The Exodus as a New Creation

The following are brief extracts from Rabbi Shai Held's critique of Robert Alter's translation of the Bible, published in a Jewish Review of Books symposium.

The story of the Exodus is not just about a national god who liberates his people from brutal enslavement. It is, crucially, the story of the Creator God scoring a momentous triumph in His battle with the cosmic forces of evil and chaos. . . .

As the Egyptians approach, God uses the wind to turn the sea into dry ground, enabling the Israelites to “come into the sea [yam] on dry land [yabashah], the waters a wall to them on their right and on their left” . . . In his commentary, Alter rightly notes that “the key terms here hark back to the first creation (God’s breath-spirit-wind, ruah; the dividing between sea and dry land)”

In the book of Exodus, the forces of life, aligned with God, are engaged in a massive struggle with the forces of death, aligned with Pharaoh.

. . . when Exodus 14 invokes “sea” and “dry land,” the point is not only that God retains control over the physical world but that the liberation of these slaves and the defeat of this tyrant represent a cosmic victory for creation over chaos and for life over death. . . . in separating the waters, God recapitulates the creation of the world. The defeat of Pharaoh is a victory for creation. . . . in splitting the waters of the sea, God is recreating the world: Now, as then, chaos is defeated, and life emerges triumphant.

The association of Pharaoh with the forces of chaos is made explicit elsewhere in the Bible. In what is arguably the most crucial example, the prophet Ezekiel calls the Egyptian king ha-tanim ha-gadol, which the NJPS translation renders as “mighty monster” and the New International Version as “great monster.” Pharaoh is thus associated with the primeval sea monster whom God defeats in establishing order and creating the world, according to Psalm 74:13–14 (and some other biblical texts).

Reading Exodus in light of Ezekiel, we see that God’s vanquishing of Pharaoh reenacts the primordial victory over the sea monster. . . .