The Asbury Theological Journal 41.2 (1986) 15-22
Copyright © 1996 by Asbury Theological Seminary. Cited with permission.
The Failure of the
Hero:
Moses as A Model for
Ministry
GEORGE
W. COATS
Modern culture requires that heroes who
set their mark for members of the
society to
imitate must be successful. The
corporation executive who maintains a
position in
the modern world of business can continue in that position only if that
position
basks in the rich light of success. The
modern coach, whether responsible
for the work
of junior high squads or the leader of a National Football League
team,
remains a modern coach only if the won-lost record breaks in the coach's
favor. The minister of a modern congregation marks
the character of ministry by
the number
of additions to the congregation's membership. In the world of success
drives, the
failure can find no room at the inn. The
person who fails finds no
continuation
from the board of executives who tolerates only signs of success. The
person who
fails finds no disciples who imitate the failure's particular pattern of
work.
Yet, failure is a realistic factor of
modern life. Businesses in today's world will
occasionally
close because of bankruptcy. Ministers
in today's churches will
occasionally
face a move because of poor support. Marriages will occasionally end
in
divorce. Students will occasionally drop
out of school. Some students even
flunk out of
school. Nations struggle to find excuses
for policies gone awry. Even
presidents
struggle to cover procedures that have obviously failed.
In the literature of the ancient world,
the hero carries the banner for success in
leading the
people who respond to heroic leadership.
The hero successfully
defends the
people against enemies who would reduce the people to slavery,
against
hunger or thirst that would drive the people to the edge of death, and
against
confusion that would capture the people in aimless wandering through
endless
wilderness. If the hero were unable to
lead the people to the end of the
wilderness,
if the hero failed to defend the people against the dangers of life in the
wilderness,
then the hero would hardly be heroic.
Yet, failure is a realistic factor in the
life of leaders for the modern world. In the
face of
failure, a typical procedure for a leader is to direct blame for the failure to
some other
person or even to claim no knowledge or responsibility for the event of
failure at
all. Some other official must have been
responsible for the failure. "The
woman whom
you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."
Will a
leader accept responsibility for a military failure like the
Dr. George
W. Coats is professor of Old Testament at Lexington Theological
Seminary. He is currently preparing Numbers for The Old Testament Library
series to
replace Martin Noth's volume.
THE ASBURY
THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL VOL. 41 No. 2 1986
16 Coats
a leader
deny any responsibility for the sale of arms to one faction seeking to
overthrow
another faction when once that sale becomes public knowledge?
Moses appears in the Old Testament
narrative as a hero who commits his life to
the task of
leading the Israelites out of the oppressive bondage in Egypt.1 The
narrative
captures the dynamic task assumed by Moses as a task so overwhelming
that from
the beginning Moses must struggle with its gigantic portions. "Who am I
that I
should go to Pharaoh, and bring the sons of
responds to
this self-abasement from Moses by promising Moses that the divine
presence
would accompany him in the process of executing the commission.2
Moses
apparently feels the enormous proportions of the task as a seal for failure,
given the
understanding of himself that controls the response. The promise for
presence in
executing that kind of ministry must certainly be a promise for success.
And indeed,
the presentation of plans for this ministry to the people brings an
initial mark
of success. "And the people
believed; and when they heard that the
Lord had
visited the people of
bowed their
heads and worshiped."
Exodus 5 is, however, an account of heroic
failure. Opening with a single
transition
word, weahar, a word that ties the chapter to the preceding
narrative,
this brief
tale reports the execution of the divine commission that sent Moses and
Aaron to the
Pharaoh. "Afterward Moses and Aaron
went to Pharaoh and said,
'Thus says
the Lord, the God of Israel, "Let my people go, that they may hold a
feast to me
in the wilderness."' ' " According to the pattern of success,
particularly
success in
presenting God's word for people to obey, the Pharaoh should have
acquiesced
immediately to God's demand. Or at least
the Pharaoh should have
opened negotiations
in order to work out a compromise. But
the Pharaoh
responds to
the demand in a way that creates immediate tension for the plot of the
story. "Who is the Lord, that I should heed his
voice and let
know the
Lord, and moreover, I will not let
the
negotiations by offering a compromise.
"The God of the Hebrews has met with
us; let us
go, we pray, a three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the
Lord our
God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword." The
compromise
offer fails, however. Indeed, the
Pharaoh not only refuses the request
of Moses and
Aaron that the people be allowed to go into the wilderness for a
short period
in order to sacrifice to their God, but he also increases their burdens
of
work. In verses 7-9, the text notes the
Pharaoh's commands for the taskmasters
and foremen,
"You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as
heretofore;
let them go and gather straw for themselves.
But the number of bricks
which they
made heretofore you shall lay upon them, you shall by no means lessen
it . . . .
Let heavier work be laid upon the men that they may labor at it and pay no
regard to
lying words." The Pharaoh strongly
rejects the efforts of Moses and
Aaron to
achieve release of the people by negotiations.
Indeed, the text paints a
picture of
the Pharaoh as a man of power who believes that Moses and Aaron are
lying to
him. He knows that if he permits the
Israelites to go a three-day journey
into the
wilderness to sacrifice to their God they will not come back. They will
continue
their march away from
Moses
as a Model for Ministry 17
The appeal
to the Pharaoh for permission to go into the wilderness a journey of
only three
days is clearly an excuse to get out of
fact hold a
feast to the Lord at some point in the journey, it is clear for the
storyteller
that they would have no intention for coming back. They would
continue
their journey. The Pharaoh is thus right
in his suspicions that the appeal
to God's
demand for a festival in the wilderness is an excuse to escape the power of
the
Pharaoh. The plot depends on deception.
But even worse, the Pharaoh responds to
the negotiation with an insult to the
Lord. In v. 2, "Who is the Lord, that I should
heed his voice and let
not know the
Lord, and moreover, I will not let
that the
Lord, the subject of the question, does not demand enough authority to
meet the
goal of the negotiations to let
Pharaoh
rejects the petition of Moses and Aaron.
Vv. 10-14 demonstrate the intensification
of the Egyptian oppression against the
Israelite
people. In v. l4, "the foremen of
the people of
themselves)
who Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten. . . "The
effort to
carry out the commission of God for securing the release of the people
thus ended
in failure. Indeed, it ended with
increased oppression against the
Israelites. In this case, failure facilitates even
greater tension.
The plot of the tale continues its
progression by intensifying the crisis even
beyond the mark
of heavier oppression. Vv. 15-19 depict
the efforts of the Israelite
foremen to
secure some softening of the labor.
"Why do you deal thus with your
servants? No
straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, 'Make bricks!' And
behold, your
servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people." But the
Egyptians
reject the appeal with a stubborn repetition of the demand to meet the
quota of
bricks. In v. 19, "You shall by no
means lessen your daily number of
bricks." The negotiations end not only in failure to
achieve the goal of freedom
from
oppression, but also in an increase in the oppression.
The failure scene comes to a pitched focus
in v. 20. The storyteller describes the
anticipated
confrontation between the Israelite foremen and Moses/Aaron. Their
immediate
attack is an appeal for judgment against Moses and Aaron. "The Lord
look upon
you and judge " The effort by Moses and Aaron to resolve the
oppression
of the people ends in a lawsuit by the people against Moses and
Aaron.4 No more forceful sign of failure could
appear. The very people the heroes
intend to
lead to freedom turn on them and reject them with a lawsuit.
Moses and Aaron have now made an initial
effort to win the release of the
people. And
that effort ends in failure. But the
irony in the failure is that the
lawsuit
depicts the efforts of Moses and Aaron to save the people from their
bondage as
an attempt to kill them. ". . . Because you have made us offensive in the
sight of
Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us."
The people
see the move to save them from oppression as a move to kill them. The
image of
failure in the scene is not simply a rejection of the hero. It is a rejection of
the hero's
principal work, the heart of Moses' identity as the hero of the people.
The irony in
this tragic rejection develops another level of tension. With the
rejection by
the people heavy on the shoulders of Moses and Aaron, with the
18 Coats
failure of
the negotiations to win the freedom of the people still sharp in the
pericope,
Moses turns the rejection on God. In v.
22, "Then Moses turned again to
the Lord and
said, 'O Lord, why hast thou done evil to this people? Why didst thou
ever send
me?'" Again, the question is in the
form of an accusation. Formally, it
calls for
some kind of response from the addressee.
Moreover, Moses states the
case for the
accusation, ". . . since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he has
done evil to
this people, and thou hast not delivered thy people at all." The hero
recognizes
his own failure in delivering the people.
The foremen of the people
make the
point clear. But now Moses makes a similar accusation against God. In
Moses' eyes,
God has also failed. Thus, the issue for
the pericope arises from the
pressure of
failure. Moses, the hero, failed to win
the freedom of his people by
negotiations
with the Pharaoh. And that failure Moses
places under God's
responsibility. When Moses fails, for Moses that means that
God, the God who
commissioned
Moses for the task, also fails. Now what
will God do? And as a part
of that
issue, what will Moses do?
The pericope in Exodus 5 is not
structurally a part of the cycle of scenes in the
long
narrative about Moses' repeated negotiations with the Pharaoh in tireless
efforts to
win the release of the people. In fact,
the tale in Exodus 5 contains the
narrative
tradition in its most primitive form, a form that provides the traditio-
historical
roots for the larger negotiations narrative.
In Exodus 7-12, an expanded
narrative
elaborates the kernel of tradition in Exodus 5.
Indeed, the end of the
negotiations
as a narrative motif, Exod. 10:29, puts the issue of tension in the
narrative at
the very point left hanging in Exodus 5.
The complicated process of
negotiations
between Moses and the Pharaoh ends in failure for Moses. And that
failure
implies failure for God. In the face of
that failure, what will Moses do next?
In the face
of failure, what will God do next?
The cycle of scenes about Moses' repeated
negotiations with the Pharaoh
develops in
a specialized form. The storyteller
constructs the cycle as a palistrophe,
a pattern
that sets the first scene as a structural parallel with the tenth scene, but
not with any
other scene. In the same way, the second scene parallels the ninth
scene. The third scene follows the pattern with the
eighth scene. The fourth scene
parallels
the seventh, and the fifth parallels the sixth.
In the palistrophe, the
Passover has
no place. It is not a part of the tight
structure in the story and thus not
an original
account of the climax for the narrative.
Rather, the narrative in the
palistrophe
comes to an end in Exodus 10:28-29.
"Then the Pharaoh said to him,
'Get away
from me. Take heed to yourself. Never see
my face again. For in the day
you see my
face, you shall die.' Moses said, 'As
you say! I will not see your face
again.'" With that exchange, the negotiations between
Moses and the Pharaoh
end.5 But the Pharaoh has not agreed to release the
people. At this point, the
negotiations
process stands clearly as a failure. And
the failure characterizes not
only Moses
but also God.
At least one exegetical problem arises
just at this point. The storyteller
notes,
just before
reporting that the Pharaoh dismissed Moses with a death sentence as
the penalty
for continuing the negotiations, that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's
heart, and
he would not let them go. With that
comment, the storyteller
Moses as a Model for Ministry 19
announces
that the repeated failure in the negotiations process was the result of
God's design
for the event. With this element in
hand, the exegete can conclude
that Moses
and God did not fail after all. It was
all a part of God's design. When
one asks
about the tradition history of the negotiations narrative: the problem
with the
pattern sharpens. In some sense, the
motif is a narrative technique
designed to
enable the storyteller to move from one scene in the sequence to the
next. And, indeed, the movement sets up the Passover
scene. If the initial audience
between
Moses/Aaron and the Pharaoh has ended in success, the narrator would
have lost
the story. There would be no reason for
the Passover scene. The hardened
heart motif
allows the narrative to move from one stage to the next, with the
Passover at
the end. But the process also depicts
the narrator's view of Moses'
reaction,
indeed, God's reaction to the spectre of failure. When the failure occurs,
the hero
goes back to the drawing board and creates a new plan. And then he tries
again. Indeed, the hero receives a new plan from the
hand of God. When God's
plan for
saving the people fails, then God tries a new plan. The hero demonstrates
the tenacity
of God to pursue the plan of salvation despite repeated failures in the
plan.
The point can be pursued a step farther
for this tradition. Exodus 5 shows the
traditio-historical
basis for the narrative as a tradition about failure. The
negotiations
cycle ends in Exodus 10 with failure.
Where does a resolution for this
narrative
tension appear? In every respect, the
Passover event marks the climax of
the tension
in the narrative as it now stands. God
resolves the issues of failure in the
process by
creating something new. In a dramatic strike against all of the
Egyptians
from the poorest to the Pharaoh himself, God kills the first-born of
every
Egyptian family. But by proper
preparation of the ritual, the Israelites
protect
their first-born from the plague that puts Egyptians in their place. It is a
scene of rank
violence. But the violent attack forces
the Egyptians to submit to the
demands of
the Israelite hero. They free the
Israelites from their dehumanizing
slavery, indeed,
they drive them away. Finally, in one
fatal blow, the Israelite hero
and the God
he serves win success in delivering the people from their slavery. The
issue of the
violent means remains a problem at tangent with the design of this
paper. The principal point here is that failure did
not thwart the work of the hero.
The traditio-historical complexity in the
cycle adds to this picture of response to
failure. A part of the tradition brings the cycle of
negotiations between Moses and
the Pharaoh
to a conclusion without success in convincing the Pharaoh to release
the
slaves. The roots of that tradition
shape the narrative in Exodus 5. The
narrative
moves beyond the failure in order to depict Moses' return to the people,
prepared to
develop a new and quite different plan.
In Exod. 12:35, the narrative
notes that
"The people of
asked of the
Egyptians jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing "The point of
this motif
emerges with a different description of the exodus event itself, a
description
unrelated to the Passover, ". . . the Lord had given the people favor in
the sight of
the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they
despoiled
the Egyptians." The same motif
appears in Exod. 3:2l-22 and 11:2-3 (cf.
also Ps,
105:37). This depiction of the exodus
assumes that all of the efforts of the
20 Coats
heroes and
even the efforts of God end in failure. In the face of the failure, this
tradition
shows Moses preparing a new plan. He
will lead the people out of
in a secret
escape, without the permission of the Pharaoh.6 To escape in the middle
of the night
would require preparation for movement at a moment's notice,
". . .
your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and
you shall
eat it in haste" (Exod. 12:10).
Indeed, the picture of the people with
dough for
the bread on their backs, before it had time to rise in response to leaven,
sets the
pattern for a Feast of Unleavened Bread (12:34). That this event might
have been
originally distinct from the Passover seems clear.7 Yet, in both cases, the
narrative
describes procedures of the hero in the face of failure. When the first plan
fails, then
the hero tries again. Whether the try
appears as the Passover event or as
the event
celebrated during an originally distinct Festival of Unleavened Bread,
still the
tradition depicts the hero as the servant of God who does not give up in the
face of
failure. Rather, when one who does not
succeed with an initial plan
responds to
the failure in the manner of the hero Moses, that one develops a new
plan and
tries again.8
This pattern of failure and renewed effort
to gain success by approaching the
issue from a
new direction marks the entire history of God's efforts to save the
people. In the wilderness, Moses fails again. The people murmur against Moses
and
God. They rebel against Moses'
leadership and threaten to execute him.
At
the
Mountain, God establishes a covenant with the people through the hand of
Moses. But the people fall from the covenant in a
rank act of apostasy with the
Golden
Calf. Joshua leads the people across the
promise. The ark of the covenant symbolizes God's
presence in this
the event of
a covenant renewal at Shechem (so, Josh. 24: 12). But the people fall
from that
covenant again and again. The tragedy at
Baal Peor is only a prime
example of
repeated failures. Moses, Joshua, the
judges of the tribal confedera-
tion,
Samuel, all experience leadership for the people of God under a constant
threat of
failure. And each searches for new ways
to meet the challenge of
leadership.
A radical new plan to meet the failure in
salvation history emerges with the rise
of the
kingship. David would be God's special
envoy. From the perspective of
tradition in
And with
David and his dynasty in
justice and
righteousness. Yet, even here the ideal
world of peace as the place for
God's
salvation for all people under the authority of a Davidic king, such as the
Messiah
described in Isa. 11:1-9, seems to fail.
David corrupts the rule of God in
with her
husband, Uriah.9 Solomon
demonstrates wisdom in administration of
the
kingdom. But at his death, his son
Rehoboam shows no wisdom. And his
failure
leads to the division of God's people between the north and the south. The
Deuteronomistic
historian looks for a king in the line of David that would correct
the failure
in the ranks of the Davidic dynasty.
Indeed, the model for that
successful
king would be a Davidic heir who would match the model of leadership
for
Moses as a Model for Ministry 21
the north
and the south under the aegis of a Deuteronomic reform opened the
door for a
pattern in his own leadership that stands out for its Mosaic qualities, its
new law and
new covenant. But Josiah failed through
no fault of his own. On top
of a lonely
mountain, he met an untimely death, and the dream of success, so close
to
realization, ended in failure effected by an Egyptian king. The New Moses, the
Davidic King
Josiah died in the midst of apparent success.
How could God avoid
another
tragic failure? In the face of so many
failures, it is remarkable that God has
continued in
a constant pursuit for salvation of the world's human creatures.
Another new Moses, another Davidic
Messiah, brought hope for God's
salvation
for all the world. Under the reign of
Jesus of Nazareth, God's Kingdom
of peace
comes in a new form to the world. Yet,
even here apparent failure
dominates
the scene. Where is this new kingdom, a
kingdom that will mark God's
rule of
peace for the world? "My kingship
is not of this world." Is that not
a false
promise? What other world is there for experiencing
the success in God's
redemption,
in God's rule of peace? But the marks of
a kingdom uncontrolled by a
political
king do emerge. Political kings sell
arms to two sides in a war, just to see
how much
destruction money can buy. The king in
the
other
things. "The blind receive their
sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed
and the deaf
hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news
preached to
them." Each year, the Christmas
celebration marks the hope for God's
success in
delivering the people of the world from their petty wars. But the
apparent
success meets the same tragic failure that met Josiah. On a lonely hill, the
New David,
the New Moses met the callous lack of compassion that belongs to a
world of
hostile people. They killed him, just as
the Egyptians killed Josiah, just as
the people
threatened to do with Moses. Thus, God's
plan ended again in failure.
The hope
offered by Christmas ends in the despair of Dark Friday. What will God
do now in
the face of still another failure?
"Now, after the Sabbath, toward the
dawn of the first day of the week, Mary
Magdalene
and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre."
Notes
1. George W. Coats, Moses: Heroic Man and Man of God (JSOT Monograph
19;
Moses
narrative should be understood as heroic saga.
2. George W. Coats, "Self-Abasement and
Insult Formulas," JBL (1970) 89:
14-26.
3. So, "Self-Abasement and Insult
Formulas."
4. Hans Joachem Boecker, Redeformen des Rechtslebens im Alten
Testament
(WMANT 14;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1964) p. 25-34.
5. Dennis J. McCarthy, "Moses' Dealings
with Pharaoh," CBQ 27 (1965):
336-347.
6. George W. Coats, "Despoiling the
Egyptians," VT 18 (1968):
450-457.
7. Roland de Vaux, Ancient
22 Coats
8. As
a model for ministry, the Moses figure functions for the modern church in much
the same way
that it functioned for the Deuteronomistic historian in a critique of the
kingship. Modern ministers might profit by developing
Mosaic characteristics as marks
of their
ministry. One mark would be the pattern
of response to failure. In the face of
failure, the
temptation is strong to give up. But the challenge of the model calls the
minister
confronted by failure back to the drawing board. The admonition is clear. "Get
up! Dust yourself
off, and start all over again." But
the model goes a step farther. In the
discouraging
and often very lonely setting that emerges in the wake of failure, how can
the minister
find enough courage to try again'? "Fear not! I am with you."
9. George W. Coats, "2 Samuel 12: An
Exposition," Int 40 (1986): 170-175.
10. Gerald E. Gerbrandt, Kingship
According to the Deuteronomistic Historian (SBL
Dissertation
87;
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Asbury Theological Journal
Michele Gaither Sparks (Asc. Editor)
Asbury Theological Seminary
www.asbury.edu
Please report any errors to Ted
Hildebrandt at: