ISRAEL AS INSTRUMENT OF THE DIVINE REVELATION

 

After the Adamic sin, humanity separated itself from God and with the passing of time it no longer knew him. God then separated a people to relate to him and reveal himself to the world. Around the middle of the second millennium before Christ, these people, Israel, were slaves in Egypt, the greatest economic and military power of the time. Thus, according to the records of the book of Exodus, God appeared to Moses and ordered him to attend before Pharaoh to mediate the liberation of the people.

What argument would be so strong for the Egyptian leader to give up this valuable slave labor, the Jews? Aaron, who accompanied Moses before the Pharaoh, said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness'" (Exodus 5:1). After, Moses and Aaron explained that it was to allow the people to walk three days in the wilderness to offer a sacrifice to the LORD (Exodus 5:3).It must have seemed like a joke to Pharaoh what Moses told him, because he answered: "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go" (Exodus 5:2).

This is the core of this part of the Scripture  (the plagues of Egypt): God's revelation to humanity. A long time had passed since Adam, and the people no longer had knowledge of God, the Creator of all things. There were many gods in the world, fruit of human imagination and desire for Him. YHAWEH, then, will use Israel's deliverance from Egyptian captivity to introduce himself to men: "the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD". But only words will not convince Pharaoh, that is why God said to Moses: "I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites" (Exodus 7:4).

So through his judgments, the plagues, God revealed himself to the world, showing that the Egyptian gods were nothing. The river Nile, worshiped as the god Hapi had its waters turned to blood; the frogs, worshiped as the goddess Hect who, according to them, helped the parturients, became disgusting because of their infestation all over Egypt. The bulls, worshiped as the gods Apis and Mnevis, were all killed. The sun, worshipped as the god Ra was outraged, because it didn't shine for three days, due to the dense darkness that came over Egypt.

So, through Moses' words these plagues happened, and the Egyptians saw that their gods could not do anything before the LORD. But the hardest blow was the death of all the firstborn Egyptians, including Pharaoh's eldest son. This one, considered divine, could not stop the power of the words spoken by Moses. Egypt was devastated by the hand of God, and after that judgment, Israel was liberated. How can we understand this divine action over Egypt? And what about the death of the first-born? Would God take pleasure in evil? How to understand this question?  This subject is for the next post.

Antônio Maia – M.Div.

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