Exodus 8:21-23
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
21 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Go sacrifice to your God within the land.” 22 But Moses replied, “It is not right to do so, for what we sacrifice to the Lord, our God, is abhorrent to the Egyptians.[a] If we sacrifice what is abhorrent to the Egyptians before their very eyes, will they not stone us? 23 We must go a three days’ journey in the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord, our God, as he commands us.”
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- 8:22 Perhaps Moses is deceiving the Pharaoh much like the “God-fearing” midwives (1:16–20), although ancient historians writing about Egypt some time after the period in which the exodus is set do note Egyptian prohibitions on sacrificing cattle or slaughtering sacred animals. As such, the Egyptians might well have fiercely resented certain sacrificial practices of the Israelites. Certain animals were held sacred in Egypt, as the representations of various deities.
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