Egyptians and Hebrews

When Moses was grown he killed an Egyptian who was beating an Hebrew and buried him in the sand. The next day Moses intervened between two Hebrews who were quarreling. The numbers point to another pair of quarreling Hebrews and an Egyptian who was also buried in the sand.

Exodus 2:11-14

Count

2+2 = 4 = Numbers

Numbers

The book of Numbers is about two generations. The first generation are those who left Egypt as adults. The second generation are those who were kids when they left Egypt and those who were born during the 40 years in the wilderness. The first generation makes up the census count at the beginning of the book of Numbers and the second generation makes up the census count near the end of the book. Between the two census counts every single person in the first generation, except Joshua and Caleb and a few others, die and are buried in the sand.

The two stories in Exodus are actually the same story, which is why they are given back to back. They can be overlayed for comparison.

When the stories are overlayed the identity of the fighters is that 1 is Egyptian/Hebrew and 1 is Hebrew. Interesting. The two generations in the book of Numbers resemble that. The first generation is Hebrew, but they are Hebrews who only know Egypt and are therefore Egyptian. The second generation, still young and impressionable when they left Egypt, or not born yet, are just Hebrews. Their only frame of reference are the miracles, the encounter at the mountain, the commandments, Moses, etc. They weren't old enough to be fully formed around life in Egypt.

In the wilderness the first generation is put to death more or less naturally by Yahvah and buried by Moses and the community. This is the killing and hiding of the Egyptian in the sand. The surviving generation is the Hebrew Moses rescued from the Egyptian.

(Note that Moses was replaying events on different scales at different points in his lifetime. First he killed and buried the individual Egyptian and then he did the same with the Egyptian generation. He also rescued the individual Hebrew and then did the same with the Hebrew generation.)

The other story in the pair says that two Hebrews were quarreling. One of them was in the wrong and resisted Moses when he tried to intervene. This also fits the pattern in Numbers.

The book of Numbers has a number of stories where there's quarreling. There's quarreling over food and water, there's quarreling over Moses' wife, there's quarreling over who should be in charge, but the passage that defines the book and seems to be the best match with the story in Exodus is the story where the first generation dooms the second to 40 years in the wilderness by quarreling over whether to go up and take the land.

The first generation, the Egyptian, clings to the bad report instead of trusting Yahvah's direction to take the land. They begin to, well, quarrel, over what to do. They want to elect a new leader and go back to Egypt. Their Egyptian-ness is showing.

Ironically, their argument for not going up, but returning to Egypt, is that they want to make life better for their kids. But they are wrong, or deceived. If they wanted to make life better for their kids, if they wanted out of the wilderness, they needed to go up and take the land just as Yahvah had told them. Instead they would rather go back to Egypt and place their kids into a life of slavery. They're hiding their own fears of going up behind "what's best for the kids." Yahvah sees their duplicity and says:

Because the adults, the first generation, choose not to obey and go up to Canaan, but quarreled over the word, they doomed their kids to life in the wilderness. The young were not in the wrong. The young were not thinking like Egyptians. They would have gone up, and eventually did. But the first generation, the Egyptian, wronged his fellow Hebrew, beat him down and enslaved him to a lifetime in the wilderness. But the Hebrew had the final word. He was vindicated, and rescued, when the Egyptian died and could no longer interfere.