Moses Was An Egyptian

Moses was an Egyptian by education, training and culture. Moses made the ten commandments up because he was afraid and because he had ten fingers. A belief in the power of numbers, and in particular the number ten, is a part of the religion of numerology. Mathematics was a closely held secret of the Egyptian ruling classes.

Yes, Moses was afraid. Moses was human, and mostly human-centered. Moses was an untypical Israelite. He was educated, learned, politically and socially sophisticated.

He was brought up at Pharaoh's court, a Princess’s pet animal, accustomed to the halls and pathways of social, political and religious power. And still, in many ways, Moses was God’s tool. A winner! He’d led the Israelites out of Egypt!

God, according to the story, had helped Moses many times. God helped with dream interpretation, a big time skill in those days, like a National Security Advisor. God helped by drowning the army of Egypt in the Red Sea! A more practical application of God’s wroth - kings shouldn’t change their minds.

Moses was intelligent, skilled and highly educated by the Egyptian priesthood. He had to have been in despair for his people. Moses knew that he had a major problem in trying to lead his people to civilization and in a form that served God. He knew that there was a danger that his people would become just another band of ruffians wandering around in the desert.

Moses did not understand God’s Plan and message. Moses had lived most of his life in a highly artificial environment, that of the royal court of Egypt. He had not lived the life of a common citizen of Egypt, much less that life which was the lot of the Israelite slaves. Some things you cannot learn, except by living and growing up in a culture. Moses' understanding would always be affected by his upbringing.

In that misunderstanding, he tried to create a system fundamental to a new religion that he thought would work with his people, but one that circumvented the purposes of God. Moses tried to circumvent the basic human nature of the newly escaped tribes of Israel, who were reveling in the experience of lack of supervision and rules, because he didn’t understand it.

Basic human nature is God’s Plan for us. That is why it is basic.

Moses tried to find a way to a “quick start” for his former slave relatives and tribes of people toward civilized behavior. We modern, Twenty-first century, sophisticated, protected, and naive people forget reality. We really want to forget the real facts, as it is too uncomfortable to remember the realities of what slavery really means, and what cruelties our own ancestors did to living beings.

Slaves are treated like any other chattel livestock. Just like people treat horses, cows, dogs and cats today. We castrate them, dock them, selectively breed them, brand and kill them at a whim. That is, even, and especially, their breeding is controlled for the purposes of the masters. Face it, female human slaves are and were abused sexually as casually and as commonly and as openly and publicly as using a plastic spoon at a picnic in a park. Male human slaves were also abused, and in much the same way.

Every people enduring slavery has had any semblance of family, clan, tribe, community, or society destroyed, or perverted over time. Morality is what the “owner master” says it is. The culture of the master group gradually becomes the culture of the enslaved group. The language changes, is modified, or even lost. Religion is changed, modified, and possibly lost. Everything changes for the enslaved group. And the results of slavery echo down the long halls of society for hundreds of years.

It takes centuries for culture to reassert itself, if, indeed, it is possible at all. Slavery is still continuing to affect us here in modern America. After all, it has only been one hundred forty years since emancipation. In terms of meaningful change to human culture, that is a very short period of time.

Moses had an enormous task. God probably doesn’t give easy tasks to anybody. Moses was, after all, a very admirable character and a fine example of leadership using brain power instead of constant use of military power. He was starting from a very low level with his Israelites and he had a long way to go. He was at the start, at the bottom, and all directions looked like up.

Moses simply tried a short-cut. Remember the “punishment” of Moses? To see, but not enter “The Promised Land.” So close and yet so far. Forty and more years of good and faithful service in trying circumstances, working with impossible people, and impossible conditions, make one little mistake and what do you get? (Numbers 20:2-13) You can carry the ball to the one yard line, but someone else gets to make the touchdown. Bummer.

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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