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   2/17/11

 Exodus 19-21

The Israelites Reach Mount Sinai

Exodus 19:1 On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2 They had journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. 3 Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: 4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”

7 So Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 8 The people all answered as one: “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. 9 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.”

The People Consecrated

When Moses had told the words of the people to the Lord, 10 the Lord said to Moses: “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and prepare for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.” 14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people. He consecrated the people, and they washed their clothes. 15 And he said to the people, “Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.”

16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. 19 As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder. 20 When the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. 21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people not to break through to the Lord to look; otherwise many of them will perish. 22 Even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves or the Lord will break out against them.” 23 Moses said to the Lord, “The people are not permitted to come up to Mount Sinai; for you yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and keep it holy.’ ” 24 The Lord said to him, “Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you; but do not let either the priests or the people break through to come up to the Lord; otherwise he will break out against them.” 25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.

For many of us the Ten Commandments below are our expression of our  World View.  Are they really? See what Greg Laurie of Harvest Church in Riverside, CA has to say about this subject.

The Ten Commandments  (Deut 5.1—22)

Exodus 20:1 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Look at the Ten Commandments, for example. The Fourth Commandment teaches us to keep the Sabbath holy and to refrain from work. This simple notion actually leads a thinking reader to a multitude of questions: What does “holy” really mean? How can a period of time be kept holy? What exactly constitutes work? Is it physical exertion, or a job that one is paid for, or perhaps a labor that one would rather not do? Or is it something else entirely? Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday LIving . Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.

Jesus said the Sabbath is for man. Think about our business. Think about the steadily growing volume of noise in the world. Think about all the distractions. The merry go round spins faster and faster till no one can hang on. God says to rest. God says to keep the Sabbath. God says to be still. God knows what is best for us. In the desert we call life God is our manna.

12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.” 21 Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

The Law concerning the Altar

22 The Lord said to Moses: Thus you shall say to the Israelites: “You have seen for yourselves that I spoke with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. 24 You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. 25 But if you make for me an altar of stone, do not build it of hewn stones; for if you use a chisel upon it you profane it. 26 You shall not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.”

The Law concerning Slaves  (Deut 15.12—18)

Exodus 21:1 These are the ordinances that you shall set before them:

2 When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave declares, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person,” 6 then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.

7 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt unfairly with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.

The Law concerning Violence

12 Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. 13 If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee. 14 But if someone willfully attacks and kills another by treachery, you shall take the killer from my altar for execution.

15 Whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death.

16 Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to death.

17 Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.

18 When individuals quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist so that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed, 19 but recovers and walks around outside with the help of a staff, then the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery.

20 When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property.

22 When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. 23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

26 When a slaveowner strikes the eye of a male or female slave, destroying it, the owner shall let the slave go, a free person, to compensate for the eye. 27 If the owner knocks out a tooth of a male or female slave, the slave shall be let go, a free person, to compensate for the tooth.

Laws concerning Property

28 When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 If the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. 30 If a ransom is imposed on the owner, then the owner shall pay whatever is imposed for the redemption of the victim’s life. 31 If it gores a boy or a girl, the owner shall be dealt with according to this same rule. 32 If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the slaveowner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

33 If someone leaves a pit open, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit shall make restitution, giving money to its owner, but keeping the dead animal.

35 If someone’s ox hurts the ox of another, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the price of it; and the dead animal they shall also divide. 36 But if it was known that the ox was accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has not restrained it, the owner shall restore ox for ox, but keep the dead animal.


  Devotionals, Videos and more ...

American Minute
     by Bill Federer


A baseball star, Billy Sunday played for the Chicago White Sox in the 1890’s. Born in an Iowa log cabin, his father, a Union Army soldier, died of an pneumonia and Billy grew up in an orphanage. While recovering from a baseball injury, he began attending YMCA meetings. A national sensation occurred this day, February 17, 1889, when Billy Sunday preached his first sermon as an evangelist in Chicago. Over the next 46 years 100 million people would hear him. In his animated style, Billy Sunday said: “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.


Proverbs
     by D.H. Stern

Proverbs 18:18-19

Casting lots puts an end to strife
and separates powerful disputants.

It is harder to win an offended
     brother than a strong city;
their fights are like the bars of a fortress.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.
My Utmost For The Highest
     by Oswald Chambers

The initiative against depression

Arise and eat. --- 1 Kings 19:5. .

     The angel did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told Elijah to do the most ordinary thing, viz., to get up and eat. If we were never depressed we should not be alive; it is the nature of a crystal never to be depressed. A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. There are things that are calculated to depress, things that are of the nature of death; and in taking an estimate of yourself, always take into account the capacity for depression.

     When the Spirit of God comes He does not give us visions; He tells us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God’s creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple things—the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there. The inspiration which comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and to do it in the inspiration of God. If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the Spirit of God makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest


Is a Museum Peace?
     the Poetry of R.S. Thomas


     Is A Museum Peace?
Is a museum
Peace? I asked. Am I the keeper
Of the heart's relics, blowing the dust
In my own eyes? I am a man;
I never wanted the drab role
Life assigned me, an actor playing
To the past's audience upon a stage
Of earth and stone; the absurd label
Of birth, of race hanging askew
About my shoulders. I was in prison
Until you came; your voice was a key
Turning in the enormous lock
Of hopelessness. Did the door open
To let me out or yourselves in?
from a Welsh Testament

 R.S. Thomas TARES

Swimming in the sea of the Talmud:
     From Midrash to Mishnah

     Suppose, however, that a person was interested not in a specific verse but in a specific topic. Where would he or she turn? Shabbat, for example, is mentioned in over one hundred different places throughout the Bible. Since the Midrash was organized by book and by verse, a person had to look up every single reference in order to learn all the teachings. The Rabbis needed a more efficient way of collecting traditions by subject. At the beginning of the third century C.E., according to tradition, Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi edited such a work that came to be known as the Mishnah (“the teaching”). It was organized into six major sections: Zeraim (“seeds”), Moed (“holiday”), Nashim (“women”), Nezikin (“damages”), Kodashim (“Holy Things”) and Teharot (“Clean Things”). Each of these sections was further divided into subsections (sixty-three in all), known as masekhtot, or tractates. There were, for example, twelve masekhtot in Moed covering the various holidays and their observances, including separate ones on Shabbat, Pesaḥ, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Purim. A tractate or masekhet was made up of several chapters, and every chapter contained a number of individual teachings, each called a Mishnah.

     Thus, the term Mishnah has two meanings: The Mishnah is the collection of laws attributed by tradition to the editorship of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi, c. 200 C.E. A Mishnah is any particular law in this collection.

     The Mishnah is written in Hebrew and is very concise. Laws are generally given without the explanations that were so indicative of the Midrash. Alternate traditions are sometimes mentioned, though no justification is given why one tradition is chosen over another. In addition, only the Bible (the “Written Law”) was to be committed to writing; this served to fix and close the text. There was a tradition that the Oral Law not be written down. Thus, the Mishnah was so concise since brief statements were easier to memorize, and it remained fluid and expandable because it had never been written down. The Rabbis received these oral traditions, added their own insights, and then passed them on to the next generations.

 Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday LIving . Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.

Take Heart
     by D. Wallis

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. --- Psalm 42:1

     We often speak of heaven as our home, and in many senses that is true.48 If in heaven we will meet again those whom we loved and lost, and if boys and girls will be playing in the streets of Zion, I have no doubt that heaven will be a homelike place. But in deeper senses heaven is not our home, or if it is, it is just because God is there. In the deepest sense our home is not heaven, but God.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home. --- Isaac Watts

     God is the true home of the human soul.

     Craving for God is one of the strangest facts in human history. You would have thought that in a world like this, full of color, music, and delight, humanity would be content without God. But the book of Psalms is filled with that passionate craving. And if the book of Psalms has lived through chance and change, cherished when ten thousand volumes are forgotten, it is largely because it gives a voice to this unappeased hunger. We do not crave for God because he is glorious or because he is sovereign. We are homesick—that is the meaning of it. We crave for God because he is our home.

     Now this homesickness of the soul for God is one of our surest proofs of God. It is an argument more powerful than any that philosophy affords to convince me that there is a God. No one denies that souls still pant for God. And hearts today and here still thirst for him, as truly as the exiled psalmist did. And there cannot be homesickness without a home. All other arguments may fail me. When my mind is wearied and my memory tired, I forget them. But this one, knit with my heart, part and parcel of my truest humanity, survives all moods, is strong when I am weak, and brings me to the door of God my home.

     I will arise and go to my Father. Thank God we need no money for that journey. Is there no one here who has been far away who is going to come home—to God—this very hour?      --- George H. Morrison

 Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers (27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

Teacher's CM by Lawrence O. Richard
     The Child

     Events reported in Exodus 15:22 through 17:7 show us how like a child Israel was. Looking back the Prophet Hosea used that image:

     When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in My arms; but they did not know I healed them. --- Hosea 11:1–3

     Squalling and willful, toddling off to grasp at forbidden “pretties,” infant Israel soon forgot the great acts of God through which she was delivered, and lapsed into complaint and a childish, willful bitterness.

     Three days after crossing the Red Sea, the people were in a waterless wilderness, led there by God Himself by the agency of a cloudy, fiery pillar which was always visible to them (Ex. 13:21). When they did find water, it was undrinkable, and the people “grumbled against Moses.” The Lord purified the water, and promised that if the people would be responsive and listen to His voice, He would continually be a “healer” to them (15:22–26). Immediately after, God led them to Elim, an oasis with 12 springs and 70 palm trees, where they could rest from the desert journey and refresh themselves.

     When they journeyed on, the people murmured against Moses again, complaining of hunger. The supplies they brought from Egypt had dwindled. God responded by bringing quail to the camp that evening, and in the morning produced the first of the manna which would feed Israel all the time they were in the wilderness (16:1–15). This manna was a waferlike substance that appeared on the ground with the dew. It tasted like honey and nuts. Only as much as a person could eat in a single day was gathered, except the day before the Sabbath, when two days’ supply could be collected.

     On weekdays any extra manna spoiled; on the Sabbath it did not.

     In spite of Moses’ warning that their murmuring was against the Lord, and His command not to gather more manna than they needed, the people “paid no attention to Moses” (v. 20).

     Moving on in easy stages, Israel was again led to a place where there was no water. Panicked, they accused Moses of bringing them out of Egypt to kill them with thirst. In their anger, they were about ready to stone Moses. But again God acted in grace to supply water, this time from a rock (17:1–8).

     What then is the picture we have of infant Israel? It is a picture of people too immature to respond to grace; too willful to respond to guidance. God constantly demonstrated both His love and His ability to meet their every need. Yet in each crisis the people panicked and were unable to trust Him. Their response to pressure was more violent each time: they “grumbled against Moses” (15:24); then “the whole community grumbled against Moses” (16:2); then “they quarreled with Moses” and were “almost ready to stone” him (17:2, 4). These people were not learning the divine lifestyle. They in fact rejected the first and most basic lesson: the lesson of trust. God had proven Himself faithful over and over again. Yet there was no awakening of response in the hearts or the minds of His chosen people.

     Israel proved herself to be a child.

Richards, L., & Richards, L. O. (1987). The Teacher's Commentary (323). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.

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