Moses at War with the Magicians
A multifaith tale of serpents and wonders
When I was but a wee one, one of my favorite stories in the Bible was Moses’ staff turning into a serpent when he confronts Pharaoh’s sorcerers. I never failed to miss this whenever director Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston was on television. As a scene in the Book of Exodus, and thus the Torah, it also belongs to Judaism. Thanks to Testament: The Story of Moses on Netflix, a mediocre spectacle but admirably multifaith docudrama, I know that Moses also belongs to Muslims, and sure enough, there he is in the Quran, doing what I love:
“God said, ‘Moses, cast it down.’ So he threw it down, and all of a sudden, it turned into a fast-moving serpent.” (20:19–20)
This is a scene in which Moses approaches a fire, corresponding to the burning bush in the Bible, but Moses versus the magicians appears shortly thereafter, and he causes his opponents’ ropes and staves to appear to wriggle, presumably like snakes (20:66). No doubt wee ones in the Muslim world encounter this tale much as I once did, with wide-eyed wonder.
