CHAPTER 34
Alright, since Moses wrecked the last pair of tablets in a
rage over the calf, better make some new ones.
Moses is told to cut the stone tablets himself – but what about Uri, son
of Hur – the holy handyman?
You also get the following statement about God, a statement
that will be one of the more repeated statements about him: “The LORD, a God
gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity.” That sure describes how millions (billions)
of faithful like to see him. One thing
– the person making this statement is …. God. Well, OK then. Good thing he didn’t say he is so incredibly
modest.
God is nice to his people, he’ll forgive them for being a stiff-necked
people, as he likes to call them, and even reiterates his desire to give them
their promised land, mentioning the people he’ll drive out. There’s nothing wrong with these people, but
they aren’t the sons and daughters of Abraham.
Personally, this whole chosen people notion (the phrase “chosen people”
isn’t here, but the ethos clearly is) rankles more than a little bit.
God also instructs everyone to not worship other altars,
because the Hebrew God is a jealous God.
OK, that’s another hint of early polytheism. Worship this Lord not because he’s the only one, but because he’s
our Lord – and he don’t like you to look at others. There’s also a bunch of
reiteration of previously made points (there’s that line about not boiling a
goat in its mother’s milk again), but then again where shortly after the Golden
Calf debacle, so it’s nice to point out that he’s still on board with the plan,
provided that the children of Israel stay on the straight and narrow.
The chapter ends with one of the oddest moments in the
Bible. Moses has been transfigured by
spending so much time on the mountain with God. His face apparently radiates light. God is radioactive! It
shows the power of God, but it also gives birth to a stereotype. Though the Bible says his faces is radiant,
the ancient Hebrew word for it was similar to that for “horns” leading to
mistranslation, sculpture of Moses with horns, and last by not least the
stereotype that Jews have horns.
This radiant face story also makes more sense if you know
modern Biblical scholarship. This story
comes from the P source (unlike the rest of the chapter, which comes from
J). Of the four main sources in the
Torah, the first written were E and J, which are believed to be the priestly
classes of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judea respectively. Israel’s priests traced their lineage back
to Moses and Judea’s did back through Aaron.
Israel’s 10 tribes fell to Assyria, and many of the priests came south –
and brought their holy writings with them.
Those writings had many stories that many Aaron look bad (like the
Golden Calf story). Well, the priests
in charge were associated with Aaron and didn’t like this, but they couldn’t
denounce the holy book and Moses was too big a figure to trash. At least they couldn’t trash him too
much. So they put little stories like
this facial radiation thing in to bring him down a peg. A lot of the Bible’s early books is
different priest groups in-fighting with each other and trying to convince the
masses of their own religious take on things.
CHAPTER 35
After Moses gets disfigured, the rest of Exodus is fairly
mundane. Now it’s time to build the tabernacle and the ark and all the rest of
it. I thought this had happened earlier
during the boringest of boring parts of the book, but it turns out that was
just the instruction manual – now time for the actual construction. And hey – the Holy Handiman is back, Uri,
son of Hur. Don’t know why he missed
out on the tablets but he’ll lead the artisans on the rest.
The people are sufficiently chastised by the golden calf
incident, and send tons and tons of offerings to help build the sacred stuff
for the Lord.
One quick passing note – early on God reminds them of the
importance of the Sabbath. He goes so
far as to say “You shall not even light a fire in any of your dwellings on the
Sabbath day.” Dang, that’s
serious. Good thing the Promised Land
isn’t Siberia.
CHAPTER 36
Odd chapter break.
At the end of the last one everyone was turning out with material to
help with construction, and that’s where it begins this time. In fact, there is so much stuff that they’re
swamped. The artisans even tell Moses
“The people are bringing much more than is needed to carry out the work which
the LORD has commanded us to do” so Moses has to issue an edict ending all
contributions. Heh. I like the bizarre comedy of it all – “Quit
being so damn observant everyone! It’s
getting annoying!” Also, it shows how
concerned the people are to show their loyalty to God after the Golden Calf
debacle.
The rest of the chapter is just what’s being built.
CHAPTER 37
More construction.
Nothing to really talk about at all.
The ark, table, menorah, and altar for incense are all made. Bezalel makes the ark, not the Holy
Handiman, Uri of Hur. That’s a bit of
an upset – I mean, at one point God asked for Uri by name. You’d figure he’d get the prestige job of
building the ark. Nope. Still, that must be quite a nice business
reference for Uri – asked for by God. I
wonder if he puts that on his business card.
God is nice to his people, he’ll forgive them for being a stiff-necked people, as he likes to call them, and even reiterates his desire to give them their promised land, mentioning the people he’ll drive out. There’s nothing wrong with these people, but they aren’t the sons and daughters of Abraham. Personally, this whole chosen people notion (the phrase “chosen people” isn’t here, but the ethos clearly is) rankles more than a little bit.
ReplyDeleteWell, of course, there's always at least two sides to every story. But, since we're reading the story presented by the Bible, we should at least see how the Bible views the people currently living in the land that the Israelites are going to possess.
Ex 34:11
"Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites."
OK, let's start with the Amorites. Remember back in Gen 15, when God was telling Abram (not yet Abraham) about the future of his seed, and how they would be slaves in Egypt for four hundred years? Gen 15:16 -
"The fourth generation will return here since the Amorites’ wrongdoing won’t have reached its peak until then."
Now, the verse doesn't spell out exactly what wrongdoing the Amorites were doing, but we do see that, over four centuries it would get progressively worse. It's probably also worth noting that, in the Exodus verse above, the Amorites get top mention, ahead of Canaan, from whom they descended (Gen 10:16).
Actually, all of the above (the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, etc.) descend from Canaan; so they could probably just collectively be called the Canaanites. The Canaanites, of course, descend from Canaan; you remember, Noah's grandson, who was cursed because of Ham's sin? While the Bible never explicitly states that Ham raped Noah (all we know is that Noah was drunk, passed out, and Ham went into his tent and, well, again, the Bible doesn't specifically say what happened) it is, perhaps, more than coincidental that sexual assault would be the sin most frequently associated with the descendants of Canaan. For example, it was descendants of Canaan who inhabited Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 10:19), the land where the assaults were so pervasive and vicious that God heard the cries of the victims (Gen 18:20) and sent his angels; only to have the men of Sodom attempt to rape them. Also (SPOILER ALERT) right after God has giving a litany of the sexual sins of which He disapproves, He tells the Israelites (Lev 24-28):
"Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you."
Perhaps I'm reading too much into that, but I think having the above verses follow the listing of sexual no-no's suggests that the Canaanites have once again found themselves about to be punished for crimes of a sexual nature.
So, anyway, the point here is that, in God's eyes, it's time to punish the residents of the land of Canaan. But rather than do the whole fire and brimstone thing like he did in Sodom and Gomorrah, God will instead use the Israelites as his weapon to dole out the punishment to these people.
More in a moment.
Peace and Love,
Jimbo
Continuing:
ReplyDeleteBut, what about the decent people who might live in the land? Will God destroy them as well? Remember back in Genesis that this was Abraham's question before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, to shorten this somewhat, God finds that just one family (Lot and kin) represents all the good people left in those cities; so God gets them out before he puts on the fire and brimstone show. Likewise, (SPOILER ALERT) before Israel goes into Jericho to destroy everyone, God first gets out the one decent family; oh, and, just to mess with all the uptight religious folks, it turns out to be; well, you'll see.
But what about Israel, the "chosen people"? Are they sinless and blameless before God? NO; of course not! So why them?
Well, let's first look at what they've been "chosen" for. God had promised Abraham that in Abraham's seed (note the singular) all nations would be blessed. Well, if Abraham's seed is to be born into the world so that it can bless all nations, it would have to descend from someone; I mean, it's got to belong to some nation, just like every other human seed born into the world.
So God chooses the nation from which Abraham's seed, the one that will bless all the nations of the world, will be born. And, most assuredly, it's a nation that is not chosen because they are the most righteous people on the planet. But still, God is willing to work with them, to set them apart from the other nations to be His people and do His will and prepare the way for the one for whom the gathering of the people will be.
But, of course (SPOILER ALERT) the chosen people, being people, don't do God's will. And, as the story progresses, we'll see the results of that.
And, man, was all that (even after trimming it back) a lot longer than I had planned when I started. Hopefully, though, I made the points:
1) According to the book we're reading, the people about to be driven out of the land of Canaan were not blameless;
2) God chose a people, not based on merit, but because of a promise that He had made centuries before.
Peace and Love,
Jimbo