Original subtitles

- [Narrator] The children of Israel were driven by famine

into the land of Egypt, where they prospered and grew.

The pharaoh of Egypt, fearing their numbers,

bonded them into slavery, yet still they multiplied,

so he ordered the killing of their newborn sons.

Now, one of these was saved from death,

and by good chance was brought up a prince of Egypt.

His name was Moses.

Prince Moses, in righteous anger,

killed a brutal Egyptian officer.

And lest he be punished for his deed,

he fled into the desert.

He came at last to the camp of Jethro,

whose daughter Zipporah, he married,

and there in exile he lived the lowly life of a shepherd.

Now, one day the voice of God spoke to him

out of a burning bush, ordering him to return

to Egypt and persuade the pharaoh to set free his people.

The pharaoh would not heed his words.

Then he heard the voice of God again,

promising that the power of the All High

would be imparted unto him and that

the pharaoh would be forced to relent.

(haunting music)

- Eliseba.

We're going.

(baby crying)

Shall we go?

(drumming)

(horns blaring)

- Whatsoever person desires to present

his petition to the most sacred majesty

of the Pharaoh Mernefta must do so as follows.

He must step into the sacred waters and thus be purified.

Thus purified, he may proceed to the royal shore.

(horns blaring)

(people shouting)

- [Petitioner] Free me from the burden of usury!

I have repaid...

Help me, he may be kind.

Beg your majesty's intercession!

- Pharaoh!

We humbly request that you accede to our petition

to go into the desert for three days to do sacrifice.

This is the express commandment of our Lord God

who otherwise will show his displeasure in many ways,

for the Lord God of the Israelites is a jealous God.

(horns blaring)

(drumming)

- Blood!

The water's blood!

Blood!

(petitioners screaming)

- Clever, Cousin Moses.

Very clever magic.

But no more magic than what my own magicians can do.

- [Minister] The inexplicability of these phenomena

must doubtless be attributed

to their presumably supernatural origin.

- No, that would be, my lords,

a somewhat unscientific approach.

- Approach by way of reality, by way of observation

and analysis, and never by way of theory.

- It is blood, then, not mud.

But whose blood?

- That is not to the purpose.

The substance behaved like blood,

smelled like it, tasted like it.

Whose blood?

That's not a question for the physical investigator.

- Yet the consequences would be the same

if it were mud, not blood?

- Yes, there are records of mud pollution of the Nile.

Followed by an immediate exodus of creatures

that live and breathe in clear water.

Swarms of frogs and gnats.

Inevitable.

We may expect flies, possibly locusts.

A murrain of cattle.

All stemming from the pollution,

by whatever cause, of water.

- But, my lord magician,

the blood is, shall we say,

a product of thaumaturgical conjuration.

- Mm.

Thaumaturgical, miraculous,

the term has never been clearly defined.

You know, we have to remember

that this perverse and affecting Moses is,

by upbringing and education, an Egyptian.

He has had access to obscure magical lore

which, in this age of stability and power,

has never had to be invoked against enemies.

To talk, as some do, of the magical potency

of a new god, a god of an enslaved people, moreover,

is to say the least premature.

- Look, look, look, look, eh?

See?

God keeps us unscathed and wholesome,

while the Egyptians scream.

(frogs croaking)

(baby crying)

- How do you explain that the Israelites

remain totally immune from these nuisances?

- The reason may be geographical.

Pithom is some way from the Nile.

Sheltered, removed from the causative pollution.

(flies buzzing)

How dark it is getting.

(locusts wings hissing)

(people screaming)

- Use your own eyes.

The signs are before you.

How can you still have any doubts?

Oh, it's hard to take in, I know.

We're a weak people, enslaved, indolent, hopeless.

But the God of the universe has chosen us.

- Chosen for what?

- For the working out of His divine purpose

on Earth, so it seems.

And what we must do now is to prepare for the day,

the day of leaving our bondage.

- But this bondage is the only thing that we have.

- We are old, and it is hard to face a new life.

- He's a hard God.

We must learn to think of ourselves as a people.

Many of us will be discarded on the way, worn out, useless.

We who start this journey may not be those that finish it.

But we're all one, and the dead and the yet unborn

all share in this common purpose, this common goal.

- I don't like this talk, Aaron.

It's all blown-up words.

We are too old for this talk of common whatever it is,

purposes and goals and endless journeys.

- How can you speak like this when the Lord

has shown himself on our behalf?

Does this mean nothing?

- It means that we are the chosen people.

It means that we must face the desert

and dream of the promise.

It means...

Is it blasphemous to wish to be left alone?

- [Narrator] The Lord God did not cease

to smite the Egyptians with plague and misery.

The locusts ate of the green of the land, and the cattle

were stricken with pestilence, even unto death.

And the people were stricken with boils, running sores.

And it was beyond the skill of the physicians

of the pharaoh to cure them.

- I have tried to understand.

Have the gods failed him?

He has done more for the gods than they

could reasonably expect to be done.

- To count the bricks in one pyramid alone would take years.

What has gone wrong?

- [Narrator] The land was a land of dry bones.

- [Attendant] 117,567.

That is the latest computation, Divine Majesty.

- I'm not greatly interested in numbers.

It is not flesh and bone and possession that we lose.

It is the heart of the empire.

It is the central idea.

- Majesty.

You cannot so easily ignore the suffering of your subjects.

- If I may say this, our friend is distraught.

He has lost both a wife and a daughter.

- He can have another wife within a day,

another daughter within a year.

Let us quieten our hearts.

Let the brain speak.

Listen.

This is the greatest empire the world has seen,

perhaps the greatest it will ever see.

Our cities are crammed with all manner

of merchandise, our ships sail all the known seas,

our towers kiss heaven, our armies shake the earth.

We prosper.

We prospered.

At the very core of our empire lies a truth.

Or, shall I say, a belief

that has long been taken for truth.

It is the belief that the ruler of the empire

has been appointed by the gods themselves.

A pharaoh is the issue of their flesh.

But now the gods seem to turn against their own flesh.

Starvation, disease, dissension,

distrust of authority.

Why?

Why?

Can the changeless gods change?

Can the eternally strong grow weak?

Can a new god appear from nowhere

and overthrow the tables of the eternal?

- Your Divine Majesty has touched upon

an interesting, indeed compelling, theological point.

The gods

are the gods.

Eternal, self-created, subsisting out of time.

There are no new gods, but one old god,

long removed from the concerns

of the Egyptian state, has been contoured.

You know which god.

You know by whom.

- You take us back to an old time.

A time when the false belief in a single god

possessed many of the most subtle and high-placed Egyptians.

You refer to Moses.

This belief has come back and has attached

itself to a race of slaves.

- It is logical.

Will the slaves willingly embrace

the gods of their masters?

These questions, as I've said,

are of immense theoretical interest.

But the problem now--

- It is a simple matter, Majesty.

The devotees of the god ask

that they may do sacrifice to him.

It would be a mark of kingly clemency to grant.

- To be forced to grant?

To be impelled to grant?

- Only three days, Majesty.

- With guarantees of return.

- Guarantees?

(dogs barking)

(knocking on door)

- [Egyptian Woman] Open!

Open!

I know there is someone in there.

- Open.

- Give me some water.

More.

Take it.

Take it.

Go from Egypt.

We are all dying.

Go.

- Huh.

It's a new thing for the Israelites to be feared.

- We were always feared.

If the Egyptians had merely destroyed us,

our memory would still have been feared.

There are many dead nations that crawl

out of their ashes, but they brought us low.

They made us despised.

And the fear, how is it expressed?

They try to bribe us into leaving.

Into sneaking out in the dark.

- I should of course be happy

to take care of that side of the operation.

We need such resources.

And there is no need to wait to be given.

One may take.

There are a number of fine villas abandoned.

Deaths, a plague.

I knew some of the victims well.

Through...through my position, of course.

They're well served now.

God curses them.

- Potter has his craft.

So does the builder.

So has the maker of songs.

The Lord has his craft too.

And it may be called a dance of numbers.

So far He has smitten Egypt seven times.

Rivers of blood.

Flies.

Frogs.

Gnats.

The cutting down of the sheep and cattle.

The curse of the teeth of the locusts.

And now the plague.

The making of the world was a dance of seven.

Bringing low of Egypt will be a dance of 10.

In the heart of the pharaoh, there is some kind of a dance.

The heart must soften, then harden, then soften.

Then harden for one last time.

Then, like a stone, it will crack, it will shatter.

And Egypt will shatter with it.

- Strange, a dancing god.

A god of the young.

What stops our dancing out of Egypt now?

The Egyptians are demoralized.

They could never stop us.

- Yes, yes, why the delay?

- We need the delay.

We must prepare our order of march.

We must take with us all of our possessions.

Our cattle, our carts, our supplies of grain and water.

Then there will be the problem of the sick

and the unwilling, the cries of those who would

last out their days here in Pithom.

Women with child.

And then there is the question of unifying the clans,

of creating degrees of leadership.

- [Joshua] And the question of arms, defense,

and the training of our army.

- That too, Joshua.

- Let us not forget the treasury.

- Gods of justice, drive out the unjust god.

Remove the curse laid on my people.

Restore us to health, god all-powerful, god all-merciful.

- [Priest] Gods be merciful, gods be merciful.

- We come again, King Mernefta,

to ask that we be released from our--

- Have you no respect for our religion, Cousin Moses?

We are doing holy work.

We are trying to avert these inexplicable

nuisances from the innocent Egyptian people.

- Not inexplicable, not innocent.

- Very well, then.

Our sentiments are tainted

by the presence of the unbeliever.

Go.

- Do we have an answer, sir?

May we take an answer back to our people?

- Are you pleased with your power, cousin?

Does it satisfy you to have impaired,

even destroyed, this great flower of order?

You want me to bow down to a god

who is the enemy of the state?

Without the state, we are nothing, any of us.

Order, beauty, majesty,

the unbroken chain of rule.

To destroy the state is to betray us

to those windy voices out there in the desert.

Do you want to see Egypt become broken stone,

lizards sunning themselves on broken stone?

- You cannot maintain order on...

- Ah!

You have recovered your voice.

- On slavery.

- What slavery?

Any slavery?

Or the slavery of your people?

Will you not have your highest and your lowest

when you shape your dream kingdom?

Will you not build your own pyramid?

- Sir, we need an answer.

- Be silent, little man.

I'm talking to your better.

- We will build

on the covenant.

On the bond freely embraced.

The contract between man and man.

- High talk in a land you've turned into a charnel.

I cannot stand your smell much longer.

You had better go.

- May we have a scribe called in?

Let this be written down and stamped with the royal seal.

- The word of the pharaoh, Moses.

You may go into the desert

and perform your sacrifice.

I have, may the gods forgive me, spoken.

- You have not finished, Majesty.

- What have I not said?

Ah, yes.

The men may go and do a sacrifice to the god of destruction.

The women and children shall remain behind.

As this is a kind of war, Cousin Moses,

shall we call them hostages?

- The heart of the pharaoh is hard.

You have not seen enough signs.

You have not suffered enough.

- [Narrator] And the Lord said unto Moses

take up a handful of the dust of the earth

and hurl it into the sky.

(thunderclap)

(wind howling)

(suspenseful music)

(people crying)

- Why is my horse dying?

Will you let my horse die?

- The orders are that you leave Egypt

and go into the desert, there to conduct your sacrifice.

- And the women and children?

- The women and children are to go with you.

You expect something more?

There is nothing more in my instructions.

- Nevertheless, we will wait.

- Look.

Here it is written clear.

Why can you not go?

- Why can they not go?

They cannot go because they know there is something more.

What is the something more, hm?

You, Aaron.

His voice.

What is it?

- We are to go to the desert for three days to do sacrifice.

In the middle of the month of Nisan.

Men, women, children, our beasts, our goods.

- No.

You have eaten of the bread of pharaoh

and have drunk of his wine.

For three days, you will neither eat nor drink.

You will go forth to fast and do sacrifice.

And then you will return.

And your beasts will bleat and bellow a welcome home.

Your pitiful goods will lie snug, awaiting you.

This is the contract.

That the god cease his torments,

that you go forth for three days.

- This will not do.

- The covenant we made has long been broken.

There is no further bond between us.

When we leave this land, we leave as free men,

taking with us our wives, our children,

our sheep, our oxen, our goods.

Not the paring of a nail will remain in the land of Egypt.

Not a hair or a scale from the skin of a beast.

- You go forth naked, you return naked.

- Your heart is still hard against the Lord

and the servants of the Lord.

There is one last trial yet to come.

It will not fall directly on your head.

You will live to see the Israelites

leave the land of Egypt, but this one last trial

yet to come will be the most terrible trial

in all the world for you,

unless you

let our people go.

- Moses.

Moses.

Why do I not kill you?

Why do I not thrust in this sword myself?

The orders stand.

Go now.

I wish never to see your face again.

- So be it.

(wind blowing)

(peaceful music)

- The angel of death.

Who shall describe him or her?

Like a trained hound of the Egyptian hunters,

he carries the scent in his nostrils.

He will follow the scent.

He will follow the scent to the firstborn.

- You were told this?

- It's the last thing.

Tenth figure of the dance.

Four days from now, the night of the 14th day of Nisan.

The nose and the teeth of the angel of death

will dart straight for the firstborn.

Be it Egyptian or Israelite.

There'll be no nice distinction.

Even the firstborn whelp of the bitch's litter.

The first hatchling of the hen.

He will follow the scent.

- Our firstborn?

Ours?

- Don't be afraid.

We have a secret.

We shall put him off the scent.

- With your loins girded, your sandals on your feet,

your staff in your hand.

So says the Lord, for the time is with us.

And you shall eat the flesh of the lamb,

roasted and in haste, and the bread you eat with it

shall be unleavened bread, for it must be

a bread of haste with no time for the leavening.

And you shall season your meat

with bitter herbs, that the bitterness of the exile

shall be in your mouths at the very door of the exodus.

Kill the lambs now, and pray as you kill.

For you kill in the name of the Lord's passover.

And on the doorposts and on the lintels of your houses,

daub some of the blood as a sign.

- But why?

- As a sign, he said.

- A sign of what?

- Just a sign.

It's a good game.

- It shall be called Passover.

For tomorrow we pass over from death to life.

And this strange supper tonight

is a ceremony to remind us who we are and what we are.

And we shall eat the lamb.

It will be as an offering to the Lord,

who will lead us in this passing over from death to life.

♪ Israel

And it shall be called Passover till the end of time

to mark the hour of his passing over.

It's a terrible thing.

A terrible burden.

And the burden's just beginning.

- The silence strikes.

It is like a new noise.

- He is coming.

God help them, he's coming.

(dogs howling)

(wind howling)

(dog whimpering)

(people screaming)

- For the safety of the house and all within it,

may the first nameless who guards the doors of the eyes

be doubly watchful.

May the second nameless, who sits in the doorways

of the ears, be aware of the rustling and breathing

of the maligned intruder.

- See him smile?

- [Magician] May the third nameless, who lives suspended

in the air of the nostrils...

- [Mernefta] No evil threatens him.

- [Magician] Smell out the evil of him who approaches.

- [Mernefta] He is happy.

- [Magician] With the intent...

- [Mernefta] My precious.

- [Magician] The vapors of the night...

- No harm shall come to him, no.

For he is my precious.

(woman screaming)

Be quiet!

What was that?

- A servant.

The firstborn of a servant.

- Nothing shall.

Nothing shall.

Stand 'round us with your torches.

Burn your incense.

Say your prayer, say it!

- Gods of the seven worlds, hear us.

Hearken, that the word of your seven

be sweet in the ear of the guardian of the living.

Let no evil touch your servant this night.

Let the dark be beneficient, for the vapors of the night

like the balm of the morning.

Let the souls of the evil dead sleep

and be unenticed by the smell of the smoke.

Let thy...

(suspenseful music)

(people screaming)

- What do I do now?

Beg you to comfort him on his passage

through the tunnels of the night?

Beseech you to remember that he is of your divine flesh,

and to restore him to the light,

where he is

needed?

Or do I see you already as very hollow,

very weak, impotent.

A sham.

Am I born too early or too late?

Does heaven remake itself?

Has the dominion passed over once again

to that single god who was

neither sun nor moon,

but the light of both?

In your eyes, there is nothing.

Your head is the head of a bird.

Rise up.

Go forth from among my people,

both you and the people of Israel, and go.

Serve the Lord as you have said.

Take your flocks and your herds

and bless your freedom.

Begone!

And bless me also.

Me also.

(shofar echoing)

(crowd talking)

- Yes, yes, and you too.

Go on, hurry up.

You want a lot of water, girl.

You all right with the baby?

Finally, good.

Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.

- These young boys.

These young boys.

- [Judah Leader] The house of Judah.

- [Levi Leader] Tribe of Levi.

- To the east!

- To the east!

- To the east!

- The promised land!

- [Man] Don't admire him too much, my dear.

- Treasure, huh?

These need personal care.

- [Man] This harness is loose, I'll come later.

- What is that?

- What?

- What are you doing with that?

- I'm just taking care of the treasury, that's all.

- You are stealing.

- I'm not stealing.

If you don't want me to do it, I won't do it.

- I saw you stealing!

(celebratory chanting music)

- [Aaron] All of you, get your men

and help the poor people going up the bank.

- [Benjamin Leader] Tribe of Benjamin, follow me.

- [Judah Leader] The house of Judah.

(celebratory chanting music)

(slow drumming)

(celebratory chanting music)

- It's quiet, isn't it?

- Not quiet in the other mud pits.

He should never have done it.

- Shh.

You never know who's listening.

- But it's true.

The Nubians, the Berbers, the Greeks,

they all want to go into the desert

to do sacrifice to what they call their gods.

That's why he should never have done it.

- Shh.

Of course, it could all have been a coincidence.

The plague, I mean.

The flies, the locusts, and so on.

And I don't believe that about the blood.

- The river, you mean?

- Yes.

- But it was blood.

- Mm, did you smell it?

Taste it and see it congeal?

- Well, no, but

my brother-in-law saw it.

- Yeah.

- And he said it was as red as any blood

he'd ever seen in a slaughterhouse.

- Yeah, it was all

against nature.

It was as if nature had gone wrong.

And then these...

They took advantage of it.

They didn't cause it, oh no.

But they pretended they did.

Huh.

Cunning.

And their not being here is against nature too.

- What do you mean?

- It's against nature not to have slaves.

I mean, how do you get things done without slaves?

You've got to have slaves.

It stands to reason.

(wind howling)

- Child, child, come here.

- [Man] Down, get down!

Get down!

- [Woman] Keep together!

Let's all keep together!

- You see how the wind drives the pillar of cloud before us?

God's sign that He's with us.

God works through everything.

He works through the smoke and the rain

and the dust of the desert.

He works through that pillar of cloud.

All we have to do is follow Him.

- Follow?

Where to?

- To the promised land, where else?

- I hope you know where it is.

- [Minister] The shock to the people

has naturally been profound.

It is manifested in a slow, numbing illness of doubt.

- The whole concept of the monarchy

is inevitably in jeopardy.

Since there seems, in the eyes of the common people,

to have been a withdrawal of divine power.

- The riots have been contained, Divine Majesty.

There has been bloodshed.

A little, not much.

- Yes, yes, yes.

Yes.

And of course the great evil has already

turned into a vague dream.

Except among

the bereaved.

- Wounds heal.

- Anger does not heal.

Nor hatred.

What is to be done?

- The pharaoh, out of his divine clemency,

granted the request of the Israelite workforce

that they be permitted to sacrifice

to their god in the desert.

The period of leave requested was three days.

- How many days have they been out of Egypt?

- Five, your Divine Majesty.

- So we bring them back.

Nothing could be simpler.

(people shouting and screaming)

- Why did you take us out of Egypt?

Why couldn't you leave us alone?

- We were happy there!

- [Man] At least we didn't starve!

- You shall have meat to eat in the evening.

And in the morning, bread to the full.

(horses galloping)

(dramatic music)

- We acknowledge you as our undoubted leader.

- I am not your leader.

The Lord is your leader.

I am only a servant.

Never forget the Lord.

A miracle, I suppose, is

something you need happening when you need it.

- Promised freedom.

Promised land.

Promised milk and honey.

We can do without the milk and honey.

(man shouting)

- It's there.

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

♪ Israel