{"id":67697,"date":"2019-12-25T09:28:11","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T07:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=67697"},"modified":"2023-07-20T13:35:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T10:35:12","slug":"god-turns-into-a-serpent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/god-turns-into-a-serpent\/","title":{"rendered":"God Turns Into A Serpent"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[469,384,363,397,621],"acf":{"old_id":"67697","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33877,"related_cahpter":"380","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Thus foreshadowing Pharaoh and \u201cmaking known the end from the beginning,\u201d as Isaiah states","content":"

In our chapter, Isaiah contrasts the lifelessness of idols to the quintessential \u201clivingness\u201d of the God of Israel. In this prophecy God proclaims: <\/span><\/p>\n

I am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, and from before what has not yet been done (Isaiah 46:9-10).<\/span><\/p>\n

The midrash preserves a dramatic depiction of how God showed Moses what would transpire in bringing about the redemption from Egypt. A manuscript fragment recovered from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library, TS C1 46), preserves a unique early version of a Tanhuma-Yelammedenu<\/em> homily that opens with our verse: \u201cGod makes known the end from the beginning\u201d (Isa. 46:10). The rabbis say, when Moses was at the burning bush, God showed him how Pharaoh would twist deviously and stand against him. Therefore, God made Himself into a serpent [\u2018asah \u2018atzmo nahash<\/em>] before Moses to inform him that just as the serpent twists deviously, so Pharaoh would twist deviously against him. God said to Moses: If Pharaoh comes to twist deviously against you, rise up and be a man of valor before him, and: \u201cIf Pharaoh shall speak to you saying: Give a sign for yourselves, then you shall say to Aaron: Take your staff and cast it before Pharaoh, and it will turn into a serpent\u201d (Exodus 7:9).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We seem to have here a highly imaginative envisioning of the Burning Bush narrative in which God says to Moses: \u201c\u2018What is that in your hand?\u2019 \u2018A staff\u2019, he replied. The Lord said, \u2018Throw it on the ground\u2019. Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and he fled from it\u2026.\u2019This\u2019, said the Lord, \u2018is so that they may believe that the Lord\u2026has appeared to you\u2019\u201d (Exodus 4:2-5). The Midrash here creatively interprets the miraculous appearance of the serpent as the appearance of God to Moses. In this way, our verse from Isaiah on how God \u201cmakes known the end from the beginning\u201d is illustrated by the sign of the serpent at the Burning Bush, which foretells the performance of that sign by Moses and Aaron in their appearance before Pharaoh in Exodus 7.<\/span><\/p>\n

This surprising interpretation of the Biblical narrative is not preserved elsewhere. But Exodus Rabbah 3:12 seems to preserve an opposing tradition. A \u201cMatronah\u201d (Roman Lady) says to Rabbi Yosi: My god is greater than your God, for Moses fled from before the serpent, who is my god. Rabbi Yosi replies that Moses was saved from the serpent by just taking a few steps away. But when God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush, Moses did not flee, but hid his face (see Exodus 3:6) as the Matronah herself had noted. Moses indeed fled from the serpent, but not from God, as it says: \u201cIf a man enters a hiding place, Do I not see him? \u2014says the Lord. For I fill both heaven and earth\u2014declares the Lord\u201d (Jeremiah 23:24).<\/span><\/p>\n

For more on this, see: Marc Bregman, <\/span>The Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature — Studies in the Evolution of the Versions<\/em> <\/span>(Gorgias Press: Piscataway NJ, 2003).<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Moses’ Rod Turned into a Serpent, illustration from the 1890 Holman Bible \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":67703,"id":67703,"title":"is46-moses snake","filename":"is46-moses-snake.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is46-moses-snake.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/god-turns-into-a-serpent\/is46-moses-snake\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is46-moses-snake","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":67697,"date":"2019-12-25 07:26:04","modified":"2020-08-04 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