in terms of their overall identity as “Jews”

• There is no evidence that Yahweh was a name for God among the Jews before Moses’ time

• Those Hebrews who adopted Yahweh as God did so but do not seem to have recognized Him as their only God or as the universal God

• Yahweh represented the unutterable mystery of God and instead they used the term Adonai, meaning “the Lord”

The Hebrews and Yahweh continued

• Only later did Jews come to understand that Yahweh was the one and only God

• Yahweh was not the cruel master other Gods had been but was caring and loving

• There is no real mention of exactly how Moses introduced Yahweh to the Hebrews

• There is no information on when the Hebrews dropped using the term EL and used Yahweh to represent their one God

• Read Exodus 3:1-22 and 4:1-17 in class

The Hebrews and Yahweh continued

• The Israelites are happy when Moses tells them that Yahweh has heard their prayer

• But when Moses approaches Pharaoh he gets a cold reception to the idea of letting his slaves go free and accuses Moses of try to convince the slaves not to work, so Pharaoh doubles the salves’ workload!

• So the slaves turn instead on Moses and tell him that Yahweh has not protected them and in fact has made their lot worse and wanted nothing more to do with Yahweh

• So Yahweh promises to take action

The Hebrews and Yahweh continued

• Read Exodus 4:27-31; 5:1-23; 6:1 in class• After 400 hundred years in slavery the Hebrews felt

that they no longer knew their God• The Hebrews needed to be convinced of Yahweh’s

protection by seeing or experiencing some miracles• But Yahweh still knew them• Before we start talking about the plagues God

brought on Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let his people go, let’s read in class:

“I am who I am”

• Might be expressed as “I am the One who is always present”

• Hebrews out of respect would not utter the name of Yahweh out loud

• Instead they substituted the title “Adonai,” meaning “The Lord,” the term they use even until this day

• As mentioned before, Christian bibles have adopted the term “Lord” meaning “divine sovereignty”

• Moses and Aaron deliver God’s message to the Hebrews who realize God had heard them

“Let My People Go”• When Pharaoh received that message we have to

remember that he saw himself as a god and was unmoved

• Pharaoh doubles the Hebrews work load and the Hebrews want no more to do with this Lord

• God at that point promises to take action• The Hebrews need miracles to be convinced of

their God’s promises after 250-400 years as slaves

• They no longer know their God, but He knows them

Plagues

• That here may be a scientific explanation for the natural cause of each plague does not change the miraculous start, series, continuation and end of these plagues– Water turns to blood– Frogs overrun the land– Gnats or Lice– Flies torment the Egyptians– Livestock deceased (cattle, horses, donkeys, camels, oxen and sheep)– Boils plague the people– Thunder and hail destroys the crops– Locusts eat what is left of the crop– Darkness covers the land for 3 days, and finally– Death for the first born of the people and animals of Egypt (for which

there is no known scientific explanation known)

Oldest Known Portrait of MosesSt. Catherine’s Monastery - Sinai

Let’s turn to our Bibles and read

• in re The Plagues:• 6:28-30• 7:1-25• 8:1-11• 11:1-10

---------------------------------------------------------• in re Pharaoh’s hard heart:

• 7:22-23• 8:4-15• 9:27-28• 9:33-35• 10:8-11• 10:16

What was in Pharaoh’s Heart?• 10 times the Bible says both that God hardened

Pharaoh’s heart and that he was naturally stubborn• Can both be true at the same time?• The human heart can be hardened by people

flinging itself against something more powerful than themselves

• And the Pharaoh seeing himself as a god probably did not want to give in to mere slaves

• The Hebrews prepare for Passover so the angel of death will pass over their homes on the last plague

Amenhotep II – Pharaoh of the Exodus• Before concluding that Amenhotep II was, indeed, the pharaoh of the Exodus,

we will need to study further other evidence that can be presented. For instance, when comparing Exodus 7:7 with Acts 7:23, we learn that Moses was in Midian approximately forty years. Assuming the pharaohs mentioned in Exodus 1:8, 22 and 2:23 are all the same person, he would have had to reign for over forty years. Amenhotep's predecessor, Thutmose III, is the only pharaoh within the time specified in I Kings 6:1 who reigned long enough (54 years) to have been on the throne at the time of Moses' flight and to die shortly before his return to Egypt. This would make Thutmose III the pharaoh of the Oppression and Amenhotep II the pharaoh of the Exodus.

• History tells us that for several years after 1445 B.C. Amenhotep II was unable to carry out any invasions or extensive military operations. This would seem like very strange behavior for a pharaoh who hoped to equal his father's record of no less than seventeen military campaigns in nineteen years. But this is exactly what one would expect from a pharaoh who had lost almost all his cavalry, chariotry, and army at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:23, 27-30).

Amenhotep II continued• Furthermore, we learn from the Dream Stela of Thutmose IV, son

of Amenhotep II, that he was not the legitimate successor to the throne (J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near-Eastern Texts, p. 449). This means that Thutmose IV was not the firstborn son, who would have been the legitimate heir. The firstborn son of Amenhotep II had evidently died prior to taking the throne of Egypt. This would agree with Exodus 12:29 which says the pharaoh's first-born son was killed during the Passover.

• If the Exodus did take place in 1445 B.C., forty years of wilderness wandering would bring us to 1405 B.C. for the destruction of Jericho. Interestingly enough, John Garstang, who excavated the site of ancient Jericho (city "D" in his survey), came to the conclusion that the destruction of the city took place around 1400 B.C. (Garstang, The Story of Jericho, 1948, p. 122). He also concluded that the walls of the city toppled outward, which would compare favorably with Joshua 6:20.

Route of Exodus?

Where did the Hebrews Cross The Reed Sea? The previous map was of the northeast delta. Based on the most recent research from Egypt, place names of the Exodus narrative prior to the sea crossing can now be placed on the map. Departing Pi Rameses, the Israelites did not take the northern international highway (the Horus Way = “the road through the Philistine country,” Ex 13:17) toward Canaan. Instead they traveled south to the Wadi Tumilat and then east past Succoth to Etham. At God’s direction, from here they “turned back” to the north and went up the west side of the ancient Ballah Lake. Somewhere at the northern end of the lake, not far from the ancient Mediterranean coastline, were the sites of Pi Hahiroth, Migdol and Baal Zephon. Taking the Exodus narrative at face value, and utilizing the most recent archaeological research from Egypt along with place names from Egyptian texts during the same period, evidence suggests the Reed Sea crossing was in the area of Abu Sefeh, modern Qantara, at the northern end of the Ballah Lake.

In your textbook read NOW

On pages 59-60 the section entitled “The Great Escape: Crossing the Sea of Reeds”

Part of the “Sea of Reeds”

Artifacts of Pharaoh’s Army found at bottom of the Sea of Reeds

Crossing the “Red Sea” in art

The Route in the Wilderness in green