God again instructed Moses to visit the king, and to require the release of His people, and Moses proceeded to Pharaoh. Such an extraordinary message as was his, coming upon the unheeded application of Israel for some relief, naturally evoked on Pharaoh’s part a demand for a sign of authority and power. Moses was either mad, or he was the messenger of a God mighty indeed. “Show a miracle for you,” said Pharaoh.
That given must have vastly astonished him. Aaron cast down the rod of God, and it became a serpent before the eyes of Pharaoh, and on Aaron taking it up by its tail it turned into the rod again. Here, as plainly as signs can express ideas, was mastery over the serpent.
The rod and its significance, as we have already observed, were familiar to everyone in Egypt, and the same may be said of the serpent. Everywhere, that emblem was apparent. The serpent was common in some form or other to the gods. Its form appears in the pictures of feasts and of religion, and of the soul in its course after death. Under the protection of the serpent-headed Rannu, Pharaoh had, when an infant, been placed. As a monarch, he was specially under the wings of the deity, who, crowned with the crown of Egypt, which adorned the entrances to the temples. In this life, and in the hereafter of the Egyptian, the serpent appears. On the crowns of the gods of heaven, of earth, of hell, still there is the serpent. All the goddesses seem to possess it. And now Egypt’s own peculiar sign, its embodied idea of life and majesty, its emblems on the crowns of its kings, and its own proud boast, was grasped in the firm hand of the man, and wielded by him, who in the name of Jehovah his God, stood before Pharaoh and demanded the release of Israel.
(*** Ibid, Vol. 3, p. 197.)
Pharaoh called for his priests. And his Wise men and Sorcerers appeared before him. In a very definite way the Wise men were connected with the god of Letters, Thoth, who had knowledge under his supervision, and communicated wisdom of a celestial nature to “the knowing ones.” Thoth represented the divine intelligence. The priests were of the greatest of the Egyptian nobles, indeed many were of blood royal. Moses knew their wisdom well, for having been trained as a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he had been initiated according to royal custom into certain of their mysteries. The Wise men were priests learned in the dark secrets of their religion, and as such were armed with hidden powers: the Sorcerers were priests whose special powers enabled them to drive away evils by muttering magic formulas. These formulas frequently related to the fascination or the repelling of serpents, and were treasured up in the secret books of the “scribes of the sacred house.”
Now the magicians of Egypt they also did in like manner with their enchantments. Their “enchantments” were calls on the name of the special god summoned to help them. These scribe-priests or magicians withstood Moses by the help of their gods, “for they cast down every man his rod and they became serpents.” The names of the two who were chief among them who withstood Moses by imitating his power, are preserved (2 Tim. 3:88Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. (2 Timothy 3:8)). Their names, Jannes and Jambres, are Egyptian, “in which language An, or Anna, identical with Jannes, means a scribe. It was also a proper name borne by a writer well known in papyri of the time of Rameses II. Jambres may mean scribe of the south: it is the name of a sacred book.”
We can almost read the pride written on their countenances, and the calm triumph on the face of Pharaoh and his grandees, as the wonder was accomplished. The difficulty Moses had presented was overcome!
But lo! Aaron’s rod devoured theirs, and he took the serpent by its tail and so resumed his rod. The magicians were empty-handed. Their token of authority was gone. They could only look one at another!
The sign was manifest; the authority of the magicians was taken from them, their power in the presence of the power of Jehovah was no more.
These magicians were in close association with their god, we might almost say they were in spirit-touch with the hosts of the old serpent the Devil. They had sought their god’s power and had obtained it, when suddenly the sign of that authority vanished. The rod with the serpent twisted around is common to many representations on the monuments, and the rod with the serpent about it in the grasp of Thoth is often to be met with. The loss of their rods ended controversy to them. That they were shaken in their hearts no one can doubt. But Pharaoh hardened his heart. He would not heed the word of God.
Had we lived in Egypt at the time of these events, we should have followed their meaning, and to comprehend it now, we need to know a little of what Egypt was in those days. The sketches on page 43 will assist us. Were we to multiply them, as might be done by photographing the various symbols and ideas of serpent influence and power in ancient Egypt, we should fill up the rest of the pages of our book, so frequently does the sign of the serpent occur on the monuments. In some temples the serpent in varied forms is represented hundreds of times, and on some mummy cases, serpent-headed human beings are to be counted by the dozen.
Osiris, Isis, and Horus were a kind of trinity of gods, and amongst the trinities of Egypt none was more important than this. The serpent is upon all their heads. He forms part of their crown. The glory of their dark kingdom is due to him. By his wisdom they prevailed and ruled in Egypt over the minds and lives of men.
Osiris in his celestial domain wears upon his lofty crown the form of the: serpent. In the sketch we give of him the serpent is about his locks, and the sun forms his crown; he is connected in this representation with Isis and Nepthysis. Isis, the sister and the wife of Osiris, the mother of Horus, bears also upon her forehead the serpent’s majesty. She wears also characteristically a throne upon her head as a crown – worthy of all homage was she, who once prayed and wept back into life her Osiris, who had died. This sketch is also taken from monuments of the time of Rameses. Horus, the son, the third of the triad, has also the serpent on his crown. In the sketch he wears the double crown of Egypt. He is hawk-headed. This triad offers most suggestive considerations. The Father, the Mother, and the Son, are a perversion of the Holy Trinity. The Seed of the woman bruising the serpent’s head is far away out of sight, and instead, there is presented to human view the Seed of the goddess, the Mother Lady of heaven, a deliverer, and crowned with the serpent’s form.
The serpent appears upon the monuments and in the papyri of Egypt in every conceivable form in relation to man, and is seen in union with humanity in an almost endless variety of ways. The adjoining form, though uncommon, is to be met with in the temples of Denderah. Wilkinson gives the same’ In connection with the god Horus; Lanzone also has it. Both men and women are united to serpents, and both men and women, together with the serpent, form one creature.
(* The Ancient Egyptians, Vol. 3, p. 232.)
There are serpents with legs, with arms, or with other parts of the human frame. “Upon thy belly shalt thou go” are words unsuitable to Egyptian wisdom. And instead of being cursed above all cattle, the serpent appears in Egyptian religion as the ideal of majesty, winged and crowned, as shown in the vignette heading this chapter. The serpent puts in its appearance at feasts, and is man’s benign friend in death. The serpent does the companion’s part when the spirit leaves the body, and may be seen dozens of times represented upon a coffin, having in part a human body as guardian angel, going before, and following the spirit, on its passage to the unseen world.
In ancient tombs “serpents standing over each portal” are represented “darting out venom.” These “are the guardians of the gates of heaven” (the tomb of Seti I.).
Also belonging to the most remote antiquity “on tombs”, “wall after wall and column after column seem to contain only cadences intended to be sung in order to charm these serpents” (“the burning bites and venom” of which “the dead man is supposed to encounter in the under world”) and to render them harmless.
The Egyptians, for life and death, for time and eternity, appear ever as in especial relation to that creature which stands in the word of God as emblematic of “that old serpent the Devil,” man’s enemy, man’s seducer, the rebel against God.
To return to the story of Israel in Egypt. The opening act in the great struggle between the Rod of Jehovah and the Serpent had taken place, and it cannot be doubted that all Israel knew the rods of the magicians were gone; that they stood before Moses as kings deprived of their crowns, as rulers whose scepters had been taken from them! We. hear no more of Israel’s despondency after this event. Serpent-power, real and awful as it is, is as less than nothing in the presence of Divine power. Israel was yet to say in triumph, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”