An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Exodus 1

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Exodus 1

The Israelites Oppressed

¹ These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; ³ Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; ⁴ Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. ⁵ The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy ^[a] in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

Well I'll be! The Bible actually gets its own facts straight! Usually, two consecutive sentences are able to contradict one another, but here the details mentioned in the previous book of the Bible are repeated the same. Good! You're learning well.

⁶ Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, ⁷ but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

Yeah they were fuckers and by that I mean that they fucked a lot!

⁸ Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ⁹ "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. ¹⁰ Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

You'd suppose that lots of people in the Pharaoh's administration heard about Joseph and that the word would pass on to the next Pharaoh. Even if we're talking about several generations later, the situation with the Israelites being somewhat friends with the Egyptians would be known by everybody living day-to-day in Egypt. But I'll say that though, I agree with Pharaoh, the Jews are sneaky lying bastards who'll probably be helped by their God to take over the world. In fact, that's kind of what he always promises to them, making them kings. (I'm not a Jew hater at all in real life; I'm talking about the context of the book which I consider fiction. The Jews are bad in the book.)

¹¹ So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites ¹³ and worked them ruthlessly. ¹⁴ They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

It's not like the Jews didn't have slaves themselves. For some reason, by this point in the Bible we don't know really how well or bad they treated them, but we sure know that the Jews themselves as slaves are treated really bad by the Egyptians. I just don't condone slavery myself, I think it's evil if anyone practices it, no special conditions accepted. (Note that God said that Abraham's descendants would eventually have a hard time being enslaved for 400 years in a country not of their own before getting back to the best possible lives. It's just sad that things never really settled down for the Jewish people when we know the facts about history...)

¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ¹⁶ "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. ¹⁸ Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

I bet they didn't think they could cover it up huh? Well good, because what the king asked for is fucking evil, more evil than most of what we've seen so far (with only God being slightly more evil). Maybe this was a method to balance the population. After all, there are more than 10 times more boys than girls among what we've seen of the many generations of Israelites being born.

¹⁹ The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

Not only are they poor liars, but they're insulting his people. There's no way they'll get away with that!

²⁰ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

I'll say I didn't expect that. They weren't killed and the king didn't ask for anyone to investigate on the matter and kill the babies in their place. In fact, there are even more Israelites because of that. Is it just me or is there something not very realistic here? And once again, God rewards lies, although in this single occasion, I'm going to agree that lying was actually a good moral thing to do.

²² Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born ^[b] you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."

Well now that's a stupid plan. What kind of king would ask his people to get rid of all male babies just to get back at Hebrews? I don't even think I need to explain what is stupid here, do I?

Footnotes:

a. Exodus 1:5 Masoretic Text (see also Gen. 46:27 Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint (see also Acts 7:14 and note at Gen. 46:27) seventy-five
b. Exodus 1:22 Masoretic Text; Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint and Targums born to the Hebrews