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The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
For the Egyptians, frogs are symbols of fertility. Heqet, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth, has a frog’s head. When frogs start breeding in the Nile, it’s a sign that the divine Nile’s generosity. But there can be too much of a good thing. Fecundity is good only if what’s multiplying is something you want.
In the plague of frogs, the Egyptians are reminded of an earlier plague of fertility that overran the land. Frogs swarm over the land (8:6), just like Hebrews once did (1:7; only two uses of sharatz in Exodus). Exodus 1 describes the teeming fertility of the Hebrews by piling up seven words; here, frogs swarm into seven places – into houses, bedrooms, beds, houses of servants; they climb on people, into ovens, into kneading bowls. When frogs come up out of the Nile and fill the land, they are like the Hebrew boys rising from their watery graves to wreak vengeance on Egypt.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 15, 2010 at 5:33 am
Cartun has some other interesting links up his sleeve: “‘God (elohim) occurs, as was previously pointed out, eighteen times in its various forms. The ‘Nile,’ a god to Egypt, is the only other single word repeated eighteen times total in the plagues narrative. These parallel repetitions suggest the battle between the Israelite God and the gods of Egypt, upon whom God promised to ‘execute judgments’ (Exod 12:12) Similarly, ‘Moses’ and ‘Pharaoh’ each recur 56 times. Just as God and the Nile are compared by repetitions, Moses is equated with Pharaoh, both as protagonists of the story and as leaders of their respective nations. Aaron is mentioned twenty times, as is the root ‘to serve/ worship’ (abad). These twenty times that Aaron and ‘to serve/worship’ foreshadow Aaron’s future role as High Priest in charge of the worship of the nation. That the ‘servants of Pharaoh’ are mentioned one more time than Aaron intimates Aaron’s inferiority to them, contrasting him subtly with his younger brother Moses who was the equal of his opposite number while Aaron was not. Perhaps this ramiftes why it was that Moses was chosen over his older brother as the leader of the nation. . . . All together, the number of times YHWH/God is mentioned (114+18= 132) is equal to the sum of the times Moses, Pharaoh, and Aaron, the other three named actors, are mentioned (56+56+20=132).”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 4:04 pm
I’ve been musing all day on the possibility that the somehow symbolize Israel. The Nile turns to blood because Pharaoh has been killing Hebrew babies in the river, and the frogs swarm just like the Hebrews had done (cf. Exodus 1:7).
Now I come across a 1991 article from the Union Seminary Quarterly Review by one Ari Mark Cartun that examines the numerology of the plague narrative (the limits for his purposes are 7:14-13:16). Builting on the work of Cassuto, he concludes that the names of the plagues are repeated a significant number of times throughout the narrative.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 3:57 pm
In an essay in Andre Wenin, ed., Studies in the Book of Genesis Literature, Redaction and History (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium)
He goes on to suggest correlations with particular plagues and events of the creation week. The first plague links to the separation of water and land. The same Hebrew word is used to describe the “pooling together” of waters in Genesis 1:10 and the pools that become filled with blood in Exodus 7:19. He sees a water, earth, sky sequence in the next three plagues, and notes that the frogs are “swarmers” (cf. Genesis 1:20) and the lice remind us of “creeping things” in Genesis 1:24. Cattle, given to man in the creation account, die of pestilence in Exodus 9:1-70), and the destruction of vegetation by hail and locusts reverses the gift of vegetation in Genesis 1:12. Finally, darkness reverses the advance of the first day, as Egypt is turned from light to darkness. In the end, Egypt is plunged back into the watery chaos, now the waters of the Red Sea.
Lemmelijn doesn’t buy all of Zevit’s correlations. They are too imprecise, and Zevit, he thinks, forces evidence. The result is that exegesis of the plague narrative is turned to eisegesis. Though some of the correlations are clearer than others, it seems to me that, on the contrary, Zevit is onto something. Egypt is, and certainly considers itself, a cosmos, and Yahweh is systematically dismantling the world that is Egypt. It would be surprising if there were no allusions to the original creation.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 3:31 pm
The Passover is, like the Law itself, to be on the hand and the forheads of Israel (Exodus 13:16). It is to be like a phylactery attached to the “frontlet between the eyes.”
Eyes are organs of investigation and judgment, and putting the Passover between the eyes means that Israel is to form its judgments about the world through the spectacles of Passover.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 6:53 am
Frogs come up from the Nile and “cover” the land of Egypt (Exodus 8:6), and later locusts do the same (10:5).
Earlier, the same verb (kasah) is used to describe the waters “covering” the mountains in the flood (Genesis 7:19-20). The plagues covering Egypt are another flood raging over Egypt until it is reduced to chaos.
Intriguingly, the same verb is used again in the flood narrative: Noah’s sons “cover” him with a garment when he lies naked in his tent (9:23). And a “covering” scene ends the book of Exodus as well: Yahweh’s cloud “covers” the tent (Exodus 40:34), as it had once “covered” the mountain (24:15-16). Ezekiel later re-imagines this as a marital image, Yahweh spreading the wing of His glory-garment to cover His Bride (Ezekiel 16:8, 10).
Yahweh gets glory from Pharaoh by blanketing his land with a covering of frogs and locusts; He glorifies Israel by covering her with the shadow of His wings.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 5:21 am
Exodus 7:20-21: All the water that was in the Nile was turned to blood. And the fish that were in the Nile died, and the Nile became foul, so that the Egyptians could not drink from the Nile.
As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, when Moses turns the Nile to blood, it only makes visible what was already true. Decades before Moses confronts Pharaoh, the Nile was heaped with corpses, the corpses of Hebrew infants. It was already a river of blood. The Egyptians cannot drink from the Nile now because they have been drinking Hebrew blood for a generation.
Throughout Scripture, God’s people are prohibited from “eating” or drinking blood. Yahweh permits Noah to eat meat, but prohibits blood. In Leviticus, we learn that the life of the flesh is in the blood, and that life-blood must be poured out on Yahweh’s altar. When the early church considers the issue at the Council of Jerusalem, they conclude that the prohibition is still in place: Abstain from blood, they instruct converted Gentiles.
But here at the Lord’s table, that prohibition seems to be reversed.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 6:27 am
Exodus 7:19: Then Yahweh said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over their reservoirs of water, that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.
The first plague is all about water. Moses meets Pharaoh in the morning as he is heading out to the Nile, perhaps to offer the morning sacrifice to the divine river. And the plague targets Egypt’s water sources. Yahweh lists four sources of water – rivers, streams, pools, reservoirs – to show that all the water in all four corners of Egypt becomes undrinkable blood.
What is true of the first plague is true of the whole Exodus story: the whole story is a story of water. Pharaoh drowns Hebrew infants in the river. Moses is rescued through water, and when he gets to Midian he gives water to the daughters of Jethro. One of the signs of Yahweh’s power is Moses’ ability to turn water to blood, and when Israel flees from Egypt they flee through a sea. When Israel thirsts in the wilderness, Moses strikes the rock and water flows. Nunquam sine aqua Moses: Moses is never far from water.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 5:58 am
When Moses turns the water of the Nile to blood, the Egyptians don’t have any water to drink. Do the Israelites? We’re not told. In the second plague, frogs creep from the Nile and fill the land of Egypt. Do they infest Goshen, where the Israelites live? Again, we’re not told.
It’s not until the third plague that Yahweh sets apart Goshen to protect Israel from the plague of insects. Apparently, the Israelites suffer along with Egyptians during the first two plagues. When Yahweh comes to deliver Israel, he first curses both Israel and Egypt. Why?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 5:29 am
When Moses turned the Nile to blood, the fish died and a stench arose (Exodus 7:18, 21). Nothing is said about fish or putrid smells in the account of Exodus in the Pentateuch. When Isaiah recounts the exodus, however, he talks about the dying stinking fish: “Behold, I dry up the sea with My rebuke, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish stink for lack of water
and die of thirst” (Isaiah 50:2).
Isaiah has conflated the first plague with the exodus at the sea. Turning the Nile to blood is a preview of opening a way through the sea. Both events leave behind dead fish, and both events leave people dying of thirst. As Toby Sumpter has pointed out, this link is already implicit in the book of Exodus: The Nile is a river of blood even before it turns red, since it is full of the blood of Israelite boys. Eye for eye, blood for blood: Yahweh turns the Red Sea to a sea of blood by drowning Pharaoh’s chariots.
Presumably, the fish at the Red Sea are the men of Pharaoh, himself a sea monster, the serpent of the Nile.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 3:42 am
Some thoughts arising from a conversation with Toby Sumpter, Doug Jones and Gabe Telling.
Moses is the first human god (elohim) in Scripture, the first man to grow up to the fuller image of Yahweh. He is god in relation to his mouth, his brother Aaron (Exodus 4:16) and also to Pharaoh (7:1). Elohim implies power, and Moses is going to be god to Pharaoh throughout the plague sequence, using the rod of Yahweh to destroy Egypt. Being God also means coming to the rescue: Yahweh comes to Israel’s aid while they’re in bondage, and Moses the god is his agent in that rescue.
As Toby pointed out, Psalm 82 makes the same point: The gods are mere men because they fail to rescue the weak, needy, and fatherless. The gods who rule Israel (Exodus 21:6; 22:7-8) are supposed to do the same. Yahweh sets the pattern, but Moses is the model human god, the ruler and deliverer that all Israel’s judges are to mimic. Jesus quotes Psalm 82 to the same effect; He has just delivered a man blind from birth, and the Jews want to stone Him. Jesus protests that He has done good works, and the Jews say that they are stoning Him for claiming to be God. Jesus answers by quoting Psalm 82. Jesus has proven Himself to be a god by leading a man from darkness to light, from Egypt to the promised land, just as Psalm 82 says (John 10:31-39).
Moses continues to be elohim after the exodus.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 3:35 am
The exodus is the paradigm of salvation in the New Testament. Like Moses, Jesus escapes from murderous Herod, saves us from our enemies, and on the Mount of Transfiguration He discusses His coming “exodus” with Moses and Elijah.
Jesus dies as the Passover Lamb, baptism is our exodus, and we follow the cloud of the Spirit through the wilderness, dependent on the food and drink that Jesus provides. Jesus is a greater Moses who inaugurates a ministry of righteousness rather than a ministry of condemnation.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, June 20, 2010 at 5:47 am
The Bible first mentions pomegranates in connection with the priestly garments of glory and beauty. Bells and pomegranates alternate along the hem of the priest’s robe (Exodus 28:33-34; 29:24-26), the bells sounding to “warn” Yahweh of the priest’s approach. In the temple, this gets picks up in the pomegranate chains that adorn the two pillars at the front of the temple. The pillars are priestly pillars, pomegranate trees.
Pomegranates are also associated with the land. The spies bring back grapes, figs, and pomegranates (Numbers 13:23), and the people complain that Moses has not taken them to a land of pomegranates (Numbers 20:5).
Given that the priest’s approach to the Most Holy Place is an approach to the throne of Yahweh, and symbolically to the land of Eden, it is appropriate that the priest be decorated with pomegranates. Aaron is a pomegranate tree, flourishing and bearing fruit in the house and land of Yahweh. So is Christ, and so, in Christ, are we.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 5:06 am
Yahweh’s nose burns a lot. You can’t see it in English translation, but that’s what the Hebrew says whenever Yahweh’s “anger” burns: What’s actually burning is His nose.
His nose burns first, though, not at Israel but at Moses. Exodus 4:14 is the first use of the idiom in the Hebrew Bible, and there Yahweh’s nose is burning at the mediator. In this, as in so many other ways, Moses’ personal history anticipates Israel’s communal history, for later, also at Sinai, Yahweh’s nose will burn at His people (Exodus 32:10), and Moses, the one against whom Yahweh’s nose first burned, will stand to intercede, to pacify Yahweh’s nose.
Yahweh’s burning nose at Moses thus anticipates not only Israel’s history, but that of Jesus.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 6:00 pm
In Exodus 12:2, Yahweh tells Moses that the month of Abib, the month of Exodus, will be the first month in Israel’s calendar. Israel gets a new time with the Exodus. Yahweh informs Moses using the word “head” or “beginning,” which reaches back to Genesis 1:1. The new time of Israel is a new time for the world; of the Exodus, we might say “In the beginning Yahweh made (new) heavens and earth.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 3:55 am
Jordan also cites an article from Hector Avalos arguing that the repetition of the lists of musical instruments and Babylonian officials in Daniel 3 is intended satirically. Avalos writes:
“[Henri] Bergson argued that simple mechanical iteration is a great source of comedy. When humans act as automatons or in an absentminded manner, they become subjects of comedy. . . . The four mechanical iterations of a lengthy list of musical instruments in vv. 5, 7, 10, 15 mirror the mechanistic behavior of the pagans before the image . . . . Indeed, as soon as the instruments sound, the pagans genuflect en masse before a lifeless image without a second thought.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 6:21 am
SR Hirsch has some characteristically stimulating comments about the description of the ark of the covenant in Exodus 25.
1) He points out that the phrasing at the beginning of the ark section (25:10) is different from the opening syntax for the other furnishings of the tabernacle. Instead of addressing Israel in the third person, Yahweh speaks in the third person: “they shall make.” This is the same phrasing as verse 8, which says “they shall make for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” The similarity of the syntax suggests that the ark is the central object in the tabernacle, a suggestion reinforced by the act that the ark comes first in the list of furnishings. In a sense, the whole point of the sanctuary is to make a place for the ark; in a sense, making the ark is the sum of making the tabernacle complex.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Aquinas rejected Augustine’s dismisal of literal interpretations of the law as “absurdities,” arguing that “the end of the ceremonial precepts was twofold, for they were ordained to divine worship, for that particular time, and to the foreshadowing of Christ.” Applying this principle, he sought for a plausible literal interpretation of the prohibition of boiling kids in their mother’s milk: “Although the kid that is slain has no perception of the manner in which its flesh is cooked, yet it would savour of heartlessness if the dam’s milk, which was intended for the nourishment of her offspring, were served up on the same dish.”
Anticipating Jacob Milgrom by centuries, he suggests that this law was intended to teach respect for animal life that would spill over in compassion for human beings.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Allison notes the frequent ancient association of Moses with asses. According to Diodorus Siculus, “When Antiochus . . . made war against the Jews he entered the sacred shrine of the god, where only the priest is allowed to go. In it he found a stone image of a thick bearded man seated on an ass and holding a book in his hand. He assumed it was a statue of Moses who founded Jerusalem.” And Tacitus claims that Moses discovered water by following “a herd of wild asses.”
Two thoughts: First, is it thinkable that the MHP would contain a statue of a man? Second, the Tacitus comment suggests some sort of connection with Saul, who comes to a well in the process of searching out his father’s donkeys.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, July 6, 2006 at 12:49 pm
In his Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa remarks on the fact that Moses was nursed by his own mother while growing up in Pharaoh’s household: “This teaches, it seems to me, that if we should be involved with profane teachings during our education, we should not separate ourselves from the nourishment of the church’s milk, which would be her laws and customs.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, November 25, 2005 at 7:00 pm
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