As soon as Moses got settled, God started rattling off his rules:

1. I am your only God.
2. You will not worship anyone or anything but me. I’m kind of a jealous bastard, so this is important if you want to stay on my good side.
3. Do not use my name in vain.
4. Remember not to work on the Sabbath.
5. Don’t be a jerk to your parents.
6. Don’t kill anyone.
7. Don’t cheat on your spouse.
8. Don’t steal shit.
9. Don’t gossip or spread rumors.
10. Be happy with what you have.

I guess Moses heard all of this, but to everyone else it just looked like thunder and lightning and a smoking mountain. They were a little freaked out.

Original text

Three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites came to Sinai and set up camp. During one of their daily chats, God told Moses to pass on a message: “Remind them that I rescued them from slavery. If they obey me and be good little Hebrews, they’ll be my favorite people in the whole world.” Then God told Moses to make sure the people washed their clothes because he was coming to see them in three days. Also during those three days, there was to be no sex, I guess; Moses told the men not to touch any women.

On the third day, it was all thundery and cloudy up on top of Mount Sinai, and a loud trumpet blast scared the Israelites. It was also all smoky up there because God had rocketed down to the mountain in his fire boots. Moses gathered everyone together to stand at the foot of the mountain while he climbed up to talk to God. When Moses got to the top, God told him to go back down and come back with Aaron, but to make sure everyone else knew that if they tried to climb the mountain and see God, they would die.

Original text

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law (I’d forgotten Moses was married), had by now heard all about the adventures Moses was having and he felt left out. He packed up Zipporah and her two sons and they all went out to join the Israelites. Moses was glad to see them and there was a big feast (of bread) with sacrifices and everything.

The next day, the Israelites stood around Moses all day, asking him questions. When Jethro asked him what was going on, Moses said he was settling disputes between folks, using God’s laws as a guide. Jethro said this was way too much work for one guy and told him he should announce to everyone what God’s laws were, and then appoint chiefs over the people to enforce those laws. Moses thought that was a pretty good idea, so that’s what he did. Then Jethro went home. I guess he’d had enough adventuring.

Original text

The Hebrews moved from Sin to Rephidim, but there was no water there. The people were all, “Moses, give us something to drink, you bastard.” Moses whined and asked them why they didn’t like him, and they said, “We were happy as slaves in Egypt, and now we’re wandering around the countryside with no water and it’s all your fault, you jerk.” Moses cried to God about how the other guys were bullying him, so God showed him another magic trick. Everyone stopped bothering Moses for a while after they saw him hit a rock with his staff and make water come out.

Some Amalekites came out of nowhere to fight with Israel, and Moses told Joshua to get some men together to fight back. Moses, Aaron and Hur (who?) stood on top of a hill and watched the fighting. When Moses held up his hand, Israel started winning, but when he lowered it, Amalek would start to do better. Aaron and Hur found a rock for Moses to sit on, and they each held up one of his hands until Joshua’s army won the fight. Afterward, God told Moses to write down what happened.

Original text

A month and a half after leaving Egypt, the Israelites came to the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Sinai. They all started whining to Moses and Aaron about how hungry they were and how they wished they would have just stayed in Egypt. Moses told them it was God who took them out of Egypt, not him, and the big guy could hear their complaining and was going to give them meat at twilight and bread in the morning.

That night, a bunch of quail came along and covered the camp. The next morning, there was something all over the ground. Moses told them it was bread and everyone should gather as much as they could, but they should not leave any of it leftover until morning. God was testing them, see, but they didn’t know that and they were afraid to eat it all and not have any left the next day. God was pissed that they didn’t trust him, so he made the leftovers grow worms and smell bad.

This went on for five days. On the sixth day, Moses told everyone that God wanted them to gather as much as they could and put aside as much as they wanted because there would be no bread on the ground in the morning. Of course nobody did this because God had just gotten them trained to not leave any leftovers. So when people went out on the seventh morning to find the stuff, God got mad and complained to Moses about people working on the Sabbath.

Incidentally, the stuff was called manna and the Israelites ate it for forty years, until they came to Canaan. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Original text

The people of Israel decided to be hobbits and sing a song about what just happened at the Red Sea and how awesome God was. Moses’ sister, Miriam, even broke out the tambourine and started dancing. I’m surprised she wasn’t stoned to death right there.

They all traveled three days into the wilderness of Shur. They didn’t have any water, and they couldn’t drink the water in Marah because it was bitter. God told Moses to throw a log into the water to make it sweet, and that’s what he did. When they came to Elim and found twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, they decided it was time to make camp.

Original text

God, not content to just let shit go, made Pharaoh forget that the Israelites left Egypt under his own Pharoah-cious order. Pharaoh was suddenly pissed at them for leaving, so he rounded up the troops and they all went after the Hebrews. The Israelites got pretty scared when the Egyptians found them camping at the seaside (by Pi-hahiroth in front of Baal-zephon, if you’re interested) and they yelled at Moses for taking them away from their happy lives of slavery and oppression. Moses said, “Don’t worry, God’s got our back.”

God told Moses to point his magic wand – I mean his staff – at the sea to part the waters so the Israelites could walk on dry ground all the way across. The Egyptians followed, and when all of Israel had crossed, God told Moses to put the water back where it belonged. And thus, the Egyptians drowned.

Original text

Bonus: One of my favorite Far Side cartoons…