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Escape From Planet Egypt

Part V

The present work, Escape From Planet Egypt, has noted multiple migrations – with the Israelites moving to Canaan from Egypt, and the Amalekites leaving Arabia for Egypt – but we've yet to address the underlying cause of the population disruptions.

When the LORD rained the Passover Plagues on Egypt through Moses, most of us fail to appreciate the fact that the instability experienced in Egypt was very widespread, in that it affected more than the land of the pyramids. Our last chapter, for example, documented the fact the Amalekites left Arabia to journey to Egypt during the same period – and there are even more  migrations which can be traced to this same timeframe as well.

As the Israelites were to settle in the land then known as Canaan (later called Palestine and then Israel), in addition to the Amalekites, the Scriptures tell us they were to encounter the Philistines – yet most commentators fail to note this group also migrated to that area as well.

"Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? And the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?" (Amos 9:7).

Contemporary research suggests that ancient Caphtor was an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, in the region of Crete – and Greece.

The same passage tells us the Syrians migrated to the country that bears their name from a place called Kir. Scholars tell us the Amalekites, who we've already addressed, had a presence in Syria as well as Arabia, and the Old Testament places the Philistines in combat with the Israelites in very early times, so these migrations must have overlapped with the Exodus.

Whether Kir was in Moab (as some scholars believe), or further North in trans-Caucasian Assyria (as others believe), the fact that large migrations occurred all over the ancient Near-East at the same time strongly suggests that the plagues which decimated Egypt affected far more than the land of the Pharaohs. 

Furthermore, as there was no expedient form of communication between nations in antiquity, an expedition seeking better conditions was haphazard at best. To put it another way, if you were an Amalekite in Arabia, and your homeland had been destroyed through some kind of  divine providence, you would have no way of knowing that your destination (in this case, Egypt), had also experienced devastation. 

Ancient Arab writings tell us that just like Egypt, Arabia was also decimated by mysterious conditions, and there is no reason to believe the massive disturbances that culminated in a large body of water parting, with liquid walls standing straight up, were restricted to the Red Sea.

An interesting anecdotal note concerns the plague of flies, which was only one of the 10 plagues directed at Pharaoh. Ordinary experience tells us when the weather shifts, and rainy conditions are developing, flies tend to proliferate. However, the plague in the Passover was extraordinary as the text tells us it affected the entire nation:

"And there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies" (Exodus 8:24).

Arab sources from the 9^th century AD tell of the tradition that in ancient times, the land of Arabia was hit with a great flood, and these legends also say the nation was overrun by insects. Moreover, the Scriptures tell of significantly destructive volcanism and earthquakes – both of which were encountered by the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sin.

A good example of these conditions is found in the Scriptural description of Mount Sinai, which was covered in smoke and fire, in addition to regular bursts of thunder and lightning:

"And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the mount quaked greatly" (Exodus 19:18).

After months of travel through the wilderness, the geological instability seen by Israel continued. The holy text of the Hebrews tells of a religious rebellion which erupted against the leadership of Moses, when 250 people (who were related to the priestly line of Levi) sought to oppose him. Led by a man named Korah, they boasted they could lead Israel more effectively.

The LORD told Moses to directly challenge the culprits, and then to have them stand apart from the greater mass of the children of Israel. In this account, we again find geological conditions were still prevalent, as an instrument of the LORD's judgment. 

"The ground… that was under them [split apart]: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men" (Numbers 16:31, 32, 35).

These facts testify of an important aspect of the Passover-Exodus account, as the data points to the physical mechanism the LORD utilized to bring about the entire series of plagues which fell on that part of the world – to say nothing of the astonishing parting of the Red Sea. Further, as noted earlier, although the alternate route for the location of Mount Sinai where Moses met with the LORD is indeed in modern day Saudi Arabia, the Israelites did not walk across the Red Sea on a barely submerged coral reef.

The Scriptures plainly tell us extremely powerful atmospheric conditions were present, and the parted waters actually stood up as walls of water, enabling the Israelites to walk through the sea on dry land.

"The LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left" (Exodus 14:21, 22).

Modern experience with extreme weather conditions indicate this was not simply a "strong" wind in the conventional sense, as the conditions it created lasted all night. Even a powerful storm of tornado or hurricane strength, does not consistently occur in the same precise position for an entire evening. This indicates that, just like all the other unique 10 plagues, there is something very special being described here.

Further, the text tells us the angel of the LORD (which had appeared as a great cloud to show Israel the direction He wanted them to go), moved from a position in front of Israel to the rear of the great company – causing the pursuing Egyptians to be unable to even see the Hebrews.

Although we can simply view these descriptions as a raw miracle from God, we've learned the LORD uses the processes of His physical creation to create seemingly impossible conditions.

Indeed, it was the study of catastrophes of a miraculous nature that triggered Immanuel Velikovky's interest in the sequential aspects of ancient history, documented in Escape From Planet Egypt, in the first place. For example, Velikovsky once indicated that he was intellectually intrigued when he read about how the LORD had answered Joshua's prayer asking God to extend the day for the length of another day.

"And the sun stood still…and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it" (Joshua 10:12, 13).

Recognizing that critics who said such a thing was impossible actually objected to the account because of what would actually be required for such a feat to occur, Velikovsky reasoned that if an extended day were to occur in Canaan (through some sort of planetary wide disruption of the rotation of the globe), there should be a legend (or some type of mythic account) of a very long night that occurred on the opposite end of the world.

On the other side of the planet, Pre-Columbian records known as the Annals of Cuauhtitlan speak of an earlier legend which told of a very long Central American night in the distant past. Indeed, the more Velikovsky researched ancient cataclysms, the more he realized the Egyptian Passover account turned out to be an ominously accurate record, and it served as  the veritable tip of the proverbial iceberg, as there are significant accounts of catastrophism from around the world.

Once Velikovsky realized the scope of antiquarian disasters was truly a global phenomenon, drawing on myth, history, religious accounts, and scientific data, he pieced together a massive amount of information which was incorporated into the Ages in Chaos series, as well as two voluminous efforts entitled Worlds In Collision and Earth In Upheaval.

His central finding was that our entire solar system was profoundly affected by the arrival of another planetary body, whose initial orbital trajectory caused untold damage to more than one planet in our system. This unified field theory birthed a new arena of study associated with planetary catastrophism – and many scientists, visionaries, and historians have now refined multiple aspects of Velikovsky's epic work.

Velikovsky believed the catastrophic era began when a large rogue planetoid entered our solar system, and was captured by the sun. This large body became the planet we know as Venus. Its entrance disrupted the existing orbit of Mars, and during successive cycles around the sun, periodic close calls with Mars and the Earth generated destructive conditions on an unimaginary scale.

It is self evident that a powerful gravitational field can indeed make a body of water stand straight up. Oddly enough, while most believers have no difficulty with the Scripture which says the LORD sent a "strong wind" which caused the waters to part, many seem to prefer the paganized imagery of God as a bearded Old Man Winter, blowing that "strong wind" from a caricaturized mouth.

However, our God is the LORD of all creation, and if He chose to use a planetary orbital cycle to generate the magnetic energy fields related to the Earth's ionosphere (which affects the Electrojet), in order to produce the weather needed to create the Passover-Exodus conditions, then the Scriptural shorthand of a "strong wind" is an expedient description.

-- James Lloyd

To Be Continued