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Commentary on Matthew 13:47-53

We come to the seventh and last of the Parables of the Kingdom in this discourse. Of course, we need to remind ourselves that Jesus did not speak them one after the other as they are presented here. They are the work of the author’s editing, putting matters with a common theme into one place.

Today’s Kingdom parable points to the end of time. There will come a time for the end of the Kingdom on earth, and then those who belong and those who do not will be clearly distinguished and separated from each other. That is something which cannot and should not be done now as the parable of the weeds indicated.

When will that end be? Of course, we do not know – fortunately! But one thing we do know is that our own end will come in a relatively short time, even if we live to be 100. And when that happens, it will be clear to God, if not to others, whether we are leaving this world ‘inside’ the Kingdom or ‘outside’ it, that is, whether we are with God or against him.

How can we make sure we are in the right place? By making sure that I get confession and the ‘last sacraments’ before I die? Don’t bet on it! The best guarantee is to enroll in the Kingdom today and every day, to live, with Christ’s help, in the way he has shown us. If we do that on a day-to-day basis, the future will take care of itself and there is no need to worry.

The whole discourse is then brought to an end by Jesus asking his disciples if they understand what he has been saying, and they say they do. Jesus then gives a description of the truly learned disciple. He is a “scribe”, an interpreter of God’s Word, who can bring from his storeroom “what is new and what is old”, someone who has both the wealth of the Old Testament, as well as the vision of the New.

The Jerusalem Bible comments:

“This picture of a ‘scribe who has become a disciple’ sums up the whole ideal of the evangelist and may well be a self-portrait.”

The author of this Gospel is clearly a Jew who has become a Christian.

As Jesus said earlier, he had not come to destroy the traditions of the ‘old’ Hebrew covenant, but to fulfil it with a new covenant. He would equally reject those who abandoned the Hebrew tradition, as well as those who rejected the new insights which he brought. This is a process which goes on today in the Christian faith. There is a continuing and creative tension between what has been handed down in the past, and the new understandings which arise with changing circumstances. We all have to be both conservative and progressive at the same time!

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Commentary on Exodus 40:16-21,34-38 Read Thursday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Matthew 13:44-46

Today we read the 5th and 6th of the Parables of the Kingdom which have basically the same message, but with some difference in emphasis. In the first of these today, a man unexpectedly discovers treasure in a field and quickly puts it back again. In ancient times it was common to hide treasure in the ground since there were no banks as we know them. There were, however, ‘bankers’, people who could handle money, probably closer to what we would call moneylenders (remember the parable of the talents where the man who hid his talent was told he should have deposited it with a banker so that it could earn interest. Instead, he did what someone in this parable had done—buried it in a field).

The finder then goes and quietly buys the field, selling everything he has in order to do so; the treasure is now his.

In the second parable, a jewel merchant comes across a magnificent pearl. Again, he sells all the lesser pearls he already has in order to gain possession of it.

These, Jesus says, are images of the Kingdom. Yet there is a significant difference between them. In the first parable, the man comes on the treasure purely by accident. He was not looking for anything like that. He just came across it while working in someone else’s field. That is the way that Christ can come into some people’s lives. They are living their lives with a greater or lesser degree of happiness and satisfaction and then, out of the blue, they are brought face to face with the Christian message. It can happen in so many ways and has been described in many accounts of conversion. The effect is to turn their whole life around.

In the second case, the man is looking for something. He has a very definite goal in mind—the perfect pearl. Similarly, a person can be looking for real meaning in their life. They may have tried many things already with only partial satisfaction. Then they come across the Gospel of Jesus and they know that here is the answer they have been looking for. Everything else is abandoned as they focus entirely on following the Way of Jesus. They know that this is it.

Once we truly understand what it really means to live under the Lordship of God, once we have a full understanding of the vision of life that Jesus proposes, then everything else pales into insignificance. And, whatever enticements may come our way, we know that there is no other way to go. Jesus is the Way, Jesus is Truth, and Jesus is Life. We would not exchange his Way for anything.

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Commentary on Exodus 34:29-35

Today’s reading comes after an account of God’s covenant being renewed with his people. The first covenant had fallen through when the Israelites set up the golden calf as an image of God and worshiped it with sacrifices and holocausts. God had been displeased and Moses was so angry at the sight of the revelling Israelites that he threw the tablets on the ground where they were smashed to pieces. It was the end of that covenant. It was not God who had broken it, but the people who had reneged on solemn promises to keep the Lord’s commandments. Moses then asked God who was to be their leader from now on, to renew the covenant. If they were to continue their journey, the people needed the assurance that the Lord was with them.

Moses was told to cut two new tablets so that the Lord could write on them as he did with the first pair. Then Yahweh appears and speaks consoling words:

The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… (Exod 34:6-7)

They are to know that this is the God they are dealing with. Of course, if they alienate themselves from him, they will be the losers. He will not force himself on them.

God then makes a new covenant with the Israelites and gives them a set of instructions for them to follow. It is a summary of commandments already given. Finally, Moses is told to put all this in writing as the terms of the covenant between God and Israel.

And Moses, we are told, stayed up on the mountain with Yahweh for 40 days and 40 nights, eating and drinking nothing, and on the tablets he wrote the words of the covenant—the Ten Words, the Decalogue (Greek, deka logoi).

Here today’s passage takes up the story. It is a story of uncertain origins and records a tradition about the radiance of Moses’ face, expressed by the verb qaran meaning ‘horn’. The radiance is seen like two horns of light rising from the head of Moses and represented as such in many works of art, including the famous statue by Michelangelo in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Our passage makes use of this tradition to describe Moses on his descent from the mountain back to his people.

As Moses came down from the mountain with the two newly inscribed tablets, he was not aware of the radiance of his face after having been speaking face to face with the Lord. When Aaron and the people saw the face of Moses, the radiance of his skin was such that they were afraid to go near him.

Moses told them not to fear and invited them to come close. Aaron and the other leaders approached and then the rest of the people followed. And Moses passed on to them all the instructions that he had received from the Lord on Mount Sinai. Once he had finished speaking, Moses put a veil over his face.

From now on, whenever Moses went into the Lord’s presence, he removed the veil to speak face to face with the Lord. This can refer to the times when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to talk with God, which we saw in yesterday’s reading.

When he came out again, he would give the Lord’s instructions and the Israelites would see the radiance of his face, but then Moses would put the veil back again until the next time he spoke with the Lord.

Paul sees in Moses’ veil a symbol of the failure of many of his people to recognise in Jesus the true Messiah and Saviour. When they read the Old Testament, it is as if a veil is concealing its full meaning from them:

…to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. (2 Cor 3:14)

It is significant in this context, that Moses only put on the veil after he had passed on the Lord’s message.

The symbol of the veil also occurs in John’s description of Jesus’ resurrection. When the Beloved Disciple looks into the tomb he notices that the veil which covered the face of Jesus is now wrapped neatly into one place. On seeing this, he believed, that is, he knew that his Lord was with the Father. The veil represents the humanity of Jesus by which his disciples could look on him during his earthly life; now, face to face with the Father in glory, there is no need any more for this veil.

Finally, we might say that the veil that Christ wears now is his community. We are the Body of Christ and it is through his Body that he now communicates with the world. How well are we fulfilling this responsibility, especially on a community level?

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Commentary on Matthew 13:36-43

Today we have an interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds (or darnel). Matthew begins by telling us that Jesus left the crowds and went to “the house”. This is the nameless place where Jesus is at home with his disciples. As suggested earlier, it is the place for the ‘insiders’, those who are close to Jesus in the sense of following him and accepting his way; it is also a symbol of where communities of Christians gathered in the early Church. Here Jesus is alone with his own disciples, away from the crowd.

His disciples ask for an explanation of the parable about the wheat and the weeds. Likely enough, what follows is less the actual words of Jesus than a reflection of the early Christian community applying the parable to their own situation. The parable, which basically makes one point, is now turned into an allegory where each part has a symbolic meaning of its own:

Whereas in the original parable, the emphasis seems to be on the necessary and unavoidable coexistence of good and bad within the Christian community, the emphasis here is more on what will happen at the end: the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the good.

Let us pray that we may be found among the good seed of the Kingdom. We do that by opening ourselves fully to Jesus our King and Lord and following the way he asks us to follow.

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Commentary on Matthew 13:31-35

Today we have two short parables which reflect both the experience of the early Church and also highlight features of the Kingdom. Considering when they were written, they exude an extraordinary level of trust and confidence in God’s power, a trust which was not disappointed although the results were not seen for generations.

The first is the parable of the mustard seed. The mustard seed is not actually the smallest seed known today, but it was the smallest seed used by Palestinian farmers and gardeners. Nor did it, strictly speaking, produce the largest of trees but, under favourable conditions, it could reach some 10 feet (or 3 metres) in height, big enough to provide shelter for birds.

The early Church, scattered in tiny communities, largely cut off from each other, all over the Mediterranean area must have felt very small, very vulnerable. The idea that in time it would become the central cultural influence all over Europe, Roman and barbarian, must have been beyond the wildest dreams of those early Christians. But that tiny seed did become a large tree providing shelter and comfort to millions and, from the Mediterranean, spread to every corner of the world.

The second parable about yeast in the dough is similar, but with a different nuance. In the Bible, yeast is usually a symbol of that which is evil and corrupt. Jesus warned his disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees (Mark 8:15). Similarly, at the Passover, the Jews eat unleavened bread, that is, bread free from leaven or yeast. In this parable, however, yeast is presented as a symbol of growth.

A tiny amount of yeast put into a large batch of dough produces striking results. (The 3 measures would produce enough to feed 100 people!) A dough batch, over a matter of hours, can swell to twice its original size as the process of fermentation takes place. The effects of the yeast, quite invisible, reach to every corner. Again, when this was written, that was not yet the case. The Church had made very little impact on its surrounding societies. But over the years, its influence grew until Christianity became the prevailing faith and cultural influence of the whole of Europe and then continued to spread out to other parts of the world.

This second parable points to a very important element in the life and work of the Church. It only exerts its influence when it is totally immersed in the society it wishes to reach and influence. And it can do this while still being only a small part of the whole. While never identifying itself with many of the prevailing ideologies and values of our societies, Christian communities must at the same time never separate themselves from their surroundings. There is a danger that we become inward-looking and spend most of our energies on the already converted. There is a strong evangelising element in this parable which cannot be ignored.

We need to remember that these are primarily parables of the Kingdom and not just of the Church, which is the imperfect sign of the work of the Kingdom going on in our world. And what these parables say applies first of all to the work of building the Kingdom in our world—it is a work which will go on inexorably, because it is based on truth, love and justice, and which slowly penetrates every corner of every society.

We can become aware to the point of depression at the amount of evil that we see around us and yet there is a gradual forward movement at all levels. But, as the previous parable reminds us, the wheat has always to co-exist with the weeds—both inside and outside the Church, both inside and outside the Kingdom.

Today’s reading concludes with a repetition of the statement that Jesus only spoke to the crowds in parables. And Matthew sees this as the fulfilment of a prophetic text from the Old Testament. It is in fact a quotation from Psalm 78:

I will open my mouth to speak in parables… (Ps 78:2)

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Commentary on Exodus 32:15-24,30-34

Before we actually look at today’s reading, we need to see the context in which it takes place. We have skipped several chapters in which God gives instructions to Moses on the design and furnishings of a sanctuary which is to accompany the Israelites on their journey, as a sign of God’s continuing presence among them. Central to this sanctuary was the Ark of the Covenant which contained the tablets of the Law which Moses had brought down from Mount Sinai after his dialogue with God.

The instructions cover items like the Ark, the table on which it is placed, the seven-branched lampstand, the altar of holocausts, oil for the lamps, the priestly vestments, priestly vestments, consecration of priests, ordination sacrifices, altar of incense, anointing oil and incense. Much of what is described seems to apply more to the situation that existed in the Temple after it was built at a much later date.

In the meantime, while Moses was getting these instructions from the Lord up on the mountain, the people below began to become impatient. They say to Aaron:

Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. (Exod 32:1)

So Aaron told the men to gather all the jewellery from their wives, sons and daughters and to bring it to him. From these offerings Aaron made a golden calf. The ‘golden calf’, a term of contempt, was in fact the statue of a young bull—a common symbol of divinity in the ancient east.

It seems that a group in competition with Moses’ group, or a dissident faction of his own group, had or wished to have the figure of a bull to symbolise the presence of God, instead of the Ark of the Covenant. It is not, however, an idol in the strict sense because it represents Yahweh, the Yahweh who brought Israel out of Egypt.

The people then cried out with enthusiasm: “This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” The bull was not even intended to be an image of Yahweh; like other Eastern parallels, it was regarded as the footstool of the unseen deity, which was also the role played by the Ark of the Covenant.

On the following day, having seen the reaction of the people, Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed:

Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord. (Exod 32:5)

It is clear from this that the golden calf was intended as an image, not of a false god, but of the Lord himself, his strength being symbolised by the strength of a young bull. The Israelites, however, had been strictly forbidden to represent the Lord under any visible form. It was part of the First Commandment:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. (Exod 20:4)

Early in the morning, the people offered holocausts and brought peace offerings before the calf and then celebrated with food and drink.

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, God began to tell Moses what was going on. He was not at all pleased. The Lord said to Moses:

Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation. (Exod 32:10)

In saying, “Let me alone”, the Lord anticipates the remonstration Moses is going to make. And indeed, Moses, immediately pleaded on his people’s behalf. Moses is regularly presented as the great mediator: at the time of the plagues; on behalf of his sister Miriam; and especially on behalf of the people on their journey through the desert.

Moses gave two reasons why God should not take vengeance on his people. First, the Egyptians will say that the Hebrews were led out into the desert just so that their God could exterminate them. Second, he reminded the Lord of the sacred promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Israel that their descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. So the Lord relented and held back his anger against his people and it is at this point that our today’s reading begins.

Moses leaves the presence of God and comes down the mountain bringing with him the two stone tablets on which the Law was written. They were written on both sides and had been engraved by God himself. When Joshua heard the noise in the Israelite camp, he thought there was a battle going on. Moses replied that they were neither the sounds of victory or defeat, but of pure revelry, people having a good time.

As Moses got near to the camp, he saw the calf and the people dancing around it. He became so angry at the sight that he threw down the two tablets which were smashed into pieces. He took the golden calf and ground it to powder, scattered it on the water of the stream that flowed down the mountainside and forced the Israelites to drink it.

Moses then asked his brother, Aaron, what the people could have done to him that he should lead them into such a terrible sin. Aaron very blandly passed the responsibility to the people, who were so prone to evil. He told Moses what they asked him to do and how he had asked them to offer their jewellery, saying:

…they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!

Just like that!

The next paragraph is omitted from our reading and it is not pleasant reading. When Moses saw the situation he immediately challenged all those who were for the Lord to stand by him. All the Levites rallied round him (Moses himself was from the tribe of Levi). He then gave them instructions to go round the camp and put to the sword even their kinsmen, friends and neighbours. Their kinsmen would have been Levites and hence especially guilty of idolatry. Altogether about 3,000 people were killed in the operation.

Moses tells those who had sided with him that, by their action, they are specially dedicated to the Lord and have brought a blessing on themselves. And, because of their zeal for the true worship of the Lord, the Levites were chosen to be special ministers of ritual service.

Finally, we go back to the last paragraph of our reading. Moses tells the people that they have committed a very serious sin, but that he is going back up to the Lord to ask forgiveness for them:

…perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

Then in the presence of the Lord, Moses acknowledges the seriousness of the people’s sin and begs forgiveness for them:

…if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of the book that you have written.

This ‘book’ is the list of God’s intimate friends. If it will save his people from destruction, Moses is willing to be excluded from this book. Paul speaks in a similar vein when expressing his grief that so many of his fellow-Jews have not accepted Christ:

I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood. (Rom 9:3)

And we know how passionately close to Christ Paul was.

In reply, the Lord says he will strike from his book only those who have sinned against him. In the meantime, Moses is to continue leading his people according to the Lord’s instructions. God’s protecting angel will be with them, and God says:

Nevertheless, when the day for punishment comes, I will punish them for their sin.

The Chosen People are full of goodwill. They ratify the most solemn covenants with the Lord with sacrifices and holocausts. Yet they can so easily fall away. It is not for us to blame them. For we, by and large, are no better. We have so many aids in our Christian faith for leading good lives and yet we fail so often. Let us renew once more our promises to be faithful. It is something, of course, that we can only do with His help.

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Commentary on Jeremiah 13:1-11

Today’s passage presents the symbol of the “linen loincloth”. It describes, not something that actually happened, but a symbolic vision. The meaning is clear: Israel, whom Yahweh had fastened as close to himself as a loincloth round his waist, had broken away and contracted the corruption of Babylonian idolatry. Not infrequently the prophets like to present the Lord’s message in the form of symbolic images, something like parables.

The prophet is told by Yahweh to purchase a linen loincloth and put it round his waist and he does so. Linen was the material from which the robes of the priests were made and was symbolic of Israel’s holiness as a “priestly kingdom” (Exod 19:6). So the linen loincloth or belt was a symbol of the formerly close relationship between God and his people. Jeremiah is also told not to put the loincloth in water, a symbol perhaps of the sinful pride of Judah, which did not want to be washed clean.

Later Jeremiah is told to take the loincloth around his waist and to hide it in a hole in a rock near the Perath, another name for the River Euphrates. The river Euphrates, which flowed through Babylonia, is here a symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influences, which began during the reign of Ahaz and which brought about Judah’s abandonment of Yahweh for the idols of their conquerors.

The Perath may, however, refer to the town of Parah (see Joshua 18:21-24), which was near the modern Wadi Farah, three miles northeast of Anathoth (Jeremiah’s birthplace). Since in other contexts the Hebrew for Perath refers to the river Euphrates, it serves as an appropriate symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influence on Judah that began during the reign of Ahaz. It is more likely that Jeremiah would have been told to put the loincloth in a place easily accessible to him. In any case, the symbol has the same connotation.

Jeremiah hides the loincloth, as instructed. After a considerable length of time, Yahweh tells the prophet to retrieve the loincloth. The hiding of the loincloth for a long time beside the river represents the period of exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.

When Jeremiah found it, it had become filthy dirty and was fit for nothing, least of all to be worn. Clearly it had become dirty from contamination with the place where it was concealed. The meaning of the symbol of the loincloth is then spelt out clearly. The people of the southern kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem are going to be punished for their arrogance and pride:

Thus says the Lord…I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

That had not been God’s idea originally. He had wanted the whole House of Judah to be in a close and intimate relationship with him, just as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist. God says they were to:

…be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.

Unfortunately, in their arrogance and pride, they refused to listen. Now they will pay the price for their infidelity. They will be carried away by the very creators of the idols they worshipped.

Once again we are being asked to reflect on the idols in our own lives. What are the things, the desires and the ambitions which come between us and our relationship with God? Do we try to compromise, to sit on the fence, try to have our cake and eat it? Do we try at the same time to serve God and ‘mammon’ – something Jesus said was impossible?

Where your treasure is, there your heart is too, Jesus said on another occasion. Where and what is my treasure in life? How close am I to my God and his ways?

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Commentary on Mark 12:38-44

We come today to the end of our readings from Mark’s gospel. We stop just on the threshold of prophecies about the end of Jerusalem and the final coming of Jesus and the story of his passion and resurrection. There are two related passages today serving as entry points for this last phase of Jesus’ life and mission among us.

First, Jesus hits out at some of the scribes, the expert interpreters of the law. As such, they feel that they are expected to be perfect models of that law down to its smallest details. Jesus says they go around in long, flowing robes (the working poor could not afford to dress like that) and that:

…they expect to be “greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!

Sadly, such behaviour, we have to confess, is still not unknown among Christian clergy and other religious leaders.

At the same time, Jesus says, these leaders were rapacious hypocrites. They did not hesitate to “devour widows’ houses” while, at the same time, making a show of lengthy prayers. They were the opposite of everything that Jesus was proposing as the way to love and serve God. They emphasised the external appearance rather than the inner spirit; they were concerned about being served rather than serving others; they thought only of what they could get through their privileged position rather than what they could share, especially with those in need.

Jesus warns that, precisely because of their greater knowledge of the law, their responsibilities in not keeping its real spirit will be all the greater – to whom more is given more is expected.

The mention of widows leads on to the second part of the reading. Jesus was sitting facing the treasury of the Temple and watching the people putting in their offerings. A poor widow – and at the time, widows were almost by definition poor and, because they could no longer produce children, regarded practically as non-persons – rejected by their husband’s family. They were often reduced to poverty. Yet, it is a poor widow who approaches the treasury box and drops in two coins of negligible value.

Jesus draws the attention of his disciples who were with him and points out that the poor woman had put in more than all the others combined. They were contributing what they could easily spare while she put in her whole livelihood. It was an act of total trust in God’s providence and care for her.

It has been pointed out that she put in two coins. In other words, given her situation and under the law, she would have been more than justified in putting in just one. Compare her to the rich man who could not part with his wealth to follow Jesus.

It has also been pointed out that this anonymous woman is, in a way, a symbol of Jesus himself. He also will “empty himself”, give away everything, including his life, out of love for his Father and for us. It seems no accident that the story is placed just here as Jesus enters on his final days.

Today’s two incidents both provide matter for us to reflect on. Do we wear our Christianity just on our sleeve? Do we tend to assert our “rights” over others and expect due deference from them e.g. in our working place? How much of what we have are we willing to share with others? Let us pray as St Ignatius prayed:

Teach us, Lord, to be generous.

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Commentary on Exodus 1:8-14,22

Immediately following the end of Genesis, we move into reading the next book of the Pentateuch, the book of the Exodus (Greek, Exodos) or the ‘Going Out’. The ‘Going In’ was partially realised by the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land, but only fully completed with the Resurrection and Ascension of the crucified Jesus the Christ.

The book tells of the departure of the Israelites from a life of slavery in Egypt. We saw that the last word in Genesis was “Egypt.” However, a long period has passed since the death of Joseph and the present plight of God’s People under the Pharaohs. Exodus recounts the oppression by the Egyptians of the ever-increasing descendants of Jacob followed by their miraculous deliverance by God through Moses, who led them across the Red Sea to Mount Sinai where they entered into a special covenant with the Lord.

These events were of prime importance to the Chosen People, who became an independent nation having a unique relationship with God. Through Moses, God gave to the Israelites at Mount Sinai the “Law”: the moral, civil and ritual legislation by which they were to become a holy people, in whom the promise of a Saviour for all mankind would be fulfilled.

We will spend the next three weeks going through this book. There are two central themes:

1. the slavery and the deliverance from slavery in Egypt (Exod 1:1-15:21) and
2. the Covenant on Sinai (Exod 19:1-40:38).

Connecting these two is the secondary theme of the Journey through the Wilderness (Exod 15:22-18:27).

The central figure is Moses, arguably Israel’s greatest prophet. It is he who will lead his people out of the bondage in Egypt to the foot of Mount Sinai. There, in a majestic and dramatic setting, God makes a solemn alliance with his people and hands down his law, the law which is at the heart of Israel’s life, and around which the whole of Old Testament revolves.

At the end of Genesis we saw how Joseph had brought his people to live in Egypt under very favourable conditions. The opening paragraph of Exodus makes the link between that time and the present. The 11 brothers of Joseph, the sons of Jacob-Israel, had settled in Egypt and we are told that altogether, Jacob had 70 direct descendants (literally, ‘coming from the loins of Jacob’), presumably by a multiplicity of wives.

Now, some 400 years later the situation has changed:

…a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.

Pharaoh, in Egyptian, is Per-aa, meaning ‘the great House’ and was the usual designation of the Palace or the Court, but from the 18th Dynasty onwards, referred to the king’s own person.

He resented the growing numbers and the increasing power of the Hebrews in his kingdom.:

He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

The implication is that an important source of slave labour would be lost. Ironically, they would in fact leave the country, but with the help of an ally the Pharaoh had not taken into account.

It was the beginning of the long and sad story of antisemitism and of all kinds of racial and ethnic discrimination—by no means a thing of the past now, some 3,000 years later.

The Pharaoh took two steps to subjugate the Hebrew: first, they were reduced to doing forced labour under Egyptian taskmasters. For their massive undertakings the kings of this time in general always used forced labour. In Israel, David was to do so (2 Sam 20:24) and Solomon even more so in his building of the Temple. The Hebrews were involved in major construction projects, specifically, the building of the supply or store cities of Pithom and Rameses. Rameses was the residence in the Nile Delta of Pharaoh Rameses II. It is now identified with either the contemporary town of Tanis or Qantir.

Yet, the greater the oppression, the more the Hebrew population increased. As a result, the working conditions became even more severe, and the Hebrews were virtually reduced to slavery and doing the most difficult work.

It is part of our reading, but it is interesting to note that the Pharaoh told the Hebrew midwives:

When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.

The midwives, however, “feared God” and disobeyed the ruling. When called to account, they replied:

…the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.

Finally though:

Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews[a] you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

The stage is being set for the birth of one particular boy—Moses—and God’s intervention on behalf of his suffering people.