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[bell ringing]
[ominous music playing]
[Yahweh] Pharaoh.
Who are you?
Pharaoh.
Show yourself.
You will fall.
I am the destroyer.
Your empire will fall.
[screaming]
I am the destroyer.
Pharaoh…
Gods.
What is this?
I am the destroyer.
[Haman] My lord.
[breathing heavily]
My lord. Are you well?
I had a dream.
I was surrounded by darkness.
[dramatic music playing]
A shadow of a man.
Haman, put patrols on the streets.
There is a murderer in our midst.
Yes, Majesty.
[dramatic music swells]
[epic music playing]
[intriguing music playing]
[Brown] During the New Kingdom,
when the story of the Exodus might have taken place,
the Egyptians were worshiping a pantheon of deities, multiple gods,
some who were animal-headed, some who were human-headed,
who took on all these different aspects of the natural world
that could then be harnessed and used to serve the people of Egypt.
[Hanna] The pharaoh, he was seen as an intermediary
between the people and the gods.
So they were even, uh, creating statues with big ears,
which meant that they could hear the people
and pray to the gods of what the people ask.
The pharaoh was a semi-divine being.
He was god on Earth, essentially.
He was the mediator between the mortal world and the divine world.
[heart beating]
The true drama of the book of Exodus really isn't between Moses and Pharaoh.
It sort of is, but it's actually between Israel's god Yahweh
and the gods of Egypt.
That's the real tension,
and who is going to have the right to the people of Israel?
Will they serve Pharaoh as slaves,
or will they serve Yahweh as worshipers?
[Yahweh echoing] You will return to Egypt. You will return to Egypt.
[Moses] Pharaoh will never free the Hebrews.
He will resist, and I will smite him for it.
It belongs to our great ancestor, Joseph,
who was the son of Jacob,
who was the son of Isaac,
who was the son of Abraham.
[stately music playing]
[Adelman] Moses only comes to know his Israelite identity
at a later stage in his life.
I'd say he's a hybrid of Egyptian and Israelite.
And knowing freedom,
growing up in freedom
also gave him access to what freedom would mean.
[percussive music playing]
The savior of the Israelites had to be somebody
who was not in the middle of the trauma.
Because the people inside,
the Bible describes them as having kotzer ruach, shortness of spirit.
They could not imagine a life different than the one they were in then.
It needed somebody who saw a bigger world.
Somebody living in the court of a pharaoh.
[percussive music continues]
It's not simply that Moses is going up against a pharaoh,
an unjust ruler, but he knows this person intimately.
He's been raised in this household, has a relationship.
And so there's the political dimension
and the personal dimension are entirely intertwined.
He has so much at stake.
He's tasked with liberating an entire people.
So it's not just a matter of his own fate,
but he's tasked with this very heavy mission.
Halt!
I wish to see Princess Bithiah.
Leave us, peasant.
Grab him!
My name is Moses! My name is Moses!
Tell the princess her son is back!
[Henet] Where is he?
Open it at once.
That's him!
[soulful music playing]
My lady.
Leave us.
[soulful music swells]
Oh, beloved boy.
It is not safe for you here.
I know you did not kill that man,
but there are others who will punish you for it.
You must leave the city at once.
I found out.
I found out what happened when I was a baby.
I have a brother.
A sister.
And my first mother.
[sniffles]
I…
I lost a child.
A stillbirth.
I thought of drowning myself in the Nile.
But the river gave me a new life.
It gave me you.
[melancholy music playing]
[Adelman] Along comes Pharaoh's daughter with her maids.
And she comes to the Nile, and she hears a crying.
[baby crying]
[baby continues crying]
And she sees this little ark.
She sends out her arm, and her arm extends.
It doubles in length and extends. It stretches out.
And she brings in the ark and opens it.
And again, a light suffuses the world
from looking at this baby.
And immediately, she knows it's a Hebrew infant.
[Bithiah] You are so beautiful.
-One of the Hebrew babies? -Never say that again!
He's a gift.
Yes.
Yes, you're a gift.
But, my lady, this is not something you can keep.
Think twice before you tell me what to do.
[baby crying]
We will take him to the palace.
No one knows of my loss.
This will be my baby.
[Henet] And if your father were to find out?
We have a secret.
Together.
Let us call him Moses.
Born of the water.
My Moses.
An Egyptian name?
For an Egyptian prince.
[Harris] The pharaoh's daughter gives the baby
that she draws out of the Nile the name Moses,
or Moshe in Hebrew.
The story is being told about a princess of Egypt
who is not a Hebrew speaker
and would have no reason to give this child a Hebrew name.
So we are confronted with this amazing saga
that the great liberator of the Jewish people
shows up on the scene in Egypt saying, "God has sent me to liberate you,"
and he's got this name that is other.
It would be like if he appeared today to the Jewish community
and his name was Kareem, or Mary Jane,
or something from a dominant other culture.
Moses is called by the name the daughter of Pharaoh gave to him.
So the Midrash then tries to bring in these two verses
in reconciliation with each other
and says that the princess, Bat Pharaoh, daughter of Pharaoh,
was adopted by God as God's daughter,
Bat Yah, "Bithiah," the daughter of Yah.
The daughter of the Hebrew god.
Now, no other person is called the daughter of God.
Nobody else.
This is a totally unique name, Batyah.
I need your help again, Mother.
It is true.
I did kill that man.
Leave.
-Now. -I cannot.
I've been told to return.
Told?
By who?
God.
Which god?
The same God who brought me to you as a baby.
The God of the Hebrews.
He told me to lead my people to freedom,
to take them back to their home in Canaan.
He will never give those people their freedom!
Listen to me. Tomorrow is the prince's birthday.
No pharaoh can deny the wishes of his subjects on that day.
Moses, listen to me.
My brother had a dream, a premonition.
Hundreds of arrests have been made.
Those arrested are tortured!
I have never seen him this way before.
Go now, out of the city.
I can live without seeing you again if I know you are alive.
[grave music playing]
Take care to pass unseen.
Word must never reach the pharaoh you are back.
Promise me.
[Zipporah] It did not sit well on you.
You are wrong. It does.
It did sit well. It's a prophet's robe.
Enough.
My wife is right. I'm not worthy of these clothes.
[Yahweh] I am what I am
and what I will be.
Forgive me, my Lord.
[solemn music playing]
Where is your faith, Moses?
I'm afraid.
There will be three signs that prove to Pharaoh I am the Lord.
If you have faith,
they shall be given to you to reveal.
And if I falter?
If the sun or moon should doubt,
they would immediately go out.
I think the relationship between Moses and God was just so real.
And it's like, "Okay, God, you're telling me to do this,
but by the way, this is how I feel."
"I've got some questions. I've got some issues."
[Ibrahim] In Moses' story in the Qur'an,
God is asking him to do these very difficult things
that he knows he can't do of his own force.
And so in many ways,
I think the reader of the Qur'an, someone who is listening to it,
is asked to put themselves into this role
and say, "What are the big callings of my own life?"
"And how do I establish a relationship of trust with-- with God,
with the-- this almighty force that is going to carry me through my journey?"
[dramatic music playing]
[horns blowing]
Today, I honor my son's 18th birthday.
[cheering]
[applause]
[cheers and applause fade]
[horns playing]
And now, as is customary,
I wish to share the blessings of this auspicious day
with my beloved people.
Who here would ask a favor of me?
[cheering]
[Aaron] Let us through.
[Yahweh] Show them a sign.
-You heard what the king said. -Not for your kind.
[exclaims]
[high-pitched ringing]
[groaning]
[Yahweh] There will be three signs that prove to Pharaoh I am the Lord.
[softly] It's a sign.
[dramatic music playing]
God gives Moses three signs
in order for Moses to present himself
with some kind of credentials, right?
He needs to be believed.
He's told, "Put your hand in your cloak."
And when he brings it out, it's leprous.
Like death.
You.
-[woman] He's going to speak! -[Pharaoh] Moses.
You're back.
[man] He knows him.
Dressed like a beggar. A murderer, even.
I presume you have come for forgiveness under the auspices of this special day.
I choose…
to grant it.
[crowd cheering]
Let the punishment for murder be lifted.
The most precious thing in the world is a man's freedom.
We ask you to grant us this.
As I have done.
Let my people go!
[crowd exclaiming]
Your people?
-The Hebrews. -[Pharaoh] The Hebrews?
You're no Hebrew.
Why would you claim to be a commoner?
I beg you, let us go to the desert to worship our God.
Our God?
Tell me, grand vizier, have we heard of a Hebrew god?
Is he in the Book of the Day?
No, my lord.
Has he by any chance ever been mentioned in the Book of the Dead?
Not a word, my lord.
Well, who is he then?
He's a god that can perform miracles.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
Show me. Show me what this god of yours can do.
[wind whistling]
[dramatic musical flourish]
[all gasp]
The serpent is one of the gods of the Egyptians.
It's the uroboros. It's associated with the Nile.
-[snake hissing] -[people exclaim]
This is the special magical staff that he can turn into a snake.
Turn it into the symbol of Egypt.
Sorcerers.
Demonstrate true magic.
[Nasser] Egyptians were known for magic.
If you want to bring a sign, if you want to dominate the Egyptians,
you have to dominate them with something that they are good at.
And the thing they were good at is magic.
[menacing music playing]
[both chanting]
[Brown] Egyptian magic, or heka as they called it,
was more based in the written word or the spoken word.
That's really where this power or this divine force came from.
[menacing music continues]
[crowd exclaim]
[Enns] Symbolically, the serpent,
it's swallowing up Egyptian royalty and power and authority.
Because, if you know, the pharaohs, at least for a period of time,
had a headdress like a cobra, right?
[triumphant music playing]
Majesty, this is more than magic.
This man serves a god mightier than ours.
Arrest him.
[crowd exclaim]
-Brother-- -Silence.
[man 2] I don't know.
All we ask for is three days.
Why should I listen to your god?
What cities has he captured?
What battles has he won?
[all] Yes.
He made the heavens and earth and everything in it.
You lie.
I am the lord of the world,
beloved of the gods who created myself and the Nile.
No. There's only one true God.
And this God, my God, created you!
[crowd exclaiming]
[man 2] I've never heard of this god!
[ominous music playing]
[Bithiah] He must speak.
[chuckling]
[Pharaoh] On behalf of myself and my son,
I thank Ra and Isis for this unexpected spectacle,
which has made for great entertainment.
Get these fools out of our sight.
[woman 2] Out! Out!
Pharaoh's, I would say, least redeeming trait is his arrogance,
which then puts him against Moses perfectly
as Moses' number one character trait is described as humility.
So it's arrogance versus humility on full display.
We showed them. They saw the strength of our God with their own eyes.
I know that man. We can be sure of nothing.
[woman 3] Get out!
[Aaron] And you should have seen the look on Pharaoh's face.
[mimicking surprise] Oh! Oh! Oh!
-[Moses] Listen to me. -And then…
God told me Pharaoh would resist, and that He will smite him for it.
Pharaoh did resist, and yet God did not strike him.
Do you understand?
Hmm.
Tell me of Eliezer's birth.
What?
My sisters and everyone
said the second birth would be easier than the first.
Tell me what you remember.
[Moses sighs]
[Moses] It was more than three days.
I was certain that he would be lost.
That you would be too.
And yet, it wasn't like this.
God may yet smite your uncle,
but it may take longer than you expect.
It may be harder,
enough to have you howling at the stars like I did.
It is up to God.
These people are looking to you.
Who am I to lead them?
You are the one who speaks with God.
That is who.
[Kang] There's not a day that goes by
where I don't feel in some way, shape or form,
uh, insecure or anxious about something, or inadequate.
I think of Moses in all of his weakness.
Again, he's got the rap sheet. You know, a terrible record.
He's got 40 years of obscurity, and God chose him.
"I'm gonna use you."
The story of Moses is so relatable
because we all see ourselves in his life,
in his questions, in his bouts with God.
Like, "God, you've got the wrong person."
[Pharaoh] All these years you have betrayed me.
After my loss, I thought him a gift from the gods.
You must have been in the grip of madness, lying to our father like that.
[scoffs] Our father ordering the murder of all those innocent Hebrew babies,
that was madness!
An abomination!
Going against his decree has brought a curse upon us.
I have seen things that you have not.
If you wish to consult with traitors,
I can arrange for you to do so in the dungeon.
I cannot explain the power he showed us today, can you?
You are my blood.
The bond between us, unbreakable.
You must decide.
Where does your loyalty lie?
[tense music playing]
A lowly laborer is no threat to your empire.
I shall organize his execution.
I will not be provoked into an ill-judged move.
These men speak for the Hebrews and should not be made into martyrs.
There is another way.
[overseer] Those with time to visit the desert
cannot be working hard enough!
From this moment on,
Hebrews will no longer be given straw to make bricks!
[crowd exclaiming]
You will scrabble in the dirt for your own straw
while meeting the same quota!
[crowd groaning]
[woman] They want to kill us.
The kingdom has no place for shirkers!
You will work harder!
[crowd groaning]
-[man] We're working so hard! -[woman 2] No one works harder than us!
So now we see the consequences of this folly.
I hope our God is watching you and judging.
[crowd groaning]
What am I to do?
What? Ignore God's commands?
No, you should have suffered,
as we have suffered before you presumed to lead us.
And now you will!
The Lord will demand what He will.
And Pharaoh will turn this quarry into our grave!
[crowd murmuring]
[tense music playing]
Shame on you!
Shame on all of you!
Four hundred years of toiling in the dirt is not enough!
Do you want Pharaoh as a master?
A master of suffering?
Would you be free of any master?
We must fight for freedom.
Risk all for it.
-[man 2] Yes! -[man 3] Yes.
Freedom is not given. It must be taken.
[crowd murmuring] Yes.
Listen to Moses.
Let him lead us.
[crowd] Yes.
[tense music rising]
[people screaming]
[woman screaming]
[people yelling, grunting]
Moses!
Mother! Zipporah!
-[Zipporah] Moses! -[Moses] Mother!
Mother!
Help me! Help me!
[Zipporah] Let's go!
[rising hum]
[Yahweh] I am what I am and what I will be.
I went to Pharaoh and did your bidding,
and life became wretched.
Remember who I am, Moses.
Go and speak to Pharaoh in the morning as he walks by the Nile.
Why? Pharaoh will never let us go.
Do as I say.
Go with Aaron.
Make use of your staff.
[echoing] Have faith, Moses.
[Jochebed groaning]
Mother. Mother.
It's me.
-It's me, Moses. -Son…
God was here.
Ah!
The path is set, my son.
Show them the way,
wherever it leads.
I will.
I will, Mother. I will.
[melancholy music playing]
[narrator] "So the Lord said to Moses,
'Pharaoh's heart is hard.'"
"'He refuses to let the people go.'"
"'Go to Pharaoh in the morning when he goes out to the water,
and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him.'"
"'And the rod which was turned into a serpent
you shall take in your hand.'"
Seize him.
Are you so scared of us that you may not even let us speak?
[grunting]
[Aaron] We have come here to ask you again.
Let us go to the desert, so we may worship our God.
A god… who sends a murderer to speak for him?
If I must, I will leave with blood on my hands again.
Do you threaten me?
Do not see it as a weakness to let us go.
It is a strength.
You dare tell me about weakness or strength?
Me, a warrior?
You are a man who can bring a nation to his knees.
We know that.
But you can rule with love and be rewarded for it.
So you have my interest at heart.
These are the words of a changeling.
A little lost boy dressed up to play the part of a prophet.
And now you appear before me…
without loyalty or gratitude to those who gave you everything.
The Egyptian Empire made you.
Moses, the Hebrews have only confused you.
And your god,
He will lead you into an abyss.
[somber music playing]
[Moses] See the power of my God.
[wind whooshing]
[dramatic music building]
God is great!
Now all the water in Egypt is blood.
Your people will be parched with thirst.
They will drink wine until they have water again.
And feel all the better for it.
[soulful choral music playing]
[Lewter] You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.
It had to be something that garnered the attention
of Pharaoh in Egypt,
and certainly signaled that God was serious
in this emancipation.
[Adelman] Taking the Nile and turning it to blood.
Instead of being a source of life,
it's a source of death.
We don't have a water problem here.
Ours is from a sacred source.
[bell ringing]
[dramatic music playing]
[Enns] The plagues are really Israel's God flexing his muscles
against the Egyptian pantheon
because these plagues represent Egyptian deities.
So, for example, the first plague is turning the Nile into blood.
And the Nile is the life of Egypt.
The Nile god is Hapi, an androgynous deity.
And the blood of the Nile,
it might be like Hapi is injured or even is slain.
So you have blood all over the place.
[overseer] Come on!
[narrator] "All the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink…
for they could not drink of the water of the river."
[Nasser] Even Pharaoh couldn't drink for seven days.
He was chewing on grass to try to get some liquid out of the grass
because every time he tries to drink water, it just turns into blood.
[narrator] A new power is abroad in Egypt,
and the old power is anxious to know its limits.
[chanting]
[tense music playing]
Is it done?
Soon, Majesty.
Majesty, the princess wants to know
when you'll be ready to speak to the Hebrews.
Let them wait.
It's done, Majesty.
[dramatic music playing]
Pharaoh, we come in peace to negotiate.
You have poisoned my river.
[Moses] Not us.
God.
These are paltry tricks my own magicians can do.
You… have disturbed the order of my kingdom.
There is only one suitable punishment.
He's my son.
And he's important to the Hebrews.
The river is returning to normal.
Why embitter your workforce and foment rebellion?
Since he says he's a Hebrew,
he will be treated as a Hebrew.
Put them to work.
Paltry tricks.
The Qur'an describes Pharaoh as being what we would say in English as haughty,
and haughty is a perfect translation because it captures that essence
of thinking himself high when he's hearing this message of prophecy
to not be a tyrant in the land
and to recognize that God is supreme over all beings.
He really can't hear that message
because his own ego is standing in-- in the way
of hearing what Moses has to say.
[dramatic music playing]
[overseer] Come on! Come on!
Get to work!
-Get to work! -[Moses exclaims]
-Stop! Stop! -Get to work!
[overseer] Come on! Come on!
Work! Come on now!
[tense music playing]
Come on! Come on!
Come on!
[croaking]
[narrator] "'Behold, I will smite all your territory with frogs.'"
[overseer] Let's go!
"'So the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly,
which will go up and come into your house.'"
"'Into your bedroom, on your bed,
into the houses of your servants,
into your ovens and into your kneading bowls.'"
"'And the frogs shall come up on you,
on your people and all your servants.'"
[dramatic music playing]
[screaming]
[Enns] The second plague is the plague of frogs.
And these frogs are multiplying.
And it just so happens that the Egyptian deity of fertility is Heqet,
pictured with the head of a frog.
So you have the first two plagues,
and the question is, who's in charge of the Nile?
Is it Hapi or is it Yahweh?
Who's in charge of fertility? Is it Heqet or is it Yahweh?
There are stories about how the frogs were swarming the cities,
how someone would be sleeping and then he would be covered with frogs.
There would be frogs all over the person that they couldn't even stand up.
You would be eating, and a frog would jump into your mouth.
It's really a Hollywood-like crazy, uh, horror movie.
[bell ringing]
[men chanting]
A man, not a god.
[Enns] The magicians were able to do the same thing.
They can duplicate the first two plagues, which is the Nile and the frogs.
What they can't do is take it away.
See, they can introduce chaos, but they can't introduce order.
Only Yahweh can introduce order.
[narrator] "Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said,
'Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people,
and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.'"
"Moses replied,
'It will be as you say,
so that you may know there is no one like the Lord our God.'"
"The frogs died in the houses,
in the courtyards and in the fields."
"They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them."
"But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief,
he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron,
just as the Lord had said."
[Harris] When the first few plagues come down,
a lot of Pharaoh's advisors are telling him, "Don't give in."
But pretty quickly the tables turn,
and before too long all of his advisors are saying,
"You need to just concede."
But he can't hear that.
Here we have the Hebrew god from far off
whose people are enslaved, which means he's weak,
marching into Egyptian territory and basically doing a smackdown fight
for a few chapters, and he doesn't stop.
[tense music playing]
[woman 1 gasps] What is this?
[woman 2] Lice!
[screaming]
They're everywhere!
Egyptians were very afraid of lice.
They were obsessed with cleanliness,
so they would shave all their bodies and heads.
Even women would have no hair or very short hair,
and they would wear a wig to avoid lice growing on their bodies.
The plagues are meant to be an escalation
to show the relentlessness of God,
that God will punish ever more severely to work his will.
[exclaiming]
Get away! Get away!
[narrator] "Then the Lord said to Moses,
'I will send swarms of flies.'"
"Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh's palace."
"Throughout Egypt, the land was ruined by the flies."
[music ends abruptly]
[somber music playing]
My sorcerers cannot produce swarms of insects.
It is troubling.
He has powers we do not possess.
I do not know what to do.
He says he has one god on his side.
One.
Can one god be greater than many?
What do we do with him?
[Egyptian goddess] You are the one true ruler.
[Egyptian god 1] The Hebrews have only one god.
[Egyptian god 2] He speaks through only one man.
[Egyptian god 3] Separate the man from his people.
[Egyptian god 4] Make them mistrust him.
[Egyptian goddess] He is not one of them.
[somber music continues]
Pharaoh wishes to speak with you. You are to come to his court right now.
We will come immediately.
Moses only.
Moses.
Please, join me.
Have some wine.
It's better than the water.
Do you miss this during your exile?
These luxuries?
Desert life has its advantages.
You feel yourself close to God.
So…
What are we to do?
Moses, this magic of yours has defeated me.
I'm undone.
Tell me, what is it you want?
We have said.
We want to go into the desert to make offerings to our God.
Have it.
Make your offerings.
Only… make them here in the city.
It is impossible.
Anything is possible.
The kind of sacrifices that we make are an abomination to your people.
I will instruct my people to tolerate it.
They will obey.
We need just three days.
Two men.
Two gods with different views.
I respect that you're a Hebrew.
But…
we are family, Moses.
Egypt also belongs to you.
This is your land.
These are your people.
They're suffering.
We'll find a middle ground.
Have some wine.
We have two days.
[somber music swells]
Two days?
It was all he would grant me.
We can go. All of us.
Two days.
Two days could be enough if we travel through the night.
With our women and children?
All of us.
[Aaron] It could work.
Moses knows the desert.
[Dathan] Our people do not.
For many of them, it will be their first time outside of Goshen.
They will be terrified.
How are we supposed to convince them to do this?
I brought him to agree to two days.
What has he ever offered before?
What will it be like for our people in the desert?
[Zipporah sighs]
I feel we…
They are a confined people.
They've known hardship, but…
not foraging.
Not what it is to govern themselves.
Moses, please come.
[sorrowful music playing]
It's close.
Mother.
Mother, it's me.
It's me, Moses.
I love you, Moses.
We leave in two days, Mother.
Just two days.
We will be free.
You'll be free.
Mother.
-Mother. -She's gone.
She's not gone. Mother.
Mother! Mother!
[Miriam] Oh, dear brother, she's gone.
[Miriam crying]
[sorrowful music continues]
[crying]
[Aaron] The sun has reached its zenith.
It's time, Moses.
[ominous music playing]
[Moses] Stop working!
Go home and gather your loved ones. We leave at once for the desert.
Pharaoh commands!
You have heard you can stop work today
and go to the desert to sacrifice!
This is a lie!
Your pharaoh gives no such permission!
You will continue to work today and tomorrow!
-We were promised by Pharaoh-- -He did no such thing.
We were promised leave and we'll take it. [groans]
[Aaron] Stop! Stop!
Back to work!
Everyone, back to work!
Leave it. Come.
Back to work! Leave it!
You lied to me again!
You miscalculated.
[panting] I trusted your promise.
I commune with gods. I am beyond promises.
Your people now mistrust you.
That was bound to happen.
You are not one of them, Moses.
You may share their blood, but what of that?
You want to offer them their old God,
but how much do your people know about this god
compared with their pharaoh?
I care for them.
I petitioned Osiris and Horus and Isis that they thrive.
Without me, do they have food?
Water?
Roofs over their heads?
[tense music playing]
God didn't make the journey easy because we don't make the journey easy.
That's not life.
Have you ever, like, learned a lesson or thought you learned a lesson,
but then the minute things start getting comfortable,
the minute things start getting easy, you kind of forget the lesson?
You forget what you've been taught?
What's it take for you to actually learn that lesson? Difficulty.
We need to stop this now.
-We need to make peace with Pharaoh. -[Moses] No!
No peace!
Moses is right.
The worse we make it for him, the worse he makes it for us.
[Moses] He is nothing to God!
No more than a hair to be plucked.
Then why does he not simply pluck Pharaoh away?
Or tear down the gates, kill the guards and let us walk free?
If our God is almighty, why not just get it done?
If we are to be a nation of our own,
it will take strength.
Do you think even when we win our freedom, it will be easy?
No.
It will be hard to take a land,
build ourselves a future.
Harder than building a temple. Harder than building a thousand temples!
And all we will have to guide us is strength… and faith.
That is why we are being tested.
Dathan. Dathan.
Tell your men, "Wait, suffer."
Pharaoh will suffer more.
The obvious audience for the plague was Pharaoh,
and to a lesser degree,
I think it was designed for the Hebrew people
because I think it was used to convince them and to illustrate to them
that what was being done was nothing they could muster,
nothing they could do on their own behalf.
They had been there 400 years
and they had been unable to avoid and circumvent
being cast into slavery.
And yet they're watching their God fight their battles on their behalf
without them having to lift a hand to do so themselves.
[ethereal music playing]
[Yahweh] I am what I am and what I will be.
My Lord.
Tomorrow,
all the livestock in Pharaoh's kingdom will die.
And then will Pharaoh give in?
No. He cannot help it.
I have hardened his heart.
But, my Lord, would it not be better to make him relent?
God says to Moses, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart."
So you can read that passage,
God saying that he hardened Pharaoh's heart,
to mean that he could have allowed the people of Israel to go,
but he was making a point by interceding with Pharaoh
and changing Pharaoh's mind.
God decides what will happen, even if it's paradoxical.
In the Islamic understanding, a heart becomes hard
when it continues to go down a path of being astray.
It's a series of decisions over time
that then collectively lead a person to be sealed off from guidance.
So there's a process of hardening a heart.
I think about the analogy to contemporary medical science where, you know,
cholesterol doesn't suddenly accumulate and give someone a heart attack.
It's a gradual process of the-- the plaque building up in the heart.
He knows that there will be untold number of dead
as a consequence of his hardened heart,
and yet he does not know how to retract.
I think it's important morally and ethically
that as much as you believe in the people's ability
to redeem themselves and to do better…
I mean, we love a good redemption story.
I think God is teaching us that some people could have been so bad,
so horrific, that you lose that ability.
[solemn music playing]
[narrator] "If you refuse to let them go,
behold the hand of the Lord will be on the cattle in the field,
on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels,
on the oxen and on the sheep."
"A very severe pestilence."
When did it happen?
Overnight.
Come on. Please. Stand up now.
We cannot be seen taking it too grievously.
My Lord.
The grain supply didn't arrive this morning.
No animals to pull the carts.
All of them are dead.
[ominous musical flourish]
All of them?
All, save those with the Hebrews.
[Pharaoh] Cows and horses fall ill.
We have no proof it was him.
[Haman groaning loudly]
Stay back.
This pharaoh was so wrapped up in his own sense of, uh, aggrandizement
that there was no room for anybody else,
and the cognitive dissonance between everything just collapsing
and I'm still going ahead, it reminds me of Hitler.
Hitler, at the end of the day,
was so committed to his sick mission in the world
that he could not see that his entire kingdom was crumbling.
And I think in the same way,
I think Pharaoh just was so-- so blindsided by anything that was happening
because he was just looking inward.
[Nasser] Giving all the miracles, all the signs,
Pharaoh still believed himself to be God.
There is a verse in the Qur'an
where Pharaoh addresses one of his people or ministers, he tells them,
"Build me a tall building," probably a pyramid,
"so that I reach the sky and see this God of Moses."
And this narcissism reached the stage where he really wants to ascend to heaven
to see this God that Moses is talking about.
He couldn't believe that there was someone more powerful than him.
[Haman] And 37 taken by typhus,
lice in the women's quarters,
bringing the total to…
350…
in the palace.
Shall I continue?
Sire?
If he was so powerful, I would be afflicted too.
He cannot touch a god!
[thunder rumbling]
[faint pattering]
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] "And the Lord rained hail."
"So very heavy that there was none like it in all the land of Egypt
since it became a nation."
"And the hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt."
"All that was in the field, both man and beast."
"Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were,
was there no hail."
I love you, my brother.
I ask you to heed him.
Because you also love him.
[thunder rumbling faintly]
People will starve.
Thousands.
Unless Pharaoh yields.
And will he?
Let us hope.
[tense music playing]
[Nasser] The term "pharaoh,"
we still use it today in Arabic, in Modern Standard Arabic to…
We even made a verb out of it.
Someone who is, uh, prideful, someone who boasts,
someone who doesn't listen, someone who defies--
Who wants to defies everyone.
Uh, he's a pharaoh. He's acting like a pharaoh.
I don't want to get into politics, but most autocratic regimes, uh,
you have a dictator who behaves in the same way.
People like Pharaoh still exist today.
Your Majesty.
No one is working.
The people will starve.
This is unendurable.
We cannot continue down this path.
[tense music continues]
My Lord will not relent until you give us what we have asked.
Tell your lord to stop the hail.
Then we may speak.
You have proven
you are under the protection of a god.
As a courtesy to him,
I shall let your people go into the desert and sacrifice.
Magnanimous, Your Majesty.
[Pharaoh] However…
Days wandering in the desert can addle a young brain.
So you shall leave your children in the city.
As your people's protector, I owe them that.
Our children must come with us.
-Why? -This is what our Lord commands.
This is what I command!
[Haman] My Lord!
We have grains that can last seven years.
We are the greatest farmers in the world.
-We shall endure. -[shouting] Pharaoh!
Give me what I require,
or I swear to you a horde of locusts will eat every grain in your land!
For the sake of your people, yield.
[buzzing approaching]
[narrator] "The Lord brought an east wind on the land
all that day and all that night."
"The east wind brought the locusts."
The cumulative effect of these plagues,
with the water supply not being in place,
and flies, and all of the insects that attacked
that would have sabotaged the food supply,
that would have corrupted life and the economy,
it resonated because it was so real
and it touched people's lives right where they lived.
[sinister music playing]
[Einhorn] God is telling a story.
He's talking to the Israelites.
And the story he's telling them is the total dismantling
of what we believe is the source of power.
One after the other,
God dismantles the land, the economy, the sense of authority.
[buzzing]
[narrator] "The locusts ate every herb of the land
and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left."
"So there remained nothing green on the trees
or on the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt."
[Egyptians clamoring]
[woman] Pharaoh, hear us cry!
Father…
[ominous musical flourish]
I have seen the people outside the palace.
They are starving.
We prove ourselves not only through what we accomplish,
but through what we endure.
Why have we endured this?
I am Pharaoh.
You, my son, will be pharaoh one day.
We are order, the pillars of this mighty kingdom.
If I yield to the god of the Hebrews,
if I am…
defeated…
the foundations crumble.
We will disappear.
It is not defeat, brother.
It is humility and reason.
It is progress.
The gods can live in peace.
Seti and Horus came to reconciliation.
They divided the world between them.
And I am to divide a world which is already mine?
Father, if you give Moses what he wants,
you will lead our people back to prosperity.
You will be made greater, not lesser for it.
[enunciating] I cannot be made greater than I am.
I will be diminished if I bow to the god of Moses.
I will not do this.
I will not!
[sinister music playing]
[narrator] "There was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt."
"They did not see one another,
nor did anyone rise from his place,
for three days."
[Egyptians clamoring]
Covering up the sun, the sun god Ra is the chief of the pantheon
and the patron god of Pharaoh.
So it's getting really serious now.
I think the darkness is an assault on Ra
because the Egyptians saw the sun as an integral part of the cosmic order.
Egyptians did not understand exactly what happened to the sun at night,
so it was very scary for them because the dark for them
represented a lot of the unknown.
And it related also to the trip to the underworld.
So I think the dark also represented the death of them as individuals.
Genesis 1 creation story is all about God creating order out of chaos.
In the plagues, the order is brought back to disorder,
back to a pre-creation state.
It's a cosmic show happening.
The gods are against each other. Who's going to win this battle?
[poignant music playing]
[faint cries of Egyptians]
[Zipporah] He cannot hold out now.
[Moses] His pride blinds him.
Careful.
The power you wield is great.
Do not let it harden you too.
[poignant music swells]
[door opening]
[menacing music playing]
[Pharaoh] Moses.
Please put the sun and moon back in the sky.
You will let us go to sacrifice.
You will let us take our children,
our elders.
The whole nation of Israel.
You're not going to make sacrifices.
Let's say it out loud.
You plan to leave.
To leave and betray your sovereign lord.
Me.
It is true.
We are going to leave.
We have been bound to you too long, Pharaoh.
It's time to let my people go.
Get out. [shuddering]
Spare your people.
Spare yourself the pain that will come next.
Spare me that pain as well.
Get out.
And watch your steps.
I will.
If ever you will see my face again,
I will chew your meat.
[Moses] Rightly have you spoken. You will never see my face again.
-Mother. -Moses.
He did not yield.
I fear he cannot.
Your god is more powerful.
Anyone with eyes can see it.
But please, Moses, ask him to have mercy on Egypt.
It will not help.
[dramatic musical flourish]
What does your Lord decree now?
[Yahweh] I am the destroyer.
Moses? What is going to happen now?
I am the destroyer.
Death.
[sinister music playing]
[melancholy music playing]
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