The Exodus You Almost Passed Over

by David Fohrman

Once we recognize this essential similarity, we can see the extent to which the Exodus story truly does echo the burial story, in many more ways than just the four or five points we mentioned last chapter (the exit route taken, the babysitting arrangements, the chariots and the archers).

So before this bechor could be expected to choose his real father’s interests over those of his surrogate father, he would have to come to understand that his father truly loved him, that he had not been thrown out of the family. And this knowledge did, in fact, come to him. It came to him through a messenger.

When he made that commitment to Father, something poignant happened. Father reciprocated that gift of love with a gift of love of his own. Father confirmed Joseph’s status as child-leader of his family.

ultimately, He wanted him to undertake a journey to Canaan. Heavenly Father was adamant that this is where the destiny of the people lay.

As we’ve seen, the benevolent Pharaoh in the times of Joseph had treated Joseph like an adopted son. Ever since then, vestiges of that relationship had lingered. To some extent, the Egyptian throne continued to look upon Israel as its child, but that relationship had decayed. It was as if the loving surrogate father had become an evil and abusive caricature of his former self. He demanded the loyalty of his child, but extended none of the love a father would give one of his own. The Egyptian throne abused and and enslaved its child, and brutally inured itself to the child’s cries for mercy.

Which father would he choose to serve? Would he be willing to turn his back on his abusive surrogate father, risking his rage, so as to serve Heavenly Father? This would be the choice that faced the bechor when the time came to put the blood of Egypt’s gods on his doors. It would not be the easiest of choices. The consequences for enraging the surrogate father might well be severe. Moreover, the choice was complicated by his haunted past: he had been abused, the victim of centuries of slavery. And, worst of all, he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure whether Father in Heaven was involved. He thought Father loved him—God certainly had a close enough relationship with him back in Canaan, when he was much “smaller,” back in the days of his ancestors,

He would have to come to understand that his Father in Heaven truly loved him, that he had not been thrown out of the family of “acceptable” children. And this knowledge did, in fact, come to him. It came to him through a messenger.