103-108: A telling fairly consistent with the Hebrew account, until Moses puts his hand into his garment. Where Exodus says the hand was leprous, all translations of this verse render it "shining white" which makes more sense.
109-118: The only difference with the Hebrew account seems to be that the Egyptians' magic was an illusion, and Moses' real.
119-127: Another difference. In Exodus 7:13, Pharaoh hardened his heart against these miracles, leading to disaster for him and Egypt. But here there is an interesting moment where the Egyptian magicians sensibly submit to the superior power of Moses' رَبِّ. Only after threatened by Pharaoh with temporal punishment did they relent.
128-136: An interesting rush through possibly the most riveting part of this story: the ten plagues and the pursuit across the Red Sea. Here, it is framed as the mistake of seeing the good as deserved, and the bad as unjust.
137-142: A dizzying rush through the golden calf and the ten commandments.
143: Tempting to envision this, and the parallel account in Exodus, as a volcano. Also tempting to draw a metaphorical parallel with the eponymous heights, and perhaps also with Nietzche's mountain.
144-146: Perhaps a clue to the mystery of predestination: the trigger that causes the Divine to withhold its truth and harden hearts to the signs is mere arrogance.
147-151: Aaron surely dodged a bullet here and in the parallel accounts.
152-156: This supports the ideas in 144: repentance and humility go hand in hand.
157-158: The mention of "The Unlettered Prophet" through here is intriguing in that it is unclear to whom it refers. Moses? Christ? Muhammad? Presumably they are all reflections of the archetype.
159-162: All of this has the sense that the listeners were already familiar with the stories, from Exodus and elsewhere, and allusion was sufficient.
163-168: The story of Aylah and the Sabbath is not as canonical to modern readers, however, and I wish there was more. The idea of a test of devotion runs parallel to the idea of predestination. Taken with 131, blessings are as much a test of devotion as curses.
169-170: A justification for the removal of divine blessing from the Jews.
171: More evidence for a volcanic reading of 143.
172-174: Message->Signs->Test->Chance for Mercy->Judgement seems to be the pattern.
175-176: Eivdently there is some dispute about the reference here. Some take it to refer to Bal’am ibn Ba’ûrâ, but even if true there is little information about him.
177-179: the dilemma of predestination extends even to the spirit realm.
180-186: The only justifiable position is that this Divine misdirection is the last step in the process.
187-189: Hulusi reads a lot into these seemingly straightforward verses. How curious that it dovetails nicely with what I have been thinking about lately: the parallel between "gender" duality and the mind/thought relationship. To Hulusi, Adam is the mind and Eve the thought.
190-192: Presumably this is directed at the descendants of Adam and Eve, rather than the original pair. An argument can be made, however, that the original sin is the conflation of reality with the mind that thought it up.
193-198: More warning against the mistake of duality, the mistaking of the finger for the moon.
199-204: Wrapping up here. "Just . . . don't be a dick, okay guys?"
205-206: Be as the angels. Remember what you are, both divine in nature and minutely insignificant.
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