This week’s Old Testament reading is Exodus 14:10-15:21. [Later comments appended in black.]
I imagine that it brings visions of Charlton Heston to most of us as we read of Moses leading his people across the Red/Reed Sea although I never saw the movie until many years after first learning the story.
When I was a child in Sunday School we marveled at the power of the Almighty to part the sea and accepted unquestioningly and with jubilation when the sea was then turned back on the Egyptians. Even though the Sunday School I was attending was of a tradition that believed in a literal hell where the Egyptian soldiers, it never seemed to occur to us to ask why the Egyptian soldiers had to meet such a judgment so soon. And I imagined Moses smirking a bit at the suckers on whom he had helped wreak the obviously merited divine punishiment. Yet the narrative tells us that Moses did not extend his arm until after the Egyptian soldiers had said, "Their God is too much for us. Let's get the [blank] out of here." Was it really necessary to exterminate them if they were going back, anyway.
When I was a child in Sunday School we marveled at the power of the Almighty to part the sea and accepted unquestioningly and with jubilation when the sea was then turned back on the Egyptians. Even though the Sunday School I was attending was of a tradition that believed in a literal hell where the Egyptian soldiers, it never seemed to occur to us to ask why the Egyptian soldiers had to meet such a judgment so soon. And I imagined Moses smirking a bit at the suckers on whom he had helped wreak the obviously merited divine punishiment. Yet the narrative tells us that Moses did not extend his arm until after the Egyptian soldiers had said, "Their God is too much for us. Let's get the [blank] out of here." Was it really necessary to exterminate them if they were going back, anyway.
And as I age and look back I wonder why Moses did not ask God why he had to extend his arm over the sea and destroy the Egyptians. Moses had to know that God could have done it Himself and did not need Moses as an accessory. We can concede that Moses’ playing such a role make the people trust in him as well as of God, but did Moses think that would happen and if he did, wouldn’t he think it a bit blasphemous?
And when it was over, the people of Israel sang and danced. [15:1-21]
And even now people sing, “Oh, Mary. Don’t you weep. Don’t you mourn. Pharaoh’s army got drownded.”
One can imagine Osama on September 11, 2001 sayingt "Praise Allah! He has brought his vengence upon the oppressers."
We are approaching September 11, a day when men who thought themselves holy warriors justified to themselves killing the innocent and uninvolved as part of some kind of holy effort.
I noted before with interest the juxtaposition of this anniversary with this week’s gospel text on forgiveness. I guess that this juxtaposition is just one more curiousity.
I noted before with interest the juxtaposition of this anniversary with this week’s gospel text on forgiveness. I guess that this juxtaposition is just one more curiousity.
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