I don’t like circumcision; it’s a barbaric ritual. Being a woman, and coming from a family of seven daughters, I didn’t know much about it. Naturally, then, when I had my first son, Gershom, the possibility didn’t occur to me – so it came as an unpleasant surprise when Moses circumcised him. If I’d felt better, I probably would have objected more at the time, but it all happened so quickly and then I was left to comfort the crying baby!
After that, of course, I thought more about it, and soon became completely convinced that if I had any other sons, I didn’t want them circumcised. Having decided that, I worked on Moses, and by the time our second son Eliezer was born, I had convinced him to leave the baby alone.
Success.
Then, as we travelled to Egypt so that Moses, my husband, could help the Hebrews there – and probably change the world forever – suddenly I had to choose between saving my husband and hurting my son.
An angel was going to kill Moses if I didn’t circumcise Eliezer,[1] so what else could I do? If only my husband wasn’t a descendant of Abraham it wouldn’t have mattered. Instead, I had to shed my son’s blood because Moses was my husband.
I have to admit that Moses says that the God of Abraham commanded it for all of Abraham’s male descendants,[2] which includes not just his people, the Hebrews, but mine, the Midianites[3] as well. Honestly though, I don’t think he’s very keen on it himself, and maybe that’s because of his Egyptian background. Among the Midianites, I don’t think anyone pays much attention to that old rule. After all, Abraham clearly didn’t have much interest in most of his sons: he sent them all
away before he died. True, he gave them gifts, but he left everything else he had to Isaac.[4] Since we weren’t “the chosen” ones, why should we pay any attention to that rule? It was probably only ever really intended for Isaac and his descendants anyway.
So I circumcised Eliezer and we kept going to Egypt, but it was a nagging problem between us from then on.
My father is the priest of Midian, so I grew up knowing about the God of Abraham, our ancestor, but I was taught about other gods too. I have always felt that religion is mostly for men to worry about, while we women take care of the practical things – but that doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions about it! Moses grew up in Egypt, where they have a completely different collection of gods and know nothing about the God of Abraham. Nevertheless, Moses heard about the God of Abraham
from his real mother and chose to worship him – and not just as a convenience. Moses is really attached to his god. Really, really attached. He won’t do anything without worrying about what God would think of him. I’ve never met anyone who cares more about religion than him. And he and his god forced me to circumcise my younger son.
When we arrived in Egypt, I was doubly a foreigner: a foreigner to the Egyptians and a foreigner to the Hebrews. I felt so alone! Gershom and Eliezer were my only company. Moses was busy all the time: busy with the leaders of the Hebrews, trying to convince them that they were about to be given freedom; busy trying to convince Pharaoh to let them go; busy calling down plagues on everyone.
How do you look after young children when you have no water? Moses’ first plague turned all the water into blood. Every drop of water in Egypt – in rivers, ponds, tanks, pots, jugs and glasses – all of it was turned into blood. I ask you, how are you meant to keep things clean? The Egyptians found that they could get a little water from the ground by digging holes near the Nile, but dirty water isn’t that much better than blood when all is said and done! I don’t
mind giving young children a little wine at times, but for several days there was nothing else to drink. And Moses just told me that I had to be patient.
Next it was frogs. I hope that I’m not selfish, but making us all have to put up with frogs just to teach the Egyptians a lesson seems to me, ah… strange, to say the least. Moses never complains, but then again, he didn’t have to look after two children who were covered with frogs! I had to carry them around with me all the time or they ended up with frogs in their clothes, frogs on their faces, even frogs’ toes in their mouths.
The gnats were even worse, if that’s possible. They covered the boys from head to toe. Black spots everywhere. They were in their mouths, eyes, ears and hair. And then they bit them all over, too. By that time, I was ready to leave. Leave Moses, leave Egypt, and go back home to Midian!
Fortunately, that was the worst of it: the rest of the plagues didn’t affect us in Goshen, the part of Egypt where the Hebrews lived. The Egyptians had the flies, but we didn’t. It was a relief.
The Egyptian livestock died, but the Hebrew livestock didn’t.
The Egyptians had boils, but we didn’t.
Hail fell all across Egypt except in Goshen.
Yet still Pharaoh would not let the Hebrews go. In fact, he was getting more and more aggressive towards us.
Unsurprisingly, he was most aggressive towards Moses and the other leaders of the Hebrews. Most of them are quite old, past the age of working as slaves for the Egyptians. I suppose it makes sense to have an age limit when you think about it: after all, Moses is 80 and Aaron his brother is 83. Normally, you wouldn’t want people of that age working with a group of younger workers – they’d just slow down the younger workers and get in the way. But old men among the
Hebrews are not your ordinary old men. I’m still a relatively young woman, but Moses can out-walk me any day. I can climb a mountain when I need to, but Moses could do it every day without even feeling tired. It feels funny having a husband who is so much older than me in years when I suspect that I’ll start slowing down before he does!
However, I digress. The plagues continued, and rumour warned us that Pharaoh was looking for a way to get back at Moses. Then, apparently, someone pointed out me and our sons.
After that, it all happened very quickly.
Moses went through the same thing 40 years ago when he had to run for his life away from Egypt. This time he stayed – although he was in just as much danger as last time – but I had to flee with our children.
Moses arranged for us to be escorted out of Egypt while all the Egyptians were busy with the locusts that were overrunning the land at the time. As soon as we got out of Goshen, the locusts were an amazing sight: sometimes sweeping over the land like a flood, at other times flying above us so that the sky was dark with them. I was riding with the boys, and at the start, the donkey tried to pick his way carefully through the locusts to avoid stepping on them, but it wasn’t possible,
so after a while he gave up and crushed locusts at almost every step.
It was a long trip back to my father’s home in Midian. Long and tiring. At least my sons are safe now, but I don’t know about Moses. My father was surprised to see me, and even more surprised when I repeated Moses’ farewell instructions: I am to go to meet Moses and the Hebrews at Mount Horeb once he has led them out of Egypt.
Truthfully, neither of us is sure that I will ever see Moses again. As for seeing him triumphantly leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, that doesn’t seem likely. I heard enough about Pharaoh while I was in Egypt to be sure that he won’t let them go unless he has no other choice. The country would have to be completely ruined before he let his slaves leave – though after all of those plagues, I guess it was already pretty near ruined when I left.
What a waste of time that whole journey was! I went from freedom at home to joining a nation of slaves in Egypt – a big prison really – and then came back home again anyway. In essence, all that happened was that I circumcised Eliezer – and I wish I hadn’t been forced to do that.
