The first couple of chapters of Exodus are pretty familiar stuff, the scene-setting for what is to follow, so it's easy either to skip over them thinking we know all there is to know. What follows isn't a nice tidy theological reflection or a sermonette, it's just some thoughts on the things that struck me, either afresh or for the first time, as I slowly read these opening words.
They might side with our enemies
What worried the Pharaoh in place at the start of this story was not just that the Hebrew people were prolific (the original 70 descendants of Jacob have multiplied considerably!) but that if it came to war, these foreigners might side with the enemy rather than with Egypt.
I couldn't help but think of the media-fuelled fear about migrants entering the UK from Eastern Europe, and about Syrian refugees entering Europe... if we let them in then they might/will... and we might not like the consequences.
At the start of the story, there is no sense that the Hebrews are unhappy in Egypt, it is only when the Pharaoh's paranoia turns to hatred, and hatred to oppression, and oppression to attempted genocide, that things begin to go wrong.
It made me wonder just what it is that people fear in those they perceive as 'other' that has the potential to lead to such extreme responses.
Non-violent Subversion
The story of the Hebrew midwives and their quiet disobedience to the edict to kill baby boys is as profound as it is comedic. Did Pharaoh really believe that the Hebrew women were physiologically different from their Egyptian counterparts and so gave birth before the midwives arrived? Did they, perhaps, exploit his ignorance and prejudice?
Recent commemorations of the horrendous actions undertaken by Nazis towards those they perceived as 'other' serve as a reminder that otherwise intelligent people can believe nonsense about those they perceive as 'other'. So perhaps Pharaoh serves for us as a 'type' of the ignorant bigot who makes sweeping statements about the physical attributes of people of other races. And if so, do the midwives somehow exploit or subvert that?
Girl Power!
Nothing new here, but a reminder of the vital role of women, named and unnamed, in the sweep of Scripture. The midwives who refused to obey the comand of Pharaoh; the mother who hid her boy-child for as long as she could, the unnamed Princess who defied her father's edict by adopting the Hebrew 'orphan'...
The Importance of Names
In many cultures, to this day, naming a child is hugely significant, with the choice being concerned not with it being 'pretty' or 'strong' but that it expresses something of the parents' hopes for their child. In our society we have, for the most part, lost any sense of connectedness to the names we choose, with even familial patterns disappearing in favour of 'fashionable' and/or 'exotic' (other culture) and/or 'made up' names.
Moses' name, given to him by the Princess ensured that he never forgot his origins, drawn out of the water, out of the place where Pharaoh had decreed he should die (once the midwives had failed to comply, the Egyptians were instructed to throw Hebrew boys into the Nile, where they would drown). No matter what life brought him, no matter how much he aclimatised to court life, he was contantly reminded of who he was, where his life began.
And his son, Gershon, whose name means "I have been an alien residing in a foreign land" (snappy, huh?) would never forget his origins either. A mixed race child (his mother a Midianite) born into a race of resident aliens living in a land where they had become despised. A sense of rootlessness from the day of his birth, a constant reminder of his own origins.
I'm not suggesting we should give children names that are burdensome or overly profound in meaning, but in this naming we catch a sense of the significance of names, of words. What I call you, what you call me, carries more weight than either of us might realise...
In part we are back to Pharaoh and Hitler and media-fuelled paranoia, that words form and shape our world sublty or otherwise. But perhaps we are also invited to think about the names we give things, the metaphors we employ to describe events and so on - do they inspire hope or fear, love or hate; do they encourage or discourage...
"God took Notice"
The closing sentences of today's reading is the first overt hint of the Hebrews crying out to God. Moses is safely living far away in Midian, is married and has a family. Back in Egypt, nothing has changed, the oppressive regime continues and the people cry out to God.
"God looked upon the Israelites and God took notice of them."
God could, I suppose, have looked, shrugged the divine shoulders and ignored what was happening. But we are told that God took notice.
Nothing changed straight away, indeed it would be "forty years", or a very long time, until there would be any evidence that God had taken notice. Many people would have died waiting. Others would have questioned or doubted.
When we look around at the world of which we are part, when the plight of the poorest and most vulnerable troubles us, when we recoil from the words and actions of others, when our own prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling, perhaps we need to be reminded of this too: God looks upon all creation, and God takes notice.
