Defiant

What the Women of Exodus Teach Us about Freedom

Kelley Nikondeha

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781467458610
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

There would be no Moses, no crossing of the Red Sea, no story of breaking the chains of slavery if it weren't for the women in the Exodus narrative. Women on both sides of the Nile exhibited a subversive strength resisting Pharaoh and leading an entire people to freedom. Defiant explores how the Exodus women summoned their courage, harnessed their intelligence, and gathered their resources to enact justice in many small ways and overturned an empire. Women find themselves in similar circumstances today. The Women's March stirred the conscience of a nation and prompted women to organize with and for their neighbors, it is worth reflecting on the resistance literature of Exodus and what it has to offer women.

Defiant is about the deep work women do to create conditions for liberation in their church, community, and country. The women of Exodus defied Pharaoh, raised Moses, and plundered Egypt. We are invited to consider what the midwives, mothers of Moses, Miriam, Zipporah and her sisters demonstrate under the oppressive regime of Pharaoh and what it might unlock for us as we imagine our mandate under modern systems of injustice.

Kelley Nikondeha presents a fresh paradigm for women, highlighting a biblical mandate to join the liberation work in our world. Women's work involves more than tending to our own family and home. According to Exodus, it moves us beyond the domestic territory and into relationship with women across the river, confronting injustice and working to liberate our neighborhoods so all mothers and children are free. Nikondeha calls women to continue to be active agents in heralding liberation as we organize and march together for one another's freedom.

◆Chapter 1◆

TWELVE MEN, TWELVE WOMEN

The Nile River teemed with life. Fish shimmied through the waters—sleek tiger fish and silver perch, schools of tilapia, ribbon-like eels, and all manner of catfish, roaming the watery depths. Along the shores a lounging crocodile could be seen, and soft-shelled turtles, frogs, lizards, and even bulbous hippos gliding downstream. And birds—everywhere birds. You could see them in the air, flying toward the sun or scavenging closer to the water’s surface. The delta was a fertile place—even for the Hebrews.

Indeed, the first glimpse we get of this people group in the book of Exodus shows them as fruitful, multiplying and filling the land. The idyllic opening scene is a picture of the kind of life the Creator promised humanity back in the garden.

Joseph, brought by force as a slave many generations ago, had risen to prominence in Egypt. His strategic contributions to the imperial house had staved off a potentially dire food shortage amid famine in the region. Joseph’s successful management of the food crisis had opened the door for his father and brothers to migrate to Egypt with the pharaoh’s blessing.¹ This is how Israel’s family tree, chock-full of dreams, brothers, and forgiveness, took root in the Fertile Crescent. Or so the story goes.

After Joseph and his brothers died, the family lived on. As a matter of fact, they grew strong in their adopted homeland. The narrator of Exodus tells us that “the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.”² Packed in this single verse are seven words describing the dramatic and enduring increase of this family.³ No one listening to the story could mistake the clear signal of this sevenfold strength. The creation-level goodness manifests before our very eyes.

From Genesis to the opening scene of Exodus, creation continues with fertile force. With those creation notes sounding in Exodus 1:7—notes of fruitfulness, of teeming life, of land that is filled—we’re meant to be momentarily transported back to that lush garden where original shalom was established and all was right.

This is where the story of Exodus begins—not in a brickyard but in a garden. It’s not the backbreaking work, relentless quotas, and crack of the whip that set the scene. That will unfold soon enough. Instead, our first sighting of the Hebrews is edenic, with connotations of delight and goodness. Before we see their slavery, we see their humanity. Flourishing comes first.

While we’re reflecting on beginnings, it’s worth remembering that men and women, created in God’s image, possess the capacity for dominion. This means that each person can “exercise agency to steward God’s creation.”⁴ Lisa Sharon Harper notes that Genesis 1 “makes no distinction between the kind of dominion that males and females are called to exercise. There is only the call to exercise co-dominion, to steward the earth, to protect and serve the rest of creation together.”⁵ So from the beginning, women have agency to shape society, as do their male counterparts. Shalom is a joint endeavor.

Men are not intended to have one-sided dominion over women. Likewise, Egyptians are not meant to rule over Hebrews and deny them their God-given work of dominion. All peoples are equally created and tasked to shape their communities toward shalom. When one group oppresses another, the Exodus story demonstrates that men and women have a mandate to participate in liberation to restore shalom for all.

◆◆◆

If you are familiar with the book of Exodus, you know that I skipped the long string of names at the beginning. I began with the most verdant image, but let’s return to the first words of the story and listen to the logic of the narrator. The book begins, “These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob . . .”⁶ The narrator lists the names of the twelve sons of Jacob.⁷ These were the ones who traveled from Canaan to escape famine, the ones who settled in Goshen, the rich land to the east of the Nile River. And it is their progeny who are now living that shalom life under the Egyptian sun.

The names are important to the Israelites, but so is the number twelve. This is a number that carries the weight of tribal leadership, not just for Israelites but also for many of the regional powers. There were the twelve chieftains of Ishmael, the twelve sons of Nahor, and an Edomite league of rulers organized by twelve⁸—all leadership collectives in the denomination of twelve. So when the narrator starts with the twelve names of Jacob’s sons, we are seeing not only genealogy at work but also the leadership structure of Hebrew society. In accordance with ancient cultural norms, the list is made of all male names.

So our story proper starts with the names of twelve men. It is obvious that these men had mothers. Israelites would have known their names: Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah. These women gave birth to those twelve; they nursed them and raised them into men. Leah and Rachel died in Canaan. But it seems likely that Bilhah and Zilpah (along with the lone daughter, Dinah) sojourned into Egypt with Jacob. They are a part of the story, even if shrouded by patriarchy. So when I see the twelve names of their sons, I remember to say their names too.

As we circle back to Jacob’s family, consider that no increase would have been possible without the women. They conceived, gestated life in their bellies, gave birth, and raised these children. Mothers are a formative force in any society, whether they are part of the twelve names or not. So while their names are sidelined in history, I think of them as a vital part of the increase of the Hebrews. They are the women who’ve left an imprint on the story before we’ve even begun. The narrator has barely spoken a word, merely some names, and already we benefit from the contribution of women, who keep their families nourished and the fires burning in the cool evening hours by the Nile’s edge.

◆◆◆

A well-known fact in community development circles is that if you want to enter a community, you introduce yourself to the leader, most often a man. But if you want to learn how the community functions and tap into its life force, then make time to listen to the women. The key to transformation is found among the women. When my husband, Claude, and I began our work in Burundi, I didn’t yet fully grasp this fundamental truth.

In 2009, our fledgling development organization began work in the gentle green mountains of Matara, a rural commune about eleven miles from the capital city. Working with community leaders, we identified and invited thirty Batwa families to move to a new plot of land that would become theirs. On a hot June day, the men arrived from other provinces with little more than a single sack of essentials—all they owned, really. They surveyed the land and all the work that would need to be done to make it home and to bring about food security for their families sooner rather than later. It was daunting. One man gave up after a couple of days; another was out in a week’s time. But to their credit, the balance of the men got to work clearing land.

In the first week of July, their wives and children joined them. Again, they came with little in the way of possessions. For most of the mothers (they were all mothers), the bright-colored igitenge wrapped around their waist was the most valuable item they owned.⁹ As they entered the camp, I assumed they would cook and care for the children and maybe try to turn the tents into makeshift homes for their families. I thought they came too soon and would slow down the progress, burdening the men with additional worries as they worked. I knew next to nothing about development work, as my early assumptions revealed.

When I visited a couple of weeks later with Claude, I saw a winding ribbon of color in the distant field. As we walked down toward the action, I could hear the chatter. I began to see the women, wrapped in their ibitenge, swinging hoes over their shoulders into the dark soil. I counted twenty-two women laboring in the sun. Once we made it to the field, I noticed that many of the women had a baby strapped to their back. The next time I visited the women of Matara, I found them, again, in ribbon-like formation, planting cabbage. They pointed out where they’d just finished planting row upon row of carrots. They wore babies—and smiles.

I’m sure they were motivated to drop seeds and hasten the harvest—this would be the first time the bounty belonged to them. But their work ethic took me by surprise nonetheless. I’d never witnessed this kind of feminine labor force. My Batwa friends were educating me in the capacity and commitment of women. The fieldwork was only the beginning. In the coming seasons they would take leadership roles at the local school advocating for education; they would organize the harvest and food storage; they would try their hand at livestock (rabbits first, then chickens and pigs). They accomplished all this while caring for their husbands and children—and one another.

The women shaped their new society on the hills of Matara. It came naturally to them, or so it seemed to me as an observer. I mean no disrespect to the men; they were no slackers. But the daily contribution of the women was undeniable. Their efforts focused on family health and the well-being of their neighbors. With energy they attempted things and proved they were more equipped than I had known.

The original leadership committee established in Matara consisted of twelve men. We wanted the Batwa families involved in the direction and management of their community from the very beginning, so in keeping with local tradition, twelve men were selected. Eighteen months later, it was time for an election of new leaders. In the intervening months, the families had planted and seen their first harvest, the school-age children had attended the school across the road, and everyone was getting stronger with each meal and regular access to medical care. The families voted. They elected three men—and Leonie and Jacqueline.¹⁰ Despite a culture with a strong preference for male leadership, the women were obvious partners in the creation of this new home. Everyone saw it and affirmed it—including Claude and me.

This was the first time I walked in Eden. The land awash in hues of green I’d never seen before. Color-block fabrics moving in the golden sun, trees heavy with yellow banana clusters and blushing mangoes against a sapphire sky. Each step transported me. When we arrived, the women were singing, whistle trills punctuating their songs and babies still onboard. They danced, their bare feet pounding the ground like a drum. We were celebrating another anniversary together, another year in which, as François announced, “no one died.” Another year in which everyone ate, drank clean water from the local stream, and more babies were born. So many babies! I mention this because I don’t want you to miss it. This is what original shalom looks like—a collection of families fruitful and multiplying and filling their land. It’s men and women working together in creation goodness—and it is possible in Egypt or Matara or wherever you find yourself.

The Batwa tribe is a marginalized minority in Burundi, often subjected to harassment and humiliation at the hands of Tutsis and Hutus. Extreme poverty and discrimination were all these women knew. In her anniversary speech, Leonie positioned herself into a tiny ball, covered in a dirty, torn igitenge. Then she sprang up, dropping the tattered fabric to reveal her bright igitenge and radiant countenance. “Now I know I am human,” she announced. In the fields of Matara, she and her sisters discovered their humanity and their capacity. They awoke to their own agency and power to effect change—then they got to work. Without cracking open a single community development primer, these women schooled me.

◆◆◆

Watching the women of Matara helped me to recognize my own assumptions, shaped by American evangelical culture, that women are the side dish and not the main. We are gathered at the periphery, leaving plenty of space for men to take the spotlight. This was especially true in church, where men stood in the pulpit and made up the elder board and women were not allowed to serve even as deacons. The men cast the vision and led the charge while the women set the tables, brought the casseroles, and looked after the children. The message I got growing up was that women flourished in support roles.

American history books contain stories of women who changed society with their hard work and insistence on justice. The women of the suffrage movement clad in white, those active in the temperance movement, and those advocating for better housing and protections for children contributed to the formation of our nation. I can name the abolitionist Harriet Tubman of the Underground Railroad; Jane Addams, who started the settlement house movement in America along with other social work initiatives; Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement; and Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers in California. But I confess that these women, some of whom I studied during my school years, seemed to be extraordinary exceptions when it came to my own perception of women. No one told me that this kind of strength and determination was common to all women.

Witnessing the Batwa women challenged what I thought I knew about men and women and work. Their strength was a catalyst for my own concept of what is possible for women. Thanks to them, I saw the muscle in other women across the city of Bujumbura. They managed fruit stands by day and cooked and cared for children by night. They ran banks or factories or NGOs during the week and served in church on Sundays. I saw what the development manuals spoke of: the deep reliability of women and their capacity to transform communities. The women took their own lived experience, the joy and the suffering, and extracted insight about what needed to happen in their homes and neighborhoods. They used what was on hand, what spaces were available to them, and set about solving problems. From the stuff of their very life, they began to spin thread and stitch something good.

The mothers of Matara embodied a dynamic beyond the pages of any book, allowing me to contemplate for the first time the full dimension of women. They calibrated my vision to see the full potential of women in the church and in the community at large. I began to survey my own territory with a fresh lens, noticing women as never before. Women hold up half the sky—and I finally recognized it. Maybe that is why I could at last see the women of Exodus.

The Hebrew women operated in the shadows of the men, but now I was learning to see them. I no longer stopped at the list of twelve names. In Burundi, I looked beyond the long shadow cast by patriarchy and found women hard at work in their families and neighborhoods. They were holding together life. I even noticed it in my North American context for the first time. Women cooked, cleaned, and drove carpool—I knew as much. But then I saw...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Sarah Bessey
• Introduction
• 1. Twelve Men, Twelve Women
• 2. Shiphrah and Puah: Freedom through Disobedience
• 3. Jochebed: Freedom through Relinquishment
• 4. Bithiah: Freedom through Leveraged Privilege
• 5. Miriam: Freedom through Youthful Zeal
• 6. Mothers All: Freedom through Mothering
• 7. The Seven Sisters of Midian: Freedom through Solidarity
• 8. Zipporah: Freedom through Sacrament
• 9. The Nile Network: Freedom through Neighborliness
• 10. Descendants of Miriam Beating Out the Rhythms of Liberation
• Study Questions
• Acknowledgments
• Notes