Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven." – Exodus 17:14

Today's Scripture Reading (October 4, 2021): Exodus 17

During the final years of the nineteenth century, archeologists discovered a significant find; a tablet that contained some of the earliest writings known in our modern culture. The tablet is thought to describe the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Pharaoh Narmer, the founder of the First Egyptian Dynasty. The tablet is dated to around 3000 B.C.E., shortly following the reign of Narmer, and has become known as the Narmer Tablet. The tablet is important, not just because it reveals something about the history of Ancient Egypt, but because it proves that the human race has been writing down essential information for more than 5000 years.

Exodus 17:14 is the first of five places in the Torah where God commands Moses to write something down. We believe that most of the information and stories in the books of Moses were transmitted from generation to generation orally. In a culture where the ability to read was rare, people heard, memorized, and passed down the stories from generation to generation. As a result of a predominately illiterate population, some scholars have questioned God's command for Moses to "write something down" and believed that this instruction was a late addition to the record because, during the days of Moses, the ability to write was unknown.

But discoveries like the Narmer Tablet suggest something else. Egypt had been "writing things down" for more than 1500 years before the time of Moses. If the story the Bible tells of the Prophet's origins is true and Moses did indeed grow up in the house of the Pharaoh, then he would likely have received the best education that the country could offer, which would have included the ability to read and write. God told Moses to "write it down" because he knew that Moses could read and write

Later, on Mount Sinai, God would do the writing, delivering to Moses tablets on which the Ten Commandments and the law were placed. After building the Ark of the Covenant, God's tablets would be placed there (Exodus 24:12, Exodus 25:16). Oral transmission might have been the typical way to pass information down, but the written word was far from unknown.

It appears that Joshua was already being groomed as a leader. Interestingly, God commanded that Joshua "hears" and not "reads" about this condemnation of the Amalekites. It might be that while Moses could read, Joshua could not. Joshua needed to hear the instructions. And while God promises to "completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven," it would not happen immediately. Amalek would not be defeated entirely until at least the reign of Hezekiah (729-687 B.C.E.), centuries after the days of Moses and Joshua.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Exodus 18