Torah Tuesday - Exodus

[@tpark89]

Thank you so much for this. My wife and I really appreciate your insight and expertise.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Thanks for watching!

[@gardengirlmary]

This is so interesting, thank you!

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad it was helpful.

[@danielpearson8990]

Great insight and well presented. I love that you take these complex ideas and strange passages and break them down and I walk away thinking," of course that's what's going on, it's plain as day". This really calls out that it's always been about allegiance to God, not about law.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!

[@angelikaragsdale5585]

walking with God is very serious business. Wow what you, Dr Imes unpack here is amazing and makes me think a lot. How often do we lean on our national identity, our skin color, denomination or even the mission we understood God gave us or who I am connected with in this world. Being sure of my identity and belonging in Christ is so important within a truly circumcised heart.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

So glad this was hepful!

[@JacquelineRPrice]

I hadn't made the connection between this incident and the accounts of Balaam and Jacob before. I find this fascinating. It's as if Yahweh wants to ensure that His chosen vessels to do His will aren't exempt from the holiness requirements of anyone else. As if to say, "Don't get a big head thinking that you're better than anyone else. I already dealt with a rebel among my celestial servants who thought he was more deserving of worship than others and I had to dispatch him. Don't think I'll spare you from the same fate."

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Exactly!

[@steveandlorithomas]

'Appreciate this series. You are giving us a lot to think about!

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Glad you're enjoying it, Steve!

[@jshankkk]

Wow this was awesome, totally helped me understand this passage more! Thank you!!

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Glad it was helpful!

[@let-there-be-light]

Caught my attention! Thank you for the illumination.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Glad you appreciated this!

[@nancyho5617]

This makes so much sense! I need to write it I my Bible.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

So glad it was helpful!

[@drewsgotblues]

Wow, God testing people before they begin their journey? Powerful! Maybe not to harm but to protect. He is so good.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Yes, he is!

[@WayneVA1]

Well done, Carmen. Good explanation. When references are confusing, you do not dismiss them as mistakes or errors in the text. Stop worrying about powerful Pharoah. Fear YHWH only. You do what YHWH tells you, otherwise this high-stakes mission is NOT going to work! Get with YHWH’s program Moses! Great explanation, Prof Imes! ✝📖👑

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Thanks, Wayne! Glad you found this helpful.

[@davidkraeuter4598]

You mentioned in your video that their were similarities between the Jacob story and the Moses story. I have actually thought that in your last few Torah Tuesday videos that there were some significant similarities between the two stories. Moses Story Summary (Exodus 2-4) and Jacob (Genesis 27-33) Does something that causes him to flee his home. He then ends up at a well. Waters the flocks for the daughter of a man Lives with the man Marries one of the daughters Has a kid with the woman Heads back home Has a confrontation with God about their identity Jacob poses as Esau to deceive Isaac (Genesis 27) and so in Genesis 32 God asks him what his name is. Moses' identity is in question as to whether he is an Israelite or an Egyptian. Meets their brother before they make it back to their home I am also wondering about the parallel between Abraham traveling with his son and a donkey where he is asked to give up his son and a similar issue with Moses not circumcising his son. It seems like these parallels should give some time for meditation and can help to provide clarification on what is happening in the other story. What do you think?

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Excellent observations! Yes, there are so many parallels. It would be fun to write a commentary on Genesis next so that I could slow down long enough to discover and meditate on all these parallels! In Rabbi David Fohrman's book, 'The Exodus You Almost Passed Over,' he points out a number of other parallels between Joseph's experience in Egypt in Genesis and the exodus story. Fun stuff!

[@davidkraeuter4598]

@@CarmenJoyImesPhD I would love to see a Genesis commentary by you. I have picked up quite a few different ideas from Rabbi Forhman's work. Thank you for all your work. It is extremely helpful.

[@tarjeibjerkedalene]

So good video. I think of Jacob when he is old and is going to die. I have hear that Jacob wonder if Joseph ses him as his father or pharao. Theme: who is your father. Is there a theme connection there?

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Great thought! Rabbi David Fohrman talks about this in his book "The Exodus You Almost Passed Over." He shows lots of parallels between the Joseph story and the exodus. He especially points out that it would have been socially awkward and even offensive for Joseph to ask Pharaoh for permission to leave and bury his father in Canaan. His insistence on burying his father there and his insistence that the Israelites take his own bones with him when they leave is telling: Joseph seems himself as Jacob's son, a son of the covenant, not as Pharaoh's son.

[@tarjeibjerkedalene]

@@CarmenJoyImesPhD Hi. Thanks for the tip. I started reading the book. Hooked. When reading about the book on Amazon I noticed that Rabbi David Fohrman is part of Aleph Beta and that is the video I watched where the Who is your father theme was.

[@yontzan2421]

Wow, fascinating; I can feel the identity crisis - seeing that when Jethro's daughters 1st encountered him, they called him the "Egyptian" and he names his first son a stranger in a foreign land ... and that he was going to face-off with his Egyptian brother who was now Pharaoh. Do you see any merit in this view i.e. his step-brother was now Pharaoh, which may explain his reluctance in accepting the commission and how God's curious statement in Ex 4:14 that Aaron his brother, "the Levite", brought about the change of heart (i.e. he had no idea that Aaron was his brother up to that point).

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

All we can do is speculate regarding Moses' relationship to the current Pharaoh when he returns. We don't know which pharaoh it was, so it's impossible to know how many wives he had, how many children, how well they all knew each other, etc. It's possible they had a relationship, but the text doesn't divulge this. The movie Prince of Egypt offers one possible reconstruction, but it seems implausible to me that Pharaoh only had one daughter, who was already raising the heir to the throne when she found Moses...

[@gardengirlmary]

Do you think it is Amenhotep II

[@blakewidmer]

Re-orientation of who we should fear makes a lot of sense of this context, I had never appreciated the parallel with God having just told him that those in Egypt seeking his life were dead. Sometimes good news can get us a little too high on ourselves and we need a reminder to bring us back down to earth a bit. There is still One greater to fear (Matthew 10).

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Indeed! We think of the exodus as a "get out of jail free" card, when in reality it was a transfer of authority from Pharaoh to Yahweh.

[@blakewidmer]

@@CarmenJoyImesPhD Ah yes, that helps me too, putting on a wider biblical theology lens. Michael Morales made a similar point in his book about the hebrew words for "serve" and "house"...either we can function as true image bearers and serve/worship in His house or we can go our own way and we will toil in slavery in building pharaoh's store house. We all worship/serve a master. Who will it be?

[@AlexAgapanthis]

Fascinating! Really chewing on the identify question: Is Moses the firstborn of Pharaoh or the firstborn of Yahweh?

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Yes! (Or alternatively, is Gershom the one who was at risk since he's Moses' firstborn? The Hebrew text doesn't specify.)

[@PSU8387]

What are your thoughts on the possibility of "him" referring to Moses' son, especially coming on the heels of YHWH's claim that he will kill Pharaoh's first born son? So, could it be that both Pharaoh's and Moses's sons are under threat from YHWH? Thank you for the informative series on Exodus.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Yes, that's a real possibility. The "hims" are all ambiguous in this passage, so YHWH could be trying to kill Moses' firstborn son.

[@AlexAgapanthis]

this crossed my mind too during the video. really interesting possibility to consider.

[@nicoleodaniel8533]

That's really interesting! I always thought Moses was quite brave for standing up to Pharaoh and leading the Israelites. But Moses first had to have a healthy fear of the Lord and see that God is the one Moses should worry about if he didn't do what he was told.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Indeed!

[@gardengirlmary]

I thought that God tried to kill Moses because Moses asked "please send someone else". This is like disobedience. That the message of Exodus 4:24 was God's wrath and the disobedient intent of Moses was equivalent to sin=disobedience = death. But that there is forgiveneas of sins was because of the shedding of blood. (Hebrews 9:22)

[@qcbtbx]

Serving the Lord is serious business!

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

No kidding!

[@let-there-be-light]

Interesting on 'verifying identity' - Moses 'return to my brothers' (v18), the 'Moses' called and commissioned by God, these are not the identity God wanted. The idenity is not in racial or ethnicity or church or denomination, neither in the 'God called me', neither of association of the 'someone' in status and prominence like Pharaoh but in a truly broken and circumcised heart in the fear of God. God is non-negotiatable in His standard.

[@isaacwillis725]

Also seems that The previous major scene between God and Moses is unresolved. God agrees to have Aaron be his mouth piece and maybe yells at Moses for being so reluctant to obey God’s commands?! Then in that place of not fully being obedient, he doesn’t circumcise his sons?? Seems possibly very rebellious to me.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Good point! The issue of Aaron's involvement and Moses' reluctance will come up again in chapter 6 (twice!). It's an ongoing issue for Moses.

[@flematicoreformandose5046]

Intuition tells me that Moses could not believe that Yahweh would kill Pharaoh's firstborn son, since he was his stepbrother. Perhaps he did not intend to announce the death of Pharaoh's firstborn. And that Moses did not know that later he did not know that all the firstborn of Egypt would die including the first offspring of the Egyptians' cattle.Moses would have had a heart attack from fright.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Thanks for your comment, Felix! You are conflating generations. The Pharaoh of Moses' upbringing is not the same Pharaoh of his return. The second Pharaoh might have been his adoptive brother, making his firstborn a nephew, but we don't know how many daughters Pharaoh had or how the succession worked exactly. It's impossible to be sure which Pharaohs they were.

[@flematicoreformandose5046]

@@CarmenJoyImesPhD Thanks also to you. Either way he was the first or second Pharaoh, they are descendants of royal lineage, and Moses' adoptive family was that lineage. I guess announcing the death of Pharaoh's firstborn was disconcerting for Moses.

[@tchittom]

Perhaps a bit of redaction theory: this story feels off because it is of itself a single story placed here for this purpose by a later redactor? // Didn’t the Egyptians also practice circumcision? I know that other peoples did. And, frankly, how often does one bare one’s genitals in the pursuit of open diplomacy with heads of state? // Perhaps there is something about land here-gods tied to their lands. Moses would be on pagan soil without a mark of divine protection? // What’s needed is an Abigail to make human sense of this testosterone-powered tomfoolery.

[@CarmenJoyImesPhD]

Yes, the Egyptians practiced circumcision (at puberty). One theory is that the foreskin of Moses' son is touched to Moses' own genitals (his "feet") as a way of ritually re-circumcising him as a covenant member. There may be some precedent for seeing it as a mark of divine protection, since it in fact saves someone's life here and the language is parallel to the Passover text later, where blood provides protection. Thanks for your thoughts!