This Week's Story
click here to play audioHebrew slaves eat a peculiar meal, dabble blood on their front doors, and wait for Passover
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Scratch your brain! part seven
“Lydia, look at me. Why should I be wearing these travelling clothes to take a long trip? I don’t even know how to travel. Slaves don’t go on trips. I make bricks for Egyptians. That’s all I know.”
“Benjamin, do you like being a slave in Egypt? Maybe, if you stay, you could get more beatings for not making your work quota.”
“Drop the sarcasm, Lydia.”
“Sure, but Benjamin, you don’t need to be stuck doing only what you know.”
“Lydia, you act like this bizarre night is wonderful. I don’t understand why we’re following senseless directions from Moses about a lamb, blood, and travel. Four days ago we were told to get a perfect lamb. We did and today we slaughtered and roasted it. Then we dressed for making a long trip and ate the lamb with bitter herbs and bread with no yeast. I felt ridiculous when we dabbled the lamb’s blood outside on the top and sides of our front door.
“Now we wait until morning. Supposedly God is travelling through
Egypt and killing firstborn sons in every family and firstborn male animals. How’s He travelling and how are the Egyptians dying? When He comes to Goshen and sees the blood on our Hebrew doors, He is to pass over us. How do you think that happens?”
“Benjamin, you talk foolish. Don’t you remember the power God showed with the plagues? I don’t understand everything that we’ve been told, but I know I’ve seen God’s power. And, I know that I live in a country where I don’t belong. I’m a Hebrew living in a foreign country, where I am not wanted, except as a slave. I am disposable when I am no longer useful to my Egyptian master.”
“At least I know who my boss is and where I live.”
“Is that enough for you? Hundreds of years ago God told our forefather Abraham, ‘Go to a land that I will show you. I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others.’”
“Lydia, I’ve heard those stupid promises all my life. I wish they were true, but I think Abraham didn’t understand whatever God was telling him. I hate my life, but I deal with what I know. I’m a slave, and nothing more.”
“Scratch your brain. Those promises to Abraham weren’t dead ends. God led Abraham to the land God promised. Then the promises were repeated to Isaac and Jacob. Famine came. Our people would have died of starvation, but we moved here to Egypt where food was saved. We stayed. We were accepted for many years, but we grew so big that the Egyptians said, ‘These Israelites are becoming a threat to us.’ They forced us to become their slaves, but we remembered the promises.
“Benjamin, I want to move to that land that God promised Abraham. God sent Moses to lead us out of Egypt and slavery and to the land of promise.”
“Lydia, I don’t want to go anywhere with all our people. I heard father estimate that, counting women, men, and children, three million people will be leaving. I suppose our animals are coming too, and most of us will be walking.”
“That’s right and it is daybreak now. We can leave.”
“Lydia, I’m not sure.”
“Benjamin, get out the door. Don’t miss the greatest opportunity you have ever had.”
“Lydia, I may be foolish, but I am going.”
This is Barbara Steiner with two people who were not Bible characters but represent the authentic struggles that Hebrews had as they were leaving Egypt.
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