The Force in Scripture?

We’ll get to this story too - let’s just focus on what’s going on atm in the study

Exodus 8:8
Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, “Entreat the Lord that He may take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the Lord.”

Time to put on your interpersonal communication cap and tell me: What is Pharaoh really saying?

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Pharoah can see where this is going - Aaron's magic is stronger, if the people of Egypt realise this, the dynasty could be overthrown. Best to give the Israelites a bit of religious freedom and prevent any more crazy plagues . . .

I find its a very choice selection of words.

"I cannot say your God is more powerful than my own, but give us mercy from it."

In terms of being a Jedi, or someone that's 'found the Force', people have said I've changed. They first thought it was just me turning my life around, but I kept saying it was because of my discovery of this Force. Now, many of my closest friends have had to give in and recognise the power of the Force, despite their own faith saying such a thing cannot exist, simply because of the changes they've seen it bring about in my life.

It's possible that Pharaoh recognizes that this magical competition is not doing his people any good. Frogs and rivers of blood? Not worth it when all these people say they want to do is go away into the desert and hold a festival to their god. Take your frogs and go.

I will point out that in Exodus 7:3, YHVH explicitly says he will harden Pharaoh's heart on this matter. Which is to suggest that Pharaoh on his own might not have created this scenario at all, that this entire situation might be out of character for him. He may in this moment be wondering why he keeps getting mind-tricked into stopping these people from having their celebration.

Or, conversely, this might be the moment when he isn't under the mental influence of his own magicians, since his heart is consistently hardened when they perform their own wonders.

(I'm not attached to any of these, but they are all interpretations available in the text.)

Not a lot of people catch that it was GOD who hardened Pharaoh's heart. I'm considering a future study on God and the concept of Free Will in the Bible. But I'm not so certain there's really enough in there to do one (obviously not enough for the original 5 week concept I had , but it would be interesting if I could get enough for like a day study and release it as this one if the group thinks this is a worthwhile endeavor).

Kasumi wrote: I will point out that in Exodus 7:3, YHVH explicitly says he will harden Pharaoh's heart on this matter. Which is to suggest that Pharaoh on his own might not have created this scenario at all, that this entire situation might be out of character for him. He may in this moment be wondering why he keeps getting mind-tricked into stopping these people from having their celebration.

So, I just wanted to chime in here because this is something that strikes me as an interesting thing to think of. God hardens Pharaoh's heart but can we ask when? So, was it a sudden thing, because it doesn't strike me of a something that would be the case. So, it raises the question of free will certainly. Consider though perhaps this points to the timelessness of God in that perhaps in a life lead through a course of events by God his heart had hardened in time, so that through his own experience his heart was already hardened. So, events were indeed set in motion through a timeless God. Meaning that the idea that Pharaoh's heart was indeed hardened by God but interpreted wrong in scripture written by man whom defines things chronologically as a reaction to events instead of a seamless flow of existence.

Just something that I thought was an interesting caveat.

Much love, respect and peace,
Kobos

Alethea Thompson wrote:
Exodus 8:8
Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, “Entreat the Lord that He may take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the Lord.”

Time to put on your interpersonal communication cap and tell me: What is Pharaoh really saying?

I don't think Pharaoh, as an anti-hero gets much of any credit in this story; even for his own thoughts. I think he's testing Moses here. "Do you actually have the power to stop this? I see that you can take credit for disasters but do you actually have the power to remove all these frogs because the removal of all these frogs would, itself, be miraculous. How do you make all these frogs disappear? If we saw them come from the water because something was wrong with the water... that's one thing. You could create a plague of frogs by poisoning the water. Hence the frogs would be a natural effect. But for them to suddenly go away... how could you do this? If your god is real the surely he can do this."

I think Pharaoh was always trying to figure out Moses's game. I think he assumed it was a trick and therefore kept asking Moses for proof. And each time his priests said Moses was lying and that his god wasn't real they would show Pharaoh something as proof. But in his mind, he reasoned his own test. He wanted to see something that couldn't be explained by their scientific understanding. And again... this is the civilization that built the pyramids. We should assume that they understood a lot about natural phenomenon; especially related to the Nile river. Especially since, before this they had the ability to predict famine to some degree. Most miracles involved nature or medicine. It wasn't now you see it now you don't. So to me, this was a different kind of request.

And because this request was different Pharaoh may not have believed Moses could pull it off which means that his offer of freeing the Israelites was more sarcastic than sincere.

Moses did pray and ask God to lift the frogs, and they were caused to become dead on the land. Again, Pharoah’s heart is hardened in verse 15. This is important to note, because God does not tell Moses to go to Pharaoh and announce his next plague. Let’s pick up in verse 16

EXODUS 8:16-17

[/i]So the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your rod, and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.’ ” And they did so. For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became lice on man and beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.[/i]

There are three more plagues- boils, darkness and the death of the firstborn- unleashed without approaching Pharaoh. And each time, Moses and Aaron are given specific instructions for how to make them happen.

Alethea Thompson wrote: Moses did pray and ask God to lift the frogs, and they were caused to become dead on the land. Again, Pharoah’s heart is hardened in verse 15. This is important to note, because God does not tell Moses to go to Pharaoh and announce his next plague. Let’s pick up in verse 16

EXODUS 8:16-17

[/i]So the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your rod, and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.’ ” And they did so. For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became lice on man and beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.[/i]

There are three more plagues- boils, darkness and the death of the firstborn- unleashed without approaching Pharaoh. And each time, Moses and Aaron are given specific instructions for how to make them happen.

I think again... there's this cat and mouse thing going on between Moshe and Pharaoh where Moshe is getting the better of him while Pharaoh keeps getting frustrated. He didn't necessarily know how the frogs would be taken care of but what he got wasn't exactly what he asked for. Let's read more.

5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.’”

6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. 7 But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.


(when the Magicians are able to do the same thing the "miracle" loses all intended effect so Pharaoh's heart is "hardened". Note: it seems like there was no way around this happening and so to explain this difficulty the writer says that God hardened his heart. However, I don't know. It seems like his reactions are natural for someone who is witnessing something twice; knowing that Moshe was raised in Egypt. So is Moshe using Egyptian 'magic' or is this really some new god that Pharaoh doesn't know and should therefore be afraid of? The motivation of these miracles is to elicit fear. It's simply not working so the writer needs to turn that unbelief into a miracle of its own. This suggests that if it wasn't for God's intervention the Pharaoh would have seen a miracle performed twice and said "oh yes, I see your God is greater and I am sufficiently frightened enough to let your people go.")

8 Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to YHWH to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to YHWH.”

9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”

(Here is where I can see where Pharaoh is frustrated. He asked for the frogs to be taken away. He didn't say, "I want these frogs dead". Could he have implied that? Sure, but whether they were alive or dead wasn't the point. The point was that they be REMOVED. Moshe acknowledges exactly what he's asking for and moreover says that the only frogs remaining will be in the river. So there are still frogs in the river that weren't driven on land. We know this also because the Egyptians brought more frogs out of the river when it was their turn. So obviously they had some method of doing this.)
10 “Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.

Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like YHWH our God. 11 The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”

(again... with specificity the frogs were to LEAVE and remain only in the Nile. You would assume then that frogs would go back to the river or somewhere else, but not stay.)

12 After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. 13 And the Lord did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. 14 They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

As we can see the actual effect was different from what Pharaoh had asked and what Moshe had acknowledged. Not only are they not gone but they reek. I remember having a newt when I was a kid. There are few odors as bad as dead amphibians. And because they were dead, and not moved, this could also invite other problems... like gnats. There is no negotiation with Pharaoh at this point because the gnats were going to come whether he said yea or nay. Even if the Israelites had left that very second the gnats were going to come because of the smell of the frogs.

What's funny is that it says YHWH did what Moshe asked. But the actual request is hidden by a writers device. In other words there are so many quotes of who said what to whom and God said this to Moshe and Moshe said this and that to YHWH. But here there is no quote. It simply said he "cried out" about the frogs. What he actually said is not included. Why is that? Is it because the writer had to either explain or spin why it is that Moshe acknowledged Pharaoh's request but what happened was something different and undesirable? And what happened to the frogs the Egyptians summoned forth from the river? They must have died too which could be evidence of some other cause. Perhaps they were always going to die because they were poisoned. We don't know. All we really see is this attempt to cover up the fact that Pharaoh asked for one thing and got something else which would have naturally caused the next plague. However, the writer intervenes because he wants YHWH to have credit for the next plague, not the dead frogs which would have naturally brought it about. But why would the writer need to intervene so? Again, I don't think Pharaoh hardened his heart after seeing "relief". That's what the writer wants us to think. He's not a mind reader at all! How does he know that pharaoh's heart was hardened? I say... only because pharaoh refused to let the people go as commanded. And in this case it would be very logical for Pharaoh to keep to his position after not getting what he wanted and possibly even having a worse outcome than the frogs themselves. I've had a 'plague' of gnats in my house before. Frogs may have been preferable. The Egyptians could have killed the frogs themselves. Pharaoh wanted them removed as a true miracle because surely if thousands of frogs suddenly disappeared no one could argue against that. No science could have explained that and Pharaoh himself may have been converted. But since that's not what happened, Pharaoh had no reason to relent.

Again, why are Moshe and Aaron performing feats they should have already known the Egyptians could do? Why not do something radically different that none of them could explain? Why not make one of the pyramids disappear? Why not make gold coins appear in enough quantity to simply buy the freedom of each family? Why not simply teleport the Israelites out of there?

Good questions . I have a personal answer to this one, but I'll have to wait a bit until we hit the point I can tie things together.

Also...darned...in the slowness of the cafe's internet I forgot to add the Ichthys!!!

I couldn’t quite make out the question for this section so instead I’ll pick-up on something Alethea emphasised: Pharoah’s heart.

At various points in Exodus, Pharoah’s heart goes through various moods. It is hardened, it is stubborn, it is strengthened and it becomes heavy. Apologies if this is jumping ahead by this is the timeline:

Blood: Pharaoh’s heart “became hard” (7:22)
Frogs: Pharaoh “hardened his own heart” (8:15)
Gnats: Pharaoh’s heart “was hard” (8:19)
Flies: “Pharaoh hardened his own heart” (8:32)
Livestock die: Pharaoh’s heart “was hard” (9:7)
Boils: “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (9:12)
Hail: Pharaoh “hardened his own heart” (9:34)
Locusts: God announces that he has “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (10:1,10:20)
Darkness: God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (10:27)
Death of the firstborn: God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (11:10)

The pattern here is interesting. During the first five plagues Pharoah is choosing to be stubborn and arrogant (or that is his state already): he hardens his own heart, despite multiple opportunities to back-down.

By the plague of boils he is so invested in his pattern that he loses the ability to choose - he has lost his freewill. God (The Force) completely takes over here.

Despite this - redemption is still available - Pharoah has another chance, another choice. He chooses poorly again however and during the final three plagues he again becomes an agent, an NPC if you like. He acts as if there was no choice, he is blind to the options.

Eventually it takes the death of his son in the final plague to jolt him out of his selfish, power-craving, stubborn arrogance. Pharoah literally brought these plagues on himself and the Egyptian people - they could have been avoided. How much easier would it have been if he had learnt this lesson a little earlier!

The arc of this story, for me, isn’t about magic spells and miracles. It’s about choices, evidence, seeing another’s point of view and the traps of arrogance, stubbornness and failure to see choices where they exist. Any human behaviour can become habitual over time - and when it does we fail to appreciate what is actually going on, the fact that we have choices.

To this end, the Force can help us make good choices or bad - depending on our state of mind. If we are selfish and power hungry then it will help us make poor choices. When we feel like we have “no choice” but to act a certain way - The Force has largely taken over, for good or ill. When we don’t even notice that there is a choice, when we are acting automatically, The Force has completely taken over.

In this theologically dualistic paradigm the advice of this story is to choose good over bad, the light over the dark. Our choices and decisions can train our intuition and lead to the habituation of certain mindsets and certain behaviours. When we have completely let ourselves go, the Force is able to work through us. This story is of how the dark side (sin) will ruin us and the light side (God) will lead to union.

Moses is also being controlled by God here- he isn’t choosing to act the way he is either. I’ll leave you to decide whether he is acting well or poorly but, to me, it looks more like two Sith fighting than two Jedi . . .

Loudzoo wrote: I couldn’t quite make out the question for this section so instead I’ll pick-up on something Alethea emphasised: Pharoah’s heart.

To this end, the Force can help us make good choices or bad - depending on our state of mind. If we are selfish and power hungry then it will help us make poor choices. When we feel like we have “no choice” but to act a certain way - The Force has largely taken over, for good or ill. When we don’t even notice that there is a choice, when we are acting automatically, The Force has completely taken over.

In this theologically dualistic paradigm the advice of this story is to choose good over bad, the light over the dark. Our choices and decisions can train our intuition and lead to the habituation of certain mindsets and certain behaviours. When we have completely let ourselves go, the Force is able to work through us. This story is of how the dark side (sin) will ruin us and the light side (God) will lead to union.

Moses is also being controlled by God here- he isn’t choosing to act the way he is either. I’ll leave you to decide whether he is acting well or poorly but, to me, it looks more like two Sith fighting than two Jedi . . .

First off, very impressive break down of the progressive state of pharaoh's heart throughout the text. Secondly, I like the observation at the end. If anything, I concur.

I'm going to push back on one point just from my own opinion.

When it comes to choice and free will I think there are different schools of thought that include whether the Force has a mind/will of its own that is setapart ("holy") from all creation. I apologize to Alethea because I know this is way off topic, but I believe choice always exists as human will creates pathways like veins and arteries through which the Force flows. The Force is what animates us in the first place. The Force doesn't write books about itself. We do. Even when we think it is speaking through us it is our voice and our minds as the pathways through which it flows. When we don't even notice there is a choice in when we are blinding ourselves to the totality of the Force and how else it can manifest. Instead of opening ourselves to more possibilities we simply retreat into our shells, our bubbles, our tents, etc. and we demand that The Force moves in the direction that we ourselves desire to go.

And that includes whoever is writing this. They are telling their own story using their own cast of characters. Each character is shaped and molded into the story according to the direction the writers wants us, the readers, the observers, to go and to believe. If the writer was Egypt I have no doubt the same story would be perhaps unrecognizable because Moshe would be a terrorist. Think about it. Moses comes back after having left after murdering an Egyptian. He comes back, making a demand and Pharaoh's all like "I don't negotiate with terrorists" and then there are all these events that build up to their own 9-11. And Pharaoh, as the hero in this alternate reality story that I'm imagining, is the last line of defense to protect his people from this foreign god.

And it's not just about whether or not this foreign god can do harm to them but whether or not that god is true or false. If true, it could upset their whole religion. After all, in Christianity there are technically allowed to be more than one person as God and in Judaism only one God but in both there are no true or real gods outside of their religion. The closest Christians get is Satan.

This construct was most often the very premise for king's authority so who was Moshe to come in, claiming that his god was going to cause plagues to come against their nation? So therefore it was a much more revolutionary act than it is portrayed in the bible. I'm sure Muslim extremists are like: "if the president of the US would just listen we wouldn't have to commit these destructive acts of violence. It's clearly his fault." And because the "other side" can always use this justification is it every righteous or okay to use it in favor of whoever your god/God happens to be? Is it simply wrong on its face? I'm not trying to make a final judgment here. I just want to recognize that there are 2 sides to every story. Did they really have to kill people in order to leave? And did they really have to "borrow" gold and other valuables on their way out?

Exodus 8:18-19
Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said.

1) It may be more appropriate to say they stated it was the figure of A god, rather than God Himself. However, over at Force Academy, my friend Luciana (who majored in Anthropology with an Abrahamic focus) notes that it is quite possible the selection of the word "elohim" was meant to relay that the magicians acknowledged what was happening as the "Finger of Creation". With that in mind- If you were one of these magicians, what would you think of this situation?

2) If you were Pharaoh, what would you think of your magicians? If you have grown up with them this entire time, and then saw how a man unaligned with your gods had greater command over nature, how might your understanding change?

I wanted to include an observation of my own given the circumstances in the Biblical Story:

I've seen a LOT of speculation that the magicians were simply performing parlor tricks. A number of scholars believe that what the magicians were doing involved theatrics.

To me, this doesn't really jive well. Because we are not explained the scale, it would not be difficult for skilled magicians to craft a well-done ritual to bring up the lice. With an abundance of lice they could capture in secret, they could have easily figured out a way to have them release upon their command as they did all the previous plagues. In fact, if what some people assert (that they ran out of materials to perform the ritual), the magicians ability shouldn't have run out until the boils later down the line- when they would need some sort of chemical that could reproduce the same effect.

It just seems to me that if you can replicate what happened to the Nile, which appears to be the most difficult of the three tricks they did replicate, why was this the one that stopped them? Furthermore, I bring up again, that we are not told the scale by which the magicians were able to replicate two of the three either. The only thing we know for certain is that every last one of them produced a snake, and Aaron’s snake swallowed them all up.

We also know that the text of 18 and 19 explicitly states the magicians thought they could do it- otherwise they wouldn’t have tried or admitted something much higher was behind the plagues.

Whether the story is true or just a myth, this is one point I (personally) feel mainstream Christianity has gotten wrong. In terms of what the story is saying, it would very much appear to mean that the magicians were absolutely not working stuff you'd get at a magic show shop, and were working with something supernatural.

Many biblical scholars see an evolution of Yahweh through the early chapters of the Old Testament. Early Israelites were polytheistic and Yahweh was their god of metallurgy, and war – one god among many. Over time Yahweh becomes more powerful and is eventually revered as the Creator God and the one true God, as the Israelites adopt a monotheistic world view. The stories in Exodus are an important part of this elevation: Yahweh demonstrates his superiority over (the divine) Pharoah and this served two important narrative purposes. First it liberates the Israelites to allow them to return to their homelands and second, it augments Yahweh’s claim to head the Israelite pantheon.

Again, Moses was not an alien in Pharoah’s court – quite the opposite. He was part of Pharoah’s family and was using the same magical/supernatural knowledge and expertise as Pharoah’s magicians. The stories show that he (and Aaron) were more adept and the source of this power is attributed to their alignment with Yahweh.

If you were one of these magicians, what would you think of this situation?

I’d realise that that Moses / Aaron’s magic was stronger than mine and, to coin a biblical term, I would “be afraid”. Second, I would face a decision. Should I stick with Pharoah as my divine leader or should I join the Israelites? In any case I would have to deal with the reality that the apprentices (Moses and Aaron) had superseded the abilities of the masters who had taught them. This is an age-old story and one that we will all hopefully have to deal with at some point in our lives. It is an important lesson!

I agree with Alethea (if I understood her post correctly!) that if we take the use of magic at face value, the magicians’ magic and Moses / Aaron’s magic are not materially different in type, merely different in power. If we are to grant Moses / Aaron’s magic as real – we have to grant that of Pharoah’s magicians as real too.

If you were Pharaoh, what would you think of your magicians? If you have grown up with them this entire time, and then saw how a man unaligned with your gods had greater command over nature, how might your understanding change?

I’m not sure we can say that Moses / Aaron were unaligned with the Gods of Egypt. Pharoah could have explained their power away with any number of excuses. He evidently did this quite successfully as the Pharoaic lineage was not broken by these incidents – he retained power in Egypt despite these events. If I were Pharoah I would expel the lot of them – or ‘allow’ them to escape from bondage. A small price to pay given the threat of their power to Pharoah. The narrative in Exodus is consistent with this pragmatic, logical response from Pharoah. Pharoah’s private understanding may well have been altered by these events but he certainly wasn’t about to let that affect his public position.

What is interesting is that the Egyptians do not record these events themselves, as far as I’m aware. The Bible is the only source we have for these stories which at least suggests that these events were a big deal for the Israelites, but not for the Egyptians. The Egyptians were pretty good record-keepers and storytellers and although its possible that these events were expunged from their record it seems just as likely that the Israelites created these myths to meet their own backstory requirements!

I should add that the observation of God hardening Pharoah’s heart in different ways (from my last post) was taken from The Abingdon Introduction to The Bible (Kaminsky, Lohr & Reasoner). I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it but found it eventually! However, the interpretation was my own.

There isn't a well-defined writer of Genesis and Exodus (although Moses is ascribed them traditionally). If your claim is true that YHWH was one among a pantheon after Abrahamic times, what sort of evidence would be proving that?

The call of Abram narrative states that up until that point, his tribe was polytheistic. The Semitic peoples were nomadic until they settled in Egypt. It seems like it would be incredibly hard to find descriptions of the Semitic people in that period which you say was still fundamentally polytheistic.

The Genesis account has been read in opposition to many polytheistic myths (the enuma elish off the top of my head), but would be hard to read doubtfully given how frankly and poorly the author treats Abram (the pivotal figure) pre and post-covenant.

Rex - I don’t have any evidence of when precisely the Semitic tribes became monotheistic and I wasn’t saying they were still polytheistic in Egypt. The Bible infers it wasn’t a clean transition e.g.

“the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger” (Judges 2:11-12).

Several times over. They even chased after a goddess for some time- and God got angry. They set up an idol (golden calf) to be a god right after they were liberated.

What they proved is that faith is fickle. And even in their monotheistic times they couldn’t adhere to the law.

We’ll get to it later- but it’s of note that there is good reason Christ said that those which ask for a sign are evil and adulterous. It wasn’t that God wanted to send prophets, it’s that Israel needed them, lest they disbelieve their ancestors and chase after gods that didn’t have their best interests at heart.

No one seems to have pointed out that as far as Pharaoh is concerned (a) he is the hero of this story - the protector of order and the status quo - and (b) Moses and Aaron are clearly servants of some evil desert god.

No, really.

He has no evidence for this god having powers other than the destructive. It could be a relief that his magicians can't replicate these signs, because what sort of god do you have to worship in order to be summoning lice and darkness? It's not a sign of Moses' god having more power: From Pharaoh's point of view, it's a sign of that god being malevolent.

And that may be why Pharaoh continues to harden his heart against the request to go into the desert to pray. If this is what two of these people do when they happen to not get their way, what is the lot of them going to do out there in the desert with no supervision?