Hijrah: Renungan dan Iltizam

Looks like I'm a day later than Ben, vunce again. :) While Ben, I'm not sure exactly how you could have forgotten your username (did you mean your password?), I'll try to do what I can to rectify the situation.

Unlike Ben, I've not been disconnected from the computer for a week. My only alibi for this delayed entry is my own indiscipline, vunce again (hm, maybe that can be my new catchphrase). But anyway, here I am, with some of my..

thoughts on exodus

Exodus begins with the story of Moses, which you can find quite an entertaining version of it in the pasar malams/VCD shops. However, I made a few interesting (or at least I thought they were!) observations.

When Moses was skeptical whether the Egyptians would take him seriously, God gave showed two miracles that he was to use to make them believe. The first is the one we all know, that is, the staff/snake switch. But the second, the 'now it's leprous, now it's not' hand, was never shown to Pharoah. Now the question is, why wasn't that miracle used to give Pharoah a scare? A couple of reasons came to my mind, but I think the one that made the most sense was that the miracle would have been too easily duplicated by the Egyptians magicians. If they could change their staffs into snakes, what would a simple illusionary trick be to them? David Blaine could probably pull this one off. I can imagine Aaron whispering to Moses, "Should we try the leprousy one?" and Moses muttering back, "Better not. Let's just get out of here."

In that case, did they lose heart and disregard God's instructions? I see little reason for that, given that Aaron's snake swallowed up the snakes of the other conjurers, who must have looked pretty stupid now without their ellaborate 'magical' staves, which had been defeated by a piece of wood that must've looked as unimpressive as the staff of Gandalf the Grey. But then again, given the stubborn nature of Pharoah, a few more miracles that might have been seen as merely sleight of hand wouldn't have worked at all.

Another thing was that instructions of how to conduct the miracle of turning water to blood changed when Moses and Aaron actually had to do it in Egypt. Or rather, what was originally intended as a sign to make Pharoah believe (by pouring water from the Nile onto dry land) was upgraded into a fully-fledged disaster upon Egypt. The lesson that I gather from this is that we shouldn't always take God's instructions as his final instructions. Let us not stick too vehemently to what we were sure was a calling by God to do something whenever fresh, new orders from our general are delivered to us.

Sometimes we skim through the pages of the plagues so fast that we fail to notice how Moses' faith progressed with each miracle God performed. During their first audience with Pharoah, Moses spoke everything through Aaron, as shown by the usage of the phrase 'they said'. By the time of the plague of the frogs, Moses was already answering without a mouthpiece to Pharoah. Philip Yancey wrote that the Egyptians must have been stunned when Moses finally spoke for himself, for 'out of his mouth flowed perfect, aristocratic Egyptian'. I totally agree with him. Moses must have realised that it was more effective for him to communicate to the Egyptians directly instead of being hampered by what Yancey called 'Aaron's rustic speech'.

PAUSE: Wasn't the end of that paragraph so like Ben, with his style of quoting writers of books he's read? :)

As for the miracles, initially it was always, "Tell Aaron to... his staff..." By 'Strike Seven: Hail (as The Message terms it)', Moses has become confident enough that God's orders are to "Stretch your hands to the skies. Signal the hail to fall all over Egypt on people and animals and crops exposed in the fields of Egypt." During our sessions studying the Old Testament conducted by Dr. Leong Thien Fook at DNA last year, he mentioned that everything Moses went through prior to returning to Egypt was a preparation for his job as the leader of Israel. Now I see that the plagues were God's way of building up Moses to have the faith required for his new post. By the time the Israelites leave Egypt, I almost forgot that he was a whining, stuttering coward at the beginning of his service to God.

I found Exodus also a book that I struggled with as I attempted to comprehend the way God works. The Egyptians to the end of the plagues suffered in what I would term 'buta-ly' because God had made Pharoah stubborn in order that the Israelites would be able to tell their children about how God 'toyed with the Egyptians like a cat with a mouse'. Maybe it was because God didn't want Pharaoh to later delude himself that he had been tricked by illusionists or phonies manipulating natural events to their own advantage, thus creating a flawed history of the Israelites leaving in Egyptian records. I was mildly comforted when I realised that the Egyptians that feared the God of the Israelites would have heeded the warnings and taken steps to minimize the suffering they would endure, especially in the plague of hail.

Oh, and I really like the way The Message phrased Exodus 14:14.
"GOD will fight the battle for you.
And you? You keep your mouths shut!"
Reminded me how I've got a God who fights for me, and how I shouldn't question him but instead 'keep my mouth shut'.

Meeting God nowadays is usually associated with a quiet, tranquil atmosphere in which we can relax and be comforted. I shudder at the way in which the Israelites experienced God's presence. Pyrotechnics, noise, and a downright scary aura. No wonder they told Moses, "You speak to us and we'll listen, but don't have God speak to us or we'll die." What a stark contrast to what we long and hope for, that is for God to speak to us in a personal manner. It made me wonder, are we really up to what we ask for? :)

I also noticed the laws of the old covenant that bigots gleefully jumped upon to condone their practice of slavery during colonial times. Here's an excerpt, "If a slave owner hits a slave, male or female, with a stick and the slave dies on the spot, the slave must be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he's not to be avenged--the slave is the owner's property." Downright nasty! At first I thought the verse meant 'if the slave survives after a day or two', then felt unhappy when I realised the true meaning of it.

But I liked the way Moses negotiated with God. I guess we're always talking about submitting to God's will, but in Exodus we see Moses not simply bowing to God's decision of wiping out the Israelites and starting anew (vunce again!) with Moses, instead pleading tactfully for God to think twice. And we read that, "And GOD did think twice. He decided not to do the evil he had threatened against his people." What a privilege it is to have a God who cares about our feelings and will not simply force us to bend 'to his will'.

I guess that's all I have to write this time. Have to go for lunch now. Seeya all! :)