The Tabernacle

Exodus 25:1 – 27:21

Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.  Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.  Exodus 25:8

To this point in the Bible, God has communicated to his people in fairly unpredictable ways.  With the law, God created a system through which the people were to interact with God.  The central location for this interaction was the Tabernacle, a component of which was the “Tent of Meeting.” 

It was ornate, expensive, and meticulously designed.  God prescribed the dimensions, the materials and the methods.  He determined the parameters of the peoples’ interaction with him.

The passage concludes with God’s command to keep lamps burning before the Lord from evening till morning.  “This is to be a lasting ordinance among the Israelites for the generations to come.”  God was there, available, dwelling among them.  It was an awesome undertaking.

 

The People Promise to Obey

Exodus 22:1 – 24:18

When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”  Exodus 24:3

They couldn’t of course.  Keep the law, that is.  They’d prove that over and over again.  There’s some great stuff in the law, including the modern-sounding command – “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.”  There’s tenderness amidst the harsh commands – “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry…for I am compassionate.”

Despite the Israelites’ bold oath to do everything that the Lord commanded, God knew they couldn’t.  So he set up a whole system of atoning sacrifices through which they could be reconciled to God after their infractions.  They failed even in keeping that.  The whole thing keeps pointing to what I know comes later – the final and complete sacrifice of Christ.

 

Grace and Law

Exodus 16:1 – 21:35

In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.  The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt!  There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”  Exodus 16:2-3

The Israelites were never slow to grumble, and I am very much like them.  As soon as the faced any deprivation or uncertainty, they turned on God and his servants.  No matter how many times God delivered them, they persisted in doubting that he would do so again.  Like them, no matter how many times God provides and delivers, the moment I don’t see a clear path to meeting my needs or achieving my aims, I grumble.

In this passage God provides many things to his people – food, water, military victory and the law.  There’s a lot going on in these chapters.  First, God provides a type of bread for the people that they need only pick up from the ground.  They called it “manna,” which means “What is it?”  Seems like they could have called it “food from God,” or maybe “miracle bread,” but the whole thing seemed a bit mysterious and odd to them, so they named it a question. 

A bit later they complain about lack of water, so God tells Moses to strike a rock that provides them water.  Then they are attacked by the Amalekites (descendants of Esau’s grandson Amalek), and God gives them victory.  Last, he gives them the law.

From this point forward the Bible often deals with this notion of the law.  It was a list of rules governing their relationship with God and their relationships with each other.  The entire massive structure of the Old Testament Law was initially framed by the straightforward Ten Commandments, the first four dealing with the people’s vertical relationship with God, the remaining six concerning their dealings with each other.  Following those initial rules, God provides more guidance.  To the modern mind, much of it seems primitive, even brutal. 

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.  Exodus 21:20-21

But in a society where there were apparently no previous restrictions on treatment of slaves, this was a step forward for slaves.  Throughout the law, slaves are ensured of certain rights evidencing their worth as human beings.  There is also a radical mercy built into the law.

If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years.  But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything.  Exodus 21:2

We later see this concept applied to debts as well as to servitude.  Every so often, for no other reason than God said so, slaves were freed, debts were forgiven, property was re-distributed and all things were restored.  We have nothing so radically merciful in our legal codes today.

With the manna, we see a wonderful example of God’s grace.  God gave miraculous sustenance to a complaining and belligerent people.  They’d done nothing to deserve it, and needed do nothing to obtain it other than take it from the ground. 

In the law, we see both a useful code for an orderly society, and abundant opportunity to run afoul of God by falling short of it.  As a lawyer I see the law as primarily a civil (as opposed to criminal) code.  Aside from the most egregious of sins (like murder), the primary remedy for a wrong is financial remuneration.  It’s easy to see how one could accumulate a great debt over his life by falling short of this demanding law, acquiring a debt he could never pay.  The Law gave the people a recognition of the many ways in which they fell short of deserving God’s mercy, and a longing for redemption.

 

The Red Sea

Exodus 13:1 – 15:27

Then Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.  Exodus 15:19

It must have been quite a logistical challenge to move hundreds of thousands of people and their possessions through the desert, not to mention keeping them fed and watered.  God alleviates some of the burden by providing a cloud to follow by day and a pillar of fire in the night.  When those things moved, the people followed.  Not long after these guiding instruments appear, the Israelites face a tremendous challenge.

Back in Egypt, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened again and realizes what he has done.  “We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!”  So, he assembles his mighty armies and chariots and pursues his former captives.  The Israelites, seeing the grand Egyptian approach, quickly forget the power of their God, and they despair.  “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the desert to die?…It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”  Moses answers:

Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.  The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.  The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.  Exodus 14: 13-14

Amazing things follow.  The mighty Angel of the Lord, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdraws and goes behind them.  The pillar of cloud also moves from in front and stands behind them.  Then Moses stretches out his hand and the seas part so that the Israelites can pass through.  God throws the pursuing Egyptians into confusion, their chariots break down, they are in disarray.  The Egyptians recognize the futility of their fight and cry out, “Let’s get away from the Israelites!  The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”  Before they can escape, the sea crashes over them.  Not one of them survives.

It is a mighty God we serve, and we often forget that.  The Israelites themselves often forgot, much to their detriment.  The event was designed so that the Israelites could look back and remember, to be reminded of the greatness of their God.  But they forgot, time and again. 

What strikes me most today is Moses’ exhortation, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  What a victorious life I could live with more belief.

 

 

The Passover

Exodus 10:1 – 12:51

On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn – both men and animals – and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  I am the Lord.  The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pas over you.  No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.  Exodus 12:12-13

Pharaoh’s refuses to allow the Hebrews into the wilderness to worship their God, and his people suffer more plagues – locusts and darkness.  God concludes with a most brutal plague – striking down the firstborn.  God explains why he has hardened Pharaoh’s heart:

…so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.  Exodus 10:2

So this proud, defiant and powerful kingdom of Egypt is brought low by the God of the people they had oppressed and enslaved.  Their attempted genocide has failed, and one of the infants who escaped their slaughter has returned as an instrument of God to bring these great plagues on them. 

God demonstrates that his chosen people are distinctive, and he gives them very specific instructions as to how they are to dress and what they are to eat in preparation for the events to come.  In particular, they are to mark the doors of their homes with the blood of an unblemished lamb.  The passover feast is still celebrated by Jews and by Christians in the form of the eucharist.  Christian communion was instituted by Christ at passover, just before he became our passover lamb.

The Destroyer arrives and the firstborn of Egypt die, from the greatest to the least.  God causes the Egyptians to be favorably disposed toward them, and they usher the Jews out of Egypt with gold, silver and clothing.  After 430 years in Egypt, Jacob’s offspring had grown to 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children, and now they all move together toward the promised land.

All the Israelites did just what the Lord has commanded Moses and Aaron.  And on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.  Exodus 12:50-51

What an extraordinary tale of deliverance.

 

The Plagues Begin

Exodus 7:14 – 9:35

Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields - both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree.  The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen where the Israelites were…When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again:  He and his officials hardened their hearts.  So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.

Through Moses and Aaron, God turns the Nile and every body of water in Egypt into blood.  Still, Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.  Plagues continue - frogs, gnats, flies, death of livestock, boils, hailstorm.  Each time Moses and his brother get a promise from Pharaoh that the Israelites can make a three day trek into the wilderness to make sacrifices to God.  Each time Pharaoh’s heart hardens when the plague is lifted and he rescinds his promise.

It’s easy to criticize Pharaoh, but how often do I seek earnestly God in the midst of a crisis, only to lose my passion for him when the crisis abates?  I pray for a soft heart, and ears to hear what God might be telling me through my circumstances.

 

God Hardens Pharaoh’s Heart

Exodus 4:18-7:13; I Chronicles 6:1-4(a)

You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country.  But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you.  Exodus 7:2-4

In this passage, Moses sets out for Egypt in obedience to God’s call.  Aaron meets him in the desert, and together they met with the descendants of Jacob, proving their call by performing miracles.  After meeting with the Israelites, the brothers confront Pharaoh and tell him to let their people go.  Pharaoh not only refuses, but increases the burden on the Israelites by refusing the provide the straw needed for making bricks, yet not reducing the quota for bricks.  The Israelites, who were initially joyful at Moses’ appearance, now curse him for their worsened plight.

There are a lot of intriguing aspects to today’s passage, and some troubling ones.  Quite possibly the most difficult fact is that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart.  The Bible doesn’t shy away from this.  It’s stated in Ex. 4:21 and 7:3, and shows up again in the New Testament:

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”  So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom he desires.  Romans 9:17-18

This is a hard truth.  Many theologians assert that God simply facilitated a process that Pharaoh began himself, because the Bible later reports that Pharaoh hardened his own heart at certain points.  Perhaps that is true, and I will concede that is a more palatable construction of the event to the human mind.  But I think scripture answers itself – God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to demonstrate God’s power and so that God’s name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. 

This Pharaoh was a demonstrably wicked man, and he led a people who had unjustly placed a nation under its yoke.  Both Pharaoh and his kingdom deserved judgment.  Then again, so did Israel and so do all of us.  The question is not “why did God judge here?”, but “why does he not always judge? ” Romans 9 answers again – “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Is it possible that creation doesn’t revolve around us, but around Him?  The mind recoils, but his thoughts are not our thoughts.

 

Moses is Born

Exodus 1:1 – 4:17

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.  Exodus 1:6-7

There are six months worth of sermons in this passage, but I’ll just hit the highlights.  The Egyptians grow intimidated by the vast expansion of the Hebrews, and the time of Joseph is forgotten.  A new king comes to power who decides to deal with his growing minority population by subjecting them to slavery.  Still not getting the results he wanted, he instructs the midwives of the kingdom to kill all of the male Hebrew babies as they are born.  The midwives fear God rather than men and conspire to avoid this evil task.  One mother puts her baby in a reed basket, sending it down the Nile while his sister watches.  Pharoah’s daughter finds him and has pity.  The watchful sister approaches the Pharoah’s daughter and asks if she would like her to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby.  Consequently, in God’s amazing grace, Moses’s mother raises him with the Pharoah’s daughter’s approval and support, and Moses ultimately becomes part of the Egyptian royal family.

Once he grows older, Moses grows enraged at the treatment of his people, and kills one of the Egyptian slave drivers.  Pharoah tries to kill his adopted grandson for this murder, and Moses flees to Midian where he meets and marries Zipporah.  There in the desert, while tending his father-in-law’s flock, he encounters God in the form of a burning bush.  God commands him, saying “I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Moses doesn’t respond with enthusiasm or boldness or courage.  Instead, he has a list of questions:

Moses:  “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah…?”

God:  “I will be with you…”

Moses:  “Suppose…they ask me, ‘What is his name?’  Then what shall I tell them”

God: “I am who I am…The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob…”

Moses: “What if they do not believe me or listen to me…”

[God shows Moses that he can perform miracles to spur belief]

Moses: “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.  I am slow of speech and tongue.”

God:  “Who gave man his mouth?  Who makes him deaf or mute?  Who gives him sight or makes him blind?  Is it not I, the Lord.  Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Moses:  “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses

Despite God’s anger, he tells Moses that he’ll use his brother Aaron to do the talking.  It’s an inauspicious beginning, all this questioning and doubt.  But Moses still becomes one of God’s most faithful servants, used of God to accomplish amazing and miraculous things.

How often do I lob protests back to God when I sense his leading to do something outside of my comfort zone?  Pretty much every time.  It’s sobering to read that God’s anger burned at Moses’ unbelief.  It’s comforting to read that God continued to extend grace in spite of that anger. 

I admit that sometimes I wish God would speak to me from a burning bush.  But would I really be more confident and obedient, or would I, like Moses, persist in unbelief?

 

Jacob and Joseph Die

Genesis 47:13-50:26

Before Jacob’s death, he asks to see Joseph and his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.  Abraham adopts the boys as his own, saying “Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine.”  This is a significant event for the history of Israel, because it places two half-tribes on the same footing as the other full tribes.  Thus, in some 440 years when the promised land is allocated among the Israelites, the half-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh each receive a full share as though they were whole tribes.  In an interesting twist, when Jacob blesses Joseph’s two sons, he places his right hand on the younger son, giving him the greater blessing.  Joseph protests and tries to correct his father’s error, but Jacob replies, “I know, my son, I know.  He [Manasseh] too will become a people, and he too will become great.  Nevertheless, his younger brother [Ephraim] will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a group of nations.”  Jacob, being one himself, has an affinity for younger sons.

Jacob goes on the bless his other sons, and it is clear that the tribes of Joseph and Judah will be the greatest.  He instructs them to bury him back in Canaan, near the resting bodies of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Leah.  After he dies, Joseph has his body embalmed as per Egyptian tradition, and he receives a royal escort back to Canaan for the burial.

Once Jacob dies, the brothers fear for their lives.  Like Fredo in the Godfather Part II, they have betrayed their brother’s life and assume that they survive only because their father lives.  They concoct another lie, and have a messenger tell Joseph that their father had given them instructions to seek Joseph’s forgiveness.  But Joseph is more gracious than Michael Corleone and doesn’t have to be cajoled into forgiveness.  He responds:

Don’t be afraid.  Am I in the place of God?  You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.  So then, don’t be afraid, I will provide for you and your children.

The passages reports that Joseph and his brothers continued to live in Egypt.  Joseph lived to the age of 110, and shortly before he died he said to his brothers:

I am about to die,  But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.  Genesis 50:24-25

So ends the book of Genesis, and the life of one of God’s great servants.  Joseph exhibited grace and faithfulness in the midst of betrayal and adversity.  His was a life worthy of imitation.

 

Making a Nation

I Chronicles 4:1-23; I Chronicles 7:1-12; Genesis 46:13-47:12

Today’s passages are devoted primarily to listing kids.  Specifically, the male offspring of Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad, Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali and Joseph.  There are a lot of them, and it’s not hard to imagine a nation being formed from Jacob’s sons. 

Depending on who is doing the counting, the world’s population grew from 600,000,000 in 1700 to 6,000,000,000 in 2000.  I believe that’s a 1,000% percent increase in 300 years, which is pretty extraordinary considering all of the wars, pestilence and famine that the world experienced in those years.  There’s some high math involved in predicting population growth, along with some educated guesses about birth and mortality rates,  but at current rates the population will double in 40 years.  In a polygamous society with extreme longevity such as that of the Hebrews, that rate of growth would be much, much higher.  It’s not surprising that within a few years of Jacob’s arrival in Egypt, the locals were complaining that, “the Israelites have become too numerous for us.”

In the midst of the genealogies there are some rich bits of narrative.  In I Chronicles 4:9 we read of Jabez, Judah’s descendant, who prayed that God would bless him and enlarge his territory, and God did it.  Those two verses tell us all that we know about Jabez, but it was enough to launch a best selling book.  We also read of Joseph’s tearful reunion with his father Jacob, and Joseph’s continuing intervention for his brothers’ preservation.  We read of Pharoah’s respectful meeting of Jacob.  The family reunion ends well.

So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed.  Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their children.  Genesis 47:11-12 (NIV)

And so the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, was preserved and provided an incubator in which to grow.  By all rights, all of them should have died in Canaan during the famine.  But God had other intentions that were beyond anyone’s imagination back when some jealous brothers conspired to sell the favored son into slavery.

I can’t help but wonder what tapestry God is weaving in the seemingly random events of my life. Because I am also chosen, as are all who have been raised up with Christ (I Cor. 3:1, 12). It certainly adds a rich dimension to life, doesn’t it?