A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY
Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the
descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the
range of the influence of the other great civilized power of that day,
that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from rich
Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt were thronged with
caravans going to and fro. By and by, a series of dry seasons drove
several of the Hebrew tribes down these highways to Egypt in the
search of food. The story of Joseph tells how they settled there.[1]
They were hospitably received by the king (or Pharaoh, which was the
Egyptian word for "king"), and were allowed to pasture their flocks on
the plains called the land of Goshen in the extreme northeast of the
country west of what we now call the Isthmus of Suez. For some decades
or more they lived here, following their old occupation--sheep-raising.
=Egyptian civilization.=--Egypt was in many ways like Babylonia. In
Egypt too a great civilization had sprung up many millenniums before
Christ. In some ways it was an even greater civilization than that of
Babylonia. Egyptian sculptors and architects erected stone temples
whose grandeur has never been surpassed. Many of them are still
standing and are among the world's treasures. It would seem that there
was somewhat more of love of beauty and somewhat less of greed for
money among the Egyptians than among the Babylonians.
THE ACCESSION OF RAMESES II
There came to the throne of Egypt about B.C. 1200 a man of
extraordinary vanity and selfish ambition known as Rameses II. He
wished to build more temples in Egypt than any other king had ever
built, so that wherever the traveler might turn people would point to
this or that great building and say Rameses II built that. To put up
these buildings he enslaved his people, compelling them to labor
without pay. To raise the funds for building materials he made war on
his neighbors, especially the Hittites in western Asia north of
Canaan. Again and again Hebrew children would see the dust of marching
armies over the roads past their pastures and men would say, "Rameses
is going to war again." And by and by, weeks or months later, the
soldiers would return with tales of bloody battles and sometimes laden
with spoils.
=Enslavement of the Hebrews.=--Now, wars usually breed more wars.
Rameses having attacked the Hittites was afraid they would attack him.
Egypt was indeed very well protected from attack. There was only one
gateway into the country, and that was by way of the narrow Isthmus of
Suez. And there were a wall and a row of fortresses across the
isthmus. But who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the
isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Rameses was told. They
are immigrants from Canaan. "Look out for them," said Rameses. "If
they came from Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to
get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put at work so that
they will have no time for plots."
Rameses was planning just then to build two large granary cities near
the northeastern border to be a base of supplies for his armies on
their campaigns into Asia. One was to be called Pithom.[2]
So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents and the order was given
to send such and such a number of men to work in the brick-molds of
Pa-Tum. And they had to go. The women and the children had to care for
the sheep while most of their men trod the clay and straw in the brick
molds at Pa-Tum and carried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to
the masons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack of
care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for the Hebrews
became a grinding treadmill of hardship and weariness and drudgery.
THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF MOSES
During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy was by chance adopted
by one of the princesses in Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own
mother as his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the common
Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Rameses. The boy was given all
the educational advantages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But
all the time in secret from his mother he was learning the story of
his own people and their wrongs, and was being trained to hate their
oppressors. One day after he had grown to manhood he went down to the
city of Pa-Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were being
built. Here he saw one of his own people being flogged by an Egyptian
overseer. In a fury he leaped to the man's defense and killed the
Egyptian. Of course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from
Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shepherd clan related
to the Hebrews and lived there for some years brooding over the hard
plight of his people.
=Moses' call and the struggle for freedom.=--One day in the desert,
Moses heard from a passing caravan that old Rameses II was dead. Like
a flame that burned but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now
is your chance! The king and his officers will not know about you. Go
back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen out to freedom. This is God's call
and God will help you."
So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to rally his own people,
promising the help of their God, Jehovah. It was a dangerous
undertaking that he proposed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to
make short work of those who resisted their authority. Moreover, these
Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their spirits might have been
cowed and broken. Yet they believed in Moses and his assurances and
accepted him as their leader.
Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went boldly to the palace
of the Pharaoh and declared to him that Jehovah, the God of the
Hebrews, had commanded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious
festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The
plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside
the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method
justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh
answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let
Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that
Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he
still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the Egyptians had
a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though
they did not grant his demands.
=Bricks without straw.=--At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For
instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a
still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of
sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the
molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously
the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But
now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it."
So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding fields for old
refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost heaps. Yet the same number
of bricks was required as before, with a whipping in case of failure.
The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated many years ago from
beneath the sands of Egypt, and their ruined walls may still be seen
by tourists. It is noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are
made of bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in the
lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through the work somehow each
day, putting very little straw in the clay, or sometimes none at all.
But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and they reproached him
for "making them hateful in the eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round
of the fight Moses and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won.
But the end was not yet.
STUDY TOPICS
1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article on Egypt; or read
the summary of Egyptian history in some recent general history.
2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately the place where the
Hebrews worked.
3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to be an emancipator
for his people?
4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of slavery which may
be compared to that of the Hebrews in Egypt?
5. Are there any Pharaohs to-day? Any Moseses?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Chapter I, and Genesis 46 and 47.
[2] Exodus I. 1-11, or Pa-Tum in Egyptian; the other Rameses, after
the king himself. It was decided to compel the Hebrews to do the work
of brickmaking for these new cities.