t Moses. Campbell sees a direct line of descent to Moses from the patriarchs in the parallel between the personal stories of Moses and Jacob, both of whom are outcasts, both of whom marry daughters of desert nomads, and both of whom grow into great leaders of their people. Citing the interconnection of disparate original biblical texts that were combined to make one story, in the case of both Genesis and Exodus, Campbell continues:
Common to both tales are the lethal danger at home (associated with a relative: the brother Esau, the grandfather Pharaoh), flight into the desert, the bride at the well (associated with the number seven), and then servitude as shepherd to her father. In both stories, furthermore, the desert flight leads to a direct meeting with God and the reception of a great destiny.
Exodus itself makes specific reference to the patriarchs and the story of Moses, notably at the burning bush, when God reveals himself: "I am the God of your father . . . the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob," and again in Exod. 3.15-17, when God tells Moses to prepare the Israelites for departure from Egypt, in His name and His only. This entails departure from the polytheism into which they had fallen while in Egypt. The Ten Commandments are meant to codify once for all the break with a polytheistic past.
The clarity of the connection between Moses and the patriarchs is matched by the ambiguity of the context in which the commandment not to kill is given on Mt. Sinai. Not long before Moses receives the commandments at Mt. Sinai, the Israelites, led by Joshua, have a battle with the Amalekites, described as "an aboriginal people of southern Palestine and the Sinai peninsula." Joshua's army, aided by Moses's keeping his rod in the air for the duration, kill all of the Amalekites. After the Israelite victory, God tells Moses to record the incident and promises to obliterate the memory of the Amalekites, not only f...