Transcript Fresh Look at the Old Testament Class 2

Fresh Look at the Old Testament
Class 4
2/8/09
Class 4 2/8/09
•Joseph
•Moses
•10 Plagues
The Story of Joseph
What we learned in Sunday School as kids…
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Coat of many colors 37:3
Has a dreams 37:5-9
Brothers sell him to traders headed to Egypt 37:18-28
CEO of Potiphar Inc. 39:1-6
Lies of Potiphar’s wife 39:7-18
Imprisonment/Dreams of Butler & Baker Ch 40
Interprets Pharoah’s Dream Ch 41
Joseph is reunited with his family in Egypt Ch 42 - 45
Antitype of Jesus
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Sent by his Father
Took families to Egypt
Sinned Against/Despised
Stripped of his cloak
Sold for a Price
Was Mourned for
Has compassion for the
penitent
• Is found alive
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Joseph
Jesus
Gen 37:13-14
38:36
37:18-28
37:23
37:28
37:35
42:24 45:15
John 3:16
Mt 2:13-14
Mt 27:1 Jn 1:11 Mk 15:31-32
Mt27:28, 35
Mt 26:15
Mk 16:10
Lk 23:34 Jn 11:33-36
• 45:24-28
Mk 16 Lk 24
Moses
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What do we know about Moses
Born in Egypt in perilous times
Hundreds of years after time of Joseph
Grew up in Pharoah’s House
Spoke with God at Burning Bush
Led Isrealites out of Egypt
Saw God
Received from God -10 Commandments
Moses & Christ
• Acts 3:22-23
(22) Moses indeed said, A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto
you from among your brethren, like unto me. To him shall ye
hearken in all things whatsoever he shall speak unto you. (23) And it
shall be, that every soul that shall not hearken to that prophet, shall
be utterly destroyed from among the people.
• Luke 24:44
And he said unto them, These are my words which I spake unto you,
while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled,
which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the
psalms, concerning me.
10 Plagues
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Water Changed To Blood
Frogs
Lice
Swarms
Livestock Diseased
Boils
Hail
Locusts
Darkness
Death Of The Firstborn
Why the Plagues?
• Ex 3:19-20
• Ex 7:4-5
• Ex 12:12
Why the Plagues?
• Ex 3:19-20
▫ And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go, no,
not by a mighty hand. (20) And I will put forth my hand, and smite
Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and
after that he will let you go.
• Ex 7:4-5
• Ex 12:12
Why the Plagues?
• Ex 3:19-20
▫ And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go, no,
not by a mighty hand. (20) And I will put forth my hand, and smite
Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and
after that he will let you go.
• Ex 7:4-5
▫ But Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, and I will lay my hand upon
Egypt, and bring forth my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out
of the land of Egypt by great judgments. (5) And the Egyptians shall
know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt,
and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
• Ex 12:12
▫ For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite
all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and
against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Jehovah.
Egyptian Society
• Polytheistic
▫ At least 80 gods
• Pharoah
▫ was considered a god - the son of Amon-Ra
▫ his ruling was a divine right and even his birth was
thought to be divine
Water Changed To Blood
Ex 7:14-25
• The Nile was the heart of Egypt used for
Commerce/trade/farming
▫ All water was changed not just the Nile
• The Nile river considered the lifeline of Egypt and the
center of many of its religious ideas. The Egyptians
considered the Nile sacred. Many of their gods were
associated either directly or indirectly with this river
and its productivity.
Water Changed To Blood
Ex 7:14-25
• An affront to many of the greatest gods of Egypt.
▫ Khnum: guardian of the Nile River
 Usually represented as a human being with a ram's head
▫ Hapi: the "spirit of the Nile"
 Regarded as the maker and molder of everything
 Father of Ra
▫ Osiris: the god of the underworld
 the Egyptians believed the Nile was his bloodstream.
▫ Tauret: the hippopotamus goddess of the river.
▫ Nu: the god of life in the Nile?
Frogs
Ex 8:1-15
• The frog was considered the manifestation of the
goddess Heqt
▫ the wife of the creator of the world and the goddess of
birth
▫ believed to assist women in childbirth
▫ irony that the frogs invaded pharaoh's bedroom and
jumped on his bed
• Frogs were so sacred in Egypt that even the
involuntary slaughter of one was often punished
with death
• Pharaoh acknowledges that Jehovah as the author
of this plague
Lice
Ex 8:16-19
• An Affront to Geb, the great god of the earth.
▫ Egyptians gave offerings to Geb for the bounty of the soil
yet it was from "the dust of the soil" that this plague
originated
• Egyptian Preist
▫ Had to be pure to perform religious rituals
▫ Normally would shave their head every day and wear
only one tunic to be sure to be free of Lice
• The land was so infected with "lice," the priest of
Egypt could not even enter their temples to beseech
their gods to help them due to their own impurity!
Swarms
Ex 8:20-32
• "of flies" is not original it was added by translators
• Many think multiple types of insects
• Scarab Bettles (a dung beetle )
▫ The scarab beetle pushes a round ball of dung in front of it.
▫ One of the ways Egyptians pictured Amon-Ra, king of the
gods, as a scarab pushing the sun across the sky
• The dog-fly
▫ an insect more annoying than gnats, that fasten themselves
to the body. Especially Dogs
▫ Dogs were worshiped by Egyptians
▫ Anubis: god associated with afterlife was manifested as a
dog.
The god Anubis manifested as a Dog
Livestock Diseased
Ex 9:1-7
• Horses and cattle were sacred
• The god Apis was represented as a bull
• Apis Bull
▫ The Apis bull was the living image of the god Ptah. He was also associated
with Ra, from whom he borrowed the disk he wore between his horns.
▫ When the Apis bull died, priests would travel through every pasture in
Egypt looking for his replacement
▫ The Apis bull supposedly had the power of prophecy. When the Apis bull
died the land of Egypt mourned for him as they would for the loss of the
monarch himself. After death, his body would be embalmed, and after the
funeral rites were performed, the body would be placed in a granite
sarcophagus.
Apis Bull
Boils
Ex 9:8-12
• This plague was probably skin anthrax, a black abscess that
develops into a pustule. This plague affected the knees, legs,
and soles of the feet (cf. Deut. 28:35).
• This explains why Pharaoh's "magicians could not stand before
Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians
and on all the Egyptians" (Exo. 9:11).
• This medical malady was also an affront to:
▫ Imhotep: the god of medicine -- this alone must have
led to great despair in the land.
▫ Serapis: the deity in charge of healing
▫ Thoth: the ibis-headed god of intelligence and medical
learning.
Hail Ex 9:13-35
• The seventh plague was so the Egyptians would "know that
there is none like Me in all the earth" Ex 9:14)
• Jehovah was going to cause "very heavy hail to rain down, such
as has not been in Egypt since its founding until now" Ex 9:16
▫ This would have been a very unusual occurrence, for the region
around Cairo normally receives only two inches of rain per year.
• This would have been an affront to:
▫ Nut, the sky goddess
▫ Shu, the wind god?
▫ Horus, the hawk-headed sky god of Upper Egypt?
▫ Isis and Seth protectors of the crops
Locusts
Ex 10:1-20
• the Lord would bring locusts to Egypt the following day, "and they shall
cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth;
and they shall eat the residue of what is left, which remains to you from
the hail, and they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the
field" Ex 10:5
• Hyperbole
• Locusts can destroy an entire villages/town’s food supply in a matter of
minutes, and history can supply us with numerous examples of such.
• Locusts were described as an army by Joel.
• Again the gods of Egypt were silent.
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Where was Nepri, the god of grain?
Where was Ermutet, the goddess of childbirth and crops?
Isis is silent once again.
Thermuthis: the goddess of fertility and the harvest was speechless.
Seth: another god of crops, was also mute.
Darkness
Ex 10:21-29
• This plague of darkness was a huge insult to Egypt's
religion and entire culture.
• Amon-Ra the greatest of gods was the sun god
• Ptah, the creator of the moon, the sun and the earth?
• Atum, a sun god
• Tem, the god of the sunset?
• Shu, the god of sunlight and air?
Death Of The Firstborn Ex 11:1-12:30
• This plague was directed against "all of the gods of Egypt “Ex
12:12 and would show the total inability of the gods of Egypt to
protect their subjects. In the face of unparalleled tragedy, "all of
the gods of Egypt" were silent.
• Where was Selket, the guardian of life?
• Where was Renenutet, the cobra-goddess and guardian of
Pharaoh?
• Ex12:30 …there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a
house where there was not one dead.
• The Dream Stela of Thutmosis IV
The Dream Stela of Thutmosis IV
Story of 2nd born son of Pharaoh rising to the throne
18th Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs
(Dates BC)
Suggested Timeline of Plagues
• "June: the Nile becomes stagnant and red with
microscopic organisms. July: Frogs abound after the
inundation of the Nile. Hot summer and damp autumn
months: Lice, flies, murrain and boils. January: Hail and
rain. (This date fixed by the effect on the crops
mentioned). February: Appearance of locusts in early
spring, over the green crops. March: Darkness from
great sandstorms. April: Death of the firstborn, dated by
the Passover celebration" (Davis, p. 93).
The majority of the data about the
plagues in this presentation was
found on the website:
http://www.padfield.com/2002/egypt_3.html