Drama of the Exodus

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I used to wonder what would happen if a Polish pope challenged the Evil Empire. Could a Polish pope return to his homeland, stand before the Iron Curtain, proclaim “Let my people go” and win? Or even live? Amazingly, a scant decade later, the question has been rendered moot. Not only is it possible to challenge the Kremlin and win … you don’t even need an exalted title or position to do so. Shipyard worker or playwright is sufficient, just as carpenter’s son once was to challenge Rome. 027Suddenly there is an awareness that monster impregnable forces may be destroyed after all; that proclamations, propaganda and monuments cannot keep a people isolated, ignorant and powerless forever. And the leader who is in touch with the people possesses a power and force even the mightiest of swords and lies can’t deny.

Was this also true at the time of the Exodus? Why wouldn’t it have been?

For too long, Egypt in general and Ramesses II in particular have been granted a credibility not warranted by history. Suppose the only record of the truth of the Soviet Union was Pravda? Suppose in the distant centuries and millennia, archaeologists and historians attempting to understand the Soviet Union had only the official record of the Communist Party from 1917 to 1985 to go by. Suppose there was no alternate record for the legacy of this now fallen god, save the record of the Communist Party itself. Would the events of 1989 be 028believable? The leader of the free world declares the Soviet Union to be an evil empire and proposes a trillion-dollar cosmic defense strategy known as SDI—and a few years later shipyard workers, poets and playwrights kick Bolshevik butt.

Pravda no longer has the freedom to lie and distort the way it did in the past. We now know who killed the Polish army officers at Katyn Forest and who supped with the Hitler devil to divide Europe. You can’t fool all the people all the time forever. You can’t censor the expression of truth, the record of history or the price of goods forever. Times have changed. Technology has changed. We live in a time of easy access to the means of communication: Paper, camera, video, photocopy, telephone, fax radio, TV, film, personal computers. It is difficult, or impossible, to restrict and control all these means of communication. It has become harder to lie to the public or posterity—the alternate sources of information are too pervasive and persuasive.

So it was in the time of Ramesses, too.

The historical validity of the Exodus is often questioned because the official records of the Pharaohs do not describe it and because it is too hard for many to imagine people succeeding in history against established authority such as the Pharaoh of Egypt.

One Egyptian reference to the people of Moses dramatically sets the time and tone for the Exodus. Merenptah, the son of Ramesses who succeeded the 67-year reign of his father, made this claim about a people living in Canaan:

Israel is desolate, its seed is not.^a

Not quite. The reports of Israel’s death were premature; the convention was routine though. In how many movies and TV shows have the forces of law and order defeated the Mafia? Guess what? Pharaoh did the same thing. He whupped on the traditional enemies to the south, to the west and to the north for decades, centuries and millennia. No one has ever accused Pharaoh of truth in advertising—except in relation to the Exodus.

Israel was not a traditional enemy of Egypt. We are speaking of the time before Moses when Israel did not yet exist. One can search high and low in the records of the XVIIIth Dynasty of Egypt without finding a trace of Israel. The closest reference to the people of the Bible may be to Jacob-el,^b the 029name of various warrior chieftains in the Canaanite region; one of these Jacobs may well have been the biblical patriarch. However, despite all the conquests and conquered peoples from vast areas of Asia and Africa listed on Egypt’s monuments, the one people who are not mentioned at all are the one people everyone is searching for. And when are they first mentioned? Exactly where one would expect to find them—right after the traditional date of the Exodus, in the time of Merenptah (1212–1202 B.C.E.).^c Ramesses II, the Pharaoh of the Exodus couldn’t mention Israel: Imagine the Kremlin telling the people that the worker success stories were those of the people who fled communism for the West. Never! It is Merenptah, the son of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, who claims to have defeated the people who had humiliated his father, who mentions Israel.

What kind of record in the reign of Ramesses II would one look for? The record of Merenptah is obvious—he wiped Israel out. But how should Ramesses have described the Exodus? What is the official secular record that would end all doubts regarding the historical validity of the Exodus and the God who bears the name of Israel’s deliverance?

A spokesman for Ramesses the great, Pharaoh of Pharaohs, supreme ruler of Egypt, son of Ra, before whom all tremble in awe blinded by his brilliance, today announced that the man Moses had kicked his royal butt for all the world to see, thus proving that God is Yahweh and the 2,000-year-old culture of Egypt is a lie. Film at 11:00.

It is not likely that such a record would be found in Egypt no matter how extensive the digs or thorough the search. There is no chance that Ramesses or any Egyptian pharaoh would leave a record stating that Yahweh controlled the waters of Egypt. It is the regularity and control of these very waters that defined Egypt, its sense of security and the legitimacy of Pharaoh as ruler … as Moses well knew.

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The records of Egypt and Israel should not be studied in isolation from each other. The stories of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and Osiris, Egypt’s god of the dead and of the Nile, are two versions of the same issue intersecting at the Sea of Reeds. The story of each is usually told separately based on the official records of each culture as if neither one is related to the other. To understand a challenge in history against established authority, however, one must understand the context in which it occurred. It is impossible to understand the man Moses without understanding the man Ramesses; it is impossible to understand what Moses sought to and did achieve without understanding what the ruler he challenged sought to, did and did not achieve; it is impossible to understand the people Moses created without knowing the people they left. The success of Lech Walesa and Solidarity cannot be understood independently of the ideals and goals of communism and the failure of the Kremlin to attain them. These are all real-life, flesh-and-blood human beings in history, far removed from the two-dimensional cliches of Sunday school. To understand how Moses succeeded, it is necessary to know how Ramesses failed.

Ramesses II ascended to the throne in 1279 B.C.E., a time of great expectations. A new dynasty—the XIXth (1295 to 1187 B.C.E.)—had emerged in Egypt, a dynasty that heralded a new era in Egyptian greatness. Or so the military leaders-turned-pharaohs Horemhab (1327–1295) and Seti I (1294–1279) believed when they assumed the throne. It was the dawn of a new era as evidenced by the strong identification of Ramesses I (1295–1294) with Ahmose I (1550–1525), the founding pharaoh of the XVIIIth Dynasty—the dynasty that had overthrown the Hyksos rulers of Egypt. It was a time when the decay of the Amarna period 50 years before would be cast off and a bold, assertive, renewed Egypt would emerge to dominate from the Nile cataracts to the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia, as Tuthmosis III had done more than 200 years before. It was a time of increased interplay between Egyptian and Semite, particularly in the Delta region where centuries of rule by the Semitic Hyksos and XVIIIth Dynasty conquests and captives had created a mixed multitude even before the Bible existed. And it was a time of historical giants, of strong-willed male leaders in close proximity in time and space battling to assert their identity, their power, their vision with all the known world watching. Ramesses and Moses are each remembered as extraordinary representatives of their culture.

The Egyptian capital had now been moved to the Delta. It was built on the site of the former Hyksos capital, as Seti I and his son Ramesses II 031both were aware of their links to the Semites who had entered and ruled Egypt 400 years earlier. It was a capital that seethed with life, a boomtown of unrestricted energy as Seti and Ramesses boldly and aggressively defined their kingdom, their rule and their people. It was a time of potential, a time of vision, a time of promise. It was a time when Egypt would take giant steps in history and reassert its primacy in the ancient Near East. It was an exciting time to be alive, when opportunity and challenge beckoned and greatness was waiting round the corner.

Both Seti I and Ramesses II thought big. On the wall of a temple he constructed at Abydos, the holy site of Osiris, Seti had traced the dynasties back to the beginning in what proved to be a unique and valuable record in a culture devoted to cyclical, not linear, time. Before becoming pharaoh, Seti visited the Hyksos capital at Avaris in recognition of the 400-year legacy of their rule; Ramesses II commemorated the visit of his father one generation later. Seti and Ramesses were not shrinking violets, and their new capital was not some primitive backwater town overcome by stifling tradition and bureaucracy. Within their own time and context, Seti, and for a time Ramesses, were prepared to push Egypt to the limit to create a new Egypt based on the new Egyptian/Semite capital in the Delta. That sense of excitement and challenge to fulfill a great future had to have been felt by the people in the capital.

And then Ramesses had to put up. Even the Communist Party can’t pretend to fulfill Five Year Plans forever. Eventually, leaders, especially vigorous leaders, face a moment of truth when promise and reality must meet. In the fifth year of his reign, Ramesses launched a massive campaign into Asia. This was to be the campaign of campaigns, a monster blow to the powerful Hittites that would sweep them back past the Orontes and Euphrates rivers. They would be banished from the lands Egypt claimed for itself. With great fanfare, the Egyptian army assembled and departed for Asia with Ramesses himself in command. Here was Egypt at its finest, the glory of its military forces on its way to achieve greatness for the new Dynasty and the new Egypt. The departure from the Delta in year 5 of the reign of Ramesses was a moment of great celebration in expectation of the glorious victory to come.

And such a victory it was … at least according to the official records of Egypt. If one reads only the official record of Ramesses, then the battle of Kadesh in 1275 B.C.E. was a great triumph for Egypt and Ramesses II. In the pylons or newspaper monuments of the day, the triumph was boldly proclaimed. If there had been mini-series, 032Ramesses would have commissioned one; if there had been movies, he would have produced one. Ramesses knew how to use the technology of propaganda to exalt himself, and if all he had were pylons, statues and temples, so be it. The symbol of his greatness was obvious to everyone: His victory at Kadesh was the crowing achievement of his so-far reign.

The story of his greatness was vividly and graphically told. The descriptions of the battle found at Thebes portray a great victory of the giant Ramesses over the Hittites. It told of personal courage and bravery by the warrior leader who, even though surrounded and trapped by the hated foe, emerged victorious after a desperate plea for divine assistance sought and received. (The impulsive stupidity of Ramesses as a military leader is implied but not stated in the Egyptian record.) All Egypt knew of the great personal and national triumph of the new pharaoh who had taken a giant step toward fulfilling the dreams and hopes of his father Seti.

Except that is not exactly what happened: An alternate account of the battle exists. The Hittites, too, participated in the battle and they left a record that does not agree with the monumental triumph described by Ramesses. From the battle of Kadesh to the alliance with the Hittites in year 21 of Ramesses’ reign, the history of Egypt was entangled with this contemporaneous enemy power. Fortunately the records of both sides survive, just as they have with Egypt and Israel. Based on Hittite records, it is clear that Ramesses the individual did fight bravely but that Ramesses the general led stupidly. General Ramesses had the opportunity for a great victory but walked into a Hittite trap and ended up with a hard-fought and barely achieved stalemate. The land was not conquered and the Hittites subsequently filled the vacuum left by the withdrawing Egyptians. However, the surrounded Ramesses with his just-arrived armies was able to force the Hittites to flee in disarray into the Orontes River—where many of them drowned.

The alternate record provided by the Hittites creates a fuller and more accurate picture than the Egyptian record alone does. Based on the latter, one sees a great Egyptian triumph—like relying on Pravda for the truth of Soviet success in Afghanistan. But the people of the Soviet Union learned the truth even without access to alternate records because of the coffins of the sons who never returned alive and because of those who did return but were wounded and because of the war that never ended despite all the victories. Returning soldiers too tell stories of what really happened. Was the Egyptian capital deceived by Ramesses’ claim of great victory? Did the people then, as the people of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and the United States in the 1960s, know that victory had not been achieved and that there was no light at the end of the tunnel? Regardless of the great expectations of Ramesses and Seti, were the soldiers and the people aware that Ramesses had not achieved the success he described in the official record of the land?

Of course they were aware! Do you think they were stupid just because they didn’t have cameras and personal computers and because they lived 3000 years ago? Did the Hittites disappear, did Egypt now rule in Asia, did the battle stop? Didn’t 033Egypt and the Hittites sign an alliance as equals? Ramesses did not fulfill the vision of his father, he did not succeed in history; he only proclaimed that he had. And the capital knew it. Ramesses had reached out and come up short and the people in the capital knew the truth.

Still, Ramesses had had his moment of triumph. He had that moment when, surrounded by adversity with no hope of victory, he had prayed for divine assistance and the Hittites had withdrawn in defeat. Ramesses had stood triumphant while the retreating Hittites fell pell-mell into the river, drowning soldier, horse and chariot.

WHOA! TIME OUT! Chariots drowned in water. Horse and soldier overwhelmed by water while Pharaoh stands triumphant! Is this the great scene of triumph from the official record of Pharaoh? The measure by which he wished to be remembered for all eternity? Trapped with no chance to escape, chariots fleeing to no avail as the waters overcome them. Why does this sound familiar? Is this the official record of the greatest military triumph of the Pharaoh of the Exodus or the biblical account of his greatest defeat?

How do the two stories relate?

The Bible tells of Moses being trapped, praying to the divine father. The enemy chariots are drowned. But that can’t have occurred, we are told, because there is no Egyptian record of it.

Egypt tells of Ramesses being trapped, praying to the divine father. The enemy chariots are drowned—and of course, that is exactly what happened.

Why is it we are told in secular history one actually happened and not the other?

And again:

The greatest triumph in the life of Moses occurs when he stands with arms outstretched over the drowned and defeated foe who moments earlier had him trapped.

The greatest triumph in the life of Ramesses occurs when he towers over the drowned and defeated foe who moments earlier had him trapped.

To understand the extraordinary event which shook Egypt to its core, changed the course of human history and created a new people who still live in history, one must recognize two radical earth-shattering facts about the leadership of Moses: (1) Moses knew what he wanted to do; and (2) he succeeded.

Moses lived, died and succeeded in the real world and in the real world no matter what the odds, walls do collapse, giants are slain, waters do flood and people sing and dance in the joy of freedom.

A key to successful leadership is to know your audience. To communicate effectively, one must use the language, metaphors and symbols that people understand. If Moses had stood before Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go because according to the Bill of Rights we are guaranteed freedom of religion,” who would have understood him? In the United States, the flag and the Statue of Liberty move us to tears and we become enraged when those symbols are abused. For David the symbol of the people he would rule was the Ark of God. All Israel rejoiced when David captured it from the Philistines and brought it to Jerusalem.

Ancient Egypt had neither flag nor covenant. What it had was Pharaoh. What it celebrated was Pharaoh. What it commemorated in its rituals was Pharaoh. For two thousand years before Moses, Egypt had one and only one symbol that linked the people together and that symbol was Pharaoh. Through Pharaoh Egypt knew that all was right with the world and that everything was as it should be. Egypt was not thunder and lightning, Egypt was not a fire burning without consuming, Egyptians did not rage across the landscape in great epic tales of heroic achievement (except perhaps for Tuthmosis III [1479–1425 B.C.E.] after he cast off the yoke of Hatshepsut and stormed across the ancient Near East). The measure of success in Egypt was eternal repetition and stillness, with disruptive forces like the god Seti banished to the wilderness. Egyptians strove to meet existing ideals, not to create new ones.

In Egypt nature was neither capricious nor transcendent. The sun always set and rose and shone clearly; the waters always dropped and rose again to flood the land and provide needed food; and life was eternal. Pharaoh was the symbol of all this. He kept the faith, he kept Egypt in harmony with nature, he ensured that the waters flooded when and where they were supposed to. Once in Egyptian history Pharaoh had failed to fulfill these responsibilities: During the First Intermediate Period (2200–2040 B.C.E.), the link between nature and culture had failed and secular Egyptian records told of plagues in nature disrupting the land.^d The measure of the validity of the Egyptian way of life was not Constitution or covenant but Pharaoh, and the measure of Pharaoh was that the waters flooded at the right time and place and that Egypt lived in harmony with nature.

Moses, prince of Egypt, knew this well. Egyptian culture was not unknown to him. He was not ignorant of the escapades of Ramesses. He knew what actions would disrupt Egypt, he knew what events would deny the validity of Ramesses to rule. He knew the symbols, the metaphors, the language of 034the people and recognized the need to deliver the message that there was something new under the sun—a way of life never seen before. He knew what he wanted to do and after the burning bush he was ready to act on that knowledge. Egypt may have been the gift of the Nile, but soon all the people would know that Yahweh controlled the waters.

The power of a great leader to move people to achieve the miraculous against impossible odds is in the vision possessed and communicated. People do not risk their lives for the logic of the computer. It is the symbols and metaphors of flags and covenants that reach out and touch us, be it through television, music, drama or monuments.

Understanding the essence of a culture is a key to power in it. To understand a culture so well that its very symbols can be turned against it is one route to revolution. Like the Founding Fathers of the United States, quoting natural and English law to Parliament and the king, or Lech Walesa representing the solidarity of workers in a communist country, the use of images can be devastatingly effective. To know and to communicate the essence of a people to create change is to deliver a message of awesome power in history.

Moses was as good as they come in knowing this force and how to use it to effect change. He knew the Achilles heel of Egypt and he knew the Achilles heel of Ramesses. The control of the waters of Egypt and the constancy of the natural 035environment provided Egypt with an immensely strong sense of social security. The celebration of the victory at Kadesh was Ramesses’ claim to fame the event he bragged about most except for his birth. The early career of Ramesses provided one and only one event that could be used to prove his greatness, his worthiness, his legitimacy to succeed Seti as a powerful ruler bestriding history and fulfilling the legacy bequeathed him. Egypt stood on the cusp of history at the birth of this Delta dynasty, seeking the achievements of an Alexander but settling for the pomp and false advertising of Ramesses. All this Moses knew too. Now he was ready to expose the truth and reveal the new God.

The crossing was the exact right event exact right place at the exact right time. It was the event of awesome power that challenged the very essence of Egyptian culture. It ripped the fabric of Egyptian continuity and exposed the falseness Ramesses’ claim to greatness and legitimacy to be Pharaoh. It shattered the belief in the Egyptian way of life and created the opening for the covenantal religion that defined God in terms of leaving Egypt. The people sang and danced to the triumph of Yahweh in what may be the oldest section of the Bible, just as people sing and dance today everytime the battle for freedom is won against apparently impregnable foes.

A long time ago in a land far away, there lived two princes—Ramesses and Moses. Each dreamed great dreams and waited for time when a glorious destiny would be fulfilled. They lived in land of tumult and excitement where challenges beckoned. Each reached for greatness against foes who would destroy him. Each was trapped by his foes—one, by his own stupidity; the other, by design. Both men sought divine assistance and both were delivered from apparent doom. And both told their story for posterity—one in monuments to his own glory; and the other, in song and dance and in a story that would be told for eternity.

So which of the two princes is the immortal one—the one whose body is preserved and who built statues to himself, or the one who turned to dust but created a people who would last forever? And which story has affected history ever since—the story of the prince who proclaimed his ego or the story of the prince who delivered a divine message? Two men lived in the same time and the same place with dreams of greatness. One left behind tourist sites; the other, the Bible.

There is a fire that burns without consuming in the soul of the species. There is a force in history first revealed in the showdown of Moses and Ramesses which makes miracles possible. From the vision at the burning bush to star treks across the cosmos, from people dancing in the streets of the city of David at the return of the Ark of the Lord to people dancing on the walls and plazas of Eastern Europe celebrating freedom, from an indestructible will to be free forged in a valley of despair to small steps for a man and giant leaps for mankind, people sing “We Shall Overcome” and succeed against all odds. There is a force in history as current as today’s headlines and as important as tomorrow’s dreams. It lives wherever people overcome the pit of their fears with the summit of their imagination and the vision of a better tomorrow. The force has been with us for millennia.

I used to wonder what would happen if a Polish pope challenged the Evil Empire. Could a Polish pope return to his homeland, stand before the Iron Curtain, proclaim “Let my people go” and win? Or even live? Amazingly, a scant decade later, the question has been rendered moot. Not only is it possible to challenge the Kremlin and win … you don’t even need an exalted title or position to do so. Shipyard worker or playwright is sufficient, just as carpenter’s son once was to challenge Rome. 027Suddenly there is an awareness that monster impregnable forces may […]