Moses and Magic: Notes on the Book of Exodus
The scholarly world has known for some time that the book of Exodus demonstrates a rst hand knowledge of Egyptian customs and beliefs, even if somewhat tendentiously related. 1 This is especially apparent in the account of the ten plagues, which some see as representing an attack against the Egyptian pantheon, 2 and in the account of Moses' rst appearance before Pharaoh's magicians (Exod. 7:8 12) Regarding the latter, for example, not only does the word mymwfrj "magicians," derive from Egyptian h ry tp "lector priest, magician," 3 but the trick of turning a sta^ into a serpent has parallels both in Egyptian literature, in the so called "wax crocodile story," and in the repertoire of Near Eastern snake charming tricks. 4 In addition, J. Currid has demonstrated convincingly that, far from being theologically troubling, the frequent "hardening (lit. making heavy) of Pharaoh's heart," is a polemical play on the Egyptian belief that Pharaoh's heart would be weighed against the feather of truth before entering the afterlife. 5 While scholars often rightly note the theological polemic behind such allusions, namely the subordination of Egyptian magic and belief to the God of Israel, to my knowledge, no e^ort has been made to understand the magicians' tricks and their subsequent failures from the perspective of Egyptian magic. 6 Nevertheless, as I shall demonstrate, a knowledge of Egyptian magical practice greatly enhances our understanding of the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh. Therefore, in what follows I shall delineate and discuss several aspects of the Exodus account in the light of their linguistic and thematic a nities with Egyptian magic.