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Exodus 11

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1 And Jehovah said to Moses, Yet one plague will I bring upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let [you] go altogether, he shall utterly drive you out hence.

2 Speak now in the ears of the people, that they ask every man of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, utensils of silver and utensils of gold.

3 And Jehovah gave the people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt -- in the eyes of Pharaoh's bondmen, and in the eyes of the people.

4 And Moses said, Thus saith Jehovah: About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt.

5 And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sitteth on his throne, even unto the firstborn of the bondwoman that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of cattle.

6 And there shall be a great cry throughout the land of Egypt, such as there hath been none like it, nor shall be like it any more.

7 But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know that Jehovah distinguisheth between the Egyptians and Israel.

8 And all these thy bondmen shall come down unto me, and bow down to me, saying, Go out, thou, and all the people that follow thee; and after that I will Go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a glowing anger.

9 And Jehovah had said to Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken to you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.

10 And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; but Jehovah made Pharaoh's heart stubborn, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

   

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Moses

  

At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.