Christian Bale credited as playing...
Moses
- Moses: Who are you?
- Malak: Who are YOU?
- Moses: I'm a shepherd.
- Malak: I thought you were a general. I need a general.
- Moses: Why?
- Malak: To fight. Why else?
- Moses: Fight who? For what?
- Malak: I think you know. I think you should go and see what's happening to your people now. You won't be at peace until you do. Are they not people in your opinion?
- Moses: Who are you?
- Malak: I am.
- Moses: Where have you been?
- Malak: Watching you fail.
- Moses: Wars of attrition take time.
- Malak: At this rate, it will take years. A generation.
- Moses: I am prepared to fight for that long.
- Malak: I'm not.
- Moses: I thought we were making progress. Now you're impatient after 400 years of slavery.
- Malak: Am I the only one sitting here who's done nothing about it until now?
- Moses: I do know a few things about military action. Still, if you are not going to listen to me, then why did you take me away from my family?
- Malak: I didn't. You did.
- Moses: You don't need me.
- Malak: Maybe not.
- Moses: So what do I do? Nothing?
- Malak: For now, you can watch.
- [last lines]
- Malak: What do you think of this?
- Moses: [carving the stone tablets] I wouldn't do it if I didn't agree.
- Malak: That's true. I've noticed that about you. You don't always agree with me.
- Moses: Nor you me, I've noticed.
- Malak: Yet here we are, still speaking. But not for much longer. A leader can falter, but stone will endure. These laws will guide them in your stead. If you disagree, you should put down the hammer.
- [Moses continues carving]
- Moses: [In unison] I, Moses, accept you Zipporah,
- Zipporah: [In unison] I, Zipporah, accept you Moses,
- Moses, Zipporah: [In unison] ... to be no other than yourself. Loving what I know of you, trusting what I do not yet know, with respect for your integrity and faith in your abiding love for me. In all that life may bring us, I pledge my love.
- Malak: He's given you what you've asked?
- Moses: Not yet, but his own people are turning against him.
- Malak: And his army?
- Moses: It will.
- Malak: I disagree. Something worse has to happen.
- Moses: I disagree. Anything more would be...
- Malak: Would be what? What were you about to say? Cruel? Inhumane?
- Moses: It's not easy to see the people who I grew up with suffering this much.
- Malak: What about the people you didn't grow up with? What thought did you give to them? You still don't think of them as yours, do you? As long as Rhamses has an army behind him, nothing will change.
- Moses: Anything more is just revenge!
- Malak: Revenge? After 400 years of brutal subjugation! These pharoahs, who imagine they're living gods, they are nothing more than flesh and blood! I want to see them on their knees begging for it to stop!
- Moses: I'm tired of talking with a messenger!
- Malak: General! I have heard Rhamses' final threat. So let me tell you what's going to happen next.
- Moses: [after being told of God's plan to kill the firstborn of Egypt] No, no! You cannot do this! I want no part of this!
- Hegep: Do you know what the problem is? People live too long these days. Every year the death rate lags further behind the birth rate. And these people, they reproduce like it's a sport.
- Moses: This is the problem? A growing work force?
- Hegep: Oh, no. No, of course not, it's good for production, of course it is. But only to a point. When that population wants you dead, yes, it's a problem. So either I'm given more troops to maintain order, or I start thinning out the herd.
- High Priestess: [reading fowl entrails] In the battle a leader will be saved, and his savior will someday lead.
- Moses: [laughs] Then the entrails should also say that we will abandon reason and be guided by omens.