Abstract
Philosophers and theorists have offered many explanations of the origins and nature of injustice. The distilled wisdom of victims of oppression, however, often find expression in indigenous literary forms such as folk songs and narratives. This article examines Exodus 1 as one such narrative reflection on the causes of oppression and the ways that suffering communities and their allies might resist regimes that employ fear, prejudice, and violence to exploit vulnerable populations for political gain.
The Declaration of Independence made famous the words “all men are created equal.” Its author, Thomas Jefferson, believed this to be a self-evident truth revealed in nature and available to universal human reason. He expressed this belief in a more homespun way in an 1826 letter to Roger Weightman: “[T]he general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god.” 1
Jefferson’s faith in the “palpable truth” of human equality is not without irony. Though both he and his Creator abhorred slavery, Jefferson owned slaves and depended on them for his livelihood all his life. Unlike George Washington, he did not free his slaves after his death. There is also irony in his claim that science, not religion, was the source of human liberation. The scientific innovations of European colonial powers in weaponry and logistics not only facilitated their conquests of the indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas, but were also used to legitimize their rule over “unscientific” peoples whom they regarded as savages.
The ironies of Jefferson’s actions and his age notwithstanding, his observation was correct and radical. People are not by nature assigned as oppressed or oppressors. Slavery, oppression, and social injustice are human constructs, not natural states. Nevertheless, a casual reading of history or a simple observation of social arrangements demonstrates that oppression and injustice are more often the rule and “liberty and justice for all” more often the exception. Many have sought to explain this circumstance. Plato accepted social divisions as a given of nature, and defined justice as the harmonious relations between classes having naturally differing endowments and social roles. Karl Marx explained social inequality as the result of material conditions arising out of an inherent flaw in capitalism that allowed capitalists to alienate laborers from the full value of their labor. In recent decades, post-colonial theory has developed out of the experiences of peoples living under the colonial rule of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western empires. The purpose of post-colonial thought, in the words of Homi K. Bhabha, one of its leading theorists, is to intervene “in those ideological discourses of modernity that attempt to give a hegemonic ‘normality’ to the uneven development and the differential, often disadvantaged, histories of nations, races, communities, peoples.” 2 Modernity, in the view of Bhabha, is an attempt to give the unjust exploitation of the many by the few the appearance of “normality.”
Of the many attempts to explain how oppression becomes justified as the normal way of things, few are as succinct and comprehensive as the narrative of the Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt found in Exodus chapter 1. In the brief span of vv. 8–14, the Israelites’ status deteriorates from being an officially sanctioned group occupying fertile land in an ancient and prospering kingdom to becoming an enslaved group of “aliens” who are treated with a mix of fear and revulsion. The sparsity of detail and the typical, folkloristic portrayal of the main characters suggest that something is at work in this story beyond a broad-stroked portrayal of an ancient historiographer. It is a story not only of what happened once to Israel long ago in Egypt, but also a narrative exploration of the way things are and the way things go for oppressed groups in many times and many places. 3 The kinds of words and the kinds of actions represented by Pharaoh and the Egyptians provide a model of the methodology of oppression. The literary vehicle of folk narrative serves the scriptural purpose of transmitting the distilled wisdom of longsuffering peoples to subsequent generations. Exodus 1 provides a primer for discerning the ways of tyrants and despots and gives subtle instruction in the resources and methods of resistance. Vulnerable groups and their allies receive from this narrative an orientation in how to cope in the face of “the oldest trick in the book.”
The methodology of oppression (Exod 1:8–11)
Exodus 1:1–7 briefly situates the unfolding of the Exodus story against the backdrop of the patriarchal narratives of Genesis 12–50. Joseph, the son of Jacob, rose from slavery and imprisonment in Egypt to become the second in command in all the land. Through the divine gifts of dream interpretation and wisdom, he saved his own family and all of Egypt by predicting and preparing for a great famine. As a result, God’s promise to Abraham to make his descendants a source of blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen 12:1–3) found partial fulfillment. Joseph’s rise and God’s blessing led the descendants of Joseph to settle in Egypt. There, another of the promises to Abraham was fulfilled as the Israelites multiplied and prospered in the fertile region of Goshen (Gen 47:27). Exodus 1:7 resumes the story of the unfolding promises to Abraham with a report of Israel’s numerical increase, thus raising the question of the fulfillment of the promise to give Abraham’s descendants the land of Canaan and setting the stage for the story of the Exodus.
The famous report of a new king who knew not Joseph in Exod 1:8, however, interrupts the progress of the promise narrative carried over from Genesis 12–50. Some see the anonymous reference to a new king as a subtle clue to the beginning of a new Egyptian dynasty. Nahum Sarna, among others, argued for the Nineteenth Dynasty (1306–1200 BCE) as the most likely historical referent. 4 Brevard Childs, however, argued that the historical setting of the narrative was not part of the narrator’s interest. According to Childs, the king is unnamed because he is a type of ruler—the ruthless tyrant who exploits the vulnerabilities of a targeted group to solidify and expand his own power. 5
Though written thousands of years ago, Exodus 1 provides an insightful description of how an elite few acting through the power of a demagogic leader can gain control over an entire society and hold thousands of people under his sway. In fact, reading Exodus 1 is potentially dangerous in itself because it gives away some of the secrets that dictators have used throughout history. It is something of a playbook for potential despots. The hope hidden within this danger, however, is that awareness of the mechanisms of oppression can serve as a warning to vulnerable populations and their allies and as an instructional guide to effective resistance. What are the mechanisms used by the few to control and exploit the lives of the many? Verses 9–11 are a remarkable synopsis of the methodology employed by despots and autocrats and the cruel efficiency such methods possess.
Defining the other through us/them language
The first step on the path to oppression is the definition of an identifiable target group through “us” and “them” language. The Israelites were distinct from the Egyptian population in ethnicity, culture, language, and location (in the region of Goshen). Their numerical growth also made them conspicuous to their Egyptian hosts. The king’s words defined his and the Egyptian people’s common identity in contrast to an imputed alien identity of the Israelites: “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us, and escape from the land” (1:9–11). The king’s language, as portrayed in the Hebrew of the narrator, highlights the distinctiveness of the Israelites by using the unusual phrase “the Israelite people” (Hebrew ‘am bene yisra’el). The use of the noun ‘am (“people”) defines Israel as a kinship group distinct from the people of Egypt. 6 The underlying rhetoric of the king’s speech is “We are Egypt. They are Israel. They are not like us. They are not us and we are not them. Therefore, we must act against them before they act against us.” In this unnecessary but often irresistible logic, acting adversely against Israel becomes a constituent part of being Egyptian, as defined by Egypt’s new leader.
In the language of philosophical ethics and critical theory, the words of Pharaoh recreate the Israelites as “the Other.” In order to identify with the king as “his people” (‘amo; Exod 1:8), the Egyptians must “deal shrewdly” (1:9) with the Israelites as “the Other”—the not-Egypt. Throughout history, a long succession of dominant groups has defined the identity of “the Other.” For much of Christian history, the imputed Other of Christians has often been the Jewish people. For much of American history, the Other to be dealt with has been people of color. 7 Since 9/11, the Other has increasingly been Muslims. Almost always, immigrants are vulnerable to “othering.” The numerous biblical laws against oppressing “the stranger in your midst” (Exod 22:21; 23:9; Lev 19:33; 24:22; Num 15:16; Deut 1:16; 27:19) point not only to the painful experiences of Israel in Egypt, but also to the awareness that immigrants and aliens are perennially vulnerable to abuse. The identity of the Other changes, but the dynamics of othering are often similar. A self-selected group defines the identity of a privileged population over against some selected, isolated differences of a target group in order to exercise social control. The king’s rhetoric is not so much historical as typical. It is what tyrants, autocrats, and populist leaders do. It is the oldest trick in the book.
The fear of a hypothetical threat
The act of identifying some group as the Other alone is not sufficient to manipulate an identity group to oppress a target group. The definition of the Other is based on selected differences that, given enough time, are diluted by the common humanity of all people. An additional factor is needed to move people to act unjustly against fellow human beings. The most potent additional factor is fear.
In Exod 1:9–11, the Israelites are singled out not only as an Other, but also as a threat. Their numerical size is portrayed as a threat. Their differences are a potential threat in the case of a hypothetical war. They may potentially join “our enemies”—a threat intended to be especially unnerving since the Israelites would be a potentially “hidden” enemy already resident in the land. These threats are vague and hypothetical. The Israelites had done nothing to harm the Egyptians. No specific act or evidence of wrongdoing is mentioned. No specific war or named enemies is mentioned and no realistic threat of war was on the horizon. One wonders why anyone would believe such tissue-thin threats.
The answer lies in the power of fear. Fear is an important emotion. It is a defense mechanism that helps people to be aware of danger and alert for action. There is certainly such a thing as a healthy fear, which tells us to be careful, cautious, and alert. When we are aware of it and sensitive to it and use it properly, fear is a very effective defense mechanism. Yet like a fever that serves to protect a body from attack, too much fear can damage the organism it is intended to protect.
The uncertainties and hazards of life are such that people carry around a combustible cloud of unnamed fears. Often it hovers, waiting for a spark to ignite it. What malevolent people seem to know intuitively is that if they can tap into unattached fear and pin it on some group of people who are just different enough, they can manipulate the innate desires to avoid loss and pain by transforming nameless, internal anxiety into an external, actionable threat.
The vague and undemonstrated nature of the threat often underscores the irrational nature of fear. It is something visceral and primal. When attached to a target group that bears some observable difference, it often does not need evidence or reason. It only needs to be imaginable. Often the burden of rationality is turned against those who question the fears of the Other. “How do you know that they won’t harm us? How do you know that they won’t join our enemies?” The fact that it is almost impossible to prove that an imaginable fear will not happen is precisely the point. Fear often trumps reason.
In Exodus 1, evidence for the irrational basis of fear can be seen in the king’s final word of threat. In the event of war, the Israelites may “join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land” (1:11). The dangers that the numerous Israelites might both fight against the Egyptians and depart from Egypt are contradictory. If they depart, then they will no longer fight. The contradiction has been resolved by some by seeing the threat of departure as an anachronistic projection of the Pharaoh’s later resistance to the Exodus, or by interpreting the literal Hebrew wording “they will go up from the land” as a description of an internal uprising coinciding with an external enemy’s attack. 8 Better language, however, was available to describe such as scenario if this was what was intended. Childs’ interpretation seems more likely. The contradiction is intentional and serves to illustrate the irrationality of fear and its potency when combined with prejudice. 9 One often finds similar examples of the irrationality of prejudice. Timothy B. Tyson wrote about one such example in his bestseller Blood Done Sign my Name. In the Jim Crow South that, if now dead, has only quite recently deceased, blacks were often stereotyped as lazy. At the same time, if a white person found himself performing exhausting physical labor, then, using a racial slur, he would compare his labor to that of a hard-working person of color. 10 In recent debates about undocumented immigration, immigrants are often accused both of living off of the American social service system and of stealing American jobs. Each claim by itself is questionable, but both of them together contradict one another. Such, however, is the irrational nature of fear wedded to prejudice. As is often said, it is hard to reason people out positions that they were never reasoned into.
Active exploitation
It is a short step from prejudice and fear to injustice and violence. The narrative in Exodus telescopes the sequence of events from royal proclamation to official action. “Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor” (Exod 1:11). The abbreviated narrative shows the close connection between discriminatory and inflammatory speech and acts of oppression and violence. The rhetoric of otherness and threat pre-legitimized the theft of Israelite men from their family and community and the theft of their labor by means of the coercive power of the state. The language of prejudice and fear anaesthetized the Egyptians’ innate sense of fairness. The unacceptable quickly becomes “just the way things are” when framed in a certain way. Words matter. However, as powerful as the king’s words were, the narrative hints at forces more powerful than the king’s rhetorical and political violence. The first subversive force that undermines the oppression of the Israelites is truth. As the narrative proceeds, the unfounded oppression of the Israelites is exposed as baseless and evil.
The inhuman roots of injustice exposed (Exod 1:12–15)
Pharaoh’s initial proposal to the problem of the numerical growth of the Israelites was that the Egyptians needed to “deal shrewdly with them” or “act wisely toward them” (1:10). The result of the Egyptian action of forced labor, however, is one of a series of ironic elements in the narrative that signals the unwise, irrational basis of the Pharaoh’s action and, by extension, the irrational nature of oppression itself. 11 The immediate result of the oppression of the Israelites is failure. “The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread” (Exod 1:12). This result does not seem surprising. There was never a clear explanation of how forced labor would provide a meaningful solution to population growth. The results underscore the nature of the initial complaint against the Israelites as a pretense for exploitation.
The Egyptians’ failed attempt to undermine the Israelites’ population growth might have provided an opportunity to recognize the entire venture as unnecessary and unsuccessful. Instead, the narrative continues down an even darker and more violent path. The Egyptians “came to dread the Israelites” (1:12). The term translated “dread” in the NRSV denotes something more than fear. It conveys a sense of revulsion or loathing, and even hatred. Again, to ask the question of what the Israelites had done to provoke such an intense emotion is to look for reasons where they did not exist. A more plausible explanation may be found in the psychological phenomenon of projection. It is possible that the Egyptians feel a sense of revulsion at the mistaken and unjust actions in which they had been implicated. They colluded in the oppression of the Israelites in an effort to address their numerical growth. Their actions, however, were unsuccessful and demonstrably unwise. Rather than accept the pain of admitting wrong and the danger of challenging the powers that be, however, they project their revulsion for their own misdeeds onto the Israelites instead. They blame the victim.
A famous witticism defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Egyptian response to the failed project of Israelite forced labor was to impose even harsher and more ruthless labor on the Israelites. “The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them” (1:13–14). The scope of oppression increased from acts of political power and economic exploitation to open hatred and cruelty. Once violence becomes legitimized and routine, the oppressing population becomes increasingly desensitized to the suffering and humanity of their victims. The violation of the humanity of the oppressed dissolves the humanity of the oppressors as well. 12
This brief narrative portrays a rapid descent into inhumanity. Having incited his subjects into prejudice, fear, oppression, hatred, and cruelty, Pharaoh follows the irrational regression to the next illogical step in v. 15: “The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiprah and the other Puah, ‘When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth-stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.’” Once violence becomes routine, murder is a matter of degree and not distinction. Jesus’ words of warning against derogatory words are instructive in this context. His statement “If you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matt 5:22) may seem harsh and arbitrary, but it assumes the kind of connection between dehumanizing language and dehumanizing action that is narrated in Exod 1:8–15.
Pharoah’s new plan against the Israelites, the murder of infant boys, was such a violation of human nature, however, that Pharaoh cloaked the plan in secrecy, commanding the deed to be done stealthily by the midwives who assisted Israelite women in childbirth. The absurdity of its premise compounds the heinous nature of Pharaoh’s command. The killing of infant boys would not stop the population growth of the Israelites. Pharaoh’s “shrewdness” had devolved into madness.
Although the irrationality of Pharaoh and the Egyptians’ fears and actions suggest that their plans could not be sustained, the narrative also reflects the cold, hard reality that many innocents have suffered and do suffer unspeakable cruelty for no reason whatsoever. The narrative explores the question of how systematic oppression becomes enacted. It is silent, however, on the question of why. Donald Gowan has emphasized the absence of the mention of God in this narrative. He describes it essentially as a secular story. 13 It seems to be an example of the mysterious silence of God expressed in the Hebrew idiom “the hiding of God’s face” (Ps 45:25). Oppressive systems may be absurd, irrational, and ultimately unsustainable, but they can also be terrifyingly stable. Something more than hope for evil to exhaust itself or for an eventual awakening of humanity is required to oppose them. The undoing of oppressive systems requires an active resistance. The possibility of such resistance appears in this narrative in the persons of the Hebrew midwives.
Hope through resistance (Exod 1:16–22)
Pharaoh’s secret plan to kill the Hebrew male infants, like his public plan to limit their population growth through forced labor, also failed. This plan failed, however, not only because of its flawed reasoning, but because of the direct resistance of the Hebrew midwives, Shiprah and Puah. The fact that the two midwives are named while the Pharaoh is unnamed is a means of focusing the attention of the narrative on their act of moral courage. 14 Despots and tyrants are a dime a dozen, but these two women deserve to be memorialized. The midwives refused the command of the king and sustained the lives of the Hebrew boys. Meyers likens their refusal of the king to a form of civil disobedience. 15 The narrative provides insight into the motivation behind their refusal: “But the midwives feared God” (1:17). The fear of God is an idiom that means more than its constituent wording. One does not respond to the phrase “raining cats and dogs” by looking for cats and dogs. One does not respond to “the fear of God” by imagining a quivering dread of the divine. “The fear of God” is a shorthand phrase for a life of moral and ethical rightness shaped by sincere piety. It is a cultivated disposition of virtue developed by the practice of living as if in the tangible and manifest presence of the Holy.
When the king summoned the midwives to account for their disobedience, they demonstrated that the fear of God was not only a source of moral courage and ethical guidance, but also a source of wisdom for navigating dangerous circumstances. 16 They answered Pharaoh’s interrogation by mimicking back to him his own prejudice against the Israelites as being “not like the Egyptian women.” The Otherness of the Israelites that was Pharaoh’s first weapon against them was itself wielded against him and his “shrewd” plot. 17 To dispute the midwives would have been to dispute his own logic of discrimination that legitimized the oppression. The foolish “wisdom” of Pharaoh is undone by the wisdom of two women who feared God.
The fear of God is the primary focus of the narrative in portraying the midwives’ successful resistance to evil. Their unique circumstances yield further insight into their ability to resist what many others failed to resist. First of all, as women, they had a longer experience with being the victims of Othering than merely the recent plight of the Israelites at the hands of Pharaoh. Their role as midwives was due to the taboo against the presence of males in the process of childbirth. Owing to the differences assigned to their identities as women, the separateness of their role afforded a social space for a limited degree of autonomy in a hierarchical and male-led society. Their identity as “Hebrews” perhaps also contributed to their willingness and wiliness to act in a manner that subverted Pharaoh’s power. Myers argues that regardless of whether the term “Hebrew” is equivalent to the term ‘apiru used in ancient Near Eastern writings, both terms are non-ethnic designations that characterize groups having a marginal status in relation to the dominant culture. 18 These circumstances do not substitute for the efficacy of the fear of God. Rather, they may help to clarify its nature and potency. A long history of negotiating the interests and actions of hierarchical power structures from the margins may incline people more toward faith in a transcendent sphere of virtue and hope that is at odds with the forms of behavior experienced among the powers that be. As the narrative moves to a public command of murder against Hebrew males in chapter 2, the bravery and compassion of other female characters, the mother and sister of Moses, and the daughter of Pharaoh himself, are called into action. The fear of God is associated with courage and wisdom to move carefully amid oppressing powers and to resist them in ways that are not available to those with access to coercive power. The fear of God provides a stay on the power of evil until it is opposed by the more active intervention of God in the rest of the narrative.
Reflections
If read for what believing communities have always claimed it to be, revealed truth inspired by God and distilled through the struggles of God’s oppressed people, Exodus 1 can be very instructive for vulnerable peoples and for their allies who are inspired to resist the dehumanizing rhetoric of prejudice, fear, violence, and death. The oppression of vulnerable groups through prejudice and fear is the oldest trick in the book. Though it has only the slightest foundation in truth, its perverse logic, once accepted, can be irresistible. Resistance, therefore, is critical.
Exodus 1 instructs readers to be extremely wary of “us/them” language. The argument that “we” would all be better off if we would only treat some “they” by different rules is a trip wire that should set off mental alarm bells. People who are formed by the spiritual wisdom of Exodus 1 should be alert to opportunities to act as circuit breakers of injustice, publically challenging stereotypical language and the labeling of entire groups as “hidden enemies.” Exodus 1 also alerts readers to guard vigilantly their fear as the weak point in the defense against demagoguery and exploitation. As a rule of thumb, if someone tells us to be uniformly afraid of some group of people as a whole, we should be at least as wary of the one attempting to push our fear button as we are of any targeted group.
In the effort to resist being recruited into a conspiracy of oppression, Exodus 1 exhorts us to cultivate the virtue of the fear of God. Personal and corporate worship, spiritual formation, Christian discipleship, prayer, and spiritual reading of Scripture are all resources for resisting the enticements of injustice as if standing in the tangible presence of God. The fear of God as exemplified in Shiprah and Puah can provide moral insight to resist the blindness of the oppressing mob. It can inspire moral courage to say no to worldly powers bent on doing evil. It can provide spiritual wisdom to disarm the falsehoods that tyrants use to cast their spells of collusion.
The first year that North Carolina ended the Jim Crow legacy of segregated schools that was legally enacted in 1900 was also the year that my older brother entered first grade. I was too young to remember that time, but my father later told me the story of that fateful first day of school. My parents had lived all of their lives under the dictates of Jim Crow and were terrified of sending their 6-year-old son to school with the children of people they had been taught by Southern white society all their lives to fear. Unable to afford the private white academy in which other parents were enrolling their children, they delivered my brother to school and hoped for the best.
When my brother came home, my father was waiting there to ask him how the day went: “Ok,” my brother said. “Did you see any black children at school?” my father asked. “Yes,” my brother said. “In homeroom a black boy came up to me and sat down right beside me.” “What did you do?” my father asked. “Well,” my brother said, “I was scared, and I could see that he was scared, so we just sat there and held hands until we both felt better.”
As my father finishing telling me this story, he laughed at the thought that he had once been afraid of sending my brother to school.
Prejudice, fear, and injustice are not natural states. They have to be cultivated. Sometimes, just one or two people have the power to break the cycle of fear and injustice that has often held so many people in its evil grip. The Hebrew midwives who feared God, the mother and sister of Moses, and the daughter of Pharaoh were examples of such people. So were my brother and his 6-year-old friend at school. Such people, even few in number, inspired by a vision of the kingdom of God, can resist “the normality” of uneven developments and disadvantaged histories and sow seeds of transformation.