Exodus

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It's All About Moses

When last we met, Joseph had just passed away, but before he did he anticipated quite correctly that the cushy Goshen shepherding gig couldn't last forever--after all they were just renters--and so he made the Israelites swear that when they picked up and moved, they would put him in a nice piece of rolling luggage and take him with them.

    And with that we move on to Exodus, Chapter 1, which begins with a real grab the reader sort of opener. In other words, we are once again told who the sons of Jacob are, all twelve of them, just in case we hadn't been taking notes earlier. And then we are told that they had done the fruitful and multiplying thing and had filled the land and prospered and generally were doing alright for themselves in The Land O' Goshen.

    But as any good writer will tell you, a story can't just have good times in it, a bit of hardship and conflict are needed. A reversal of fortunes is a good way to go if you want to keep the reader's interest. Sure enough, in verse 8 we learn that the Pharaoh who had been chums with Joseph had either died or retired, or ran up against term limits, because "Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." That can't be good for the people of Goshen, aka the Israelites, aka the Hebrews**.

    The new Pharaoh riles up the natives against the renters and pretty soon things get to be pretty warm for the Israelites. Pharaoh sends taskmasters who impose tasks and bitter service in mortar and brick and other kinds of menial, unfulfilling work. Ruthlessness is involved. The Pharaoh even tries to get the two Hebrew midwives in charge of all of the Goshen births to kill baby boys, but they outsmart him by simply not doing it. So he modifies his order to be more specific: all baby boys are to be tossed in the Nile.

    This brings us to Chapter 2 and another one of those Famous Stories from the Bible They Teach in Sunday School, kind of: Moses and the Bullrushes and the Pharaoh's Daughter. Actually, I didn't see anything about bullrushes specifically, but it seems to me that's the way it is presented in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I love that book, so I probably just filled that word in myself. In any case, we learn that Moses' unnamed mother, who is married to an unnamed man of the house of Levi, hides her newborn son, also currently unnamed, for three months, apparently hoping the Pharaoh will ease up on the whole toss 'em in the river decree, but when that doesn't happen she tries to abide by the spirit, if not the letter, of his decree by fashioning a fairly watertight little basket for her little boy and setting it amongst the reeds in the water. It would be nice to know what she was hoping to accomplish with this, but as so often seems to be the case here we are left to either speculate or shrug and move on.

    As we all remember from Sunday School, Pharaoh's daughter happens to come down to that section of the river for a bit of aquatic recreation at just the right time, and as she is splashing about under the watchful eyes of her attendants, she spots the floating basket, hears the plaintive cries of the abandoned infant, and, being a young woman of tender heart, decides not to leave him bobbing among the reeds, even though she correctly surmises that said infant is one of the Hebrew tikes her daddy has been trying really hard to eliminate lately. And wouldn't you know it, Moses' aunt on his daddy's side, who had been lingering around to see how things would develop after his mama placed him in the water, approaches Pharaoh's daughter brave as can be and offers to find a suitable Goshen woman to nurse the child until he is old enough to, you know, join the Pharaoh's household, which is where all of us, even in Sunday School, should have been shaking our heads and muttering "like that's a good idea." Of course, the woman she has in mind to do the nursing is her sister-in-law, Moses' birth mama.

    Pharaoh's daughter, anxious to get back to paddling around in the refreshing and male child strewn waters of the Nile, agrees to this plan in verse nine. In verse 10 we read, "When the child grew up, she (meaning his actual birth mother) brings him to Pharaoh's daughter, just as promised, and she takes him as her son. She names him Moses, "because" she said, "I drew him out of the water." Whether "grew up" means on solid food now or a strapping young fellow in his late teens or early twenties or something in between we don't know.

    No word on how the sudden introduction of a new member of the family is explained to Pharaoh. But maybe he just had other things on his mind at the time and was too distracted to notice an extra place set at the family dinner table.

    Before you know it, Moses, all grown up now, gets a closeup view of the forced labor still being imposed on the Hebrews, which are described as "one of his kinsfolk", so it seems either Pharaoh's daughter has clued him into his heritage or he has surreptitiously subscribed to Ancestry.com, but somehow he knows he is adopted. So when he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew it upsets him and he kills the Egyptian and then buries him in the sand, which seems to me to be a temporary sort of fix, but maybe I watch too many murder mystery shows. The next day he takes another walk and sees two Hebrews quarreling and he tries to settle things between them. But the Hebrew who is in the wrong (we're told) tells Moses to get lost or he'll tell the authorities about the body in the sand, which proves my point about the incompatibility of sand and corpses when discretion is wanted.

    Moses skips town. Already being in Egypt he can't escape to Egypt, so he goes to Midian, which is I have no idea where. But wherever it is the local priest has seven daughters and one of them, name of Zipporah, looks pretty good to Moses and before you know it Moses and Zipporah are wed. They have a son in short order and name him Gershom.

    Time passes and by and by the nasty Pharaoh dies, but the oppression of the Israelites doesn't get any better. So they try to get God's attention, and, as we come to the end of Chapter 2, "God remembered*** his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them."

  In Exodus Pt. 2 we will try to make our way through a burning bush, learn what God likes to be called (sort of), and introduce the character of Aaron, brother to Moses. There may even be a magical staff and some bricks.

*Horseshoe Bend by Page, Arizona.

**If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time the term "Hebrew" is used. If I am mistaken it is not the first time. Anyway, "Hebrew" and "Israelite" seem to be interchangeable at this point.

***I realize being God is the ultimate multitasking job, but he does seem to leave "His People" hanging for long periods of time before he remembers them.

  *

It All Starts With

A Burning Bush

 

At the end of Chapter 2, Moses has fled Egypt to avoid prosecution for murder, gotten himself married to a nice young woman name of Zipporah and had a son they name Gershom; the Israelites have cried out to God for help against their Egyptian taskmaster and God has taken notice of them.

 

Which brings us to Chapter 3 and one of those familiar Bible Stories many of us recall either from Sunday School or the David Steinberg routine on his “Disguised as a Normal Person” LP: Moses and the Burning Bush. I’ll try to stick at least a bit closer to the version in the New Revised Standard Version than Mr. Steinberg does in his hilarious comedy routine. But it’s easy to see how he was inspired.

Anyway…

Moses is in Midian, tending to a flock of sheep belonging to his father-in-law Jethro, when he spots a bush on fire. Entertainment of any variety being at a premium to a shepherd, he goes over to check it out and is surprised to see that the bush is not being affected in any way by the flames, kind of like the ceramic logs in a gas fireplace, although we can be confident he didn’t make that connection. Then, when the voice of God comes out of the bush, his curiosity is really piqued and he tries to get even closer, but God tells him to take his sandals off first on account of it being holy ground. This is where Steinberg has a bit of fun with the idea that God gleefully exclaims “Got another one!” when Moses scorches his bare feet, but we’re not going to go there.

Just to make sure Moses knows who he is talking to, God identifies himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, which causes Moses to cover his face out of fear of looking God of all those important ancestors in the face. As there isn’t anything in the next few verses to indicate otherwise, it seems Moses keeps his eyes covered for the rest of their conversation. But as God does most of the talking it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

First God tells Moses that the Israelites are having a rough time in Egypt, and he has a plan to get them out of there. Not only that, but he will lead them to a land of milk and honey that is currently inhabited by some undeserving Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who probably have no idea that an eviction notice is in their future. The person he wants to make the arrangements with Pharaoh for this emigration from Egypt is, you guessed it, Moses.

Moses is none too keen on the plan and he starts to come up with reasons why he’s not the right man for the job. Reason one being he thinks it very unlikely the Israelites will believe him if he comes strutting back home with some story about being appointed by God to lead them out of Egypt. What if they ask him God’s name, just to make sure he’s not working for one of the less reliable deities? This is where God delivers one of his signature lines, a real corker that the author delivers in all upper case,

“I AM WHO I AM. Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

One must admit it is simple, catchy, memorable, especially when delivered in the sort of rolling, thunderous voice one would associate with burning but not consumed bushes. Give it a try and see how it rolls off the tongue. “I AM WHO I AM!” See? Sounds impressive. But then if you step back and reread that bit it’s unclear as to whether the name is supposed to be “I AM” or “I AM WHO I AM”, if you see what I mean. But Moses, eyes closed, feet warm, and possibly wondering what the sheep are getting up to while he’s being distracted, likely doesn’t have the presence of mind at the time to inquire further. Fortunately, God gives him more to work with.

“Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.”

That should answer any questions the elders back home have about the authenticity of his commission.

God repeats his milk and honey promise and tells Moses that he wants him to go to Pharaoh and ask for permission to take the Israelites three days’ journey out of town to worship God. God says that Pharaoh is unlikely to agree to this unless he is “compelled by a mighty hand”. He promises to supply said mighty hand “and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will perform in it; after that he will let you go.” And then he says the Israelites should knock on the doors of their Egyptian neighbors and ask for any gold, silver, and fine fabrics laying around the house and expect it all to be forked over with no objections because “I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians.”  

(Possible Spoiler Alert and Personal Quibble) We all know that the “wonders” God is alluding to is a series of plagues involving frogs, boils, locusts and other inconveniences that will affect not just Pharaoh but darned near everyone in Egypt. So why in the world would the Egyptian people cheerfully hand over their family heirlooms to the folks they could with complete justification blame for their water turning to blood and all their firstborn children dying? Or does “into such favor” mean something other than what it sounds like to us, like “The Egyptians will give you anything, just to see the backside of your donkey heading into the East.”?

Moses still isn’t crazy about being recruited into the job, and Chapter 4 opens with him once again trying to beg out of the job.

“But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me,”

God, who I’m thinking isn’t too happy at what could be considered a mild form of insubordination, keeps his cool and has Moses do a couple of simple things with his staff and his hands that turn into nifty feats of legerdemain. “See?” he says. “With me on your side you can turn your staff into a snake and back to a staff, and your hand a nasty leprous white and back to glowing with health. That’ll convince ‘em. And if all else fails, I’ve got this one where you turn water into blood. No, you don’t need to do it now, but trust me, it never fails.” (I’m paraphrainge)

But Moses isn’t done trying to weasel out. He claims a lack of eloquence, saying he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (not a paraphrase). God, getting just a little testy at this resistance, reminds Moses who he is speaking with. “Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” (Also, not a paraphrase. I think it should be pretty easy to spot the difference by now, so these parenthetical asides are being retired unless I think one is really necessary.)

Moses isn’t ready to give up yet and he just flat out says,

“O, my Lord, please send someone else.”

But once God sets his mind on bringing someone into the company, he’s usually stubborn about getting his way, so he tells Moses he can have his brother Aaron, a charter member of the Goshen Chapter of Toastmasters, do the actual public speaking for him. God will tell Moses what to tell Aaron to say and that should be the end of the discussion, don’t make me have to step out of this bush, if you know what I mean?

Moses takes the assignment. He asks his employer/father-in-law for some personal time to visit the extended family in Egypt, and heads out with his wife, their sons (notice the plural here, so Gershom now has at least one sibling), a donkey, and, of course, his magical staff, and turns toward Egypt. On the way he gets some additional details from God about what to expect. For one thing, he should expect Pharaoh to be difficult about the whole thing and the reason Pharaoh is going to be difficult is because God will “harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” When this happens, Moses (through brother Aaron I suppose) is to tell Pharaoh that since God considers the Israelites his firstborn, if Pharaoh won’t let them go God will kill Pharaoh’s firstborn son.

This is what I like to call Old Testament diplomacy.

Then, in verses 24-26, we have a little scene that, although I’ve read it over more than a few times, I just don’t quite get what is going on. Here it is verbatim. See what you think.

24  On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met him and tried to kill him. 25  But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!”  26  So he let him alone. It was then she said, “A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.”

So God tried to kill Moses and was thwarted by a foreskin? Or was it Gershom (or Gershom’s brother?) God snuck up on with bad intent because he hadn’t been circumcised yet and Zipporah took away his motive just in time? What’s all this about being a bridegroom of blood? And what was going through Moses’ mind when his wife was dabbing at his feet with a freshly amputated foreskin?

Let’s wrap up this chapter.

Chapter 4 ends with Moses meeting up with Aaron and the two of them making their case for abandoning the Land o’ Goshen to the elders and general population, who find their arguments convincing.

 

Next up I will try my darndest to get us through the plagues in one piece.

 

 

*The Mission at Santa Barbara. Pretty, isn't it? There's a nice rose garden nearby.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I Bring You Plagues

 

But before we get to the most famous plagues that might have been, let’s have a quick look at Chapters 5,6 and 7.

        In Chapter 5, Pharaoh, who is beginning to exhibit some signs of impatience with Moses and his “Let my people go” campaign, decides to make the Israelites’ lives even more difficult. It seems that the primary task the taskmasters have been having them do is making bricks, which for most people is probably not the most fulfilling way to spend one’s time. Unless, of course, you’re making bricks to build your own home, or a dry goods store that will be in the family for generations, or a tricked out she-shed.

        Sorry, I said I was going to be quick about this.

        The brick building enterprise previously been set up so regular deliveries of straw, one of the essential ingredients for a quality, Egyptian brick, were made to the Israelites, who then added water and soil and whatever other decorative elements like gravel, stones, or horse dung dictated by the current orders. (I got the gravel, stone, and horse dung info from my five minutes of research.) But now that Moses has gotten Pharaoh’s dander up, the Egyptian Deity/Chief Executive decides the Israelites can forage for the straw themselves and the expected quota of bricks will remain the same. Sounds like the sort of boss I think most of us have encountered at some time in our lives. And we might have done exactly what Moses does at the end of Chapter 5 when he turns to God and asks just when the promised delivery of his people might commence, because things are getting worse, not better.

        God answers in Chapter 6 in what I think by now we can safely say is his usual way of responding to one of his favorite humans who just doesn’t understand that mysterious wonders move at a pace truly mysterious indeed: He reminds Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and that he made a promise—sorry, covenant—with those distinguished gentlemen, and if he said he is going to do something, he does it. On his own schedule. So just tell Aaron to keep telling Pharaoh to let my people go, and leave the rest to me.

        Most of the rest of Chapter 6 is a genealogy lesson about the Moses and Aaron clan. The part that caught my eye is in verse 20…

Amram married Jochebed his father’s sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram’s life was one hundred thirty-seven years.

        The very end of Chapter 6 segues into Chapter 7 with a repeat of the initial conversation between God and Moses when Moses tried to wriggle out of the “Let My People Go” job by claiming to be a poor public speaker and God accommodating him by enlisting Aaron. Once again, we have God telling Moses that part of his ingenious plan to free the Israelites is that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart so God has a good excuse to “multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt” by which he means…

        Plagues! Although at this point God is using the term “great acts of judgment.”

        In verse 7 we’re told Moses was 80 years old and brother Aaron was 83 while all this was happening. Just in case we were wondering.

        Verses 8-13 tell us how Aaron performs his staff to snake bit for the Pharaoh and his entourage only to have the court magicians produce staff snakes themselves. The fact that Aaron’s snake eats the other ones doesn’t convince Pharaoh to let anyone go. But then how could it when God has hardened his heart so he, God, has an excuse to trot out some really impressive plagues?

Plague #1:  Water to Blood.

        Moses tells Pharaoh that if he doesn’t let the people go he will turn the water in the Nile to blood. And not just the river water, but all the water in Egypt, including any already in buckets or jars or barrels, every single ounce is turning to nasty blood. Aaron raises his magic staff, and sure enough, all the water turns to blood and everything in the water dies and things get really rank. But the magicians do the same thing, so Pharaoh is unimpressed.

        Side note: This is where I’m left wondering just how the magicians were able to turn water to blood when it had already been turned to blood by Aaron and his Miraculous Rod**? Did they turn it back to water and then to blood? Did they bring all the fish back to life and then kill them again just to show they could do it? If so, what was the point of that?

        Seven days pass.

        The people are not let go.

Chapter 8

Plague #2: Frogs (Not the Aristophanes play, real frogs)

        A whole slew of frogs come hopping up out of the river, which apparently has shifted back to the water standard and recovered its life supporting properties after only a week. The frogs pester the Pharaoh, his people, and his officials. Not to be outdone, Pharaoh’s magicians also produce a battalion or three of frogs just because. Pharaoh tells Moses that he’s ready to negotiate but only if Moses arranges for all the bothersome frogs to stop hopping about. God makes the frogs die, and they all get swept into piles, which only makes the place smell even worse than when the river was blood. Pharaoh’s heart calcifies and he doesn’t come to the bargaining table.

Plague #3: Gnats

        Aaron strikes the dust with his staff and boom! Gnat City. “All the dust of the earth turned to gnats.” This time the magicians come up empty and they advise Pharaoh he’s up against the “finger of God”. He doesn’t care, his heart is too hard.

Plague #4:  Flies

        This is the first time we’re told that the land of Goshen is being declared off limits to the Plague of the Day. So when the flies swarm all over the place, they concentrate all of their pesky behavior on the native Egyptians. Pharaoh tries to act like he’s a reasonable guy open to compromise and maybe Moses will agree his people can just perform their sacrifices locally so they don’t lose any valuable brick making to travel time, but that’s a hard no from Moses. So Pharaoh says, okay, just don’t go too far, all I ask is you get rid of the damn flies. The flies are dismissed, but it doesn’t matter, Pharaoh’s heart has moved another notch up on the Mohs scale of hardness. Somewhere around Flourite by now.

Chapter 9

Plague #5: Livestock Diseased

        All the Egyptians’ cows and donkeys and horses and camels and Flemish Giant rabbits get sick and die. The Israelite livestock, being previously vaccinated, survive. Pharaoh is still being stubborn.

Plague #6: Boils

        Moses tosses a bunch of kiln soot into the air and all the people and (remaining) animals in Egypt break out in painful boils, even the magicians. Pharaoh doesn’t care.

Plague #7: Thunder and Hail

        In perhaps the most terrifying of the plagues so far, a traveling opera company visits Egypt and begins to perform Wagner’s Ring Cycle non-stop.

        Just kidding.

        Moses warns Pharaoh to secure all the livestock “and everything you have in the open field” because the heaviest hail imaginable is about to come tumbling out of the sky, although by now I’m wondering what in the way of agricultural resources there are left to protect. A few of the Egyptians take heed and do their best to shelter themselves, their animals, and their plants, but the most everyone else remains unconvinced that the blood, frogs, gnats, flies, dead cows, and boils had been anything other than easily explained away natural phenomenon, all part of Horus’s Great Plan, and they, their critters (once again, what critters?) and their crops end up getting pounded into the ground by the hail.

        Pharaoh makes as if he’s finally coming to the realization he might be on the losing side, but it’s just a show to make the hail stop. Soon as it does, he tells Moses to go pound sand.

Chapter 10

Plague #8 Locusts (One of the more famous plagues)

        God tells Moses to tell the Israelites that God is making the Egyptians’ lives pretty miserable and if they weren’t convinced about his street cred before they ought to be coming around now.

        Moses warns Pharaoh that locusts are on the way and anything that somehow escaped being pounded to dust by the hail is on the menu. Some of Pharaoh’s executive team suggest now may be a good time to show a bit of flexibility, but he’ll only go as far as letting the Israelite men go into the wilderness for their sacrifices, none of the women and children can go. And so, an east wind brings locusts.

        Again, Pharaoh makes like he’s about to cry “Uncle” and again he…well, you know.

Plague #9: Darkness

        For three days it is pitch black in Eqypt, but not in Goshen. Pharaoh tells Moses all the people can go, but they have to leave the livestock, which I guess were excluded from the Diseased Livestock Plague. Moses says no deal. Pharaoh warns Moses not to show his face around the palace anymore. Moses says “Fine with me!”

Chapter 11

Plague #10: But first, a Warning

        God tells Moses that the next one is going to be a real doozy, the one that finally does the trick. Not only will Pharaoh let the people go, but he will hand them their collective hats, give them an encouraging boot in the backside, and slam the door behind them. But before that happens, the Israelites should go door to door in the Egyptian neighborhoods, ask to be given all the objects of silver and gold, and expect it to be handed over no questions asked.

        Disregarding Pharaoh’s threat of grievous bodily harm, Moses shows up at the palace once more and delivers notice of the worst plague of them all. All firstborn in Egypt, from high to low, even including the livestock (there they are again, where did these cows and horses and Belgian Giant rabbits spring up from?) are doomed, Israelites excepted of course. Pharaoh’s heart has reached Moh’s ten by now, so he isn’t thinking straight at all, and he tells Moses to skedaddle.

Which brings us to Chapter 12 and The First Passover aka Plague #10

        God gives Moses instructions on how the Israelites are to mark their doorposts and lintels so when he descends upon Egypt to kill all the firstborn he will know which houses to skip. There’s more about unleavened bread and how to cook a lamb and instructions not to leave leftovers.

        God also tells Moses that the day when he kills all the Egyptian firstborn will be a day of remembrance that shall be celebrated “throughout your generations…as a perpetual ordinance.” Instructions are given regarding unleavened bread and a day of rest.

        Good as his word, at midnight “the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” and finally, finally, Pharaoh summons Moses and says,

“Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelities
! Go, worship the Lord, as you said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And bring a blessing on me too!”

        Not sure where he gets off asking for a blessing, but I suppose since God was responsible for the hard heart that facilitated all this death and destruction, he felt he was due some compensation.

        The Israelites bundle up their unleavened dough, the silver and gold (and fine fabrics, by the way) they had swindled the Egyptian people out of, and they take to the road. It must have been a sight, because the Bible tells us there were “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children.” How many women? It doesn’t say.

        God gives out more instructions regarding how the Passover celebration is to be administered, mostly to make sure there are no foreskins present at the festivities. And the whole episode is wrapped up in verse 51…

That very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, company by company.

We will pick things up with Chapter 13 in our next installment. Get ready for more unleavened bread, pillars of cloud and fire, and one of Hollywood’s great special effects, the Parting of the Red Sea.

*I thought that a nice picture of some calla lilies would perhaps help take the sting out of all these plagues.

**”Aaron’s Miraculous Rod” is a subtitle contained within Chapter 7. Honest.

  *

Firstborns, Pillars, and Water 

 

I’ve got to admit that sometimes I find the word choices in this book to be less than ideal. For instance, the word “consecrate” is a pretty big player in Chapter 13, which opens with the Lord telling Moses that since he did the Israelites a solid by killing all the firstborn in Egypt, the Israelites now owe him their own firstborn.

“…whatever is first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and animals, is mine.”

        Right there, Chapter 13, verse 2.

        Then verses 3 through 10 give us an unleavened bread tangent that is mostly a rehash of old material.

        The firstborns come back in verse 11, and starting in verse 12 God tries to clear up what he means by “is mine”.

“All the firstborn of your livestock that are males shall be the Lord’s. 13  But every firstborn donkey you shall redeem (there’s another word that keeps popping up) with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. Every firstborn male among your children you shall redeem.”

        So now we have the question of just what “redeem” means, and if it means the same thing for human children as it means for sheep and donkeys. Is it the same as “consecrate”? If so, that doesn’t really help me much since I’m still not sure what “consecrate” means here. Is it the same as “sacrifice” and if so does that meaning only apply to animals and for kiddos it means the child has to do or wear or say something special to remind him (always a him) that he belongs to God? And what’s with the whole breaking a donkey’s neck business? In the verses that follow the Lord gives us a bit of an explanation, making it kinda-sorta sound like the animals get killed but the kiddos don’t and there is something about an emblem on the forehead but mostly he just talks about how the reason he wants all this redeeming done on a regular and ongoing basis is so everyone remembers what a tough guy he was when it came to handling those darned Egyptians.

        Next, we learn that the Israelites have been provided with a couple of guides in the form of pillars that will lead them to the land of milk and honey that belongs to other folks at the moment. By day there is a pillar of cloud that they follow, and by night there is a pillar of fire they’re supposed to follow. In verse 21 it says these two guides are there “so that they might travel by day and by night.” Not sure when they made camp. Six hundred thousand men and however many women and children, tramping along twenty-four hours a day sounds like a formula for mutiny, or at least a lot of grumbling.

        It’s been an entire chapter since God has had an excuse to whomp on some Egyptians, so in Chapter 14 he tells Moses to make his people march in a sort of zig and zag—or serpentine, if you’re a fan of the movie “The In-Laws”—manner, like they’re confused, and then make camp (see! they do make camp after all!) as if they’re getting discouraged, so as to attract Pharaoh’s attention; you know, make him think they are ripe for bringing back into the Egyptian labor force by giving them the old “The Pharaoh you know is better than the crazy guy with the snake-staff you only think you know” speech. As a backup plan, he’s bringing along six hundred of his best charioteers for muscle.

        The Israelites see Pharaoh and his posse and get worried. Moses asks God what to do, and God tells him to hold his staff out over the waters of the Red Sea and we all know what happens next because they made a movie with Charlton Heston and Yvonne De Carlo all about it. God makes a mighty wind part the Red Sea, the Israelites hoof it on over to the other side, the charioteers follow them with bad intent, and the waters come back together just in time to drown every single Egyptian. Honestly, it’s wonder Pharaoh has anyone left to govern at this point.

        And then, in Chapter 15, Moses sings a song that goes on for eighteen verses all about how God saved the Israelites by drowning the charioteers and scaring the bejesus out of the populations of Philistia and Moab and Edom and Canaan. Then Miriam, who is described as a prophet, which is quite an accomplishment for any women in this society, and who also happens to be Aaron’s sister, which I’m thinking should also make her Moses’ sister, and which could suggest at least a bit in the way of nepotism regarding her title of prophet…anyway, Miriam and women get a whole verse to sing their musical contribution.

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

The remainder of the chapter recounts another episode where the wandering Israelites find themselves short on provisions, this time specifically water, and they “complained against Moses”. This happens in a spot called Marah where there actually was water, but it tasted nasty and nobody wanted to drink it. God has Moses toss a hunk of wood into the water and that makes the water taste good. Charcoal filtration perhaps. They keep going until…

“27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water.”

        Sounds like a lovely little oasis, doesn’t it? But I just can’t get the “six hundred thousand men” plus women and children figure out of my head, and twelve creeks and seventy trees just seems a little inadequate to me.

 

Next time on “Book by Book” we’ll see exactly what Manna from Heaven is all about, and Zipporah’s dad Jethro will share some excellent advice with his son-in-law.

 

*Yes, that’s the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. We saw him in March at Footprint Center in Phoenix. Great show, but last time we subject ourselves to an arena concert.

  *

Manna, Water, and the

Father-in-Law Chimes In

or

What is an Omer?

Welcome back. I hope you had a good holiday weekend and took time to remember what Memorial Day is all about. Now back to Moses and Aaron and the other million or so Israelites on their journey to the Land of Milk and Honey.

     When last we checked in with the travelers, at the end of Chapter 15, they were lounging around the oasis at Elim, enjoying all that a dozen springs and seventy palm trees could provide in the way of rest and refreshment. In Chapter 16 we find them in the Wilderness of Sin (sounds ominous), which is located somewhere between Elim and Sinai, and once again everyone is getting anxious about provisions.

    Moses turns to God for guidance and God has a solution that, as always, has a catch or three attached. God will arrange for bread in the morning and meat in the evening, but the Israelites must make sure they only take what they need for one day and not stash any away for later, except on the sixth day when they should gather enough for two days, because on the seventh day they're not supposed to do any gathering as that should be set aside as a "day of solemn rest".

    Although God promises both bread and meat, most of the material here is devoted to the bread, or as it came to be known, Manna. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason the protein isn't mentioned more often in this familiar Sunday School story is because, well, here's what it says...

Verse 13: In the evening quails came up and covered the camp

    Share that with a Sunday School class of adolescent girls and the reaction is bound to be one of absolute horror. "They ate quail? But they mate for life and they're soooooo cute!!!"

    Back to the bread. Verses 13 and 14 continue with...

and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.  14When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.

    Understandably, the Israelites have no idea what to do with this fine flaky stuff. Moses has to explain that it "is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat". In other words this manna from heaven shows up not as something fresh out of the oven, ready for a dab of butter and some berry preserves, but as an unfamiliar raw material to be scraped up off the ground and then worried into some sort of recognizably edible form. Kind of like the technical challenge on the Great British Baking Show. While the people are standing around, eyeballing what must have looked like the grounds outside a King Arthur flour factory after an explosion, Moses also spells out God's Ration Card Plan. They will be allowed one omer per person per day, except on the sixth day when two omers is the ration.

    There is no mention about any limitations on the number of quail to be served up each evening. Just saying.

    But at this point I've given up learning more about the cute and doomed birds; I just want to know what an omer is. So I keep reading, at the end of the chapter I get the answer.

36 An omer is a tenth of an ephah.

    Which should have satisfied me, but I found I was handicapped with a lack of knowledge concerning ephahs. And so...

    Today I have devoted my five minutes of research to the terms "omer" and "ephah". Here is what my five minutes rendered.

According to Wikipedia an omer is:

• A unit of dry measure also known as an isaron. Okay. Let's keep going.
• An omer is one tenth of a ephah. Which is what it says in Exodus and which didn't really help. However, we also find out that.
• An ephah is the same as 72 logs (presumably logs means something different than what you and I are used to)
• A log is the same as a Sumerian mina, which is of no help at all
• A mina is 1/60th of a maris as if that clears things up
• Ah! an omer is the same as 12/100ths of a maris. So now we're getting somewhere.
• Or at least we are after we learn that a maris is the same in dry measurement as the quantity of water which is equal in weight to a light royal talent, or 8.0 US gallons, whichever comes first.
• Which means that an omer, which if you'll recall is what we're really interested in here, is the same as 0.98 US gallons.
• Unless you look in the Jewish Study Bible of 2014, where it is 0.61 US gallons.
• And if all that is leaving you just as, if not more, baffled than when we started, Wikipedia also says that the Traditional Jewish definition of an omer is the equivalent of 43.2 chicken eggs.
• And my five minutes is up. An omer is an omer is an omer. Sometimes five minutes of research just makes things more confusing.

    Back to our story. The people are hungry, God arranges for regular deliveries of Bisquick and small poultry provided the people abide by his rules and regulations concerning gathering, consumption and storage.
There are attempts by some to circumvent the rules, which makes God angry, which makes Moses angry, which results in a stern warning to all involved. Everyone gets with the program and the march continues.

    In Verse 31 we do get an interesting additional bit of info about this manna. Just another one of those tangents we should be getting used to by now.

...it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

    Which does make it sound more appealing than the "fine and flaky" description given earlier.

    And then we end the chapter with...

35 The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.  36 An omer is a tenth of an ephah.

    Think about that. Forty years wandering around, most likely in circles because why else would it take so long to travel something under four hundred miles? Maybe we'll find out later, because after Exodus we have three more books that, as far as I can tell, take place during this forty year span. I'm just stuck on the idea that for forty years those folks had a diet of nothing but coriander flatbread and quail. That's something. And it may have something to do with their unimpressive pace.

    I know we already looked at verse 36, but I wanted to put it in context for you. As if that would help either of us.

    Let's move on to the next chapter, shall we?

    Chapter 17 is pretty short and it deals with just a couple of unrelated incidents. In one, there is another water shortage and this time Moses solves it by making water come out of a rock. In the other, someone or some group (it's not made clear) called Amalek attacks the wanderers and Moses sends Joshua out to fight him/them. Moses, along with Aaron and a buddy by the name of Hur, is watching the fight from the top of a hill and he is obliged to hold his staff up high in order for Joshua to get some sort of home court advantage. That's what it says. Problem is, the staff gets a bit heavy after a while, and so Aaron and Hur come to the rescue by getting Moses a rock to sit on and they each grab a hand to help him keep the staff aloft, so it all turns out okay. We are, however, left with this rather troubling bit at the end of the chapter...

The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

    Kinda makes a person curious to know more about this Amalek person/tribe/benevolent society, doesn't it? Should we be looking out for him in our own neighborhood?

    But now we turn in Chapter 18 to Jethro, father of Zipporah, father-in-law to Moses, grandfather to Gershom and Eliezer. Zipporah and the kids have been sent to live with grandpa while Moses is on his camping trip, but apparently the invitation isn't for an open ended sort of stay and Jethro shows up at the Israelite camp with daughter and grandsons in tow to deliver them back into Moses' care. While he is there, Jethro notices that everyone brings every concern, every grievance, every little complaint directly to Moses and it is beginning to wear the man down. So before he leaves, Jethro advises Moses to choose some reliable men, give them authority over not so major sorts of issues, and focus his attention on the Big Picture. Like why it's taking them forty years to cover a relatively modest amount of ground.

*A photo from our trip to Alaska way back in I forget what year.

  *

Sinai and The Ten Commandments

So I am in the middle of rereading--for the umpteenth time--Chapter 20, because of course that is where you can find The Ten Commandments, when an alert pops up on my phone about the verdict coming in soon in the Trial of He Who I'll Not Give The Satisfaction of Mentioning By Name. I have to say that any serious studying came to a temporary halt as I, along with darned near everyone else, waited for the news, wondering if in fact the law would somehow apply to someone who has managed to avoid any meaningful consequences his entire life. By golly, do you think it is any sort of coincidence that these thirty-four guilty verdicts came down at the very same time I was preparing this installment, the one that focuses close attention on the Basic Rules as Handed Down by God His Own Darn Self?

    I think not.

    Or maybe so.

    But that's not what we're here for, now is it?

    We're here for Exodus, Chapters 19 and 20, so let's get to it.

    After Moses' father-in-law Jethro heads back home to Midion--I think that's his home base, but I can't find it in my notes--the Israelites do some more desert wandering, and as we catch up with them at the beginning of Chapter 19, they have been trekking and checking their Rand McNally atlas for exactly three months and are currently camped out in front of Mount Sinai, trying to invent GPS, or SatNav, depending on which branch they happened to be on the Babel tree.

    Moses hears God call him to the top of the mountain, so he heads on up to see if maybe they can get a bit of variety in their diet, the fine and flaky mannon not being a tremendous hit with the toddlers, or those with IBS. God reminds Moses that he is the one who calls the meeting and establishes the agendas and what is on the slate now is what he sees as a real need to establish some basic rules and regulations concerning human behavior, which, from what we've seen so far seems to be a pretty good idea. He tells Moses he will present the specifics in three days, and in the meantime he wants everyone to wash their clothes and make sure not to get too close to the mountain, because if they do he'll have to kill them. So Moses tells the people to do laundry and "do not go near a woman", which isn't exactly the same as don't touch the mountain, but maybe he misheard God's instructions.

    On the morning of the third day all heck breaks loose around Mount Sinai. Billowing smoke, trumpets blaring, thunder and lightning, you name it. Moses tries to say something to God and God answers him back in thunder. A really impressive show for the people, who are all thinking this was definitely worth the trouble of washing their clothes, but maybe not yet sure about the three kanoodle-free nights. Maybe there will be fireworks.

    Moses goes up the mountain and God tells him, again, that if anybody else follows they will die. He likes his privacy. Moses says the people understand and they've all got clean robes on, and as far as he knows there hasn't been any hanky-panky, and God reminds him that last one was Moses' idea, not his, but he admires the initiative. He then says, you know what, Aaron can come up. Aaron's an okay guy. But that's it, none of those other priests. Anybody else comes up and there'll be trouble.

    And then God clears his throat, grabs the podium firmly on both sides, and, as Chapter 20 gets underway, "spoke all these words."

    No, I'm not going to give you all of the words. That's why you're getting your Bible info with me, because you want the abridged version. The section that follows is where The Ten Commandments appear, and surprisingly, at least to me, they are not presented in a bullet point format.

1. ...you shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol. (There's more, with specifics about under water and such, but the part that caught my eye was this...) "for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God...
4. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. (He goes on a bit, but that's the core.)
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not commit murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (by which I'm hoping the Hebrew for neighbor means everyone, but I'm not the scholar here.) And finally, this next one is kinda long but I am going to give it to you in it's entirety.
10. 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.

    That number Ten is a bit of an eye opener, don't you think? Or maybe not so much, since we've already been presented with abundant evidence that women don't count for much as actual human beings in the Old Testament so far.

    

    Moses then goes down to the people and tells them it's all okay and that God just wanted to make sure they are afraid of him so they'll behave themselves.

    God then gives Moses instructions about the sort of altar he likes and also tells him not to go up the steps of any altar because them people might be able to look up his robe.

    And this concludes our time with the Ten Commandments. If you're into Rules and Regulations, stay with us, because before too long we're going to have several gazillion coming your way.

Be nice to each other, okay?

  *

The Ten Commandments Was 

Just a Warm-up

Welcome back. Sorry if you've been anxiously waiting for the next installment, we're coming up on a whole bunch of material that, to be honest, I've found to be a bit of a slog. Also, I have a couple of other books I'm reading right now that are rather difficult to put down, and although I'm only about halfway through each of them I can recommend both.

• Gator Country, by Rebecca Renner, is at once a true crime tale and a personal examination of her beloved home state of Florida. The writing transports you to the wilds and the places that used to be even wilder, and introduces you to people who are very much of the land where they live.
• The Great Abolitionist, by Stephen Puleo, brings us the life of a truly remarkable man who should occupy a whole lot more space in our history books. Charles Sumner usually gets a brief mention as the victim of a brutal caning on the floor of Congress in the 1850's, but his life up to that point and then subsequent to that horrific act of violence perpetrated by a South Carolina representative name of Preston Reed, tells of a remarkable man who bravely, stubbornly, single-mindedly battled against slavery, the Original Sin of the United States of America. This story, in particular, is resonating with me as I come across reference after reference in the Old Testament to the accepted, seemingly Endorsed by God, practice of one person owning another. 

    And that leads us to Chapter 21, which immediately follows the Ten Commandments and the warning against climbing altar steps.

    The subtitle of Chapter 21 is..."The Law concerning Slaves", and I've got to tell you, it is disturbing, especially as these laws are supposed to have come directly from Ol' Yahweh his own darn self. Here's a sample, referring to the proper etiquette to follow when a Hebrew slave has served his seven years and is eligible for parole:

    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 alone.

    Which means that if a male slave gets married during his period of servitude, his family belongs to the "master" and the slave has to choose between his own freedom and keeping the family together. If he wants to stay with his wife and kids he gets his ear pierced with an awl and he's stuck as a slave for life. Nice.

    Another thing that comes to mind here is that these rules are aimed at the gentry in possession of Hebrew slaves, in other words persons who could very well be members of the same congregation as their masters and overlords. What about imported slaves, or slaves that have been raised in agnostic or Unitarian households? Does the seven year indenture not apply? Does anything go as far as disposition of spouses and offspring? I suppose we might find more slave related material later on, but for now this seems like pretty slim contract material. 

    Verses 7-11 deal with daughters being sold by their fathers and how things should be arranged if the purchaser either decides she's not quite what he had in mind, or he's going to pass her on to one of his sons. Somehow within these few verses, the female slave's title morphs into "wife", although this comes up in a passage about the rights she should retain if Dad Master or Son Master makes additions to the harem. For the umpteenth time, women are presented as mere possessions here in the Old Testament, quite the demotion from their original promised title of "partner" given in Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 18. If Eve had known what her sex was in for she may have decided to remain a rib.

    But let's move on.

    The chapter continues with "The Law concerning Violence". Here we get what seem to be a few random scenarios of someone whaling on somebody else followed by the consequences or lack of consequences deemed appropriate by God. There are a number of acts that, according to The Word of God, warrant the death penalty.

• Striking a person mortally.
• Unless it wasn't premeditated, then the perpetrator can flee to a place designated by God. Altars are mentioned, but there is no caution about going up the steps and the view accorded to those below.
• Striking ones father or mother.
• Kidnapping.
• Cursing ones father or mother. Yep, that'll get you the death penalty, so watch your mouth.
• When a slaveowner strikes a slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately.
• But if the slave lingers for a day or three before succumbing to his or her wounds, "there is no punishment: for the slave is the owner's property."

    We have some lesser punishments for other very specific scenarios.

• Striking a person with a stone or fist to the point that the victim is confined to bed results in no penalties outside of an obligation to pay for "loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery." This is, of course, dependent upon the victim recovering and being able to walk around outside "with the help of a staff."
• Anyone injuring a pregnant woman and causing a miscarriage is only liable for whatever financial compensation the woman's husband thinks is reasonable. If the attack on the woman results in injuries beyond miscarriage, then we get the famous "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe".
• And if a slave owner puts out the eye of a slave that slave gets to go free. Same deal if they knock out one of the slave's teeth. It is nice to see the humanity coming forward here, isn't it?

    No mentions about road rage or spousal abuse or schoolyard bullying or political assassination or mugging or...you get the picture, there are some gaps.

    Next we have a lot of rules about what happens when livestock are involved. Sometimes the punishment extends only to the beast in question, but sometimes the owner is held liable too. If you or your neighbors have any oxen inclined to mischief, I suggest you read up in Exodus, Chapter 21, verses 28-36, just in case. It just might save you from being stoned. To death. Stoned to death.

And that is all we have time for today. We need to do a Costco run and I need to get some guitar practice time in if I'm going to stand any chance of getting my fingertips nicely calloused.

*From our tour of the Louvre. If you know the name of the sculpture, please let me know. I just liked his enthusiasm.

  *

Justice, Festivals, and The Promised Land

Welcome back, or, if you're just joining us, welcome and glad to have you here! I hope your summer is going well so far. Where I am we have entered into our Six Months of Being Hot as H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks Season and we're just hoping it isn't going to be as bad as last year, which broke way too many records of the sort you don't want broken. Not that there is much hope in that direction, as the knowledgeable weather and climate people have been telling us for a while that this year is going to be even worse. Good reason to stay inside and read a good book. If I might suggest one of the fine volumes listed just to the right.

    Anyway...

    When my family moved to Arizona in 1960 it seemed like a bit of a promised land, with a dry climate that made it nice to be outside almost all the time, job opportunities, nice wide streets, and air that didn't rile up a person's allergies. True, we had days when the thermometer zoomed past one hundred in the afternoon, but at night it cooled down wonderfully. All that, except some of the wide streets, is pretty much a distant memory now, but you know what? Life is still good, at least it is as long as you've got air-conditioning and like getting up real early in the morning to enjoy the couple of hours before they turn on the broiler.

    But we're here for the next section of the Book of Exodus, so before I am accused of taking online recipe websites as my model I guess we should get back to some of the great advice to be found in the Book of Exodus.

 

    Yes, I know we have already covered the Ten Commandments, but as I think I've stated before, rules and regulations are going to be keeping us company for quite a while, including in the next three chapters, with a little break for another repeat of God's promise to hand over a large parcel of land that is currently home to a number of "ite" people, so let's get to it.

    Chapter 22, titled "Laws of Restitution", is very much concerned with livestock, although"money or goods" is also mentioned. There are eight scenarios covered, at least by my count, with a couple in particular that caught my eye. The one in verse 2 I'm still puzzling over.

2  If a thief is found breaking in, and is beaten to death, no bloodguilt is incurred; 

but if it happens after sunrise, bloodguilt is incurred.

    Actually, I guess it is pretty clear. If someone busts into your home when it's dark outside you can bludgeon away as much as you see fit. If they wander in during daylight hours you should find some other way of dispatching them. Elderberry tea laced with arsenic, perhaps.

    Then in verse 9 we've got this:

9  In any case of disputed ownership involving ox, donkey, sheep, clothing, or any other loss, of which one party says, "This is mine," the case of both parties shall come before God; the one whom God condemns shall pay double to the other.

    What isn't spelled out here is where God has his courtroom located, or how one gets ones case on the docket. Also, what if both parties say, "This is mine"? 

    Verses 10-15 cover things like who owes whom** what in situations involving injured or stolen livestock, including what to do if the poor moo cow or baa sheep has been mangled by wild beasts, because that does make a difference.

    And then we come to some useful Social and Religious Laws to close out the chapter. It covers a range of topics, including the financial obligation a man has to a virgin's father after deflowering said virgin. Nothing about an apology or even a nice dinner for the former virgin, just the cash owed the dad. 

    

    Right after that we get instructions to put "female sorcerer(s)" to death. I guess male sorcerers are considered handy to have around for entertainment at children's birthday parties.

    It is important to avoid having sex with an animal or making a sacrifice to some other god if one wants to keep on living. So I guess you can't buy your way out of deflowering a sheep like you can a female of the human variety. You know one of man's partners.

    Be nice to "resident aliens", because, at least for a while, the Egyptians were accommodating to the Israelites. As an encouragement to follow this one, God makes it clear if you don't that he will kill you, with a sword.

    There is a nice bit about proper etiquette for those engaged in lending money and running pawn shops, along with instructions concerning handing over a percentage of your earnings, crops, etc to God, who is too busy with Deity Business to get a job that comes with wages.

    We close out Chapter 22 with another reminder not to eat meat that has been mangled by beasts.

      Chapter 23 is titled "Justice for All", but curiously enough Al Pacino doesn't get a mention. Instead we get more livestock related items along with pointers on how to properly work within the legal system. For example:

• If you come across a loose donkey, you have to take it back to its owner, even if it belongs to someone you don't like.
• If you see a donkey that belongs to someone you don't like and it looks to be overburdened, it's up to you to lighten its load. Or at least I think that's what verse 5 means. These first two make the assumption that you will do the right thing without prompting if the donkey in question belongs to your pal.
• Perverting justice due poor people is a no-no.
• Verse 7 reminds us not to kill innocent people. Good advice.
• Also, no bribe taking.
• Not oppressing resident aliens is addressed again. Must be important.

    For some reason the connection between the words sabbath and sabbatical has never really jumped out at me, but in verses 10-13 we learn about the need to not only take a day off every seven days, but also take a whole gosh-darned year off every seven years. Or at least we're supposed to let our fields lie fallow, if we've got fields, which most of us don't nowadays, but it's a nice thought anyway.

    There is a subsection titled "The Annual Festivals" and it says there are three times in the year when festivals are mandatory, but after the first one is described the specifics got a little sketchy to me. In any case, as soon as I figure out when the month of Abid is I'll definitely celebrate the festival of unleavened bread, because I'm a big fan of tortillas and flatbread. A week of nothing but quesadillas and little pizzas sounds like a good time to me.

    There is also a festival of harvest mentioned, but outside of an potted herb garden that gets fried every summer and a little fig tree that is very popular with the grackles, mockingbirds, and finches around here, there isn't much in the way of harvesting that goes on at Rancho Hutcheson.

    Let's all remember to follow verse 19 and not boil a kid in its mother's milk, okay?

    In what I think we can call a well established tradition of bounding from one subject to another, we now go directly from the kid boiling ban to a section titled "The Conquest of Canaan Promised." Unless you're a new arrival here you probably recall somewhere around seventy or eighty instances of God promising The Land of Milk and Honey, aka Canaan, to everyone from Abraham to Joseph to Moses, and here he does it again. This time he goes into a few more specifics regarding strategy.

• There will be an angel provided to guide and guard. It is important the angel be accorded all due respect and attention.
• There is a reminder of just who the specific "ites" are who have considered Canaan to be their home for what must be a good long while and who are sooner or later due for a surprise in that regard. If you didn't make notes earlier, here you go...
• Amorites
• Hittites
• Perizzites
• Canaanites
• Hivites
• Jebusites
• There is a repeat of the stern warning not to accept invitations to join the local congregations, even just for a coffee time get together. 
• Lots of good things are promised to the Israelites as long as they don't dabble in any other religion, and lots a really nasty things are in store for the Amorites, etc.
• God will make sure the land is cleared of the "others" but he'll do it in an orderly fashion, so as not to negatively affect real estate values too much.
• 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply against you. 30  Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.

    

    And now...Chapter 24, which is about as far as we can go today. Chapters 25 through 975*** all seem to be detailed building plans and we want to give them the focused attention they deserve.

        

    God tells Moses to gather his top sargents, including Aaron, and meet him on the mountain, except Aaron and the boys will only be allowed to come so close. Meantime, Moses should communicate to the entire group all the rules he has laid out so far, which he does and everyone agrees that they are terrific rules and following them should be no problem, even the ones about resident aliens. Moses then gets out his notebook and jots down the rules so he doesn't forget.

    Next morning he gets up early and makes a nice altar, complete with twelve pillars and some basins to hold a gallon or five each of oxen blood. Sacrifices are made, the blood that isn't basined is dashed against the altar, and that puts the real stamp of approval on this latest and most comprehensive covenant. Next time you use the term "blood oath" in casual conversation, you'll know where it comes from, right?

    Aaron and the other mid-management types join Moses and they go up the mountain just high enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the Lord, who is standing on...

something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like 

the very heaven for clearness.

    In other words, the production values were pretty high.

    God tells Moses to come closer, he has some tablets for him. Moses tells the rest of the men to behave themselves, but if they can't they should go to either Aaron or Hur to settle things, and to remember to not eat anything that had been mangled by a wild beasts He then sets off with his assistant Joshua (sorry, but I can't help but picture Patsy from "Monty Python and The Holy Grail") and the two of them climb higher until they are enveloped by a dense cloud, where they are left to cool their heels for six days while God puts the finishing touches on the tablets. When God does make another appearance he does so accompanied by an impressive display of devouring fire to get their attention, as sitting in fog for six days can make a person's attention wander. Moses goes in for his one on one time with God and a mere forty days later comes back to wake up Joshua, who, not having planned for such a long outing, is dreaming about something to eat, even if it has been mangled by a wild beast.

   *There is a place in the Valley of the Sun called Butterfly Wonderland. Isn't that cool?

    **I don't think I'll ever get to be confident with the whole "who" and "whom" thing. If I've got it wrong here, you have my apology. If I got it right, well, woo hoo!

    ***Just kidding. There are only forty chapters in Exodus. 

  *

Get Out The Graph Paper, Pencils, 

Sewing Kit and 

Tool Chest

Does anyone remember a song by Desmond Dekker and The Aces from the late sixties called "The Israelites"? There is a radio station at 95.1 FM that calls itself The Wow Factor and they mostly play songs from the 60's and 70's, and the other day "The Israelites" popped up on the car radio as my beloved and I were toddling around town. Catchy tune with a syncopated reggae beat. Hadn't heard it in decades and I just thought it was interesting since I've been spending a whole lot of time lately with the Original Israelites, or the OI's as I like to call them. Outside of the repeated refrain of "The Israelites!" I couldn't understand the lyrics very well, probably due to a combination of hearing loss I prefer to deny exists when my wife suggests perhaps I should visit an audiologist and invest in a set of hearing aids, and Desmond Dekker's Jamaican accent but I think I'll just blame it on poor audio engineering. I did use about thirty seconds of my five minutes of research time to find out that, according to Wikipedia anyway, the title/refrain of the song comes from the identification Rastafarians have with the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the troubles both groups have seen. Interesting. I may have to look into that, just not now. We need to move forward with the second book in the Old Testament.

    I have been giving a fair amount of thought to just how to present the remaining chapters here in Exodus. As I said in the installment titled "A Short Note of Despair", we are shifting from story and character mode into Heavy Duty Instructional Mode and honestly I think a whole lot of momentum is lost; we no longer have the page turning "what happens next?" and "what an fascinating if peculiar new character this is" qualities to keep us interested, even with all of the tangents thrown into the mix. And so after trying a couple of more detailed approaches, I think we'll be turning the dial on the Reader's Digest Condensed Knob up to eleven in an effort to share the essentials, give you at least a bit of the flavor, but not put you to sleep like an Ambien with a Chardonnay chaser. If the lack of detail frustrates, I apologize, but remember, you can always crack the cover on your own copy and dive in yourself. I think you'll see what I'm talking about.

    Chapters 25 through 31 are pretty much all about the box God wants Moses to store the tablets with the Rules for Living in, the surroundings in which this box is to be kept, what the Keepers of the Box (Priests) should wear while doing their priestly duties, and what those duties are.

    Chapter 25 begins with God telling Moses to gather up all of the nice construction and ornamentation materials they talked their Egyptian neighbors out of right before they left. If any of the Israelites had been hoping to keep this treasure for themselves, they are in for a rude awakening. God wants to use it to make a bunch of stuff, and he's got the plans all drawn up, ready to go.

    The items God wants for this projects are:

• Acacia wood
• Gold
• Silver
• Bronze
• Blue, purple, and crimson yarn
• Fine linen (no seconds)
• Goats' hair
• Tanned ram skins
• Fine leather (see linen note)
• Lamp oil (good quality)
• spices
• various gemstones

The items to be made from these materials are:

• An ark (wooden box, not a big boat) in which to store the tablets
• Something called a "mercy seat" to be placed on top of the ark. It's got cherubim on it, their wings shadowing the seat at both ends.
• A table
• A lampstand
• A tabernacle
• A curtain
• An altar suitable for burnt offerings
• Hangings
• Vestments for the priests (Aaron and his sons)

The ark, mercy seat, and table, as well as the framework for the tabernacle and the altar are all to be made out of acacia wood. Measurements in cubits are given for each of these items, as well as details--lots of details--like loops and poles on the sides to facilitate moving them and gold overlay to make 'em shine and where the cherubim go.

    Accessories like bowls and flagons and plates and dishes, as well as the lampstand itself are to made out of gold. The yarn and linens are to be used for curtains (cherubim theme) and should be joined together and attached to the acacia wood framework to form the outside of the tabernacle. Other curtains will be inside the tabernacle and will surround the ark. The frames are to rest on silver bases.

    Twisted linen, bronze bases, and hooks of silver are the materials called for to make the court, which I'm guessing is the area just outside the tabernacle proper. Lots of pillars are mentioned. The gate to the court has its own design, involving yarn, twisted linen and silver banded pillars. Pegs and any other miscellaneous utensils for the tabernacle are to be made out of bronze.

    All in all it seems that Moses and his team have quite the construction project in their future. The other thing that struck me was the fact that this all seems to be happening relatively early in the forty years of desert wandering, although at this point I'm not really sure where in the timeline of things this is happening, and I'm left to wonder both about where they are going to do all of this work and how they are going to carry it around with them until they arrive at the Land of Milk and Honey. It's true that the ark and table and whatnot are supposed to have rings on the side and poles that go through the rings and I assume that is so they can be transported, but gee whiz, I'm thinking they're going to be hard pressed to find volunteers for forty years of ark dury. 

    Chapter 28 is all about the "Vestments for the Priesthood", which as we've discussed, means Aaron and his sons. Seems a low priest to parishioner ratio when you look back at the six hundred thousand not including women and children figure tossed out there earlier, but let's not worry about that right now. What's important here is that Aaron and Sons are properly attired, which in this case means a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a checkered tunic, a turban, and a sash. Oh, and linen undies. The undies are very important. God makes it clear that failure to wear the designated underwear will result in death and a blot on ones Permanent Record.

    In Chapter 29 we learn all about The Ordination of the Priests, and let me tell you, it makes a fraternity initiation seem like a walk in the park. Of course there are critters to be sliced up, in this case a bull and two rams and they must be "without blemish." Blood figures prominently in the process here, including a generous amount that is to be dabbed on the priests' ears and flung against the sides of the altar. Aaron and Sons get to have quality time with ram fat and entrails and internal organs before they get the Weber Grill out and send a pleasing odor of roasting ram innards up to God. Baskets and bread and oil flung hither and yon and you've got a real, manly good time spelled out here. There is more about daily offerings which are designed to reduce the bull population as well as a similar sort of herd reduction of any lambs they may have in the menagerie.

    A mandatory half shekel offering, and a bronze basin in which the priests are required (upon pain of death, of course) to wash their hands and feet are the featured items in Chapter 30, along with recipes for making high quality anointing oil and an exclusive sort of incense. Surprisingly, there is no death penalty associated with the misuse of either for personal adornment, only banishment, although I suppose that could be a death sentence of a slow variety, considering nobody in that crowd seems to know where they're going and safety in numbers is what is protecting them.

    Just as Moses is beginning to wonder how he is going to get all this work done, in Chapter 31 God tells him to delegate. There are two fellows in the group who are nicely qualified for these projects: Bezalel and Oholiab. God assures Moses that "they shall do just as I have commanded you." So that must have taken a real weight off his shoulders.

    The chapter continues with yet another reminder to Keep the Sabbath. The Death Incentive is mentioned. Twice. Working on the sabbath will kill you. This seems to be something that the vast majority of employers have conveniently disregarded of late.

    We wrap up Chapter 31 and today's little Bible Looksee with verse 18:

When God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

    I've never been partial to those screens where you're supposed to sign your name with your fingertip, they skip and often refuse to even recognize your finger is even there, but God being God, he can fingertip it on stone, which is pretty cool. I do have a question here: There was a lot of material covered in the chapters we've been looking at in the last few installments, not just The Ten Commandments. Do the tablets have everything? Instructions on how to make a nice ark? How to sew an ephod? The proper flinging of bull blood?

    Just wondering.

*Strawberry Fields in Central Park

  *

After a Misunderstanding or Two, 

Life Goes On and 

the Tabernacle Gets Built

A couple-three weeks ago, on a lark, I responded to the messages Google kept sending me about joining their happy family of Ad-Sense bloggers and Making Money with my blog. I'm not doing this as a commercial venture, it's more of an intellectual exercise and long put-off goal I decided to make public, mostly to give me a bit of a nudge whenever I'm inclined to abandon it. But I figured what the heck, let's apply and see what happens. Well, what happened is that the nice Ad-Sense folks determined that "Book by Book" does not have the necessary qualities that would make it a good candidate for advertising. They included some links that are supposed to help point me in the right direction if I want to make the needed corrections, but I don't think I'll be bothering. For one thing I didn't understand a damned thing they were talking about, like "thin content" and "alignment of navigational elements." 

We're going to keep this little venture ad-free.

Did you see what the Louisiana State Legislature and Governor have just done? They went and made it a law that all public school classrooms must have a copy of The Ten Commandments posted on the wall. Not a copy of The Constitution and its Amendments, or The Declaration of Independence, or The Top Ten Shakespearean Insults, but The Ten Commandments. Social media is all abuzz about this, with those in favor saying things like "It's about damn time!" and "What's the fuss? It's just everyday rules for good behavior." and those opposed losing their minds over the complete disregard for what everyone likes to call "Separation of Church and State", which is kinda sorta but not actually referred to in the First Amendment**.

My two cents about the whole thing is that no, The Ten Commandments are not simply everyday rules for good behavior. Just so you don't have to backtrack to find them, here they are again.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord.
4. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother
6. You shall not murder
7. You shall not commit adultery
8. You shall not steal
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
10. 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.

Anyone can see that the first four of them are pretty darned specifically religious in nature. The next five are, I grant you, pretty good guidelines for how to behave but by no means are they comprehensive; for instance there is no "You shall not change lanes without signaling" or "Honor your HOA landscaping guidelines", both of which could go a long way in making this a safer and more attractive world. Number Ten is a bit iffy mostly because it tries to be specific and in doing so it leaves out a whole heck of a lot, like is it okay to covet your neighbor's husband, or the car your neighbor is leasing, or your neighbor's cat, because we all know cats don't belong to anybody.

Back to Exodus. I reviewed the last nine chapters and I think we can reasonably buzz through them all in the time and space we have today.

    Right after we learn that the Covenant between God and the Israelites has been made official by being put down on a couple of stone tablets by the finger of God, we're told in Chapter 32 that those same Israelites had gotten antsy about the fact that Moses seemed to be taking his everlovin' time up on the mountain talking with God. They wanted some action and they wanted a god they could see and touch and admire up close. So they go to Aaron, you know, the fellow who has been picked out to be Head Priest only I guess he doesn't know that yet, and they say, "Come, make gods for us." Really, that's what they said. Aaron didn't need much persuasion, and he didn't need a lot of time to come up with a plan to satisfy the congregation. He had everyone in possession of gold earrings bring them to him and he "cast an image of a calf" and everyone thought it was a more than satisfactory god.

    But the Lord gets wind of what's going on and he tells Moses he is going to "consume" the calf worshipping Israelites and start the nation building all over again with Moses. My guess is that Moses isn't too interested in raising a whole new extended family at his age, because he implores God to reconsider. He reminds God about the promises he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (Jacob), and wouldn't you know it, 14) "And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people."

    Happy to have saved his people from Consumption by God, Moses takes the tablets down the mountain. As he and trusty Joshua get close to the base, Joshua makes a comment about what he hears coming from the encampment, which he thinks is a noise of war. But Moses knows it is the sound of revelry, and when they turn the corner and see the people dancing around the golden calf he loses it. He throws the tablets on the ground, busting them all to bits, then he takes the calf, melts it down, grinds it up, and puts the powder in water and makes everyone drink it. Must have been a big calf and a reservoir of water as, once again, I would remind us that we're talking about several hundred thousand people here.

    And he's not finished. He gathers a bunch of Levites who, now anyway, are claiming to be "on the Lord's side", and tells them to grab their swords and go kill "your brother, your friend, and your neighbor", because a sharp clap of his hands and a stern look don't seem to be quieting the crowd. Three thousand dead Israelites later he thanks the Levites for their service and tells them they have brought a blessing on themselves.

    The next day, Moses asks God to forgive the people, but instead God says anyone who sinned against him will be blotted out of his book and they can look forward to an unspecified punishment at some later date. 

    And then he sends a plague. We are not told what form the plague takes, how many people die, just that he sent a plague because the people asked Aaron to make a calf and he did.

    Let's pick up the pace.

    In Chapter 33 God once again repeats his promise to drive the Canaanites, et al out of the Land of Milk and Honey. He also calls the Israelites "a stiff necked people."

    Moses sets up his tent outside camp so he can talk with God without being bothered by the stiff neck rabble.

    God tells Moses he doesn't want anyone to see his face, so whenever they meet from here on out Moses will need to stand in the cleft of a rock, let God put his hand over Moses' eyes as he passes, and not see anything until God has passed and all that is visible is God's backside.

    Chapter 34 solves the broken tablets issue when Moses fashions a couple of new stones ready to be taken to the printer.

    God promises to hold a grudge by 7) "visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation."

    In a section titled "The Covenant Renewed" God brags about how he is going to "perform marvels" and how "it is an awesome thing that I will do for you." He also confides that one of his names is Jealous.

    In verse 26 we are reminded not to boil a kid in its mother's milk.

    Moses spends another 40 days and 40 nights with God and ends up writing everything down on the tablets himself, supposedly because God wasn't showing any inclination to do a repeat performance of the finger writing.

    Moses goes back to the people and everyone comments on his "Been With God" shiny face. He buys a veil.

    We get a quick reminder not to work on the sabbath at the beginning of Chapter 35. The penalty is still death.

    Moses puts out the call for the materials needed to build the tabernacle and related accessories. He also informs Bezalel that he has the winning bid to be general contractor and that he needs to bring Oholiab on board as his top assistant in charge of engraving, design, and embroidery.

    In Chapter 36 the tabernacle is made. Everything God specified is once again spelled out. In detail. In over thirty-one verses.

    Bezalel is super busy in Chapter 37 making the Ark, the Table, the Lampstand, the Altar of Incense, and the Anointing Oil and Incense.

    The following chapter, number 38, is devoted to assuring us that the Altar of Burnt Offerings and the Court of the Tabernacle were completed in a satisfactory manner. It also provides us with an accounting of just how much the entire project cost.

• Gold: Twenty-nine talents and seven hundred thirty shekels
• Silver: One hundred talents and one thousand seven hundred seventy-five shekels
• There is a lot more, breaking it down by what was used for the pillars, hooks, bases, utensils and other items. You can look it up in Chapter 38, verses 27-31.

    They perform a census of the men over twenty years of age and the count is six hundred three thousand, five hundred fifty, or about eighty four thousand more than my home town of Mesa, Arizona. Figure in the women and children and we're talking, what do you think, somewhere around two million?

    The vestments for Aaron and Sons get sewn and embellished with lots of pretty gemstones in Chapter 39. The last part of the chapter gives us a recap and tells us that Moses likes what he sees.

    In the final chapter of Exodus God gives Moses instructions on how to organize all of the pieces and we learn that all of this is coming together on the first day of the first month of the second year of their Egypt to Milk and Honey Adventure. Only thirty-eight years and eleven months to go!

    They will be proceeding only on the days when the Cloud of God is not hovering around the Tabernacle. If the cloud is there (at night it will be fire) they're staying put.

    Next up: Leviticus. I can't wait.

*A pretty Northern Cardinal of the Non-Catholic variety.

**Amendment One: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.