Does it not seem a contradiction that in Ex. 17 when the Israelites were camped in the desert of Zin and had no water, Yahweh directed Moses: "You must strike the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink," but in Numbers when the people had no water, Moses was condemned for striking the rock, a former specific order from Yahweh?

It does seem two distinctive different orders to get the same results.

Great observation, Elaine. This seems to be one more piece of evidence that there are a number of different cources that were later compiled into the Pentateuch. Those who insist on sigle (Mosaic!) authorship must feel disappointed here. In addition, I fail to see how striking a rock would have been a "transgression" against YHWH.

Elaine,
On the face of it, it does seem a contradiction and my instinct has been like yours - but that is why Carlos's careful exegesis is so helpful, for he shows it isn't actually a contradiction at all, because Moses wasn't actually judged for striking the rock! I won't say anything else, as it would simply reiterate Carlos's analysis.

Jag:
Ditto. The sin wasn't striking the rock. There is no implication in this text for authorship of the Pentateuch.

It's all there in the commentary.

Thank you Carlos for very good exegesis of this text. I wanna hear your opinion about this interpretation which I found:

"In light of this textual analysis, one can now understand the punishment
of Moses and why, as a result of this particular mistake, he lost the leadership of the people. Disobeying the directive of God to speak rather than strike, as serious as it might be, is not the essential point. His error was not merely a failure to obey God's command, it also was a failure of leadership.
Moses, by hitting rather than speaking, responds to this current crisis in precisely the same fashion as he had responded to the problems of the generation
that had left Egypt thirty-eight years before.14 It was not the sin and its severity that caused Moses to lose the privilege of leadership. Moses' "desert response" to this second water-crisis revealed that he was not a leader who could address the concerns and crises of a new generation, one which would enter the Land of Israel. It was clear that he was still tied to methods and perspectives of leadership which, though proper for the needs and concerns of the generation that left Egypt, were ineffective and inappropriate
in the new situation." (Nathaniel Helfgot, "AND MOSES STRUCK THE ROCK," TRADITION 27:3 / ©1993 Rabbinical Council of America)

every blessing
______________
One plus God is majority.

The incidents narrated in Ex. 17 and Num. 20 both took palce in the desert of Zin and have to do with the waters of Meribah. It is difficult to maintain that they are not accounts of the same event. This happens all the time in the Pentateuch, and in the different accounts of events in the life of Jesus in the Gospels. In this case we have the two accounts in different books. Other times they are placed one after the other in the same book, like the two stories of creation in Gen. 1-3, or the three acounts of Moses going up to Mt. Sinai in Ex.24. As in Ex. 24, here also the people involved are different, and the emphasis on holiness is different. In Numbers, like I pointed out in my last column, sin is related to holiness, something that is acquired or lost by physical contact. Stricking the rock Moses touched a holy object and became impure.
Recognizing this, should serve as a necessary cautionary proviso on anyone thinking that reading the story they are reading the mind of God. It is an impossible contradiction to say that God gave us reason and acts unreasonably. Only tyrants in extreemist Islamic governments would consider that the punishment assigned to Moses and Aaron was proportional and not cruel. I don't think anyone would want to argue that our understanding of what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" is due to the Fall and our sinful reasoning.

Rationalizing and justifying Moses is after judgment has been rendered; just as explaining after a muder that the victim desrved it, rather than blaming the murderer. It may fly with true believers but as explanation it seems more eisegesis for justifying whatever is written in the Bible.

Might as well explain the Iliad (which is illuminated in a wonderful series of lectures from The Teaching Company). However, one does not assume that it is factual, but a poetic glorification of the Greeks.

I would like to share something fascinating a favourite Bible commentator of mine said about this part of Scripture.

To the Hebrew mind Moses represented the law. He wrote the first five books (the section of the OT called 'The Law') and he brought the commandments of God down to the people from the mountain.

The NT verifies this as Jesus said that the law and prophets testified of Him. At His transfiguration who should appear but Elijah (greatest of the prophets) and Moses the lawgiver.

The Israelites' physical journey to the promised land, of course, parallels our spiritual one. As with them, the law is our guide in this wilderness we are going through called life. It will not save us out of our Egypt (the blood of the lamb did that before we started out) but it will be a tremendous help in our journey. When we stumble it should point us back to Christ, His forgiveness and direction.

As with the Israelites, the law can't get us into our promised land. Only following Joshua (Hebrew:Yeshua, Greek:Jesus) can do that. So, in effect, the purpose for the law ends as we enter heaven. At that point, the law will pass away. Thus Moses, representing the law, died with the wilderness journey completed and Caanan in sight.

Up until that day, the law will never be compromised nor lose its importance. Indeed, it was written of Moses that 'when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated' (Deut. 34:7b).

Perhaps a similar argument might be made for Aaron and the role of the Levitical priesthood (Christ being of a greater order (see Hebrews 7)).

Of course, the points mentioned previously point to Moses' sin in this particular situation and we should not minimize them, but perhaps seeing how certain individuals represented something beyond themselves can show us God's workings in a different light.

Let's think pragmatically for a moment. Moses is the great hero leading the people out of Egypt. Could it be that the story needed to take him down a bit. Bring him back from the high pedestal of the leader who talks to God and tells the people what to do. To the tool of God, a messenger, not the hero, the hero is God. God brought them out and God was going with them into the new land. God brought the water not Moses and Aaron, as they say in their anger "must we". The idea being depend upon God not upon Moses or some other man.

It is kind of a nice story which leads to Moses going up the mountain as an old man and dying with His God showing him the land the nation would have. Probably better then dying in the new land because the new land is a place for new beginnings and better not to bring the sad ending of Moses death into the new land.

It is interesting that we often don't look at the Bible stories as literature. But we really should a bit more often.

Ron

RC

If you want to admit it as being literature then why not call Yahweh "Yahweh" instead of "God". El, or El Elyon, was God Most High. Yahweh was one of the Sons of God that inherited a particular piece of land from His Father, El. The Israelites were Yahweh's Chosen People to live on Yahweh's inheritance.

Baal was the brother of Yahweh. Just another Son of El. Somehow they seemed to think that both brothers got the same inheritance. David & Solomon seem to think Baal was the rightful Son of El that inherited that piece of dirt.

Then, the story of Gideon having 70 sons (same as El), with another son from a concubine in a different town making 71, and the 71st son tricks the legitimate 70 into a meeting and slays them. Kinda leads one to believe that the 71st, Yahweh, was made up. An impostor. Hence, Baal and Yahweh fighting over the same piece of dirt.

Also, as literature, Elijah, the only prophet without a listed set of parents. El-is-yah. They are assimilating (in this literature), Yahweh, the illegitimate 71st Son of God, into the place of the Father God, God Most High, El or El Elyon.

Simple, isn't it? And common tactics of the religions of the area at that time.

Are there multiple clues in the tales about Moses that at least portions of the story may have been "remembered", reconstructed, if not completely made up in the retelling around the campfire?:

1) Moses legendary reed basket raft trip down the Nile, a thousand years after the same tale had been concocted to honor a previous great general, Sargon of Akkadia. Sargon floated the Euphrates, where there is oil, so his basket was waterproofed with "bitumen"...while Moses tale plagiarized from the thousand year earlier Babylonian tales, had to have his basket waterproofed with "pitch", since floating down the Nile one does not find oil or bitumen.

2) the constant use of the figurative "40"....which means "many", and probably results from the limited ability of shepherd kids to count beyond two sets of combined digits...

Moses survived on a desert Mt top for "40" days, with no food or water....which is of course, humanly impossible. so either you have a supernatural miracle, which is what most still believe, or you have a myth about how great Moses was...

Moses allegedly wrote about the "40" daze and nights of rain that covered all the mountains... and numerous "40"s, which probably would all be taken figuratively as part of "stories" indicating "many".

3) Moses life was divided into 3 sets of "40" yrs...
Egypt, where he learned Egyptian ways, laws, and writing; later living in Midian with one of two different fathers in law, the texts are not clear which,
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/mosesfil.html
and the 3rd "40" being those years lost in the desert, leading millions of people out of civilization, carefully hiding any evidence that they had been there. trying to teach people who had grown up in a developed civilization, how to camp out in the desert, bury their own excrement, all the time with God making life alternately good (water out of a rock, manna from heaven, trainloads of quails to eat, but without refrigeration, causing stomach cramps!!),

11:31 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.
11:32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.
11:33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.

and at other times punishing them for complaining by sending poisonous snakes to bite them, earth quakes to devour people in yawning crevasses, fire to kill those who tried to burn incense for the Lord without going thru the Highered arky, the Levite priests.
11:1 And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.

While the Bedouins did not bury their exhaust, leaving it for the sun to cleanse....the Moses people practiced extreme hygiene beliefs, often bathing in frequently used water in their ceremonial baths, and burying their waste in common latrines, which may have afflicted Qumran with early deaths from disease!!! buried human exhaust allows parasites to grow under the soil, protected from the bleaching of the sun, ready for the next guy to step in!!!
http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general868.html

Moses life was not easy!!!

and, at one point, God had even tried to kill him!!!!
why, we may never know....but the cure has had repercussions down thru the ages:

24 One night while Moses was in camp, the LORD was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah circumcised her son with a flint knife. She touched his legs with the skin she had cut off and said, "My dear son, this blood will protect you." 26 So the LORD did not harm Moses. Then Zipporah said, "Yes, my dear, you are safe because of this circumcision."

and the potential morals of the story???

a flint knife? wow..that's gotta be painful.

plus God apparently felt there was something wrong with the way He had created men, and needed surgical help from humans to correct this deficiency???

or maybe the Priestly tradition later inserted this little nugget into the story to emphasize their health and social message?

could it also be thanks to this motivational tale, that even today, it is joked that Jewish women are loathe to buy anything unless there's at least 10% off.

or...the moral could be that as interesting as these tales are, they probably need not be taken as literally as we all once did.

Keafan wrote:
--
If you want to admit it as being literature then why not call Yahweh "Yahweh" instead of "God". El, or El Elyon, was God Most High. Yahweh was one of the Sons of God that inherited a particular piece of land from His Father, El. The Israelites were Yahweh's Chosen People to live on Yahweh's inheritance.
--

Because Yahweh is a transliteration of the four consonants that make the name of God which is lost to history. El is a common term in their language for any of the gods. Just as Allah is god that does not mean that the god Allah is the same God as the God of the Jews or the Christians.

But thanks for the irrelevant comments. It is useful to reflect upon how historically uninformed or misinformed tend to really screw up literature.

Ron

Elaine, Jag, David: Thank you for your initial posting.

Yelimir: The quotation you sent us is helpful because it underscores our main thesis: Moses and Aaron's real problem was much more serious than a disobedient action. It was a leadership impairment. In fact God tried several times to remedy this problem, teaching Moses to react appropriately by trusting in Him in dire circumstances (cf. Numbers 11).

Weiss: Thank you for your interest. You encapsulated several issues in two paragraphs. It would be nice to discuss any one of them.

Elaine: Could you please state clearly the idea you are defending or questioning? I just want to make sure I understood you correctly before responding.

Dave: Thank you for your comments. Just an observation. The problem was Moses and Aaron's transgression, not God's law given at Sinai. We cannot equate the death of Moses with the death of God's law given to them. In fact, Joshua upheld the law that Moses received from God, see Joshua 8:30-35.

Ron: Studying the Bible as literature is useful, but it has its limitations as every method of Biblical interpretation. But you're right, we should strive to interpret Scriptures as best as we can, always with an open heart to God's leading through the Holy Spirit. One comment. The story did not need to downgrade Moses; He and Aaron themselves set about a sinful pathway. They initiated and finished their course of action. There is no evidence of a "literary agenda".

Not only did Moses and Aaron ascribe to themselves the ability to get water from the rock, they spoiled a beautiful lesson on grace that was surely meant to counteract the inscipient legalism that was to finally take over the Jewish nation.

As Moses struck the rock once, so Jesus our Rock was to suffer once for all humanity. Thenceforth, we have only to "speak the word" in order to be forgiven, healed, saved by His blood. Alas, when Moses struck the Rock the second time, he was actually exemplifying salvation by works. "Must WE fetch you water...", as if by striking the rock he could somehow make water appear. But "whatever is not from faith, is sin" Rom. 14:23

Moses must have realized this later, because in his final farewell psalm (Deut. 32), he speaks of the Rock over and over again: "He (God) is the Rock", Israel deserted "the Rock his Savior", "their rock is not like our Rock", "You deserted the Rock" etc.

Then Moses quotes God: "He will say: "Now where are their gods, the rock they took refuge in.... See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal." and finally Moses concludes: "Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make ATONEMENT for his land and people." The one who wrote out the details of the Law, thus proclaimed, before his death, the gospel of Grace.

--Kathleen

Carlos wrote:
--
Ron: Studying the Bible as literature is useful, but it has its limitations as every method of Biblical interpretation. But you're right, we should strive to interpret Scriptures as best as we can, always with an open heart to God's leading through the Holy Spirit. One comment. The story did not need to downgrade Moses; He and Aaron themselves set about a sinful pathway. They initiated and finished their course of action. There is no evidence of a "literary agenda".
Posted by: Carlos A. Bechara
--

The story did not need to downgrade Moses? That is not really true, read the stories and after the Exodus Moses is about as saintly as anyone recorded in the Bible. In fact if is was not for this story you would not likely find anything against Moses after the Exodus.

So to say that there is no evidence of a literary agenda is not terribly realistic. Kathleen's post about the repetition of "rock" for God in Deut. is interesting, though the Deut. account does not include the incident of striking the rock. It does reference the event, (Deu 8:15 NIV).

But you can still believe there is no literary agenda. Kind of makes be sad about what they must be teaching at Andrews Theological seminary. But that is another story.

Ron

Ron

Deuteronomy 32:51 does reference the waters at Meribah.

--Kathleen

Very insightful analysis, Carlos. I very much appreciate your careful reading of the text to show the larger issues involved. It is so easy to read hastily, and jump to prepackaged solutions provided by modern literary or ideological theories, rather than grapple with the text itself and deal with it on its own terms, allowing its own, inner theory to be expressed. I think that is what you have done here, and have done it well, in a way that deepens my faith in the fairness of God and the importance of His holiness. Thanks!

RC: Thanks for your interest. I was taking a second look at your first comment where you suggested that Moses was identified with the first generation of Israelites that died in the wilderness. You developed some very interesting analogies in that text (where you begin by "Let's think pragmatically."). In fact, your thoughts come close to the studies of Dennis Olson, who wrote a dissertation on Numbers entitled: "'The Death of the Old, and the Birth of the New': The Framework of the Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch."

David: One difficulty we have in this Sabbath School blog is the format limitation. We have to scroll all the way down to respond to posts that are far too distant. This forces some cutting and pasting and context is compromised. Replies are lost in that they are separate from their anchor comment. A new feature could be implemented by the web designer where replies would be posted right under each comment in a type of thread format. I think this would foster a far more productive blog!

Carlos, thanks again for an excellent commentary on the text of this week's lesson, and thanks, too, for participating in the online debate.
Your point about the blog is well taken, but not one in my control. Still, I'll raise it with the overall editor and our tech people! I would observe that, if you read the website AFTER logging in, it should give you both the number of comments and the number of "new comments" - and if you click on the latter it takes you near to the end, tho' not necessarily to the end - an option for that would, as you observe, be helpful.
To all readers of the Spectrum SS lesson section, from the section editor - I hope those of you in America (the majority but by no means all our readers) had a happy thanksgiving; and I wish all readers, around the globe, a Happy Sabbath.

Nicholas: Thank you for your feedback and some quite reassuring words! I fully agree with you. We are called to wrestle with, not against, God's Word.

David: Thank you for your response and attention, and for all you do as a moderator. God bless!

Kathleen wrote:
--
Ron

Deuteronomy 32:51 does reference the waters at Meribah.

--

Now I wish you had not done that because then I looked it up and follow the footnotes and it leads me to a bit of a problem.

Here is the text you referenced:
"(Deu 32:50 NIV) There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

(Deu 32:51 NIV) This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites."

Pretty good, fits right in with Numbers:

(Num 20:11 NIV) Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

(Num 20:12 NIV) But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

(Num 20:13 NIV) These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among them.

Until we look at the Meribah incidence in Exodus:

(Exo 17:5 NIV) The LORD answered Moses, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.

(Exo 17:6 NIV) I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

(Exo 17:7 NIV) And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

So now we have two incident and two identical place names.

Here is how the Expositor's Bible Commentary explains it:
--
This incident is not to be confused with a similar episode that comes near the conclusion of Israel's forty years of journeying in Numbers 20:1-13. In this later account, the glory of the Lord is not present; and Moses is explicitly instructed that he is not to strike the rock but only to speak to it. This shows that the only connection between Israel's need and God's supply was the divine Word. True, they also named that place "the waters of Meribah" (Num 20:13), but the symmetry and naming may indeed be deliberate to emphasize the purpose in allowing the incidents and in directing that they be recorded as Scripture. God's people are prone to grumbling at the first hint of adversity no matter how abundant and spectacular may be the evidence of his power and presence.

Thus the dual name brought out both the people's testing of God (Massah "test") and quarreling (Meribah "contention," "strife"; NIV mg., "quarreling") (v. 7). In less than six months they had witnessed ten plagues, the pillar of cloud and fire, the opening and shutting of the Red Sea, the miraculous sweetening of the water, and the sending of food and meat from heaven; yet their real question came down to this: "Is the LORD among us [beqirbenu] or not?"
--

That is kind of interesting to note the symmetry of the name usage. It seems to me it has to be a literary device. I mean in all practicality we have 40 years of contention, strife and quarreling going on.

Again an interesting play on the word because the incident in Exodus with the dual place names was clearly a triumph for Moses as well as God. Here is how the above commentary describes it:
--
The Lord's response was not to take sides in this exchange but to move directly to sending relief. Moses, along with a few of the elders, was to go out in front of the people--presumably farther down the wadi (v. 5). There, where the pillar of the cloud stood, the symbol of God's own presence and ever-present source of power, Moses was to "strike" (hikkith a) "[on] the rock" (bassur) just as he had "struck" (hikkith a) the Nile River. Striking the Nile (7:17, 20) in the first plague, however, signaled an interruption in that nation's water supply, whereas this striking would signal the commencement of the flow of waters (v. 6). Just as it was in 14:19-20, so here: What was darkness or death to Egypt was light or life to Israel because of the grace of God.
--

But as is sometimes typical with the way people perceive things only the last incident is important ("what have you done for me lately"). So in Deut. Meribah becomes the place of Moses failure rather than the place where God proved to the quarrelsome people that He was still with them with reminders of the exodus. To my mind it seems to indicate the literary device used to bring Moses down a bit, because frankly in both incidents God comes out looking good, unless one assumes that God was not the one to cause the water to come from the rock and assumes that Moses caused the miracle. Unless of course there is the possibility for a confused story or an amalgamation of stories perhaps only based upon one incident. But of course how the author uses the material, is what we really care about.

Ron

...<" in all practicality we have 40 years of contention, strife and quarreling going on">...

or at least a very long time....since the omnipresent number "40" represents the maximum number that two uneducated goat herders can count to on their combined fingers and toes...

and since the number 40 itself is magical, and mythical, and approximate, and maybe partly exaggeration....one is more often led to question the literalness of any tale including or based on the number "40".

***********************

...<" Moses, along with a few of the elders, was to go out in front of the people--presumably farther down the wadi (v. 5). There, where the pillar of the cloud stood, the symbol of God's own presence and ever-present source of power...">...

a natural explanation might be available for this.

Moses was raised in Egypt, and probably learned Egyptian military methods...including the way they marched with a cauldron at the head of a tall standard, at the head of the column. By day, the fire in the cauldron was allowed to smolder producing much smoke...thus the pillar of the cloud!!!

while at night, the fire was stoked to burn brightly, becoming a "pillar of fire" which was carried at the head of the column for any march, thus becoming not only a flag/standard, but also a light for the troops to follow.

when the pillar of fire, or pillar of cloud of smoke stopped its forward movement during a march, everybody behind also stopped. It served as the "flag", or "standard', or a "head light" at the head of the column by which the army knew when to move, when to stop, and where to follow.

It is quite possible that Moses at least represents some mythical leader, as great as Sargon of Akkadia after whose reed basket river trip Moses story was "borrowed". The writers of this story knew about the Egyptian way of marching in column, and adopted this same technique for their great leader's "40" yr walkabout lost in the desert to lead his probably small band of people across the Sinai, for "many" years, leaving behind very few clues and no campfire pits, no latrines, no coprolites, no pottery, etc, waiting for a generation til their forces had grown by using the virgins of their neighbors to move into the uplands and assimilate or be assimilated by the Canaanites.

and after the descendants of this group told and retold the story around the campfire, growing the story with each retelling, eventually it became incorporated in the Biographical Story of the Ancient Hebrews...complete with the parts about God killing Egypts firstborn kids, and commanding them to steal the silverware on their way out of Egypt, and how to attack their new neighbors, and kill even the women who had had sex, but to save the virgins to use.

after the Hebrews left Egypt, why did the Pharoah and his armies pursue them?

here's a quote from the Lord:
17 And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen."
end of God gloating over proving His power.

so, if we believe the Hebrew text literally, God was so insecure that He had to prove "how great thou art", and cause the Egyptians to change their minds about letting "my people go"... so God deliberately changes their minds, and why? so the armies of Pharoah will chase after the hebrews, so that God can drown them in the reed or red sea!!!

How are we ever going to convert Egyptians to Christianity if we continue to maintain that we worship this "loving God" who massacred their innocent kids in order to make the Pharoah let the people go, and then, later, again "hardens" the heart of the king so that he and his armies go after the Israelites to keep them from leaving...so that God can again "shew His works" and kill more Egyptians....and in this manner, God says:

....I will get glory over Pharaoh

no wonder so many of them want to blow us or our buildings up.

The claim in John Alfike's latest post takes us a fair way from Numbers; but it also misunderstands most Egyptians' religion - the overwhelming majority are Muslims - i.e., they accept the truth of the stories of Moses, and regard the Egyptians of the Pharaoh's day as pagans, and thus as fair game for the judgment of God/Allah. So to postulate a connection between Pentateuch and the willingness of a small handful of present-day Egyptians to engage in terrorist acts is fanciful!
And since the whole of the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that we have free will, it is fairly clear that God couldn't make Pharaoh pursue the Israelites against his will. That's the bottom line - the Egyptians chose to pursue Israel, including into the Sea of Reeds, having been delayed while the Israelites crossed over and out of Egypt.

(CEV) Exodus 14:1 At Etham the LORD said to Moses: 2 Tell the people of Israel to turn back and camp across from Pi-Hahiroth near Baal-Zephon, between Migdol and the Red Sea. 3 The king will think they were afraid to cross the desert and that they are wandering around, trying to find another way to leave the country.
interrupt quote

so as part of the Pharaoh's "free will", God deliberately hatches a plot to entice the king to attack.... God tells the Israelites to stay nearby, and not leave out into the desert yet..risk their lives like decoys, and then... resuming the quote from the story according to the Israelites, as translated into Contemporary English,
God says:

4 I will make the king stubborn again, and he will try to catch you. Then I will destroy him and his army. People everywhere will praise me for my victory, and the Egyptians will know that I really am the LORD.
end quote

free will, huh?

how much of that was for the Israelites benefit, and how much was the Lords apparent need for proving
.........."how great thou art"???
and why did the Lord need peoples approval?
..."...

at least this time, our loving God killed soldiers instead of innocent kids. according to the Hebrew (campfire) stories.

or is there a "natural" explanation?

as a small band of former slaves escaped from their masters, after one of them had even killed a guard, they swamped thru the sea of reeds toward freedom in the desert. Then a platoon of chariots raced after them, but got stuck in the swamp, drowning a few horses and a coupla guys wearing armor...

and the Hebrew storytellers expanded on that for their family history? If we've seen it once, we've seen it a million times that they exaggerated about almost everything. (ggg)

while the Egyptians who documented almost every detail, apparently didn't take note of what may have been a minor skirmish.

so who are we gonna believe? lying archeologists who claim they cannot find any evidence of this great Exodus, or the people who constantly exaggerated their stories, often claiming that their God worked miracles for them, sometimes by even killing people!!! just for them....

tho this time, it appears that the Lord really wanted the notoriety...
..."...
by discriminating against Egyptians in favor of His beloved tribe of soon to be nomads again...

And lets not forget, that the Lord left them to founder around the desert for many years...as many years as two ignorant goat herders could count on their combined fingers and toes... before leading them to massacre the Canaanites...
and take back the land which they might not have been forced to leave 400 yrs earlier if God had only helped them overcome the drought.

those poor Israelites must have had ulcers all the time:
"He loves me..He loves me not...He loves me...he loves me not and may actually try to kill me!!! with fire, snakes, earthquakes, or the Lord may even set brother to kill brother if He catches us with some golden calf.

How much simpler this could be if we accepted the idea that these stories had multiple authors and thus would not all agree. This leads to such contradictions because we assume (?) that there is only one author for the complete history of the Exodus which is contained in more than one book of the Bible.

When The Bible was finally written ca. 800-500 B.C. was never considered to be a detailed and totally accurate story, which is how many literalists today consistently maintain and there were several authors which could not have all agreed on every single point.

All we truly know is that there are stories of Moses both striking the rock for water, and only speaking and getting water. The later explanation for Moses not being allowed to enter the Promised Land may have been an excuse, but we cannot, and never will be able to determine because the Bible writers gave God the complete "speaking parts" and allowed him to have the last word. This was the pattern in contemporary literature when the gods spoke and directed actions of the protoganists; acts they dare not disobey. Do we believe the gods spoke to these Greek protoganists?Do we really believe that God spoke audibly on the hundreds of occasions that are recorded? When did He stop audibly conversing with people? Dare we not question the factual history of any such stories merely because we have made a previous assumption that every single word therein is the "Word of God"?

Dave, I would be interested in the name of this Bible commentator, is it possible to share it? Thanks, Daniel

"I would like to share something fascinating a favourite Bible commentator of mine said about this part of Scripture..."