‘Ripping off’ the Egyptians at God’s command?

There is no getting away from it. The Bible says in Ex. 3:22 that the holy God told Moses to instruct the Israelites “Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.” (New International Version, NIV). This command is repeated in Ex. 11:2-3 and 12:35-36.

There is, at least, an apparent moral difficulty here. The problem though is in the English translation and is softened, even made to disappear, by recourse to the original Hebrew text.

As Semitic languages specialist Walter C. Kaiser Jr., informs, the key verb in all three texts mentioned earlier concerning the articles acquired by the Israelites is shāal (ā is long as in ‘alms’ while a is short as in ‘man’). Kaiser tantalizes though when he writes that this verb can mean “to ask for something with no thought of return (e.g. Judg. 8:24; 1 Sam. 1:28)” or “to borrow [as] in texts like Exodus 22:14[13], 2 Kings 4:3 and 6:5.” (Toward Old Testament Ethics, 1991, 265).

So then shāal is not terribly helpful towards a resolution of the textual/moral problem. Attention then turns to the intensive form of the verb used in the divine comment “you shall plunder the Egyptians.” (Ex. 3:22; 12:36).

This latter verb, nātsal, says Kaiser, “…means to plunder, but not by fraud, deceit or cunning devices. [Nātsal] is a military metaphor that could involve taking away by force, but never by fraud.” (same p. 265).

God, back in Gen. 15:14 had promised Abraham that his descendants, after serving time in Egypt, would come out with great possessions. This promise was reiterated to Moses at Sinai (Ex. 3:20-21) and Ps. 105:37 reflects this as historical fact.

But God thundered at Sinai “thou shalt not steal”. There is no breach even of this later command because God had said “And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed.” (Ex. 3:21, NIV)

No wonder then that the Israelites led by the influential Moses (Ex. 10:7) found such favourable response to their seemingly presumptuous request for ‘bling, bling’.

So, as Kaiser concludes “…Israel merely ‘asked’ and God strangely moved the hearts of the populace to respond lavishly. The result was as if they had ‘despoiled’ or ‘plundered the Egyptians when in fact they had only been given favor in their eyes.” (p. 266).

There is no ‘ripping off’ after all and this reinforces the old maxim “what is apparent is not always real”.