Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16)
LA JOLLA, California — This parasha covers the last three plagues, followed by exit from Egypt, with reminders to remember and celebrate the Exodus annually. I have chosen to pursue two passages, with regard to possible similarity to other ancient literatures.
Exodus 10:1-2 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart (hik-bade-ti et libo).*..in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and of your sons’ sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians…”
This passage contains two points of interest for me:
a) Among Egyptians, there is a well-described myth of a “heart-weighing ceremony.” Upon death, each human heart is weighed against a feather. Only he whose heart’s evil does not outweigh the feather is admitted to Paradise. To an English reader, a heavy heart implies grieving, which is probably why translators chose hardened.
Pharaoh’s heart was heavy because he was malevolent, not primarily stubborn. It would appear that the Egyptian myth’s language influenced the Hebrew text that has come down to us.
Why not? We retain expressions in English, e.g. “throwing down the gauntlet,” which to today’s readers is not meaningful, since we don’t know what a medieval gauntlet was or who threw it!
It should also be remembered that the Bible considered the heart to be the seat of the intellect. The Hebrew word lev for heart often functions in much the same way as “brain” or “mind.” Thus if the heart was ‘heavy,’ it was impaired, which suggests that Pharaoh’s brain was addled! [1]
b) The passage implies a prophecy that future generations will observe in a certain way. In fact the passage was composed centuries after the so-called Exodus, i.e. when seder practices were in place. By placing the ‘prophecy’ in a time setting in which the Exodus ‘took place,’ it would appear to the discerning reader that the writer was guilty of “predicting the past.”
A pursuit in the internet yields plentiful data that ‘prophecies after the event’ (Latin-vaticinia ex eventu) were common in ancient writings, from Egypt’s hieroglyphics to Mesopotamia’s cuneiform, as early as 2000 BC and prevalent for at least 1000 years. It occurs frequently in the Hebrew Bible, from which the book of Daniel is commonly cited as the extreme example. Post event predictions have found a place in many of the world’s religions well into the Common Era, even to the present day.
Religious leaders, even some scholars of ancient pagan religions, tend to reject ‘vaticinia ex eventu‘ since it means, disastrously e.g. “the Holy Bible contains a moral stain of deception.
Why did ancient writers employ this writing convention? Perhaps the most widespread explanation for this is that the authors used fake predictions to bolster the credibility of the real prophecies** that sometimes appeared within the same documents. We moderns ‘know’ a prophecy was real if it wasn’t fulfilled! [2]
II. Exodus 11:2-3 God: ‘”Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.” The Lord disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people…
I inquired in the Internet if other ancient nations released valuables along with freed slaves.
Manumission is the term for the release of slaves.
a) Ancient Egypt- Its actual record of slavery is mixed, in part because of changing dynasties and their definition(s) of slavery. Slavery did exist, at least since around 1550-1175 BC, i.e. period of The New Kingdom.
Today’s scholarly consensus is that slaves did not build the Great Pyramids. They were built by paid Egyptians.
Slavery in Egypt was quite different from slavery in ancient Greece and Rome. Debt slaves or prisoners of war were at times set free after a certain period. Also the trading of slaves in Egypt was on a small scale compared to that of Rome.
Officially, slaves in Egypt were treated well. In the Book of The Dead, a virtue recited on behalf of the dead was to have “not domineered over slaves.” A figurine of a serf was commonly buried along with a ruler, ostensibly to serve him in the afterlife.
Manumission was known to occur. Here is a translated written testimony of a slaveholder: “The slave…my own…shall no longer be stopped at any of the king’s gates. I have given him the daughter of my sister…as wife…and have bequeathed him a portion equal to my wife’s…As for him, he has emerged from need and is poor no longer.” [3]
b) Roman Empire- Legislation put limits on the number of slaves that could be freed via wills, which suggests that slavery was common. A slave had no personhood and was protected under law as his “master’s property.”
Manumission was more common for older slaves, i.e. having become less useful with age. The prospect of manumission worked as an incentive for slaves to be industrious and compliant. Roman slaves were paid a wage, which they could save up to buy freedom. Once freed, a former slave had his head shaved and wore a soft felt undyed conical hat as his emblem of liberty. He customarily took his former owner’s family name. The master became his patron, and the freed slave became a client who owed obligations to the former master. A freed slave became a citizen, with limited rights. He could become a civil servant, but could not hold higher office. He could engage in business and become wealthy. His children had full legal rights. The poet Horace was such a son of a freedman.
c) Ancient Greece- The details about slaves were much like that of Rome. There was a situation in Athens, which liberated all its slave soldiers after the Battle of Arginusae (406 BC). This recalls the Hebrew situation during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem (586 BC), when the prophet Jeremiah urged the Judeans to free their Hebrew slaves. (Jer. 34:8-11)
A freed slave in Greece could not become a citizen, but was classified as a foreign national with limited rights. He was bound to continued duty to the master, and had to live nearby. He could be severely punished for violations. Sometimes, through payments, an ex-slave could liberate himself from such residual duties.
***
*literally ‘made his (lev) heart heavy’
[1] https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/history-ideas/2018/04/has-th…sh-translation-of-pharoahs-heart-was-hardened-been-wrong-all-along/
** Some 1497 papers listed in ‘Academia,edu’ discuss Old Testament Prophecy
[2] http://www..barkhuis.nl/product_info.php?products_id=211
[3] https:// en.wiikipedia.org//wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt (also) https://anncientegypt.fandom.com/wiki/Slavery
*
Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.