Exodus 5 - 11: Let Us Go, Or Else!

Note:  Sorry this is so long, but it just all goes together...

Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and ask if they could all take a three-day trek into the wilderness for a sacrifice and feast.

Pharaoh says, "HA! Get back to work. Know what? Work just got harder. We're not going to give you straw for your bricks anymore. Get your own damn straw. Oh, but we still need just as many bricks. Hop to it. Those pyramids don't build themselves yanno."

They start gathering straw and complain, "This sucks. Why are you doing this to us?"

Pharaoh answers, "Hey, you have time for feasts, you have time to get straw."

Moses says to God, "I told you this wasn't going to be easy. You're mean to us."

"Now, now," says God. "Not so fast. I'm listening, and I'll get you out. Patience. Go tell him to let you go."

"Sigh, fine, but I don't know why he's going to listen to me. I'm not even circumcised."

"Hey, don't worry. I'll tell you what to say. But no, it's not going to be easy. He's not going to let you go. I thought I told you that. So when you go in, show them that trick where you turn the staff into a snake."

Moses and Aaron go in to Pharaoh and ask him to let them go. Aaron tosses his staff down and it turns into a snake.

"Cool trick," says Pharaoh, summoning his court magicians. They all toss their staffs down and they turn into snakes too. But Aaron's snake eats all their snakes.

"Yeah, know what?" says Pharaoh. "Get back to work. And you owe us all staffs."

"Ok, ok," says God to Moses as he's leaving the Pharaoh's house. "Time for plan B." And he whispers the plan.

The next morning Moses goes out to the Nile while Pharaoh is there washing up. He reaches out his staff and touches it to the water and all the water turns to blood, all the fish die, and the water is undrinkable.

"Take that," says Moses.

"Big deal... my magicians can do that too," says Pharaoh.

Seven days later Moses visits Pharaoh and says, "Let us go, or you'll be plagued with frogs!"

"Frogs?" says Pharaoh. "Whatever. Get back to work."

You think it's no big deal until they're all over the place.

Aaron stretches out his staff and the land is suddenly covered with frogs. But Pharaoh's magicians can do the same, so Pharaoh is not impressed.

But he is annoyed. "Alright, listen," he says, kicking a frog off his foot. "You get rid of these damn frogs and I'll let you guys go have your feast."

So Moses calls out to God and the frogs all die. They pile them all in big smelly heaps.

"Thanks," says Pharaoh, "but I changed my mind. No feast."

So Aaron strikes the dust of the ground with his staff and causes a plague of gnats. The Pharaoh's magicians try to make gnats, but they don't know this trick. They suggest that maybe Pharaoh might want to take these guys a little seriously. Pharaoh says, "Meh. It's just gnats. Not like it's flies or locusts or anything."

Moses goes to Pharaoh the next day and says, "Let us go or I'll cover your people with flies." The next day all the Egyptians are plagued by flies.

Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron. "Hey, how about you guys hold your feast right here and get rid of these flies?"

"No can do," says Moses. "We need to go three days away for our sacrifices to be acceptable."

"Fine. Take your walk. But get rid of the flies."

Moses asks God to get rid of the flies and they all disappear.

"Thanks," says Pharaoh, "but I changed my mind. No feast."

Moses tells Pharaoh, "If you don't let us go, all your animals will die tomorrow. But all ours will be ok."

"Yeah right," says Pharaoh, and the next day, all the Egyptian's animals die.

"You guys suck," says Pharaoh.

The next day God tells Moses and Aaron to take handfuls of ashes and throw them in the air. They do this and suddenly all the Egyptians are covered in boils.

"Not funny," says Pharaoh.

The next morning Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, "Let us go, or tomorrow I'll bring down a giant hail storm."

"Pttt, whatever," says Pharaoh and the next day the hail comes down and destroys trees and crops and kills everyone who is outside. Pharaoh calls them in and says, "Alright alright! Stop the hail and I'll let you go!"

Moses goes out and stops the hail.

"Thanks," says Pharaoh, "but I changed my mind. No feast."

The next morning Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, "Let us go, or tomorrow I'll bring locusts."

Pharaoh's servants plead, "This is getting just plain silly. Let them go."

"Fine," says Pharaoh. "The men can go have their feast."

"Oh no," says Moses. "We all have to go. Kids and wives too. It's a family thing."

"Screw that," says Pharaoh. "Just the men, or no feast."

BUGS!!!

So Moses brings down locusts on the Egyptians. Pharaoh calls them in and says, "Alright alright! Stop the locusts and I'll let you go!"

Moses goes out and stops the locusts.

"Thanks," says Pharaoh, "but I changed my mind. No feast."

The next day God tells Moses to bring on darkness. He raises his staff and everything becomes dark. After three days Pharaoh calls them in and says, "Ok, you can all go have your sacrifices and feast with your families, but leave your livestock here."

"No," says Moses. "We need all those. You know... for the burnt offerings. God likes those so we might need all our animals."

"No deal," says Pharaoh.

God pulls Moses aside. "Ok," he says. "Time to play hardball."

"Pharaoh," says Moses, "if you don't let us go, the firstborn of every Egyptian household will die, including firstborn slaves and cattle. But our people will be fine."

"Do your worst," says Pharaoh.

Genesis Chapters 1 - 3: Let there be light and big tempting apples!

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

How pretty is that? I think that's the part that everyone knows.

Day 1: God makes light, then separates day and night. Awesome.

Day 2: God makes an expanse (or a firmament) and separates the waters under the expanse from the waters above the expanse. He calls this Heaven. This is kind of odd.... it sounds like Heaven is a layer of space between two layers of water. I'm guessing that the top layer of water might be clouds.

Day 3: God makes dry land separated from water, then made plants and fruit trees.

Day 4: God makes some more lights - sun, moon, and stars to separate day and night. We kind of already had this in day 1, but now these lights also help us figure out seasons, days, and years. So let there be more specific light.

Day 5: Fish and birds.

Day 6: Animals, creeping things, and beasts. After he makes the animals, he makes man and woman and tells them to go check out their new digs.

[Chapter 2] Day 7: He is understandably exhausted from all this creating and takes a day off.

After this, Chapter 2 gets a little confusing. It’s like the creation story starts over again, but in a slightly different order. Someone explained to me that the first chapter is just a summary and then the second part is the more detailed telling of the story. But the sequence is still off.

The previous chapter says Day 3 was “plant day.” Now in chapter two it says that before there were bushes or plants, God takes some dust and makes man by blowing into its nostrils. THEN he makes the garden in Eden and pops man down in there. Then a bit later he notices the man is lonely so he makes some animals and birds for him, even though in the previous chapter Day 5 was “bird day” and Day 6 was “beasts/creeping things/man day.”

Regardless, the man is still lonely and needs a helper, so God knocks him out, takes a rib, and makes him a woman and they get to run around naked with the explicit warning not touch that pretty tree in the middle of the garden OR YOU SHALL SURELY DIE!!!

Why have a forbidden death-tree in the middle of the garden? That's like putting a box of donuts in a fat person's kitchen and saying, "Don't eat these! Or you'll get high cholesterol and diabetes and DIE!!!" It's just asking for trouble.

We know how the rest of this goes in Chapter 3. The snake says to Eve, “Stop being all dramatic, you won’t actually die. That fruit will let you guys know good and evil like God, so it’s pretty awesome.” Eve somehow falls for this argument and eats it and passes some along to Adam and he eats it and they realize that they’re naked and make some quick fig leaf clothing.

They hear God walking in the garden and they hide. God finds them out and wants to know why they’re wearing fig leaves and asks if they ate the fruit off the inconveniently placed temptation tree.

"Not MY fault!"

Adam points to Eve. "She gave it to me!"

Eve points to the snake. "The snake tricked me!"

But the snake was right… They don’t die. Not immediately anyway. Maybe they would have been immortal if they hadn't eaten it, but there's nothing that says that specifically.

So, God is understandably annoyed with everyone and doles out some harsh punishments. He makes snakes crawl on their bellies from now on (I’m assuming then that they used to have legs) and makes Eve’s childbirth painful and makes her subservient to her husband. Adam now has to work and farm his own food instead of just romping around without a care in the world eating the things that God provided. They get kicked out of the garden and God puts a guard at the tree so people leave it the heck alone.