There is no biblical drama quite so breathless as the Exodus from Egypt, the plague-weary Pharaoh finally telling the hated foreigners to leave, even though he was losing his entire building trade. He would regret it, of course, but for the moment let us be part of that midnight flight from the land of slavery.
You can sense what has gone on in every household. Portable baggage is readied; families have gathered to eat their last meal in a "strange land," a meal that would be repeated annually for the rest of time; and then the order is given: "Go."
But Pharaoh soon changes his mind and sends his armies in pursuit, down dark roads lit only by the full moon, to the edge of that body of water we call the Red Sea, a swampy morass that the Israelites crossed at ebb tide with Moses praying with outstretched arm as the panting families hurried by. The scene is incredibly vivid and real. Just add the pursuing Egyptians with their narrow-wheeled chariots stuck in the mud as the tide turns, and you have deliverance.
Exodus 15 tells us that Moses and the Israelites (the men?) sang a great hymn of thanksgiving. At the end of the song, don't miss verse 20:
"Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing."
I can never read that verse without laughing and marveling. These were women who had packed up their families, and yet every one of them had her tambourine on the top of her backpack, at the ready for a song on the banks of the sea!
Would you have been equipped?
There are feminist scholars today who believe that the whole song belongs to the women—why not—but don't miss the title Miriam is given, that of prophet. Any why do they call her Aaron's sister? Is that to point up the fact that both she and Aaron are older than the little brother who is now their leader?
We'll never know the answer to that until we meet them in heaven, but take a moment to savor these women from the Iron Age packing tambourines to migrate to a new land. I admire that! |