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"Hidden in the Hebrew"
Parashat B'shalach- Exodus 13:17-17:16
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Location, Location, Location!
In this week's Parasha, the Israelites have been ordered to leave Egypt hurriedly after the death of every first-born in the Egyptian kingdom. From their homes in the lush region of Goshen on the east edge of the Nile delta, these slaves of Pharaoh fled toward the land of the Canaanites to the North. To make the quickest journey from Egypt to Canaan, Israel would have taken a route along the Mediterranean through the land of the Philistines. But, G-d had other plans.
In Exodus 13:20, the Israelites have camped at Etham on the edge of wilderness, and are getting ready to cross the hard way into the promised land, when Moses receives orders to turn everyone BACK to a place somewhere between Migdol and the sea. More specifically, the Torah tells us, the people were to situate themselves - men, women, children and livestock - before Ba'al Zaphon, facing it, by the sea.
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Stele of the god Ba'al [Heb. "Lord] found near his temple inUgarit
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Ba'al - Lord of Heaven and Earth
What could possibly be so important about this particular setting. Why should G-d take a mass of runaway slaves and turn them back from their escape route and then taunt their taskmasters into hot pursuit by encamping them between the sea and the approaching army? Why put the Israelites between a 'rock and a hard place' when they should be using all their energy to put as much distance between themselves and Egypt as possible? For the answer to this conundrum, we need to look closely at the Hebrew in the story, and know a little about history.
In those days, the entire world from Egypt to Asia Minor shared a system of religion and politics in which each nation's gods protected their patrons and were treated as dignitaries by foreign kings (when they weren't at war). Ba'al was one of the most revered of all gods. His 'home' was a mountain north of Lebanon called Zaphon [Heb. for 'north]. His fame and power were recognized everywhere, even in Egypt where shrines were built to honor him. It is such a shrine on the road into the wilderness, alongside the sea or river, that is the backdrop of Moses' final encounter with the Pharaoh.
In the myths from Canaan, Ba'al rises to power to become "Lord of the heaven and earth" by defeating the god of the Sea (Heb: Yam). He uses two magical clubs made for him by the craftsman god Kothar to subdue the Sea and claim his right to rule. There is an entire saga dedicated to the story of Baal's triumph over Yam (the god of the sea) that was uncovered in a city called Ugarit a little ways from Mount Zaphon.
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Ba'al was known to be a rider of clouds, the god of thunderstorms, the most aggressive of gods, and the god on whom mortals most depended. Not only was he worshipped in Egypt as the primary god of war and battle, but he seems also to have been the personification of the burning and destroying heat of the sun and blazing desert wind. His chief of the army is Reshef (a "spark of fire" in Hebrew) - the patron god of chariots and charioteers. |
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| It now becomes clear what is about to happen in this final clash between Moses and the Pharaoh, in the face of the great Baal-Zaphon and his mortal enemy, the Sea. The G-d of Israel and his new people are about to defy king and god alike. The Israelites under Moses have been redeemed in order to 'glorify' the LORD before the Egyptian army who is pursuing them, and the Canaanites who live in the land that Israel is about to take possession of. Meanwhile, the Israelites are simply terrified - hemmed in by the sea on one side and the advancing Egyptians on the other. Who can blame them?
"... and [he] turned the sea into dry ground."
The Egyptians make camp opposite the Israelites, while a pillar of cloud and darkness separates the two camps. How does G-d propose to save the situation?
The Torah reads, "Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split, and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left."
The English translation does not do justice here to the word pictures the Torah paints for us. Twice the English uses the words, 'dry ground'. But the Hebrew uses two separate words to describe what happens to the sea. First, the great Sea is subjected to a scorching east wind from the desert, and it becomes "charavah" in Hebrew. The root, chet.resh.bet, describes something devastated - something vital that has been reduced to desolation. It is a play on words. Moses, a mere mortal has simply raised one of his hands and subdued the great Sea. He has stripped this ancient 'god' of his power and rendered him impotent in the sight of all Egypt; at the threshold to the shrine of Ba'al Zaphon. Only then, when the Sea is immobilized, is it split in two. The Hebrew word here is from the root bet.quf.ayin. which means to be violently torn apart or ripped open. Again, the picture is of a defeated enemy at the mercy of his subduer. Now, when the victory is complete, the Israelites are free to walk across on the 'dry ground' that has appeared between the walls of water. Here 'dry ground' is 'yabasha' - that which has been dried out, desiccated. This is the 'dry ground' that appeared when G-d split the sea in the opening chapter of Genesis.
Not only has the G-d of Israel defeated the ancient enemy of Ba'al in his own front yard, before the most powerful army in the Middle East of the time, He has done it through the hand of an old man.
Nowhere in the ancient world did ordinary people have such responsibility and such power vested in them by their gods. Israel's G-d not only made a mockery of the most powerful gods of the day, but he elevated human beings to the status of 'gods' while they continued to be merely, imperfectly, and utterly human. Often unwilling, sometimes ungrateful, plagued by 'short memory spans' and an inclination to return to the 'known' rather than to maintain faith in the 'unknown', the children of Israel are representative of us all. Yet, G-d chooses in each generation to renew his covenant with His people, to trust in them even in those difficult hours when they are unable to trust in Him.
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