Exodus – General
Is there anything in the book of Exodus calculated to make men more generous, loving and noble? Is it well to teach children that God tortured the innocent cattle of the Egyptians, bruised them to death with hailstones, on account of the sins of Pharaoh? Does it make us merciful to believe that God killed the firstborn of the Egyptians, the firstborn of the poor and suffering people, of the poor girl working at the mill, because of the wickedness of the king? Can we believe that the gods of Egypt worked miracles? Did they change water into blood, and sticks into serpents? If they did it means that there are other god’s. In Exodus there is not one original thought or line of value. We know, if we know anything that this book was written by savages, savages who believed in slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination. We know that the story told is impossible, and that the miracles were never performed. This book admits that there are other gods besides Jehovah. In the 17th chapter is this verse: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them." So, in this blessed book is taught the duty of human sacrifice, the sacrifice of babes. In the 22nd chapter is this command: "Thou shall not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors: the first born of thy sons thou shall give unto me." Has Exodus been a help or a hindrance to the human race? Take from Exodus the laws common to all nations, and is there anything of value left? Is there anything in Leviticus of importance? Is there a chapter worth reading? What interest have we in the clothes of priests, the curtains and candles of the tabernacle, the tongs and shovels of the altar or the hair-oil used by the Levities? Of what use the cruel code, the frightful punishments, the curses, the falsehoods and the miracles of this ignorant and infamous book?
Let us have a closer look.
Exodus 1:18-20 - God rewarded the Hebrew midwives for lying to the Pharaoh, contrary to the verses in the Bible that forbid lying. I do not have a problem with these women lying to save lives. But God should stipulate when it is ok to lie and when it is not ok to lie. All the bible says is that “Don’t Lie”.
Exodus 2:11-12 - Moses murders an Egyptian after making sure that no one is looking. And still he falls into God’s category of worthy followers!
Exodus 2:14-15 - "Moses feared" and "fled from the face of Pharaoh." But Heb.11:27 says that Moses did not fear the Pharaoh.
Exodus 3:4 - 4:17 - God, disguised as a burning bush, has a long heart-to-heart talk with Moses. So far God has appeared to people all the time. Why a burning bush now?
Exodus 3:22 - God tells the Hebrew women to break the eighth commandment. It’s ok to steal. And don’t tell me they deserve it, it was God who in the first place sent the Israelites into slavery.
Exodus 4:11 - Why are some people born with disabilities? God deliberately makes them that way, apparently. = Unjust.
Exodus 4:21 - God begins the process of "hardening Pharaoh's heart" (see also Ex.7:3, 13, 9:12, 10:1, 20, 27, 11:10, 14:4, 8), thus making it impossible for any of the plagues that God sends to have any beneficial effect. But according to 1 Samuel 6:6, God didn't harden the Pharaoh's heart; the Pharaoh did it himself.
Exodus 4:23 - God threatens to kill the Pharaoh's firstborn son. Extortion, murder of innocence…
Exodus 4:24-26 - God decides to kill Moses because his son had not yet been circumcised. Luckily for Moses, his Egyptian wife Zipporah "took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he [God] let him go." This story shows the importance of penises to God, and his hatred of foreskins.
Exodus 6:3 - God says that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that they didn't know that his name was Jehovah. Yet in Gen.22:14 Abraham names the place where he nearly kills Isaac after God's name, Jehovah.
Exodus 7:3 - God hardens Pharaoh's heart for the second time. But this contradicts 1 Samuel 6:6, which says that the Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
Exodus 7:4 - God will make sure that Pharaoh does not listen to Moses, so that he can kill Egyptians with his armies.
Exodus 7:5, 17 - "And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD." Who else could be so cruel and unjust?
Exodus 8:17-19 - Plague #3 is lice in man and beast. This is the first trick that the magicians couldn't do. After this the magicians were convinced that Moses and Aaron's plagues were done by "the finger of God," and they gave up trying to match the remaining seven plagues. I guess lice are harder to make than frogs.
Exodus 9:2-6 - The fifth plague: all cattle in Egypt die. But a little later, in the seventh plague, God kills them again Ex.9:19-20.
Exodus 9:19-20 - God kills all Egyptian cattle with hail. But according to Ex.9:6 he had already killed them all with the murrain.
Exodus 10:4-5 - Eighth plague: locusts that is so thick that they "covered the face of the earth." (Even over Antarctica?)
Exodus 10:21 - Ninth plague: three days of darkness. The darkness was so thick that the Egyptians couldn't even see each other. But the darkness knew how to avoid the Israelites, and so "all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings."
Exodus 11:4-6 - These verses clearly show the mass murder of innocent children by God (see 12:29-30) was premeditated.
Exodus 11:7 - God will kill the Egyptian children to show that he puts "a difference between the Egyptians and Israel."
Exodus 11:9 - God explains to Moses that he has been hardening Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh will not let the Israelites go. God says that this way he'll be able to show off his latest signs and wonders (by murdering little children).
Exodus 12:7, 13 - God tells the Israelites to smear some blood on their doors. That way when he's going around killing Egyptian children, he'll remember not to kill their children too. He probably said to himself when he saw the blood, "Oh yeah, I remember now. I not supposed to kill the children in this house."
Exodus 12:15 - "Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread [during the Passover]," but Dt.16:8 say six days.
Exodus 12:29 - After God has sufficiently hardened the Pharaoh's heart, he kills all the firstborn Egyptian children. When he was finished "there was not a house where there was not one dead." Finally, he runs out of little babies to kill, so he slaughters the firstborn cattle, too. Of course there shouldn't have been any cattle since God already killed them with a "grievous murrain (Ex.9:6)." Well maybe he created some more so that he'd have some more to kill…
Exodus 12:35-36 - God encourages the Israelites to steal from the Egyptians. But stealing is forbidden in many Bible passages.
Exodus 12:44 - "But every man's servant that is bought for money...." Once again, God shows his approval of slavery.
Exodus 13:2, 12-13, 15 - To commemorate the divine massacre of the Egyptian children, Moses instructs the Israelites to "sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix", all the males, that is. God has no use for dead, burnt female bodies.
Exodus 14:4-28 - After hardening Pharaoh's heart a few more times, God drowns Pharaoh's army in the sea [after he takes off their chariot wheels (Ex.14:24-25)]. By so doing he claims to have gotten himself honour. But this contradicts 1 Samuel 6:6, which says that the Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
Exodus 14:23 - The Egyptians chased after the Israelites with "all Pharaoh's horses." But according to Ex.9:3-6 there wouldn't have been any horses, since God killed them all in, “very grievous murrain”.
Exodus 15:1-19 - Moses and the people sing praises to their murderous god.
Exodus 15:8 - God divided the sea with a "blast of [his] nostrils."
Exodus 19:5 - God favours Israelites "above all people."
Exodus 19:12-13 - Any person or animal that touches Mt. Sinai shall be stoned to death or "shot through." Did Moses impose such severe penalties because he feared that someone might see him fake his meeting with God?
Exodus 20:4 - God forbids making any graven images. But later (Ex.25:18, Num.21:8) he provides instruction for the making of graven images.
Exodus 20:5 - "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." Any god that would make such a statement is worse than jealous, although that would be bad enough. He is cruel and unjust as well. This statement is repeated and contradicted in other parts of the Bible.
Exodus 20:12 - "Honour thy father and thy mother." But Jesus said we must hate our parents (Lk.14:26), refuse to call anyone father (Mt.23:9), and not bother to bury our parents when they die (Lk.9:59-60).
Exodus 20:13 - "Thou shall not kill." Really? Then why does God command others to kill in many other Bible verses?
Exodus 20:14 - God forbids adultery. But later he promotes it (Hos.1:2, 3:1).
Exodus 20:15 - God forbids stealing. But sometimes he encourages it.
Exodus 20:16 - "Thou shall not bear false witness." But Paul and others are willing to lie a little to further God's truth (Rom.3:7, 2 Cor.12:16).
Exodus 20:17 - "Thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant ... nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s." In the Bible, women and slaves (servants in the KJV) are the property of men; they are his possessions, like an ox or an ass.
Exodus 20:24 - God gives instructions for killing and burning animals. He says that if we will make such "burnt offerings," he will bless us for it. What kind of mind would be pleased by the killing and burning of innocent animals?
Exodus 20:26 - God tells the priests not to go up the steps to the altar "that thy nakedness not be discovered thereon." (Skirts on stairs are a problem...)
Exodus 21:2-6 - God sets down the rules regarding Hebrew slaves. You can buy one, but you must set him free on the seventh year. But if you have "given" him a wife and she bears children, then you get to keep the wife and kids. If he refuses to leave his family when his seven years are up, then bore a hole though his ear and keep him forever. (That sounds fair!)
Exodus 21:7-8 - How to sell your daughter, and what to do if she fails to please her new master.
Exodus 21:10 – God’s instructions for taking a second wife.
Exodus 21:15, 17 - A child who hits or curses his parents must be executed.
Exodus 21:16 - Slavery is approved by God, and those who steal slaves must be killed.
Exodus 21:20-21 - It's okay with God if you slowly beat your slaves to death. After all, they are your money. Just make sure that they survive at least a day or two after the beating.
Exodus 21:24-25 - An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Exodus 22:3 - If a thief is caught and is too poor to make a complete restitution, he is to be sold to pay for his theft.
Exodus 22:18 - "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live". Thousands of innocent women have suffered excruciating deaths because of this verse.
Exodus 22:19 - "Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death." Is it really necessary to kill such people? Couldn't we just send them to counselling or something?
Exodus 22:20 - "He who sacrifices unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." If this commandment is obeyed, then the four billion people who do not believe in the biblical god must be killed.
Exodus 22:21-22 - Be kind to strangers, widows, and fatherless children. Good advice. It's a shame that the bible doesn't teach this consistently. See Numbers (1:51, 3:10, 3:38, 18:7), where God orders the Israelites to kill strangers; Num.31:14-18, where Moses orders the murder of all non-virgin woman (I guess that'd include most widows); and 1 Sam.15:2-3, where God commands Saul to kill every "man and woman, infant and suckling", which would include fatherless children.
Exodus 22:24 - If you make God angry enough, he will kill you and your family with his own sword.
Exodus 22:29 - "The firstborn of thy sons thou shall give unto me." As a burnt offering?
Exodus 23:13 - Don't even mention the names of the other gods.
Exodus 23:15 - How long are we supposed to eat unleavened bread on the Passover? Six or seven days?
Exodus 23:17 - Three times a year God wants to see all of the males. The females he never wants to see.
Exodus 23:24 - Do not allow others to worship a different god. Conquer them and destroy their religious property.
Exodus 24:5-8 - Moses has some animals killed and their dead bodies burned for God. Then he sprinkles their blood on the altar and on the people. This makes God happy.
Exodus 24:9-10 - Moses, Aaron, and seventy of their companions saw God. How could this have happened if no one has ever seen God?
Exodus 25:18 - God tells Moses to make some graven images for him, contrary to the commandment given in Ex.20:4 and Dt.5:8.
Exodus 25-30 - Six chapters are wasted on divine instructions for making tables, candlesticks, snuffers, etc.
Exodus 28:30 - The Urim and Thummim were like two sides of a magic coin that could be flipped to give a yes or no answer to any question. They were also what Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon.
Exodus 28:34-35 - Aaron must where a bell whenever he enters "the holy place" or God will kill him. Think God is scared Aaron might sneak up on Him?
Exodus 29:11-37 - Get some animals, kill them, chop up their bodies, wave body parts in the air, burn the carcasses, and sprinkle the blood all around, in precisely the way God tells you. It may well make you sick, but it makes God feel good. But keep those strangers away from these animal sacrifices. Because God hates strangers just as much as he loves blood and guts and gore.
Exodus 29:14 - God instructs the priests to burn the dung of bullocks outside the camp as a sin offering.
Exodus 29:20-21 - God tells Moses to kill a ram and put the blood on the tip of Aaron's right ear, and on his right thumb, and on his right big toe, and then sprinkle the blood around the altar. Finally, sprinkle some on Aaron and his sons and on their garments. This will make them "hallowed." Yeah right.
Exodus 29:36, 38-39 - Have your killed and offered your bullock for a sin offering today? How about the two lambs you are supposed to offer each day?
Exodus 30:20 - Wash up or die. This is a good verse to use when reminding the kiddies to wash their hands before supper.
Exodus 30:33 - Whoever puts holy oil on a stranger shall be "cut off from his people."
Exodus 30:37-38 - And whoever uses God's favourite perfume will be exiled.
Exodus 31:14 - Those who break the Sabbath are to be executed. But this contradicts several other Bible verses.
Exodus 31:17 - God was tired after making heaven and earth. So he had to take a day off to rest up. But Is.40:28 says that God never tires.
Exodus 32:1-35 - Aaron makes a golden calf and tells the people to take off their clothes and dance around naked. God then punishes them mercilessly for following their divinely appointed religious leader.
Exodus 32:14 - "And the Lord repented of the evil which he though to do unto his people." But how could a good God even consider doing evil to anyone? And how could an unchangeable God change his mind? And how did He repent? Is there a higher “god” He ask forgiveness for or does he ask himself forgiveness? And if “repented” means just to be sorry then did he not know what he was going to do before he did it? He is omniscient or is he not?
Exodus 32:27-28 - God tells the sons of Levi (Moses, Aaron, and the other members of their tribe that were "on the Lord's side") to kill their family and friends for dancing naked around Aaron's golden calf. "And there fell of the people that day about 3000 men." Is this the same God who commanded "Thou shall not kill" in Ex.20:13 and Dt.5:17? Well, maybe he changed his mind again. Maybe he just couldn't control himself then he saw that golden calf and all those naked bodies.
Exodus 32:35 - But God wasn't satisfied with the slaughter of the 3000, so he killed some more people with a plague. Lovely.
Exodus 33:2 - God promises to cast out many nations including the Canaanites and the Jebusites. But he was unable to fulfil his promise. Jos.15:63, 16:10, 17.12-13:
Jg.1:21, 27 and 3:1-5
Exodus 33:11 - "And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." This verse directly contradicts several other verses which say that no one has ever seen God.
Exodus 33:20, 22 - Immediately after being told about Moses' face to face encounter with God, we are told that it never could have happened, since, as God explains to Moses, "no man can see me, and live."
Exodus 33:23 - Although God is too shy to let Moses see his face, he does permit a peek at his "back parts." (The divine mooning)
Exodus 34:1 - In this verse God says he will write on the stone tablets, but in 34:27 he tells Moses to do the writing.
Exodus 34:7 - God says that he visits "the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth generation." But in Dt.24:16 and Ezek.18:20 he denies this and says that the sons are not punished for the sins of their fathers.
Exodus 34:14 - God, "whose name is Jealous", will not tolerate the worship of any other god.
Exodus 34:16 - "Their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods." God always blames the women; it is they who "go a whoring" and then "make" the men "go a whoring."
Exodus 34:20 - If you can't redeem him, then just "break his neck." Hey, it's all for the glory of God.
Exodus 34:28 - Moses goes without food or water for 40 days and 40 nights. Without food, yes. Without water, ho way!
Exodus 35:2-3 - Whoever works, or even kindles a fire, on the Sabbath "shall be put to death”.
