Tag Archives: Exodus 19-21

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2024 Bible Study — A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 19-21.

Having provided the Israelites a learning test with the manna, where He taught them about following His instructions, God spoke to them at Mt Sinai.  First, He has Moses convey the “preamble” to the covenant He will make with Israel.  If the Israelites would obey God and fully keep His covenant with them, He would make them a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.  This reminds me of what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2 when he said that those who follow Christ are “a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”  The Israelites failed to keep their covenant with God, so God created a new covenant in order to create a holy nation.  I want to note that in this case the word “nation” refers to a people group.  In the case here in Exodus, the people group out of which God wished to create a holy nation was the descendants of Jacob, something we today often refer to as an ethnic group.  The people group to whom Peter refers is composed of those who accepted God’s gift of grace through faith in Christ Jesus.  The former group one entered by birth, the latter group by faith in Christ.  God may have raised up a new holy nation to be his priesthood to the world but He did not forget His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning their descendants.  Let us praise God and honor Him by bringing His Word to others so that they may join the people of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2023 Bible Study — If We Truly Fear God, We Will Fear Nothing Else

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 19-21.

When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, or Ten Sayings, He spoke to them directly.  The people were so terrified by hearing God speak that they asked Moses to relay the rest of His commands rather than hear them directly.  Moses told them not to fear because that God had spoken to them in this manner so that they would fear God to such an extent that they would not sin.  Which brings us to the great conundrum of faith: it is fear of God which leads us to truly desire to be made right with Him, but it is only when we truly understand God’s love for us that we accept His actions to redeem us, and when we understand that love we realize we no longer need to fear anything else.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2022 Bible Study — Are We Willing To Have God Talk To Us Directly?

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 19-21.

Yet another day where I have a few thoughts about the passage, but am unsure what how those thoughts tie together.  So, I am just going to start recording my thoughts and see if a lesson comes out of them.   It starts with Moses going up Mt Sinai to God and God calling out to Moses from the mountain.  Then Moses went back and summoned the elders, got their response and returned up the mountain.  Moses finally returned down the mountain and told the people to consecrate themselves.  Then on the third day, Moses once more went up the mountain to God, returned to the people, and then ascended the mountain once more.    That is a lot of going up and down the mountain.   What God said told Moses to tell the people, and the people’s responses to those messages are important, but I think we miss how much back and forth there was when we look at the words spoken on each end of each trip.  Having written all of that, I don’t see any further comment to make, but I think it is important to highlight how much trudging up and down the mountain did at Sinai.

Now, I want to look a little but about what God said, and how the people responded.  The first time up the mountain, God told Moses to remind the people what they had seen Him do for them in bringing them out of Egypt and that if they obeyed His commands, He would make them His special people out of all of the earth, even though all of the earth was His.  The people responded that they would do everything the Lord had said.  Then, on the third day when Moses went up on the mountain, God told him to go back down and return with Aaron.  I find that interesting because this was before God spoke directly to the people and gave them the Ten Commandments (often referred to by Jews as the Ten Sayings, which I find actually a rather helpful way of thinking about them).  After God directly gave them the Ten Sayings, the people asked Moses to talk to God for them and then tell them what He wanted them to know.  So, God knew that the people would ask that He not continue to talk to them directly.  The request by the people for God not to talk to them directly represents an issue which people have struggled with since Adam and Eve sinned.  Jesus died on the cross to reconcile us with God so that we would be comfortable in His presence again, as Adam and Eve had been in the Garden before they sinned.

 

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2020 Bible Study — Do Not Misuse the Name of God

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

Two months to the day after leaving Egypt the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai.  I will point out that we do not really know which mountain was Mount Sinai.  There are several theories, and I have heard one that sounds likely, but there is unlikely any way to be sure that any of them are correct.  At Mount Sinai, God made His presence known to the Israelites.  The Israelites were so intimidated by God speaking to them as He gave them what we know as the Ten Commandments that they asked that He just speak to Moses and Moses convey His commands to them.

I want to focus on what is the second or third commandment, depending on how you divide and number them, Exodus 20, verse 7.  In the King James Version it reads, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”  This led me, and many others, to misunderstand what it means.  To a large degree my misunderstanding resulted from those who taught me its meaning misunderstanding it.  I was taught that using “God” was a violation of this commandment.  I want to note that this interpretation derives from something many Jews still practice, and something which influenced the use of YVWH by many of those who wrote portions of the Old Testament.  Somehow, using other foul words as an expletive was a violation of this commandment as well. 

This training was so thorough that I did not notice for a long time that the NIV (and other modern translations) say something completely different: “You shall not MISUSE the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”  What we realize is that the teaching to avoid using “God” or “YVWH” derived from a desire to make it harder to misuse God’s name.  However, that misses the point.  When you use God, or people’s desire to be righteous, to further your self-interest, you are violating this command, even if you do not explicitly say “God”, or “YVWH”, or any of the other terms we use to refer to Him.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2019 Bible Study — Now What?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

When the Children of Israel reached Mt. Sinai, Moses went up the mountain to meditate and converse with God about what to do next.  Moses had returned to Egypt and rescued the Children of Israel from slavery there as God had instructed him to do from the burning bush.  If they were going to conquer the land which God had promised to them when he spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would need to be organized.  How should they be organized and what rules should govern their lives?  Moses did what all leaders should do in that situation.  He turned to God in prayer and meditation.

I find the way in which the following portion is phrased to be open to interpretation.  God told Moses to tell the people that if they did as He commanded He would make them His special people. The phrasing seems to suggest that God gave Moses the commands to pass on to the people at this point, but further on in the passage it tells us that God gave them the commands later.  My interpretation is that at this point God was referencing the outline of laws which were contained in the stories which had been passed down to them from Abraham, who had them from his ancestors.  Once the people had agreed to God’s conditions in principle, God came to them to communicate the specifics of what He desired from them.

When God came to them He spoke what we know as the Ten Commandments, but which Jewish tradition refer to as the Ten Words.  In many ways the latter is more accurate.  Once God had spoken these Ten Words, the people asked that God no longer speak directly to them.  They asked that God speak His commands to Moses and Moses pass them on to them.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2018 Bible Study — Entering Into The Presence Of God

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

    When the people of Israel came to Mt Sinai, God came down onto the mountain and spoke with them. However, after God gave them what we call the Ten Commandments, which Jews typically refer to more accurately as the Ten Statements, the people asked that God speak to them through Moses rather than directly. This is a very human tendency. We saw this same tendency when Adam and Eve hid from God after eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We see this tendency in the creation of a division between clergy and laity in the Christian Church. We constantly seek to create distance between ourselves and God so as to avoid recognizing our sinfulness.

    Today, I want to spend some time focusing on the last of the Commandments. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s…” This is an important commandment because one of the things I hear people say today is “It isn’t fair that he/she has so much.” Oh, they often go on to say, “…and this other person has so little.” But we all know their real concern is what the first person has, not what the second person lacks. We should seek to help those in need, especially when we have in excess of our needs. Our concern should be with those in need, not in how much others have.

    Finally, I want to take note of God’s instructions concerning building an altar. We tend not to pay much attention to that since we do not, as a general rule, build altars anymore. However, it is noteworthy that these instructions are the first ones God gives after the Ten Commandments. God instructs Moses that any altars they build are to be rather utilitarian. There is to be nothing fancy about them, they are not even supposed to be raised up. All of this is to be sure that we are not worshiping the altar in place of God. The lesson here is that our places of worship must be designed so as to not encourage us to put more importance into them than into God. We do not make a place holy by building a certain building there, or having certain objects there. It is not even the geography of the place which makes it holy. No, a place becomes holy when we enter into God’s presence there and we should strive to have nothing which might lead anyone to think otherwise.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2017 Bible Study — The Ten Commandments

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

    Today’s passage contains what we know as the Ten Commandments. Jewish tradition refers to them as the Ten Words, or Ten Sayings, depending on how one translates the Hebrew word “Aseret ha-D’varim”. The Jewish term makes it easier to make sense of them, since the first two do not clearly divide into two separate commands, but do separate into two distinct separate statements. Looked at this way the Ten become the following (I have left out the additional text because you can read it for yourself):

  1. I AM the Lord your God.
  2. You must not have any other god but Me.
  3. Observe the Sabbath by keeping it holy.
  4. Honor your father and mother.
  5. You must not murder.
  6. You must not commit adultery.
  7. You must not steal.
  8. You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.
  9. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, or any of his property.

Knowing that, in Jewish eyes, these are the “Ten Sayings”, not the “Ten Commandments” makes a lot more sense out of Jesus’ answer to the question about what the greatest commandment is, since “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not one of these ten.

    I have rarely heard, or read, anyone comment on the connection between the second Saying and the instructions on building an altar. The Israelites were instructed to use an altar made out of packed earth or uncut stones. Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but this instruction seems to be designed to keep people from worshiping the altar itself.

Daily Bible Study

January 24, 2016 Bible Study — The Ten Commandments

This year I switched from using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible reading to the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net”. I have now done this long enough to say that I am glad I made the change. I am firmly convinced that the One Year Bible Online is a great way to read through the Bible in a year. It breaks the parts of the Bible which can be a struggle to read into manageable portions. However, I think that the Daily Bible Reading Schedule I am using now is a better format for doing a daily Bible study.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

    Reading about how God had the children of Israel prepare for Him to speak with them gives us an idea about what it means to fear the Lord. They were to spend three days consecrating themselves for His arrival. As a side note, I find the parallel with Jesus’ three days in the grave interesting. I am not sure there is any connection between the two, but I want to give it some thought. During this period of consecration none of the people or their animals were to touch the mountain (as defined by a boundary marked by Moses) on pain of death. When God arrived on the third day, He reminded the people that none were to attempt to cross the boundary out of a desire to see God. Even after three days of consecration they were to purify themselves further, even the priests who regularly approached God to offer sacrifices (another interesting note: this takes place BEFORE God had Moses set up Aaron and his sons as priests. Who were the priests at this time?).

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    When the preparations were completed, God spoke to the children of Israel. He gave them what we call the Ten Commandments and the Jews call the Ten Sayings or Ten Words. The first four commandments have to do with our relationship with God. The final six have to do with our relationships with our fellow man. The first two establish that God is the only god and we should worship only Him. The third tells us not to abrogate God’s authority for our own, that we are not to use God’s name for our own purposes. The fourth tells us that we have six days a week to take care of our worldly needs, but we should dedicate the seventh day to worshiping and communing with God. The fifth tells us to honor our parents, that doing so is the path to a long, full life. The remaining five, as Jesus tells us, can be summed up by, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” I will note that loving and worshiping God results in us loving ourselves. If we do not love ourselves, we will not love and worship God.