BEMA 19: A Strengthened Heart (2017)
Transcription Status
29 Jun 22 — Initial public release
10 May 22 — Transcript approved for release
A Strengthened Heart
Brent Billings: This is the BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon, I’m his co-host Brent Billings. Today, we are diving into the story of the Passover and its plagues, God’s interaction with Pharaoh, and the call of God’s rescued people.
Marty Solomon: I thought maybe we might take a couple of podcasts to do this, but after we looked at it, we’re just going to do this in one big, quick conversation. Part of the reason is you might have remembered me lamenting before on another podcast about how a lot of Fohrman’s older material, Rabbi David Fohrman, we’ve talked about him before, a lot of his older material has been taken offline, stuff that I had learned from originally, and now I know why.
Over the Christmas break, I picked up a book I had of his for quite some time but hadn’t read yet. It was his most recent book. Jim, thank you for giving that to me as a gift. His most recent book was titled The Exodus You Almost Passed Over by Rabbi David Fohrman. The Exodus You Almost Passed Over.
Brent: It’s a good title.
Marty: It’s a good title, just like The Queen You Thought You Knew. He likes to do that with his titles. I read through it and I realized that he had just, man, done so much work since I had heard it years ago, and had packaged it with even more work that he had done, and was just so good. I didn’t know how I would ever take some of his new material and work it into my current teaching. What I’m going to do is I’m just going to recommend you read the book. I’m going to summarize it, it really won’t be a whole lot different than my past teaching, but I’m going to point you towards that book because his material is so, so good. The Exodus You Almost Passed Over by Rabbi David Fohrman.
Brent: If you find what we’re talking about today at all intriguing, you’re definitely going to want to get the book.
Marty: So good, and he just gets better and better with every book he writes with being able to communicate in written form. Man, this is no exception. This is probably his best book, best work yet, in my opinion. Anyways, so that’s one of the centerpieces that we’re using for this, and I have no desire to plagiarize. I want to make that real clear upfront, that that’s the work I’m using to walk through this, and I’m just giving you a summary synopsis. I’m only going to read one brief section out of the book. I’m just giving you a fly-by, cliff notes, of the big general argument he makes in the book, and then you can go find it for yourself.
Fohrman in typical Rabbi fashion — rabbis love to do this — are going to start with a whole list of questions. They’re going to get you into the story and pull you into the narrative by asking a whole lot of questions. Fohrman does that. He’s going to ask a whole bunch of questions, and then we’re going to go about trying to answer those questions in reverse. We’re going to go backwards as we try to answer these questions.
Here are these questions: First of all, the name Passover. Like all of the things you’re going to name this holiday, Fohrman says, “Why name it Passover?” And he has these brilliant stories that he uses about angels and people picking names and just a fun background about why would we name it Passover? Why not Freedom Day? Why not Independence Day? The whole story of Passover, isn’t it about freedom and independence? Wasn’t it about the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt? Why Passover? Why focus on one plague? It’s a big moment; no doubt it’s a big moment in the story, but it’s not the point of the story. Why focus on one of the plagues? The Passover where God saved the firstborn.
Speaking of firstborn, why is firstborn so important to this whole thing? One of the things that Fohrman brings up is the idea of tefillin. Jews wear these boxes. Every morning, Orthodox Jews will put up what’s called tefillin. They’re these little black boxes that you have these leather straps, you wrap them around your arm, and you end up putting that box on your bicep, and then you have a headband, then you have a little box that goes up on your forehead. These tefillin is the Jews’ way that they follow the command, write them on your hearts, bind them to your foreheads, they do that using tefillin.
Now, inside these black boxes is a parchment, and on this small little parchment, you get to write any small list. You’re only going to get two or three commands on there. If you got to pick two or three commands of all the Torah to put in your little black boxes, what are you going to put on the black boxes? The first thing they put in there was Shema Yisrael. Adonai elohenu, Adonai echad; “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” That’s very critical to Jewish thought, belief, practice. That’s a big deal, so that one makes sense. No problem with Shema. The next one they have in there is V’ahavta. V’ahavta, et Adonai, eloiekah. B’khol levavkah, uve’khol naphshekah, uve’khol meodekah; “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
That’s a pretty good law. If I had to pick two or three laws, that one would make it in the box. That doesn’t faze me at all. Good choice, but law number three comes out of the story of the Exodus, and it is the law of the broken neck donkey. Now, did you even know, Brent, that there was a law of the broken neck donkey?
Brent: I’ve heard of it, I’m not really familiar. It’s not exactly a popular one that we talk about over here.
Marty: No, it’s like, why choose this random, obscure thing? It’s a law about, if you have a firstborn donkey, you either have to redeem it with money, but if you can’t redeem it with money, you’re not allowed to give it to God — because God gets all the firstborn animals — you can’t give it to God because it’s an unclean animal. So you can’t take it to the temple; so you have to take it out and you have to break its neck and give it to God by killing it. That law is in the black boxes. Why the obsession with the firstborn? Passover, broken neck donkey. Not only that, but there’s a lot of talk in this entire story about firstborn.
Ultimately, God’s going to say to Pharaoh, “If you don’t give me my firstborn, I’ll take your firstborn.” That’s essentially going to be the thrust of the message when Moses gets to Pharaoh in the Exodus story. By the way, I would also point out that if you haven’t read the Exodus story, you may want to do that before you listen to the rest of this podcast, it will be very helpful. You want some familiarity with that story, but I’ll leave that up to you. God is ultimately going to say, “If you don’t give me my firstborn, I will take yours.” The problem with that is that Israel’s not God’s firstborn. What does that mean? How is Israel God’s firstborn?
Israel is not the firstborn of all creation. Jacob’s not firstborn, Joseph wasn’t firstborn. How was this the firstborn? This doesn’t make any sense? Why this fixation on firstborn anyway? What is all that about? Not only that, let’s move on to a new idea. Fohrman says if you were in charge of the Exodus, let’s say it was a video game or a board game or whatever, and you were in charge of this and you had unlimited power and you could do whatever you needed to do to get the job done as we believe God does, would it really take you 10 plagues to rescue the Israelites out of Egypt? It seems rather inefficient, so why is God taking so much time and energy and just nonsense?
It seems to be causing misery. Is this some sick game that He’s playing? What’s going on here? Let’s move on to another question. Fohrman says, not only this, but when Moses finally gets to Pharaoh and he asks him to let the people go, what he asked for quite clearly is, “Pharaoh, let God’s people go for three days.” Why three days? If what Moses really means is forever, that’s what the Exodus is about, we’re getting God’s people to leave Egypt forever. Why would Moses say, “Let us go for three days”? Isn’t that deceptive? Isn’t that not accurate, not true? Why is Moses asking for three days when he’s supposed to be asking for all of time?
Brent: Seems like he would at least ask for seven days.
Marty: Yes, or something, something at least more Jewish. Why ask for three days? So odd. Let’s see the next question that Fohrman raises. Of course, there’s this whole issue about Pharaoh changing his mind and God changing it for him. Is it that Pharaoh’s hardening his heart or is it that God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart? Which is it? This is the great, famous tension for us Christian theologians, especially in the Calvinist versus — the determinism versus free will debate, what’s going on in this story? Nobody seems to be pleased because sometimes it’s Pharaoh making the decision and sometimes it’s God.
There’s that whole dilemma, so what’s going on with that? Then while we’re talking about Pharaoh, let’s just keep talking about Pharaoh. Why does he seem to be so concerned about the wrong things? For instance, in plague two, can you remember what plague two was?
Brent: It was frogs.
Marty: Frogs. The second plague happens, the frogs are filling the land. Moses comes to Pharaoh and says, “Pharaoh, tell me when you’d like the frogs to be gone?” Now, if you’re Pharaoh, what would your answer be?”
Brent: I want them out right now.
Marty: Right, how about yesterday! It would be great because they’re causing a ruckus. Pharaoh says tomorrow. That’s a weird thing to say. Why tomorrow? Then later, there’s a plague where the livestock are plagued and Pharaoh doesn’t ask his servants to check on his livestock at all. He is completely unconcerned about his own livestock. What he asked him to check on is whether or not the Israelites livestock are still alive. The one thing that’s so odd about Pharaoh’s behavior is he seems to be absolutely unfazed by power, the power of the plague. If I were Pharaoh, I would be concerned with how powerful these plagues are. I can’t believe God wiped out all the livestock, all of them?
Pharaoh is unconcerned with power. What he’s concerned with is precision. He wants to know, “Can you really control when the frogs go away? Don’t make him go away now, I want him to go away tomorrow. How about that? I’m not concerned about whether or not my livestock died, I’m concerned about whether or not there’s the precision needed to make sure that their livestock didn’t die.” He’s all concerned about precision, so what’s that all about? Then there’s these two speeches that Moses gives to Pharaoh. He comes and he says, “Pharaoh, we need to go out because Adonai wants us to come love and celebrate and worship with him in the desert.”
Pharaoh says, in fact, I’m actually going to read this section out of the book because I thought I did a really good job of pointing this out, so here’s Fohrman. This is Chapter 4. This is what Moses says, “Thus says Adonai, God of Israel.” Exodus 5:1, “Send out my people and let them rejoice before me in the desert.” Fohrman says, “Let’s freeze the action right here and imagine that we can walk back in time and inhabit that moment. Pretend you are Moses and you have just said these words to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was about to respond to this demand you have made and when he does, you will need to figure out what to say next, so listen carefully and plot your next move accordingly.
“Here is what Pharaoh says to you, ‘Who is Adonai that I should listen to his voice and let Israel go? I do not know Adonai, and what’s more, I will not let Israel go.’ Okay, Moshe, your move. How are you going to respond to this? Pharaoh is pretty direct here. There’s not a lot of ambiguity in his position. He doesn’t know your God, he’s not interested in letting Israel go, end of story. What are you going to say to him? You seem to have two options. The first is to simply accept Pharaoh’s answer, throw up your hands, and go back to God for further instructions.”
A little bit later, Fohrman goes on, “Your second option is to do the exact opposite. Instead of retreating, you could up the ante. ‘Look, Pharaoh, you don’t realize who you’re provoking here. It’s the master of the universe and trust me, you don’t want him to get angry. If you don’t back down or if you back down now and let your slaves go, I think you’ll be able to work something out with this God, but if you don’t, look, I don’t know how much of Egypt is going to be left after God is done with you.’ Either of these responses would’ve made entire sense, retreat or up the ante, but what seems to make absolutely no sense is what Moses actually says:
‘The God of the Hebrews happened upon us, let us go for three days in the desert and sacrifice to our God, otherwise, He might hurt us with the pestilence or with the sword.’ Now, did Moses really think this would work? It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Pharaoh, we’re really scared of our God, who knows what he might do to us if we don’t take a long weekend in the desert to offer sacrifices to Him? Please, can’t we just go, you wouldn’t want your loyal slaves to get hurt or anything.’ Did Moses really believe this had a chance of working?”
That was a little excerpt, what’s going on there with that speech? Then let’s do one last question here. Why does God all of a sudden care about names? He never has up to this story. What’s so interesting is that if you look all throughout Genesis, God has no care in the world about names. People might name him things, remember Abraham naming “the Lord who will provide,” I remember Hagar giving him the name “the Lord who sees me.” God has never been concerned with names.
Brent: Here you’re talking about God’s name, name for God as opposed to humans’ names, which God does seem to care about.
Marty: Right, absolutely. Yes, not humans’ names, but His name; His specific name. Oh, who is the name of this God? He doesn’t seem to be all that concerned about it until, all of a sudden, in Exodus. Now, all of a sudden, Moses asked Him a question about names, and in Exodus 3, He’s got names for him. Then later in Exodus 6, all of a sudden, before Moses goes to speak to the Israelites, God stops him and says, “Now, remember that conversation we had about names. We’re going to talk about names.”
Why is it? In fact, if we were to read Exodus 6:2, that God says, “I used to be known by God Almighty,” in the Hebrew there is El Shaddai, “But now I’m going to be known by,” and He gives his holy name, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. We sometimes say Yahweh or Yahveh. I sometimes say Adonai or Hashem, Jews often do. When God says, “I used to be known this way, but now I’m giving myself a new name,” but it’s not really a new name because if you read through Genesis, it’s obvious that it’s not a new name, it’s all throughout the book of Genesis. What is God up to there?
We’re going to pick up there, we’re going to start answering some of these questions in reverse order. Let’s keep talking about names here for just a moment. God says that he was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai. Now, El was a common name for God, Elohim or El. It would’ve been how anybody talked about God, but He says that the patriarchs knew Him as El Shaddai. That’s how he made himself known in the past. Now, the name El Shaddai is an interesting one because the name really doesn’t seem to mean anything, but the rabbis in the oral tradition spoke about that quite a bit and they thought they had come up with a pretty good explanation.
They said Shaddai I doesn’t seem to mean anything, but if you were to take the consonants of the word Shaddai and make a sentence out of them, which isn’t really that far off of how names often work, if you take the shin and the dalet and all of those things and try to make a sentence or as close as you could out of that name, the rabbi suggested that his name would be or ‘the one who knows’ — excuse me, I want to read this directly — ‘The One Who Said to His World Enough.’
They said —and we talked about this if you remember back in our early podcast with Adam and Eve — and there’s a big discussion, not a big one, but there’s a significant discussion with this in Fohrman’s book. He used to be known as the God who knew when to say enough, the God who said to His world enough. What Fohrman suggests here is that what he wants Moshe to understand is that he can go into this Exodus story and he can talk all about God’s power, but that’s not who God ultimately is. God’s fundamental posture is not about power, God is up to something else.
In fact, a direct quote here from the book, “God will make use of power as He is about to do, but it does not define Him. God is about something else.” Then you start to look at the name He does give. He says, “I used to be known as El Shaddai, but now I want to be known as Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh,” and this name speaks of timelessness. There’s this wonderful explanation when we were talking about Abraham and we talked about the name of God and Hineni, Hanani, and all these different expressions and uses of this and we talked about the name of God being rooted to that. A wonderful explanation in the book of how that works.
I remember being taught this by somebody who had an overhead of all things. You remember those overheads?
Brent: [chuckles] Yes.
Marty: Oh my goodness. Unfortunately, we used those in the church for much longer than we needed to, but if you took an overhead transparency of the Hebrew for “I was,” and then you took another transparency of the Hebrew for “I am,” and then another transparency of the Hebrew for “I will be,” and you lay them on top of each other, what you get is Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh in the Hebrew. It seems to imply to the rabbis in these ages that the name for God refers to timelessness. It seems to include I was, I am, and I will be. There’s this timeless nature about who God is.
Now, Fohrman describes this using an illustration about a Monopoly board. Imagine if you lived on a Monopoly board and you’ve examined this board that you live on long enough that you’ve noticed that the board says “Made by Parker Brothers,” and you have this conversation. He talks about the top hat and the shoe, and he says you’re talking to one another and you’re like, “Do you really think Parker exists?” Like, “Oh, of course, Parker exists. Look at all the evidence that’s out here that Parker exists.” I don’t want to plagiarize his illustrations, but his big idea is that there’d be lots of evidence to suggest that, of course, Parker exists.
The problem is, how do you explain Parker? If you’re the top hat or the shoe, you can’t explain Parker because the only way you could explain Parker is to use images and definitions and things that you’re used to. The top hat and the shoe would only be able to talk about Parker using Monopoly awareness, but Parker is so much bigger than Monopoly. He made Monopoly. You could never truly explain who Parker was if you were living there. He said this is what God’s trying to convey to Moses. “Moses, you want to know my name and everybody wants to know my name, but you can’t truly grasp who I am. I am the one who made your Monopoly board.”
‘I was, I am, and I will be’ is about as good as we’re going to get, which — Fohrman then goes on in the next chapter to talk about how this is actually the problem with pagan polytheism. If you’re like Marty, you’re starting to lose me. This is getting a little crazy. Welcome to the world of the rabbis because I promise you, we’re coming back around to all those questions, so bear with us. We have this question here. This is a problem with pagan polytheism. You see, in a polytheistic world, you have made a bunch of gods in the image of the things on the Monopoly board. That’s how polytheism works, you have a god of thunder and you have a god of water.
You have many gods that represent the things on the board. Obviously, the world is the way that it is in a polytheistic world because all those gods are interacting with themselves. Why does it rain? Because the rain god’s doing his thing. Why doesn’t it rain? Apparently, somebody’s mad at the rain god and the sun god is outdoing the rain god, and these gods are in constant conflict, but you, as a person on the Monopoly board in a polytheistic world, you’re disconnected, you are an observer. You are in an indirect relationship with the gods because the gods are doing their thing on the monopoly board. This is the problem in a polytheistic world.
This is actually why Pharaoh seems to be so concerned about precision over power because Pharaoh’s really used to God’s doing all kinds of things in his world. He understands that gods are powerful. In fact, he understands himself to be intimately connected to these gods. He understands power. Power is not an issue, but precision. You see, in a polytheistic world, precision is not something you can accomplish because the gods are always in chaotic conflict with one another, so precision is something that you would never have control over. Power, yes. If you appease the right god at the right time in the right way, power’s impressive, but not something you can explain.
Precision, especially precision displayed over and over and over again. In fact, at one point during the plagues, we’re going to see hail, and can you remember, Brent, from our past conversations what the hail had in it — in the Hebrew.
Brent: It’s fire.
Marty: Yes. In the Hebrew, it literally says the hail had fire inside of it, which is this really direct, you don’t get that in a polytheistic world. The fire god and the ice god don’t work together. They are opposite, opposing gods and forces. We have all these polytheistic confrontations here and this all helps us explain Moshe’s two speeches. Moshe comes to Pharaoh and he suggests. You see, here’s the difference about monotheism over polytheism. In polytheism, I have an indirect relationship to the gods that are at war all around me, but if it’s monotheism, Fohrman points out monotheism demands direct relationship.
If there’s only one creator, God, then that means that there’s only one God in charge of this all, and I have to be a part of his divine plan. Monotheism demands direct relationship. Polytheism demands indirect relationship. Moshe comes to Pharaoh and Moses says, “Listen, we have a God who wants to have a relationship with us. He wants us to come party with Him in the desert,” and Pharaoh says, “No, thanks. I don’t think so.” Then Moses reframes the request according to Pharaoh’s worldview. “Okay, let me put it the way that you understand it. Our God will be angry if we don’t go and worship Him,” and Pharaoh still says, “Absolutely not.”
At this point, this is going to become a contest, and not just a contest, but this is going to become, let me read my notes here. Pharaoh says no and now we have a pursuit of Pharaoh’s heart. We’ll dig into this a lot more, it’s in the book. In fact, this is the greatest part of the book is he’ll go through plague by plague by plague and show how this is working. One of the things that you and I don’t catch in the English is that there are two different words being used for the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. There are two words, one of the words that’s being used there, when it says Pharaoh hardened his heart, is the word kavod.
The word kavod, sometimes it means glory, it can also mean heavy or weighty; it can mean stubborn. I like to use the word “stupid-ed,” but it can be stubborn. There are times in the story where Pharaoh stubborns his heart. He just refuses to see it. Then there are points in the story where the word is hazak and hazak is the word “to strengthen.” One’s going to speak of stubbornness, the other one is going to speak of resolve. There’s going to be sometimes where Pharaoh’s heart is “stubborned.” He just doesn’t see it, he doesn’t get it. Sometimes Pharaoh is going to do that, and sometimes God’s going to do that.
Then there’s sometimes where his heart is strengthened, hazak, and that is resolve. He sees it, he gets it, but he’s strengthened, and he decides to — with resolve — push through. That’s sometimes what’s going to happen and sometimes Pharaoh is going to do it and sometimes God’s going to do it. We’ll walk through this in our discussion groups, but I challenge you to walk through the plagues and use your Blue Letter Bible and/or get Fohrman’s book if you want to do it the quick and easy way and look at how the words get used because there comes a point early in the plagues where Pharaoh agrees to let the people go.
It raises this question, what is free will? What is the true deprivation of free will? We get a little uncomfortable because we feel like God’s taken away Pharaoh’s free will, but if God is really trying to get Pharaoh to make a choice, let’s assume that God really wants Pharaoh’s heart, which, by the way, would explain why God takes so long. 10 plagues? Yes, because God wants to make sure that even Pharaoh has an opportunity to understand what he’s up against, and so God will take as long as He has to to get to Pharaoh’s heart.
Brent: That’s what we talked about in the last podcast in Exodus 7 where he says, “I do this so that Pharaoh might know that I am God.”
Marty: Absolutely, God wants everybody, we said in the last podcast, He was going to do war against the Egyptian worldview, but He wasn’t mad at the Egyptians, He wasn’t mad at Pharaoh. He’s wanting everybody to know who He is and experience who He is and be willing to find freedom in the biblical narrative. The story that he wants to tell, should we say. What we end up finding is early on in this story, Pharaoh says, “Fine, you know what? You guys can go, I’m out,” but what we find through the story is that Pharaoh really doesn’t get it. He doesn’t actually get what God wants him to get.
He understands that there’s powerful plagues and this isn’t going well for Egypt, and he says, “You know what? Just get out of here, it doesn’t really matter,” but God says, “No, I don’t want you to just let my people go, I want you to decide whether or not you’re going to bow the knee. Not just bow the knee in submission, but give yourself to a worldview that’s going to make a bigger difference in this world. Until I know that that is the choice you’re making, we’re not done yet.” If you see God steps into the story and actually hazaks his heart, but at some point, and this is going to go on back and forth, at some point, Pharaoh is going to get it.
I’ll let you decide where that is in the plagues. You can read the book. At some point in the story of the plagues, it clicks and Pharaoh says, “I completely understand. I see it for what it is, and I am choosing to hazak my heart. I’m choosing to say ‘I see it and I just say no.’” At that point, God says, “Well then, we’re going to finish this story off so that everyone else understands what this story is trying to communicate.” This whole story becomes a pursuit of Pharaoh and his heart. Then as we talked about last week, God then turns and invites his people. Why — so now we’re dealing with the very first questions — why is this Passover? Why the broken neck donkey? Why the obsession with the firstborn?
Because this is a story, not of who Israel is. It’s not that Israel is their firstborn, but in a very similar sense to Jacob and Joseph, this is a very similar story to Jacob and Joseph, God’s looking for a people who wants to be His bechor. He says, “If you will join me, Israel, and be my bechor.” Now, what’s the responsibility of a bechor? We’ve talked about it before, Brent, talk to me about what a bechor’s job is…
Brent: You have an extra measure of inheritance and you take on the responsibility of the entire household, so when your father passes away, you’re responsible for caring for, feeding, clothing, everything.
Marty: Right, and if your father’s still alive, what is your responsibility amongst your siblings?
Brent: You would lead them.
Marty: In what ways? If you’re going to honor your father, what ways would you lead them?
Brent: You do what your father does.
Marty: You would try to convince your siblings, your brothers, and sisters, to take up the mantle of dad’s legacy. This is the role that God’s asking his people. Just like we talked about with Moses, God was looking for, and I think you pointed out in our last podcast, a kingdom of priests. He started with Moshe, a man who would go and be the message, not just bring the message. Now He’s inviting all of Israel to not just bring a message, but he’s inviting Israel to go be the message. That’s going to mean that they have to be born again as God’s bechor. I use that language on purpose because it is what the conversation with Nicodemus and John 3 is all about.
Water and spirit, that’s the Exodus. He’s inviting Nicodemus to join God and His great project just like God invited the Israelites in the Passover story. In fact, Akiva has pointed out way back in the early rabbinical teachings. Akiva pointed out that the Israelites left. If they had put blood on the mantles, and Akiva said that word should be translated as “thresholds.” That would be the bottom and the top of the door, as well as the doorposts. How did they put the blood on the door?
Brent: All four sides.
Marty: All four sides.
Brent: All the way around.
Marty: All the way around, meaning that they’re leaving in haste through a bloody door. Can you think of anything else where you leave in haste through a bloody door? Not to get too graphic…
Brent: A newborn child might do something like that as they’re coming into the world.
Marty: Exactly, and the rabbis always spoke of the red sea as a birth canal. This was Israel’s chance to be born again, this was Israel’s chance to be born as God’s bechor to go out into the world and show the world what God was like. We end up having this mission and that’s where we’re going to pick up and take off as we continue our walk through the Exodus. This is going to be the great story of God’s bechor. Now, just as a tangential thought as we wrap this up, I will say this: Part 4 in Fohrman’s book is all about “the Exodus that might have been,” he called it, and he goes all the way back to Joseph.
If you liked any of our conversation about Joseph, I learned so much after we did our Joseph podcast. It was too late, but so much about the story of Joseph. Part 4 of his book, the last part, is almost worth — not almost — it’s worth the price of the book just in Part 4 in the way that he connected the story of Joseph. Part 4 is where he answers that great question, why does Moses say three days and not forever? Because Fohrman says, “If you know your Joseph story, you know that Pharaoh is supposed to say yes.” If Pharaoh says “Yes,” they’re not going anywhere, they’re going to stay in Egypt.
You’ll have to read Part 4 of the book, it’s just absolutely incredible, so good, so tasty, and delicious, but I give that to you as a recommendation.
Brent: Sounds good to me. That’s it for this episode?
Marty: I think that’s it for this episode. We did that in 34 minutes, man, that’s pretty good. I’ve been getting a little wordy lately.
Brent: There’s so much to talk about.
Marty: There is, and we will talk about it in discussion groups, and we will use this book a lot more in discussion groups, but yes, good stuff. We’ll make sure we get the book linked in the show notes, of course, as we always do so you can find it. I think that’s good for discussion fodder.
Brent: Yes, so if you live on the Palouse, join us for those discussion groups: Moscow on Tuesday, Pullman on Wednesday. If you’re not on the Palouse, we hope you’ve got your own discussion group going on, pick up Fohrman’s book, get your own discussion going. If you want to get a hold of Marty, you can find him on Twitter at @martysolomon. You can find me on Twitter at @eibcb, and you can find more details about the show at bemadiscipleship.com. Thanks for joining us on the BEMA Podcast and we’ll talk to you again soon.