Passover (Exodus 11-13)

[Exodus 11]

At long last God is getting ready to wrap up his little game with the Egyptians and let the Israelites go free. He tells Moses he's bringing a coup-de-grace plague, and that in preparation for it the Hebrews should "borrow" gold and silver items from their Egyptian neighbors. I don't know why God needs his people to loot the nation before sending them out into the wilderness, but in any case God has disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the Israelites (unlike Pharaoh) and all will comply.

We haven't heard much about the Israelites during all this, by the way. They sure didn't like it when Moses first showed up, and although some of the plagues have been targeted to miss them, many certainly weren't. I imagine them as just sort of shell-shocked and along for the ride at this point.

Anyway, this last plague is going to consist in God murdering every eldest son of every non-Hebrew household in Egypt. Cute. Some divine justice there, buddy. What did all of them happen to do wrong?


[Exodus 12]

This part is quite creepy, in a Santeria kind of way. Through Moses, God instructs the Israelites how to prepare for the night the Angel of Death comes howling through town. On the tenth of the month, each household is to lay aside a male yearling lamb; he's to be watched over until the fourteenth, then slaughtered and eaten that night. Blood from the lamb is to be smeared across each household's front door. Each family has to eat the lamb that night entire, with "flatbread and bitter herbs" - and roasted, not boiled. The roasting is important. "This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly: it is a passover offering to the Lord." (Exodus 12:11)

Now, God was able selectively to avoid harming the Israelities with some of his earlier plagues... and he seems almost Santa-Claus-agile in executing this new plan of picking out and murdering the eldest male child of every household in the nation... so why he needs the Hebrews to do these weird, witchy things to ensure their own safety is a bit of a baffler. As with circumcision and preposterous dietary laws, this appears to be more evidence that God likes bossing his people around for the simple joy of bossing them around. I guess we've all met somebody like that in life - and sure, you do expect to see this kind of attitude from the night manager at Carl's Jr. What's a little horrifying is to imagine such a fellow in the position of Owner/Operator Of The Universe.

"If you've got time to lean, you've got time to obey my covenant and wear tassles on your clothes and cut up your penis and never eat shrimp. And no, you can't take your break until Kathy gets back from lunch at 9:30."

Where was I. Oh yes.

There's a hue and cry throughout the city that night as eldest males in every household turn up dead (how do they die exactly? We don't hear). The Pharaoh, awakened, capitulates on the nonce and tells the Isrealites to pack up and leave town, no conditions. And so they do - all 600,000 of them.

Hmm. Earlier, I'd estimated there could only be several thousand Israelites tops. But this was based on the impression I got at the start of Exodus that not much time had passed since the days of Joseph and his brothers - apparently it was 430 years. (Exodus 1:8 - "A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph." Now does that sound to you like a gap of more than four centuries is being indicated? Cripes, Bible-authors, I guess you ain't kidding that the Pharaoh didn't know Joseph - any more than I do Shakespeare or Galileo.)

By the way, how were two women supposed to serve as midwives for this population of over half a million?

Well, to close this chapter, God tells us some more about the important business of Passover meat-eating. Foreigners can't eat the meat - but slaves can, provided their penises have been chopped up. You have to eat the meat indoors: no carrying it outside or over to your neighbor's house or anything like that.

And nobody whose penis isn't chopped up can eat this meat. Got it? Non-penis-chopees are not allowed to eat the meat. None. Zero. You've got to be circumcised before eating the meat. No chopie, no meatie.

(What if you're a woman? Oh, yes - they don't count.)

Pardon me. I'm perhaps having what Val Kilmer so wonderfully called in the movie Real Genius "an infantile response to authority." But you know, I mean, genital mutilation, come on. This is barbaric and disgusting and it's happening in the context of an unnecessary nationwide massacre of innocent first-born males.


[Exodus 13]

And now more batty regulations. "Consecrate to me every first-born; man and beast, the first issue of every womb among the Israelites is mine." (Exodus 13:1)

What does this mean, to say all eldest males are God's? Well, later in the chapter we're told it means you have to kill them. You know, as sacrifices. Delightful, yes? But in the case of first-born male humans - and, interestingly, asses - you're allowed to substitute a sheep.

Well aaaaa-nyhoo, because God finally chose to arrange the freeing of the Israelites on this day, nobody's going to be allowed to eat leavened/risen bread on its anniversary. Into perpetuity. Which makes sense. I mean, why should they? Heck, the Israelites fled Egypt so suddenly that they didn't have time to bake risen, non-flat bread (in the middle of the night they're baking this bread? Huh?). Therefore no one should ever eat risen bread on Passover again.

Now suppose the Israelites left so quickly that they didn't tie their shoes. No lacing up on Passover? Or perhaps doing without combing your hair or brushing your teeth - or maybe you need to wear yesterday's clothes all day. These are all things you might do if you left town in a hurry, right? The I-don't-have-time-to-bake-rising-bread business is much stranger than these other possibilities....

But not to God. He's all about the flatbread-on-Passover deal. Spends several paragraphs repeating himself about it. In fact you've got to stick to flatbread for seven days in advance of Passover each year, not just on the day itself.

...Afraid the Israelites might prefer to go back to Egypt if they're sent through hostile territory, God guides everybody to Canaan on the scenic route via the Sea of Reeds (not the Red Sea, sorry). He leads them forward in the form of a pillar of smoke by day, fire by night.