THE STORYTELLER'S BIBLE
Act I - The Pentateuch, Scene 8
Script by Bob Allen
For four voices

Scene 8

      3

                                                                       1    4

2

VOICE ONE:             Shiphrah started from a sound sleep and sat up instantly awake.  It was a habit she had acquired from years of being called to the bedside of birthing mothers in the middle of the night.  Babies never seemed to wait for a convenient time to appear.  But recently it has been even more important to be on the scene quickly.  She and her fellow midwife, Puah, had to be sure they came and went before the king’s guards arrived.

VOICE TWO:            It hadn’t always been that way for the midwives.  Not too many years before, the experience of bringing a new boy or girl into the world had been a joyous occasion.  Family and friends had gathered and celebrated with music and feasting.  Now the job had to be done quickly and silently and alone.  In fact, by order of the king, it shouldn’t have been done at all.

VOICE THREE:        Every girl child may be kept alive.  But every boy child you deliver shall be killed.

VOICE ONE:             They understood the command.  They just couldn’t bring themselves to obey it.   Instead they came quickly and went quickly and when the king’s guards asked why the boys were still alive their answer was always the same.

VOICE TWO:            The Hebrew women are too healthy.  They deliver before we can even get there to help.

VOICE THREE:        Then I command that every parent of a boy child go themselves and drown that child in the Nile.  I will not have my country threatened by the explosive population growth of these despised slaves.

VOICE FOUR:          Shiphrah and Puah knew exactly where to go that night when they were called.  Jochebed, wife of Amram, was a week overdue. 

VOICE ONE:             It’s a beautiful boy, Jochebed.  What do you want us to do?

VOICE TWO:            Place him in my arms.  We’ll hide him here in the house as long as we possibly can and then God will show us what to do.

VOICE THREE:        Three months later, unable to hide the cries of the growing boy any longer, his mother obeyed the command of the king and threw him into the Nile, but not before preparing for him a woven basket and the watchful eye of his sister Miriam.

VOICE FOUR:          To Miriam’s amazement and joy the rescuer of her brother was the daughter of the Pharoah himself.  She drew the baby from the water, named him Moses, paid Jochebed to nurse him and raised him in the palace as her own son.

VOICE ONE:             God was preparing Moses to stand before kings.

VOICE TWO:            But first, he had to learn to stand before God.

VOICE THREE:        (CROSS DOWN RIGHT)  Moses’ first attempt to rescue his people was little more than an unpremeditated execution, without legal authority.  It was a blow for freedom struck without any evaluation of the consequences. 

VOICE FOUR:          Those consequences included mistrust by his fellow countrymen, fleeing for his life from the wrath of the king, and living for forty years in a strange country.

VOICE ONE:             Forty years to learn how to stand before kings.  Forty years to learn how to stand before God.

VOICE TWO:            When Moses prepared to return to Egypt he was ready to stand before kings in the power of God.

VOICE THREE:        (CROSS BACK TO CENTER)  Let my people go!

VOICE FOUR:          Rivers turned to blood.

VOICE ONE:             Frogs covering the land.

VOICE TWO:            Lice on man and beast.

VOICE THREE:        Swarms of flies.

VOICE FOUR:          Plague on all the cattle.

VOICE ONE:             Boils on men and animals.

VOICE TWO:            Thunder, hail and fire.

VOICE THREE:        Locusts!  Locusts!  Locusts!

VOICE FOUR:          Darkness you could feel.

VOICE ONE:             The death of the firstborn.

VOICE THREE:        Let my people go!

VOICE FOUR:          The embalmed corpse of the royal firstborn had not even taken its place in the tombs of the kings when the Pharoah changed his mind again.  Calling together 600 of his elite chariot captains he set off in pursuit of the millions of valuable slaves he had just released.  The blitzkrieg attack pinned the Hebrews down on the banks of the Red Sea with no available means of escape.

VOICE ONE:             Only Moses seemed unconcerned by their predicament.  Only Moses had learned to stand in the presence of God.

VOICE THREE:        Stand still, and see the salvation of our God.

VOICE TWO:            Out of the depths of the Sinai desert the wind of God began to blow.  The miraculous gusts of sirocco gales swept through the sand and descended onto the surface of the Red Sea.  Like a boiling pot the waters started to swell, the swells turned to giant waves and the waves to walls of fountains that exploded high into the air and then fell back again to the surface of the sea.  Between the walls a path appeared, sodden at first, but gradually drier as the burning east wind continued all through the night.

VOICE FOUR:          At daybreak the people of God began their amazing journey, walking through the middle of the sea on dry land.   As soon as they were safely across, the pillar of cloud obscuring the view of the Egyptian army lifted and they rushed down the slope onto the path the Israelites had safely maneuvered.  With a wave of the rod of Moses, the wind ceased.  Calmness descended on the sea and the fountains of waters divided by the wind rushed back together to fill the vacuum now occupied by Pharoah and his mighty army.

VOICE ONE:             The Exodus had begun.