Preliminary thoughts on Exodus 2005 January 18 for February 8^th

Most of the Bible stories you learn in Sunday School come from the Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John or from Genesis. (Well, OK, the stories of David come from the books of Samuel which we'll get to later, but in Sunday School you don't learn everything about David!) A few come from Exodus including some of the big ones, the institution of the Passover and the Ten Commandments. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and in this second one, Exodus, we start to get into the autobiographical parts, the stories that he lived, led, and now recounts firsthand.

This is where we transition from cosmology and ancestry to large crowd behavior, regulation, and "just war." Moses, as we will see, grew up as a prince of Egypt, the superpower of the day, but his life took some severe and unexpected turns and before he was finished he had he done time as a shepherd out in the same wilderness that we've become familiar with from following Abraham and Jacob around. In Moses' third forty years (yes, age 80-120) he became the first major leader of the nation of Israel and the founder of much of the basis for what we today consider proper law. For all this, he gives God credit, casting himself as hardly worthy or capable otherwise.

As the story continues, we will begin to see and attempt to distinguish between God, Moses, and expediency, that is, rules and customs for the sake of sanity on long treks through the desert with about a million of your closest friends and relatives. The word "exodus" itself means departure, en masse. Recall that we left the people of Israel who had arrived under Joseph and his father Jacob as about seventy people, growing rapidly in the land of Goshen, and that the bones of Joseph were lying in a coffin with a shipping tag that said, "Back to the land of my fathers." This is the story of their return to that land.

Exodus 1 - 2 2005 January 19 for February 9^th

From the seventy descendants of Jacob who came to Egypt under Moses, a nation developed. They multiplied so much that the land was full of them. The Egyptians didn't like this.

We know from the account in Genesis that the Egyptians didn't like the Hebrews from the beginning. This is not the original racism but does seem to indicate that racism is an ubiquitous part of the human condition. Now, due to their large numbers, the Egyptians were also afraid of them. They were afraid that they would join their enemies and attack and leave the country.

In order to prevent this, they put taskmasters over them and made them do forced labor to build "store cities" for Pharaoh. This did not stop the growth or spread of the nation, however. More afraid, the Egyptians turned up the heat and made their labor even worse. This was done under the leadership of a new Pharaoh who did not know about Joseph. Not much corporate memory here.

When the growth continued, the Pharaoh called in the two midwives who worked with the Hebrews, Shiphrah and Puah, and told them to kill any babies born who were boys. These women were afraid, however. It says they feared God (more than Pharaoh apparently) and would not kill any babies. Pharaoh eventually noticed and took them to task about it. They made up a story. "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

It says that God rewarded the midwives for this life-saving deception by giving them families of their own.

Pharaoh then changed the order, "Every boy that is born you must throw into the river, but let every girl live." At this point in history, race must have been considered a property of the father. Presumably, the girls were allowed to live because they could be assimilated by marriage or servitude into Egyptian society, in part because women were property of and subject to their husbands. By the same argument, boys could not be assimilated. These are still active concepts in the Middle East where quite often someone threatens to kill all the males of some enemy, like United States citizens.

In this environment, a Hebrew couple had a son. The mother hid the son for three months, but when it became impossible to conceal him anymore, she carefully made a boat, put him in it, and set it in the Nile. She had followed the order to throw a male baby in the river, quite gently.

Pharaoh's daughter was bathing downstream and when the little boat floated by she and her attendants heard a baby crying and investigated. She realized that this was a Hebrew child, but decided to keep him for herself.

The baby was, of course, Moses, and his sister had been following along watching all this happen. She approached the princess and asked if she could find some Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. The princess agreed. We are not told if this was the plan all along, a leading from God, or a sudden inspiration. Whatever the case, Moses' sister went and got her mother who then nursed him, now legally, until he was old enough to bring to the palace and hand over to be the woman's legal son. Moses then grew up as a prince of Egypt.

He must have known that he was Hebrew, however, because one day after he was grown he was out watching the Hebrews struggling under forced labor and noticed one of those particularly hard taskmasters (that we talked about previously) beating a Hebrew slave. Moses, thinking no one was watching, murdered the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. Next day, he was trying to break up a fight between two Hebrews and one of them challenged him about this, "Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?"

What's worse, Pharaoh heard of this and wanted to have Moses killed. Moses fled the country and went to a place called Midian.

There was a shepherd there, Reuel, who had seven daughters. These women were out tending the sheep and found Moses, who helped them do the watering. When they reported this to their father, he told them to invite the "Egyptian" in. At length (presumably) Reuel gave his daughter Zipporah to marry Moses, who had agreed to stay and live with the family. They had a son named Gershom ("alien"). Moses was homesick to think that in this land where he had settled and started a family he was still an alien.

The old Pharaoh died, a new one was seated and the Israelites cried out from the slavery all the more. God noticed.

Exodus 3 2005 January 20 for February 10^th

One day, Moses was tending his father-in-law's sheep when he noticed something strange nearby, a bush that was burning but didn't burn up. He went over to have a look. When he did, God noticed and spoke to him. God told Moses not to come any closer, that the ground where he was standing was holy, and that he should take off his shoes. Moses did all this and listened.

God then began an unusual speech. He has seen and heard what was going on with his people in Egypt and he planned to rescue them from their suffering, bringing them up to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. This is roughly where they had come from, the land God had promised to Abraham. In order to carry this out, he ordered Moses to go to Pharaoh and lead Israel from there to here.

Moses demurred, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Big claims need big proof. God said that he would go with Moses and the sign that he was doing this would be that, after it was all over, the nation of Israel would worship right back here on this very mountain.

God seems to have no sense of causality in these instances, or maybe this promise is not intended as any kind of proof. When you've gone to Egypt, sold the Israelites on the plan, confronted Pharaoh, and led the people across the wilderness, you will know that God has been with you the whole time because you are back here worshipping. For me this is evidence that God lives outside of the constraints of linear, constant, past-to-future travel through time that we created beings suffer. It's all the same to him, but it's sure not all the same to us!

In any case, Moses, still having trouble like any reasonable four-dimensional being who was constrained to live the dimension of time in one direction with very little foresight does not challenge this, to his credit, he asks God's name so that he can refer to it when he speaks to God's people. The answer, "I am who I am. I AM has sent me to you." This, by the way, is the name of God that is not to be taken in vain. This is the name that God is always to be known by, "I AM." Further, he identifies himself to Moses as being the very God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He reiterates the instruction to go to Egypt, assemble the elders and the people, and bring them out to the specified land. He said that the elders would listen to him and that they were to say that they were taking a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to God. He also said that the king of Egypt would resist this and that great miracles, performed by God, would be necessary to get him to agree to such a departure. He also said that the people of Egypt would be friendly to their Hebrew neighbors on the way out, giving them jewelry and valuables on the way out, such that the Israelites would "plunder" the Egyptians. No mention is made of whether they would return after this three-day trip. Of course there is no intention to return. Perhaps there is also no intention to deceive through this omission.

Exodus 4 2005 January 21 for February 11^th

The call of Moses continues. Whereas some who are called by God get a few words and are expected to obey, Moses gets a chapter and a half of dialogue. Perhaps this is because he didn't have the Bible and had no firsthand experience with God before this. We don't know the latter, however.

Moses continues, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you'?" Moses clearly knows people. God, now very accommodating of the role of causality in human consciousness, provided a couple of demonstrations. In the first he directs Moses to throw his staff down on the ground. When he does, it becomes a snake until Moses picks it up again. In the second he puts his hand in his cloak and when he pulls it out it has leprosy until he puts it back again. God claimed, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may believe the second." If they believe neither, he is to take some water out of the Nile and pour it on the ground. It would become blood!

Armed with all of this, Moses now claimed that he was not a good public speaker. God said, "Who gave man his mouth? … Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." Moses, who apparently liked his current job then just said plainly, "Lord, please send someone else to do it."

God would not take "no" for an answer, however, and became angry. He said, 'Look, your brother Aaron is a good public speaker. He is on the way to see you and will be glad when he does. I will send you both, you will be in charge and he will be the spokesman.'

'Oh, and don't forget that staff, you'll need it for the miracles,' said God.

Moses went and asked leave of his father-in-law to go back to Egypt and see if any of his own people in Egypt were still alive. It doesn't say whether he mentioned anything about leading a nation out of slavery while he was there. Jethro's gave his blessing. Moses loaded up his family and headed south.

God told Moses that the people who wanted him dead in Egypt were now dead themselves and then gave more direction. When Moses got to Egypt, Pharaoh would not listen to him; God would "harden his heart". Moses would do all the miraculous signs but eventually God would make a demonstration by killing Pharaoh's firstborn son before he would allow Israel, God's firstborn son, to go to the desert to worship.

Now we come to a strange paragraph in the narrative. At the hotel on the way to Egypt, God is about to kill Moses! Zipporah took a knife and circumcised Gershom right there, throwing the foreskin at Moses feet. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said, speaking of circumcision. God then left Moses alone.

No more is said about this. Speculating, it looks like there may have been a family disagreement about whether to circumcise their son or not. Maybe they just hadn't ever gotten around to it. After all that persuading for Moses to even go on this mission, it is interesting that God would take this so seriously as to threaten to kill him.

Next, and this is a little also confusing, God spoke to Aaron (who we thought was already on the way) and told him to go out and meet Moses, which he did, at "The Mountain of God." Maybe this is just out of order. Maybe something is lost in the translation from Hebrew. Moses told his brother about all that had happened and what they were about to do. In Egypt, they gathered the leaders of Israel and performed the signs. The leaders believed and bowed down and worshipped the God who was concerned about them enough to send this Moses. They did the demonstration for the people and they also worshipped.

Exodus 5: 1 - 21 2005 January 24 for February 14^th

At this point it gets ugly. Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh with the demand of "I Am" the God of the Israelites said, "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert."

Pharaoh said that he didn't know this God of the Hebrews and would not let anybody go anywhere.

Moses and Aaron said that their God had met with them and told them to do this or they might be stricken with plagues or war.

Pharaoh retorted that all this nonsense was just taking the multitude of people away from their work. He gave orders that the Israelites, who had heretofore been given straw to put in their clay compound that they made bricks from, would have to make the bricks with straw that they gathered themselves, and without any reduction in quota. This led to a crises in the workplace. Hebrews spread out all over Egypt to collect straw wherever they could, without any of the Egyptian transportation conveniences. The brick teams feel behind two days in a row. Hebrew foremen were being beaten by the Egyptian foremen and appealed to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh said, "Lazy, that's what you are -- lazy! That is why you keep saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.' Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks."

They knew they were in trouble. They found Moses and Aaron and cursed them, "May the Lord look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his servants and have put a sword in their hand to kill us."

Suddenly the planned festival was no picnic, it was a matter of life and death, and the Israelites were already down two outs and two strikes.

Exodus 5:22 - 7:5 2005 January 25 for February 15^th

Moses went back to God to discuss this setback, echoing the complaint that everything he had done so far had done nothing but bring more trouble on the people.

God replied that he hadn't really started yet, and that Israel would indeed leave Egypt due to God's power. Further, although he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and had appeared to them, they had not known him by his name, as Moses now does. The people would leave bondage and Egypt and would belong to this named God in a new place.

Moses reported this back to the people who ignored him, being discouraged due to the increased cruelty. God then told Moses to go back to Pharaoh and repeat the demand. Moses, himself discouraged, said "Why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with uncircumcised lips?"

At this point we take a break to establish the genealogy of Moses and Aaron. In a long list of the sons of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, we find that Levi lived to be 137, and his sons were Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Kohath had a son Amram who married a woman named Jochabed and himself lived 137 years. Amram and Jochabed were the parents of Moses and Aaron. Aaron married a woman named Elisheba. The family lists are bracketed in statements declaring that this was the same Moses and Aaron to whom God spoke about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.

As an aside, one of my consultants points out that numbers have a different meaning to these Hebrews than they do to us scientists and accountants of today. Indeed, they use the same ciphers as letters and so sometimes numbers are also words. The fact that Levi and Amram both lived 137 years may say something about them other than that they had the same length of life. If this is true, so much for calculating the moment of creation in the Before Common Era calendar based on numbers in this early Bible.

The 'I'm no speaker' exchange with God and Moses is reiterated. God says to go back to Pharaoh. Moses said he speaks with faltering (uncircumcised) lips so why should Pharaoh listen?

God replies to this substantively. "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet." God would "harden" Pharaoh's heart so that the miracles it would take to get Israel out of Egypt would be numerous and increasingly fantastic. By the time they were done everybody in both countries would believe in God and know the scope of his power.

Exodus 7:6 - 8:15 2005 January 26 for February 16^th

The series of miraculous demonstrations begins. First, Moses and Aaron go in with the staff to do the snake trick, which they do. Pharaoh calls in his magicians and sorcerers who are able to do the same thing, but Moses' staff (actually, the text says Aaron's staff in this case) ate up the snakes of the others. Still, this was not impressive to Pharaoh or his court.

Next day, they met Pharaoh at the water and turned the water of the Nile to blood. The fish died, everything reeked. The story now says an interesting thing, that the magicians also turned the water into blood.

Analytically, this confuses me on two points. Are we talking about corpuscular blood, that a being would live on, some endemic and diseased reddening of the water, or something in between? That's probably not as important as the second question, if all the water in Egypt was turned into blood, (the streams and canals, ponds and reservoirs, even the wooden buckets and stone jars) what water did the competing magicians use from which to make blood?

Pharaoh, unmoved, went back in the palace. The people dug holes near the river to get potable water for drinking. The water in the ground was not blood.

Seven days later, God told Moses to go in to Pharaoh with a threat of frogs. If he ignored God's command to let the Israelites go, there would be frogs everyplace in the land, including Pharaoh's bed. Pharaoh refused, Aaron went through the motions, and the frogs came up. Again, the magicians did the same thing and, again, I ask, 'how can you tell which frogs came from magicians.' Something is lost in translation here, perhaps.

This was bad enough that, for the first time, Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron in and promised to let the Israelites go if they would get rid of the frogs. Moses left Pharaoh the "honor" of naming the time. "Tomorrow!" He said. Moses prayed, the frogs all died (except in the Nile itself) and were heaped up all over the place, and Pharaoh broke his promise, just as God said he would.

Those who wish to interpret these events as "natural" (that is, occurring anyway without the need for special action by God) might say something like a landslide upriver turned the water red, everything died, and this condition spawned lots of frogs in about a week. (I have nothing like the expertise needed to know if any of this is reasonable.) All this political interchange going on simultaneously was fortuitous for Moses, in such naturalistic interpretations. Just trying to reproduce this argument, saying it out loud here, I don't find it as compelling as it is when it sits in the back of my mind hatching doubts. These explanations require vast cleverness or luck just to get past the coincidences. Even today we do not have enough understanding (much less control) of nature to deal with acts of God like these.

I first heard such explanations from a professor of religion, but I find his follow-on statement is even more compelling, that is, that, whatever the "natural" causes or consequences, still, the coincidence of all these "acts of God" happening in the same time span as the ongoing discussion between Pharaoh and Moses is far beyond being reasonably probable statistically. In other words, it takes more faith to claim that Moses was this lucky than it does to believe Moses' own interpretation, that it was God's personal intervention. A better counter-argument is to claim it's all a myth, which it's not. God is not portrayed here raining frogs from heaven then making them vanish with a trace (or stench). He does what he usually does in miracles, he makes extra of something that would normally be there in less quantity and more quickly than the normal natural pace.

It does hold together as an eyewitness account. Pre-high-tech people would see a red colored river full of dead fish, their only source of water, as an ill omen. They would heap up dead frogs in piles for disposal.

Exodus 8:16 - 9:7 2005 January 27 for February 17^th

The awesome godlike disruptions of normal life in Egypt continue. God told Moses to strike the ground with his staff and the dust would become gnats. One can imagine striking the ground and having gnats fly up all over the place, but in this case there was a chain reaction throughout Egypt. Gnats were on everyone and everything, man and beast and the distinction of this miracle was that the magicians of Pharaoh could not reproduce it. Despite their report to this effect to Pharaoh, and their statement, "This is the finger of God", Pharaoh's heart remained hard.

God told Moses to go confront Pharaoh first thing in the morning (when he "went to water") again. Early riser, this God. This time the "plague" would be flies, and this time (at least this is the first time it is reported) the flies would distinguish between Egypt and Goshen where the Hebrews lived. Sure enough, next day the flies arrived and the quote is quite colorful, "Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh's palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies." What a picture that would have been! (Wouldn't you like to see the Power Puff Girls version?) And, indeed, there were none in Goshen.

Pharaoh softened a bit in the misery of the flies and told Moses that it was acceptable for the Israelites to sacrifice to their God, but they had to stay here in Egypt to do it. Moses (the one who didn't speak well, recall) snapped back that Pharaoh should remember that Hebrew practices were detestable to the Egyptians, so they had to go out in the desert to do their sacrifices. Pharaoh said all right, but "you must not go very far."

Moses prayed and next day the flies left, every last one of them, but Pharaoh did not release the Israelites.

Next God promised a plague on all the livestock and, sure enough, all the livestock in Egypt died but none of that belonging to the Israelites was affected. Pharaoh sent a team out to investigate this and they reported back accurately but Pharaoh was not moved. His "heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go."

Exodus 9:8 - 9:35 2005 January 31 for February 18^th

And yet more trouble.

The next demonstration was one of boils. Moses was directed to get some soot out of a furnace and throw it in the air in front of Pharaoh, an act of defiance in itself. When he did this, everyone in Egypt developed boils on their skin. The humor in this plague is that the magicians could not even appear because of their boils. Still, this was nothing to Pharaoh and he did nothing about God's command concerning the Israelites.

Early on a subsequent morning, Moses confronted Pharaoh again, prophesying that God would bring the worst hailstorm on Egypt that there had ever been, "from the day it was founded." Everything left out exposed, people or animals, would die. Some in the court feared God, by now, and were quick to bring their slaves and livestock in from the fields. Others who did not fear God did nothing.

Moses stretched the staff against the sky and the thunder and lightning started. Again, this is nothing that unusual except for the timing and the magnitude. The hail, however, was as bad as predicted (except, of course, in Goshen where the Israelites were and where it did not hail). Everything left exposed did indeed die. Pharaoh called Moses in and actually admitted that he had "sinned" and said that he would let Israel go. Moses prayed, the storm stopped, and Pharaoh and the court went back to their old ways again, however.

This quote adds a touch of veracity to the story:

"The flax and barley were destroyed, since the barley had headed and the flax was in bloom. The wheat and spelt, however, were not destroyed, because they ripen later."

We see here that Egypt was an early agricultural civilization, perhaps the first, and therefore perhaps the first capable of suffering or seeding agriculture pestilence, such as locusts, which is next.

Exodus 10-11 2005 January 31 for February 21^st

God has held Pharaoh and his advisors rigid so that he can perform three more miracles.

Yes, it says that it is by God's initiative that Pharaoh is so stubborn that he has to be more or less destroyed in this episode. That's how God made him.

God had Moses threaten locusts. Pharaoh's officials advised him not to mess with God anymore but to let the people go worship, "Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?"

Leadership has to be firm to be leadership, especially in tough times, but sometimes they lose touch with reality (or that is the way God made them).

Pharaoh called Moses in and asked just who would go on this trip to worship. Moses said that everybody would go, the men the women, the children, and the livestock. Pharaoh knew that this meant they weren't coming back and said, "Clearly you are bent on evil. No! Have only the men go…"

Evil?

So Moses made the signs and an east wind came up. Soon the locusts arrived and, as you might expect, it was the worst plague of locusts seen before or since. They filled the palace and all the houses. They covered the ground until it was black. They ate up everything that the hail had left.

Pharaoh confessed his sin again and Moses prayed again and a strong west wind carried every locust out of Egypt.

And then, as we've come to expect, Pharaoh did not let anybody go.

So, for the next demonstration, Moses stretched out his hand and darkness covered the whole land for three days. It was so dark that no one could go anywhere. Everyone stayed at home, except in Goshen where the Israelites had light. (This has to be symbolic.)

Pharaoh had Moses come in and told him that they could go worship with their women and children too, just leave the herds and flocks behind. Moses pointed out that they had to sacrifice some of those animals and God wouldn't tell them which ones until they were there.

This was the last straw for everybody. Not only did Pharaoh clamp back down for the ninth time but he also told Moses to get out and never come back. "The day you see my face you will die." This is the sort of sentence a sovereign ruler would pronounce just short of an actual death sentence.

"Just as you say," Moses replied, "I will never appear before you again." In Moses' mind, he is speaking for the sovereign ruler.

The writing after this is a little mixed up, like Moses was recounting in the order he remembered it, not in the order things happened (like he didn't have a word processor) but, before he left Pharaoh for the final time, he declared the final plague. About midnight, every firstborn in Egypt would die, from Pharaoh's son to the slave girl's son to the firstborn of all the livestock. During the night, not even a dog would bark it would be so deathly still, but following the deaths, the wailing in Egypt would be unprecedented. At that point, Pharaoh would let them go to the desert to worship.

Moses left Pharaoh in "hot anger", never to return. Note that it was Moses who was in hot anger at this point.

He told the Israelites to ask their Egyptian masters for gifts of silver and gold. They, and Moses their leader, were held in high esteem throughout Egypt at this point in time.

This was the culmination of the miracles that God used Pharaoh's stubbornness to enact. Nothing like them had been seen in Egypt before or since, in type, scope, or coincidence. Egypt was indeed ruined.

Exodus 12:1-30 2005 February 1 for February 22^nd

The "Passover" is the central festival of the Jews, and by extension through Easter, the Christians.

Although we saw animal sacrifices in Genesis, this is the first widespread one with detailed instructions that we have encountered. Christians say that they no longer perform ritual animal sacrifice because Christ himself was the ultimate and final sacrifice for these purposes. Jews don't do them because they claim to need the Temple, a building which currently does not exist in Israel due to a territorial dispute with Muslims and others in Jerusalem. Animal sacrifice has fallen so far into the history of civilization that it is generally illegal in all of Judeo-Christian regions and whenever we hear of someone doing it we view them with suspicion. Perhaps they are worshiping Satan, or just being cruel to animals, we think. We rarely see such activities as biblically mandated. There was a piece in the paper recently about a religious group renting a licensed slaughterhouse for ceremonies over certain weekends, a practice that the local health department did not approve since the renters were not the slaughterhouse licensees. Their concern was for health and animal welfare, they claimed, and they would be watching closely.

I find it interesting that, though we take the Bible very literally and very seriously and that beginning here, the next several books contain detailed information on these animal sacrifice ceremonies and their religious relevance, and although we will study it all at some length going forward, that, per the two explanations-away given above, at this point in history it is all only background information to us, background information so that we can understand the role and sacrifice of Christ.

At least that's the way we are taught to look at it.

Moses, speaking for God, gives the Israelites their version of the instructions about the final plague. At dusk, everyone is to slaughter a yearling male lamb without blemish. When they do, they are to put some of the blood above and on the sides of their doors. If one lamb is too much for a family, they are to share with neighbors.

No one is to do any work except for preparation of this lamb as food and they are to eat it fast-food style, with their shoes on and their cloaks tucked in, ready to travel. Nothing is to be left over. Further, they will roast and eat bitter herbs and celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Anyone with any yeast in their homes, or who eats anything with yeast will be, and this is the first time we see these words, "cut off from the community of Israel." To be Israeli is to follow these commands and to not follow them is to not be a part of the people. This is the first of many examples of large-crowd control through such regulation.

This will be an annual festival in perpetuity, the Passover. This will be the first month of the Jewish calendar.

When God passes through the land to kill all the firstborn, he will not allow "the destroyer" to go into any of the marked houses. Everyone is to stay indoors all night. This distinguishes more than just Egypt from Goshen; this distinguishes individual houses throughout both lands.

God did in fact come (with the destroyer) around midnight and killed all the firstborn, "from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well." Everyone in Egypt got up in the middle of the night "and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead."

The gravity of this circumstance cannot be overstated. One death in a family is tragic enough, but a death in every household at the same time, would leave every Egyptian devastated.

Exodus 12:31 - 13:16 2005 February 2 for 23^rd

The actual Exodus begins.

Pharaoh called in Moses and Aaron in the middle of the night and told them to go worship their God as requested, to take the women and children and livestock and get out of here, and to ask for a blessing for him too. The Egyptians also encouraged this, afraid that they would be the next to die.

I thought he said that if Moses saw Pharaoh's face again he would die. Wasn't it like that in the movie?

So, the people of Israel asked their Egyptian neighbors for valuables as instructed and thereby "plundered" them. They wrapped up their bread bowls in clothing, un-risen since they hadn't had time to cook it properly, and carried it on their shoulders. The men numbered 600,000, not counting the women and children. They left, according to Moses, 430 years from when they arrived, to the day. They traveled from the city of Ramses, which they had built as slaves, to Succoth.

God gave instructions concerning the Passover. It could only be eaten by sworn-in (that is, circumcised) Israelis, not by any temporary out-of-faith guests or foreigners. It would be celebrated in perpetuity, every year in commemoration of this event, and would serve as a time to tell the story of Exodus to the youth.

As an additional regulation related to the Passover, God commanded that all firstborn males, man and animal, belonged to him and must be redeemed. If you didn't redeem an animal, you had to break its neck, but you were required to redeem your sons. This and the Passover itself would serve as reminders throughout the generations, and story telling points about God's power. The firstborn of the Israelis belonged to God as a reminder that he had killed all the firstborn Egyptians to free his people.

Exodus 13:17 - 14:31 2005 February 3 for 24^th

If you look at a map of Egypt and Israel today, you'll notice that it doesn't look like you are forced to cross any major bodies of water to go from Cairo to Jerusalem. It says here that "God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, 'If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.'" They took, rather, a path that made it look like they were wandering around aimlessly in the desert. The reader is tempted to think that Moses is just projecting his own fears on God by saying this, but it also says that they were led by a "pillar of cloud" during the days and a "pillar of fire" during the nights. A thunderstorm looks like cloud during the day and fire during the night, but is not as persistent as this cloud, which led day after day. This sort of apparition is clearly beyond the human powers of Moses, or any others in this story.

God now made a move that appeared to play directly into the hands of the Egyptians. He had them camp "between Migdol and the sea." This location is pinned down with unusual care in the text, as also being "near Pi Hahiroth" and "directly opposite Baal Zephon." None of these locales are included in my modern atlas of the world. Sufficient research to join in the scholarly debates about these ancient locations is beyond our capacity here but we note a string of lakes leading from the Mediterranean at the east end of the Nile delta down to the Gulf of Suez, the west branch of the Red Sea, these located near the path of today's Suez Canal. Even at a narrow place, any of these would be at least a few miles wide.

While the Israelites marched "boldly" in this trapped situation, God hardened Pharaoh's heart again in order to demonstrate his great powers once again. Pharaoh and his staff noticed, and brought out the whole army of Egypt with six hundred military chariots and all sorts of other equipage and charged after them. Surely, by now, it had been more than the three days allotted for worship in the desert after all.

The Israelites did in fact panic. "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?" They complained to Moses that they wanted to be left alone to serve the Egyptians and had been telling him this all along. At this point, they would rather have done that than die in the desert, they said. The fear that they would want to run back to Egypt at the first sign of trouble was well founded.

God's answer had four parts: Do not be afraid. Stand firm and watch the deliverance from God. You will never see these Egyptians again after today. All you have to do is be still. God then says an interesting thing to Moses himself in an apparent "Why are you standing there?" tone, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground."

Well of course, why didn't I think of that?

The pillar of cloud and fire moved around behind the Israelites and protected them from the Egyptian army overnight while a strong east wind parted the sea and dried out the bottom. God confused the Egyptians and made their equipment break down too, demoralizing them. It was clear to these opponents, if not their leadership, that a powerful God fought for the Israelites.

Next morning, they crossed the sea on dry land with a wall of water on each side of them. It mentions this wall of water on the right and on the left several times, seeming to argue against what I was taught in Old Testament class in college that this sea ("Yam Suph" or "Sea of Reeds") was just a marshy area which was navigable by light, wooden farm carts but not by metal armored chariots. I believe the part about Yam Suph, this location clearly is far from the actual Red Sea, and "Sea of Reeds" appears in the footnotes in this Bible, but it accuses Moses of gross exaggeration to claim a "wall of water" where there was only mud. Then and now, Moses deserves more trust in his veracity than that. While I'm sure that the Cecile B deMille version of this miracle is a Hollywood exaggeration of this miracle, the sort of thing that gives ammunition to those who claim it is all myth, something impressive did happen here. This impressed Moses and the Israelites, who had already seen ten big miracles in the last few weeks. The Egyptians themselves came out of the experience "lying dead on the shore."

"When the Israelites saw the great power of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant."

And the revolutionary separation from Egypt was complete.

Exodus 15 2005 February 4 for 25^th

Moses and the people sang a song to God in several verses. They praise God's name for hurling the boastful Egyptians and their horses into the sea, for drowning them in deep waters, for disposing of Egypt's best military officers. In God's burning anger, they were consumed like chaff. He blasted with his nose and "the waters piled up." The surging waters stood firm like a wall." Later, these same waters piled up on the enemies.

Rather than falling to their enemies, the Israelites were victorious. This will give them and their God a reputation. All the nations ahead of them such as Edom and Philistia, Canaan and Moab, will fall away in fear. They will stand and watch the Israelites go by without resistance until they are established in the hills. God will reign forever and ever.

In the middle of the song we find the verse,

"Who among the gods is like you, O Lord?

Who is like you --

majestic in holiness,

awesome in glory,

working wonders?"

Moses' sister, the prophetess Miriam made a tambourine and danced the refrain with the women.

"Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.

The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea."

We are translating poetry here. These verses are doubtless very powerful in the original Hebrew.

The journey then continues. They traveled away from the Red Sea three days without finding water, then the water they found was too bitter to drink. The place was called "Marah" ("Bitter"). The people cried to Moses and Moses cried to God who showed him how to throw a certain kind of wood in the water that made it drinkable. From there they went to an oasis with twelve springs and seventy palm trees and camped there.

God made a law that said that if the Israelites paid close attention to God and his laws, he would not afflict them with any of the plagues that the Egyptians had suffered.

Exodus 16 2005 February 7 for 28^th

The nation of Israel, now free from slavery to the Egyptians, is also now out in the desert without any support systems. The leadership griped to Moses that they would starve, exaggerating the situation in Egypt by saying how good it had been in order to make it seem even more dire. "There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted."

Moses said first that it was God they were griping against, not him. "Who am I?" he asked, numerous times.

God made the following provision. Six days a week there would be a substance on the ground in the morning that they could eat like bread. They should go out and collect some (it was like dew and would be gone by mid-day), about two quarts per person. This is what they would eat all day and was a demonstration that it was God who had brought them out of Egypt.

No one was to keep any overnight except on the sixth day when they were to collect double, some for the sixth day and some for the seventh. The extra part would keep overnight.

Further, they were to keep about two quart of the stuff in a jar in perpetuity as a demonstration to future generations of what God had done in the desert.

That evening, quail covered the camp. The next morning, there was this stuff on the ground that was edible. They called it "What is it?" (Hebrew, "Manna") This went on for all of the forty years until they entered Canaan as their inheritance.

This is the first time we hear of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness that was just beginning. This is also the first time we hear of something called the "Testimony". The preserved jar of manna was kept "in front of the Testimony". Perhaps we will learn later what this is all about.

The Israelites then went about the business of testing every boundary condition on the distribution and utilization of manna. No matter how much or how little they collected, for instance, they each ended up with about two quarts per day, by measure. Some people ignored the instruction not to keep any overnight and found it the next morning stinking and full of maggots. Some went out on the seventh day to collect manna and found nothing there. That which had been kept overnight on the sixth day was fine on the seventh day.

All of this testing made God and Moses mad. "How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?" This was followed by a lesson on the Sabbath. One might ask, however, how could we believe the veracity of these events today without the report of these sinful tests? If a story were told of a million people camped in the desert who all did exactly as they were told and ate wafers off the ground, who would believe such a tale as anything but myth?

Manna tasted like wafers made with honey and was white like coriander seed. They ate it after baking or boiling.

Exodus 17 - 18 2005 February 8 for March 1^st

In their travels "from place to place as the Lord commanded" the Israelites arrived and camped at Rephidim, where there was no drinking water. This caused the standard outbreak of griping and quarreling with Moses that was, as always, seen as sinful testing of God.

What do you suppose would have happened if their form of obedience to God was to just sit and wait for water to appear from nowhere, never fearing death by dehydration, never saying anything about their acutely felt needs, no matter how long it took? God could surely have helped the people in any way he chose so why is it such a sin for them to ask? Is it the way in which they asked?

I was brought up to believe that it was implicitly sinful to ask for nearly anything, perhaps based on this. Jesus said, however, "You do not have because you do not ask." Maybe my upbringing had more to do with preserving face and avoiding rejection. Maybe it was the way in which they asked that was sinful, griping and complaining about God's provision, even when invisible. I have known of people to die for lack of asking for help, it is so counter-culture where I come from.

Anyway, at God's command, Moses took his staff and the elders up to the rock at Horeb. With the elders as witnesses, he struck the rock and water came out. The place is called Massah ("testing") and Meribah ("quarreling"). All were then happy, at least briefly.

Next, they encounter their first resistance. The Amalekites came out and attacked them at this same place. Moses told Joshua (this is the first we hear of Joshua) to take his men and fight back. Moses stood on top of the hill watching. When he had his hands stretched out, Joshua's men prevailed, but they began to lose ground if Moses got tired and put his arms down. Finally they sat Moses down and propped his arms up on some rocks that held him until sunset, by which time Joshua had won the battle. God said, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely erase the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven."

This is the first time we hear of writing scrolls. Interesting, we hear of and remember the Amalekites now only due to this very writing, a logical paradox. Moses built an altar and in his invocation said that God would "be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation." Preservation for enmity through generations is another interesting way to completely erase the memory of a people.

Here's a pop quiz: What are the names of Moses' two sons? We know of Gershom ("alien"), and now we hear of another, Eliezer ("my God is helper"). Moses had sent his wife and children back to his father-in-law Jethro for the duration but now received word that Jethro had heard he was out here in the desert with the multitudes and was coming for a visit, with Zipporah and his two sons in tow.

When they arrived, Moses told everything that had happened from the miracles against Pharaoh to the trials in the desert. Jethro was delighted to hear all this and said, "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly." Jethro being a priest, they then offered sacrifices and praises.

Next day, Jethro witnessed Moses sitting in judgment over every dispute in the entire nation. This took all day and people were still standing around. Afterwards, Jethro asked why Moses was doing this. The answer, "Because the people come to me to seek God's will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws."

It is interesting here that Moses sees himself as the only one here who could discover, or remember, God's laws and decrees. Be this as it may, Jethro told him to quit this practice as it would wear him out. He advised finding honest, capable, God fearing men and setting them up in a hierarchical system over sub-populations of "thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens." In this system, the lower "courts" would deal with the simpler matters and only bring the tough ones up to Moses. This does not appear to be an appeal system where a judgment is made, then worked up the system. This appears to be a system where a dispute is taken to a lower judge and he either renders an obvious verdict or says, "I don't know" and takes the case to a higher level.

Moses did everything that Jethro suggested after which Jethro returned to Midian.

It is worth noting that this system where the labor is distributed out among God's other people beyond Moses is not directly ordered by God, unless you count the words of a wise father-in-law as divinely binding. The first step towards democracy here is not the invention of God but of men in response to their own physical limitations.

Exodus 19 2005 February 9 for March 2^nd

The company arrived at the Desert of Sinai, at the foot of the mountain where God had first spoken to Moses.

Moses went up and God spoke to him. He said that although he owned the whole earth, he would make Israel special, a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation." The people were to remember all that God had done in Egypt, how powerful he had been. Moses went down and repeated this to the people who all said that they would do everything God told them to.

God then told Moses to prepare the people for lawgiving. Moses would consecrate them, they would wash their clothes and abstain from sex for three days and they would stay away from the mountain because if they came near it, God would strike out against them. Indeed, if anyone or even any animal touched even the foot of it, they would be killed. Since no one could go near the mountain themselves to do this killing, the guilty would have to be stoned or shot with arrows from a distance.

The mountain shook and it's top was covered in fire and smoke. A long trumpet blast was heard, marking the holy day. Moses ascended to the top of the mountain and God descended to the top of the mountain. God told Moses to go down and get Aaron and bring him up but to tell the people, even the priests, to stay off the mountain, else he would "break out against them." Moses, now getting a lot of exercise, went down and told them all of this again.

Exodus 20 2005 February 10 for March 3^rd

The people being consecrated and ready to hear it, we now launch into an extended section on the laws of God, beginning with the most famous, the Ten Commandments.

I must confess here that it is not usually long after this that my resolve to read through the Bible systematically begins to flag. We get out of the exciting adventure story with geography and into the details and rules of just living a normal life. Further, as I've noted before, and as we will see, some, if not much, of what we are about to encounter is considered irrelevant or is explained away on some basis or other (scientific or dispensational or whatever) by modern versions of our faith. Nonetheless, we press ahead prayerfully with the intent of discovering what God has to say to us today through Moses thousands of years ago. This is really the first time God has chosen and spoken to a group of people telling them how it is supposed to be and what they are supposed to do.

Although it doesn't say it explicitly here, I was taught that the Ten Commandments appear in what we might call "order or priority", that is, the most important first. Of course, they are all important. They divide into three sections: relationship to God, relationship to family, and relationship to others in society.

In relation to God, the first instruction is that there is only one God and the God speaking here is The One. (We see why the Muslims say, "There is One God…") Not only that, but no one is to represent any other gods with models of animals or fish or anything alive (the second command), as if such models represented gods to us merely because we see them. God is jealous and punishes generations who hate him, but loves those who love him.

Also, the name of God is not to be misused. To obey this instruction, it eventually got to the point where devout Jews would not speak the words for "I Am" at all, even when reading them out of the Bible. (Modern readers of Hebrew will often substitute "Elohim" or some other name for God when encountering YHWH in the text.)

In some ways it is unfortunate that our language and our culture really have no name for God. We say "God" in the same way that we say "sun" or "moon" referring to heavenly bodies that have no proper names. Though the text I am using translates words for God as either "God" or "the Lord", I am just using "God" here in an attempt at uniformity although I realize that this further reduces some of the natural beauty and subtlety of the text.

We've already said that the Bible has to be adequate to speak to me as it comes to me and as this "names of God" subject matter is something in which I'm not expert, I won't digress any further here except to say that I think one of the intents of this command is that God's person, and name, be taken seriously.

The fourth command is to follow the example of God in the six-to-one balance of work and rest. He created everything there is in six "periods of time" and rested for a seventh. We are to do the same on a week-to-week basis. We are to get all our work done in six days and rest on the seventh. Again, in an attempt to be absolutely safe, the most conservative followers take this law in such a way that no one can hardly move a muscle on the day of rest. Personally, I don't do this, but realizing the value of routine rest, I do take one day a week for inverted priorities. While on most days I will do work first and church last, on Sunday I will do church first and work last, for example. This means I rarely do work on Sunday. Sunday is held apart for "other things." Of course, for the Israelites, the Sabbath was the last day of the week, Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Some make a big deal of this distinction (Seventh Day Adventists among them) as to which particular day it is, but as I've said, most of the value is just in having a routine of appropriate work and rest. The instruction here is that nobody in the country does anything on the day of rest, not any citizen or visitor or animal or family member or anybody.

The next command is about family, in particular, to "honor" your parents. Jesus said this was the first command with a promise, "… that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." What it means to "honor" is implied. Respect for elders, care for ancestral family members, submission to their wishes, all of these and more are possibly intended, certainly interpreted.

Now we have three terse commands about social interaction:

"You shall not murder."

"You shall not commit adultery."

"You shall not steal."

Some versions say "kill" rather than "murder" the distinction being that it is all right to kill an animal for food, but not to kill another human being for any reason. Even so, there are plenty of laws coming up where the penalty for the offender will be death and someone will have to carry out the sentence in these cases. Such killings must not count as murder.

Looser interpretations of "adultery" only prohibit sex acts if one of the participants is married to someone outside of the act. Strict interpretations prohibit all sex acts outside of marriage. Though there is much commentary and discussion on these matters, the text here isn't obvious to those of us outside the culture to which it was given. It may miss the point to nitpick these and other laws. My own rules on this are, "Don't have sex with someone you don't want to have children with" and "Don't have children with someone who you don't want to be dealing with for the rest of your life." Admittedly, my rules are stated more in terms of pragmatic self-interest than as commands from God. Still, having and caring for children drives one to God often. Self interest and commands from God are not independent.

Even stealing isn't obvious. When is it stealing and when is it borrowing? What role does permission play? What if the situation is dire and permission is unobtainable? What about forgetfulness? What about contracts? What about framing someone with a plant? How does one prove intent on either side? I've heard it taught that it is stealing to take money out of a payphone that wasn't directly refunded as a result of my interactions with that phone. By extension, picking up money, or any article of value in the street would also be theft. What role does value play? If I come home from work and find a pen in my pocket that was paid for by my employer, is this stealing? What if I take it back? What if circumstances cause it to never be taken back? What about loss? Breakage? Is it really worth hundreds of dollars worth of my time to correctly deal with a forty-nine cent article in a squeaky clean way?

Some are thinking at this point that all of this verbage is just a sign of an iniquitous heart trying to weasel away from God's clear standards. Others will see it as lack of common sense to sweat such details. I would point out, however, that cultural and even individual differences over matters just such as these are still very alive in today's world. What counts as iniquity and what counts as "common sense" is the exact question here. In some countries they still cut off the hands of thieves. One of the things I am attempting to do here is to either separate cultural norms from God's actual commands or, alternatively, to discover that cultural norms are a real component of God's commands. I would point out that, since none of us has the capacity to fully understand these matters, much less coerce everyone else in the world to follow our understandings, there is room for reasonable tolerance and acquiescence. I would point out that the laws of the land that we actually follow are spelled out in excruciating detail as to just what "stealing" is and which forms are worse than others and what values correspond to what punishments and so forth.

Oh, and I will stipulate the iniquitous heart; it's part of the human condition.

Jesus will eventually say that the real law is to love God with everything you have and to love your neighbor as yourself. In this light it is much clearer, don't take advantage of or abuse your neighbor not with his property or his sexuality or by depriving him of life. If you and your neighbor both genuinely do this, everyone can probably keep their hands, their heads, and their liberty. I think Paul, when we get to his writings, will have some things to say along these lines as well.

While we wait, the ninth command is not to give false testimony against your neighbor. Again, you can see the room for huge latitude in interpretation. Some will see sin in any uttered falsehood or partial truth under all circumstances including ignorance. Some of Jesus own statements wouldn't pass this severe test, however. (He said he wasn't going up to the feast, but then went up privately anyway, for example.) On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps this only applies to legal situations, where "testimony" is officially being given, possibly under oath. Our cultural norm is that it is devastating to a person's reputation of character to be proven as having been deceptive. The safety valve is that we play games with words and sometimes waive challenges in order to avoid the pain of having to be totally and brutally honest at every incident.

The last command is not one of action but only of intent. Don't covet anything your neighbor has, his salary, his Porsche, his wife, his business, his employees, not anything he owns. This clearly intends to head off strife before it starts and implies being content with your own possessions, something that is not easy without practice. It seems like it might help if society were somehow structured to where people's needs were not desperate so that the tension here would be reduced, but nothing about this sort of thing is mentioned here. (Such restructurings of society often have unintended consequences.)

While God was telling Moses all of this up on the mountain, the people were terrified and told him that they didn't want to come anywhere close, but that they would listen to God through Moses. Moses told them it was a test to keep them from sinning.

God now starts in with the regulations for the first commands, those regarding himself. He says not to create any other gods and not to build any altars except as he specifies and what he specifies is either of earth or uncut stones. Using tools on the stones defiles them and building an altar with stairs, so people can look up other people's clothing, is also prohibited.

Exodus 21 2005 February 11 for March 4^th

Now we get into the detailed regulations and, after reading over the first chapter, I remember why I start to zone out at this point. Few of the specifics of these laws seem directly relevant to my life today, although the principles of fairness and justice that can be extrapolated from them are ageless. Though ageless, however, followers of Christ believe they have been superceded by mercy and grace, though Christ himself said that not one stroke would be removed from the law until 'all is fulfilled.'

Some read 'all is fulfilled' as ending with the death and resurrection of Christ. I have trouble seeing it that way myself. After all, the rules brought through Moses are, at least, the basis for Christianity and, at most, the actual Word of God. Nothing about the creation really changed with the death and resurrection of Christ. The exemplary event had occurred and great illumination had been shed on the human condition, particularly with respect to relationship with God, who is Spirit, but no circumstances of physics, chemistry, or biology, … or spirit…, were altered at that point in time. I therefore see 'all is fulfilled' as referring to everything that will happen to us in the four dimensional existence through which we now trod.

Caught in this philosophical conundrum, I am going to take a literalist approach to these statements for several reasons. First, part of the reason for this exercise is to examine the whole of the Bible, not just the few verses that appear to support or condemn some practice that we, as individuals, want to have supported or condemned by God. By taking a consistent approach on this pass through the laws, which appear, on and off, to comprise the rest of Exodus and several following books, we'll see what we are really up against taking the Bible literally as the inerrant word of God. We will see what standing we have in our relationship with God in applying these laws selectively or wholly to ourselves, to others, or to our culture. We will see how well they fit with what we think is godly and normal, we in middle class America, a "democracy."

The statements are already in bullet form, so it will be difficult to summarize, but I will attempt to capture the overall directives and mood.

The very first laws concern the institution of slavery. Slavery is not condemned as immoral; it is simply regulated fairly. A person may sell himself to another person, and when he does, the sale is good for six years. In the seventh year he becomes free. This is neither the involuntary, coerced slavery of another race as practiced in early America, nor is it the "two week's notice" employment situation many of us enjoy today, however, the master actually owned the servant bodily, for the period of time specified and, as we will see later, was expected to treat him with certain dignity and respect, although as an inferior.

If the servant came with a wife, the wife (herself property also) was freed with him in the seventh year. If, however, he got married (with the permission of his owner, of course, and typically at the invitation of the owner) he could still go free in the seventh year but if he wanted to stay with his wife and children, he could perform a legal, public act, that is, having an awl driven through his earlobe "before the judges," as a sign that he would become a servant for life.

This is more like the slavery that we understand, and have attempted to eradicate from our modern world, but it still does not involve abuse and cruelty, only a "free" choice to become subservient, not unlike the free choice that any employee makes.

Slave women are different; they do not go free after some period of time. It is clear from the text that they can and often do become wives of their owners. The owner has the right to "break faith" with her however, but if he does, must allow her to be redeemed (it doesn't say by whom) and he can't sell her to foreigners. Alternatively, he can buy her as a wife for his son in which case she legally becomes the owner's daughter. The son doesn't have to marry her, however, but if he doesn't, she is still due her "food, clothing, and martial rights." I don't know if "marital rights" involve procreative rights or just protection to go with this provision but it does say that if these three things are not provided, she has the right to go free for without the cost of redemption.

So let's just comment on this. God has no problem with people selling themselves to each other for years at a time, or for life. The immoralities of American slavery must have to do with treating slaves as permanent property without human rights, breaking up families without concern, slave trading with less respect than horse trading, and personal abuse. Also, this is not the same slavery that the Israelites had just left behind in Egypt, which was also involuntary and coerced. The institution of slavery itself, however, is Biblical.

There is no concept here of equality of the sexes. Women, under these laws, have different and inferior human rights to men. I'm sure there are many books and essays written on this. My own view is that this situation probably evolved from a convenient expediency. Men on the average were bigger and stronger and would take the lead in protective and supportive actions. Eventually this developed into expectations, rules, and finally laws. In a kind and good man this would be a good thing for a man and woman in partnership, but it is possible and common for men (and women), to be hard, cruel, difficult, or in some other way sinful. This messes up the order of the situation.

The next section deals with injuries and is in two sections, injuries and one person inflicts on another and injuries inflicted on or by animals.

First there are three kinds of murder. Murder by striking, by accident, and by pre-meditation. If it is by striking, the killer is to be executed. If it is by accident, that is "God let it happen", there will be a place to flee. If it is premeditated, there is no place to flee, he can be pulled from God's very altar to be put to death.

A person who attacks a parent, or kidnaps anyone or even curses a parent "must be put to death." The fourth commandment (honoring parents) is serious.

What about an injury from a fight that does not result in death? If the injured person recovers, the one who struck him is only responsible to pay for his lost time.

If it is a slave who is beaten and the slave dies or is injured, the rules are different. If the slave dies, the owner is punished but not put to death himself. The punishment is not specified. If the slave is only injured, and gets up after a few days, it is fine; the slave is, after all, only property.

God apparently has no problem with fighting. Striking one another is acceptable unless it leads to serious injury or death.

If a woman miscarries as a result of a fight, the offender is only fined what the husband demands (and "the court allows"). If there is serious injury, the penalty is exact, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

This "violence for violence," sounds gross to us. Could I inflict an equivalent injury upon someone who had injured me? I don't know but I doubt it. This concept requires a little elaboration. I was taught that these laws were revolutionary at the time since the expectation before this was that all wrongs would be avenged in escalated fashion. (A life for an eye, a family for a life, a clan for a family and so forth until all were dead everywhere, over only an eye.)

However, this is the "Word of God" and since God never changes, it is difficult to understand the evolution of society under God from one set of standards to another. Well, we can say that this is the first time that God involved himself in human law, but what about the differences from then to now?

Again, the rules with slaves are different. The loss of an eye or tooth is compensated only by freedom.

It is as if being a slave is like being in a Monopoly game with your properties mortgaged. You're still alive but are way down compared to the healthy folks who have accumulated all of the property and money.

The animal cases mostly involve bulls that gore. If a bull kills a person, it must be put to death and the owner held responsible. If the bull was a known killer and the owner hasn't restrained it and it kills somebody, both the bull and the owner are put to death. If only apayment is demanded, he can redeem himself by making the payment. This may be how people get to where they need to sell themselves into slavery. If it is "only" a slave that is killed, the value of the slave is thirty shekels of silver (the price paid for Jesus).

If an animal falls into somebody's pit and dies, the owner of the pit must buy the dead animal. If a bull kills another, the killer is sold. The killer's owner and the victim's owner split the money and the dead animal. If it was a known killer and the owner didn't restrain him, the killer's owner pays for the dead animal and owns it too.

How are we to respond to these laws? These days, some of us live in cultures where we rarely fight so personal injuries are rare. Our vehicles kill and injure. Responsibilities and legal recourse are provided. We have concepts of control and responsibility. We have employers and employees, but it is strictly illegal to own another person bodily and we consider it highly immoral (but this immorality is not supported by the Bible). We have similar legal concepts but live in a very different social order, yet God is unchanging. How then are we to take the Bible literally?

Exodus 22 2005 February 14 for March 7^th

The summary on the last chapter was, I fear, longer than the chapter itself but the bullet-format laws continue. The next set has to do with restitution of thievery. Generally, an irreplaceable quantity, like a stolen and slaughtered animal, must be paid back four or five fold. This factor distinguishes between malicious and accidental losses.

If a thief is caught in the act in the night and struck and dies, the striker is not guilty of his death but if such an event happens during the day he is. Generally, thieves must make restitution and, if they have no means, are themselves sold. Stealing can be something indirect, like animals grazing someone else's field, or a fire getting out of hand and destroying somebody else's property of value. This seems a little different from our current concept of stealing, although liability for such losses remains.

Something left in trust for safekeeping can be stolen. If the thief is caught, he pays double, but if not then the safekeeper is a suspect and must swear a formal, public oath that he did no wrong, which must be accepted by the loser. Whenever there are disputes over who owns something, both parties must appear before judges and the loser pays the winner double.

If one person is keeping an animal for another and it is stolen, the keeper makes restitution. (This seems to conflict some of the above.) If it is killed by wild animals, however, the remains are brought as evidence and there is no restitution. If an animal is hired out and is lost, no restitution is made. The rental also covers the insurance.

The next section deals with sex and families. If a man seduces an unmarried, unpledged virgin, he is required to pay the "bride price" and marry her. (Any other seduction probably counts as adultery.) Even if the woman's father refuses to allow the marriage, the man still has to pay the price. As far as I can tell, people today take the concept of adultery seriously, but pretty much ignore this idea that premarital sex must lead to marriage. On the other extreme, there are those within Christianity who teach and counsel as if restrictions on sex were all that was in the Bible.

A sorceress must die.

Having sex with an animal is also a capital offense.

Anyone who sacrifices to any other gods but God must more than die; they must be "destroyed."

Aliens, widows, and orphans must not be oppressed. Israelites used to be aliens in Egypt and if a widow or orphan cries out in despair, God will hear and make your wife and your children into a widow and orphans. The same sort of standard applies with poor people. If you take a person's clothing as a pledge for a loan, you have to give it back at night because God is compassionate. Compassion may be a new concept at the time and place of this writing, or it may be getting elevated to a godly attribute from being a mere weakness. God is sometimes surprising like that.

And then to reiterate some concepts from before, don't blaspheme God, curse rulers, or withhold offerings. All firstborns belong to God and are due on the eighth day after staying with their mothers for their first seven days.

If an animal is torn up by wild beasts, don't eat it but throw it to the dogs. This is because the Israelites are God's holy people.

If this organization of the laws seems choppy, it is because it appears that way in the text. One can nearly imagine Moses getting interrupted in the midst of a writing session then coming back with a … different train of thought. It happens to everybody.

Exodus 23 2005 February 15 for March 8^th

The laws continue. Don't spread false reports or act as a malicious witness on the side of wickedness. Don't just do what the crowd wants or show favoritism to a plaintiff just because he is poor but don't overrule the poor either. Rather, be just. If you find someone needing help, help him. Do not put an innocent person to death.

The law against bribes is given with a reason, "a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous." This sounds like a modern day "conflict of interest."

In addition to the six days on seventh day off cycle of Sabbaths for people and animals, the land is to have Sabbath years. Fields and vineyards and olive groves are to be planted and tended for six years and left fallow the seventh. This gives the land a rest and the poor may use any volunteer produce. Isn't that an interesting concept in social welfare!

Oh, sorry, this is the law of God!

There will be three annual festivals: Unleavened Bread (the Passover) commemorating the Exodus; First Fruits commemorating the beginning of the harvest; and Ingathering, commemorating the end of the harvest. "No one is to appear before me empty-handed." Miscellaneous festival rules are: do not sacrifice blood with yeast, fat may not be left over until morning, "first fruits" means "best fruits" and "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk." You might wonder, as I do, where this last one comes from. It appears to refer explicitly to a pagan practice of the time. Perhaps many of the laws are adjustments to the norms of the time.

God's angel will go in front of the Israelites, leading them to the promised land and opposing the current occupants of the land as they move in. He will do this with confusion, hornets, and terror but will not clear them out all at once, as that would allow wild animals too much opportunity to spread. Rather, he will do it gradually as the Israelites have capacity to occupy.

The borders will be from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (Mediterranean) and from the desert to the River (Euphrates). One strong caution: Don't adopt any of the gods of these inhabitants, or follow their practices or even mention their names. Don't allow the displaced people to continue living there. They would be a temptation or "snare" to such religious unfaithfulness. Follow only God and the food and water will be blessed, there will not be sickness or miscarriage or barrenness, and everyone will live as long as they are supposed to.

Exodus 24 2005 February 16 for March 9^th

Moses went and told the people all of the laws and they responded as a body that they would do all of this and be obedient. Moses then wrote it all down.

Next morning he got up early and set up twelve stones at the foot of the mountain, one for every tribe. Young men from each tribe came and made sacrifices on these altars and Moses took half of the blood from the sacrifices and sprinkled it on the altars, keeping the other half in bowls. Later he sprinkled the blood in the bowls on the people and read to them the book he had just written. Again, they said they would do everything in it and be obedient.

Next, something so mysterious happens that can only quote it verbatim:

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

I don't recall ever hearing a sermon where this was even mentioned but one can see where Erich von Daniken gets some of his ideas. Space aliens posing as God, flying around in glass ships! Whatever the case with God, I think it bears pointing out that these elders were probably not the same "young" men who did the sacrifices and also that when sacrifices were made, some was burned, poured, or otherwise dispensed of in worship and the rest was eaten. Sacrifices, therefore, were associated with feasts as we see here. This feast prepares Moses for a long conference with God.

God instructed Moses to come up on the mountain where he would be given the law, written on stones, by God. Moses did this, taking only his aide Joshua with him. The cloud covered the mountain for six days and on the seventh day God called Moses on up. Moses went into the cloud that looked like fire to the Israelites below. He stayed at the top for forty days and nights.

Exodus 25 2005 February 17 for March 10^th

The first directive God gives to Moses on the mountain is to take up an offering, and he is specific about what the offering should include: "gold, silver and bronze; blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ram skins dyed red and hides of sea cows; acacia wood; olive oil "for the light;" spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastpiece."

What are we talking about here: light, anointing oil, fragrant incense, ephod and breastpiece? For what?

Moses is writing ahead of himself, as is sometimes his pattern. God wants a Tabernacle built which will be the focus of his presence among the Israelites. Using the donated materials, he will soon give specific directions including dimensions for construction of a large box called "The Ark", a table, and a lamp stand. The Ark will be the location of something called the "bread of the Presence". There will be two gold cherubim facing each other on top with their wings spread to cover The Ark. God then says, "There above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites."

So it is called "The Ark of the Testimony".

It doesn't say what "cherubim" are, images of angels perhaps. Some say that this represents the throne room in heaven, although it doesn't say that here. Apparently the cherubim don't count as graven images for purposes of the commandment, they not gods, only aides to God, who is not represented in the artwork.

Equally detailed directions are given for construction of the Table and its accessories like rings and poles and plates and ladles. The directions for the Lamp-stand specify six branches, three on each side, for seven lamps (one in the middle), and "cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms". Most of this is to be made of pure gold. The Lamp-stand and accessories (like lamps) use up 75 lbs.!

These are not (yet) well written requirements. Only because I've read through here before, a long time ago, do I know where we're headed with all this. Also, despite the detail, there is not enough to make an exact model of what is wanted, if in fact some exact artifact is what God wants. In my Bible there is a drawing of the Ark. It doesn't have cherubim on it so it doesn't appear complete.

It looks like the only way this project can go forward correctly is under at least two conditions. First, Moses will be there personally to guide progress at all levels of detail. Second, God (and Moses) will allow the artisans latitude, or will be forgiving.

Exodus 26 - 27 2005 February 18 for March 11^th

Here are the directions for the Tabernacle. They don't say what the Tabernacle is for or what the master plan is except that it is to be set up "according to the plan shown you on the mountain."

The Tabernacle consists of ten curtains, two sets of five, that are pretty large, 42 by 6 feet each, made from "finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim worked into them by a skilled craftsman." In addition there are eleven curtains made of goat hair for a tent. These are all suspended by gold rings, connected by bronze clasps, and mounted on upright frames made of acacia wood.

Inside there are additional curtains and frames with similar specifications that separate the "Holy Place" from the "Most Holy Place". The atonement cover on the Ark resides in the Most Holy Place. Also, there is a curtain for the entrance to the tent.

Everything is set up in bronze bases.

Next there is a four and a half foot high altar made of acacia wood and overlaid with bronze for burnt offerings. It has horns at each of the four corners, all one piece with the altar. All sorts of utensils and accessories are made of bronze: meat forks, fire pans, pots, shovels, and bowls. It also has rings and carrying poles. This altar is a hollow box made of boards, "just as you were shown on the mountain."

The written word here is an outline; the real directions are contained in a miraculous vision that Moses remembers from the mountaintop experience.

Around the Tabernacle is to be a courtyard of 75 by 150 feet (wide direction goes east and west in the setup) and 7-1/2 feet high made of bronze bases and poles and linen curtains and silver rings and hooks as with the Tabernacle itself but larger. A special courtyard entrance curtain is to be prepared by a skilled embroiderer.

The Israelites are to bring olive oil for the Tabernacle lamps so that they may be kept burning all night every night, "from evening until morning" in perpetuity.

It occurs to me that all of this is probably so that they can carry God around with them in their travels without having to bring the entire holy mountain along.

Exodus 28 2005 February 21 for March 14^th

This chapter describes the clothes that the priests must wear when they work in the Tabernacle.

The first priests will be Moses' brother Aaron and Aaron's sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. Like the Tabernacle, accessories and furnishings, all of these clothing and accessories were to be made by "skilled men to whom I have given wisdom in such matters." The list of garments includes: ephod, robe, woven tunic, turban, sash, and undergarments. They will be made from blue, purple and scarlet yarn; gold; and fine linen.

I don't even know what an ephod is, but there is a picture in my Bible in which it looks sort of like a tight fitting apron. There is also a heavily embroidered waste-band holding it down and a stone on each shoulder. Each of the stones has six sons of Israel (tribe names) written on it.

The breast-piece itself has twelve stones on it, one for each tribe. The following stones are used:

ruby, topaz, beryl,

turquoise, sapphire, emerald,

jacinth, agate, amethyst,

chrysolite, onyx, and jasper.

Do these have some relationship to birthstones popular today?

Much of the garment is held together with braided chains of gold (like rope) and gold rings.

The breast-piece also contains "the Urim and the Thummim". This is the first we hear of them and the only description of what they are is that "Aaron will always bear the means of making decisions for the Israelites" by having these over his heart when he enters the presence of the Lord.

We may or may not hear more about the Urim and the Thummim in the future, so I'll comment briefly on them here. They are a means of "randomly" deciding among alternatives similar to flipping a coin or rolling dice.

One thing we never do in religious institutions today, or in fact, any institutions that I'm involved with, is to make any sort of decision, much less an important one, by some means of chance. A normal Protestant or democratic response to this would be that must be some better way to make a decision than to leave it to chance. How can we be bound to a decision made by flipping a coin, particularly if it is not the way we wanted to go? (Sometimes you can determine which way you want a decision to go by flipping a coin, but this is different.) We have no trouble claiming that all people should follow other Biblical "mandates," such as the headship of some people over others, submission and obedience, rules of sexuality, paying one's debts, entitlement to servitude (wage-slavery by extension from slavery), scrupulosity, and so forth but no one these days preaches in favor of the Urim and Thummim (or if they do, not for our "dispensation") or would dare operate in such a way. Even when there are alternatives that are seen going in as being equal in cost and consequence we still would not make a selection by chance but would use preference and precedence.

Well, first, this should be distinguished from gambling, games of chance with real stakes that moralists usually see as sinful, nor is this game playing. The use of Urim and Thummim is serious business encapsulated in serious (life and death) ritual. It is a way of determining God's decision.

Next, there is a proven mathematical theorem stating that the optimum economic guidance that a controlling authority like a government can provide is random. I'm not saying by quoting this that God's choices are random, I'm just saying there are worse things than making decisions at random, by this measure.

Einstein was troubled with the concepts of quantum mechanics that implied that God played dice with the universe. This is something different, however. Quantum mechanics says basically that everything is based on profound randomness.

The quote which will come up later is, "The lot falls in the lap, but the decision is the Lord's."

This comes back to the point in a way. If we believe in God can we really believe in chance? Perhaps this profound randomness is really God piloting the universe, so to speak. Perhaps some procedure of "chance" (chance as it seems to us mortals) really is a good way to consult this same God on issues.

Some non-Christian religions do have something like this. I wonder what (observant) Jews do today?

What did Jesus do?

I'm sure we'll encounter this again, come to think of it.

So, continuing with the apparel accessories, there will be a turban with a pure gold front plate that says "Holy to the Lord" on it. The Bible reverences turbans! There will be little bells on the robe so that the priest can "be heard when he enters the Holy Place before the Lord and when he comes out, so that he will not die."

There is a sash and a tunic and undergarments. The directions with all of the clothing say "wear them whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting or approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place so that they will not incur guilt and die."

The priests will always be descendants of Aaron.

Exodus 29 2005 February 22 for March 15^th

Now that we have the Tabernacle and its courtyard and the garments for the priest, this chapter deals with the ceremony for ordination of the priests. Moses will perform the ordination, Aaron will wear the garments, and whoever succeeds Aaron as High Priest will wear the garments down the generations. Aaron and his four sons will all participate.

There are foodstuffs made from flour (never any yeast), including bread, cakes with oil and wafers with oil spread. These come in a basket along with a bull and two rams.

First, Aaron is dressed in the garments as specified, oil is poured on his head, and his sons are dressed in tunics with turbans. Next, a bull is brought around to the entrance. Aaron and his sons put their hands on its head and slaughter it there. Some of the blood is put on the horns of the altar and the rest is poured out at the base. The fat around the inner parts (kidney, liver) is burned on the altar but the skin and offal are burned outside the camp, as a sin offering.

Next, a ram is taken and slaughtered similarly, but the parts are cut up and washed and the entire animal is burned on the altar "a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire." This "pleasing aroma" refrain recurs throughout the directions. (Must be an acquired taste.)

Next the other ram is slaughtered similarly, but the parts are handled differently. The blood is collected and some put on the right earlobes, right thumbs, and right big toes of each of the priests being consecrated, some on their clothes, and the rest is sprinkled all around the altar. The breast, thigh and bread from the basket are then "waved" before God but not burned. They are the part that the priests eat. This part being saved for their meal is an ordinance concerning the priests whenever sacrifices are made. Since this food is sacred, it may not be kept as leftovers overnight. Any leftovers are burned.

The actual consecration lasts seven days. A bull is sacrificed each of the seven days as specified. Each day also, two yearling lambs are sacrificed, one in the morning and one at twilight, with some of the grain offerings… and drink offerings.

There will also be consecrations for the altar and Tabernacle. Through these consecrations, God will come and be present in the Tabernacle, making it holy, and will be there to speak with the people. He plans to "dwell" there with them, as their God, and they will know him as the one who brought them out of Egypt.

No instructions are given as to where the animals or breads will come from or how they are selected. Perhaps we'll learn of this later.

I have two marked reactions to this. I find the whole procedure so different from anything I know, indeed, anything that would be legal or expected for me to know, that I have trouble concentrating while reading or writing about it, and proofreading. I bet you do too. There is just no analogy for me to hang my thoughts on, as we follow these large animals around through their death, dismemberment, and destruction for God's delight.

Also, I find the whole procedure totally foreign from any experience I have of religion. We have fellowship meals within the church, but we don't kill, dress out, and prepare the animals right there in the kitchen (or on the altar) as an all-day task. This wouldn't be legal either.

There are people in our culture who regularly butcher chickens and other small animals for food. I've observed that such activities can be as routine for these people as picking fruit off a tree is for me. We have butchered chickens ourselves a few times. Except for reverence for life, thankfulness for our own sustenance, and disgust as the mess, these are not overtly religious ceremonies. I didn't find the experience particularly appealing, pleasant or fulfilling. I did find it to be labor intensive, and requiring of some skill that I didn't quite have. If I had to do it regularly to live I suppose I'd either get used to it or become vegetarian, if that were possible. (I doubt it is possible for an Eskimo to be vegetarian, for example.)

These ceremonies, however, were central to the developing faith of the Israelites. God had co-opted and sanctified a regular food-chain activity in the name of worship, consecration, atonement, and support for the priests. Culturally, they would have found this much more familiar and unexceptional than we would.

But we are looking at the inerrant Bible here. Is this an absolute directive from God for the Israelites under Moses then through to us today or is this an example of the sort of way that God will approach a person or people, in ways where they are familiar and will understand? Our experience and our practice through the ages has been the latter. We search for God and he finds us where we are. A literal reading, however could be used to insist on the former, and often is for other subject matters.

I bring this up here because we will have to consider again and again going forward whether the commands of God are absolutes for all people in all times or whether what we are seeing may apply differently to a different people in a different place and different time. I don't think it's obvious either way. The only thing that is obvious is that we, now, do not take the total Bible totally literally (we are not sacrificing, burning, and eating animals in our houses of worship on a regular basis) so, whether it is right or not, room has been made for us and used by us to find God without doing things that are culturally alien. And, room has been made for us to say prima facie that every word in the Bible must not apply generally to every person at every time.

Exodus 30 2005 February 23 for March 16^th

Today's directions have to do with incense, census, washing, and perfume.

A small altar, wood covered with gold (about 1-1/2 by 1-1/2 by 3 feet) with its own little horns is to be constructed for the burning of incense and only incense. Though it is to be used for nothing else, it will have some blood on it at the consecration. Every morning when Aaron "tends the lamps" and every evening when he "lights the lamps" he is to burn incense, in perpetuity down the generations.

When a census is taken, men over twenty are counted by "crossing over". When a man crosses over, he pays half a shekel, whether he is rich or poor. This money is used for the support of the Tent of Meeting. It doesn't say how often a census is taken.

Between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, there is to be a big bronze basin for washing. Whenever the priests go in they will wash their hands and feet with its water "so that they will not die."

A formula is given for anointing oil which is to be used for the anointing of the priests. The formula uses cinnamon, cane, cassia, and olive oil. It is not to be used for anything but anointing, and everyone who touches anything anointed with it (such as altars, utensils, basin, stand, and so forth) will be holy. Anyone who makes a perfume like it for any other purpose, like pleasure, "must be cut off from his people."

Also, there is a formula for incense that includes resin, onycha, galbanum and frankincense. A perfumer is to make the incense. It is to be "salted and pure and sacred". Anyone who makes similar incense to "enjoy its fragrance must be cut off from his people."

I think being "cut off from the people" in this desert experience is not a direct death sentence, but is similar. Also, most of the priests' duties have a life and death quality to them. Is this is to enforce reverence? Is there no concept of graded punishment? Is there no slack?

Exodus 31 2005 February 24 for March 17^th

God names the artisans who are to lead all of the construction. Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of Judah is filled "with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts" to do all the work with artistic designs. Oholiab, son of Ahisamach, of Dan is to be his assistant. Other skilled craftsmen are provided who are not named here.

They will carry out the actual work. Their being filled with the Spirit may explain the lack of need for any more detail in the specifications.

When God created everything, he worked for six days and rested a seventh. A sign between God and these people will be that they will observe the Sabbath. Anyone who does any work on the Sabbath "must be put to death."

This was the end of Moses' interview with God on the mountain. God "gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God. It doesn't say what is on these tablets. In the movie it is the Ten Commandments (the "Title Tablets") but it could also be argued that it could be the entire last ten or twelve chapters relating what God said to Moses on the mountain. At least it could be if God's writing was small enough.

It is interesting that most offenses, like not observing the Sabbath, are capital, that is, result in a sentence of death. Even when Jesus was arguing with the religious leaders about this, they weren't enforcing death sentences for violators of the Sabbath. They were just following Jesus around accusing him of breaking the law. (The religious establishment in Jesus time did have the problem that they didn't have capital authority.)

Since working on the Sabbath is a capital offense, the definition of "work" becomes very important. That's what the Pharisees and Jesus were arguing about. Jesus and the disciples were walking through a field eating the grain, just as is provided for a few chapters back wherein fields are to have Sabbath years and lie fallow and whatever comes up is for the poor to eat. Jesus didn't consider this work, but the strict, detailed interpretations of religion did consider it work, technically "harvesting."

Jesus did say that not a detail of the law would pass away, so he must not have seen all the things he did on the Sabbath, eating, healing, doing good, teaching, as violations. One way to understand his teaching is that the things he was doing were more important than keeping this law as if to the letter. It is hard to read this passage here, "Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from this people…. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death" then jump to where Jesus asks, 'Is the Sabbath made for man or man for the Sabbath?' without at least skirting logical difficulty.

When I think of "contradictions in the Bible" I don't think of typos or misprints, I think of issues such as this.

I don't know this, but I think there is some resolution in the notion that the laws are good and true, but nitpicking them blindly, without reason or compassion, or with improper motives misses the point. This line of thinking, however, elevates reason, compassion, and prioritization to a status near equal with scripture itself.

It is in fact no wonder that there are so many religions and so many denominations within religions!

What we seem to pick up from Jesus, however, is either that reason and compassion are on equal footing with the law or that you can't know what it really means without being told by Jesus. It does say here that working on the Sabbath is a capital sacrilege, whatever 'work' is.

Exodus 32 2005 February 26 for March 18^th

The scene now shifts back to the camp. Moses was gone so long that the people began to take matters into their own hands. They approached Aaron, the heir-apparent, and asked him to make them "gods who will go before us." He acquiesced, taking their jewelry, melting it, and "cast[ing] it into the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool" and building an altar for it. Clearly they thought Moses was not coming back.

The next day, they all got up early and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and after they ate, got up to party.

At this point, God told Moses to go down and deal with the crises. Then he said, "leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and I may destroy them." Moses pleaded on their behalf, however, pointing out to God that it would look bad for him to have done all that work to bring them out of Egypt only to kill them here.

On this argument, God changed his mind and let Moses go deal with it after all.

On descent, when Moses reached Joshua, Joshua was worried that the camp might have been attacked and that they were hearing a battle, but Moses said it sounded more like singing than victory or defeat.

When Moses got to the bottom, the first thing he did was to throw the stone tablets, written on both sides by God himself, at them, destroying them at the foot of the mountain. Next he ground the golden calf into pieces, put it in the water, and made them drink it. After that he confronted Aaron who said that he had taken a collection of jewelry and thrown it in the fire and "out came this calf!" a partial truth at best.

Moses was embarrassed that the people were so wild and had "become a laughingstock to their enemies." He called for all those who were on God's side to rally around him, which the Levites promptly did, then he ordered those who rallied to go out into the camp and kill their "brothers, friends and neighbors" with swords, which they did. Those who were not killed in this way suffered a plague from God.

Moses then publicly announced that the people had sinned and went back up to intercede with God on their behalf. When he got up to God, he did an interesting thing. He put himself in with the people, asking God to "blot me out of the book you have written." God's reply could well be the basis for much of our judgment theology today.

"Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book…. [W]hen the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin."

Exodus 33 2005 February 28 for March 21^st

God told Moses to lead the people out of the place and go to their inheritance in Canaan. He would send an angel ahead of them to drive out the people living there now, the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

He also said that he would not go with them personally. "If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you." They took off all their ornaments (jewelry) at Mt. Horeb while God decided what to do with them.

Moses was accustomed to setting up a tent some distance outside the camp. He would go there and talk with God. Joshua would go with him. When he went there, the people would stand at their own tents and watch and worship. The pillar of cloud would join Moses there at this tent. It does not say if this was the Tabernacle mentioned in previous chapters, I don't think it is. I think this was an interim measure Moses used until the Tabernacle was made.

At one point, Moses asked God to see his glory, reminding him that the Israelites were his people and they would go nowhere unless led by God. In a mysterious incident, God told Moses to stand on a rock while he passed by. He put Moses in the cleft of a rock and passed by with his back toward him. "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live," he said.

Exodus 34 2005 March 1 for 22^nd

God called Moses back up on the mountain and told him to chisel out and bring two new stone tablets like the first so that they could try writing the law on them again. As before, he had to come up by himself; not even animals could come near the mountain.

After all the trouble, it was a happy reunion and reconciliation. Moses asked God to take the people as his inheritance, even though they were "stiff necked and stubborn." God made a covenant that he would do miraculous things to drive out the current inhabitants of Israelite's inherited land. For their part, they could not make treaties with these people and when they had been conquered had to destroy all of their pagan worship centers and artifacts. Further, they could not mingle, intermarry or socialize with these people as doing so would lead to worship of their idols and prostitution with their gods.

The next section was so familiar that I turned back to Chapter 23 to see that it was a near exact reproduction. It begins with the regulation about the firstborn animals and sons, continues with the three major festivals and ends, again, with "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."

Moses was again on the mountain for forty days and nights "without eating bread or drinking water." Surviving like this without bread is known to be possible, but without water is hard to fathom.

Even though he had begun the chapter by saying he would do it again himself, God then told Moses to write the Ten Commandments on the tablets he had brought up.

When he came down Moses' face was "radiant" though he was unaware of it. Aaron noticed. Moses relayed all of the commands he had received on the mountain to the leaders. After this he put a veil over his face and only took it off when he went into the presence of God or was relaying what God had told him to the people. Other than that he wore a veil all the time.

Exodus 35 - 36 2005 March 2 for 23^rd

At this point, Moses announces again the Sabbath, the day of rest, adding, "Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day." Adding to the rules based on experience so far?

He also announces a freewill offering of materials from anyone who is able and willing to donate them for the Tabernacle, courtyard, Ark, priests clothing, lamps, fuels, and other materials needed to build the portable place of worship and communion with God. "Every skilled woman spun with her hands and brought what she had spun -- blue, purple or scarlet yarn or fine linen. And all the women who were willing and had the skill spun the goat hair." Men and women brought what they had, even the specified acacia wood. They presented them as "wave offerings" meaning, I think, that they waved the materials in front of God, and left them there.

This invokes an image of people moving about in the desert, carrying, in addition to their tents and supplies, planks of wood, enough of it to build a small building.

Again, Bezalel and Oholiab are named as the master craftsmen who would lead the work. They and all the skilled people came together to begin the work and Moses gave them all the material that had been donated. Quickly, they reported back to Moses that there was more than enough on hand already, so Moses put out the order to stop the offering and people still coming at that point were turned back.

Such is life.

Work began on the Tabernacle first and the following narrative describes the construction in the same form as the specifications from the earlier chapter, with slightly more detail. In short, skilled volunteers built the Tabernacle to specification. Perhaps it can be seen as a miracle that it all came together and worked properly at this time.

Exodus 37 - 38 2005 March 3 for 24^th

The construction continues and the language describing it continues to closely match the specifications given in earlier chapters. (I'm not going to go back and check all of this word-for-word. I trust Moses and centuries of scholars with less busy lives than mine on these details.) Next described are the Ark, the Table, the Lampstand, the Altar of Incense, the Altar of Burnt Offering and the Courtyard.

In all, Bezalel and Oholiab and their teams used about one metric ton of gold and about three and a half metric tons of silver in all the construction. The census tax, half a shekel per person for every man over twenty, counted 603,550 men. This silver was used for the bases for the sanctuary and curtains. The amount of bronze used on the project was about two and a half metric tons.

Exodus 39 2005 March 5 for 25^th

The last step in construction was the garments for the priests. They hammered gold into fine plates then cut it into narrow, threadlike strips to weave in with the scarlet, blue, and purple yarn so that the cloth used actually had gold woven into it.

The Ephod and Breastpiece were all constructed just as specified in previous chapters as were the rest of the garments such as the sash and underwear.

When all of the construction and assembly were complete, everything was brought to Moses for inspection. Moses performed the inspection, listing every item and at the end declared:

The Israelites had done all the work just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the Lord had commanded. So Moses blessed them.

I must point out that the process of production is known to be inexact. Errors and misunderstandings occur at every step through specification, planning, execution, and finishing. The exact success reported here implies one or more of several things:

Strict artisan codes.

Considerable unreported interaction between Moses and the workers.

Unreported (presumed) interaction between God and the workers ("Spirit filled").

Considerable slack as to what constitutes a "just as commanded" implementation.

This last could imply that these works of worship are a joint expression of God and the people themselves, but it is a double stretch to say this, so I'm only suggesting it as food for thought.

Exodus 40 2005 March 8 for 28^th

Moses now sets up the Tabernacle and everything around it as instructed. The text reads as if he did it all himself, "he put the bases in place, erected the frames, inserted the crossbars and set up the posts." Some of the tasks, such as "spread the tent over the tabernacle…" might have required some help.

Also, as commanded, he anointed everything inside, the altars and utensils, and dressed and anointed Aaron and his sons as instructed, reiterating that this priesthood was a hereditary position in perpetuity.

With the final assembly, Moses also put water into the basin so that the priests could wash whenever they entered.

Last, he set up the courtyard and the curtain at the entrance.

When all this was done, "the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

Now, instead of being in a pillar of fire at night and cloud during the day outside of the camp, God inhabited the tabernacle. The Israelites would break camp and move on only when the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle and led the way.

In an earlier chapter, God, in anger, had said he would not live among the people. Perhaps this is not what he was referring to. Perhaps he is less angry on this the dedication day.

Concluding Thoughts on Exodus 2005 March 9 for 29^th

This book of Exodus begins with the birth of Moses, a legend in his own time and forever after, and ends with the construction and dedication of the Tabernacle, the traveling Temple for the wandering Israelites. Moses, the author, must see this as a key moment in the history of the people to make the break between books at this point.

The book divides right in the middle between the life and adventures of Moses and the laws of God handed down to the million or so Israelis, refugees in the desert. Moses is telling the story of himself. Typically you'd expect a person to be harder on himself than an independent, "objective" biographer would be in such a case. This is seen particularly severely in the "calling interview" with God on the forbidden mountain. Moses' self-treatment, though honest, is harsh and unforgiving. God himself is forgiving, it seems, though God does get angry in the process.

Whatever the case, God knows how to not take "no" for an answer.

Moses reports on the activities and attitudes of God and the people's response to them, including his own. He sees himself as one of the sinful people, though a privileged one.

We have explored from various angles questions such as, "Are the laws of God presented here anachronistic or culturally specific or do they have relevance today, literally, figuratively, by example, or in some other way? My advisor John Wipf, in his own form of succinct and brutal honesty, claims that the modern Christian church has pretty much "wiped all of the first five books of the Bible away". I might add, "except in cases where they have some narrow point to prove." This does match with my experience of the modern church. All of this material is seen more as instructive background than divine commandment, and thank goodness too for some of that! The regulations for animal sacrifices alone could be extremely problematic in this day and place.

The regulations concerning the construction and use of the Tabernacle and all of its accessories are lengthy, tedious, and are repeated numerous times, sometimes with very little variation. Moses is clearly excited and proud of these works as I am of some of my creative efforts. They consume much of his writing attention amongst his other leadership duties in the wilderness.

Part of what we are doing here is learning just what the Bible contains, in full context. We are not trying to prove particular points, we are just trying to see what it says in the whole and thereby see what relative relevance the various events, consequences, laws, and other works have. Thus far we see God interested mostly in the establishment of a people under his care and their general social behaviors once rescued. We do not see this going as well as it might. Things don't usually work out "perfectly."

Another part of what we are doing here is approaching God and waiting for him to contact us. Though we see this happening with Moses and others in this text, I have found going through it myself to be more akin to reading about God rather than interacting with him.

Yet, we will carry on and see what happens.

© Courtney B. Duncan, 2005