Pete Ruins Exodus: Part 4

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Pete:  You’re
listening to the Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the
internet.  Serious talk about the sacred
book.  I’m Pete Enns.

Jared:  And I’m Jared
Byas.

MUSIC

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Hey everybody. 
Welcome to Part 4 of the Pete Ruins Exodus series.  Before we begin, a couple of very quick
announcements because I’m afraid I’m going to forget.  First of all, October 4 and 5, I’m going to
be at Evolving Faith which is in Denver, CO this year.  That should be fun.  Also, on September 23, we’re offering a
one-time only, one evening, one-hour class on Genesis.  Here’s the good news.  You pay what you want.  Just have to reserve your seat.  You can get information about that on the
website, like exactly when and where. 
Hope you can make it to that.  It
should be fun.  It’s a one-hour only
class.  I’m just talking about what I
think are highlights of the book of Genesis and why I think is really important
and what I think is really cool about the book that doesn’t always get picked
up in casual readings of the book itself. 

Commercial’s over. 
Let’s get into Part 4 of Pete Ruins Exodus.

This is going to take us from the departure from Egypt over
the Red Sea through Chapter 19, and that is specifically beginning in Chapter
13, verse 17.  The middle of Chapter 13
through to the end of Chapter 19.  That’s
the departure from Egypt and the journey to Sinai.

Just to review where we’ve been up to this point in this
series as a whole.  We started with Moses
and he gets this call from God to be the agent through which the Israelites
will be delivered.  He has early
struggles.  He really doesn’t want to do
it.  But he finally gives in and goes
ahead and he confronts Pharaoh.  Pharaoh
doesn’t care what Moses says or what their no-name God says.  He never heard of Him. 

Of course, that results in the plagues which wind up
convincing Pharaoh that, “Yeah, I’m no match for Israel’s god.”  Especially the plague of death, which is the
tit-for-tat, payback for what Pharaoh did drowning the male infants in the Nile
way back in Chapter 1.  Now they’re dead
as well.  The firstborn of Egypt are
dead.  That’s how the story goes. 

So now they depart. 
All that’s over.  Now, they’re
leaving Egypt never to go back again. 
Remember, Mount Sinai, also called Horeb—we talked about that in several
places in Exodus—Sinai is the goal of the rescue.  Aaron and Moses say, “Let my people go so
that they might worship Me in the wilderness.” 
The wilderness is where Sinai is. 

They have no clue at this point about where they are going
afterward, namely into the land of Israel to take over for the Canaanites and
to eradicate them and exterminate them and take their land.  They don’t know where that’s going.  All they know is that they’re going to Mount
Sinai.  Even though the land and entrance
to the land, and I’m going to say, just frankly, the monarchy, is really the
true end goal of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. 

I’ve written about this elsewhere, but the Pentateuch as a
whole is really an entrance ramp onto that central, important period of time
when the Israelites are in the land. 
That’s where I think all this is going. 

We’ve got six plus chapters. 
They can be divided into two parts. 
The one is the actual departure from Egypt itself.  That starts in 13:17. It goes to the end of
Chapter 15, 15:21.  Then the journey to
Sinai, which picks up at 15:22 and goes to the end of Chapter 19.

These six chapters have some pretty well-known stories in
them.

First, let’s look at some highlights from part one, the
departure from Egypt across the Red Sea. 
One thing to note is that we have two versions of the same event.  We have a prose version, which is 13:17
through Chapter 14.   Then the poetic
version, which is in 15:1-21.

This is similar, if you’re familiar with the book of Judges,
in Chapters 4 and 5, we also have a prose version and a poetic version of the
exploits of the judge Deborah.  The poetry,
the poetic version, is, according to biblical scholars who study Hebrew, it is
certainly older.  At least, the core of
it is older, if not the whole thing. 
There are reasons for saying that. 
That becomes important in a minute when we get into Chapter 15 because
of the kinds of things that it says.

This is just a reminder to us that we have, here again, as
we have so often in the Bible, evidence of different traditions that are
probably written or originated orally in different times and places, and here
we have editors at a later time putting them together, just back-to-back.

It’s like Genesis 1 and 2. 
You have two creation stories and they are back-to-back, edited together
and left there, even they don’t say exactly the same thing.

Let’s look at that prose, the narrative version first.  That’s the first one that pops up in 13 and
14.  They depart from Egypt and Yahweh
makes them look lost in order to pick a fight with Pharaoh.  The people freak out (Israelites) and God
drives back the Red Sea to open an escape route.  The Israelites pass through safely, but the
Egyptians drown and they wash up on the shore. 
That’s how the story goes.  Very
famous story.

One thing to note is that Pharaoh was all ready to let them
go.  He had been convinced after the last
plague.  He said finally, “Just go.  I don’t want to see you again.  Just get out of here.”  He was ready to let them go, and he did.  But God wants Pharaoh to follow the
Israelites.  God hardens Pharaoh’s
heart.  You see it in Chapter 14, verse 8
and 17, and especially 17 is explicit that the purpose of the hardening is so
that the Egyptians will follow the Israelites. 
It’s hard to pass over the fact that God wants them dead.

As harsh as that is, and I think it is harsh, we can offer a
contextual, theological explanation.  By
contextual, I mean the groove of the story itself up to this point.  We can read this drowning of the Egyptian
army in the Red Sea as tit-for-tat, payback for another Pharaoh drowning the
Israelite male infants in the Nile way back in Chapter 1.  Also, “You’ve been treating my people
harshly,” says Yahweh, “so I’m going to treat your people harshly.”  Although, I still wonder if this is necessary
to drown them.  How about just letting
the sea close up so they can’t cross. 
But they drowned.  That’s how the
story goes.

This is an example of violence in the Bible and it raises some eyebrows, not
just for today, but this is a story that has made people think for quite a
while.  It’s caused a lot of
consternation for one of my own children. 
When she was very young, she came home from Sunday School and this was
the story and she came home just very, very upset, asking, “What kind of a god
is this?  Aren’t these God’s children
too?  Why does God do stuff like this?” 

This is not the Bible’s best moment, in my opinion.  But this is how the might and power of God is
expressed in an ancient tribal context. 
Your god is great because your enemies are destroyed before you.

Some of you know how I handle this sort of divine violence,
not as a depiction of what really happened, or not as a depiction of what God
is really like, but as a depiction of ancient people of faith, true ancient
people of faith, albeit in a tribalistic, Iron Age society—the Iron Age started
in 1200 BCE and goes well into the first millennium BCE.  That’s the basic time of Israel’s existence
as a people is during the Iron Age.  This
is how people in the Iron Age expressed their faith, expressed their
understanding of the gods or of God. 
This is what gods did.  They go to
battle.

Remember, way back in the first episode, along with most
biblical scholars, I said that I don’t think Exodus is a historical account,
even if it preserves an ancient, historical memory, as biblical scholars like
to call it.  I don’t think we would see
this if someone had been videotaping, so to speak.  This reflects an ancient understanding of
ancient Israelites about what their god is like.  That’s my opinion.  That’s how I “get out of it.”  But I’m not trying to get out of
anything.  I’m trying to understand it.

If you’re interested, you can see some blog posts that I’ve
written on violence.  You can just type,
“violence” in the search bar or in an earlier chapter in The Bible Tells Me So,
I deal with biblical violence as I understand it.  It’s the number one question I get from young
people today.  That and human
sexuality.  Those are the things that
they really want to talk about.

09:30

Another thing about this prose narrative section.  The Israelites see the Egyptians coming and
they grumble and they complain. 
Basically, “we could have died just as easily in Egypt, Moses.  Why bring us all the way out here to just
trap us at the sea?” 

Then Moses says something interesting that I think is often
misunderstood, which is why I want to bring it up.  He basically says, “Don’t be afraid.  After today, you’ll never see these Egyptians
again.”  I’m quoting verse 14 of Chapter
14.  “The Lord will fight for you.  You only have to keep still.”  That’s not a soothing word.  It’s typically interpreted, “There,
there.  Just calm your hearts.  God will take care of everything.  Just be still and know that I am God,” as we
read in the Psalms.  “The Lord will fight
for you, but just chill.”

I don’t think that’s at all what Moses is saying in this
story.  This is a rebuke.  “The Lord will fight for you.  You need to keep your mouth shut.  You need to stop complaining.”  This is the first of many rebukes of Moses
that we’re going to see toward the Israelites in Moses’ lifetime.  This is the real beginning of this grumbling
theme that we’re going to see a lot of. 

He’s not making them feel calmed about this.  He’s just saying, “Just shut up.  You’ve seen plagues, the Red Sea open, for
heaven’s sake, and you’re still complaining. 
Come on.” 

Another thing.  This
concerns the actual parting of the Red Sea. 
This is in verse 21.  The Red Sea
is really the Sea of Reeds.  That’s what
it says in Hebrew.  Where the Sea of
Reeds is a topic of a lot of discussion among people who look for these sorts
of things.  Is it a lake?  Is it a marsh or something like that?  But the reason why we say Red Sea in our
English translations is that this has to do with influence of Greek translators
of the Bible before the time of Jesus.

There was a little bit of confusion about what body of water
was actually represented by this term “red sea.”  If you look at a map today of the modern
Middle East and where it says “Red Sea,” it’s this massive body of water,
that’s not what anybody meant.  It’s hard
to know exactly what they meant, when they said “Red Sea” back in this Greek period.

In the biblical text, the Hebrew text, it says, “Sea of
Reeds,” but again, we don’t know where that is either.  All that to the side.  The parting of the Red Sea echoes the
creation story.  This is the theological
point I want to make.  Moses stretched
out his hand with the staff, and an East wind divided the waters of the Red Sea
and they parted.

Now wind—the Hebrew word is “ruach,” which means “spirit” or
“wind” and that’s the same “ruach” of Genesis 1 that is hovering over the
“deep.”  What’s the “deep?”  The deep is the primordial sea at the dawn of
creation that God has to tame, that God has to put in its place to allow for
life to appear.  The wind drives back
water giving life.  That’s the same in
both the Genesis creation story of Genesis Chapter 1 and this parting of the
sea here in Exodus. 

The wind, “it turned the sea to dry land”—I’m quoting
here.  “And the waters were
divided.”  It’s better to think of the
waters as not maybe divided, although that’s fine, but as pushed back, pushed out
of the way, revealing the dry land beneath, which is also the language in
Genesis Chapter 1.  The third day of
creation, it’s the same thing.  The
waters were divided, revealing the dry land beneath.

In both stories, waters are separated, pushed aside,
revealing what was there all the time: dry land.  In other words—this is getting into Genesis 1
a little bit more than you’re paying for here—in Genesis 1, this is why it’s
not creation out of nothing.  What you
have is a “deep,” a massive chaotic water that God divides and splits,
revealing the dry land, i.e., the earth beneath it.  Those things were already there in Genesis
Chapter 1.

Actually, Genesis Chapter 1 makes no sense unless we
understand the ideology of the ancient Israelites here and how they thought
about what a creator god does.  It’s not
out of nothing.  That comes later.  It’s in the Bible.  It’s just not here.

Think of taking a leaf blower to a big puddle on a sidewalk
after a heavy rain.  The water is pushed
aside by the wind, by the force of the leaf blower, and the sidewalk is
revealed, that’s always been there underneath. 
That’s what’s happening in Genesis 1 and in Exodus 14 in the parting of
the sea. 

Now the point—we touched about this is a couple of earlier
episodes—the point is that God’s act of redemption, here crossing the Red Sea,
is a replay of God’s act of creation, which is to say, redemption (saving,
delivering, redeeming) is an act of re-creation.  Hang with me.

As with the plagues, parting the sea is getting creation involved
in saving God’s people and destroying the enemies of God’s people.  In the flood, you have the waters of the
upper atmosphere above the vault, above that dome, those waters are let go and
they come crashing down to defeat the bad guys, which is basically everybody
but Noah and his family.

That’s what’s happening too, here in the Exodus story in
Chapter 14.  These waters are again
separated and just like the flood story, they come crashing back down
again.  But Israel, or Noah, are not
affected negatively.  They’re actually
delivered through that.  To save is to
create again.  We here echoes of that in
the New Testament.  I know I’ve mentioned
this, but just very briefly I want to mention it again, because I think it’s so
important theologically, in the New Testament we see echoes of this.  For example, where Paul says, “if anyone is
in Christ, there is a new creation.” 

To be saved means to start anew and to use the language of
John’s gospel, that you’re “born again.” 
You’re starting over.  You have a
new start.  Which is certainly what is
happening here at the Red Sea.  Israel is
being transformed, re-created from a group of slaves and now beginning to be
formed into what it’s going to become, namely a nation.

Having said all that, it’s still a really violent
story.  Let’s not cover over that.  But there are theological things happening
there as well.  Speaking of violence,
let’s turn to Chapter 15 here, the poetic version of the Red Sea crossing.

For one thing—I alluded to this before—this may be one of
the oldest pieces of Israelite literature we have, because of the Hebrew
style.  Scholars can tell where we are in
stages of the evolution of biblical Hebrew.

17:05

Biblical scholars—this is routine.  This is very early.  This is not written during the monarchy, but
probably going back to before the time of David.  It could be that old, which is very old.  Here’s the thing:  this very, very old piece of ancient Hebrew
literature depicts God as a fierce warrior. 
It’s not uncommon to hear scholars muse that Israel’s view of God began
as one of being a warrior, understandably due to the cultural influences and
then the view of God grew to include other metaphors like gardener, planter,
potter, law-giver, things like that.

Warrior might become less prominent, less harsh,
perhaps.  God’s depiction might become
less harsh.  I don’t want to paint that
in too simplistic a way, like there’s an evolution where God starts off as a
warrior and ends as a tree-hugger.  But we
do have the earliest reflections of Israelite religion in these poetic
sections.  There, God is a fierce, no-nonsense,
take-no-prisoners warrior.

You come later to the book of Jonah, where God says, “I
actually have compassion on Israel’s enemies. 
I don’t want to kill them.”

Something is going on in this trajectory within the Hebrew
Bible or Old Testament itself. 

So this song praises Yahweh for destroying his enemies by
drowning them in the sea.  For that
reason, Yahweh is praised as a god who has no equal, as we read in verse
11.  “Who is like you, O Lord, among the
gods?” 

Catch that there. 
“Among the gods.”  We have here
one of many examples, and you’ve heard this before, in the Old Testament of
Israel’s belief that their god, Yahweh, was not the only god, but was the best
god, the one truly worthy of worship. 

In fact, as I said before, that might be the point of the whole Pentateuch, to
make the case that Yahweh alone is worthy of Israel’s worship.  Israel does not practice—I have a whole blog
post series probably and a podcast from way back in Season 1 talking about
this—but Israel did not practice monotheism, at least through most of its
history that we see in the Old Testament, but monolatry. 

The difference is this: 
monotheism means there’s only one god. 
Monolatry means you only worship one, but you acknowledge the existence
of others. 

We saw this is the plague story.  God is passing judgment on all the gods of
Egypt.  Exodus 12:12. What does that
mean?  Passing judgment on all the gods
of Egypt?  It means—there’s an assumption
there that there are other gods that Yahweh is passing judgment on.  If we miss this dynamic that Yahweh is better
or the best by far of all the other gods or if we try to step around it because
the theology bothers us a bit, we’re gonna miss the theology of the book. 

Making the Israelites into monotheists here is
premature.  That happens later on in
Israel’s history.  I would say certainly
by the time you get to Jesus and well before that, we can call the Israelites
monotheists.  Only one god exists.

The heavens might be active places, but they’re not
gods.  But here, that’s not the case.  Making these Israelites here of Exodus into
monotheists just creates confusion in the story.   You can’t make sense of things like Exodus
12:12, where Yahweh says he’s passing judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  I’ve beaten that dead horse enough.

20:57

Next point.  This song
that’s sung at the sea mentions something. 
It’s subtle.  It mentions
something that doesn’t happen until much later in the biblical story.  Namely, I’m talking about verses 17 and 18.

Here’s how it begins: “You (Yahweh) brought them in and
planted them on the mountain of your possession, the place, O Lord, that you
made your abode.”  What is this mountain
of your possession?  What is this
about?  Maybe, it’s talking about Mount
Sinai, because that’s where they’re going. 
They’re not there yet, but nearly so. 
Give it a couple chapters. 
They’ll be there.  Still in the
past tense, though. 

This raises another question.  Could it be referring to another mountain and
another abode all together?  Hang in
there.  Keep reading.  “The sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have
established.”  The sanctuary.  The holy place.  What is that sanctuary?  Could it be Sinai?  Perhaps. 
It could be Mount Sinai.  Or
perhaps another sanctuary entirely.

Keep reading.  Verse
18 says this: “The Lord will reign forever and ever.”  From where? 
From the mountain?  From the
abode?  From Mount Sinai?  Probably not, since Yahweh will leave forever
Sinai when he goes with the Israelites into the Promised Land.  He doesn’t go back.  Yahweh doesn’t show up on Mount Sinai again
and say, “I live here really.”  He’s
going to live with Israel.  Where is he going
to live with Israel?  In the temple. 

In Old Testament theology, the language we see here fits
very nicely with the ideology of the temple in Jerusalem as the sanctuary, the
abode, the mountain.  Mount Zion.  The temple is on a mountain.  Theology, Mount Zion takes the place of Mount
Sinai in Israelite theology.  It’s from
there that Yahweh will rule.  Through the
kings, but forever and ever. 

We see this language in various places in the Old Testament,
including the Psalms and II Samuel 7.  So
what?  Well, for one thing, this illusion
to the temple suggests that this ancient poem, as in pre-David, may have been
added to as time went on to reflect Israel’s growing theology.  It’s developing theology.  In other words, this ancient poem, Chapter
15, may have gotten its final shape after the Israelites were settled in the
land with their own king and temple. 

Note that (and I hope that your English translations get
this because some don’t) the entire poem, all the stuff that talks about the
Exodus and all the stuff that seems to be talking about the conquest of the
land and entering it and building a temple where Yahweh’s going to be
worshipped, all that stuff is in the past tense.

For this writer, both the Exodus and the establishment of
the monarchy and the religious life of the people, those things are past
events.  I think that’s interesting
because it suggests something, once again, of the dating or at least the
general time frame of when this stuff was written or when this poem, when this
song got its final form.  Probably well
into the monarchy, if not later.

Again, it’s interesting. 
Some translations put the second half of this poem that talks about the
land and the temple as future to avoid this kind of conclusion, but I think
that they’re wrong.  I think the Hebrew
really lends itself very naturally to just keep reading everything in the past
tense.  There is no indication that you
should switch to future in Hebrew when you get to this part.

Another so what.   Why
am I dragging this out?  I’m not dragging
it out.  I think it’s really
interesting.  Another so what.

This is a huge issue because scholars routinely, and I think
correctly, see the temple on Mount Zion as a replacement for Mount Sinai.  The temple mount replaces Mount Sinai.  Or perhaps, as is more commonly thought among
biblical scholars, maybe it’s the other way around.  Maybe Sinai is the later Israelite temple
brought back into ancient mythic time.  How
is that for a mouthful?

Which came first?  The
depiction of Mount Sinai as a sanctuary, as an abode, as a holy mountain and
then the temple is modeled after that? 
Or is the temple there first and then the stories of Sinai are written
in such a way to reflect that later glory of the temple?  Which came first? 

That’s a lot to wrap our arms around.  That’s actually a few podcast episodes all by
itself.  I only bring it up here because
it might help to explain the ambiguity of verses 17 and 18.  You’re reading it, and what are we talking
about?  Sinai?  Or Zion? 
That’s a good question.  Maybe
that ambiguity is intentional.  Maybe
they are both the same.

If you’re really motivated, I highly recommend a book by one
of my professors, John Levinson, called Sinai
and Zion.  The book is those two
mountains, comparing them and how they’re analogous to each other.  It’s a fascinating book.

I should plug my own books, not somebody else’s.  What’s wrong with me?

26:45

Okay, a lot more to this.  Let’s move on
to the second part, the journey to Sinai itself that begins at the end of 15
and goes through 19. 

Here’s the big picture. 
After Moses’ song that we just went through, his sister Miriam and the
women, they sing what looks like the same song and then they all head out to
the dessert where they are immediately thirsty and wonder why no one thought
ahead that this might be a problem.  They
are in the wilderness, for heaven’s sake. 

They take a couple of drinks in a couple of special
places.  Then they receive the manna from
heaven, the bread from heaven.  Manna is
the Hebrew word, “manna,” which means “what is it?”  Because that’s what the Israelites said.  I might say, “What the heck is this?” but I
don’t think there is a Hebrew word for that. 
“What is this stuff that lands like dew on the ground?  We’re supposed to eat it?  Come again. 
What is this stuff?”

27:42 BREAK

29:10

Next, after that, they get a miraculous supply of water from
a rock just in time to ward off an attack from the Amalekites.  Where did they come from?  This is the first battle.  Things are moving rather quickly here in this
story.

Next, they keep moving. 
They’re going toward Mount Sinai. 
Next, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, shows up and he advises Moses to get
help “herding the cats,” so to speak, judging the people, adjudicating differences,
things like that. 

You might be asking what Jethro’s doing there.  Remember, he is where?  He is from Midian.  On the way to Sinai, we are close to Midian,
it seems.  That is—I touched on this in
the first episode—Mount Sinai, in the logic of the story, seems to be in
Midian, not in the Sinai Peninsula way south at Saint Catherine’s Monastery.  Look on a study Bible map.  It seems to be some place in Midian.  That’s the logic of the story.

Finally, after three months, they reach Sinai and the people
are consecrated by going through a cleansing ritual, because they’re going to
need this powerful god who defeated the Egyptian pantheon and the army by all
these signs and wonders.

That’s the gist of what’s happening in the end of 15 through 19. 

Just a few highlights:

First, water and food are going to be a problem because we
are in the wilderness.  We actually see
two miraculous supplies of water.  The
first is turning the bitter waters in Mara into sweet water.  It happens to be that “Mara” in Hebrew means
“bitterness.”  This story is often seen
by scholars as a story written to explain some phenomenon, in this case, why
this location is called “bitterness,” of all the things to call a town.  Why call it “bitterness?” 

The story is written to explain that.  We know of stories like this too.  Where do things like sickness, death and evil
come from?  Pandora opened the box.  Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit.  These are stories that are called etiological
stories that seem to be written to explain why things are the way they are.

Why is the Grand Canyon so deep?  Because Paul Bunyan and his ox had a
wrestling match.  It’s a story written,
told to explain a phenomenon.  That might
be what’s happening with this site, “Mara,” calling it “bitterness.”  This story of making the bitter water sweet
by throwing a branch in there.

The second miraculous supply of water happens at a place
called Rephidim.  This is in chapter
17.  The people grumble again, which
makes sense, because they had gotten a drink at Mara and at another place
called Elim, which is an oasis.  But now,
they left those places and they still need water.  So they complain.  Again, “Moses, what are you trying to
do?  Kill us?” 

Moses is told by God to strike the rock to let water flow
out of it which he does.  Moses promptly
gives the place two names:  Massa and
Meribah, which mean “test”—they’re testing God—and “quarrel.”  Again, possibly stories to explain how
locations got their names.  Possibly.

Here’s the thing: 
water, for the Israelites, presented more of problem for them than food
because in between these two water stories, the waters of Mara and the waters
of Rephidim, in between these two stories, God gives them bread from heaven,
the manna to eat.  That manna is promised
by God to come every morning dew, except on the Sabbath, so gather twice as
much the day before. 

Side issue:  gathering
bread on the Sabbath would be work and you don’t do work on the Sabbath even
though there’s no Sabbath command given until Chapter 20.  I just wonder, in the logic of the story,
were the people thinking, “What’s a—what do you mean Sabbath?  Where did that come from?”  Or are we seeing, again, the story written
from a later point of view where Sabbath-keeping was already a thing.

Questions that are really hard to answer definitively, but
I’m intrigued enough to ask them because they let us in a little bit on the
nature of this literature.

The manna is a daily gift from God for the entire 40 years
they wandered in the wilderness.  It
doesn’t cease until they come to the borders of Canaan.  We read that in 16:35. It’s also stated in
Joshua Chapter 5.  In other words, it
ceases after they’ve entered the land. 
They have bread to eat for 40 years. 
Great!

34:19

No such permanent supply of water is given in this
story.  They’re left to wander, maybe
stress out about all that.  Not to get
off the track, but again, this is so intriguing again to me.  This is the kind of stuff that reading Exodus
jumps out at me as I read it. 

We see a close version of this very same story of getting
water from a rock in Numbers Chapter 20. 
That’s toward the end of Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness.  There, too, water comes from a rock.  Ancient Jewish interpreters—this is before
the time of the New Testament—perhaps also wondering why there was no daily
provision of water, came up with a rather ingenious solution.  The rock of Exodus 17 that gave water and the
rock of Numbers 20 that gave water, though they’re separated by 40 years and
located in completely different places, were one in the same rock, which had
apparently rolled around the wilderness for 40 years supplying water, like a
portable water fountain.

One reason I find that so fascinating is because Paul, our
very own Paul, in I Corinthians, seems to be aware of this rather creative
explanation and even drops it into Chapter 10, verse 4 of I Corinthians.  He recalls this episode of the Israelites in
the wilderness and he talks about how the rock back in Moses’ day was
Christ.  Paul is trying to say that
Christ’s presence was with them too.  A
very Paul thing to say.  A very New
Testament thing to say.

Note that Paul doesn’t just say the rock was Christ making a
Christological connection.  He says “the
rock that followed them,” followed the Israelites was Christ.  Followed. 
He got that idea from somewhere. 
He got it from his Jewish tradition.

I know we’re just biting off a big chunk off to the side here.  If you’re interested, I talk more about this
in the Bible Tells Me So.  Sorry for the
deviation, but I just love looking at how Jewish the New Testament writers were
when they used their Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament.  It’s actually this story, specifically, that
started me down a different path over 30 years ago, about thinking about how
the Bible actually works and what it is and how we read it.

One more comment on the manna.  Let’s pause there for one more second.  We’re told that they’re to gather an omer of
manna per day, two omers on the day before the Sabbath so you can eat for two
days. 

An omer is a unit of measurement.  It’s about one to two liters.  Frankly, that’s no help to me because I’m
American and my phone app says that a cubic liter is about a half dry
gallon.  My point is that Exodus 16:36
seems like it needs to explain what an omer is. 
Because this is what Exodus 16:36 says. 
It says, “An omer is a tenth of an ephah.”  An ephah is about 23 liters or somewhere between
five to six gallons. 

Could I pick a more boring verse to mention?  I don’t think so.  Not for me anyway.  An omer is a measurement known to us only
from this story.  The ephah is the more
common measurement in the Old Testament used over 30 times.  We’re seeing here, again, a clue about when
this story was written.  It seems the
story of omers of manna being gathered preserves something of the past, maybe
the deep past from the point of view of the later biblical writer. 

He needed to explain what that was to his readers, who lived
at a time when ephah was the measurement used. 
In other words, we’re seeing here in this little editorial comment a
hint of how these biblical stories have a history.  Maybe they’ve developed and they’ve evolved
and things needed to be added as things were handed down.  It’s like us reading in the New Testament—maybe
you’ve come across this—we have footnotes that explain a denarius, a unit of
coinage.  A denarius is about a day’s
wage.  That’s what my study Bible says.

Today, a day’s wage—I actually Googled this—an average
laborer’s day’s wage today is $14.57 an hour which is $116.56 cents a day.  It actually helps to know that a little
bit.  A denarius is about a day’s
wage.  What was a day’s wage?  What would it be for us?  It helps us to put it into context.  Because simply to say denarius—what do I
care?  I don’t even know what that
means.  Oh, it’s about what a worker
makes in a day.  $15 an hour.  $120. 
Okay.  I get it.

So much for food and water.

39:45

Another point.  This
Israelites right away find themselves in a battle against the Amalekites.  This is in Chapter 17, verses 8 to 16.  For one thing, it’s worth asking whence the
Israelites got their weapons.  Exodus
does say earlier in the story that they left Egypt with plunder, likes clothes
and valuables.  It’s really unlikely that
the Egyptians would have decked them out in military gear.  I don’t think I’m crazy for suggesting that.

One explanation for where they got their armor and their
swords and their shields from—one explanation that ancient Jewish interpreters
came up with is that the Israelites stripped the armor and the weapons off of
the Egyptian soldiers whose dead bodies washed up on the shore of the Sea of
Reeds.

That actually makes some sense if you think about it.  It’s worth noting that the story itself
doesn’t seem at all concerned about with filling in this logical gap.  I don’t think the writer actually cared very
much.

I also think that a story about an Amalekite battle here
might be for the purpose of giving the later reader something to chew on seeing
that the Amalekites were enemies during the times of David and Saul, in their
attempts to unify Israel around a monarchy.

I’m willing to think more about that, to entertain that
possibility.  I have a feeling that this
may be more complicated than what we’ve seen before, reading Israel’s later
history back into an earlier time.  The
Amalekites have been around for a long time. 
I don’t think this is a made-up thing. 
But there may be something more to it than what I’m seeing.  Again, we do see this sort of thing
elsewhere, where a writer places something of his present back in the
past.  In other words, I don’t know, but
it is curious that the first thing that happens when they come into the land is
that they have a battle with the Amalekites. 
It’s not just that they have a battle, however we explain that, the
story also serves a purpose of a couple things: 
1) introducing Joshua as Moses’ general and he plays a huge role later
on in the conquest of Canaan.  I see this
as a bridge between the Egypt experience and then the later experience in
Canaan.  We have here Joshua teaming up
with Moses, so-to-speak, bringing an end to an enemy.  Joshua is going to be that bridge for the
people between the Egypt experience and then later, the conquest of Canaan.

Let me elaborate on that a little bit more.  Again, I think it’s important.  We have to look at how they win the battle at
all, this whole deal of how they win the battle.  Moses climbs a hill and he stands there with
his arms raised.  You know this
story.  I’ve heard many sermons on
this.  As long as his arms are up, the
Israelites are winning.  When they drop
down, they begin to lose.  So brother
Aaron and some guy named Hur, who will appear later in this story, they see
what’s happening.  They rush over to help
Moses.  They have him sit down on a rock
and they prop up his arms with rocks.  By
sunset, the Amalekites were defeated.

Frankly, folks, that’s a little bit weird.  Some commentaries say that this seems
somewhat magical almost.  One way of
looking at this is that Moses was holding his staff in his raised arms.  It’s not mentioned, so I want to be very
cautious about that.  When we’re thinking
about that, he’s holding his staff in his raised arms.  That’s why his arms are raised.  He has a staff.

In other words, this is another Egypt-like miracle which
makes some sense since the Amalekites are playing an Egypt-like role in trying
to squash the Israelites, even when their god was with them and had other
plans. 

The power that delivered them from Pharaoh will also now
deliver them from the Amalekites, who would also be the god who delivers them
from the Canaanites.  Joshua and Moses
are in this Amalekite episode.  It’s just
Moses in Egypt.  It’s just Joshua in
Canaan.  But here, the two are
together.  It’s like a continuation of
the promise that the warrior god will continue being with them in fighting
battles. 

“Moses isn’t here. 
That’s okay.  Joshua is.  He was with Moses before.  They’re tight.  So it will be good.”

It’s still weird. 
This whole battle depends on Moses not getting tired.  The best explanation that I come up with is
what I just said.  I think this is an
extended Egypt-like experience where the staff comes into play and as a result,
the sign and the wonder is done.  It’s a
better explanation.  It’s the one that I
go with.  It’s better, in any case, than
some more common explanations like Moses’ arms were raised in prayer to
God.  There’s nothing in the context that
hints at that at all.  Or a popular
Christian explanation is that Moses’ arms were raised like Jesus’ arms were
raised on the cross.

On one level, I think that’s fine.  It’s well-attested in church history.  It’s fine for Christians to bring these stories
and Jesus together like this.  But that
doesn’t really help me what the writer here is trying to communicate.  I don’t think he’s saying, “Let’s slip
something in here about Jesus.”  It means
something to them.  Again, as I said,
perhaps this is an extension or continuation of Exodus power at this moment.

45:45

But it’s still one of the weirder episodes in Exodus, along
with God almost killing Moses right after he had told him to go to Egypt and
deliver the Israelites, back in Chapter 4. 
These are just weird things that happen in Exodus.

Another point here in this second big section on the way to
Sinai, just a quick comment on Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law.  Moses and the Israelites are close to Sinai
in Midian.  Jethro comes out to meet them
with Moses’ wife and two sons.  This is
in 18:6. They had been staying apparently with Joseph (I
THINK YOU MEAN JETHRO) while
Moses was busy at work. 

Early in
Chapter 4, we hear of just one son, Gershom. 
Now, we see he has a second son, Eliezer.  Fine. 
Not a big deal.  Just didn’t
mention Eliezer.  Who cares?  But there is actually a bigger problem here.

According to
Exodus 4:20 in that story where God almost kills Moses, we read there that
Moses’ wife, Zipporah, and their one son were with Moses on his way to
Egypt.  That’s when the angel of the Lord
almost attacks them and kills Moses. 
They weren’t with Jethro in Midian. 
They were with Moses on the way to Egypt.

It seems here
in this boring little detail that we’re seeing evidence of multiple traditions
of the Exodus story that were respected enough to be woven together in the
making of this book we have before us today. 
As is usually the case, the fact that the traditions don’t line up with
each other doesn’t seem to bother the editor at all.  I want to suggest it shouldn’t bother
us.  It should be a window to helping us
understand the nature of this literature. 

Here’s
Moses.  He tells Jethro all that had
happened in Egypt, which is a nice development in their relationship.  You remember when he left Jethro, Moses
couldn’t quite bring himself to tell Jethro the truth of why he was leaving,
which is to say, “God told me to leave to deliver the Israelites.” 

Moses just
mumbled something about needing to see how his kindred were doing.  “I’ve got to check in on my family”
(4:18).  Now Moses puts it out there.  He’s just got this feeling of
confidence.  He puts it out there like a
son-in-law who earned his stripes and now, his father-in-law can be proud of
him.  By the way, I have a son-in-law and
was a son-in-law myself.  I get this.  Anybody who’s lived this can understand.

It’s like
they’ve reached a new stage in their relationship where shy and unconfident Moses
feels like, “Sure.  I stared down
Pharaoh.  I stood there and watched the
sea split in half.  I think I can handle
Jethro.”  “Hey Jethro.  Let me tell you what’s been going on.” 

How does
Jethro react?  He’s blown away enough to
confess Yahweh as greater than all the gods. 
Again, another monolatry thing.

Not so fast
Moses.  Right after that, Moses, we read,
is burned out from judging disputes between the Israelites who apparently form
a line outside his door from morning to night. 
Jethro sees what’s going on.  Maybe
this is actually too much for Moses.  He
tells him, “Well, looks like you could use some help there, Pal?  You should get some able men to help you
divide the tasks and leave you to handle only the most important ones.  Not feeling so big now, are you Moses?” 

I’m not sure
if that family dynamic is central to this episode.  I know some friends of mine who think this
story is a prooftext for how God ordained Presbyterian church government.  You have a head pastor surrounded by his male
elders.  Maybe. 

Maybe the biggest
point of this story is that this bureaucracy of Israel is the brainchild of a
non-Israelite, a priest of Midian, Jethro. 
Israel seems to owe a lot to Midian. 
After all, that’s where God’s mountain is.  There’s something about Midian that’s
important for the origin of the Israelites religion.

Scholars have
long wondered whether the origin of Israel’s religion, which historically is a
very complicated thing and very mysterious thing, might owe something to Midian
in the deep south, with respect to where Israel is, alongside of other stories
that the Israelites preserved.  Liked our
ancestor Jacob was a wondering Aramean. 
This is more in the north.  You
can see this in Deuteronomy 26:6. Or if they were from the far east in the land
of Babylon.  That’s where Abraham is
from.  Or as we read here in this story,
some connection historically, some rootage in the land of Egypt.

This story of
Israel in the Old Testament seems to suggest that Israelites have various
points of ancestry and that were later united under Yahweh’s banner.  Maybe. 
I think that’s true.  To me, that
explanation makes the most sense. 

In this
story, the only point is that Midian is very prominent in this ancient telling
of the story of the departure from Egypt.

Moving toward
the end here.

They all
reach Sinai three months to the day after they left Egypt.  Two things strike me.  First, even those God rules all the earth, as
we read, Israel is God’s special possession and their role will be to be a—this
is in verse 6 of Chapter 19—their role will be to be a priestly kingdom and a
holy nation.  I think this is huge.

This means
that Israel’s purpose, already here in the story, is to be priestly, to mediate
between God and who?  The nations.  Feel free to think back to the story of
Abraham in Chapter 12 where Abraham is called. 
Abraham will have an influence on the nations themselves. 

Here you have
it.  You’re to be a priestly kingdom and
a holy nation.  That’s why you’re
here.  That was the plan anyway.  They were rescued from Egypt, not to go free,
but to become holy, which means “set apart for special purposes.”  It’s not about moral perfection.  To act as priests mediating God to the
nations around them.  A priestly kingdom
and a holy nation.  Those aren’t two
separate things.  They’re actually two parts
of one role.

That’s why
it’s so tragic in Israel’s story as we read on in the Old Testament.  Rather than mediating God to the nations,
Israel, through its kings, winds up becoming a problem that God needs to solve
somehow.  In some cases, He doesn’t solve
it at all.  The northern tribes, the
northern kingdom go to Assyria and never come back.  The southern tribe of Judah goes into exile
in Babylon and comes back and has to rebuild, but never really does.

This plan to
be a priestly kingdom and a holy nation doesn’t work out very well.   But that was the plan.

53:50

Another point
here.  It seems that no one is to touch
the mountain itself.  “Keep your
distance.”  In fact, they’re to wash
their clothes and to abstain from sex to prepare to meet God.  At a distance.

Now Moses, of
course, may go up the mountain.  He can
go to the top, but only he.  The holiness
of the mountain must be protected.  I
only mention this here because a little later in the story, in fact, I mention
it in the next episode of this podcast series, we will see more clearly how the
holy mountain is marked off in segments, three to be specific, which reminds us
of the Tabernacle, which is also the model for the temple later on during the
time of the monarchy.

Hanging
around the outside of the sanctuary at a distance is fine.  Say the temple.  Only priests can enter the next stage, the
holy place.  But into the holy of holies,
the third stage, only one may enter: the high priest. 

Moses here on
Mount Sinai is like a high priest entering God’s most sacred presence.  You may remember that Chapter 6 which is sort
of a boring chapter because there is a genealogy in it, but it makes a big deal
of letting you know that Moses and Aaron are from the tribe of Levi, the
priestly tribe.  Here, we’re beginning to
see why.

We also see
here what is glimpsed earlier in the song of Moses in Chapter 15, that the
temple and Sinai are closely connected. 
To speak of one is to speak virtually of the other.  Both are marked off in segments of approachability. 

In Chapter
19, Moses is spending some time hearing from God on the top of Mount
Sinai.  He is about to come down and tell
the people what he heard and what God wants from them and what God is going to
do for them.  But that is the topic of
the next episode, where we look at the section of law in the book of Exodus.

55:57  MUSIC

All right
folks, thanks again for listening to another episode here of the Exodus
series.  I appreciate you listening and
pressing download and all that stuff again. 
Just a quick reminder, the “pay what you want class” discussing Genesis
is September 23.  Also, I’ll be at
Evolving Faith October 4 and 5 in Denver, CO. 
Tickets are still available.  I
hope you can make it. 

All right
folks, thanks so much for listening.  See
you next time.