Baby Moses
Exodus 1:1 to 4:20
1:1 After hundreds of years of good times in Egypt, there was a coup d'etat and the descendants of the twelve sons of Israel were all fans of the losing Pharaoh's regime. By this time the Israelite tribes had grown to a considerable piece of the Egyptian economic pie. The new Pharaoh had them all arrested and sentenced to a life of slave labor. This just seemed to make them stronger and tougher. Pharaoh tried to beat them down by making life harder for them but these people just had babies like crazy so their numbers were growing. To reduce their population Pharaoh ordered the killing of all the male Israelite babies. Despite the fear of the tyrannical Pharaoh, many babies were allowed to live due to an even greater fear of Yahweh. When the midwives were questioned about this they blamed the Israelites. In return for their help Yahweh made them some houses.
Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to throw their babies into the river. One of the women of the Levite tribe of Israelites kept a baby boy hidden for 3 months in a small basket between the bushes by the riverbank. The child was eventually discovered floating around in the basket by one of Pharaoh's daughters who frequently came to the river to skinny dip. She thought he was such a cute little bundle of joy that she snatched him up like a lost puppy and neatly ordered his real mother to help take care of him. She named him Moses which is a word that sounds only slightly similar to the Hebrew word for "snatched him up like a lost puppy" and amazingly close to the Egyptian word for "boy-child."
 One day when Moses was all grown up he was out and about when he witnessed an Egyptian guy beating up a Hebrew guy, so he murdered the attacker and hid the body. Things sort of got a little dicey for him when the crime was being investigated so he fled to Midian to hide out. In this hot dry desert he met the seven daughters of a local pagan priest by hanging out by the well and waiting around for them to get thirsty. Some mean boys came and started intimidating the girls so Moses chased them away and this impressed the girl's father, Jethro. He gave Moses a daughter and she gave him a son.
Meanwhile back in Egypt the much hated evil Pharaoh died, which helped, but the Israelites had grown used to whining to Yahweh about their problems in general. Yahweh heard them bellyaching and was reminded of the earlier promises he had made to them. Yahweh still more or less respected the Israelites.
3:1 Moses raised sheep out there on the desert for his father-in-law Jethro. One day he was hiking on Yahweh's personal mountain and witnessed an amazing optical illusion. An angel morphed himself to look like a fire on a bush, without damaging the bush. Moses thought that was kind of cool how the bush appeared to keep burning without turning all black or anything so he went closer to check it out. Yahweh made his voice sound like it was coming directly from the bush saying "Take off your shoes Moses, this is special ground to me, the barefoot sort of special." Moses was terrified of the weird booming anti-shoe fire bush. He covered his face.
Big Bush Voice continued on "I hear your ethnic group constantly pissing and moaning about this and that and whatnot, and I've decided you are going be the one to take them out of Egypt and over to Canaan." Moses said "Who me? No way." Yahweh said “YAH WAY” and assured Moses that he would help him with some of the travel arrangements. Moses asked "Do you even know these Israelites? They’re like a bunch of children. They are going to have questions, a lot of questions. For instance, what will I say when they ask your name?" Yahweh (more flame) replied "My name is... IAMWHOIAM, tell them something smartass like that (extra smoke). And tell this new Pharaoh guy that I met with you. Don’t worry, I'll let him know he had better play along. Oh, and when you go, remember to wear lots of jewelry. It makes a good impression."
 Moses said "They'll never believe it. They’ll say I’m some kind of basket case." Coming from Moses that passed for a pretty good joke, but the point was well taken so to give Moses some street cred Yahweh taught him to do three slightly impressive parlor tricks. The first was changing his walking stick into a snake. The second was making his hand appear to change from healthy to all sickly and gross and hideous and then back to normal. The third was making an everyday glass of water appear to turn red. Moses complained "But I'm not much a good talker guy." Yahweh replied "I know, I made you that way." Moses stuttered some more and Yahweh became angry and very demanding. He ordered Moses to go see his more articulate brother Aaron about getting some speech therapy and added "Don't forget the stick to snake trick." Yahweh loves that one.
4:20 Moses headed back over to Egypt. Yahweh assured Moses that Pharaoh was not going to believe a word of any of the “I talked to God” story as Yahweh intended to use mind control on him and force him to be skeptical. "And then," instructed Yahweh, "get this, when I make him say he doubts you, you tell him I consider the Israelites to be my oldest son. I still won't let him cooperate and then, this is so great, I will kill HIS oldest son, BOOM!"
On down the road Moses and his wife Zipporah and the children came to a little roadside inn. They were just hanging out in the shade and resting up when Yahweh suddenly appeared out of
 thin air. He angrily grabbed ahold of Moses and began savagely killing him with his bare hands. Luckily Zippy figured out what the violent outburst was all about. She quickly picked up a sharp rock and sawed off the tip of her son’s penis with it. She threw the bit of bloody penis flesh at her husband's feet saying "Oh you bloody husband you. You are a bloody bloody husband to me because of circumcision." Yahweh released Moses and started cooling down a little, but that was a close one.
Moses went to see his brother Aaron and filled him in on Yahweh's big strategy for getting the tribes out of Egypt and over to Canaan. The two of them went before the Israelites and gave a formal presentation about the plan. Amazingly the tribes actually believed the story. They began groveling in gratitude, thankful that Yahweh had finally taken the time to pop in for a visit.
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