word of God must go counter. Thus one commentator writes (undoubtedly in reference to the Hebrew Bible):
The Bible is not a work of art in the same sense as a poem. It is not meant primarily to make an intellectual demand in memorable language—or like Greek myth to tell an absorbing story, or like Greek tragedy to purge us by pity and terror. It aims to move us to justice and mercy. It is active art, to which people trust their conduct; moral art, which (rightly or wrongly), designates some form of violence as necessary for the conduct of ethical social life.5
—Catherine Madsen, American writer and editor
¶
Slaves must face squarely the hard truth of their condition. Drumming it in; this is the first subversive act of the “peoples’ history,” the story of Exodus. “No getting used to injustice, no coming to terms with it.” Thus the counter to the law of images.
The second act is more daring, more dangerous. It announces in plain terms that the imperial images are in reality, a clutch of illusions.
Subversion, deflation. The truth goes counter; rumors start. The pharaohs are mortal like ourselves. So is the regime mortal. It will flourish for a while and flaunts its greatness. But it will decline and fall. If not in our lifetime, then after.
Believe it. Help it happen! The system is subject to a law that governs all mortal enterprises—a law of transience and death.
¶
Thus the pharaonic images are summoned to judgment, condemned as deceitful and destructive. Slaves, note the imperative. The images must be exorcised, banished from the slave community.
And a second imperative. The images must be replaced. Summon other images, stories, lives, possibilities, anodynes, strengths. These two above all; first, the image of a God other than the gods of the overlord. Then, an image of the truly human, those who are neither slaves nor slavemasters. Those who walk free.
A liberating God, and liberated humans. That is it! An image of the God of the ancestors, who intervened on behalf of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Of a God who, though people be guilty of moral setback and sin, never abandoned his own, took their part, reproved, chastened, stood with, walked beside.
The counter-image, drawn from a common wellspring of story recounted and worship enacted—these lighten the burden of life at the bottom.
Someone lifts the yoke! The purport of the redeeming images is irresistible, a liberating God and a command; Freedom Now!
And—a Moses.
¶
Thus, despite a seeming dead end of exile and bondage, despite the mindless might of the overlords, the overbearing law of the land—powerless as you are, a clutch of slaves seemingly void of recourse—nonetheless believe. Your salvation nears.
Someone. Whisper the name. Moses.
¶
exodus 2
At hand, a savior? It is all but ludicrous, a mirage in the night. Lately a decree has been issued, commanding the death of male infants. Death, upon this sole offense: having been born.
But the decree, as things turn, has gone too far. The comatose, the near hopeless, awaken to a rage that had been all but quenched. Resist, let us resist!
¶
Women ponder: Shall we undo the murderous decree, shall we commit the “crime” of safe birth and rescuing? Such works will be hard and perilous.
Nonetheless a few midwives conspire. Two among them are singled out, Shiphrah and Pua.
Their profession is noble, and honored as such: to assist new life into the world. What part then shall they, the abettors of life, have in killing?
Purpose holds firm. They disobey. New life! They answer secret summonses, go on with their work.
The pharaoh hears of it, hails them in for an accounting: Why have they not followed orders? Because they “fear God,” is the author’s gloss on their holy disobedience.
Their response is a simple equivocation; delicious.
The
Hebrew women
are not
like
the Egyptian women.
These
are robust
and
give birth
before
the
midwife arrives. (Exod 1:19)
The pharaoh is omnipotent, omniscient, or so it is said. But lo! he is suddenly, strangely helpless. His hands drop. He neither prosecutes nor imprisons nor kills the malfeasants. He dare not; they are held in high esteem among the slaves. How shall he counter their hedging?
He and his decree are stalemated. He shifts tactics, issues a general order. It sounds much like a confession of defeat.
Now hear this, a command “to all his people”; they are obliged, on discovery, to cast newborn Hebrew males in the Nile.
¶
Birth and death, contention—then a kind of rebirth; valiant midwives, infants snatched from death. Through holy disobedience the law of the land is thwarted. The good news passes like a wildfire!
The image of the midwives bespeaks a modest, irrefutable strength. Their acts are a summons, a contamination: Arise!
Their example beckons others, into uncharted danger, chance-taking. And above all, lifting of the spirit!
¶
The great moment nears: the birth of a people, prefigured, imminent, in the protected birth of infants.
In the protected birth of a national hero and savior.
So momentous an event comes only through pain and reversal. The hero must be literally snatched from death.
¶
The ingenuity and courage of women! Some few, as we have noted, are named; the midwives, together with Miriam, sister of the infant. (Of her, along with brother Aaron, much will be heard later). And mother Jocabed, who launched the newborn in his craft among the reeds.
And surely another subversive detail—the daughter of the pharaoh is drawn into the web of mercy. Subversive mercy has reached far and high, into the palace itself.
¶
The genealogy of the future prophet is short, instructively so. No remote ancestry is traced, the parents only are named. The father of Moses: Amram. The mother: Jochebed (Exod 6:20).
The omissions are heavy with implication. Let this story be concentrated, sharp, close.
