The prophet Moses is amongst the greatest combatants against racism to have ever lived. The Egyptians, filled with nationalism, wanted to purge and and enslave all of the Hebrews in their land. And we learn of some more details on this from an ancient historian named Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century before Christ. Diodorus spent decades investigating antiquity for his many volumes of history books. During his inquiry he journeyed to Egypt where he found the Egyptian account of Moses and the enslavement of the Hebrews, and he used this information for his history. Diodorus learned this account from the works of the Egyptian historian, Manetho, and although his work is not based on the Bible, we can still learn from it because it is indeed the Egyptian point of view, and from this we can further our understanding on their biases and prejudices. More than this, we can further our knowledge on the history of eugenics, that it is not modern, that it goes all the way back to antiquity, that the Egyptians saw Hebrews and people with ailments as physically deformed or infirm who were worthy of death and enslavement. As we read in Diodorus’ history:
“In ancient times a great plague occurred in Egypt, and many ascribed the cause of it to the gods, who were offended with them. For since the multitudes of strangers of different nationalities, who lived there, made use of their foreign rites in religious ceremonies and sacrifices, the ancient manner of worshipping the gods, practised by the ancestors of the Egyptians, had been quite lost and forgotten. Therefore the native inhabitants concluded that, unless all the foreigners were driven out, they would never be free from their miseries. All the foreigners were forthwith expelled, and the most valiant and noble among them, under some notable leaders, were brought to Greece and other places, as some relate; the most famous of their leaders were Danaus and Cadmus. But the majority of the people descended into a country not far from Egypt, which is now called Judaea and at that time was altogether uninhabited.” (Diod. Sic. Hist. 40.3)
From this we learn of the nationalism of the Egyptians, and we learn more from the words of another ancient historian named Lysimachus, who based his work off Manetho. Josephus quotes Lysimachus:
“The people of the Jews being leprous, and scabby, and subject to certain other kinds of distempers, in the days of Bocchoris King of Egypt, they fled to the temples; and got their food there by begging. And as the numbers were very great that were fallen under these diseases, there arose a scarcity in Egypt. Hereupon Bocchoris, the King of Egypt, sent some to consult the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon about this scarcity. The god’s answer was this; that he must purge his temples of impure and impious men, by expelling them out of those temples into desert places: but as to the scabby and leprous people, he must drown them, and purge his temples: the sun having an indignation at these men’s being suffered to live. And by this means the land will bring forth its fruits.”
Upon Bocchoris’s having received these oracles, he called for their priests, and the attendants upon their altars; and ordered them to make a collection of the impure people; and to deliver them to the soldiers, to carry them away into the desert: but to take the leprous people, and wrap them in sheets of lead, and let them down into the sea. Hereupon the scabby and leprous people were drowned: and the rest were gotten together, and sent into desert places; in order to be exposed to destruction. In this case they assembled themselves together; and took counsel what they should do: and determined, that as the night was coming on, they should kindle fires, and lamps, and keep watch: that they also should fast the next night, and propitiate the gods, in order to obtain deliverance from them.
That on the next day there was one Moses who advised them, that they should venture upon a journey; and go along one road; till they should come to places fit for habitation: that he charged them to have no kind regards for any man; nor give good counsel to any; but always to advise them for the worst: and to overturn all those temples and altars of the gods they should meet with: that the rest commended what he had said, with one consent; and did what they had resolved on: and so travelled over the desert:
but that the difficulties of the journey being over, they came to a country inhabited: and that there they abused the men, and plundered and burnt their temples; and then came into that land which is called Judea: and there they built a city, and dwelt therein; and that their city was named Hierosyla, from this their robbing of the temples; but that still, upon the success they had afterwards, they, in time, changed its denomination; that it might not be a reproach to them: and called the city Hierosolyma, and themselves Hierosolymites.” (Josephus, Against Apion, 1. 24)
Here the Hebrews are described as having all sorts of ailments and deformities, they are referred to as a sickly and disfigured race. The ancient Egyptians saw the Jews as the Nazis saw the Jews: a contorted eyesore that needed to be destroyed for the good of the nation. You could imagine what propaganda was being produced in ancient Egypt; you can picture in your mind the Egyptians describing the Jews as criminals and diseased, worthy of being forced into work camps, just as the Nazis did. The description of the pagan Egyptian historian, Manetho, is a reflection of how the Egyptians saw the Hebrews in the time of Moses: as inferior to the Egyptians, and worthy of enslavement. The Nazis would depict the Jews as being short people with hooked noses, unlike the Aryan Germans who were tall and blond (an inaccurate generalization, of course). The Egyptians, filled with nationalist craze and fervor about how they were descendants of the gods, no doubt saw the Hebrews as an inferior and mismatched race of people.
The Scripture says, “the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them” (Exodus 1:13). Now, you can imagine what they said when mocking the Hebrews: words horrific enough to anger God, and I can imagine that much of it was out of nationalist and racialist pride.
The ancient fragment quoted above says that the Pharaoh ordered that those with ailments and disfigurements be drowned, and this is no different from the Pharaoh ordering that the male babies of Hebrew women be drowned in the Nile river. The Scripture says:
“And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews: of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua,
Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive.
But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children.
And the king called for them and said: What is that you meant to do, that you would save the men children?
They answered: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves are skillful in the office of a midwife; and they are delivered before we come to them.
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.
And because the midwives feared God, he built them houses.
Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.” (Exodus 1:15-22)
Now why does the Pharaoh order the male children to be killed but the female children to be spared? Because he wanted to destroy the male seed of the Hebrews, so that only Egyptian men could impregnate the Hebrew women, and by this, destroying the male line. In other words, the Pharaoh wanted to make the Hebrews into Egyptians. It was a nationalism similar to that of the Ottomans who, in the early 20th century, wanted to force the Christian Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians to adopt the Ottoman identity and become embedded into what they described as an ‘Ottoman soul.’
And remember what Diodorus said, that “since the multitudes of strangers of different nationalities, who lived there, made use of their foreign rites in religious ceremonies and sacrifices, the ancient manner of worshipping the gods, practised by the ancestors of the Egyptians, had been quite lost and forgotten.” The Egyptians wanted the Hebrews to be forcefully integrated not only into the Egyptian race, but into the Egyptian religion, much like how the Ottomans wanted the Christians to convert to Islam. Josephus describes the rise of Egyptian racism towards the Hebrews as beginning with the Egyptians becoming lazy and then jealous of the work ethic and success of the children of Israel:
“NOW it happened that the Egyptians grew delicate and lazy, as to pains-taking, and gave themselves up to other pleasures, and in particular to the love of gain. They also became very ill-affected towards the Hebrews, as touched with envy at their prosperity; for when they saw how the nation of the Israelites flourished, and were become eminent already in plenty of wealth, which they had acquired by their virtue and natural love of labor, they thought their increase was to their own detriment. And having, in length of time, forgotten the benefits they had received from Joseph, particularly the crown being now come into another family, they became very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them; for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating, upon its running over its own banks: they set them also to build pyramids, (17) and by all this wore them out; and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labor. And four hundred years did they spend under these afflictions; for they strove one against the other which should get the mastery, the Egyptians desiring to destroy the Israelites by these labors, and the Israelites desiring to hold out to the end under them.” (Josephus, Antiquities, 2.9)
The Egyptians grew lazy, and seeing the success of foreigners, they were wroth. Racism, much of the time, is actually an insatiable hatred for foreigners when they become more successful than the indigenous population. Josephus goes on to say that a pagan priest told the Pharaoh that a Hebrew would one day rise and make the Hebrews over the Egyptians:
“One of those sacred scribes, who are very sagacious in foretelling future events truly, told the king, that about this time there would a child be born to the Israelites, who, if he were reared, would bring the Egyptian dominion low, and would raise the Israelites; that he would excel all men in virtue, and obtain a glory that would be remembered through all ages.” (Ibid)
In other words, the Egyptians wanted to be the dominant and superior race, and did not want the Jews to be above them in success. They wanted to keep the Hebrews in a servile position, to maintain Egyptian domination. The Egyptians wanted to kill those they deemed as undesirables, and Moses was their savior. Moses’ liberation of the Hebrews was a foreshadowing of Christ and His redemption of humanity. As Moses came for the undesirables, so Christ came for the undesirables. Christ declared the parable of the great banquet, which is a direct strike against the evil ideology of eugenics:
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14)
World War One and Two started because one race wanted to dominate the world. When world war three commences, it will be because one people will want to dominate the earth. The violent thirst for dominance, is the cause of all war.
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