Parshat Vaera6 min read

Pharaoh Stole the Name of God, So God Lent It to Moses

Pharaoh boasted through Ezekiel's mouth that he made himself, so God handed a runaway shepherd the one glory earthly kings kill to guard.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Chair a Man Could Die For
  2. Pharaoh Reached for the Last Title Left
  3. The Maker Uncovered
  4. The King Who Gave His Glory Away
  5. A Shepherd Handed the Name of God
Pharaoh Stole the Name of God, So God Lent It to Moses Click for full size

The Chair a Man Could Die For

In the courts of flesh and blood, a man could die for sitting in the wrong chair.

No subject climbed onto the king's throne. No stablehand swung a leg over the king's horse. No servant lifted the king's scepter, fastened the king's crown to his own head, or pulled the king's robe across his own shoulders. Even the king's name was fenced. To call an ordinary man "Caesar Augustus," to lay the title Basileus on a neighbor, was to sign a death warrant for them both. A king guarded his glory the way a miser guards gold, and the walls around it were built of executions.

That was the rule under the sun. Above it sat a different King.

Pharaoh Reached for the Last Title Left

Down in Egypt, Pharaoh had already taken everything a throne could give, and it was not enough. So he reached higher than any crown. Through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel his boast still carries: "My Nile is my own, and I made myself." Not the gods. Not his fathers. He looked at the river feeding his kingdom, called it his own handiwork, and called himself a god.

He was not the first to try the title on. Hiram of Tyre said in his pride, "I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods." Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon said, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High." Even Joash, a king in Israel, let his princes bow to him as a god and did not stop them. Four men reached for heaven's own name. Heaven let each of them feel how far a maker can fall.

The Maker Uncovered

Nebuchadnezzar, who wanted to sit above the clouds, was driven from his palace while the crown still sat on his head. God set him among the cattle, and he ate grass like an ox, and the beasts used him as one of their own. The man who called himself Most High spent his nights lowing in a field.

Pharaoh's turn came with a new name. The prophets called him Hophra, the uncovered one, because the king who swore he had made himself was stripped and exposed from behind, unmanned, shown to be no maker at all. "Egypt shall be like frightened women," the word went out against him.

This is what the true King does with the arrogant. "He beholds everything high," the book of Job says of Him, "and He is king over all the children of pride." He drags the climber into daylight and holds him up to every creature like a farmer holding a caught rat. And lest anyone think the high God watches only the high, that same King said, "If a man hides in secret places, shall I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?" He filled the field where Nebuchadnezzar grazed, and the chamber where Pharaoh hid his shame.

The King Who Gave His Glory Away

Here was the strangeness. This King, who could crush any usurper without lifting a hand, guarded none of His treasures. He gave them away.

He set Solomon on His own seat. The record does not say Solomon sat on a throne like the Lord's. It says "Solomon sat upon the throne of the LORD." The chair no subject could touch, He handed to David's son.

He lent Elijah His horse. And what is the horse of God? The whirlwind and the storm. "The LORD, His way is in the whirlwind," and one day the whirlwind dropped down and carried Elijah up alive, a mortal riding the King's own mount into the sky.

He set crowns on the head of the Messiah, the king still to come, and He dressed Israel in His own garment, the robe called strength. "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD," and then, "The LORD will give strength to His people." The power He wore, He draped over a nation of former slaves.

Throne, horse, crown, robe. Every treasure an earthly king kills to protect, this King lent to the people who feared Him. "Who is this King of glory?" the psalm asks, and the answer is the King who shares His glory with those who fear Him instead of walling it off against them.

A Shepherd Handed the Name of God

Back in Egypt waited the strangest gift of all.

Moses was a shepherd who had run from Pharaoh's sword and spent forty years minding another man's flock. God met him at a burning bush and sent him back to the palace of the man who called himself a maker. And God said, "See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh."

The title that costs a commoner his life to borrow, the name Pharaoh had stolen and paid for with his dignity, God pressed into the hand of a fugitive shepherd. "I have made you like Myself," He said. Because the king had made himself a god, the shepherd would be made a god over him. The man who lifted himself would be shown as an abomination, and the man who once fled in fear would carry the Name into his court.

God armed him for it. "Take this rod in your hand." The rod was sapphire, heavy as forty measures of grain, and along its length the ten plagues already stood carved in shorthand, waiting. DeTzaKh. ADaSh. BeAHaB. Moses walked into Egypt gripping a length of God's own scepter, the Name of God upon him and the sentence of Egypt written in stone.

Pharaoh sat on his guarded throne, behind his guarded name, certain he had made himself. In the doorway stood a shepherd who had been given everything the king believed could only be seized.

PharaohMosesDivine GlorySelf Made GodTanchumaExodus
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From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 8:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

Another interpretation of (Exodus 7:1) "See, I have set you as a god to Pharaoh": The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Because he made himself into a god, He made known to him that he is nothing in the world. Behold, I will make you a god over him.

And from where do we know that Pharaoh made himself into a god? As it is said (Ezekiel 29:3): "{Because he} [Who] said, {the} [My] Nile is my own, and I made myself", I am the one who created myself. And this is one of four human beings who made themselves into divinities and were sexually penetrated like women; three were from the nations of the world and one from Israel. These are they: Hiram, Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, and Joash.

From where do we know of Hiram? As it is said (Ezekiel 28:2): "Say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is proud and you have said, I am a god." And because he made himself into a god, he was penetrated like women, as it is said (Ezekiel 28:17): "You have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor… to gaze at you." What is "to gaze (lera'avah) at you"? They would perform their "loves" (re'utehen) upon you.

From where do we know of Nebuchadnezzar? As it is said (Isaiah 14:14): "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: By your life! (Isaiah 14:15) "Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit." What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He exiled him while he was still in his kingship, and fed him grass like a beast, as it is said (Daniel 4:22): "And they shall make you eat grass like oxen." And the cattle and the wild beasts saw him in the likeness of a beast and had relations with him, as it is said (Habakkuk 2:17): "And the destruction of the beasts shall terrify them (yeḥittan)." What is "shall terrify them" (yeḥittan)? It is in the sense of what is said (Deuteronomy 7:3): "You shall not intermarry (titḥatten) with them", for he became a bridegroom (ḥatan) to every beast and wild animal.

From where do we know of Joash? As it is said (II Chronicles 24:17): "And after the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and bowed down to the king." What is "and bowed down to the king"? That they made him into a god, and he accepted it upon himself, as it is said (ibid.): "Then the king hearkened {to them} [the king to them]." And he was penetrated like women, as it is said (II Chronicles 24:24): "And upon Joash they executed judgments", as you say (Leviticus 20:13): "And a man who lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination."

And Pharaoh made himself into a god and was penetrated like women, as it says (Jeremiah 44:30): "Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt." What is "Hophra"? That they uncovered (par'u) him from behind, he is Pharaoh, who was male and became female. Another interpretation of "Hophra": in the sense of what is said (Numbers 5:18): "And he shall uncover (ufara') the woman's head." And which is his father's house? (Isaiah 19:16) "On that day {the land of Egypt shall be in dread…} [Egypt shall be like women]." And what caused him to make himself into a god? As it is said (Ezekiel 29:3): "{Because he} [Who] said, {the} [My] Nile is my own, and I made myself."

Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Because he made himself into a god, go and be made a god over him, as it is said (Exodus 7:1): "See, I have set you as a god to Pharaoh." Why? "For one higher than the high watches, and there are higher ones over them" (Ecclesiastes 5:7). Thus, you are a god over him; and make of him an arrogant abomination (shaḥatz) in the world, because he made himself high. And this is what is written (Job 41:26): "He beholds everything high; {and} he is king over all the children of arrogance (benei shaḥatz)."

And does the Holy One, blessed be He, not see the lowly? Is it not written (Zechariah 4:10): "The eyes of the LORD, they range through the whole earth"? Then what is "He beholds everything high"? Rabbi Berekhyah said: These are the arrogant, whose spirit is coarse within them, and who exalt themselves and make themselves into divinities. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do to them? He shows them to His creatures and makes them an arrogant abomination (shaḥatz) in the world, as it is said: "he is king over all the children of arrogance", such as Nebuchadnezzar, whom He made an arrogant abomination, as it is said (Daniel 5:21): "And he was driven from the sons of men." And likewise Sennacherib was made an arrogant abomination, as it is said (II Kings 19:35): "And it came to pass that night that the angel of the LORD went out and smote in the camp of Assyria." For the Holy One, blessed be He, shows the arrogant abomination of the haughty to every creature.

The Holy One, blessed be He, said (Jeremiah 23:24): "If a man hide himself in secret places, shall I not see him? says the LORD." Rabbi Benjamin bar Levi said: If a man goes and busies himself with the Torah and sits alone, I show his deeds in the world; and likewise, if a man hides himself to commit a transgression, I show his deeds to the world, as it is said: "shall I not see him? says the LORD. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? says the LORD" (ibid.). And what is "I fill"? Rabbi Hama son of Rabbi Hanina said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I fill from him the upper worlds and the lower worlds, and I show him as an arrogant abomination to the creatures. Why? Because they exalt themselves and make themselves into divinities. "He beholds everything high; {and} he is king over all the children of arrogance", for He reigns over all those who exalt themselves and makes them an arrogant abomination.

Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: "See, I have set you as a god to Pharaoh", go and exact punishment from him; go and bring upon him the ten plagues. He said to Him: How shall I bring the plagues upon him? The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him (Exodus 4:17): "And you shall take this rod in your hand." Rabbi Judah bar Ammi said: The rod had in it the weight of forty seah, and it was of sapphire, and the ten plagues were inscribed upon it by notarikon: DeTzaKh ADaSh BeAHaB. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: This rod shall bring the plagues upon him. "See, I have set you as a god to Pharaoh."

Full source
Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 7:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

Another interpretation: "Who is this King of glory?" (Psalms 24:8, 10). Who is this King who has shared glory with those who fear Him? "The LORD of hosts" and so forth. How so? A king of flesh and blood, none may sit upon his throne; yet the Holy One, blessed be He, seated Solomon upon His throne, as it is said, "And Solomon sat upon the throne of the LORD" (I Chronicles 29:23).

A king of flesh and blood, none may ride upon his horse; yet the Holy One, blessed be He, mounted Elijah upon His horse. And what is the horse of the Holy One, blessed be He? The whirlwind and the storm, as it is said, "The LORD, His way is in the whirlwind and in the storm" and so forth (Nahum 1:3).

A king of flesh and blood, none may make use of his scepter; yet Moses made use of the scepter of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, "And Moses took the rod of God in his hand" (Exodus 4:20).

A king of flesh and blood, none may wear his crown; yet the Holy One, blessed be He, gave crowns to the King Messiah, as it is said, "You set upon his head a crown of fine gold" (Psalms 21:4).

A king of flesh and blood, none may wear his garment; yet Israel wore the garment of the Holy One, blessed be He, namely strength, as it is said, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD" (Isaiah 51:9); and He gave it to Israel, as it is said, "The LORD will give strength to His people" (Psalms 29:11).

A king of flesh and blood, none may be called by his title, such as Caesar Augustus or Basileus; and if a person calls another by one of them, he has no life. Know this for yourself, that no man calls his fellow "Augustus So-and-so." But the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Behold, I have made you like Myself, a god to Pharaoh, as it is said, "See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh" (Exodus 7:1). Thus, "Who is this King of glory?", the One who shared His glory with those who fear Him.

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