Hebrews
Amenhotep
(Pharaoh I)
Sethos
Moses
Jochebed
Baram
Oved
Shem
Guards
Anippe
Nefertari
Egyptian Ladies
Rameses (Pharaoh II)
Zipporah
Midianites
Jethro
Adiella
The Hebrew people moved from Canaan when they accompanied their ancestor Jacob
and his family on their journey to join Joseph, who had gone to Egypt ahead of them. They soon became a large nation and filled the
land. But eventually a Pharaoh came to the throne of Egypt who had no sense of loyalty to the Hebrew
people. He saw how many of them there were and feared that, should war break
out, they would join with his enemies and fight against him. So Pharaoh determined to oppress and afflict
the Hebrews in brutal slavery, to wear them down and burden them with its
rigors.
Slavery has continued for almost
400 years, so many generations of the Hebrew people have known only
slavery. A Hebrew slave’s time is not
his own. His life is not his own. His children are not his own. He is entirely at Pharaoh's mercy, working
hard seven days a week from the first break of day to sunset - there is no day
of rest. Some Hebrews
are fragile, others are strong, but all of them are weary. The Hebrew religion is based on an oral
tradition. They have heard the story of
Joseph who once ruled as second-in-command in Egypt.
They know the stories of great men such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and
how those men knew a God who was powerful and merciful, who answered their
prayers. But their relationship with
this God is largely one of unanswered prayer and the longer their prayers are
unanswered, the more their hope fades. Some dream of freedom or even for a day
of rest. Many, however, feel that they
are shut in deep darkness, surrounded with anguish and distress, held in a high
walled place without escape. They are
filled with bitterness and for most, peace and prosperity have departed and
many have forgotten what joy is.
Amenhotep is “god” in Egypt, the ultimate expression of power and authority. He expects to be worshipped. His word is perfect
and cannot be contradicted. He has no
respect for the memory of Joseph or those of his generation. He is elderly and although his physical strength
is failing, his strength of character has not waned. He is calculating and a
model of controlled aggression. His demeanor
is serene and stately. His hatred of
the Israelites is primarily because of their potential to challenge his godhead.
As many of his fathers before him, he sees their fertility and their
rapid growth in number and knows that he must subdue them physically and emotionally
with brutality. He has set them to work
building his dream and establishing his glory.
The Hebrews exist only to serve his purposes.
Amenhotep’s family includes Nefertari (his wife), Rameses (his son) and
Anippe (his daughter). He was a good son to his father,
he inherited and continued his father’s dreams and vision of Egypt as he had in turn learned the same from
his father. He believes the ways of Egypt
to be the most sophisticated anywhere in
the world. He expects others to come
to him to learn from his perfect model of civilization. As he followed his father, so his son is expected
to continue in his ways.
Sethos is captain of Pharaoh's army.
He heads all military forces within Egypt, including those who guard the palace and
those who control the Israelite slaves. He
is primarily mindful of his duty to Pharaoh and is exacting in his expectations
of others because he desires to protect himself from becoming the object of
Pharaoh’s wrath. He is intensely proud
to be Egyptian. He is cold, calculating,
ruthless, mocking and merciless - that is his way of getting his job done.
One of his greatest concerns is to ensure the slaves remain focused upon
the task of building Pharaoh’s kingdom and that they meet every deadline set
by the chief architect of Egypt. He
is fearful only in the presence of Pharaoh. He is the physical expression of Pharaoh's commands
and laws.
Guards
(Menes, Rahotep, Horemheb and Ahmose) |
|
The Guards each report directly to Sethos.
Their life is a matter of obeying his orders. They do not question or mentally process any
command which he may give to them, they simply carry it out. They are proud to be Egyptian and despise the
slaves, for they have been informed and believe that the slaves exist only to
serve the purposes of Egypt. They
are always mindful of the pressing deadlines of Pharaoh’s building work and
so they keep the Israelites focused upon their daily task. They wake the Israelites at their dwellings,
patrol those dwellings, escort the Israelites to and from the work environment,
and supervise their work.
Moses was born into slavery.
Jochebed is his mother and Amram is his father.
He has a brother (Aaron) and a sister (Miriam).
Because of the faith and daring of his mother, he is kept safe from
the bloodshed of Pharaoh's command to kill the newborn sons of Israel by his concealment in a basket beside the
River Nile. But Moses knows nothing of his beginnings, his true mother, her
features, her voice or her song. These
things are merely subconscious figments of his imagination, and he does not
understand them.
As a boy - Rameses is his best friend. He sees Pharaoh as Daddy and Nefertari as
mummy, although he spends most of his time with Anippe who teaches him and is
the one he turns to first as if she were his ever-present nanny. He is studious and works hard at school but
he is still a playful, exuberant child.
As a teenager - Moses has begun to realize that he
does not have the same features as those around him, but he does not understand
why this is and no one will answer his questions. He sees also how he is different from Rameses
- whereas he is cerebral, Rameses is carnal, minded towards violence and
girls. Moses rejects these aspects of
Rameses’ character.
As an adult – Moses’ questions about his heritage
are still unanswered and Rameses and others have taunted him as to whom his
father really is. He has noticed that,
as Pharaoh gets older, there are clear references to the sonship and succession
of Rameses. The absence of any reference
to Moses as a son is glaring in its omission.
Yet still all he knows is Egypt - its opulence, its treasures, and its
apparent promise of sufficiency. He has
been taught Egypt’s wisdom and its religion. He is its mighty Prince.
Jochebed is the mother of Moses (her firstborn
son). Amram is her husband. Her other children will later be Aaron and Miriam.
She is a humble, prayerful woman. By
faith she sees that her child is unusual, that there is something special about
him, although she is unable to articulate why she feels this way or what it
may mean. Her desire is that her son may be free from the death which is all
about her and which shall surely come to him if he stays with her.
She hopes to find mercy somewhere beyond the place where she is enslaved.
He is burly & strong - with an immense
grip! He is father of a son, but he loses this only
son when the new-born boys are killed at Pharaoh’s command. He loves food. Finesse is not his strongest point. He loves dancing but is terrible and clumsy
at it. He is big-hearted and big-spirited.
He has an infectious laugh and character.
He always dreams and speaks of freedom and encourages others to do so. Baram’s best friend is Shem.
Oved is one of the Hebrew Elders.
He has lived all of the many years of his life in slavery. He is wise, pragmatic and compassionate. He has a cultivated sense of humor which occasionally
surfaces. Oved has learned the importance
of dreams, imagination and creativity within slavery because he realizes that
the mind may be free even though the body is held captive.
He is wiry and comical.
He has an extremely basic intellect and approaches life simply.
Many years ago Shem established friendships with some slaves who work
in the Egyptian winepresses. Through
those friendships Shem gained access to the supplies of wine smuggled from the
winepresses. That wine has become a way
of escape for him, though way too frequently!
Shem’s drunken behavior, particularly his sarcastic comments, loud singing, and appalling dancing is always a source of humor
for the other slaves. His amorous advances
towards the women within the community are relentless. Shem eventually marries and has a daughter,
Adiella. He is resigned to always being
a slave but after Adiella’s birth, he gains fresh hope and longs for her to
see freedom, even though he may not see it for himself. Shem’s best fiend is Baram.
Anippe is Pharaoh's daughter.
Her upbringing has been privileged, yet she is forbidden to marry until
her father agrees to her marriage as a matter of political expediency. She longs for a child but her basic maternal
yearning must be denied and certainly cannot be spoken of. She cares little for affairs of state. Hers is a lifetime of bathing, being attended
to and seeking to avoid the many Egyptian men who desire her. She must maintain an appearance of readiness
for marriage – single, pure and childless. In
respect of Moses, she stands ever close to her mother’s public adoption of him
yet, privately, she sees him as her child.
Nefertari is Pharaoh's wife.
She has one son (Rameses) and one daughter (Anippe).
She knows that her daughter yearns for a child, but that Anippe cannot
marry until Pharaoh says so. She understands
about marriage for political purposes because she married Pharaoh in order to
establish an alliance between Egypt and the land of her own people. Yet she has grown to love Pharaoh and he has
sworn to give her whatever her heart desires.
In respect of Moses, she is the official face of motherhood.
Egyptian
Ladies
(Hetepheres, Rehema and Nailah) |
|
These ladies live to attend to the every
need of the royal family - Pharaoh, Nefertari, Rameses and Anippe. They dress
them, assist them in bathing, serve their food and carry for them.
They are humble servants. They
do not speak before Pharaoh unless he directs them to do so and he is unlikely
to ever ask them to speak. They have grown up within the Palace and their parents
are proud they were selected to serve. Although
they are servants, their life is one of luxury and they have everything they
need.
Rameses is the first-born son of Pharaoh I.
He is strong-willed and stubborn. He
has watched his father wield power and longs for that power to be his.
His longing for power has led him almost to the point of becoming psychopathic
and has caused the manifestation of particular character traits within him –
he is always deceitful, and at times he is scheming, vicious or spiteful.
He is conscious of his father’s expectations of him but seems to never
be able to live up to them. Rameses grows
to hate his father for making him feel inadequate in this way.
As a boy - Rameses seems always to be in school
being taught something or other. He does
not see why he has to be trained to rule – after all, why should he learn
control, diplomacy and reason when the throne is his as a matter of right! Perfection is always expected of him but he
finds perfect behavior to be particularly difficult. He notices Moses to be
naturally gifted in school matters.
Moses is his friend nevertheless.
As a teenager – Rameses resentment of his father is
growing, particularly of Pharaoh’s dreams and vision for Egypt which he is set on instilling in
Rameses. He is also increasingly
resentful of Moses’ giftedness although his hatred is not yet fully
perfected. He has learned to exercise
the power he has, realizing that people do what he tells them to do - probably
because they fear his father, but he is often able to convince himself it is
because they fear him…who he is and who he one day will be. Aside from his father, there is one other he
cannot wield power over – Moses. Within
his relationship with Moses he never wins out in verbal arguments. He wishes he had superior physical strength,
but as he grew Moses became taller and stronger than him; so he seeks to
dominate Moses in other ways. Rameses has
withdrawn his true feelings towards Moses to within himself. He is given over to every aspect of
carnality.
As an adult – Rameses has learned of Moses true
identity.
Zipporah is one of the seven daughters of
Jethro. She also has seven brothers. Her village is small and her hopes for finding
a husband are slight, particularly as she sees nothing of value in any of the
men of the village. She has dreamed of an outsider coming to sweep her off her
feet and take her away from her father’s home. Her sisters mock her for her
lack of realism and label her a hopeless dreamer. In their eyes, she should be more pragmatic
and settle for a husband within the village – that is how it always has been,
that is how it always will be. Whilst
she waits for the man of her dreams to come, the harassment of the local men
is relentless and irritating. They are
uncouth, unclean and all too familiar.
The Midianites are the people of the desert.
Their community is insular as a matter of necessity. No one would dare to venture beyond the boundaries
of their village into the barren desert, and they do not expect anyone to come
through that barren desert to them. Yet, they are a contented people, making the
most of what they have even though their routine is uneventful. Any change to that uneventful existence is welcome.
There is little to do other than to shepherd, farm, build homes, marry
and have children.
Jethro is a priest of Midian and he has
worshipped according to an oral tradition of religion handed down to him by
his fathers. He recognizes Divine providence and blessing.
He has seven daughters and seven sons. He is the leading figure in the
village. Nothing happens without Jethro’s approval –
no one arrives, leaves or marries. The
principles he has set in place throughout the village are especially established
within his own home. Yet he exercises
his leadership wisely and graciously. Jethro
desires the best for each of his sons and daughters.
Adiella is the daughter of Shem, born to
him in the latter aspect of the period during which Moses is away from Egypt. With
her birth, her father’s resignation to slavery changed and he moved beyond his
love of wine. Although Shem is unable to find hope for his own freedom, he hopes
for Adiella’s freedom and speaks frequently with her of how he wants her to
leave Egypt one day.
Adiella is privileged to live amongst other girls of her age, those of
her parents’ generation and those of her grandparents’ generation.