Uncle Bob's Red Flannel Bible Camp - The Book of Exodus: Uncle Bob's Red Flannel Bible Camp, #3

Chapter One – Up From The Water

When Jacob finally got to dying back in the end of the Book of Genesis his sons returned his body to his home in Canaan and they made certain that he was buried good and properly but they were awfully worried about the possibility that his son Joseph would seek vengeance out on his brothers who had traded him into slavery - now that his father was dead and buried.

And if you are feeling a little bit lost – well, I already told you that you ought to read the first book first just one page ago and it really isn’t my fault at all that you are trying to jump onto a moving train like you are.

You can lead a camel to water but just don’t expect him to use a bar of soap.

In any case, Joseph had made up his mind to make peace and he continued to forgive his brothers and he ruled over them all with compassion and kindness and when he finally died as well they buried him right beside his father Jacob with all honor and due respect.

While Joseph was busy dying a new Pharaoh came unto Egypt.

He didn’t care for the Hebrews of Joseph one little bit.

They take all of the good pastureland, the new Pharaoh said. And if there is a war they might accidentally forget their allegiance to Egypt and turn against us.

So he decided to create a rule that all Hebrews would be kept as slaves of the state and forced to work in the brickyards and the mud pits that were overseen by fierce whip-cracking Egyptian foremen.

Only the Hebrews seemed to thrive under this gross mistreatment.

This slavery business isn’t working the way that I thought it would. There is more of them Hebrews than ever, the Pharaoh complained. I will issue a royal edict that commands my soldiers to throw every new born Hebrew son into the deep end of the Nile River and drown them all, good and proper. I bet you that will slow down the population statistics some.

Which was pretty extreme as far as royal edicts went – but Pharaohs are like that on their worst of days.

The soldiers fell to their task with unholy relish – and maybe some nasty ketchup too - plucking each newborn child from its mother’s arms and heaving them gleefully into the crocodile-riddled Nile.

They sure make a pretty good splash when they hit the water, one soldier observed. It is a crying shame about all of that crocodile action spoiling their chances of drowning properly.

I guess you had to look hard to see the good in any job you were doing once you got past the benefits package and the good hours.

Well around that time a Hebrew named Amram and his wife Jochebed begat themselves a young baby that they decided to call Moses.

Oh Mother, Miriam, their six year old daughter said. You have given birth to a baby boy child who will grow up to deliver up the people of Israel from the cruel tyranny of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

Gee, Amram said. The things kids say.

Maybe so, Jochebed said. But all the same I think we ought to be pretty careful about who we tell about this boy child.

Do you really think folks aren’t going to notice your sudden change in dress size? Amram asked.

Just tell them I’m on the Paleo diet, Jochebed said.

Through stealth and subterfuge Amram and Jochebed managed to keep Moses hidden from the Egyptian baby-drowning soldiers for three whole months before they got wind that the jig was finally up.

They know that we are hiding our baby, Amram said. I figure that we have got one chance left. Let’s get our six year old daughter Miriam to hide Moses in a boat made out bulrushes covered in tar and pitch to waterproof it. I figure the boy will float safely down the Nile until somebody loving finds him and raises him as their own child.

You have got it all figured out, don’t you? Jochebed asked. What about the crocodiles?

I have been thinking on it for a while, now, Amram admitted. I’ll make sure the bulrush basket boat is sprayed with crocodile repellant before I throw the basket into the Nile.

So why ask Miriam? Jochebed asked. Why don’t we just do it ourselves and be done with it.

On account of they might be watching us, Amram said. The way I figure it they won’t likely be watching Miriam, what with her being six years old and all – so this way Moses will have a fair chance – in a bulrush basket-boat in the middle of a deep-running crocodile-infested river.

That makes good sense to me, Jochebed said. I knew I didn’t marry you just for your manly good looks.

So that was exactly what Amram and Jochebed did.

They slipped the basket-boat to Miriam who carried it down to the thicketed end of the Nile, making like she was fetching water or something. Then Miriam knelt down in the bulrushes and she watched that bulrush basket boat bob down the river until a handmaid to Bithia, daughter of the Pharaoh, spotted the little bulrush basket boat.

Fetch that little bulrush basket boat right on up here, Bithia told her handmaiden. I want to have a look and see what is in the bottom of that there bulrush basket boat.

So her handmaiden brought the bulrush boat to the Pharaoh’s only daughter Bithia.

Bithia looked in the bulrush boat and she saw a tiny baby boy, wriggling and grinning but it wasn’t until he started crying that he won Bithia’s heart. You see, there is nothing in the world that has more power over a woman’s heart and good sense as the tears of a three month old baby.

This has got to be one of those Hebrew babies, Bithia said. One of the ones that my Daddy is so all fired upset about. All I have to do is to call one of my Daddy’s soldiers and he will take this baby off of my hands and throw him back into the river for the crocodiles to feed upon.

You know what that gives you, don’t you? Bithia’s handmaid asked. Fat babies give you fat crocodiles. That’s awfully good eating.

But then the baby cried again and Bithia touched her knuckle gently against the tears and with that single wet knuckle she was hopelessly done for.

What a sweet little baby, Bithia said. I am not going to tell my father about it. Instead, I am going to keep him and I am going to call him Moses because I drew him up out of the water.

So she told everyone that she had just had a baby and she named that baby Moses – which was actually the very same name that the baby had been given by his actual parents – Amram and Jochebed.

Moses – as you might know – means from the water.

Which is one heck of a funny sounding coincidence when you stop and think about it.

Don’t think so hard.

You’ll sprain a muscle in your brain.

Chapter Two – Murder Will Out

Some time passed and Moses grew up under the care of Bithia and became quite well known in the Egyptian community.

That Moses is a fine fellow, some folks said. He is going to go far in this world.

The trouble started – as most trouble does – at work.

Moses was out in the mud fields and he noticed a soldier was beating on a Hebrew slave – which presented young Moses with a very serious quandary to consider.

You see, by now, Bithia had already explained to Moses that he wasn’t exactly what you would call a full-blooded Egyptian. The way that she told the story she adopted Moses from a Hebrew family who were raising him for her.

Now I know full well that there more than some of you folks who are waiting for Yul Brynner to step out onto the stage with a hearty So let it be written, so let it be done. – but the sad fact is that no matter how entertaining that movie with Charlton Heston was – it just didn’t have a whole lot to do with what was written down in the Bible. And that is what we are dealing with today – is my own retelling of what you might read in the Holy Bible.

So work with me on this, would you?

Moses stood there in the mud field staring at that Egyptian soldier beating on one of Moses own people. So Moses took a quick look over both his shoulders – once to his left and once to his right – and then once he was certain that there were no witnesses he walked right up and knocked that soldier down so hard that he wasn’t going to get up again on this side of existence.

Meaning, Moses killed him.

And then, just as cool as an ice cold cucumber, Moses dragged the body out of sight and buried the body in some mud.

Now, I am guessing that Moses thought that he was going to get away this on account of he spent so much time making sure that nobody was looking. The Bible doesn’t really say what happened to the slave that the soldier was beating on but I am going to take a stab in the dark and say that the slave was either beaten unconscious, killed to the death – or else Moses just waited until the soldier had got tired of beating on that slave and had wandered off to be killed.

The Bible doesn’t say either way.

I am just making an uneducated guess – which is how most stories that you hear in this world first get started – including those stories that you see in the newspaper.

Sooner or later it just comes down to somebody making an uneducated guess – and not all the university degrees on the planet are going to change that.

Come the next day Moses went back to the mud fields.

I don’t really know if his conscience was bothering him or if he just hadn’t heard that old theory about a murderer always returning to the scene of the crime – but he was standing there looking all noble and Egyptian-like when these two Hebrews got into a fight in front of him and Moses stepped in between those two Hebrews and said Okay boys, break it up.

Why? asked the first Hebrew. So you can kill us like you killed that Egyptian soldier yesterday?

Moses was stunned, like he had just been slapped in the face with a fresh-caught flounder.

How did you know that? Moses asked. I made sure that nobody was looking.