Creation and Exodus

Allison offers a series of interesting connections between the early chapters of Gen and the early chapters of Ex:

1) Israel is “multiplying” (Ex 2:2) in the way that God commanded the human race to multiply (Gen 1:26-28), concluding, with some help from Samaritan texts, that MOses is another Adam.

2) Citing James Ackerman, he notes parallels between Babel and Ex. Constructing storage cities like the men of Babel, Pharaoh is going to fall.

3) He notes that Moses’ intervention to save a Hebrew slave is reminiscent of the story of Cain and Abel. Of course, Moses is an anti-Cain, who rescues a stricken brother rather than killing him. And this raises for me the possibility that Moses is “reversing” all the primordial sins of Gen 1-6. He is certainly a reverse Cain, and when he flees he encounters Gentiles and by marrying a believing Gentile he is the reverse of the “sons of God” in Gen 6. I can’t see the reversal of Adam in the story at the moment, though.

4) He points out multiple verbal connections between Gen 1 and the account of the plagues, including the numerical link between 10 words of creation and 10 plagues (or, as Pss 78 and 105 have it, 7 plagues that reverse the 7 days of creation). Egypt is systematically decreated.

5) Allison quotes this summary from Ackerman (which is hit and miss, some chaff): “Pharaoh’s Babel-like building activity is doomer to fail because bondage crushes the human spirit [PJL: NOT because Yahweh crushes the wicked??!]. Moses in the ark is, like Noah, the presence of life for mankind because he will point the way to freedom. His intention to prevent one Hebrew brother from smiting another is an attempt to overcome the hostility between brothers which had existed since Cain killed Abel.”