I watched the 1923 version of The Ten Commandments the other day, and I was intrigued by it. It started me thinking about how Moses movies have changed over the last century. One thing led to another, and the next thing you know, I was binge-watching a whole bunch of them, which then led to the decision to present my thoughts on all these movies in a series of essays, of which this one is the first. I cannot claim to have made an exhaustive survey. I would like to have seen The Ten Commandments: The Movie (2016), but the DVD is not available yet. I did not bother with any animated versions, such as The Prince of Egypt (1998), because these are obviously aimed at children. My interest is not what dramatic presentations are deemed suitable for children, but rather what dramatic presentations are deemed suitable for adults. Any documentaries examining what evidence there is for the story in The Book of Exodus were passed over, such as The Exodus Revealed: Search for the Red Sea Crossing (2001). While such films are not without value, the truth or falsity of the story of the Hebrews in Egypt is not my concern at the moment. I am only interested in contrasting the story as told in the Bible with the story as told in the theaters or on television, and how that has changed over time. For that purpose, it would be all the same if the story in Exodus were literally true, partly true, or just so much fiction and fantasy.
The first movie to depict the story about Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, The Ten Commandments (1923), was directed by Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille obviously enjoyed making biblical movies about pagan decadence and debauchery, accompanied by much spectacle and wrath of God, so notwithstanding its being a silent film and all, I figured it might be worth a look. I was surprised, then, when early in the movie we learn that Egypt has already been visited by nine plagues, none of which we got to see. What’s the deal? This is especially perplexing considering that the movie is two hours and sixteen minutes long. Even the tenth plague, the one where all of Egypt’s firstborn die, is disappointing, for we see no one actually being struck down. All we see is the Pharaoh’s son alive, and then later we see him dead, after which the Pharaoh tells Moses to take his people and get out.
As we all know, people pick and choose the parts of the Bible they agree with and ignore the rest. But movies have the unique task of picking and choosing the parts of the Bible that are suitable for dramatic presentation to large audiences. One of the items we expect the movies to suppress is the one in which the Hebrews loot Egypt before they leave, taking gold and silver jewelry and some nice clothes as well under false pretenses. As a burning bush, God told Moses he would do this in Exodus 3:
3:21 And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
3:22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
Just before the tenth plague, in Exodus 11, God tells Moses this last plague will do the trick. Therefore, the time to start borrowing gold and silver jewelry is now:
11:2 Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.
It does indeed come to pass, as stated in Exodus 12:
12:35 And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment:
12:36 And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.
Now, whereas Exodus 11 seems to imply that the borrowing took place before the tenth plague, Exodus 12 seems to imply that it took place afterwards. The movie follows the latter interpretation, the Great Borrowing coming after the tenth plague has taken its toll, with the intertitle saying, “And they despoiled the Egyptians of jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment.”
Try to imagine what that must have been like. It’s the middle of the night, and the firstborn of each Egyptian household has died (Exodus 12:29-30). During that same night (Exodus 12:31-34), the Pharaoh tells the Moses to take his people and leave immediately. So, all the borrowing must have taken place before the sun had even come up. A typical example might be a Hebrew woman knocking on the door of an Egyptian woman, saying, “I heard a great cry coming from your house, so I figured you were up. Oh, your baby just died? I’m so sorry. But since you will probably be in mourning for a while, could I borrow your bracelets, necklaces, and earrings in the meantime?” It is only something to be imagined, however, because there are no such scenes in the movie. Instead, all we get is just that one lousy intertitle, followed by scenes of people leaving Egypt. If you didn’t know better, you might wonder why they even bothered to mention it. It might also make you wonder if that was the real reason the Pharaoh changed his mind and chased after the Hebrews: “Hey! They borrowed all our gold and silver jewelry, and I’ll bet they don’t intend to return it. Let’s go get it back.”
We finally get some spectacle when the Hebrews come to the Red Sea. Not bad, considering. Then Moses climbs up Mount Sinai to receive the title Commandments. While he is away, the Hebrews make a Golden Calf. And that, of course, is why it was necessary to include the part about borrowing the jewelry, so we don’t wonder where a bunch of slaves got all the gold needed for its fabrication. But since the manner in which they obtained that gold is disgraceful, the movie downplays it by not depicting it.
The Golden Calf having been made, Miriam, Moses’ sister, gets all sensual with it while displaying as much of her body as was permitted in the movies in those days. Dathan, “the discontented,” starts to make love to her, but then he sees she has leprosy. Now, somewhat later, as told in Numbers 12, God does eventually inflict Miriam with leprosy, because she objected to Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman, but in this movie, she gets inflicted with the disease during the Golden Calf party. Moses breaks the tablets in anger, Miriam begs him to heal her, and God lashes out with bolts of lightning, ending the party.
It is at this point that we find out why we were shortchanged on the first nine plagues of Egypt. After only fifty minutes of screen time, with almost an hour and a half to go, the movie jumps to the present, and we discover that we have been watching a visualization of the story in Exodus as it was being read by a woman to her two adult sons. One of the two sons, Johnny, is a carpenter (Oh, brother!), and he is the good son. The other, Dan, is an atheist, and he blasphemes, making fun of the whole story.
At the beginning of the movie, there was a prologue that told of how belief in God had come to be thought of as a “religious complex,” and how people had come to think of the Ten Commandments as old fashioned. But then came the World War. “And now a blood-drenched bitter world—no longer laughing—cries for a way out.” That way out, of course, is the Ten Commandments, the Law without which men cannot live.
The World War must have already worn off on Dan, however, and it isn’t long before his mother turns him out of the house for his godless attitude. What follows is a melodramatic plot in which Mary, a homeless and hungry but beautiful woman, is allowed to stay with Johnny and his mother, as well as with Dan, who came back to get his coat, and, seeing Mary there, decided to stick around awhile. Johnny and Dan both fall in love with Mary, but she marries Dan. They leave the house, promising to break all the Ten Commandments as they live their heathen lives.
We don’t see Dan and Mary making any graven images of God, but other than that, they do presumably break the other nine Commandments, and the juicy ones are actually depicted. Dan cheats on Mary by having an affair with Sally Lung, a woman half French and half Chinese—a dangerous combination Dan is told by one of his cohorts. As for the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” Dan inadvertently does in his own mother when the cathedral he was building with shoddy cement collapses on her. And it turns out that the ship that brought in the cheap material for making that cement passed by an island that was a leper colony, from which point Sally Lung had stowed away. Why Dan never noticed her leprosy while he was having sex with her, we don’t know, but his skin starts showing the tell-tale signs. He shoots Sally in anger, so this time he deliberately breaks that Commandment about not killing. Then he ends up giving the disease to Mary, just before he tries to escape the law for his role in the cathedral collapse and ends up killing himself when his speedboat hits some rocks. So, the theme of leprosy as punishment for sin runs through both parts of this movie.
Mary decides to run away, possibly planning to kill herself, now that she has leprosy, but Johnny stops her. He reads to her from The New Testament, telling her about love, and in the morning she is cured of the disease. This squares with the dying words of the mother, who said she was wrong to make religion be about fear of God instead of love. But it doesn’t square with the prologue, which said the Ten Commandments, not The New Testament, were what people needed following the World War. Ambivalence regarding the Ten Commandments vis-à-vis the message in the gospels, however, is not unique to this movie.