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When King Ramses II finally released the Israelites, 400 years and 10 plagues later than they had hoped, they actually stayed in Egypt for nearly a month post emancipation. They were on the move, of course, because Pharaoh’s army was in hot pursuit, despite their diplomatic immunity.
Sneaky politics is not an invention of the 21 century. The Israelites covered nearly 310 miles in Egypt before arriving at the Red Sea. This meant they had to walk an average of 10 hours per day.
Cleverly, they left their captivity at midnight because walking 10 hours a day under an Egyptian sun, with no sunscreen, would have been unbearable. Those camels didn’t come with air conditioning, either. Once they finally reached the Red Sea, the freed slaves camped on its shore for eight days.
This was an odd choice given they could probably see dust clouds stirring up in their rearview mirrors from Ramses’ army in full battle gear, riding in their version of the American Abrams M1A2 army tanks. It’s unclear why Moses chose to wait for the Egyptian army to show up before pounding his staff into the water in one of the Top 10 Showstoppers of the Bible.
By the way, it was Charlton Heston – as Moses in the movie The Ten Commandments – who smashed his staff into the water to part the sea. Moses’ version was much less showy, as he was told to simply raise his staff above the water. Hollywood did a better job as far as drama goes; we prefer a reckless cowboy to a mild-mannered diplomat.
I’ve always been confused at Moses’ decision to wait so long on that shoreline. There are disputes about how many Israelites left with Moses, but most agree to a 600,000 head count. So Moses had a lot of people counting on him – very likely pressuring him – and they were tired, dirty and hungry.
God wouldn’t send manna and quail for another month or so, when they reached Elim. Can you imagine the anxiety Moses must have felt during those eight days? Tensions must have been high, with people urging him to hurry up and make a plan out of the land that held them captive. And their lives depended on it, because the army would surely annihilate them.
They practically race-walked to the shore, surging with adrenaline and some serious post-traumatic stress disorder. When they finally reached the jumping-off place, Moses pulled a fast one by instructing them to unpack their gear and set up camp for what must have been the longest week of their lives.
God was in pretty constant contact with Moses at this time. If they had used cellphones, the kids would have called it a “blown up” situation. But even with their closeness, maybe Moses felt uncertain raising his walking stick above the water.
What if nothing happened? He would be humiliated in front of a pretty sizable audience. Maybe he needed the intense pressure of a raging army to make that final decision to leave.
Or perhaps he resisted God’s plan because he didn’t like the idea of thousands of Egyptian men perishing in the ocean when the invisible walls released the water. That’s the downside of change; there is always a cost. But if I had been Moses, I would have waited those eight days, too.
They were leaving their home, and yes, aside from the 30 years they lived under the favor of Pharaoh Sesatris III – this was during the Potifer’s wife-seduction-scandal, which landed Joseph in prison – the bulk of their time in Egypt was pretty awful. But, still, it was their home for centuries. Once they crossed the Red Sea, they would become homeless foreigners.
So, like Moses, I would want to take pause and reflect on who I was in my old life, then consider who I might become in the new one, before I crossed that border into the wilderness. The Israelites lived on the lowest strata of Egyptian society, but they were still a part of something larger than themselves. The system sucked, yes, but there was a system. Once they crossed the border, it would be in a lonely Wild West.
I think that’s the reason many choose to remain living in tepid to boiling water for eight days or years or decades. The pain becomes familiar enough that the thought of losing what we know in exchange for something we cannot know sanctions us to navigate a life lived in the subpar.
Many times during their 40 years of wilderness wandering, the Israelites begged Moses to take them back to Egypt. They preferred slavery over freedom because they understood slavery – and freedom was terrifying.
Many of us have crossed the Cherokee County border from an old life in exchange for a new one. I am among them. I don’t yet know if Murphy is my Mount Sinai or the Promised Land, but I do know that I am free here.
My journey was wretched, and many times I considered running back to the ruinous life I left behind. But courage breeds confidence, and I am now confident that I belong on this side of the shoreline.
It took some time, because mountain folks are cautious, but they have accepted me as a refugee. The Israelites eventually made it Canaan and found life there far sweeter, and immeasurably more meaningful, than the one they left behind. Like me, they persisted through lack of faith, fear of change and profound loss to find their way to home.
Abigail Blythe Batton is a staff correspondent for the Cherokee Scout. Her column runs every other week. Email her at ablythebatton@gmail.com or leave a message at 837-5122.