Thread:Scalec/@comment-5782071-20170725060318/@comment-1674153-20170819050755

Alright, I’ve been avoiding writing this all out again, time to fucking do it.



Please note that I am not Jewish, nor intimately familiar with anyone who is. All views expressed here are entirely from research of my own.



Passover is an eight day Hebrew festival that occurs between the 15th and 22nd days of the Hebrew month of Nissan. That means that from a Gregorian calendar perspective, the dates will change from year to year (though if you were interested to know, first day of Passover this year was April 10th). The name comes from the Hebrew word Pesach, literally translating to “to pass over,” and as you may have guessed, refers to the act of God passing over the Jewish homes during the last Plague of Egypt which eventually led to the Exodus and the Ten Commandments up on Mt. Sinai and the founding of Israel and so much history it is not even funny.



Most people not familiar with the time period often forget that the Israelites and Egyptians did not start off as the slaves and masters that eventually so dramatically define the Exodus story. According to the book of Exodus, a famine in Israel (at the time Canaan) pushed the Israelite leader Jacob and his extended family to go shack up in Egypt with his long-lost son Joseph, who after being sold by his tool brothers into Egyptian slavery had eventually risen up the ranks to become Viceroy of Egypt to the Pharaoh. They settle in Goshen, a really nice area of land that the Bible rather pompously calls the best in all of Egypt and was probably up in the 20th nome of Egypt by the eastern Delta, Long after the death of Joseph and his brothers, however, the Egyptians eventually enslaved the Israelites and that set the stage for Moses to do his prophet business. This narrative, by the by, cannot be historically confirmed, although there was recently (2013) a discovery of coins baring the Egyptian name of Joseph. Heck, most of the Exodus story cannot be historically confirmed, as there are a lot of details that do not match up with archaeological record. They can’t even nail down about when the event would have happened.



This is not to say, of course, that an exodus never happened. There are numerous references to great movements of people going in and out of Egypt across the historical record that may have inspired the Exodus story, but the truth is we may never know what exactly happened or how exactly the Israelites got to be in their slavery situation in the first place. I believe the best guess is they were a nomadic tribe that eventually got absorbed by expanding Egyptian culture, becoming institutional slaves over a period of time. That said, it is important to recognize that the figures in this story (especially Moses, who clocks in at 120 years old by the end of his life) are more mythological than historical, and may have been based on or fusions of actual people who are lost to history.



Yada yada, back on track. Cliffnotes version, according to the Exodus story, the Israelites, who were by this point enslaved but apparently still living in Goshen, the purportedly best land in all of Egypt, were getting a little too populated and the Egyptians, fearing an uprising of the slaves, killed every newborn son. Some sources suggest just every male child but clearly that contradicts with Moses’ barely older brother, so whatever. Moses is sent down the river by his mother, Jochebed, and ends up in the hands of the Pharaoh’s daughter, who is actually largely believed to Hatshepsut, make of that what you will with the historic plot holes that one brings. The princess adopts the young Moses, he becomes a big name in Egyptian nobility, yuckity yuck yuck surprise he’s actually a Jew! He runs away into the desert, marries, lives humbly, sees a burning bush proclaiming him to be a prophet of God and he comes back in order to free his people the Israelites. The Pharaoh at the time, who is his adoptive brother, says no, not surprisingly, to this freedom request, a talking bush is not a solid basis of sociopolitical conditions. At least not until enough terrible shit happens to the Egyptians that the Pharaoh says don’t let the door hit you on the way out, please, with our luck that’ll piss off your God and we’ll get plague eleven.



Now, back to the Passover. The Tenth, and ultimately last, Plague of Egypt is described as God telling Moses and Aaron (Moses’ younger brother) that “This new month is going to be so big to your people it will become the first month of the year to you from now on, so best prepare, here’s what you do, make sure every household gets a perfect, less than one year old lamb on the tenth of the month and keep it until the fourteenth, and then everyone kill their lambs at dusk on that night. Take the blood from the lamb and smear it across the inside of your door with this herb, then eat the body with unleavened bread and bitter herbs until absolutely nothing remains. If you have leftovers burn them. Seriously, don’t let anything remain, I mean it. And make sure you eat it with your pants and your shoes on.”



“Do I need a shirt?”



<p class="MsoNormal">“We’ll negotiate. I’ll then come down and visit every household in Egypt, killing every first born.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Say what?”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Not to worry. That blood paint job I mentioned earlier will tell me that the house is home to my people, and I will pass over it.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, sweet. We’ll call it Passover then.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“A little on the nose, Moses, but I like it. And you know what, I’ll even slaughter the first born cattle, too.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Alright. Interesting choice as I’ve never known a particularly Jewish cow, but we’ll roll with it.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">Symbolically speaking, there are some rather significant details to this story, despite the flippancy in my retelling. Lambs, or rams, were worshipped by the Egyptians, so to slaughter one and consume its entirety in the name of their God shows a fundamental removal of the Israelites from the oppressive Egyptian culture. The choice of using the blood of the lamb, which in and of itself is a recurring Biblical phrase, to paint the door is a reclamation of the life-giving power of the fluid that marks its usage in ritual. That herb used to paint the blood, is also supposedly Ezov, translated by some as the Hyssop plant, and for my money I would use that definition in your artifact.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Furthermore, the death of every firstborn not only dramatically parallels the early slaughter of newborn Hebrew boys (a fact that The Prince of Egypt shows really, really well, I might add), but it’s a major bat to the knees of the Egyptian way of life. The first born in the ancient Egyptian family was the inheritor of their family reputation and fortune, and the death of an entire generation of first-borns would have absolutely destroyed the Egyptian economy for decades, as entire business deals of both marketable and marital variety would have been wiped away. Not to mention this also included the death of the Pharaoh’s first born, which would mean a succession problem and loss of power that lesser countries could have collapsed from.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Despite the game of “When the Fuck did this all happen” being played by historians, ecologists have tackled the Plagues and have come up with explanations ranging from “That sounds reasonable” to “I’ll have what he’s having.” (Of course, ecological explanations pin these event as happening during the rule of Rameses the II, who is typically said to be the Pharaoh of the story, that comes with its whole own set of plot holes, too, so keep that in mind) The Tenth plague is generally believed to have been caused by mold or bacteria that infected the grain supply. With the failing agriculture in Egypt at the time because of the plagues, they would have been scraping the bottom of their grain storage, which would have been old and very likely infected with mold. This mold may have even been caused by the ninth disaster, a plague of darkness which was probably volcanic fallout or a dust storm that increased growth conditions. In any event, this grain supply would have been first and foremost served to the first-borns, thus infecting them and bumping them off. But the disease would have needed time to propagate, and this doesn’t explain the first-born cattle also dying. I’ve also seen an explanation years ago that discussed natural gases from a volcanic eruption leaking up from the ground and poisoning the first born, who, unlike the other children of a household, would be sleeping on a bed instead of the rafters. That doesn’t explain the lack of deaths in adults nor the cattle, either, though.

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<p class="MsoNormal">The first explanation is also where the leavened bread and lamb of the Exodus story comes in, because leavened bread is fundamentally immune from the theorized pathogen that would have infected the grain supply, as is lamb meat. Furthermore, the Bible said God called for a lamb with no markings, probably to prevent any lingering fifth plague disaster, which was a sweeping plague on livestock that was likely Rinderpest, which can be visually seen on infected animals by ulcers in their noses and mouth.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Now, oils produced from the hyssop plant are one of natures’ great antifungal products, and hyssop itself is indigenous to Northern Africa and the Middle East, to the point where it is found in many instances of the Old Testament. Not only that, but hyssop is a member of the mint family, and as even who has ever grown mint knows, the thing is invasive and hardy, and would have been readily available to Israelite families even if they had actively tried to destroy the stuff. Regular consumption of the plant with their food could have helped them against the 10th plague, but Hyssop also would have available to the Egyptian families, which does perhaps call into question why the Egyptians wouldn’t have benefited, especially since we know Egyptian priests used this plant for purification purposes.

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<p class="MsoNormal">There has also been a question of whether Biblical Hyssop is actually the same hyssop that we know today. Translation being what it is, it has been suggested that somewhere along the line, the real identity of ezov has been lost, as you yourself found out. But Hyssop still does fit, and here’s my theory.

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<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth noting that Hyssop oil is highly dangerous when ingested, despite its antifungal properties. As leaves the dangers are mitigated, but even very low doses of the oil can cause convulsions or epileptic fits in children. In the modern day, the stuff is not recommended to be taken orally at all. To me, it seems entirely possible that well-to-do Egyptian parents may have accidentally overdosed their children’s food with hyssop oil to prevent against diseases in their agriculturally-ruined time. A well-meaning, but ultimately fatal measure to protect their children.

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<p class="MsoNormal">If you want to do something with an artifact that involves ezov, I would personally be fascinated by the idea of a bowl that contained hyssop oil for the purpose of dipping bread in.