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The Bible In Paintings, #24: MOSES, Part 2 – LET MY PEOPLE GO!
Bing Images ^ | c. 2000 BC -- c. 90 AD | Father, Son & Holy Spirit

Posted on 07/14/2020 6:38:51 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6

SMPMEMCMIMAMLMMM NMOMTMEM

If you’re anything like me you were absolutely spoiled yesterday by the amazingly imaginative and vividly colorful depictions of the Burning Bush. Apparently, if you’re an artist the Burning Bush is the Mother Lode. In fact, here is the link if you want an encore, and why wouldn’t you?

It’s just that it was probably the high-water mark for such a visual orgy—I can’t think of anything comparable throughout all of Scripture. I’d love to be proved wrong, but for now it’s just back to good ol’ normalcy: telling God’s story through whatever art there is. Hope you're blessed by it!


GOD CONFRONTS PHARAOH

EXODUS 5 - 10
New International Version
massively abridged, emphases added

1 Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”

2 Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”

6 That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: 7 “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. 8 But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.”

GOD PROMISES DELIVERANCE

EXODUS 6
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.”

5 I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

6 “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”

10 Then the Lord said to Moses, 11 “Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country.”

EXODUS 7
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. 2 You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.”

6 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded them.


by JAMES TISSOT
"Moses Speaks to Pharaoh"


By CECIL B. DEMILLE
Moses and Pharaoh
(well, Heston and Brynner)


AARON'S STAFF

8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.


By GUSTAV DORÉ
"Moses and Aaron Before Pharaoh"


by JAMES TISSOT
“The Rod of Aaron Devours the Other Rods”


by CECIL B. DEMILLE
“The Ten Commandments”


“Aaron’s Staff Becomes a Snake” – wood engraving


THE FIRST NINE PLAGUES


Plague #1: BLOOD

14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. 16 Then say to him, ‘By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.’”

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.

22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river.


by JAMES TISSOT
“Water Is Changed into Blood”


by JAN PYNOS
“Moses and Aaron Change the Nile to Blood”


by CECIL B. DEMILLE
“The Ten Commandments”


By RIDLEY SCOTT
“Exodus: Gods and Kings”


Plague #2: FROGS

EXODUS 8
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 2 If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country.’”

6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. 7 But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

12 After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. 13 And the Lord did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. 14 They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.


by REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
“The Plague of Frogs in Egypt”


by GERARD JOLLAIN
“The Plague of Frogs”


“The Plague of Frogs”


“The Plague of Frogs”
Illumination from the Golden Haggadah, Spain, 1320-30.

By RIDLEY SCOTT
“Exodus: Gods and Kings”


Plague #3: GNATS

17 Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the ground, gnats came on people and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became gnats. But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said.


by WILLIAM DE BRAILES
“The Third Plague of Egypt: Gnats”


Plague #4: FLIES

20 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the river, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 21 If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses.

22 “‘But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. ’”

24 And the Lord did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of his officials; throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies.

30 Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord, 31 and the Lord did what Moses asked. The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people; not a fly remained. 32 But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.


by JAMES TISSOT
“The Plague of Flies”


Plague #5: DEADSTOCK

EXODUS 9
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, 3 the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys and camels and on your cattle, sheep and goats. 4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.’”

6 And the next day the Lord did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. 7 Pharaoh investigated and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go.


by JOSEPH MALLARD WILLIAM TURNER
“Fifth Plague of Egypt”


by GUSTAV DORÉ
"The Murrain of Beasts"


Plague #6: BOILS

8 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “[F]estering boils will break out on people and animals throughout the land.”

11 The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians. 12 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.


"The Sixth Plague"
Miniature out of the Toggenburg Bible (Switzerland) of 1411


Plague #7: HAIL

13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, 14 or...I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now...the hail will fall on every person and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die.’”

23 When Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. 25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields—both people and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. 26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.

33 Then Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands toward the Lord; the thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the land. 34 When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. 35 So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.


by JOHN MARTIN
“The Seventh Plague of Egypt”


Plague #8: LOCUSTS

EXODUS 10
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”

3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 4 If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. 5 They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields.'"

13 So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; 14 they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. 15 They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail—everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.

20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.


by JAMES TISSOT
"The Plague of Locusts"


by JAN LUYKEN
Copper engraving from the Dutch bible
"HISTORY OF THE BIBLE", Amsterdam 1700.


Plague #9: DARKNESS

21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt—darkness that can be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. 23 No one could see anyone else or move about for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was not willing to let them go. 28 Pharaoh said to Moses, “Get out of my sight! Make sure you do not appear before me again! The day you see my face you will die.”

29 “Just as you say,” Moses replied. “I will never appear before you again.”


by JAMES TISSOT
"Moses Leaves Pharaoh in Anger"


by GUSTAV DORÉ
"The Plague of Darkness"


Again, here is the Bing page "EGYPT'S PLAGUES IN ART”,
showing various painters' and sculptors’ conceptions.
Several shown here are serious works worthy of interest,
by unknown artists except as noted.

Also, here are links to compendia of three masters
who painted Biblical scenes prolifically:

REMBRANT van RIJN

GUSTAV DORÉ
(241 wood engravings for
La Grande Bible de Tours)

JAMES TISSOT

Finally, here are links to the
PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES


SPECIAL THANKS
to FReeper left that other site,
who allowed God to make her His conduit
for incomparable enthusiasm, encouragement,
education, advice and technical assistance!


SNEAK PEEK: Next time,

PASSOVER



TOPICS: Apologetics; General Discusssion; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: art; bible; paintings
At the Holy Spirit's prompting, I am surveying "Bible art" for my own amusement and learning, and I thought others might enjoy it, too. My intent is to proceed methodically left-to right, Genesis to Revelation, as the Lord wills. Back soon with another.

The Bible encourages us to meditate on it (Ps. 1:1-3, 119:11-16, etc.); these artists have done so, and their works can assist us and enrich our own thoughts about biblical characters, incidents and concepts, and increase our faith in He who is behind it all.. As you encounter and consider these images and the related Scriptures and the Spirit enlightens your understanding, please share it with us! But it is not only oil-on-canvas that can so help us; I refer to the astonishing video series The Chosen, which strolls through the four Gospels at the most leisurely pace. The eight episodes of Season 1 are finished, and the second of a planned seven seasons is coming soon. I say "leisurely" because after an entire year’s viewing Jesus still has only seven of the apostles (although He's preparing to call up Thomas from the minor leagues--but Thomas is skeptical, of course). Anticipating a canvas of fifty-plus hours instead of a movie's paltry two hours, The Chosen turns the characters (especially including Jesus!) into three-dimensional humans and brings the Gospels alive--you have never seen anything even remotely like it! Here is the Official Trailer.

Here is a link for free viewing of The Chosen: “Works with your phone, tablet, and you can cast to your Roku or Chromecast.” Last fall I paid $34.98 for DVDs and ongoing internet access—best 35 bucks I’ve ever spent (I don’t recall how much our marriage license cost, but then it was 42 years ago).

1 posted on 07/14/2020 6:38:51 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6
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To: Maudeen; stars & stripes forever; Battle Axe; Vendome; Jolla; sauropod; left that other site; ...
Ping List for the series
"THE BIBLE IN PAINTINGS"

To receive an alert for each new posting
in this series, either reply here or FRmail me.

2 posted on 07/14/2020 6:40:31 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD?)
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To: Hebrews 11:6
The "storyboards" for the Ten Commandments were painted by artist Arnold Fryberg. His paintings are awesome, and the cinematography was so faithful to his vision that one might think that the movie came first, and the paintings later.

But the exact opposite is true.


3 posted on 07/14/2020 6:47:06 PM PDT by left that other site (If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9))
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To: left that other site
Thanks--that's quite interesting to me. I was unaware of that. It's remarkable how much pre-production effort is required.

In college I roomed with for a couple of years and became good pals with a Cinema major, Brian Kerwin. He was at USC's famous Cinema School because he wanted to become a director; instead, he became a well-known and successful, if somewhat wooden, actor. Anyway, he'd attend movies and I tagged along, and he'd teach me all the technical ins-and-outs; to this day I watch all the credits, and so does my wife. So your comment is right up that alley.

4 posted on 07/14/2020 7:35:35 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD?)
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To: Hebrews 11:6

“The Ten Commandments” is one of my all0time favorite movies, so I know a lot of “lore” about it. :-)


5 posted on 07/15/2020 5:36:22 AM PDT by left that other site (If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9))
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To: left that other site
Truly, a great film. I thought Ben Hur gave Heston greater range--lover, rower, friend/rival, racer, son, and finally, believer--and he nailed it. Of course, I read the book, so I would be partial to it (well, I've read Exodus, too, obviously, but somehow that's different).
6 posted on 07/15/2020 10:14:41 AM PDT by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD?)
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To: Hebrews 11:6

“Ben Hur” is an awesome book (and movie!)


7 posted on 07/15/2020 11:34:04 AM PDT by left that other site (If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9))
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To: left that other site; xp38
Fraser Heston remembers The Ten Commandments

Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 2/28/2020

In Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 epic The Ten Commandments, the director re-creates some of the most awe-inspiring Biblical miracles including the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush and the plagues that persuaded Pharaoh to release the Jews from slavery and let them return to Israel.

Another act of divine intervention on the set may have prevented an affliction as horrific as the death of the firstborn. The film starred Charlton Heston as the prophet Moses, who led the Jews to freedom, so it only made sense to cast his son Fraser C. Heston as the baby who would later bring down the tablets from Mt. Sinai.

You can see the miracles come alive again in a new Blu-Ray edition that hits the stores March 10. It includes the Holy Week favorite as well as DeMille's 1923 silent adaptation that weaves a re-creation of Exodus into a contemporary story about two brothers who differ in their adherence to the Commandments.

In his memoir In the Arena, Charlton Heston proudly recalled how calmly his offspring sailed down a make-believe Nile in less-than-watertight basket. The now-grown producer and director recalls how his own journey had dangers of its own.

"I guess when the basket almost sank, it didn't phase me. It turned out they launched me into the backlot of Paramount into the Nile river that they built there. When Dad went to pick me up, the basket was four inches lower than when it started," Heston says and then laughs.

"My career could have ended very early on."

The then-75-year-old DeMille had a mishap of his own. DeMille completed the movie, which would be his last as a director, despite having a heart attack on the set. Like his Biblical heroes, the director wasn't going to let an affliction of the flesh get in the way of his task.

"Talk about a perfectionist," Fraser Heston says. "He wouldn't let it be known he had a heart attack because they might have sent in a replacement director or made an insurance claim and scuttled the whole movie. He said he had some type of stomach ailment and soldiered on at risk to his life and may have shortened his life as C.C. DeMille [Presley], his granddaughter, believes."

Conversely, while DeMille may have pushed himself and the cast and crew hard in his quest to bring the Old Testament alive on the screen, Heston says he and his father admired how DeMille could think big (a then-astronomical $13.2 million budget) without squandering Paramount's resources. The sinking baby basket and DeMille's health problems were the exception, not the rule, on the director's sets.

Heston says, "He was not a profligate spender. He didn't just throw money at [the] screen. He planned meticulously. He had models, drawings. He did meticulous research. He was a perfectionist with the way he made films, and Dad came to love him for that."

In the Name of the Father

While his father left an indelible impression in front of the camera in everything from Ben-Hur and Planet of the Apes to Friends, the younger Heston has made his mark behind the scenes.

Heston wrote The Mountain Men (1980), which starred his father. He later directed his father as Long John Silver in a 1990 TNT adaptation of Treasure Island and as Sherlock Holmes in The Crucifer of Blood the following year. He also produced his father's adaption of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. More recently, he directed the Netflix documentary The Search for Michael Rockefeller.

"I was thinking about that the other day if I had chosen to be an actor instead of being a writer and ultimately a director. I think I would have had a rewarding career, but I was not really attracted to it. My Mom and Dad tried to talk me out of it. They thought the life of an actor was not all it was cracked up to be. Most are not successful. Dad was very lucky and fortunate," Heston says.

In a radical departure from his cinematic debut, Heston directed the movie version of Stephen King's Needful Things, where Satan opens a shop in Castle Rock, Maine, sowing chaos and bloodshed in the process. The legendary Swedish actor Max Von Sydow, who played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told and the title character in The Exorcist, is Old Scratch.

"There I was an emissary of God in my first film, and the next one was about the Devil," he laughs.

Asked what it was like to direct Von Sydow, who has starred in everything from Ingmar Bergman classics to Star Wars: Episode VII -- The Force Awakens, as well as his father, Heston recalls, "They are very similar actors: They're old school. They come prepared. They read the book. They read the script. They come to you at a time far enough in advance that you can make changes to the script. Max was a delight to work with, as was my Dad."

Heston may have best described what his father did for a living when he was not much older than his only on-screen role. He told adults that Charlton Heston "pretended to be people."

"That's kind of what he said to me. He saw himself as a shy kid from backwoods Michigan who liked to wear tights and wave swords around [and] recite Shakespeare through a funny nose," he says.

So Let It Be Written

While The Ten Commandments has been presented on the small screen practically since Moses himself walked down the mountain with his tablets, DeMille's awe-inspiring images lose much of their power during compression. Having seen the movie in an auditorium with a 50-foot screen, I now understand why Charlton Heston politely told fans "you haven't seen it" when they informed him they had watched The Ten Commandments on TV.

"It's the quintessential epic. When you think spectacle, you think C.B. DeMille. When you think epic, you think The Ten Commandments. It's a great story, isn't it? You should read the Bible. Whatever your religion, it's a fascinating document. It has marvelous stories in it, some of the greatest stories ever told, but you don't get it in such an immediate, visual way as you do on film, and I think that was part of the success of The Ten Commandments," Fraser Heston says.

"It opened up this market for a Bible story in a way that no one else had experienced it."

Fortunately, home-viewing experience has improved exponentially in years since Charlton Heston died. Having seen the new Blu-Ray, both his son and I think DeMille's grand images now look appropriately impressive in a living room.

"This new restoration is amazing," Heston says. "I watched it last night. It looks like you could step into the screen and jump on a chariot and race alongside Pharaoh (Yul Brynner). It's really amazing. They did it in 6K, which is like three times what's normal. If you saw it on your color TV 25 years ago, it's not the same animal at all."

8 posted on 07/25/2020 1:08:41 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD?)
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To: Hebrews 11:6

thanks for that


9 posted on 07/25/2020 2:01:24 PM PDT by xp38
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To: xp38

That baby grew up.


10 posted on 07/25/2020 3:18:21 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD?)
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To: Hebrews 11:6

They usually do :)


11 posted on 07/25/2020 4:16:56 PM PDT by xp38
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To: Hebrews 11:6

Beautiful!

Thanks for posting that.


12 posted on 07/25/2020 6:20:30 PM PDT by left that other site (If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9))
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