Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 30-32.

I want to note that when the people asked Aaron to make them gods for them to worship it had been less than two months after they had said, “We will do what the Lord has said.”  And one of the things they were agreeing to was to make no gods out of gold or silver.  However, I want to focus on the fact that Moses intervened with God for the sake of sinners.  It reminds me of when Abraham negotiated with God on how many righteous  people it would take for God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.   I think both of these instances represent behavior we should follow.  We should pray for God to have mercy on those whom we know have done things which have terrible consequences.  The Israelites did not deserve God’s mercy, but then, neither do we.  Let us petition God to have mercy on those we know do not deserve it.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 28-29.

I have never been particularly interested in ceremonial garb.  As a result this passage tends to go “over my head”.  However, one thing which has always bothered me about this passage is the lack of detail concerning the Urim and Thummim, which were to be used by Aaron, and his successors to consult God in order to make a decision.  I did a little Internet research today and learned more than I had known before (I had previously looked for information and found nothing useful).  Thummim is believed to be derived from a Hebrew word which means “innocent”, while Urim may be derived from a word which means “cursed”.  This leads to the idea that they were two stones of identical size and shape with a marking on them to indicate which was which.  If this is correct, that would mean that questions for which they were used would need to be “yes” or “no” questions.  Of course, I also noticed something about this passage which I have never noticed before.  The breastpiece into which the Urim and Thummim were to be placed  was referred to as the “breastpeice of decision”  (or perhaps, “breastpiece of judgement”), which suggests that the breastpiece may have been used in some manner for more complicated decisions.  Nevertheless, the basic nature of the Urim and Thummim suggest that when we seek God’s guidance we should seek to break the decision we are seeking guidance on down into yes or no questions.  Which is really a good idea for any decision…and right after I wrote that I realized that we should be seeking God’s guidance on every decision we make, even if it is just “What should I eat for lunch?”

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 25-27.

So, when God gave Moses the instructions for building the Tabernacle, the place for the Israelites to worship God, He told Moses to accept offerings from everyone whose heart prompted them to give any of the items needed to build it (which God then listed for Moses).  We learn from this that giving for our place of worship should be both voluntary and according to the way in which God’s Spirit prompts us.   Really, all of our giving to charity should be voluntary and according to the prompt of the Holy Spirit.  We do not satisfy God’s direction to give by paying taxes, not even if those taxes are used to aid the poor.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 16-18.

Once again we have the people of Israel grumbling because of some hardship they faced, complaining that they would have been better off if they had stayed in Egypt.  And once again, God provided their need.  Throughout Exodus we learn the lesson that we should trust God to meet our needs.  We should not fall into the temptation to complain about the hardships we face.  Instead, we should just pray to God for resolution of our problems.  When we face difficulties, God has a plan to reveal His glory through the way in which He removes them for us.  There is another lesson for us in this passage.  When the people gathered manna, they gathered what they needed.  Five days a week, they gathered only enough for that one day, and if they put any aside for the following day, it went bad.  But on the sixth day, they gathered twice as much and the extra was still good the following day.  Then on the seventh day, there was none to be gathered.  If we put our trust in God, He will provide for our needs, but may not provide more than we need.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 13-15.

When the Israelites left Egypt, it seems to me that they expected the Egyptians to pursue them.  The passage tells us that they left Egypt ready for battle and that they traveled both day and night.  Nevertheless, when Pharaoh’s army overtook them, they were terrified and angry with Moses.  They accused Moses of leading them into the desert to die.  They did this despite the great signs which God had done to get Pharaoh to allow them to leave in the first place.  Then after Pharaoh’s army was destroyed in the sea, the sea which they had crossed on dry land, they praised God for their rescue.  Yet a short time later when the springs at Marah were undrinkable, they grumbled about not having anything to drink.  This sets a pattern which they followed the entire time they were in the wilderness.  How often do we do something similar in our lives?  We cry out to God because of our troubles, He rescues us in ways we could never have foreseen, yet a short time later we are once again afraid that our troubles are too big for God to handle?

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 10-12.

I started out today’s blog by writing a paragraph about the Plagues discussed in today’s passage, but when I got to the end of it I realized that it had not actually gone anywhere: nothing I had written in that paragraph said anything interesting.  So, I deleted that paragraph and decided to write just on my thoughts about what this passage says about the Passover.  My first thought on reading the instructions which Moses gave concerning the Passover is that some of them seem to be things he would have told them after they left Egypt.  I suspect that the instructions about celebrating Passover every year going forward was probably something Moses told the people while they were on their way, not something he told them when they were preparing for that first Passover.  I also want to write about where the passage mentions that many other people joined the Israelites when they left Egypt.  I wonder, did any of those non-Israelites who left Egypt with the Israelites follow Moses’ instructions regarding the Passover?  How many of these non-Israelites were choosing to join themselves with Israel to worship God vs how many were just taking advantage of this situation to escape bondage of one sort or another in Egypt?  Were any of those who joined with the Israelites Egyptians who wished to worship God who had performed these wondrous signs?  Personally, I think that there were some from all three groups among those who joined the Israelites when they departed Egypt and that some of them had prepared their houses according to Moses’ Passover instructions.  When Moses followed God’s commands in order to free the Israelites he inspired others to worship God as well.  In the same way, when we do God’s will today we may lead those who observe us to come to know the Lord.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 7-9.

When Aaron’s staff turned into a snake, the Pharaoh’s magicians were able to do the same thing, and Pharaoh was not impressed.  I suspect that some of the magicians took the fact that Aaron’s staff swallowed their staffs as a bad omen.  Then when Aaron and Moses turned the water in the Nile to blood, Pharaoh’s magicians turned some water into blood.  I have long assumed that Pharaoh’s magicians accomplished this using something that Penn & Teller would do, some kind of trick.  However, when Aaron and Moses summoned frogs and then gnats, Pharaoh’s magicians recognized that something was going on that they could not duplicate, but Pharaoh refused to listen to them.  By this point, Pharaoh had become committed to his position and was unwilling to admit that he had been wrong and his people were willing to stand with him on that.  However, when Egyptian livestock suffered, but Israelite livestock did not followed by Egyptians breaking out with boils, but Israelites did not, the minds of the Egyptian people began to change.  Such that when Moses predicted that hail would soon fall killing every animal and every person who remained outside, many of the Egyptian nobles believed him and took action to protect their possessions.   We see in the account of the Plagues a lesson in how God deals with humanity.  The Egyptians, in the form of the Pharaoh, were doing wrong.  God warned them in small ways at first, but in steadily increasing disasters.  Pharaoh could have, at any point along the way, chosen to do the right thing, but he did not.  When we do wrong, God acts similarly.  He puts minor problems into our lives to call us to change our ways.  Those problems will get ever worse, but at any point we can turn to God, away from our sin, and things will stop getting worse, but if we do not change our ways we will experience calamity.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 4-6.

In yesterday’s passage it mentions that Moses discovered an Egyptian beating an Israelite and Moses killed the Egyptian.  This resulted in Moses needing to flee Egypt.  It has struck me for some time that Moses killed the Egyptian because he was feeling God’s calling to help his people, but it was not God’s timing.  On two occasions in today’s passage Moses objects to God sending him to speak to Pharaoh because he is not well-spoken.  The first time Moses used his lack of eloquence as his last excuse in an attempt to convince God that he was the wrong man for the job.  God replied that since He had made people able to speak in the first place, He would be able to give Moses the ability to say the right thing at the right time: Moses only needed to put his faith in God.  The second time Moses used his inability to speak eloquently was after Pharaoh had rejected his initial request and the Israelites blamed Moses for Pharaoh’s reaction.  Moses had tried to do God’s will and had failed (as people would look at things).  At this point, Moses had “failed” twice to help the Israelites, once as a young man and now a second time as a mature adult.  He would “fail” nine more times before God would give him success.  These first two failures both made Moses want to give up, but God had other plans for him.  I want to highlight that even though from a human perspective Moses failed eleven times before he accomplished what he set out to do only the first of those failures was a actually a failure.  The first time Moses attempted to help his fellow Israelites, he acted on his own.  The other times he acted according to God’s command, and his “failure” was not a failure.  It was part of God’s plan.  So, if God has given you a mission and things do not go as you think they should do not be convinced that you have failed.  Continue to do God’s will, even when it doesn’t “work”, because success in God’s eyes is often not the same as success in our eyes.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 1-3.

As I read this my first thought is about something I came across a few days ago when I was trying to determine about when Joseph would have lived.  I found a website which claimed that there was archeological evidence of a settlement in what would have been the region of Egypt Genesis says that Jacob’s family settled in of a group of people connected to Canaan living there.  Further, they claimed there was evidence of a period of time where that group had an extraordinary increase in infant mortality, especially for male babies.  I am unsure how reliable this source was, but it’s links to supporting documentation seemed to indicate there was at least some basis to their claims.  However, the archeology of this passage is only incidental to what struck home to me today.

No what interested me was that when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, Moses asked God who he should tell the Israelites had sent him.  The more I read this passage the more it seems that Moses was asking God, “Which on of the many gods I know about is the god of our fathers, is the god of the Hebrews?”  God’s reply was a rejection of the idea that He was one of many different gods, just the one who had taken the Hebrews under his wing.  This exchange reads to me like there were stories passed down among the descendants of Jacob, stories which we now have as the Book of Genesis, which spoke of a god who did all of those things and was the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Further, it reads like perhaps the Hebrews in Egypt debated which one of the gods of Egypt, and elsewhere , that god was.  Here God is telling Moses that the reason none of those stories identify Him with one of those other gods is because He is not like any of them.  We have a record of various civilizations throughout history making connections between gods in their pantheon and the gods of other pantheons.  Sometimes it was one civilization saying that this god in their pantheon matched up to that god in their pantheon (for example the Romans said that Jupiter and Zeus were the same god).  Sometimes it was one civilization saying that yes, the gods of other civilizations are valid gods, but they are subordinate in the hierarchy  to our gods (or perhaps only subordinate to our chief god.  I cannot at the moment think of an example, but I know I have seen such references).  But here God was saying that He had no connections to those other pantheons.  God was, and is, and is to come, the Beginning and the End.

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