In Part 1 of this series, I discussed The Ten Commandments (1923); in Part 2, The Ten Commandments (1956). This essay will focus on Moses the Lawgiver (1975).
Originally, Moses the Lawgiver was a television mini-series with a running time of six hours. I was only able to see an edited version lasting two hours and twenty minutes. It begins where most Moses movies do, with the Pharaoh ordering all newly born Hebrew boys to be killed; but it follows the biblical account, in which the motive is to limit the military strength of the Hebrews, as opposed to the account in The Ten Commandments (1956), in which the motive parallels that of Herod in Matthew 2.
Just to make sure we in the audience know that Yokebed’s baby is a boy, we are shown the baby’s penis right after he is born. Now, I would have taken their word for it, but as long as they went to the trouble of putting it on full display, I could not help but notice that the penis was uncircumcised. You may think this should not be worth commenting on, but it turns out that this movie is taking a stand on of a matter of some controversy, for whether Moses was born circumcised is a bone of contention. The following verse in Exodus is significant:
2:2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
Regarding this, Chabad.org makes the following remark:
What did she see? One interpretation, cited in several classic sources, is that she saw that he was circumcised and knew that there was greatness in store for him. Being born circumcised was an expression of the otherworldly perfection that characterized the one who would speak face to face with G‑d.
I assume the “o” was left out of the word “God” so as not to violate a taboo about uttering or writing God’s name. Anyway, this movie is in the camp of those who think Moses was born with his foreskin.
But that does raise an interesting question: When was Moses circumcised? In movies like the present one, as well as The Ten Commandments (1956), Moses does not find out until he is an adult that he is a Hebrew. But if he was born circumcised or if his parents circumcised him before putting him in a basket, everyone would have known he was a Hebrew right off. An uncircumcised Moses allows for more drama and suspense regarding Moses’ identity, and this may be the reason most movies prefer a Moses with foreskin, either explicitly, as in this case, or implicitly, as elsewhere.
As for what is in The Book of Exodus, however, it would appear that Moses knew all along that he was a Hebrew:
2:11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
This would be consistent with the theory that Moses was either born circumcised or was circumcised before being put in the basket. But enough of this. Suffice it to say that Moses has grown to be a man in this movie before he and other Egyptians discover the truth.
Before going further, a word is necessary about the names of the Pharaohs. In the 1956 movie, Rameses II is Moses’ stepbrother, the Pharaoh with whom Moses must contend. In other movies, such as this one, Ramses II is the Pharaoh that orders all the newly born males to be killed, and it is one of his sons, Mernefta, that becomes the Pharaoh who refuses to let the Hebrews go. The Bible never names the Pharaoh that reigned at the time of the exodus, so movies are free to name them as they see fit. Also, as the names of the Pharaohs and other characters have various spellings, I simply follow the lead of whatever movie I am reviewing. Finally, Moses’ relationship to the Pharaoh that will not let the Hebrews go varies from movie to movie. Here, Moses and Mernefta are said to be cousins. Similar differences among the movies concern which is Mount Horeb and which is Mount Sinai and whether they are one and the same. The moral of all this is that there is no consistency among the several Moses movies as to who’s who or what’s what, so don’t look for any. But only if you are crazy enough to binge-watch them all as I have is it likely to cause any confusion.
There is a theory one hears of from time to time that the ancient Egyptians were black. I have never given it much credence, but for those who care about such things, we do see a handful of black Egyptians here and there. They seem mostly to have low-level positions, however, while all the important Egyptians are white, the one exception being Mernefta’s wife, who is black.
As per the usual story, Moses kills an Egyptian that was beating a Hebrew, goes to Midian, marries Zipporah, and they have a son, Gershom. After the passage of several years, Moses, now played by Burt Lancaster as an older man, sees the burning bush on Mount Horeb. When God speaks to him, however, it is the voice of Burt Lancaster that we hear. Then there are two miracles: Moses’ staff is turned into a snake and then back into a staff; Moses’ hand is made leprous and then returned to normal. Both miracles are filmed in a blurry, distorted manner. It is hard to avoid interpreting the whole thing as a hallucination on Moses’ part. Later on, Moses speaks of miracles as having ordinary causes, so there is patina of naturalism overlaying this film.
According to Exodus, after Moses learns that God has a special purpose for him, he heads back to Egypt, taking Zipporah and his son with him. For some reason, this movie shows him leaving his family behind. This is a significant departure, because Exodus tells us that on the way back to Egypt, Zipporah saves Moses’ life:
4:24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
4:25 Then 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.
4:26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.
When this movie has Moses leave Zipporah and their son behind, I could not help but wonder, “So, what’s going to happen when God tries to kill Moses, and his wife is not around to do the necessaries?” However, I have read that there is a scene from the original mini-series in which Zipporah circumcises their son, saving Moses’ life, before Moses heads back to Egypt alone.
It never surprises me when a movie leaves out the circumcision scene, of course. But what does surprise me is the way several of these movies about Moses have him leave his wife and son behind when he sets out for Egypt. In other words, when Exodus 4:20 specifically says Moses took his wife and son with him to Egypt, why would this movie and a few others have him abandon them, even if only temporarily? It is not as though they are going to get in the way, as can be seen from watching the movies where they do accompany Moses back to Egypt. My guess is that this departure from the Bible is due to a feeling that domesticity and spirituality do not go together, so the producers of these movies figure that the less we see of Zipporah and Gershom, the better.
Anyway, Moses returns to Egypt, there are the ten plagues, and the Pharaoh finally allows the Hebrews to go. The Great Borrowing does not take place, as in The Ten Commandments (1923), nor is gold and silver jewelry taken as reparations for slavery, as in The Ten Commandments (1956). All we see is one Egyptian woman being granted a drink of water from a Hebrew when the first plague turns all the water into blood, after which she gives the Hebrew something in return, which I believe is a piece of gold jewelry. Perhaps we are supposed to generalize from that scene, in which case the Hebrews get the jewelry by selling water to the Egyptians. In any event, when the Hebrews arrive at Mount Horeb (aka Mount Sinai), Moses climbs it, and the people get tired of waiting for him to return, there is talk of “the treasure,” which we see is not only gold and silver jewelry, but also gold goblets and what have you. Since this is a shortened version of the six-hour mini-series, perhaps the Great Borrowing was actually depicted but edited out for the version that I saw.
As usual, Aaron is shown to be reluctant about building the Golden Calf, it all being Dathan’s fault. Moses returns and breaks the tablet with the Ten Commandments on them. Following that, Exodus tells of how Moses gathered the Levites around them and ordered the slaughter of kith and kin:
32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
32:28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
The ways in which people are put to death in this movie are various: one guy has liquid gold from the idol ladled down his throat; others are stoned to death; many are slain with arrows; and we see another man being thrown off a cliff. Now, all this may seem a bit much just for building a graven image and dancing naked around it, so this movie tries to justify the slaughter by making the orgy that took place worse than that described in Exodus 32. The movie shows a man being murdered and his woman being sacrificed to the Golden Calf, thus making the Hebrews seem a little more deserving of the death penalty.
Speaking of the death penalty, there is a scene earlier in the movie in which Moses explains the idea of the Sabbath, a day of rest. Anyone who violates the Sabbath will be punished, he says. As we know, Exodus says the punishment is death:
31:14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
In the movie, however, when someone asks Moses what the punishment for breaking the Sabbath will be, Moses answers, “We’ll think of that later.” I snickered when I saw this scene, figuring it was the movie’s way avoiding something that might offend a modern audience, a tactic not uncommon in Bible movies. Much to my surprise, however, when later in the movie a couple of men are caught chopping down a sapling on the Sabbath, Moses, having by now had a chance to think it over, orders that they be stoned to death, just as is written in Numbers 15:32-36. We get to see the stoning of these men, which is pretty gruesome. I guess the value of stoning as punishment lies in its participatory nature. Only one man could put someone to the sword. Perhaps several men could shoot arrows into a condemned man as a sort of primitive firing squad. But the whole tribe can take part in a stoning, thereby strengthening the communal bonds.
In Numbers 20, the story is told where God informs Moses and Aaron that they will not enter the Promised Land, apparently because Moses was angry when he struck a stone to get water, or because he struck the stone twice instead of speaking to it, or because he did not believe what God said:
20:12 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
At the end of the movie, Moses says he never really understood this “sin of doubt.” That makes two of us. Anyway, he speculates that Aaron’s sin was that he loved the people more than the Law, whereas he, Moses, loved the Law more than the people. Presumably, this is the movie’s way of looking forward to The New Testament.