A Slap Upside Your Head

Sometimes you need a "slap upside your head" as my grandmother used to threaten me with to get my thinking straightened out. Here - try this one: TRIBES

UPDATE: Sometimes my mind fills with images from Exodus.

No, not the Leon Uris book.

You know- the book of the Bible about Moses assuming leadership of a group of Egyptian slaves - the Israelis - and leading them to freedom.

Some of you might remember it as forming part of the script for the film "The Ten Commandments."

Anyway, as I remember it, Jehovah is working through Moses to get his people away from the Pharoh. And after delivering a series of plagues to convince Pharoh that keeping them as slaves is a less desireable alternative than letting them go, Pharoh let them go,

After having them follow a pillar of fire or cloud through the wilderness, eventually Jehovah tells Moses to have the Israelis gather on the shore and wait for further instructions.

So the Israelis gather at the designated spot and almost immediately begin to complain, especially when they see that they are in some danger (as Pharoh has sent his army after them).

They, of course, turn against Moses, "Have you brought us out here to die in the desert because there were not enough graves for us in Egypt? Why did you make us leave Egypt?"

Moses is enabled and makes the waters next to the shore part and the Israelis made it across what had been water and the Egyptian army doesn't.

Shortly thereafter, despite being saved, the crowd again grows unhappy because they are hungry and having to hike around.

Moses and Aaron are targets of their venom: "Oh, that we were back in Egypt," they moaned, "and that the Lord had killed us there! For there we had plenty to eat, But now you have brought us into the wilderness to kill us with starvation." The Lord feeds them and the people are sort of happy - for a short time- they run out of water and the Lord has Moses hit a rock and water comes out and the people are happy for a time.

But when Moses is gone for a few days getting some guidance from the Lord, the people demanded that Aaron make a calf out of gold and the people quite readily began to worship the idol and do all sorts of things, including "feast and drink at a wild party, followed by sexual immorality." And the Lord notices and is pretty vexed and threatens to wipe them off the face of the planet, which certainly might have caused some wailing and gnashing of teeth...but he ultimately lets them off...sort of.

You can read the story for yourself, because it's in a pretty popular book, one which has even outsold The DaVinci Code. You probably can't read it in public school, but there are other venues available.

In any event, it happened a long time ago and, of course, human nature has changed a lot...right?

I wonder how CNN and the MSM would have covered the story?

"Moses and the Lord take too long to deliver the Israelis"
"Food aid comes too late for some"
"Is Moses too religious?"
"Moses get Ten Commandments: Some Unfair" "
"Lord discriminates against idol worshippers"