"If It Wasn't For The Women"

Exodus 1:15-22; 2:1-10; 3:1-22; 4:24-26

Confession... The truth of the matter is that when I include a video clip on my blog, I intend to incorporate it within the content of the post.  This time, however, I don't think that is going to be the case.  But it's early and I'm open to the spirit, so who knows, S/HE might just give me something that will connect the dots.  In the meantime, do like I did and just sit back and enjoy the song.

Now, if I have said it once, I've said a thousand times, that Moses is one of my favorite characters in the bible.  I mean I could stay on Moses for months and still have much in the way of material to teach and preach about.  As much as we know and revere him as the great liberator of the Israelite people, we must also know him as the incredibly flawed, insecure, temperamental and reluctant messenger of God.  The beauty of the dichotomy of Moses is that when he is at his greatest, it is God indeed, but at his most vulnerable and weakest moments, he is wholly human.  It is therefore his humanity that brings me to this post.

From the outset, before we are introduced to Moses, we are introduced to members of the supporting cast in this epic saga.  They are the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah (1:15).  Pharaoh, recognizing that his tactics in oppressing the Israelite people did not work, but actually backfired on him as their numbers multiplied as the oppression intensified, decided to ratchet things up a bit by instructing the midwives to kill all the boy babies borne to the Hebrew women (v. 16).  The text tells us that because the women "feared God, they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live" (v. 17).  This is the first time women are identified as playing a major role not only in the life of the Hebrew people, but more specifically in the survival and life of Moses.  

If you have been following and I know you have, then you know that the mere presence of these two women's names is in itself an indicator of their importance.  Most women in the bible are identified as some man's mother or some father's daughter.  Rarely do they stand independently - unless, however, they are being made an example of, or used to establish a point of "acceptable" or "unacceptable" behavior as it relates to women.  But in this instance, the women are named, and for their selfless and courageous act of sparing the life of the Hebrew boys - thus saving the nation - they are blessed by God with their own families.  Don't ask me how that happened with them working for Pharaoh, but okay...

Next on the list of women who actively got involved in the life of Moses was Pharaoh's own daughter.  She by the way remains nameless, but who, while bathing in the river Nile, spots a basket nestled against the "reeds on the bank of the river" and instructs her attendants to bring the basket to her.  Keeping watch at a distance is Moses sister, whose name we later learn is Miriam.  As Pharaoh's daughter looks inside the basket and finds the child, and while she starts getting all goo goo ga ga over the child, Moses' sister leaps into action and offers to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for her.  Not surprisingly, she goes after her mother to fill in as "surrogate."  Graciously, Pharaoh's daughter offers to the Hebrew woman - Moses' mother - payment to nurse the child.  How clever is that?  After the child is properly nursed, he is then taken back to Pharaoh's daughter where "she took him as her son and named him "Moses,"  "Mosheh" in Hebrew which means, "The one who draws out (2:1-10).  Okay, because I know you all are now reading with new lenses, I shouldn't have to point out the adoption and surrogate motifs here.  And of course, coming out of the black woman's cotton patch version, we are reminded of the many instances of the enslaved African women nursing and caring for the babies of the master's wife, often times to the detriment of their own.

Lastly, but certainly not least of these is the first Wonder Woman, Zipporah, the Midianite daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian, that Moses takes as his wife.  After Moses' encounter with God at the suspicious burning bush, and given his instructions to go back to Egypt to "Tell ole Pharaoh to let my people go," he sets out to do just that.  On the way, God meets him and tries to kill him...  Yep, I'm asking the same question; What the hell?  But never fear, Zipporah, the priest, is here!  Ah ha!  Put a pin there...  But faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a pissed off bull, and with precision that would make the most skilled diamond cutters green with envy, she leaps into action with a "flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, 'Truly you are a bride groom of blood to me!  So [God] let him alone" (4:24, 26a)...  Whoa Lawd...  "How do I begin to tell the story of how great a love can be.  The sweet love story that is older than the sea.  The simple truth about the love she brings to me.  Where do I start?" LOL...  Sorry, sorry, sorry...  I couldn't help it - I couldn't.  Okay, I'm back, but, ummm, yeah...  

First, it is uncertain as to who is at risk of this unprovoked attack - Moses or his son.  And if we're not sure of who's at risk, are we sure about whose penis it was that was - ummm - unceremoniously circumcised as in the Hebrew tradition or in this instance, whose foreskin was 'cut off?'  Huh?  Okay, where's that pin?  Take it out...  As the daughter of a priest, Zipporah, by birth, is also a priest and may have been familiar and acquainted with ritual procedures.  Thank God!  Also noteworthy is that "feet" is a common biblical euphemism for genitals.  Now whether it was Moses' son or Moses, the text is clear - someone's genitals got messed with - an act reserved for those endowed with priestly status.  And, because they did, "[God] let him alone."  So, once again, the likely deduction gleaned from the text is that if it wasn't for the women, there may never have been a Moses or this so-called great exodus out of bondage.  More appropriately, a great physical and spiritual movement.      

The inclusion of these posits of women could point to a distinct female tradition that existed alongside the preferred and more carefully preserved male-centered tradition.  That is not to say that women and women alone are more likely to lift up the lives of women and domestic characteristics such as childbirth, but suffice it to say that the "telling" of these stories raise more questions than they answer.  So whether we read the narrative of Moses literally or metaphorically, he wouldn't be who he is to us today, if it wasn't for the women.
© Dorinda G. Henry, 2011

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST!