Moses and Pharaoh are You

Exodus 11

Welcome to the Daily Bible Chapter. My name is James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as we discover new insights and new perspectives from a very old book.

EXODUS 11

I’m reading Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Exodus 11:7 says, “… the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”

This hearkens all the way back to Noah’s descendants after the flood. From what I wrote about Genesis 9:

Ham, the father of Canaan, “saw the nakedness of his father,” I think we are to infer something more, perhaps that Ham mocked and humiliated Noah, or worse. Ham then must become a slave to his brothers.

This sounds like a metaphor. There’s a side of me that’s potentially capable of anything, no matter perverse or gross, but I also have a higher self that subdues such impulses. The Ham in me must be a slave to better versions of me.

The lineage of Shem includes Abraham from Ur, while the descendants of Ham populate Canaan and Egypt. Most of Genesis is about Abraham and his descendants bearing witness to The LORD in these lands in which they were initially foreigners.