Page 235 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

EARLY HISTORY OF JUDAISM: A BRIEF LOOK 215

than forty years before his death, so that jacob's descendants resided in
Egypt for only 215 years. 19 Living there as freemen,jacob's family enjoyed
immense prosperity and their numbers surged rapidly, but this stirred
great jealousy within the Egyptian populace and eventually goaded them
into enslaving the Israelites; in the eighty years preceding the exodus, all
their male newborns were put to death by order of the pharaoh/"
Saved by God's mercy in his infancy, Moses was forced to flee in adult-
hood for killing an Egyptian, and because the king and the military were
envious of his success in the Ethiopian campaign. Escaping to Midian,
he married and settled there till he was commissioned by God to be His
apostle, to return to his birthplace and deliver the Israelites from bondage."

Lord'advises' Israelites tosteal their neighbour'sjewels
Having entreated Pharaoh to release the Israeliteswith no ostensiblesuccess,
Moses and Aaron then stood witness to a kaleidoscope of plagues which
ravaged Egypt. 'And the Lord said unto Moses, yet will I bring one plague
more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt. Afterwards he willlet you go hence ...
Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his
neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels
of gold."22
In this the Israelites obeyed Moses, seeking from their Egyptian neigh-
bours trinkets of gold, silver, and other valuables besides. God softened
the hearts of the Egyptians such that they gave them whatever the Israelites
desired. "In this way they carried away the wealth of the Egyptians when
they left Egypt."23 The implication of this passage, in which God legitimises
the taking of Egyptian gold and silver by the Israelites, is that all such
valuables are the rightful property of His chosen people alone. In fact,
Deuteronomy 33:2,

indicates that the Almighty offered the Torah to the Gentile nations
also, but since they refused to accept it, He withdrew His 'shining' legal

19 For details see Rahmatullah al-Hindi, I?:/wral-ljaq, i:266-68, in which the author
quotes several Jewish sources. In the P source, 215 years pass between the time of
Abraham's journey to Canaan and Jacob's migration to Egypt [see Genesis 12:4b,
21:5, 25:26, 47:9], and the period spent in both Canaan and Egypt is 430 years (some
manuscripts read 435 years) [see LXX, Exodus 12:40]. This leaves 215 year period
for the time spent in Egypt.
20 AI-HindI, I.zhiir al-lfaq, i:64.
21 Exodus 1-4.
22 Exodus 1l:1-2.
23 CEV, Exodus 12:36.