CECIL B. DeMILLE’S film classic The Ten Commandments, which featured Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner squaring off as Moses and Pharaoh, was originally hyped as “the greatest epic of all time.” The American Film Institute’s judgment is a bit more restrained, ranking it as the tenth greatest epic ever — or the third greatest up to the year 1956 when the movie was released, behind 1939’s Gone with the Wind and 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front.

Still, the hype is understandable. Movie-making has changed dramatically since then. We’ve been spoiled by films shot on location; movies shot on sound stages and studio backlots look a bit cheesy by comparison. We’re also used to seamless, computer-generated special effects. A believable burning bush or parting of the Red Sea is much easier now than it was then. By 1956 standards, therefore, the film was a remarkable, state-of-the-art achievement, and still very watchable.

Even the best of computer graphics and the largest, most immersive IMAX screen, however, wouldn’t begin to compare with the real thing. I personally cannot begin to imagine the massive scale of the events described in the book of Exodus. To begin with, consider the sheer number of Israelites who left Egypt. Here’s how Exodus 12 describes the crowd:

There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. (Exod 12:37-38, NIV)

If we take the number literally, and make a reasonable guess at how many women, children, and other people journeyed with the 600,000 men, the crowd could easily have been two million or more — plus all their livestock. When they reached the shore of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud moved behind them, screening them from the Egyptian army; how big did the cloud have to be? How wide was the path the Israelites walked on across the dry seabed, how high the waters?

Imagine, then, that you had been rescued from a life of slavery by miracles of that magnitude. How would you respond? With wonder and fear? With gratitude and loyalty to the God who made it happen? So one might expect. And that’s what happened — for a time. It didn’t take long, unfortunately, for the fear and gratitude to wear off.

AGAIN, THE THEME of Psalm 105 is the covenant faithfulness of God, the central instance of which is the miraculous escape from Egypt. The psalmist’s emphasis is squarely on what God did. The people’s response is barely mentioned, and what little is said is celebratory:

He brought out Israel, laden with silver and gold, and from among their tribes no one faltered. …He brought out his people with rejoicing, his chosen ones with shouts of joy… (Ps 105:37, 43)

Psalm 106, however, tells a different story. The psalmist’s recitation of history begins with a confession of sin, the first example of which is the people’s rebellion during the exodus:

We have sinned, even as our ancestors did;
    we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
When our ancestors were in Egypt,
    they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses,
    and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea. (Ps 106:6-7)

What kind of rebellion was that? Here’s how it’s described in the book of Exodus:

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exod 14:10-12)

God, of course, rescued them anyway, and as the psalmist notes, “Then they believed his promises and sang his praise” (Ps 106:12). Exodus 15 tells us that before both Moses and Miriam sang their songs of praise, the people looked back at all the dead Egyptians on the far shore and feared God. Did they therefore learn their lesson? Would they forever remember what God had just done on their behalf?

Sadly, no, as the very next verses of the psalm tell us:

But they soon forgot what he had done
    and did not wait for his plan to unfold.
In the desert they gave in to their craving;
    in the wilderness they put God to the test.
So he gave them what they asked for,
    but sent a wasting disease among them. (Ps 106:13-15)

The psalmist seems to be describing the events of Exodus 16 and 17, in which the people complained loudly to Moses and Aaron about the lack of food and water. The grumbling is reminiscent of what they said at the shore of the Red Sea:

If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death. (Exod 16:3)

The complaint makes it sound as if Moses had dragged the people kicking and screaming from an all-you-can-eat buffet. If only God had killed us there! they wail. Anything’s better than dying out here in the middle of nowhere. I take their words as exaggerated emotional rhetoric, as when people of our time get frustrated and say, “Just shoot me.” Still, it’s a faithless and ungrateful thing to say.

And not surprisingly, here’s Psalm 105’s sanitized version:

They asked, and he brought them quail;
    he fed them well with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
    it flowed like a river in the desert. (Ps 105:40-41)

Nothing about rebellion, grumbling, or ingratitude. Why? Because this psalmist’s point is to tell stories of the faithfulness of God. That too is the jumping off point for the author of Psalm 106 — but that psalmist needs to tell more of the story to remind the people of the necessity of faithful response.

I HOPE WE don’t read these stories and say, “Oh, those foolish Israelites!” — as if we could take it for granted that we would have done better. I’ve never been trapped between the sea and a hostile army, with no obvious means of escape. I’ve never watched my children go hungry and thirsty in the desert. Nor have I witnessed the kind of spectacular miracles, one after another, that they did. For me, these are things that only happen in the movies.

So I don’t want to shake my head dismissively at the cluelessness of the people. Rather, I have to ask myself: if it’s possible to witness such wondrous works of God and still respond with ingratitude, how much easier would it be for me to ignore or forget the faithfulness of God?