Revelation of the Bible: The Book of Exodus

By Moshe Mazin

Building on his first book, Revelation of the Bible: The Book of Genesis, this volume examines the book of Exodus in detail.
Moshe Mazin highlights how God made contact with the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai, recapping important themes from the first book so anyone can understand the events of Exodus.
Examining the Bible from multiple perspectives, the author focuses on themes such as:
• advancements in technology and the growth of collective knowledge;
• knowledge and information—and how we can use it to explain biblical events;
• extra-terrestrials and their possible role interacting with humans.
The author explains Pharaoh’s plans for restricting and eliminating the Hebrew people, Moses’s encounter at the burning bush, what happened during the ten plagues on Egypt, the exact location of the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, the deliverance of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the roles of the Ark of the Covenant that God asked Moses to build, and other critical events.
Find out how miracles from long ago can be explained by advance technology with the surprising conclusions and insights in Revelation of the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781728356051

Moshe Mazin

Mr. Mazin holds three academic degrees, forty-eight patents, and is the author of three other books.

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© 2021 Moshe Mazin. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/08/2021

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5606-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5607-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5605-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To my late father, Joseph Halevi Mazin

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1     Enslavement

Chapter 2     Moses As A Prince Of Egypt

Chapter 3     Creating Something From Nothing

Chapter 4     A Scientific Account Of Creation

Chapter 5     A Biblical Account Of Creation

Chapter 6     The Seven Names Of God

Chapter 7     Moses Returns To Egypt

Chapter 8     The Ten Plagues

Chapter 9     The Law Of Universal Balance

Chapter 10   The Night Of Freedom

Chapter 11   Exile From Egypt

Chapter 12   The Laws Of Passover

Chapter 13   The Parting Of The Sea Of Reeds

Chapter 14   Israel Enters The Sinai Desert

Chapter 15   Rephidim

Chapter 16   Israel And Amalek

Chapter 17   Jethro Of Midian

Chapter 18   Israel At Mount Sinai

Chapter 19   The Ten Commandments

Chapter 20   The 613 Laws Of Good And Evil

Chapter 21   A Close Encounter Of The Third Kind

Chapter 22   A Close Encounter Of The Fifth Kind

Chapter 23   The Sin Of The Golden Calf

Chapter 24   The Aftermath Of The Sin Of The Golden Calf

Chapter 25   The Second Set Of Ten Commandments

Epilogue

Appendix

About The Author

PREFACE

The Bible is an incredible source of faith, prayers, inspiration, code of behavior, history, and much more for humankind. It is thought by many people of all races and creeds to represent God’s Word.

Considering the writing of the Bible in its entirety, we still do not know much about the source of these writings that represent God. We are told that the Old Testament was written by various people from the five books of Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, Kings, and various prophets, to historic recordings of various books such as Psalms, Daniel, Ester, and others.

In the New Testament, we are again told that these books were attributed to various people. Many books have been written on the essence of God, but no one has been able to capture the meaning of the word God. Who and what is this God that we call Yahweh? Can there be more than one God? Since there are many versions of God in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions, we still have no clear understanding of who and what God is.

The book of Exodus in the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible is the closest description of contact between large group of humans with a divine entity we call Yahweh or God. It is in this book that God contacts the Hebrew people, gives them laws of conduct on Mount Sinai, and shows them his might by infecting the Egyptians with ten terrible plagues.

In this book, an attempt is made to clear the concept of God and maybe reach an understanding of what exactly happened between the Hebrews at the time of their liberation from slavery in Egypt and Yahweh, the God of Israel. It appears that this divine contact occurred throughout human history—as we learned from the book of Genesis—but it became distinctive with Abraham. The promise that God made to Abraham in the book of Genesis is fulfilled in the book of Exodus. In the book of Genesis, God caused Abraham to fall into a deep sleep, and then he showed him, in a vision, the future of what would happen to his seed. In that vision, God told Abraham that his children would be enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years, but the fourth generation of those children who entered Egypt would be delivered out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt.

Building on my first book, Revelation of the Bible: The Book of Genesis, we examine and analyze the book of Exodus in great detail to understand the concept of God making contact with the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai. Readers should familiarize themselves with the book of Genesis to understand the complexities and insights of the book of Exodus. For those who would like to read this book on its own, I have repeated some of the important themes found in my first book.

The book of Exodus introduces many new concepts that must be considered without preconceptions of any kind. It is important to have an open mind to understand these new concepts. This book examines scriptural writings from scientific and biblical perspectives.

The scientific and other materials used in this book have been clearly identified by their sources. Given today’s state of technology, our collective knowledge has expanded like in no other time in human history. We are now able to communicate across the planet in seconds, store vast amounts of information within a single silicon chip or thumb drive, and explore nearly all fields of science with computers. The knowledge and information that is available to us can and should be used to analyze, dissect, and explain events that were not understood by us previously.

No single individual can master all the knowledge that exists online today, but to discover the insights of the events in the book of Exodus, one must have a deep understanding of the Bible, the Hebrew culture as it existed at that time, a solid scientific background, and most importantly, an open mind to view the events in the Bible without prejudice and with the information that our current technological society can provide.

In this book, I have followed the text of the Hebrew Bible of Exodus with its English translation by Mesorah Publications and the stone edition of the five books of Moses, also referred to as the Torah or the Chumash, second edition (1993). All the Bible verses used in this book are from this publication.

Examination of the book of Exodus suggests that the children of Israel were helped and guided by God even before they were delivered out of the enslavement bondage of Egypt. However, once they were free people, they were given God’s laws and were sanctified as God’s holy people.

One of the issues that we shall explore is the food program of the Israelites. In order to feed the multitude of Israelites during their forty years in the Sinai Desert, a massive food program was needed. It would have been a logistical nightmare for any nation—even a superpower—to feed hundreds of thousands of individuals every day for forty years. Massive quantities of food and supplies would have been required, and they would have to have been delivered to hundreds of thousands of people who were constantly on the move.

This food program—or manna—and the many miracles that God did to help deliver Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and lead them through the desert of the Sinai Peninsula will be discussed at length.

I will examine and explain Pharaoh’s plans for restricting and eliminating the Hebrew people, Moses’s encounter at the site of the burning bush, what exactly happened during the ten plagues on Egypt, the exact location of the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, the deliverance of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the roles of the Ark of the Covenant that God asked Moses to build, the role of the twelve-stones breastplate that Aaron carried on his chest, the exposure of the seventy elders of Israel to the light of God, and the event of Rephidim—the site of test and contention of Israel with God.

My explanation will be based on both biblical and scientific materials.

I want to thank the various internet sources I have cited in this book: bible.ca, Wikipedia, Wikimedia, The Chumash: The Stone Edition by Rabbi Nosson Scherman and Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz (published by permission of Mesorah Publications Ltd.), [e-mail], bibleatlas.org, and articles by Mr. Virgil Renzulli regarding professor Brian Green’s string theory.

Let us start.

CHAPTER 1

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ENSLAVEMENT

Exodus 1:1–5 states that the sons of Israel (Jacob) came to Egypt and lists them in the following order: Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon, and Benjamin—even though Benjamin was born after Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

The reason for this order is to count the children of Leah and Rachel first—since they were Jacob’s wives—and then to count the children of their maidservants, Bilhah and Zilphah. The Bible does not mention Joseph, who was already in Egypt.

Exodus 1:5 tells us that the household of Jacob numbered seventy, including Joseph and his two sons who were already in Egypt. As I mentioned in my first book, Revelation of the Bible: The Book of Genesis, the number seventy is an important number, and we encounter it many times in the Bible. For example, there were seventy nations that were born of Noah, seventy children of Jacob entering Egypt, seventy elders of Israel, seventy members of the Sanhedrin (the governing body over the Israeli people), and seventy years that Israel spent in exile under the Babylonian Empire after the destruction of the first temple of Solomon before they were liberated by the Persian king when he conquered Babylon. The significance of this number will be discussed later in greater detail.

Exodus 1:6 tells us that the entire generation that came into Egypt with Jacob died. Even Jacob’s grandchildren had died by then, which means that at least one hundred years had passed since Jacob and his household went to Egypt.

During that time, the people of Israel increased in number to such an extent that they became a potential threat to the Egyptian Empire (Exodus 1:7).

Pharaoh’s First Plan of Containment: Enslavement through Taxation

When a new pharaoh (likely Ramesses I, ca. 1307 BC) rose in Egypt, he did not know Joseph and all the good deeds he had done for Egypt (Exodus 1:8). He viewed the Hebrews who were in Goshen (in northeast Egypt bordering the Sinai Peninsula along the Mediterranean Sea) in a different light. Nearly a hundred years had passed since the death of Joseph, and the passing of time tends to make people forget all the good things the Egyptians were blessed with owing to Joseph. It is also possible that this pharaoh was from the Nineteenth Dynasty—not the one that ruled Egypt during Joseph’s time—and did not feel obligated to Joseph and the good deeds he did for Egypt.

The fact that the Hebrews were a significant threat to Egypt if they joined Egypt’s enemies, the Hyksos—who threatened the northeast corner of the Egyptian Empire—was enough to cause the pharaoh and his advisers to devise a plan for controlling the growth of the people of Israel (Exodus 1:9–10). This is the first instance of anti-Semitism. Since the Hebrews were a Semite people like the Hyksos, the Egyptians considered them foreigners and not of their own kind.

The plan devised by Pharaoh and his advisers was based on hard labor. The Egyptians thought they would be able to control the Hebrews if they compelled them to work hard and ceaselessly. Indeed, this method of enslavement has been used by many dictators and governments throughout history. The Egyptians also benefited from this hard labor by having the Hebrews build many of their cities and monuments without paying them.

The principle here is simple: when people work hard just to survive, they do not have time or the willingness to oppose or revolt against the government or their ruler—until they reach a breaking point.

The method that Pharaoh and his advisers devised was to impose a form of unbearable taxation (Exodus 1:11). They did not enslave the people directly, but since only few could pay the taxes imposed by the government, most of the people sold themselves into slavery. The people of Egypt asked Joseph to be his slaves to survive (Genesis 47:25). This means that it was accepted practice in Egypt for a free man who could not pay his debts to become a slave.

If we examine our current situation across the world, especially in America, we find that most people are in great debt to the banks and to financial institutions, and they work just to survive. In 2008–2009, during the Great Recession, many Americans abandoned their homes because they could not afford them any longer due to high interest rates, debt, and job losses. This situation is like what happened to the Israelites in the book of Exodus.

Once most of the people were controlled through taxation, the Egyptians did not bother to hide their purpose any longer, and they simply enslaved the people of Israel by force.

We see evidence of this method of enslavement throughout history. Nazi Germany is one of the more recent examples. In 1933, when Hitler rose to power, the Jews became a target of all kinds of abusive treatment, and the Nazis did not hide their abusive intentions any longer.

Through the hard labor described in Exodus 1:13–14, the people of Israel were made to build the two cities of Pithom and Ramses for the Egyptians (Exodus 1:11). The city of Pithom is also known as Tanis. The city of Rameses was built on the east side of the Nile delta (fig. 1). The city of Pithom was a little farther away from the Nile.

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FIGURE

1. Bibleatlas.org.

Exodus 1:12 tells us that the more the Egyptians embittered the lives of the Hebrews, the more they multiplied. The Egyptians were disgusted with them, but Pharaoh’s plan did not work. The Hebrews were multiplying more and getting stronger because of the hard labor. The Egyptians had to find another method of controlling the people of Israel.

Pharaoh’s Second Plan of Containment: Kill the Firstborn Male Children of Israel

The second method devised by Pharaoh and his advisers was to order the midwives in charge of delivering the children of the Hebrews to examine the newborn—and kill all the boys. The girls were allowed to live (Exodus 1:15–16). The logic behind this method is simple. If the Hebrews did not have any males to propagate their kind and were left with only girls, the girls could be impregnated by the Egyptians, which would make all the newborns Egyptians. In a very short time, all the Hebrews would become Egyptians.

This method has been used by various ruthless nations throughout history. Recent examples include Saddam Husain of Iraq. His armies invaded Kuwait in 1991 and created more than 250,000 children born to Kuwaiti women through rape by his soldiers, and the Serbs in Yugoslavia did the same thing to the Muslim women in their country between 1992 and 1995.

However, the Egyptian midwives were God-fearing and did not kill the newborn Hebrew males (Exodus 1:17). When they were brought before the pharaoh, he asked them why they had allowed the newborn males to live. They answered that the Hebrew women, unlike the civilized Egyptian women, were like the animals of the field, and before they even reached them, they already had delivered their children (Exodus 1:19).

In this way, the newly devised method of Pharaoh was foiled. The people of Israel continued to grow in numbers. For their good deed, God provided these midwives with houses and wealth (Exodus 1:21).

Pharaoh’s Third Plan of Containment: Empower Egyptian Spies

When Pharaoh saw that the midwives were getting wealthy, he thought they were being bribed by the Hebrews. Therefore, he devised a new plan. He ordered that if Egyptians found out their Hebrew neighbors had a new male child; they must throw him into the Nile. The females were allowed to live (Exodus 1:22).

Since the people of Israel lived in the same towns with the Egyptians as neighbors, the Egyptians could easily see if their neighbors had a new male child and thereby condemn him to death. Pharaoh’s third and final plan was mass killing by using his entire people as spies and killers.

These three methods were also used by Nazi Germany. The first plan of enslavement through hard labor was recreated in the many labor camps that the Germans constructed just for that purpose. The second plan of killing all the males and impregnating the Jewish women was also used in the camps. However, the war left insufficient time for the plan to be fully executed. The third plan was mass killing. That plan too was rushed because of the war and a lack of time to execute the plan as carried out in the time of Pharaoh. Many Germans participated in identifying their Jewish neighbors to be sent to the death camps—exactly as the Egyptians did. That specific cycle of evil existed nearly 3,700 years ago, and it never stopped.

Once the third decree was announced by Pharaoh, many of the Jewish men moved out of their own houses. They were afraid that they might impregnate their wives and therefore be responsible for the death of their newborn children by the Egyptians—if they were boys (Exodus 2:1).

According to Exodus 2:1, one man from the house of Levi could not stay away from his wife any longer, and he returned to his home near the construction site of the city of Ramses. His wife was also from the house of Levi. This couple already had two children, Merriam and Aaron. Exodus 6:20 identifies this man and his wife as Amram and Jochebed, Moses’s parents.

Once the couple was together, it was not long before the Levite woman became pregnant. However, she managed to hide her pregnancy from her Egyptians neighbors for about three months (Exodus 2:2). A woman can easily hide her pregnancy in the first three months, but it becomes very difficult thereafter to hide her belly from prying eyes.

Her advantage was this period of three months. Since she stayed inside the house, her neighbors did not know exactly when she became pregnant or how close to her delivery date she was. She used these facts to cause her neighbors to believe that she had a miscarriage around her fifth or sixth month, but she had already delivered the baby.

Once she delivered the baby, she could not keep his birth a secret from her neighbors. Therefore, she immediately prepared a basket made of wicker and smeared it with clay and pitch on both sides, and she placed the child inside wrapped in a blue and white striped blanket (Exodus 2:3). Smearing clay and pitch on a wicker basket caused the basket to be waterproof, while blue was the color of the Levite tribe. Note that blue on white background is the color of the national flag of Israel.

The Levite woman placed the basket inside the reeds that were growing on the Nile bank. She knew the area very well, and she knew that Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the river every morning with her servant girls to bathe in it. She placed the basket on the route where the girls would be walking. She asked her daughter, Merriam, to stand by and guard the child and to follow the child to see what happened to him (Exodus 2:4).

Her plan was simple; by appealing to the motherly nature of the daughter of Pharaoh, she was hoping the child would be saved. Indeed, she must have known the daughter of Pharaoh did not have any children, which could have saved her child’s life.

The Nile played a major role in the life and religion of all Egyptians. Egypt’s entire existence revolved around the Nile River. We see evidence of this in the dreams of Pharaoh during Joseph’s time. The Nile was the source of life for Egypt, and it still is.

Indeed, Jochebed was right. When the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the river; she noticed the wicker basket and asked her maidservant to bring it to her (Exodus 2:5). When she opened the basket, she saw a crying baby and had pity on him (Exodus 2:6). She immediately recognized him as a child of the Hebrews due to the blue blanket. Note that this part of the Nile River was an offshoot of the main Nile River where the city of Ramses was being built, and that is where the Hebrew slaves were living.

Since she was infertile and could not have her own children—even though she knew he was a Hebrew child and that she would be breaking the law of Pharaoh that commanded every Egyptian to kill any newborn Hebrew child—she decided to keep him as her own child.

Since Merriam was standing not far away, the daughter of Pharaoh must have called her to come closer. She knew that she could not nurse the child since her body was not primed to provide milk for the baby. She asked Miriam if she knew a Hebrew woman who could nurse the child. She suspected that Miriam was connected to the child since it was not a coincidence that she just happened to be there.

Merriam said that she knew of a Hebrew woman who could nurse the child (Exodus 2:7). Her suggestion was good for the daughter of Pharaoh since she knew that she was breaking Pharaoh’s law. If the child could be nursed by the Hebrew women, once he grew a little bit, she could have him at her house without much explanation since he was no longer a newborn deserving a death sentence—and no one would know he was a Hebrew child.

Pharaoh’s daughter ordered Merriam to bring the nursing women to her, and when Moses’s mother came, she said in Aramaic, to her This child is for you. Nurse this child, and I’ll pay you your wages (Exodus 2:9). She did not know the woman was Moses’s mother.

Moses’s mother plan worked. It appears that there was divine intervention for the plan to work out completely and successfully. Moses’s mother could now tell her Egyptian neighbors that she was nursing an Egyptian boy and getting paid for it. She must have told her neighbors that her pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage.

Moses’s mother kept the child until he needed no more nursing, which was between twelve and eighteen months. At that time, she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh (Exodus 2:10).

At this point, the daughter of Pharaoh adopts the child as her own son, and she names him Moses because he was drawn from the water (Exodus 2:10).

CHAPTER 2

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MOSES AS A PRINCE OF EGYPT

As the years passed, Moses was raised in the house of Pharaoh as a Prince of Egypt. As the cities for Pharaoh were being built, Moses used to visit the construction sites of the cities that the Hebrews were building. He also recognized the fact that he was a Hebrew man. The Bible does not tell us how Moses came to know that he was Hebrew, only that he knew that these slaves of Pharaoh were his brethren (Exodus 2:11).

One day, as he was touring the construction sites, he saw an Egyptian overseer beating up a Hebrew man. Moses had already observed the suffering the Egyptian overseers inflicted on the Hebrews, and he did not like it.

Exodus 2:12 tells us that Moses carefully examined the area where this incident was taking place. Seeing that no one was there other than himself, the Egyptian overseer, and the Hebrew man who was being beaten. Moses struck the Egyptian overseer, killed him, and buried his body in the sand of the desert. Clearly, the Hebrew man that was being beaten by the Egyptian overseer observed all these actions.

We know that the cities of Ramses and Pithom (Tanis) were built in the Nile Delta on the edge of the desert with the Sinai Peninsula, in the northeast section of the Egyptian empire. Therefore, there was much sand in the area, and Moses buried the Egyptian there.

On his next visit to the construction site, Moses saw two Hebrews fighting with each other. He then asked