In one of her articles Wilda Gafney describes what she calls a Black Lives Matter hermeneutic. This hermeneutic focuses our attention to look for lives in the biblical text that are at risk, subject to oppression, seen as disposable or at the margins of the text, particularly because of intersecting elements of identity. Exodus is a perfect book to apply this hermeneutic since it is filled with varies types of people experiencing oppression or marginalization for varies types of reasons. I will apply this hermeneutic to three passages in Exodus; 2:1-10, 5:15-21, and 10:7-11. Our investigation with show that any theology of Exodus will have to incorporate the way God uses the powerless to overcome corrupted power, which tries to manipulate people based on intersecting identities in order to reinforce its own power.
As we begin to interpret these passages, it is important to recognize the different aspects to interpreting a text. The three different fundamental aspects for interpreting a text are the author, reader, and the text. When performing exegesis, it is important to give appropriate weight to all three aspects.[1] As we begin to interpret the text, we also have to make decisions about how much attention we will focus on the background historical cultural around the text, and how much we focus on the text itself. Often times, “a quick historical-critical orientation is enough, because the text itself is more interesting than any such question.”[2]
That being said, we do need to set the context of Exodus. There has been much ink spilled over the historicity of the Bible and Exodus specifically. With all the evidence provided on the topic, we still will find scholars defending Exodus as basically historical, and others claiming it is essentially fiction. I myself am convinced of a position somewhat in between these two. I think it is important to recognize that Exodus is not history in the modern sense of the word, but it probably was never meant to be understood that way.[3] Ancient Israelites did not look at historical investigations in the same ways that we do today. It would be best then to think of Exodus as a historical narrative. As a narrative it is meant to tell a story and give us a theological message. As history, it is based off of historical events, but is not concerned with recording and detailing the exact happenings of the past.
Locating the Exodus in history is thus a tricky task. As of now, there are is no extra-biblical or archeological evidence that supports the Exodus happening or that directly ties the Exodus story to a specific time period.[4] Despite the minimal non-biblical evidence, there are suggestions for a time period of Exodus. The generally accepted date is around the 18th and 19th dynasties in Egypt when Egypt was in considerable turmoil.[5] This would be around the 13th or 12th B.C.E during the Iron Age.
If this historical location is accurate, it helps us frame the story in Exodus. Exodus takes place within Iron Age near eastern culture, at a time where Egypt was facing difficulties. If Egypt was in fact experiencing some instability, it may help explain Pharaoh’s intense refusal to release the Israelites. Not only did Pharaoh not want to lose free labor or suffer a blow to his pride, he also could have felt that losing the Israelites labor would create further instability and turmoil within his empire.
The BLM hermeneutic shows us that God often times uses the powerless to overcome the powerful.[6] It also reveals to us that not all marginalized people are oppressed the same way, or to the same extent. This hermeneutic encourages us to take into account the varies intersecting identities everyone has and how this manifests itself in the experiences people have in the world. When we apply this approach to Exodus 2:1-10, we see that all though the three women in this passage are all women, they do not all occupy the same social status and so have different levels of marginalization.
Exodus 2:1-10 gives us the birth and naming story of Moses. As much as this passage focuses on the development of Moses, three women are really the key characters in this passage. Those would be Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses’ sister, and Moses’ mother. In this passage, we see how women, who already are not of high regard in ancient near eastern culture, are able to thwart the oppressive and evil policies of Pharaoh. The book of Exodus begins with focusing a lot on the role women played in the early stages in Moses’ life. This favorable view of women is not maintained throughout the book though when women act in ways that step outside their boundaries.[7] Let’s turn to analyzing the identities of the three women in this passage.
First off Pharaoh’s daughter, she is an Egyptian and not a Hebrew. Given that the Israelites are the oppressed people in Exodus, Pharaoh’s daughter already has a higher status than both Moses’ mother or daughter. Also, being Pharaoh’s daughter, she is royalty, and the highest royalty in the land at that. All we know about Moses’ mother is that she is a Levite. This was before the Levites become the priestly tribe and so probably did not bring with it any particular social status. It is probably only mentioned because of the significance it has for Moses’ genealogy. Although all three are women, the contrast could not be greater, Pharaoh’s daughter is Egyptian royalty and Moses’ mother and sister are just lowly Israelite women.
The class distinction between the three women is so great that Pharaoh’s daughter actually hires Moses’ mother as a wet nurse, to nurse Moses for three years until Moses will be returned to Pharaoh’s daughter so he can be raised as her son. In fact, only royalty or the elite even had the means or ability to hire a wet nurse.[8] As royalty, Pharaoh’s daughter makes a huge statement by adopting Moses. She is directly undermining Pharaoh’s policy in chapter one to kill all sons born to Hebrews.[9] The ability to openly disobey Pharaoh’s demands is something not afforded to the Israelites, especially Israelite women evidenced by Pharaoh’s discussion with the midwives in chapter one. Moses’ mother is not the most marginalized person in this passage though. Moses’ sister is probably at the bottom of the cultural totem pole, being a young Israelite woman.
Yet despite being at the bottom of the totem pole, it is the person who has the least power who does the most to bring about God’s plan to liberate the Israelites. This gives us insight into an important theological strand in Exodus, that God uses the powerless to overcome corrupted power. This theme is one of main reasons Exodus is held as a cornerstone of God’s liberating character.[10] When Moses’ mother puts Moses in the river, Moses’ sister stays around to see what will happen to him. So, she stands at a distance to watch. The Hebrew for the word stand, is וַתֵּתַצַּ֥ב. It comes from the same root for the word used in Exodus 8:20 when Moses is told to וְהִתְיַצֵּב֙ before Pharaoh. The root for this word is יצּב, which generally means to stand, or sometimes something more confrontational as “taking a stand.”[11]
I’m contrasting these two uses of the word here because with Moses’ sister she standing at a distance, giving the impression that she is hiding and trying to stay unnoticed, which is in many ways the position women held in society. Whereas Moses is told by God to put himself out there in full vision before Pharaoh to act as some sort of impediment to Pharaoh. Given the patriarchal society, men were accustomed to being the center of attention and decision makers.
However, in contrast to the reserved and passive demeanor and social status Moses’ sister inhabits, she acts outside of that in a bold, creative, and clever way to restore her family temporarily, subvert policies of Pharaoh, and move God’s plan forward.[12] It is because of Moses’ sister that Moses is reunited with his family[13] and she is also an integral part in saving Moses, who goes on to save the Israelites. It is the daughters of Israel who save the sons of Israel.[14]
Using the BLM hermeneutic helps us evaluate what is really happening to Moses’ family here. Although it must be a great relief and joy to be reunited with Moses, they should have never been separated from him, and still are bound to be torn from him again. We should not let the joy of getting Moses back cloud the horror and sadness of getting Moses unjustly taken away from them again. Yet, as an oppressed people and in light of Pharaoh’s policy of killing all sons who are born, all Moses’ family can do is just be happy that they get more time with him and that his life is no longer in imminent danger. It should make us consider ways that marginalized and forgotten people today are forced to make the most out of bad situations and have to be content with getting less than they deserve.
As we turn to our next passage Exodus 5:15-21, we are going to look at the precarious position of Israelite foremen. The foremen are tasked with looking over all the work the Israelites are doing and are supposed to be keeping everyone working and keeping up with the schedule. They address themselves before Pharaoh as “your servants” which is in direct conflict to God calling them “my people.”[15] The foremen are stuck between two identities. In many ways, they experience ambiguity similar to Moses in how much they identify as Hebrew or Egyptian.[16] They want to protect and help their Israelite people as much as they can, but to do this they feel they need to be absolutely obedient to Pharaoh. What are the foremen to do when Pharaoh asks them to do something that causes harm to their people?
Pharaoh understands the foremen’s position well, and works hard to exploit and manipulate them for his purposes. He employs Hebrew foremen for two primary reasons. One reason is to use the foremen as examples of how all the Israelites should act. The message is that if you are good and obedient to Pharaoh, you could move up to a position that provides you a more comfortable life.[17] While at the same time Pharaoh is pretending to give this message of upward mobility, he is also using the foreman to create and incite division among the Hebrews.[18] This is because foremen are used as an example of a model Israelite by Pharaoh but by the Israelites they can be seen as “selling out”. For in order to become a foreman, you need to be complicit with Pharaoh’s system of oppression of the Israelites, and once you become a foreman, you become an active part in upholding the system that is oppressing Israel.
Applying our BLM hermeneutic to Exodus 5:15-21 exposes the way Pharaoh uses his oppressive power to manipulate the Israelites and their foremen to turn on each other, and lose sight of how Pharaoh is the real source of their problems. In this passage, Pharaoh lashes out in response to Aaron and Moses’ telling him that God commands Pharaoh to let the Israelites go worship God in the wilderness. Instead of letting the people go, Pharaoh decides to make their work more arduous and difficult.
In doing this, Pharaoh is making a very clear point to the Israelites. He is the sole arbiter over their well-being. He has the power to make things easy or hard for them, and if anyone tries to challenge his authority, it will result in certain difficulty and further oppression.[19] He no longer will help provide supplies for them and tells them that they need to gather the resources for their work themselves. Despite adding extra work, Pharaoh also demands that the Israelites maintain the same level of production.
After hearing these new working conditions, in verse 15, the Israelite foremen approach Pharaoh and question him on his cruelty. Pharaoh responds by saying נִרְפִּ֥ים אַתֶּ֖ם נִרְפִּ֑ים. The root for the Hebrew word that is repeated is רפה. This root means slack or relax.[20] In this passage this root is being used as a verb in the niphal pattern. The niphal pattern has varies nuances in providing meaning to a verb. It can be used in the reflexive, tolerative, reciprocal, passive, resultative, and middle.[21] Here we are seeing the resultative use, which indicates a state resulting from the action produced by the verb. That’s why instead of translating this as saying they are slacking or relaxing, many translations use the word idle or lazy. With the resultative use, the verb can function more as an adjective. As such, Pharaoh is not necessarily saying that they are acting or being lazy right now, but in fact that they are lazy or idle.
Pharaoh tries to side step and distract from the oppressive demands he has by attacking the character of the Israelites. Instead of Pharaoh being unfair or oppressive, it really is a character flaw within the Israelites themselves that makes the work so hard.[22] If only the Israelites were not distracted by wanting to worship their God, they would be able to get the work done. This somewhat feels like an idiosyncratic response as it was not uncommon for people to receive rest from work under the Egyptians for the reason of worshipping their gods.[23] This exposes that Pharaoh was using his power to make a point about his authority.
This is a classic “blame the victim” situation.[24] Pharaoh is using his power to force the Israelites to believe that it is their fault that the work feels so overwhelming, and to our dismay, he succeeds! Instead of blaming Pharaoh for being oppressive and cruel, the Israelites turn and blame Moses and Aaron for their anguish.[25] If Aaron and Moses had not said anything, then this terrible situation would not have befallen upon the Israelites.
To see how deep Pharaoh’s oppressive control runs, Moses then turns and places the blame onto God. Pharaoh’s divide and conquer method is working flawlessly.[26] He has created a system that is so entrenched in the people and so oppressive over the people, that attempts to dismantle this system are viewed with scorn, because they seem to lead to more despair.[27] Pharaoh is playing on the conflicting identities the foremen find themselves with, to maintain his system of oppression.
The foremen do not want to see their people overworked or abused, so they are willing to do a lot to avoid this as much as possible. Pharaoh then convinces the foreman that in order to avoid oppression, everyone needs to buy into Pharaoh’s system of oppression, which the foreman will help to maintain. Now being a part of this system, the foremen have a stake in maintaining it and upholding it. This makes them a source of oppression to their people, while they feel they are a source of protection. The result is division and fighting, especially when the system gets disrupted and results in more oppression than what they were previously were experiencing.
In many ways, I see the position of the Hebrew foremen as being a lens to think about black police in America. Given our current cultural climate and scrutiny of police in America in relation to the way they police black people and black communities, this would be a large source of tension for black police. Many black police officers become officers because they want to be a part of keeping their community safe and protecting them from violence and oppression. However, for many black people, it looks like selling out for a black person to become a part of the police, who are increasingly being seen as a source of oppression and abuse of power.
In this comparison, I am not trying to suggest that American police are equivalent to the Egyptian government ran by Pharaoh. What I do think is comparable is the position of the foremen and the police officers who took these positions as a desire to protect their people. Yet in order to do this, they have to get involved in a system that they may judge is oppressive itself, or at least the people they believe they are protecting judge their system is oppressive. This is a tension that will pull at powerful and prominent identities these people hold.
The last passage we apply our BLM hermeneutic to will be Exodus 10:7-11. In this passage, we see Pharaoh’s עַבְדֵ֨י stand up to Pharaoh and rebuke him for dismissing Moses and Aaron. The root for the word being used here is עבד. When used as a noun as in this passage, it means servant or slave.[28] Here it is most reasonable to use the word servant as it would be highly unlikely for Pharaoh to listen to advice and rebuke coming from slaves. Also, the connotation of slave really only seems to fit when this word is applied to the Israelites and their forced labor. There’s no indication that Pharaoh’s servants are subjected to any sort of work or oppression on par with the Israelites. In fact, it may even be thought that these servants would be more aptly described as officials in Pharaoh’s royal court.[29]
Although they are Pharaoh’s servants or better described as his officials, I don’t want to neglect the way they are negatively impacted by being under the Pharaoh’s total control. As we saw earlier, Pharaoh has a whole system built on power and oppression over the Israelites, and uses those who advance in leadership as an example of how things will go well for you if you play by his rules. I think we would be naïve if we did not think this sort of ethos also guided the way he treated his own people. If you want to get ahead, listen and obey Pharaoh. So, for these servants who are close enough to Pharaoh that they may advise him, it must have taken a lot for them to speak up against him and try to correct him. In fact, they endured seven plagues and only once an eighth plague is threatened, do they speak up in opposition to Pharaoh for the first time.[30]
There is a another first that happens in this passage as well. This is the first time that Pharaoh’s servants have their hearts hardened as well.[31] Yet despite having their hearts hardened, Pharaoh’s servants can still see the arrogance in continuing to deny God and they plead with Pharaoh to listen to Moses and Aaron so Egypt will avoid further destruction and devastation. So again, we can see how intersecting identities can lead to conflict and bring about despair.
For Pharaoh’s servants, their identity of being his servant essentially directs and guides them to obey Pharaoh and back him up in all situations. Their lives and livelihoods are entangled with them having good standing and favor with Pharaoh, and so they will want to always please him. However, their own well-being, and that of all of Egypt is now in many ways opposed to blindly supporting Pharaoh. The signs and plagues that God is sending are an account of Pharaoh’s decisions, but don’t only effect Pharaoh, but all of Egypt and Pharaoh’s servants. When we look how Egyptians who are not directly involved in the oppression of the Israelites, it feels as though these lives do not matter.[32] Given the ways all Egyptians are being devastated by Pharaoh’s stand against The Lord, Pharaoh’s servants have a deep interest in getting the plagues to cease.
When they hear that Pharaoh’s continued resistance to The Lord’s request will be met with yet another plague, the servants have to decide what identity will they serve. Will they continue to pay homage to their servant identity and support Pharaoh’s decisions, although the results of his decisions then bring calamity upon them though they did not make the decision that brought about their devastation. Or, will they act out of their less specific and more general Egyptian identity that is concerned about their own personal lives and how they are affected by the plagues and also which cares about the entire situation of Egypt as a whole.
The servants are tired of suffering because of the choices of Pharaoh and speak up against him. Fortunately for them, it works! Moses and Aaron are called back in to continue discussing with Pharaoh the possibility of Israel being released to worship God in the wilderness. Unfortunately, this conversation ends with Pharaoh being even more against letting Israel free and he now suspects that they are asking to worship The Lord because of evil intentions. He sends Moses and Aaron off saying he hopes he never sees them again.
It is interesting that at this point, Pharaoh’s servants don’t intervene again. At the end of the discussion, presumably Egypt is still under threat of an eighth plague. Innocent Egyptians are still in danger of death.[33] Despite this not being resolved, the servants remain silent and do not question Pharaoh again on his refusal to yield to God. Why do they remain silent when danger is still imminent do to Pharaoh’s arrogance? Perhaps at this point they have determined that oppression from Pharaoh would be worse that a plague from God.
The position of Pharaoh’s servants serves as a good analogy for anyone working within an organization where the head of the organization has total control. Their situation highlights the difficulty of speaking truth to power. Often times your life or livelihood are on the line when speaking against those in power. So, just like the servants, you may feel that speaking out once is a way to stand up to tyranny. However, how do we respond when the tyrant does not head our advice. Do we continue to find ways to challenge what we see as foolish or wrong, or do we recede back into the background and become complicit and supportive of decision we disagree with like Pharaoh’s servants?
A Black Lives Matter hermeneutic helps focus our attention on the most vulnerable people in a text, and thus directs our attention to those who are most vulnerable in our society. In particular, it challenges us to recognize the way identity and intersecting identity can make someone more vulnerable to oppression and marginalization. It should guide us into interrogating our own social status and intersecting identity and what ways this provides us privilege or puts us at risk. Everyone has a perspective and so we need to be sophisticated enough to acknowledge that a “neutral position” is unattainable and no matter what interpretive method we use to interpret a text, it is always done by a particular reader.[34]
As insightful as this hermeneutic can be, it also has its limitations. Whenever you determine one thing to be important, you are also revealing what you determine to not be important.[35] When focusing on those who are at the margins of the text, we neglect those who are at the center of the text. There are times when it may be appropriate to do this, but it is a limitation. A more concerning limitation with the BLM hermeneutic is that paints a picture of a world where everything is defined by categories of oppressed and oppressor. This brings about moral judgements that do no always seem fair or appropriate and it also makes it feel like the world is just a war of conflicting identities competing for status and power.
It should be recognized that a lens geared toward oppression has been neglected in general in biblical interpretation and so it is definitely a benefit to have a lens like this and a hermeneutic like the BLM hermeneutic. They are helping us recognize the way interpretation takes place within discourse and structures of power.[36] However, just like anything, I fear if we focus too much on power and interpret everything through a lens of oppression, we will miss other meanings and truths the Bible is trying to communicate to us. As such, there are truths and meanings within the passages I have looked at in this paper that we did not encounter because our focus was on the BLM hermeneutic. The conclusion is not that we should avoid critical analysis of power in the Bible and positions of power of biblical interpreters, but that this should not be our only lens of interpretation.
In this paper, I looked at how being an Israelite woman, an Israelite foreman, or Egyptian servant to the Pharaoh can leave you vulnerable and susceptible to different types of marginalization, manipulation, and oppression. Exodus has been used by many as a foundation for God’s liberating character, and I believe rightfully so. As such, any theology of Exodus will have to incorporate the way God uses the powerless to overcome corrupted power that tries to manipulate people based on intersecting identities in order to reinforce its own power.
Bibliography
Brenner-Idan, Athalya, Gale A. Yee, and Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan. “How Liberating Is the Exodus and for Whom? Deconstructing Exodus Motifs in Scripture, Literature, and Life.” Essay. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, 1–28. Minneapolis.: Fortress Press., 2012.
Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, Charles A. Briggs, Edward Robinson, James Strong, and Wilhelm Gesenius. The Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the Numbering System from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2015.
Brueggemann, Walter. “That the World May Be Redescribed.” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 56, no. 4 (2002): 359–67.
Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008.
Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991.
Gafney, Wil. “A Reflection on the Black Lives Matter Movement and Its Impact on My Scholarship.” Journal of Biblical Literature 136, no. 1 (2017): 204.
Gutiérrez Gustavo, Marc H. Ellis, and Otto Maduro. The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutiérrez. Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 1989.
Harris, Kenneth Laing. “Exodus.” Essay. In Holy Bible English Standard Verson Study Bible, Olive, Trutone, Celtic Cross Design. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2018.
Junior, Nyasha, and Jeremy Schipper. “Mosaic Disability and Identity in Exodus 4:10; 6:12, 30.” Biblical Interpretation 16, no. 5 (2008): 428–41.
Kirk-Duggan, Cheryl A. “Let My People Go! Threads of Exodus in African American Narratives.” University of Michigan.
Meyers, Carol. Exodus. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005.
NIV, CULTURAL BACKGROUNDS STUDY BIBLE: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture. Place of publication not identified, Michigan: ZONDERVAN, 2017.
Seow, Choon Leong. A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007.
Yee, Gale A. “The Author/Text/Reader and Power: Suggestions for a Critical Framework for Biblical Studies.” Reading from this Place Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States (1995).
[1] Yee, Gale A. “The Author/Text/Reader and Power: Suggestions for a Critical Framework for Biblical Studies.” Reading from this Place Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States (1995). 117.
[2] Brueggemann, Walter. “That the World May Be Redescribed.” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 56, no. 4 (2002): 359–67. 367.
[3] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005. 5.
[4] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. 5.
[5] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. 10.
[6] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991. 37.
[7] Kirk-Duggan, Cheryl A. “Let My People Go! Threads of Exodus in African American Narratives.” University of Michigan. 129.
[8] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. 41.
[9] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 37.
[10] Gutiérrez Gustavo, Marc H. Ellis, and Otto Maduro. The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutiérrez. Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 1989. 253
[11] Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, Charles A. Briggs, Edward Robinson, James Strong, and Wilhelm Gesenius. The Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the Numbering System from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2015. 426.
[12] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 39.
[13] Harris, Kenneth Laing. “Exodus.” Essay. In Holy Bible English Standard Verson Study Bible, Olive, Trutone, Celtic Cross Design. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2018. 146.
[14] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 40.
[15] Harris, Kenneth Laing. “Exodus.” Essay. In Holy Bible English Standard Verson Study Bible. 152.
[16] Junior, Nyasha, and Jeremy Schipper. “Mosaic Disability and Identity in Exodus 4:10; 6:12, 30.” Biblical Interpretation 16, no. 5 (2008): 428–41. 441.
[17] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 85.
[18] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 85.
[19] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 84.
[20] Brown, Francis. The Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. 952.
[21] Seow, Choon Leong. A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007. 288.
[22] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 84.
[23] NIV, CULTURAL BACKGROUNDS STUDY BIBLE: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture. Place of publication not identified, Michigan: ZONDERVAN, 2017. 117.
[24] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. 67.
[25] Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008.
[26] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. 67.
[27] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. 85.
[28] Brown, Francis. The Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. 713.
[29] Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary.
[30] Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary.
[31] Meyers, Carol. Exodus. 86.
[32] Gafney, Wil. “A Reflection on the Black Lives Matter Movement and Its Impact on My Scholarship.” Journal of Biblical Literature 136, no. 1 (2017): 204. 206.
[33] Brenner-Idan, Athalya, Gale A. Yee, and Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan. “How Liberating Is the Exodus and for Whom? Deconstructing Exodus Motifs in Scripture, Literature, and Life.” Essay. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, 1–28. Minneapolis.: Fortress Press., 2012. 18.
[34] Yee, Gale A. “The Author/Text/Reader and Power” 115.
[35] Yee, Gale A. “The Author/Text/Reader and Power” 116.
[36] Yee, Gale A. “The Author/Text/Reader and Power” 117.
Power of Words 