00:00:00
Speaker 1: Previously on the chosen people. As the twelve sons of Jacob departed from this life, a new generations sprouted from their branches. So did the line of Pharaoh, the king, who once considered Joseph a brother and the Hebrews his kin passed. His son took the throne vaguely remembering the promises made to Israel. But when his son came after him, the promises eroded into whispers. Soon the name of Joseph was forgotten. In its place the legacy of Pharaohs, the image of Ra, the might of the Nile. The storehouses were replaced with monuments to their greatness, and the children of Israel were no longer favored in the land. From the heights of his palace, Rameses the First looked down upon the multitudes of Israel with a heart gripped by suspicion and rage.
00:01:02
Speaker 2: Send the truths to Ghosa, surround them with swords, whips and spears, seize their property, melt their weapons, and make a decree.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: The Israelites are no longer guests in my land. From this day forth, they shall be bricks laid at the foundation of my empire. I am Pharaoh, the image of Rah.
00:01:32
Speaker 4: I am the Lion, the serpent, the King. If any oppose my degree, they shall feel the sponge of my burning fury.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: The cruel pharaoh enslave that rouses. The first had passed the Israelite scars told the tale of his legacy, a legacy of brutality, conquest, and oppression. His son Setti took his place. Both drank from the same well of hatred and pride as their forbears.
00:02:12
Speaker 5: Gosh will weep with the wails of mothers as I tear their sons from their breasts.
00:02:20
Speaker 3: Take every son under the.
00:02:23
Speaker 6: Age of two, and cast them into denial.
00:02:26
Speaker 3: The crocodiles will feast on their flesh, and the waters will turn crimson, as a seal of My power over them.
00:02:38
Speaker 5: Remember your promises, Oh God, most time, remember your chosen people.
00:02:51
Speaker 7: From the depths of despair. The voices of the oppress touched the heavens, awakening ancient promises. Once again, shallo my friends from here in the Holy Land, Welcome to the Chosen People. I'm ya l Extein with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The children of Israel groaned under the weight of oppression, Their lives reduced to a relentless grind of misery. Their cries, borne from the depths of despair, echoed across the arid sands of Egypt. Pharaoh's heart was hard and his hand was heavy, and as he sought to crush the spirit of the Hebrew slaves, years turned to decades, and hope became a distant memory. But even in the darkness, cries of the Chosen People ascended, rising to the heavens. Could it be that God had turned his ear towards their suffering. Let's find out in this dramatic story inspired by Exodus two twenty three to twenty five.
00:03:56
Speaker 1: The sun sank low over the dunes, rusting a blood red hue across the sprawling sands of Egypt. In the distance, the great pyramids stood as silent sentinels against the fading sky, their shadowed faces watching over the living and the dead alike. The River Nile, that dark artery of life winding its way through the kingdom, ran Crimson under the dying light, like a wound stretched across the earth. It was on this day that Pharaoh Seti, Lord of the Two Lands, God King of the Nile, would be laid to rest. In his stone sepulcher beneath the sands. His body was carried by the hands of priests and mourners, already embalmed in layers of linen soaked in murh and natron. Rameses stood at the head of the funeral procession, his gaze fixed on the horizon, where ra bled into the world beyond. His Robes of Carnelian and gold flowed around him like a burning flame, and the ureus of the cobra coiled at his brow. The priests chanted hymns in the sacred tongue, their voices rising and falling like the whispering winds that swept across the desert. The air was thick with incense, the cloying smell of frankencense and sandalwood mingling with the musk of the embalming spices that still clung to his father's shrouded corpse. Cetti's body lay upon a bier of cedar and ivory, borne aloft on the shoulders of his chosen servants, who would be sacrificed and buried with him. His face, shrouded in the golden death mask, looked as though he were merely asleep. His lips were set in a serene, knowing smile that Rameses had come to despise. As a boy, Rameses hated his father. He hated his cold, distant voice, and the way he refused to look him in the eye. But as a man, Rameses had turned his hatred into ambition. He wanted to be greater than Seti. He wanted his reign to be the greatest offering the gods had ever seen. A low murmur rippled through the gathered nobles, courtiers, and soldiers. They stood in clusters, their eyes shifting from the deceased pharaoh to his son. Knowing that Egypt would soon belong to Rameses, the priests raised their voices, calling upon Anubis, the jackal headed guide of souls, to shepherds Seti to the after life. The acolytes lid torches and waved them in solemn circles, casting eerie, dancing shadows on the sandstone walls of the tomb, which gaped open like the moor of some great beast. The gods were watching to night, all of them. Rameses stepped forward, his footsteps heavy upon the stone. He had no need for his father's smile. He had his father's strength, his father's cruelty. His own eyes were cold and hard, like chips of flint. The Hebrews, he thought, were a tool, a means to an end, if his father had thrown their children into the river. But Rameses found this short sighted. He wanted to use them to build up his greatness. Rameses would turn their men into the mortar, for his monuments. Egypt would be built upon their bones. The bier halted at the mouth of the tomb, where the high priest Nebbermann awaited, his face painted in the black and gold of the after life. The slithery man raised his.
00:07:52
Speaker 3: Arms, Oh, sexy far of Egypt, who sits at the right hand of the guards. His car shall churn beyond the field of rams, his bars shall soar among the stars. Let his enemies tremble, for he has crossed the river to return life.
00:08:26
Speaker 1: Ramses almost scoffed eternal life. What use was eternity to a man who had spent his days scheming in the shadows of his own palace. He stepped forward again, this time alone, and placed his hand upon the bier, his fingers tracing the intricate carvings of falcons and lotus blossoms.
00:08:48
Speaker 6: Further.
00:08:49
Speaker 2: You built this kingdom with blood and ire, but it is I who shall make it the more dat.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: The priests moved forward, then, guiding the beer into the darkness of the tomb. Torches sputtered as they passed, their light flickering like souls caught between worlds. Ramses watched as his father disappeared into the belly of the earth. The granite doors of the tomb were pulled shut, ceiling with a deep, resonant boom. It was done. Pharaoh SETTI was no more. Ramses stepped out of the darkness and into the fading light of dusk. A gust of winds swept over the procession, sending a chill through the air, and the torches hissed and spat. Ramses turned to face his people. His gaze swept over the crowd, from the nobles in their silks and jewels to the slaves in their rags, and he saw in their eyes what he had always seen. Fear, fear of change, fear of death, fear of him. And he would use that fear, shape it, mold it into something greater than his father had ever dreamed. He raised his hands, and silence fell like a curtain over the crowd.
00:10:14
Speaker 8: Behold, You're no father. Behold Answis, son of set him, the unit of all.
00:10:24
Speaker 3: Shaws and mother gods, to lead you into a news, an age of power.
00:10:31
Speaker 8: Oh Lord at hate, when Egypt shall be the envy of the world, where the laws of us cities wirive high Heaven. Hello, all of will tramp on me for us.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: The crowd erupted into a roar of cheers. Ramsay stood amidst all, his face a mask of stung, his heart, beating with the rhythm of the drums, began to pound in celebration. He had taken the first step, and there would be no turning back. The priests began to chant again, invoking the names of the gods, and the people fell to their knees, bowing before their new pharaoh. Ramses looked out over them and smiled, not with the serene smile of his father, but with the sharp, hungry grin of a lion who had tasted blood. Yet at the edges of the great procession, hidden among the rocks and scrub two figures watched with eyes that did not see a new age of glory, but one of suffering. They were Aaron and Miriam, children born of Jokabed and Amram, the unknown siblings of the since exiled Prince Moses. Aaron's eyes were like flints in the dying light. He watched as the nobles raided before their new pharaoh, bowing and scraping like dogs waiting for scraps. Miriam clutched her tattered shawl around her thin shoulders, her lips moving silently in prayer, or perhaps in a curse. It was hard to tell. The years of toil had aged them both beyond their time.
00:12:22
Speaker 6: Did you see his eyes? They're as cold as stones? Said he was cruel, But this one, this one is ambitious. He will not be satisfied with what his father beat. You want more, you want everything.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: Aaron spat into the dust, a gesture of contempt but also of fear. Miriam's dark eyes were fixed on Ramsayes, who now stood at the head of the procession. The Hebrews had suffered under Cetti's rule, but there had been moments of peace, moments when the whip was lowered and the labour east. Ramses, though there was a hunger in him, a lust for power that went beyond the throne.
00:13:07
Speaker 5: Our burden will grow heavier.
00:13:09
Speaker 3: I feel it in my bones.
00:13:12
Speaker 5: He will use us until we break, and then he will grind our bones to dust to make more pitch. He is not a man who will be content with mere servitude. He will bleed us dry.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: What do we do.
00:13:28
Speaker 6: We can't fight him, we can't flee.
00:13:31
Speaker 3: Where do we turn?
00:13:33
Speaker 1: Miriam took a deep breath, her shoulders heaving with the weight of years.
00:13:43
Speaker 5: We turned to the god of our fathers, to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the god who promised us a land of our own. We've been here too long. Perhaps it is time we remember who we are and who we were meant to be.
00:14:00
Speaker 6: And we must tell others. Tonight. Will gather in the hills of Goshen. We'll pray, we'll cry out, and perhaps the god who spared Isaac will spare us two.
00:14:12
Speaker 1: As they turned away from the procession's fading light, Aaron felt a flicker of something deep within him, something like hope tempered with the hard edge of desperation. The burden was coming. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the desert sky. The days that followed Ramsay's ascent to the throne were like a lash upon the backs of the Hebrews. The sun beat down upon them with a cruel intensity, and the taskmasters, drunk on their new Pharaoh's ambition, drove the slaves harder than ever before. The whips cracked like thunder, and the cries of the afflicted fol the air. The hands of the heaps bled war from the endless toil. Each night, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the stars blinked awake, they would gather in the hills of Goshen, old men and young mothers with babes in arms, all drawn by a need for deliverance. Aaron would stand among them, his voice rising above the low murmies, his words like a forge hammer upon an anvil.
00:15:31
Speaker 6: Look at what they do to us, Look at how they grind us into dust, how they treat us like beasts of burden.
00:15:38
Speaker 4: But we are not beasts.
00:15:40
Speaker 8: We are the.
00:15:41
Speaker 6: Children of Israel, the children of Promise. We must pray like those who remember who they are.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: What's the use there? And God Most High has forgotten us? Maybe he's fallen asleep after all.
00:15:58
Speaker 5: These years let us shout to wake him. Do you not remember the stories of our fathers. Do you remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who led our father Abraham out of earth to the promised land. We must remember our birthright.
00:16:17
Speaker 1: And they would pray each night, their voices rising like a storm wind over the sands. Some called out with words of ancient songs. Others wept silent tears, but all of them felt the weight of their cries filling the heavens.
00:16:34
Speaker 6: Oh, God of our fathers, hear us, See the suffering of your chosen people. See how we are crushed beneath the heel of Pharaoh. Send us a deliverer, lift us out of this bondage.
00:16:53
Speaker 1: The people would cry out after him, voices mingling in a desperate chorus that echoed through the head. And as they prayed, the stars seemed to shine brighter, as if the heavens themselves were bending low to listen. But there was no answer, not yet, only the stillness of the desert night, and the distant, endless hiss of the nile flowed like the blood of a great wound. One night, after the prayers had ended, and the people began to drift back to their hovels. Miriam turned to Aaron, her face drawn with worry.
00:17:32
Speaker 5: How long, brother, how long must we cry out before God hears us? I fear for our people. I fear we are near the breaking point.
00:17:43
Speaker 6: A I don't know, Miriam, to be honest, I know very little about the God of our ancestors. I remember remnants of stories passed down. But who is he? When was the last time he spoke to us and moved for us? I don't even know. How can we honestly pray to him without without even knowing his name.
00:18:06
Speaker 1: In the weeks that followed, the burdens only grew heavier. The taskmasters seemed to delight in their cruelty and ramses. From his palace of marble and gold, decreed more monuments, more temples, more blood and sweat from the Hebrew's backs. The cries of the slaves grew more desperate, and every night in the hills their prayers rose like a whale, A plea, a demand. Songs for deliverance fell upon the dust and pitch they worked in. Desperately, they sang to their God, appealing the promises he made their ancestors. The stars above seemed fixed in their indifference, and the Nile flowed on, dark and unyielding. And yet in the hearts of Aaron and Miriam, a flicker of hope remained, For they knew that somewhere beyond the veil of the scene and the unseen, beyond the power of pharaohs and the gods of Egypt, there was a God who listened, a God who remembered. And somewhere in the desert, the sands began to shift.
00:19:26
Speaker 7: One day, my son came home from school with a storm of complaints. His teacher was boring, there was no time to finish his class work, Recess wasn't any fun. I could see right through his words that there was something deeper going on. There was a silent cry beneath all of that noise, something that was bothering him that wasn't just connected to his teacher. As his mother, I heard his words, but I saw what was behind them. I knew that there was something else. I called him over and I wrapped him in a hug. I felt his tension immediately ease. Our eyes met tell me, I said softly, and the damn broke. He started crying, and his trouble spilled out not about school, but about his hidden hurts. What he needed was me, his mom, to be there for him no matter what. What he needed from me was to realize it's not just about the things that make sense, schoolwork being overwhelming, his teacher being mean. What he needed from me his mom was an understanding of the heart and understanding that he's going through pain and not needing any words. That I was there for him to comfort him no matter what. God is the same way with us. We cry out to him, naming our surface troubles. We list our pains and our complaints, But you know what God.
00:20:48
Speaker 5: Sees behind them.
00:20:49
Speaker 7: He seems beyond them. He knows our true needs. He knows our hearts. In today's episode, the Israelites were suffering under Egyptian slaves, and their cries rose to heaven in Exodus two twenty five. The English Standard version says God saw the people of Israel, and God knew, but the Bible doesn't specify what God knew, just that he knew. I personally love that. It's like a mother who perceives her child's hidden hurts. God understood the depth of his people's pain. He knew it was time to act. He knew it was time to honor his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God knew the Israelites needed redemption, a closer bond with him. When you pray, my friends, remember this that God hears the words that you speak, but he also perceives the silent cries of your soul. God knows exactly what we need, even when we don't. The reason that I used the English Standard version for this passage is that it's the most literal translation. Let me read you verse twenty five again. Quote God saw the people of Israel, and God knew end quote. The end of the second verse is very strange. It says and God knew, but it doesn't finish that sentence God knew what? What exactly did God know? Doesn't it sound like this verse is a little bit unfinished well. Jewish tradition has many teachings on this very verse, but one interpretation that I clink to very closely is this. Everyone in Egypt saw the degradation of the enslaved chosen people on the outside. They heard their groans from the backbreaking work, they saw their blood flowing from the lashes of their taskmasters. But only God knew what was going on in the minds and the spirits of the Israelites, the destruction of their self image, their loss of hope of redemption, and is because God knew that that He decided now is the time for redemption from enslavement. Now that I see that they are starting to lose their hope, their self image, the faith that they will one day be redeemed, Now that that's being taken, now I need to redeem them this instant, this explanation has taught me so much. The Jewish people have been subjugated to persecution for millennia. Sometimes our spirits have been almost completely broken, but then we remember these three words, and God knew, and knowing that God knows our pain and is with us even right now here in the Holy lanthorn apart by war, as our enemies try so hard to break our spirits even now, I know that God will never let that happen. God knows our heart, God knows our spirit. God knows that we need redemption, and so in our hard times we can all hear those three words and God knew, and we can draw great hope from them that God knows exactly what we need. Does God hear us. Does he remember his promises? Does he care? My friends? I can tell you the resounding answer to these ancient Hebrew questions is a triumphant Yes. God hears the groaning of his chosen people. He is not a distant deity removed from the pain of his creation.
00:24:27
Speaker 5: His ears are.
00:24:28
Speaker 7: Attuned to the laments of the oppressed. This is a profound reassurance in our moments of deepest despair. We are not alone. Elohim, the God of our ancestors, is still with us. God remembers his covenant. The sacred promises made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are not forgotten. They are etched into the divine consciousness and enduring through generations. This assurance of divine fidelity gives us hope. God God is not capricious. He is steadfast honoring his word across the ages. Forever. God sees and cares. He is moved by the plight of his people. This is the God who is deeply involved in the human story, who sees our suffering and responds with compassion. This truth is a source of immense comfort and strength. As we reflect on Exodus two, we are reminded of God's unending faithfulness, He hears, he remembers, he sees, and he cares. In this we find our hope and our triumph. The God of Israel's a god who acts, who intervenes, who redeems. And in this truth, my friends, our hearts find rest.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: You can listen to the Chosen People with the Isle Exstein ad free by downloading and subscribing to the praton Co app today. This prey dog com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Gattina, Max Bard, Zach Shellabarger and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of the Chosen People with Yile Eckstein, edited by Alberto Avilla, narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton, Aaron Salvato, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwold, Sylvia Zaradoc and the opening prayer is voiced by John Moore. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Bree Rosalie and Aaron Salvato. Special thanks to Bishop Paul Lanier, Robin van Ettin, Kayleb Burrows, Jocelyn Fuller and the team at International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot Com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People with Yile Eckstein, please rate and leave a review.