YHWH as a Contrived Hero

July 2, 2009, 9:26 am by dc-agape.

Exodus 13:1-16

This is a duplication of the religious significance of the Book of Exodus chapter 12.  It repeats the commandment of continuing the celebration of the Passover for eternity.  So in a way this could be a very short post.  I will make it interesting by making two observations.  The first is where YHWH demands that every firstborn belongs to him.  Since YHWH spared the firstborn of the Israelites, when he murdered the Egyptian firstborn, he demands that all firstborn belong to him.  The second is about the definition of the word “give”.  In this chapter, YHWH reminds Moses about how he promised to “give” the land of the Canaanites, etc to the Israelites.

This whole firstborn thing is rather interesting.  My first question is if the firstborn belong to YHWH, shouldn’t more of them survive the first year of life?  That certainly does not occur.  In fact, reading about how a Jewish family performs Pidyon Ha’ben, the consecration of the first born, only 10% of the Jewish children actually fit the requirements! 

Of course, being a patriarchal society firstborn girls are immaterial and do not qualify.  In fact, if the mother has a girl first any sons born to her are free of this religious commandment.  Another interesting condition is that at least donkeys are exempt as well.  A lamb can be slaughtered in replacement for a firstborn donkey. 

I wonder if cattle and horses get special treatment.  As it turns out, the donkey is considered unclean, which means that YHWH does not want it.  How convenient!  Cattle are “clean” and must be sacrificed to YHWH within the first year.  Horses are also considered unclean, uneatable, so the priest does not want them.  As an Atheist, the whole situation still seems a bit contrived; YHWH chooses to kill the firstborn of Egypt after hardening the Pharaoh’s heart.  Then he commands that since he saved the firstborn of Israel, that all of them belong to him forever!  In modern society, when a person creates the situation that he saves someone else from, the agent of the situation gains no favor.  Is this not something similar to constitutional tragedy?  The whole religious significance seem contrived to me!

I have not brought the second topic up yet, but does YHWH “give” the Promised Land to the Israelites?  The definition of “give” has about 57 meaning on dictionary.com, but most of them do not include the requirement of grueling battles, loss of life, or eternal struggle!  Yet this is exactly what the Israelites receive from this promise:

Exodus 13:5 When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites – the land he swore to your forefathers to give you, a land following with milk and honey – you are to observe this ceremony in this month:

The definition of give does not usually include murdering 5 civilizations already present in the process.  It just seems that a perfect YHWH would have given his people something miraculous, instead of making them work for all these millennia.   

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