Exodus Bible Quotes

We got through all of Genesis and part of Exodus before I left. One of the main things I was taught from this was not to begin a sentence with And. I pointed out that most sentences in the Bible began with And, but I was told that English had changed since the time of King James. In that case, I argued, why make us read the Bible? But it was in vain. Robert Graves was very keen on the symbolism and mysticism in the Bible at that time.

Fear of God is a liberating emotion, freeing one from a disabling fear of evil, powerful people. This needs to be emphasized because many people see fear of God as onerous rather than liberating.

Gratitude: Only when people remember the good others have done for them will they have gratitude. Unfortunately, however, most people remember the bad people have done to them far longer than the good. Or to put it another way, gratitude takes effort; resentment is effortless.

I like how you call homosexuality an abomination." "I don't say homosexuality's an abomination, Mr. President, the bible does." "Yes it does. Leviticus-" "18:22" "Chapter in verse. I wanted to ask you a couple questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo Mcgary,insists on working on the sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it ok to call the police? Here's one that's really important, cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Red Skins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

Unfortunately, identifying Ramses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus, which is the identification most frequently found in both scholarly and popular books, does not work if one also wishes to follow the chronology presented in the Bible.

The short life of Jesus can hardly compare with the suffering of brave heretics who have been persecuted for criticizing Christianity, or with the agony of the “witches” who were burned, drowned and hanged by bible believers (quoting Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”). Nor

As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no further: for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man, and a blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do not believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to establish our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief to natural and probable things.

Of course, the fact that a single biblical text can mean many things doesn’t mean it can mean anything. Slave traders justified the exploitation of black people by claiming the curse on Noah’s son Ham rendered all Africans subhuman. Many Puritans and pioneers appealed to the stories of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan to support attacks on indigenous populations. More recently, I’ve heard Christians shrug off sins committed by American politicians because King David assaulted women too. Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, “out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

An older man who seems to be the leader of the Jesus Tshirt group says that the Bible forbids abortion in its commandment “Thou shall not kill.” But being in the Bible Belt, people really know their Bible, and an older woman cites Exodus 21:22–23, a passage that says a man who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry must pay a fine but is not charged with murder, not unless the woman herself dies. Thus the Bible is making clear, that a dependent life is not the same as an independent life.

The historical problems with Luke are even more pronounced. For one thing, we have relatively good records for the reign of Caesar Augustus, and there is no mention anywhere in any of them of an empire-wide census for which everyone had to register by returning to their ancestral home. And how could such a thing even be imagined? Joesph returns to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there. But David lived a thousand years before Joseph. Are we to imagine that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier? If we had a new worldwide census today and each of us had to return to the towns of our ancestors a thousand years back—where would you go? Can you imagine the total disruption of human life that this kind of universal exodus would require? And can you imagine that such a project would never be mentioned in any of the newspapers? There is not a single reference to any such census in any ancient source, apart from Luke. Why then does Luke say there was such a census? The answer may seem obvious to you. He wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, even though he knew he came from Nazareth ... there is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these Gospel writer to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? They had to come up with a narrative that explained how he came from Nazareth, in Galilee, a little one-horse town that no one had ever heard of, but was born in Bethlehem, the home of King David, royal ancestor of the Messiah.

It is almost impossible to do good without wisdom. All the good intentions in the world are likely to be worthless without wisdom. Many of the horrors of the twentieth century were supported by people with good intentions who lacked wisdom.

Can we believe that the real God, if there is one, ever ordered a man to be killed simply for making hair oil, or ointment? We are told in the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, that the Lord commanded Moses to take myrrh, cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil, and make a holy ointment for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables, candlesticks and other utensils, as well as Aaron and his sons; saying, at the same time, that whosoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should be put to death. In the same chapter, the Lord furnishes Moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that whoever should make any which smelled like it, should be cut off from his people. This, to me, sounds so unreasonable that I cannot believe it. Why should an infinite God care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like his or not? Why should the Creator of all things threaten to kill a priest who approached his altar without having washed his hands and feet? These commandments and these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever sat, by chance, upon a throne.

I especially loved the Old Testament. Even as a kid I had a sense of it being slightly illicit. As though someone had slipped an R-rated action movie into a pile of Disney DVDs. For starters Adam and Eve were naked on the first page. I was fascinated by Eve's ability to always stand in the Garden of Eden so that a tree branch or leaf was covering her private areas like some kind of organic bakini. But it was the Bible's murder and mayhem that really got my attention. When I started reading the real Bible I spent most of my time in Genesis Exodus 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. Talk about violent. Cain killed Abel. The Egyptians fed babies to alligators. Moses killed an Egyptian. God killed thousands of Egyptians in the Red Sea. David killed Goliath and won a girl by bringing a bag of two hundred Philistine foreskins to his future father-in-law. I couldn't believe that Mom was so happy about my spending time each morning reading about gruesome battles prostitutes fratricide murder and adultery. What a way to have a "quiet time." While I grew up with a fairly solid grasp of Bible stories I didn't have a clear idea of how the Bible fit together or what it was all about. I certainly didn't understand how the exciting stories of the Old Testament connected to the rather less-exciting New Testament and the story of Jesus. This concept of the Bible as a bunch of disconnected stories sprinkled with wise advice and capped off with the inspirational life of Jesus seems fairly common among Christians. That is so unfortunate because to see the Bible as one book with one author and all about one main character is to see it in its breathtaking beauty.

You can see the same immorality or amorality in the Christian view of guilt and punishment. There are only two texts, both of them extreme and mutually contradictory. The Old Testament injunction is the one to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (it occurs in a passage of perfectly demented detail about the exact rules governing mutual ox-goring; you should look it up in its context (Exodus 21). The second is from the Gospels and says that only those without sin should cast the first stone. The first is a moral basis for capital punishment and other barbarities; the second is so relativistic and "nonjudgmental" that it would not allow the prosecution of Charles Manson. Our few notions of justice have had to evolve despite these absurd codes of ultra vindictiveness and ultracompassion.

President Josiah Bartlet: Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination. Dr. Jenna Jacobs: I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does. President Josiah Bartlet: Yes, it does. Leviticus. Dr. Jenna Jacobs: 18:22. President Josiah Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.

I love goodness and hate evil. My favorite verse in the Bible is ‘Those of you who love God—hate evil’ (Psalms 97:10).

God gave the Ten Commandments in the no-man’s land of a desert rather than in the land of Israel, to signify these laws do not just belong to one people, but to all humanity.

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6; emphasis added).

Gratitude takes effort; resentment is effortless.

Human beings tend to much more quickly forget the good others have done for them than the bad others have done to them. That’s human nature.

The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were considered canonical—other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary. The Exodus probably did not happen as described in the Old Testament. The conquest of the Promised Land is probably based on legend. The Gospels are at odds on numerous points and contain nonhistorical material. It is hard to know whether Moses ever existed and what, exactly, the historical Jesus taught. The historical narratives of the Old Testament are filled with legendary fabrications and the book of Acts in the New Testament contains historically unreliable information about the life and teachings of Paul. Many of the books of the New Testament are pseudonymous—written not by the apostles but by later writers claiming to be apostles. The list goes on.

One of the saddest facts of the human condition is that most people follow the herd. Sometimes, of course, the herd is morally right. That, obviously, is the ideal. But most good is achieved by individuals who have the courage to part from the majority when it is morally wrong. In addition, people tend to act worse in groups than when alone. The herd, not to mention the mob, emboldens people to do bad things they would rarely do if they had no such support.

Do you read your Bible?” “Sometimes.” “With pleasure?  Are you fond of it?” “I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah.” “And the Psalms?  I hope you like them?” “No, sir.

when theologians read the Bible through the lens of the Exodus narrative, they are called “liberation theologians,” but their counterparts who read it through the Greco-Roman narrative are never labeled “domination theologians” or “colonization theologians.” Similarly, we have “black theology” and “feminist theology,” but Greco-Roman orthodoxy is never called “white theology” or “male theology.

Wisdom: People attain wisdom in large part by remembering what happened in the past. No generation can attain wisdom without studying and remembering the past. None of those who believed in the 1960's aphorism, ‘Never trust anyone over thirty,’ became a wise person. Without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world amount to nothing. Intending to do good without having wisdom is like intending to fly an airplane with no knowledge of airplanes or the laws of aerodynamics. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil.

When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.

It never ceased to amaze me how white scholars could quibble, making simple things more complicated than they really were. What is more central in the Christian Bible than the exodus and Jesus stories and the prophetic call for justice for the poor?

Death moved in the night, in search for blood, and when it found Life, it passed on by, like a cloud that moves by the face of the moon. When he found those dead without the red, he took the life before them born first, and the mourning emptied itself till the morning.

That's how I read the Bible. There are more than sixty references in Scripture to celebration and all but one or two of them are positive. Most of them are divine commands to go and party. Exodus and Deuteronomy and Numbers read like a string of invitations to a nonstop whirlwind of festival: "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread...Celebrate the Feast of Harvest...Celebrate the Feast of Weeks...Celebrate the Passover...Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles...Celebrate." These were not quiet, sedate, well-mannered little tea parties. They were raucous, shout-at-the-top-of-your-lungs and dance-in-the-streets, weeklong shindigs. The heart of the prodigal home, shouting to His servants, "Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate!" That's our God. You read this stuff enough, you start to get the sense that God is looking for just about any excuse to fire up the barbecue and invite the neighborhood over.

In many ways, gratitude is the most important of all the good character traits. It is the most indispensable trait to both happiness and goodness. One can neither be a happy person nor a good person without gratitude. The less gratitude one has, the more one sees oneself as a victim; and nothing is more likely to produce a bad person or a bad group than defining oneself or one’s group as a victim. Victims, having been hurt, too often believe they have a license to hurt others. As for happiness, if you think of all the people you know, you will not be able to name one who is ungrateful and happy. The two are mutually exclusive.

In Exodus, chapter 14, Moses must lead the Jews out of Egypt and to safety by parting the Red Sea. This story teaches us a valuable lesson about how we must face the future. I want to draw your attention to two verses in particular. Exodus (14:15) reads: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the people of Israel to march forward.’” Exodus (14:16) reads: “Lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.” The thing to note here is that Moses is instructed to raise his rod to divide the sea only after telling his people to march forth into the water. The Israelites were actually in the water, some of them up to their necks, and were told to keep marching before the water split. And yet no one complained or feared drowning because the message from God was very clear: walk first into the water and the ocean will split afterwards. Had the Israelites waited around for the waters to part, they would have been waiting a long time—perhaps forever. They had to bring about their own miracle, a truth we can deduce from the peculiar order of these two verses, which is no accident as there are no accidents in Scripture. To succeed at life and business, you too must face the future as the Israelites did at the Red Sea. Get moving now. Do not wait for the bridge. Cross now and the way through will present itself.

Crossing the Red Sea EXODUS

A story like the exodus story is what happens when, as I said previously, God lets his children tell the story—in ways they understand and that is packed with meaning for them.

Individuals initiate mass evil, but they need the collaboration of many people to carry it out.

There are far more kind and honest people than there are courageous people.

needs to be emphasized because many people see fear of God as onerous rather than liberating.

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

That’s the great question: Who sees the miracles of daily life? And the answer is: Whoever chooses to see.

One of humanity’s most common character traits is ingratitude.

The process that we describe here is, in fact, the opposite of what we have in the Bible: the emergence of early Israel was an outcome of the collapse of the Canaanite culture, not its cause. And most of the Israelites did not come from outside Canaan—they emerged from within it. There was no mass Exodus from Egypt. There was no violent conquest of Canaan. Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people—the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were—irony of ironies—themselves originally Canaanites!

Notice also that there is a tie between Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books of the Bible. Genesis presents the beginning, and Revelation presents the end. Note the contrasts between the two books: In Genesis the earth was created; in Revelation the earth passes away. In Genesis was Satan’s first rebellion; in Revelation is Satan’s last rebellion. In Genesis the sun, moon, and stars were for earth’s government; in Revelation these same heavenly bodies are for earth’s judgment. In Genesis the sun was to govern the day; in Revelation there is no need of the sun. In Genesis darkness was called night; in Revelation there is “no night there” (see Rev. 21:25; 22:5). In Genesis the waters were called seas; in Revelation there is no more sea. In Genesis was the entrance of sin; in Revelation is the exodus of sin. In Genesis the curse was pronounced; in Revelation the curse is removed. In Genesis death entered; in Revelation there is no more death. In Genesis was the beginning of sorrow and suffering; in Revelation there will be no more sorrow and no more tears. In Genesis was the marriage of the first Adam; in Revelation is the marriage of the Last Adam. In Genesis we saw man’s city, Babylon, being built; in Revelation we see man’s city, Babylon, destroyed and God’s city, the New Jerusalem, brought into view. In Genesis Satan’s doom was pronounced; in Revelation Satan’s doom is executed. It is interesting that Genesis opens the Bible not only with a global view but also with a universal view—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). And the Bible closes with another global and universal book. The Revelation shows what God is going to do with His universe and with His creatures. There is no other book quite like this.

Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, “out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

In decreeing the Decalogue, moreover, YHWH bypasses Moses to address the people as a whole, communicating his will to them in quasi-democratic openness, without the need for any royal or prophetic intermediary. That is not only without precedent in the history of religion; it is also unparalleled in the Hebrew Bible. God’s proclamation of the Decalogue accordingly lies at the heart of the theme of revelation.

Some say “God helps those who help themselves,” but the Bible says the exact opposite: God helps the helpless. God helps those who, left to themselves, would die in their sins. He even helps those who hate him and who, by nature, continually oppose him. He does this because he is not like us. By nature, he is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6).

God made nature, and is therefore not natural. This led to the end of the universal human belief in nature gods (such as rain gods). And sure enough, as belief in the Torah’s God declines, nature worship seems to be returning.

This point is often overlooked: Fear of God is a liberating emotion, freeing one from a disabling fear of evil, powerful people. This needs to be emphasized because many people see fear of God as onerous rather than liberating.

A rabbi challenged his followers one day: “Where does God exist?” Puzzled by what almost seemed to be a heretical question, they answered: “God exists everywhere.” “No,” the rabbi responded: “God exists wherever man lets Him in.

Without remembering, wisdom is impossible (see comments on Exodus 10: 2). Wisdom is learning from our own lives and from the lives of others. Wisdom matters because good cannot be achieved without it. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil. However much evil movements have appealed to the bad side of people’s natures, almost every one of them, communism being the most obvious example, also appealed to people’s good intentions.

There is little question Islamist terrorists and molesting clergy have both played a role in the rise of atheism in our time. No atheist activist is nearly as effective in alienating people from God and religion as are evil ‘religious’ people.

EXODUS 6 But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with  ea strong hand he will  fdrive them out of his land.” 2God spoke to Moses and said to him,  g“I am the LORD

EXODUS 6 But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with  ea strong hand he will  fdrive them out of his land.” 2God spoke to Moses and said to him,  g“I am the LORD.

Corruption is the primary reason societies fail to thrive; societies in which corruption is held in check prosper economically, socially, and morally. Nothing explains the success or failure of countries more than does the presence or absence of corruption.

Aunt Eugenia sniffed, “Yes, well if you read only Exodus, I approve. But if I hear tell you’ve been spending time in the New Testament, I shall remove your Bible entirely.” “Why is that Aunt?” “Paul.” “Paul?” “Paul. Paul, with his charity above all. Paul, who feels free to chastise us all like schoolchildren. Paul, always harping on long-suffering. I’ve no patience for it.” “Understood. I’ll read Exodus to the dust and avoid the Apostle Paul in both his pre- and post-conversion state,” I replied. “It is settled.

Aunt Eugenia sniffed, “Yes, well if you read only Exodus, I approve. But if I hear tell you’ve been spending time in the New Testament, I shall remove your Bible entirely.” “Why is that Aunt?” “Paul.” “Paul?” “Paul. Paul, with his charity above all. Paul, who feels free to chastise us all like schoolchildren. Paul, always harping on long-suffering. I’ve no patience for it.” “Understood. I’ll read Exodus to the dust and avoid the Apostle Paul in both his pre- and post-conversion state,” I replied. “It is settled.

And those who will carefully study the so-called 'Mosaic code' contained in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, will see that, though Jahveh's prohibitions of certain forms of immorality are strict and sweeping, his wrath is quite as strongly kindled against infractions of ritual ordinances. Accidental homicide may go unpunished, and reparation may be made for wilful theft. On the other hand, Nadab and Abihu, who 'offered strange fire before Jahveh, which he had not commanded them,' were swiftly devoured by Jahveh's fire; he who sacrificed anywhere except at the allotted place was to be 'cut off from his people'; so was he who ate blood; and the details of the upholstery of the Tabernacle, of the millinery of the priests' vestments, and of the cabinet work of the ark, can plead direct authority from Jahveh, no less than moral commands.

African economists have argued that corruption—not Western colonialism, not lack of Western aid—is why Africa hasn’t escaped poverty. These economists have begged Western countries to stop giving monetary aid to corrupt African countries because nearly all the money goes to corrupt government officials and thereby further increases their corrupt power. Meanwhile, in Europe, North America, Japan, Singapore, and a handful of other countries, corruption is far more likely to be prosecuted and therefore far less prevalent. That is a major reason for their continuing prosperity.

The Hasidic Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772–1810) taught, ‘If you are not going to be better tomorrow than you were today, then what need do you have for tomorrow?’ To which Telushkin has added: ‘And if no one feels comfortable criticizing you, the likelihood that you will be better tomorrow is most probably nonexistent.

Belief in God means more than believing God exists; it also means believing God cares about us. After all, if God exists but doesn’t care about us, what difference does it make to us whether God exists? For all intents and purposes, there is no difference between atheism and the existence of a God who doesn’t care about us.

The first contradiction in the nontract deals with the Ten Commandments, contrasting Exodus 20:13, “Thou shalt not kill,” with Exodus 32:27, “Slay every man his brother.” The bible is filled with killings and mass murders that are committed, commanded or condoned by deity. If this is not a contradiction, then all squares are round.

First, concerning terms that refer to God in the Old Testament: God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with a special personal name, the consonants for which are YHWH (see Exodus 3:14–15). Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton,” a Greek term referring to the four Hebrew letters YHWH. The exact pronunciation of YHWH is uncertain, because the Jewish people considered the personal name of God to be so holy that it should never be spoken aloud. Instead of reading the word YHWH, they would normally read the Hebrew word ’adonay (“Lord”), and the ancient translations into Greek, Syriac, and Aramaic also followed this practice.

Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.

Not one word was said by Moses or Aaron as to the wickedness of depriving a human being of his liberty. Not a word was said in favor of liberty. Not the slightest intimation that a human being was justly entitled to the product of his own labor. Not a word about the cruelty of masters who would destroy even the babes of slave mothers. It seems to me wonderful that this God did not tell the king of Egypt that no nation could enslave another, without also enslaving itself; that it was impossible to put a chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles upon the brain of the master. Why did he not tell him that a nation founded upon slavery could not stand? Instead of declaring these things, instead of appealing to justice, to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery. Suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous nation, and the president should employ a sleight-of-hand performer as envoy extraordinary, and instruct him, that when he came into the presence of the savage monarch, he should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick, which would change into a lizard or a turtle; what would we think? Would we not regard such a performance as beneath the dignity even of a president? And what would be our feelings if the savage king sent for his sorcerers and had them perform the same feat? If such things would appear puerile and foolish in the president of a great republic, what shall be said when they were resorted to by the creator of all worlds? How small, how contemptible such a God appears!

One of the most important lessons of life—one I believe most people never learn—is that almost everything important is a choice. We choose whether to be happy (or, at the very least whether to act happy), whether to be a hard worker, whether to be honest, whether to be kind, whether to see miracles, and, yes, whether to believe in God (or, at the very least, live as if there is a God).

More serious was the misprint in an edition of 1631, which rendered Exodus 20:14 as follows: “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The omission of the word “not” was speedily corrected, but not before this had caused some consternation among the Bible's readers. Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the printers of this “Wicked Bible”—as it came to be known—were fined severely for this unfortunate lapse.

The phrase as weak as a baby doesn’t apply in the kingdom of God, for when the Lord wants to accomplish a mighty work, He often starts by sending a baby. This was true when He sent Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, John the Baptist, and especially Jesus. God can use the weakest things to defeat the mightiest enemies (1 Cor. 1: 25–29). A baby’s tears were God’s first weapons in His war against Egypt (p. 21).

We got through all of Genesis and part of Exodus before I left. One of the main things I was taught from this was not to begin a sentence with And. I pointed out that most sentences in the Bible began with And, but I was told that English had changed since the time of King James. In that case, I argued, why make us read the Bible? But it was in vain. Robert Graves was very keen on the symbolism and mysticism in the Bible at that time ["Childhood"].

Many intellectuals in the Western world defended the half-century (1959–2008) dictatorship of Fidel Castro of Cuba by noting, for example, under Castro’s rule the literacy rate in Cuba rose to a hundred percent. However, Cubans were not allowed to read anything forbidden by the communist regime. In the view of Castro’s defenders, it is better to be unfree and literate than to be free and illiterate. The Torah’s view, however, would seem to be the opposite; it is better to be free and illiterate, just as it is better to eat a poor man’s food and be free than to eat a rich man’s food as a slave. Furthermore, the very concept of freedom carries with it the possibility of improvement of one’s circumstances. The illiterate are free to learn to read; the poor are free to work, retain the fruits of their labors, and improve their lot in life—perhaps even become wealthy, as so many have in the freedom of the Western, Bible-based world.

Most people, like the Israelites, complain far more often than they express gratitude. People frequently register a complaint with a manufacturer or service provider, but they rarely write a note of thanks for a job well done. We would all do well to consider writing a thank you note each time we write a letter of complaint. Similarly, and more importantly, too many people criticize their spouses more often than they compliment them. That is the road to an unhappy marriage.

First, concerning terms that refer to God in the Old Testament: God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with a special personal name, the consonants for which are YHWH (see Exodus 3:14–15). Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton,” a Greek term referring to the four Hebrew letters YHWH. The exact pronunciation of YHWH is uncertain, because the Jewish people considered the personal name of God to be so holy that it should never be spoken aloud.

Kidnapping people and selling them into slavery, as was done to Africans and others throughout history, is forbidden by the Eighth Commandment. Critics of the Bible who argue the Bible allowed such slavery, and defenders of such slavery who used the Bible, were both wrong. And lest there be any confusion about this issue, the very next chapter of the Torah specifies a person who kidnaps another—particularly when done with the intention of selling the victim into slavery—'shall be put to death’ (Exodus 21:16).

The first printing of the King James Bible in 1611 included a number of printing errors. For example, a small slip in the typesetting of the description of the interior of the tabernacle led to the following reading (Exodus 28:11). And for the north side the hangings were an hundred cubits, their pillars were twenty, and their sockets of brass twenty; the hoops of the pillars and their fillets of silver. But there were probably few who noticed, let alone cared, that the pillars really bore hooks, not hoops. This error was corrected in the 1613 reprint.

Most of the Israelites chose to stay in Babylon, where they would make an important contribution to the Hebrew scriptures. The returning exiles brought home nine scrolls that traced the history of their people from the creation until their deportation: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings; they also brought anthologies of the oracles of the prophets (neviim) and a hymn book, which included new psalms composed in Babylon. It was still not complete, but the exiles had in their possession the bare bones of the Hebrew Bible.

For most people who do not live near a glacier, the amount of earth’s water held as ice may seem small compared to all the water in lakes and oceans. In fact, roughly 68 percent of the world’s freshwater is locked in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow.46 Due to human-caused climate change, however, ice melting of Antarctica has increased from 40 gigatons per year in the 1980s to 252 gigatons per year over the 2010s. All that ice melting into the ocean has raised global sea levels.47 In some coastal areas, sea level rise is beginning to regularly flood whole towns and low-lying parts of major cities.

In our times, the indirectness and “invisibility” of the planetary damage we cause poses a major challenge. Even when we are very aware of our role in the problem, we don’t see the effect of our actions on a daily basis. The earth is so big and complex. Turning on a car engine, a light switch, or an air-conditioner doesn’t suddenly raise the outside temperature or trigger an extreme storm. But we are essentially drilling holes without fully grasping the consequences of our action. If we did fully grasp them, could we look our children in the eye and admit to them that our lifestyle will jeopardize their future?

The violence isn’t that surprising; what’s surprising is that among all that violence are new ideas about serving and blessing and nonviolence. Here’s what I mean: Do you find it primitive and barbaric to care for widows, orphans, and refugees? That’s commanded in the book of Deuteronomy. Do you find it cruel and violent to leave a corner of your field unharvested so the poor can have something to eat? That’s commanded in the book of Leviticus. Do you think people should be set free from slavery? That’s the story of the book of Exodus. Do you think it’s good to love your neighbor? That’s commanded in the book of Leviticus.

This is what the human race has been ever since. The Anunnaki have been overtly and now covertly ruling the planet for thousands of years. The mistranslation of the Bible and symbolic language taken literally has devastated the original meaning and given us a fantasy story. Genesis and Exodus were written by the Hebrew priestly class, the Levites, after they were taken to Babylon from around 586 BC. Babylon was in the former lands of Sumer and so the Babylonians, and therefore the Levites, knew the Sumerian stories and accounts. It was from these records overwhelmingly, that the Levites compiled Genesis and Exodus. The source is obvious.

Exodus 19:1–13; 20:1–17 19:1–13 What does this passage teach us about God? How does it challenge the way we often think about him? How should we relate to such a God? What has God already done for the Israelites (see also 20:2)? What does he promise to do in the future? How do these promises relate to the promises he made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3)? What must the people do? Is that possible? How can God’s promises be fulfilled? 20:1–17 How many of the Ten Commandments have you obeyed? Why should we want to obey them as Christians? Which do you find especially hard to obey? What practical steps can you take to ensure that you obey those commands more?

God’s eternal purpose is to work Himself into us as our life so that we may take Him as our person, live Him, and express Him. This is the desire of God’s heart; it is also the focal point of the Bible. In order to fulfill this purpose, God created man in His image and after His likeness. God’s intention in creating man was that man would receive God into him and take Him as his life and everything to him. For this reason, after God created man, He placed him in front of the tree of life. This indicates that God wanted man to eat of this tree, which is a symbol of God Himself as life. To eat of the tree of life is to take God into us as our life and life supply.

While an ever-increasing number of people consider themselves agnostic, the great majority of these people live as if they are atheists, bereft of all the magnificent life-enhancing benefits a God-centered life provides. These individuals are agnostics intellectually, but atheists behaviorally. Such people need to make a choice: Will I live as if there is a God or as if there is no God? You can be an agnostic intellectually, but you cannot live as an agnostic; you live as either a believer or as an atheist. You live either as if life is random chance or as if it is infused with ultimate meaning. Moses chose to look carefully and see a miracle in that burning bush. If we look carefully, we, too, will see a miracle—in everything.

No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6,8,9,10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, that Pharaoh has already demonstrated his recalcitrance, so Yahweh merely helps the process along, or that he is doing what Pharaoh would have done on his own anyway. Rather, 9:12 is a striking reminder of what God has been trying to teach Moses and Israel since the beginning of the Exodus episode: He is in complete control. However Pharaoh might have reacted is given the chance is not brought into the discussion. He is not even given that chance. Yahweh hardens his heart. It is best to allow the tension of the text to remain.

During the Cold War between the democratic West and the Soviet Union, there were, of course, many in the West who said, ‘Better dead than Red [communist]’; but many others subscribed to the slogan associated with Bertrand Russell, the twentieth century’s leading atheist philosopher: ‘Better Red than dead.’ Russell’s slogan was consistent with that of much of the well-educated class in Britain. On February 8, 1933, right after Hitler came to power in Germany, the Oxford Union Debating Society held a debate on the resolution, ‘This House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.’ The resolution passed 275–153. The vote made an impression on Hitler and Mussolini, as it revealed that many of England’s best educated would prefer to live under Nazism or Fascism than to fight for freedom and risk death.

the causes of poverty as put forth in the Bible are remarkably balanced. The Bible gives us a matrix of causes. One factor is oppression, which includes a judicial system weighted in favor of the powerful (Leviticus 19:15), or loans with excessive interest (Exodus 22:25-27), or unjustly low wages (Jeremiah 22:13; James 5:1-6). Ultimately, however, the prophets blame the rich when extremes of wealth and poverty in society appear (Amos 5:11-12; Ezekiel 22:29; Micah 2:2; Isaiah 5:8). As we have seen, a great deal of the Mosaic legislation was designed to keep the ordinary disparities between the wealthy and the poor from becoming aggravated and extreme. Therefore, whenever great disparities arose, the prophets assumed that to some degree it was the result of selfish individualism rather than concern with the common good.

When it comes to the heart and soul of the Jewish faith - the law of Moses - Jesus was adamant that his mission was not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). That law made a clear distinction between relations among Jews and relations between Jews and foreigners. The oft-repeated commandment "love your neighbor as yourself" was originally given strictly in the context of internal relations within Israel. The verse in question reads: "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people , but shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). To the Israelites, as well to Jesus's community in first-century Palestine,"neighbor" meant one's fellow Jews. With regard to the treatment of foreigners and outsiders, oppressors and occupiers, however, the Torah could not be clearer: "You shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not live in your land" (Exodus 23:31-33)

This selective vision pervades contemporary Jewish life. Consider the way establishment Jewish groups invoke the Bible to validate the Jewish people’s relationship to the land of Israel. In February 2024, the American Jewish Committee set out to rebut the claim that Israel is a settler-colonial state. To prove the Jewish connection to the land, it cites the book of Genesis, in which—as the AJC describes it—“God promises the land of Israel to Abraham, the first Jew.” It then moves to the book of Exodus, in which “Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery and oppression in Egypt with a promise to take them back to the land of Israel, the land of their forefathers.” Then it jumps ahead to the “books of Judges and Kings,” which “relate the stories of Jewish rulers over the land of Israel.” People familiar with the Hebrew Bible will note a glaring omission: the book of Joshua, which explains how those Jewish rulers became rulers in the first place. According to the text, the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua Ben Nun conquered Canaan from the seven nations that lived there. The AJC’s chronology skips over that.

Question Five: "Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery in the Bible?” We tend to look at slavery through the eyes of the cruel American slave trade, where races of people were kidnapped and sold for slaves. Kidnapping was a crime that God consider to be so serious, it was punishable by death (see Exodus 21:16). Biblical "slavery” (a bond-servant) wasn’t kidnapping, and it wasn’t determined by skin color. Those who were in debt paid off their debt through becoming a bond servant (see Leviticus 25:39). After six years, the servant was given his freedom (see Deuteronomy 15:12). However, rather than have their freedom, some chose to stay as bondservants because Hebrew law not only provided for them, it legally protected them. For example, if a slave was mistreated and died at the hands of his master, the master was to be put to death himself (see Exodus 21:20–21). The Law of Moses did allow the use of enemy slave labor, as did America with German soldiers captured during World War II.88 Not every ordinance in "the Law of Moses” should be considered to be God’s will, as in the case of divorce (see Matthew 19:7–8).

The heart of the matter for Israel, therefore, is not subscription to an external code of conduct. It is a matter of faithfulness to a relationship with a personal God. The specific commandments have to do with how Israel’s loyalty to God is to be expressed in the ins and outs of daily life in specific times and places. The peril for Israel (“snare,” 23:33) is not that this or that commandment will be disobeyed but that it will be disloyal to Yahweh and serve other gods. The golden calf debacle demonstrates this. Israel’s future as the people of God is centered on this matter. If Israel is loyal to Yahweh, then that faithfulness will be manifested in obedience to the commandments; faithlessness to Yahweh will be manifested in a life of disobedience. The central placement of the loyalty commandment thus shows that issues of obedience and disobedience of all other commandments proceed from issues of loyalty and disloyalty. In other words, faithfulness to God himself takes priority over obedience. That does not make obedience of the detailed commandments somehow unimportant, but obedience follows from faithfulness, not the other way around.

EXODUS 3 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the  wmountain of God. 2 xAnd  ythe angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see,  zGod called to him  aout of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5Then he said, “Do not come near;  btake your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6And he said,  c“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for  dhe was afraid to look at God. 7Then the LORD said,  e“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their  ftaskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8and  gI have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and  hto bring them up out of that land to a  igood and broad land, a land  jflowing with milk and honey, to the place of  kthe Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

The Ten Commandments EXODUS 20  z And  a God spoke all these words, saying, 2 b “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 c “You shall have no other gods before [1] me. 4 d “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 e You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am  f a jealous God,  g visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6but showing steadfast love to thousands [2] of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 h “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8 i “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 j Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10but the  k seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the  l sojourner who is within your gates. 11For  m in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 n “Honor your father and your mother,  o that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13 p “You shall not murder. [3] 14 q “You shall not commit adultery. 15 r “You shall not steal. 16 s “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 t “You shall not covet  u your neighbor’s house;  v you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

The Ten Commandments EXODUS 20 And God spoke all these words, saying, 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 [1] me. 4“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6but showing steadfast love to thousands [2] of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13“You shall not murder. [3] 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 his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” 18Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid [4] and trembled, and they stood far off 19and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

The God of Exodus and the prophets is a warrior God. My rejection of this God as a liberating image for feminist theology is based on my understanding of the symbolic function of a warrior God in cultures where warfare is glorified as a symbol of manhood and power. My primary concern here is with the function of symbolism, not with the historical truth of the Exodus stories, with questions of how many slaves may or may not have been freed, nor by what means, nor with questions of the different traditions that may have been woven together to shape the biblical stories. Since liberation theology is fundamentally concerned with the use of biblical symbolism in shaping contemporary reality and the understanding of the divine ground, this method is appropriate here. In a world threatened by total nuclear annihilation, we cannot afford a warlike image of God. The image of Yahweh as liberator of the oppressed in the exodus and as concerned for social justice in the prophets cannot be extricated from the image of Yahweh as warrior. In Exodus Yahweh is imaged as concerned for the oppressed Israelites. Exodus 3:7-8 is a good example. ‘Then Yahweh said, ‘I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters: I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.’ People in oppressed circumstances and liberation theologians find passages like this inspiring. I too have been profoundly moved by the image of a God who takes compassion on suffering, but this passage has a conclusion I cannot accept. The passage continues ‘and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.’ Here Yahweh promises ‘his people’ a land that is inhabited by other peoples. In order to justify this action by Yahweh, the inhabitants of the land are portrayed in other parts of the Bible as evil or idolators (a term that itself bears further examination). More recently liberation theologians have portrayed these other peoples as ruling-class opponents of the poor peasant and working-class Hebrews. However that may be, the clear implication of the passage is that Yahweh intends to dispose the peoples from the lands they inhabit.

We all know that there are harsh passages toward others in the Bible as well: dispossess the Canaanites, destroy Jericho, etc. But, as I said earlier, the evidence on the ground indicates that most of that (the Conquest) never happened. Likewise in the case of the destruction of the Midianites, as I described in Chapter 4, this was a story in the Priestly (P) source written as a polemic against any connection between Moses and Midian. It is a polemical story in literature, not a history of anything that actually happened. At the time that the Priestly author wrote the instruction to kill the Midianites, there were not any Midianites in the region. The Midianite league had disappeared at least four hundred years earlier. As we saw in Chapter 2, it was an attested practice in that ancient world to claim to have wiped out one's enemies when no such massacre had actually occurred. King Merneptah of Egypt did it. King Mesha of Moab did it. And, so there is no misunderstanding, the purpose of bringing up those parallels is not to say that it was all right to do so. It is rather to recognize that, even in what are possibly the worst passages about warfare in the Bible, those stories do not correspond to any facts of history. They are the words of an author writing about imagined events of a period centuries before his own time. And, even then, they are laws of war only against specific peoples: Canaanites, Amalekites, and Midianites, none of whom exist anymore. So they do not apply to anyone on earth. The biblical laws concerning war in general, against all other nations, for all the usual political and economic reasons that nations go to war, such as wars of defense or territory, do not include the elements that we find shocking about those specific cases. ... Now one can respond that even if these are just fictional stories they are still in the Bible, after all, and can therefore be regarded as approving of such devastating warfare. That is a fair point to raise. I would just add this caution: when people cherry-pick the most offensive passages in the Bible in order to show that it is bad, they have every right to point to those passages, but they should acknowledge that they are cherry-picking, and they should pay due recognition to the larger--vastly larger--ongoing attitude to aliens and foreigners. In far more laws and cases, the principle of treatment of aliens is positive.

The lack of attention to Moses’s sons here and elsewhere in the Torah—essentially nothing is said about them—needs to be explained. And the explanation is probably this: They did not amount to much. This raises the interesting issue of the difficulty many children of great people face in leading successful and satisfying lives. In a book about Moses, ‘Overcoming Life’s Disappointments’, Rabbi Harold Kushner writes about this: Sometimes the father casts so large a shadow that he makes it hard for his children to find the sunshine they need to grow and flourish. Sometimes, the father’s achievements are so intimidating that the child just gives up any hope of equaling him. But mostly, I suspect, it takes so much of a man’s [the father’s] time and energy to be a great man—great in some ways but not in all—that he has too little time left to be a father. As the South African leader Nelson Mandela’s daughter was quoted as saying to him, ‘You are the father of all our people but you never had time to be a father to me.’ Kushner relates a remarkable story he read in a magazine geared toward clergy, a fictional account of a pastor in a mid-sized church who had a dream one night in which a voice said to him, ‘There are fifty teenagers in your church, and you have the ability to lead forty-nine of them to God and lose out on only one.’ Energized by the dream, the minister throws all his energy into youth work, organizing special classes and trips for the church’s teens. He eventually develops a national reputation in his denomination for his work with young people. ‘And then one night he discovers his sixteen-year-old son has been arrested for dealing drugs. The boy turned bitterly against the church and its teachings, resenting his father for having had time for every sixteen-year-old in town except him, and the father never noticed. His son was the fiftieth teenager, the one who got away.’ Of course, this was not necessarily true of Moses’s children, but the silence of the Torah concerning his children (which is not the case with the children of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Aaron) serves as an important reminder to parents who have achieved success to be sure to make time for their children. They need to try to ensure their children feel they occupy a special place in their parents’ hearts and no matter how pressing the parent’s responsibilities he or she will always find time for them.

Unqualified Champions Consider these individuals from the Bible. Each person was aware of a personal shortcoming which should have rendered him disqualified for service. God, however, saw champion potential … Moses struggled with a speech impediment: “Then Moses said to the LORD, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’” (Exodus 4:10). Yet God served as Moses’ source of strength. God used him to deliver the Israelites from bondage. Jeremiah considered himself too young to deliver a prophetic message to an adult population: “Then I said, ‘Alas, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth’” (Jeremiah 1:6). God’s reply: “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,” (Jeremiah 1:8). Isaiah, whose encouragement I quoted earlier, had reservations of his own. Perhaps his vocabulary reflected my own—especially my vocabulary as a teenager: “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Despite Isaiah’s flaws, God saw him as a man He could use to provide guidance to the nation of Judah. Paul the Apostle had, in his past, persecuted the very people to whom God would send him later. To most of us, Paul’s track record would disqualify him for use. But God brought change to Paul’s heart and redemption to his fervency. Samson squandered his potential through poor life choices. As I read about him, I can’t help but think, “The guy acted like a spoiled brat.” But God had placed a call on his life. Though Samson sank to life’s darkest depths—captors blinded him and placed him in slavery—at the end of his life, he turned his heart toward God and asked to be used for God’s purposes. God used Samson to bring deliverance to the Israelites. Do you feel like the least qualified, the least important, the least regarded? Perhaps your reward is yet to come. God has high regard for those who are the least. Jesus said, “For the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great” (Luke 9:48) and “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first” (Matthew 19:30). If heaven includes strategic positioning among God’s people, which I believe it will, that positioning will be ego-free and based on a humble heart. Those of high position in God’s eyes don’t focus on position. They focus on hearts: their own hearts before God, and the hearts of others loved by God. When we get to heaven, I believe many people’s positions of responsibility will surprise us. What if, in heaven, the some of today’s most accomplished individuals end up reporting to someone who cried herself to sleep at night—yet kept her heart pure before God? According to Jesus in Matthew 6:5, some rewards are given in full before we reach heaven. When He spoke those words, He referred to hypocritical religious leaders as an example. Could we be in for a heavenly surprise? I believe many who are last today—the ultimate servants—will be first in heaven. God sees things differently than we do.

(3) Theology of Exodus: A Covenant People “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod 6:7). When God first demanded that the Egyptian Pharaoh let Israel leave Egypt, he referred to Israel as “my … people.” Again and again he said those famous words to Pharaoh, Let my people go.56 Pharaoh may not have known who Yahweh was,57 but Yahweh certainly knew Israel. He knew them not just as a nation needing rescue but as his own people needing to be closely bound to him by the beneficent covenant he had in store for them once they reached the place he was taking them to himself, out of harm's way, and into his sacred space.58 To be in the image of God is to have a job assignment. God's “image”59 is supposed to represent him on earth and accomplish his purposes here. Reasoning from a degenerate form of this truth, pagan religions thought that an image (idol) in the form of something they fashioned would convey to its worshipers the presence of a god or goddess. But the real purpose of the heavenly decision described in 1:26 was not to have a humanlike statue as a representative of God on earth but to have humans do his work here, as the Lord's Prayer asks (“your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10). Although the fall of humanity as described in Genesis 3 corrupted the ability of humans to function properly in the image of God, the divine plan of redemption was hardly thwarted. It took the form of the calling of Abraham and the promises to him of a special people. In both Exod 6:6–8 and 19:4–6 God reiterates his plan to develop a people that will be his very own, a special people that, in distinction from all other peoples of the earth, will belong to him and accomplish his purposes, being as Exod 19:6 says “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Since the essence of holiness is belonging to God, by belonging to God this people became holy, reflecting the character of their Lord as well as being obedient to his purposes. No other nation in the ancient world ever claimed Yahweh as its God, and Yahweh never claimed any other nation as his people. This is not to say that he did not love and care for other nations60 but only to say that he chose Israel as the focus of his plan of redemption for the world. In the New Testament, Israel becomes all who will place faith in Jesus Christ—not an ethnic or political entity at all but now a spiritual entity, a family of God. Thus the New Testament speaks of the true Israel as defined by conversion to Christ in rebirth and not by physical birth at all. But in the Old Covenant, the true Israel was the people group that, from the various ethnic groups that gathered at Sinai, agreed to accept God's covenant and therefore to benefit from this abiding presence among them (see comments on Exod 33:12–24:28). Exodus is the place in the Bible where God's full covenant with a nation—as opposed to a person or small group—emerges, and the language of Exod 6:7, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God,” is language predicting that covenant establishment.61

The cross places us under a far greater obligation to love than the exodus ever could.

More than any other Church Father, Origen established the sermon as a principal focus of Christian service and the Bible as the central subject for discussion. He was also one of the first Christian thinkers to treat the New and the Old Testaments as forming a single work. He taught his students to read the Bible allegorically, in order to see how every event in the Old Testament foreshadows later events in the New, like the Jews’ exodus from Egypt foreshadowing the flight of the Holy Family, and Joseph’s run-in with Potiphar foreshadowing Christ before Pilate. This would then lead them to read the events and images symbolically, as reflecting the highest spiritual truths or “mysteries” of Christianity, and morally, meaning its connection with the inner life of the believer.35

In Exodus 1:8, a new king who does not “know” Joseph ascends the throne of Egypt. Egypt was the most powerful nation in the world, and its king received the best education in the land. Therefore, it is unlikely the king was ignorant of Joseph’s story in Egypt’s history, especially given Joseph’s role in preserving and enriching Egypt during the great famine (Gn 41). Something else must be meant by the king’s failure to “know.” Indeed, yada (the Hebrew word for “know”) has a sense of covenantal relationship. Thus, when Adam “knew” Eve, she became pregnant (Gn 4:1). In addition, ancient covenant treaties used “know” when speaking of diplomatic recognition. Thus, when Egypt’s new Pharaoh refuses to “know” Joseph, it is not a forgotten history lesson, but

To understand, you need some basic history. There is no evidence that Israel was ever a significant slave population in Egypt or that the mass Exodus, desert wanderings, or invasion of Canaan ever occurred. Israel appears to have simply evolved in Canaan, entering actual history when the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah recorded annihilating a people called “Israel” in Canaan on his victory stele, dated about 1200 BC.

34:6-7. merciful, gracious, slow to anger, kindness, faithfulness, bearing crime and offense and sin. This is possibly the most repeated and quoted formula in the Tanak (Num 14:18-19; Jon 4:2; Joel 2:13; Mic 7:18; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; 2 Chr 30:9; Neh 9:17,31). The Torah never says what the essence of God is, in contrast to the pagan gods. Baal is the storm wind, Dagon is grain, Shamash is the sun. But what is YHWH? This formula, expressed in the moment of the closest revelation any human has of God in the Bible, is the closest the Torah comes to describing the nature of God. Although humans are not to know what the essence is, they can know what are the marks of the divine personality: mercy, grace. In eight (or nine) different ways we are told of God's compassion. The last line of the formula ("though not making one innocent") conveys that this does not mean that one can just get away with anything; there is still justice. But the formula clearly places the weight on divine mercy over divine justice, and it never mentions divine anger. Those who speak of the "Old Testament God of wrath" focus disproportionately on the episodes of anger in the Bible and somehow lose this crucial passage and the hundreds of times that the divine mercy functions in the Hebrew Bible.

SPIRAL THE ATTRIBUTE In addition to the story of the wedding at Cana, here are some ideas for spiraling back to God’s joy in other parts of the Bible: • Festivals: As God’s people are being reformed, after the exodus, through the law, God tells them to host multiple festivals during the year. These feasts would be community-wide parties that included everyone and anchored the people to God’s joy, abundance, and grace toward them as they retold stories of who God had been for them. • Jesus’ lost-and-found parables point to God’s particular joy when people come back home to God. Bringing them home again is not a project God resents, groveling at the lost state of humanity. It’s a purpose God devotes Themself to and delights in its realization. • If learning Bible verses is part of your family’s web, consider including verses like Nehemiah 8:10: “The joy of [Yahweh] is your strength” (NASB); or Zephaniah 3:17: “For the LORD your God is living among you. [God] is a mighty savior. [God] will take delight in you with gladness. With [Their] love, [God] will calm all your fears. [God] will rejoice over you with joyful songs” (NLT).

Often the Israelites are examples of what not to do. Already negative examples mark the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and the historical books to follow will describe further failures in lurid detail. But the Old Testament does offer a few bright spots of hope, the book of Joshua being one of the brightest.

THE EXODUS BEGINS. [Ex. 12:37–39, 51 (Ca. 1446 B.C.)] And on that very day the LORD brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children

The most shocking part of Exodus 4:24-26 is most useful to me. It forces me to ask if God is free to be who he is, or, do I try to make him my prisoner, subject to what I think he should be? A Christian must keep asking himself: Am I worshiping the God of the Bible or only God as I wish to think of him?

Forty is a go-to number symbolizing a complete or “right” period of time, and “480” is twelve times forty—twelve likely symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel. The number is symbolic. It draws on ancient conventions of the symbolic value of round numbers to mark off a sacred moment.

The point of all this is that the book of Exodus as we know it simply could not be as old as the thirteenth century BCE, and could not have been written by Moses.

A myth is a story about the gods at the dawn of time that helps explain why things are the way they are here and now. Ancient people in general were quite keen on seeing the world around them in light of a bigger reality, namely the cosmic realm. Myths connect these two worlds.

there is no direct evidence whatsoever for an Israelite presence in the land of Egypt at any point in history. The only record we have for such a scenario is the biblical story itself.

The exodus, in fact, is really all about getting to Mount Sinai, and how the events there prepare the Israelites for their ultimate destiny—a kingdom in a land of their own.

God’s act of salvation in Exodus hearkens back to God’s act of creation in Genesis, when God separated the waters on the second and third days of creation. Saving Israel is a divine act of “re-creation.

This theme has a lot of moving parts. The bottom line is that when God saves Israel, it is an “act of creation”—or perhaps better, “an act of re-creation.” To save is to re-create because to be saved is to start anew.

Yahweh is worthy of worship To save is to “re-create” God’s mountain God gives lots of commands Israelites rebel against Moses and God

The story of the exodus from Egypt isn’t an expanded version of this scene from Abraham’s story. Rather, the Abraham story was written in light of the exodus story. Just because the Abraham story appears earlier than the exodus story doesn’t mean it was written earlier.

Or consider one of my all-time favorite passages, the description of the ten plagues that Moses brought down on the heads of the Egyptians in order to compel Pharaoh to “let my people go.” The fifth plague was a pestilence that killed “all of the livestock of the Egyptians” (Exodus 9:5). How is it, then, that a few days later the seventh plague, of hail, was to destroy all of the Egyptian livestock in the fields (Exodus 9:21–22)? What

If I read the Bible looking for myself in the text before I look for God there, I may indeed learn that I should not be selfish. I may even try harder not to be selfish. But until I see my selfishness through the lens of the utter unselfishness of God, I have not properly understood its sinfulness. The Bible is a book about God. As Moses would learn during the Exodus, who he was bore no impact on the outcome of his situation. Who God was made all the difference.

the numerous other crimes for which the Bible prescribes death as punishment: contempt of parents (Exodus 21:15, 17; Leviticus 24:11); trespass upon sacred ground (Exodus 19:12–13; Numbers 1:51; 18:7); sorcery (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27); bestiality (Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 20: 15–16); sacrifice to foreign gods (Exodus 22:20; Deuteronomy 13:1–9); profaning the sabbath (Exodus 31:14); adultery (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22: 22–24); incest (Leviticus 20:11–13); homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13); and prostitution (Leviticus 21:19; Deuteronomy 22: 13–21).

We all lost hope. Lost hope in the system and in government, but unfortunately the only way to get our hope back again, is for you to vote for someone you believe in . For you to be able to vote , you must first register. It is not only politicians , those who are in politics or interest in politics, who should vote, but it is every individual who wants change. It is time for you to have a say and speak the language government understand, and that is to vote. Exodus 4:10-12

Most historians, even many religious leaders, have discounted the story of Exodus as a myth, a moral lesson rather than a historical reality. As support for this stance, skeptical archaeologists point to the lack of Egyptian sources in documenting any series of plagues or a mass exodus of slaves, especially within the time frame indicated in the Bible.

For those who view Jesus as the literally begotten son of God, Jesus’s Jewishness is immaterial. If Christ is divine, then he stands above any particular law or custom. But for those seeking the simple Jewish peasant and charismatic preacher who lived in Palestine two thousand years ago, there is nothing more important than this one undeniable truth: the same God whom the Bible calls “a man of war” (Exodus 15:3), the God who repeatedly commands the wholesale slaughter of every foreign man, woman, and child who occupies the land of the Jews, the “blood-spattered God” of Abraham, and Moses, and Jacob, and Joshua (Isaiah 63:3), the God who “shatters the heads of his enemies,” bids his warriors to bathe their feet in their blood and leave their corpses to be eaten by dogs (Psalms 68:21–23)—that is the only God that Jesus knew and the sole God he worshipped.

12.14 This day shall be to you one of remembrance: The Torah affirms the central importance of remembering. It may be credited with the invention of collective memory. There are six commandments of remembrance in the Torah: 1. The Sabbath “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy” (Exodus 20: 8). 2. The Exodus “You shall not eat anything leavened with it . . . so that you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt as long as you live” (Deuteronomy 16: 3). 3. Receiving the Law at Sinai “So that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes . . . and make them known to your children and your children’s children, the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb. . . .” (Deuteronomy 4: 9-10) 4. Amalek “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt, how, undeterred by fear of God he . . . cut down all the stragglers in your rear” (Deuteronomy 25: 17-19). 5. The Golden Calf and other incidents in which the Israelites angered God “Remember, never forget, how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 9: 7). 6. God’s punishment of Miriam for speaking ill of Moses “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the journey after you left Egypt” (Deuteronomy 24: 9—the verse alludes to Miriam and Aaron’s negative comments against Moses in Numbers 12: 1-9).

We all understand where you've been and how you're feeling right now, no matter what choices we've made. Although God offers everything we need, sometimes God isn't everything we want. It wasn't easy to come out in the Methodist church either; even though we may display an air of more literate sophistication, Black churches are based on the same ideology no matter how we sing a song or how we praise. Leviticus 20:13 is the most common passage in the Bible used against us to damn our souls to hell for loving someone of the same sex. Yet Exodus 20:14 and Matthew 5:28 specifically refer to adultery in a marriage, which is often skated over. We all struggle with our desires—our need to want more than God. Because we do need love other than God, and in my mind and heart, there's nothing wrong with that, Rose.

Let’s start with Exodus 22:18. The English translation is: “You shall not allow a sorceress to live.” The word sorceress is pharmakous — a conjugation of pharmakeia — in Koine Greek. The translation using the Friberg Lexicon would be rendered something like this: “Do not allow one who prepares drugs for ritual purposes to live.” And suddenly what the Bible says about drugs becomes much clearer. The Bible is saying that the mixing of drugs and religion is so bad that the Israelites should not even let someone live who does it!

HOW TORAH MONOTHEISM CHANGED THE WORLD This is the first time that the Torah draws a contrast between the God of Israel and other gods. Biblical monotheism and the Torah’s denial of all other gods served as the single most important moral and intellectual advance in history. See the commentary on Exodus 8:6, in which I offer fifteen world-transforming consequences of biblical monotheism. For the reader’s convenience, I will briefly list them here. The God introduced by the Torah: 1.   Is the first god in history to have been entirely above and beyond nature. 2. Brought universal morality into the world. 3.   Means “good” and “evil” are not individual or societal opinions but objectively real. 4. Morally judges every human being. 5. Gives humanity hope. 6.   Introduced holiness—the elevation of humans from animal-like to beings created in God’s image. 7. Gives every individual unprecedented self-worth. 8. Is necessary for human brotherhood. 9.   Began the long journey to belief in human equality. 10. Is incorporeal (no body; not physical). 11. Teaches us the physical realm is not the only reality. 12. Means there is ultimate meaning to existence and to each of our lives. 13. Gives human beings free will. 14. Teaches might is not right. 15. Made human moral progress possible.

Exodus 15:12 You stretch out your right hand, and the earth swallows your enemies.

Although Moses is the central human character of much of the Pentateuch, he is not introduced until ch 2 of Exodus, the second book.

The Bible speaks of beauty in Psalm 27 as a characteristic of God, greatly to be desired. In fact, David says that to “gaze on the beauty of the Lord” is the one and only thing he really desires (Ps. 27:4). In another hint, the first example of God filling someone with his Spirit comes about in Exodus 31 when men are filled with God’s Spirit in order to create beautiful things for the tabernacle. A third indirect reference is when the Bible speaks of the beauty of creation and how that beauty reflects the glory of God (Ps. 19:1). These may not give us a Ten Commandments of beauty (always do this, never do that; blue is beautiful, green is not; straight lines are more beautiful than curved ones; or similar nonsense), but what these examples do is require us to consider the nature of beauty because the Scriptures teach that God is to be the fulfillment of our desire for beauty. God intends and empowers us to make beautiful things, and his glory is reflected in the beauty of his own handiwork, giving us a model to follow as men and women created in his image.

Paul Ricœur has two terms that neatly sum up this difference between modern contracts and God’s covenants.12 Contracts obey a logic of equivalence, a regime of strict justice in which unerring calculation determines the just measure of commitment in each case. It is the logic of the transaction and of the market, a reciprocal paradigm in which debts must be paid in full, but no more. The logic of equivalence belongs to a view of the world in which every gift is a trojan horse that requires reciprocation sooner or later: “They invited us round for dinner and baked their own dessert; we will have to do the same!” It is the ethics of a Derrida who ruefully acknowledges that “for there to be gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, counter-gift, or debt.”13 This is an impossible standard that leads him to conclude that the pure gift is impossible and could not even be recognized as such: gifts always fall back into economies of debt sooner or later, a grim reality that leads Terry Eagleton to remark “one would not have wished to spend Christmas in the Derrida household.”14 The contractual logic of equivalence is the logic of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It is a human logic. God’s covenants, by contrast, operate according to a logic of superabundance, a lavish, gracious, loving paradigm of excess. God walks between the animal parts alone; the exodus rescue precedes the Sinai law; Christ lays down his life in the new covenant in his blood. This is the logic of the “how much more” of the Pauline epistles (Rom 5:9, 10, 15, 17; 11:24; 1 Cor 6:3; 2 Cor 3:9) and the letter to the Hebrews (Heb 9:14; 10:29; 12:9), of going beyond the call of duty, beyond what is right and proper, beyond what could reasonably be demanded on a ledger of credit and debt. The logic of superabundance replaces the fear and submission of Hobbes’s Leviathan or the tyranny of Rousseau’s general will with the love and sacrifice of Christ. It is the logic of grace and the gift. It is a divine logic. The

When the authors of the Exodus-Conquest Account incorporated Joshua into their narrative, they made a dramatic change to his identity: instead of saving a population and becoming their king, he is now a prolific regicide, warring against, and later executing, a myriad of monarchs

In the Bible, on rare occasions, God seems to be willing to reveal worst-case scenarios to humans when it’s necessary, in the Almighty’s judgment, to steel them for the rigors that may well face them—or their descendants—in the future.

There’s a passage in Exodus—God tells Moses, 'No one can see My face, but I will protect you with My hand until I have passed by you, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back.’ Remember that? Emilio nodded, listening. “Well, I always thought that was a physical metaphor,” John said, “but, you know—I wonder now if it isn’t really about time? Maybe that was God’s way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on … we’ll understand. We’ll see where He was: we’ll see His back.

As in the Mosaic orders in Exodus, Nehemiah’s measures were to ensure fairness in the society. Whenever one gives back what they have taken unlawfully from others, it ensures that neither party is taken advantage of. For that reason, when we restore what we have taken unlawfully from others, societal balance is secured. Above all, it brings peace and a sense of oneness to both the victim and the cheater.

The image of the stumbling block is frequent in the Bible. It may cause a complete fall, or it may simply trip up the person on the journey. Sometimes translated “scandal,” it does not mean “something shocking” but rather that which causes another to sin. In the book of Exodus the Israelites are warned not to make a covenant with the gods of Canaan, “lest they become a snare among you” (Exod 34:12; also 23:33). “Snare” is the Greek word proskomma, “stumbling block,” the same word Paul uses here.

Often, as we have seen, the Israelites offer examples of what not to do. Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy contain many negative lessons, and Moses’ speeches hint at more failures to come. But the Old Testament does contain a few bright spots of hope, with the book of Joshua shining as one of the brightest.

I am convinced courage is the rarest of all good traits. There are far more kind and honest people than there are courageous people. Unfortunately, however, in the battle against evil, all the good traits in the world amount to little when not accompanied by courage.

From this perspective, there are no complicated exegetical methods required for understanding the meaning of the exodus. How or when or whether it happened is irrelevant when the cries of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt are the same as the cries of the oppressed in modern-day America.

The Old Testament begins with creation and tells the story of the Jewish people up to the time of Christ. It is made up of thirty-nine individual “books” (the book of Genesis, the book of Exodus, etc.) written by twenty-eight different authors and spans a period of over two thousand years.

What is the same in every human being and doesn't change? [...] That you exist. The words we use to express this concept are "I am." "I" is the pronoun we use to reference the self. "Am" is the verb that references a state of being. "I am" indicates self-awareness of being. In the space between all words, all thoughts, all memories, what do you know with certainty? "I exist and I am aware of it." When stating, "I am", all self-aware beings are referring to an identical experience. [...] No matter one's age or life history, "I am" - the awareness of being - is a shared phenomenon. [This is] the part of you beyond your story. Think of "I am" like the vast open sky. Any words that follow "I am" are clouds. They arise within the sky, temporarily changing the appearance of it, but they have no effect on the sky's basic existence. Who are you beyond your story? You are the open sky my friend - the presence and expression of an immense Awareness that knows it exists. Because this is a shared presence, it's more fitting to refer to this as the Absolute Self (with a capital S) as opposed to the temporary, limited sense of "my" self with a story. [...] In the Bible, in the Book of Exodus, the story goes that when Moses asked for God's name, the first response he received was, "I AM that I AM." So we have the Absolute "I AM" that is everywhere, all-knowing, and all-powerful. And we have over seven billion relative beings also claiming "I am." The difference between relative awareness and Absolute Awareness is the individual stories or exeriences that arise in the one I AM Awareness, like clouds in the sky. The Self is the sky. The selves are the clouds. You are not apart from the sky. You are intimately part of it as a self-aware expression fo self-awareness.

In a nutshell, I love goodness and hate evil. My favorite verse in the Bible is “Those of you who love God—hate evil” (Psalms 97:10).

According to the teachings of the Holy Bible and the Fathers of the Church, man is able to achieve Theosis because within the Orthodox Church of Christ the Grace of God is uncreated. God is not only essence, as the West thinks; He is also energy. If God was only essence, we could not unite with Him, could not commune with Him, because the essence of God is awesome and unapproachable for man, as was written: "Never will man see My face and live" (Exodus 33:20). Let us give a relevant example from things human. If we grasp a bare electric wire, we will die. However, if we connect a lamp to the same wire, we are illuminated. We see, enjoy, and are assisted by, the energy of electric current, but we are not able to grasp its essence. Let us say that something similar happens with the uncreated energy of God. If we were able to unite with the essence of God, we would become gods in essence. Then everything would become a god, and there would be confusion so that, essentially, nothing would be a god. In a few words, this is what they believe in the Oriental religions, e.g. in Hinduism, where the god is not a personal existence but an indistinct power dispersed through all the world, in men, in animals, and in objects (Pantheism).

According to the teachings of the Holy Bible and the Fathers of the Church, man is able to achieve Theosis because within the Orthodox Church of Christ the Grace of God is uncreated. God is not only essence, as the West thinks; He is also energy. If God was only essence, we could not unite with Him, could not commune with Him, because the essence of God is awesome and unapproachable for man, as was written: “Never will man see My face and live” (Exodus 33:20). Let us give a relevant example from things human. If we grasp a bare electric wire, we will die. However, if we connect a lamp to the same wire, we are illuminated. We see, enjoy, and are assisted by, the energy of electric current, but we are not able to grasp its essence. Let us say that something similar happens with the uncreated energy of God. If we were able to unite with the essence of God, we would become gods in essence. Then everything would become a god, and there would be confusion so that, essentially, nothing would be a god. In a few words, this is what they believe in the Oriental religions, e.g. in Hinduism, where the god is not a personal existence but an indistinct power dispersed through all the world, in men, in animals, and in objects (Pantheism). God, according to the Orthodox theological view, is One in a Trinity and a Trinity in One. As St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and other holy Fathers repeatedly say, God is filled with a divine eros, a divine love for His creatures. Because of this infinite and ecstatic love of His, He comes out of Himself and seeks to unite with them. This is expressed and realised as His energy, or better, His energies. With these, His uncreated energies, God created the world and continues to preserve it. He gives essence and substance to our world through His essence-creating energies; He illuminates man with His illuminating energies; He sanctifies him with His sanctifying energies. Finally, He deifies him with His deifying energies. Thus, through His uncreated energies holy God enters nature, the world, history, and human life.

According to the teachings of the Holy Bible and the Fathers of the Church, man is able to achieve Theosis because within the Orthodox Church of Christ the Grace of God is uncreated. God is not only essence, as the West thinks; He is also energy. If God was only essence, we could not unite with Him, could not commune with Him, because the essence of God is awesome and unapproachable for man, as was written: "Never will man see My face and live" (Exodus 33:20). Let us give a relevant example from things human. If we grasp a bare electric wire, we will die. However, if we connect a lamp to the same wire, we are illuminated. We see, enjoy, and are assisted by, the energy of electric current, but we are not able to grasp its essence. Let us say that something similar happens with the uncreated energy of God. If we were able to unite with the essence of God, we would become gods in essence. Then everything would become a god, and there would be confusion so that, essentially, nothing would be a god. In a few words, this is what they believe in the Oriental religions, e.g. in Hinduism, where the god is not a personal existence but an indistinct power dispersed through all the world, in men, in animals, and in objects (Pantheism). As St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and other holy Fathers repeatedly say, God is filled with a divine eros, a divine love for His creatures. Because of this infinite and ecstatic love of His, He comes out of Himself and seeks to unite with them. This is expressed and realised as His energy, or better, His energies. With these, His uncreated energies, God created the world and continues to preserve it. He gives essence and substance to our world through His essence-creating energies; He illuminates man with His illuminating energies; He sanctifies him with His sanctifying energies. Finally, He deifies him with His deifying energies. Thus, through His uncreated energies holy God enters nature, the world, history, and human life.

Whom I Desired (Chimadeti) SONG OF SOLOMON 2:3: “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” As I was reading this passage in my Hebrew Bible I was struck by the word chimadeti (great delight). That word was strangely out of place in this sweet romantic verse. I was intrigued as to how our English translators had handled this word. I first went to your friend and mine, the King James Version which rendered it as “great delight.” This seemed to be the good cowardly way out. Other modern translations said the same. Some simply rendered it as “delight.” One translation was a little braver and said “with whom I desired”. But the version with the most guts rendered this word as have I raptured. What caught my attention in the use of the word chimadeti is that it is used only once in the Song of Solomon and its rooted in the same word that is used in Exodus 20:17: “Thou shalt not covet.” If you ever go to a synagogue and glance at the Ten Commandments above the ark and scroll down to the 10th commandment you will see in Hebrew Script the words “Lo

At times, God's history seems to operate on an entirely different plane than ours...Exodus identifies by name the two Hebrew midwives who helped save Moses' life, but it does not bother to record the name of the Pharaoh ruling Egypt (an omission that has baffled scholars ever since).

Thus, our main point to make here is that there is not only a crucially vertical (God-humanity covenant) and eschatological (new exodus) aspect to the enacted parable of the Last Supper, but there is equally a horizontal, new covenant community aspect.

Exodus 21:22–23, a passage that says a man who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry must pay a fine but is not charged with murder, not unless the woman herself dies. Thus the Bible is making clear that a dependent life is not the same as an independent life.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot… King James Bible, Exodus 21:24

If exodus was God’s redemptive activity to give sabbath to slaves, then sabbath now is human non-activity to remember the exodus redemption. In effect the commandment says, In breaking free from your labors, you will be reminded of God’s breaking you free from your hard toil and bondage

Lord. To fear someone in the biblical sense of the word is to be in awe of that person. The ultimate application of Exodus 14 may be summarized this way: those who fear the Lord never have to be afraid of anything else. As we stand in awe of God—his love, kindness, and care—life loses any threat it might have held over us. Even when life seems out to get us, God is intent on saving us.

The Bible reads like a collection of books about people caught up in exodus and exile. It is a book that shows the destruction of imperialism and war. It shows how innocents suffer. The climax of the book is the suffering innocent saviour crucified on a tree. But, God is not done there, it is also a story of resurrection, redemption, and hope. It is the story of people with good news to share by words and action. It is counter-culture and more relevant now than some may realise. In an age of wars and rumours of war, an age of refugees in exile and mass exodus, it speaks of the need for love and compassion. The early followers of Jesus were famous for love and not hate. So while the extremists, the religiously ignorant, the politically cold, the divisive nationalists and the greedy arms dealers fuel the world's problems, and beat the war drums, let us the people of new birth be lights in the darkness and voices in the wilderness. Let us live and sing the song of love, for truly His banner over us is love. It is to that beat we march and in His name, not the gods of hate and war, but the God of love, the Prince of Shalom (peace). Soli Deo Gloria. Amen

It is noteworthy that God is often seen showing mercy where repentance is evident (Exodus 32:14; 2 Samuel 24:16; Amos 7:3,6).

And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed. (Exodus 20:26)

Importance of Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17:3). Moses (Exodus 34) and Elijah (1 Kings 19) both had experiences of encountering God on Mount Sinai. Jewish belief at the time of Jesus expected the appearing of a Moses-like figure (from Deut. 18:15, 18) and an Elijah-like figure (from Mal. 4:5). Jesus identifies John the Baptist with Elijah (Matt. 17:11–13), and he himself is the prophet like Moses. This is perhaps indicated by the voice from heaven that says, “Listen to him” (Matt. 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35)—the same instruction as given in connection to the prophet to come in Deuteronomy 18:15. The intertestamental book 4 Ezra indicates that a sign of the end of the age is that people will see those who were taken up and did not taste death (6:25–26). In all these ways, the appearance of Moses and Elijah indicated the coming of the kingdom of God.

Consider the Lord’s prophetic promise to Abraham and then Isaac was that God Himself would increase them (Genesis 13:16,12 22:17,13 26:414; Exodus 1:715; Deuteronomy 1:1016) — and this came true. God is the one responsible for multiplying Abraham’s descendants, and this exceeding increase came to Israel. The Egyptians recognized this and wanted to do something about this population explosion occurring with the Israelites — hence enslaving them and trying to kill their baby boys in an effort to control them! So this was an exceptional growth rate discussed in the Bible, but this would yield a population (if ~equal male to female) just over 1.2 million people and their children in these ten generations. This almost sets an extreme upper limit, as the Lord was not increasing the people before the Flood, as He did with the Israelites. Thus, we tentatively suggest the pre-Flood population was far less than this at its peak — perhaps just a few hundred thousand. Allow us to elaborate.

First, in Genesis 4, we have the Lamb typified in the firstlings of the flock slain by Abel in sacrifice. Second, we have the Lamb prophesied in Genesis 22:8 where Abraham said to Isaac, "God will provide himself a lamb." Third, in Exodus 12, we have the Lamb slain and its blood applied. Fourth, in Isaiah 53:7, we have the Lamb personified: here for the first time we learn that the Lamb would be a Man. Fifth, in John 1:29, we have the Lamb identified, learning who He was. Sixth, in Revelation 5, we have the Lamb magnified by the hosts of heaven. Seventh, in the last chapter of the Bible we have the Lamb glorified, seated upon the eternal throne of God, Revelation

DAY 17: How does Paul describe the return of Jesus Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 16? It is clear the Thessalonians had come to believe in and hope for the reality of their Savior’s return (1:3, 9, 10; 2:19; 5:1, 2). They were living in expectation of that coming, eagerly awaiting Christ. First Thessalonians 4:13 indicates they were even agitated about some things that might affect their participation in it. They knew Christ’s return was the climactic event in redemptive history and didn’t want to miss it. The major question they had was: “What happens to the Christians who die before He comes? Do they miss His return?” Clearly, they had an imminent view of Christ’s return, and Paul had left the impression it could happen in their lifetime. Their confusion came as they were being persecuted, an experience they thought they were to be delivered from by the Lord’s return (3:3, 4). Paul answers by saying “the Lord Himself will descend with a shout” (v. 16). This fulfills the pledge of John 14:1–3 (Acts 1:11). Until then He remains in heaven (1:10; Heb. 1:1–3). “With the voice of an archangel.” Perhaps it is Michael, the archangel, whose voice is heard as he is identified with Israel’s resurrection in Daniel 12:1–3. At that moment, the dead rise first. They will not miss the Rapture but will be the first participants. “And with the trumpet of God.” This trumpet is illustrated by the trumpet of Exodus 19:16–19, which called the people out of the camp to meet God. It will be a trumpet of deliverance (Zeph. 1:16; Zech. 9:14). After the dead come forth, their spirits, already with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23), now being joined to resurrected new bodies, the living Christians will be raptured, “caught up” (v. 17). This passage along with John 14:1–3 and 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52 form the biblical basis for “the Rapture” of the church.

Exactly why the sources were intertwined in this way is unclear. Exploring this issue really involves asking two questions: (1) Why were all of these sources retained, rather than just retaining the latest or most authoritative one? (2) Why were they combined in this odd way, rather than being left as complete documents that would be read side by side, much like the model of the four different and separate gospels, which introduce the Christian Bible or New Testament? Since there is no direct evidence going back to the redaction of the Torah, these issues may be explored only in a most tentative fashion, with plausible rather than definitive answers. Probably the earlier documents had a certain prestige and authority in ancient Israel, and could not simply be discarded.9 Additionally, the redaction of the Torah from a variety of sources most likely represents an attempt to enfranchise those groups who held those particular sources as authoritative. Certainly the Torah does not contain all of the early traditions of Israel. Yet, it does contain the traditions that the redactor felt were important for bringing together a core group of Israel (most likely during the Babylonian exile of 586-538 B.C.E.). The mixing of these sources by intertwining them preserved a variety of sources and perspectives. (Various methods of intertwining were used-the preferred method was to interleave large blocks of material, as in the initial chapters of Genesis. However, when this would have caused narrative difficulties, as in the flood story or the plagues of Exodus, the sources were interwoven-several verses from one source, followed by several verses from the other.) More than one hundred years ago, the great American scholar G. F Moore called attention to the second-century Christian scholar Tatian, who composed the Diatessaron.10 This work is a harmony of the Gospels, where most of the four canonical gospels are combined into a single work, exactly the same way that scholars propose the four Torah strands of J, E, D, and P have been combined. This, along with other ancient examples, shows that even though the classical model posited by source criticism may seem strange to us, it reflects a way that people wrote literature in antiquity

At the least, the volume of material demonstrates the importance of worship to the narrator. Moreover, the movement in the book of Exodus as a whole is one from slavery to worship, from service to Pharaoh to service of God.

Reflection on Exodus 2:15—3:10 The culture and wisdom of Egypt gave Moses much of the background he needed, but it didn’t prepare his character or spirit for his role as God’s prophet and Israel’s deliverer. A seemingly pointless 40 years in Midian did (see Acts 7:23–30). There God seasoned his servant, just as Abraham, Joseph, David, Paul and many others were seasoned as they spent long years in preparation for their calling.

Exodus 18:17–18 Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.

In one of his essays William Placher comments on a time when the theological use of the Bible presupposed a deep knowledge of what the Bible says.1 The example he serves up is from the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes, where the Reformer thinks through the issue of what Christians should do if they find themselves under a wicked ruler. Placher notes that Calvin reflects on Daniel and Ezekiel regarding the need to obey even bad rulers; he weighs the command to serve the king of Babylon in Jeremiah 27. He quotes from the Psalms, and he cites Isaiah to the effect that the faithful are urged to trust in God to overcome the unrighteous. On the other hand, he evenhandedly notes episodes in Exodus and Judges “where people serve God by overthrowing the evil rulers,” and texts in 1 Kings and Hosea where God’s people are criticized for being obedient to wicked kings. He cites Peter’s conclusion before Gamaliel, according to Acts: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). From these and other biblical passages, he proceeds to weave nuanced conclusions. We should disobey what governement mandates if it violates our religious obligations. By contrast, Christians should not normally go around starting revolutions. But those who are in positions of authority should deploy that authority to deal with those who exploit others. Even violent revolutionaries may in mysterious ways perform the will of God, though of course they may be called to judgment on account of their evil. Placher then comments: My point is not to defend all of Calvin’s conclusions, or even all of his method, but simply to illustrate how immersion in biblical texts can produce a very complex way of reflecting within a framework of biblical authority, compared to which most contemporary examples look pretty simple-minded. We can’t “appeal to the Bible” in a way that’s either helpful or faithful without beginning to do theology. Theology begins to put together a way of looking as a Christian at the world in all its variety, a language that we share as Christians and that provides a context rich enough for discussing the complexities of our lives. Absent such a shared framework, we can quote passages at each other, but the only contexts in which we can operate come from the discourses of politics and popular culture.2

The land we now call Egypt was colonized...and was originally peopled by fair Celts from the shores of Britain. This was the Exodus of the Aryans, some of whom returned later to their primeval homes – Comyns Beaumont (Riddle of Pre-Historic Britain) The magicians and sorcerers whom Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar summoned to their aid are referred to in the Gaelic Bible as Draoitbo, Druids, the same name as is given to the wise men who are mentioned in the New Testament as travelling from the East to Bethlehem – Dudley Wright (Druidism: Ancient Faith of Britain)

As Moses would learn during the Exodus, who he was bore no impact on the outcome of his situation.

God despises all non-Christian religions. The Bible condemns all of them as false, having been inspired by demons and invented by men. This is evident in various passages, such as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3), the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:20-46), and the writings of Paul

God's use of the ordinary to bring about the extraordinary is as much in evidence here in the early events of Exodus as anywhere in Scripture. His tendency to bring about his will through ordinary items, ordinary people, and ordinary events is no less at work today than it was in Jochebed's.

After we have been subdued by the law and tell the Lord that we cannot fulfill His requirements, that we simply cannot be holy as God is or perfect as the Father is, the Lord will say, “Simply open and receive Me. Let Me come into you and fulfill these requirements for you. I want to be your holiness and your perfection.” We cannot be holy, but we can be sanctified. Likewise, we cannot be perfect, but we can be perfected. God’s desire is to come into us to be our life and our person. In this way, He becomes one with us, and we become one with Him. Then as He lives in us, we live Him. This is the basic principle of the divine revelation in the Bible.

The Gospel of John was written at least twenty years after the last of Paul’s writings. Since John’s ministry was a mending ministry, his Gospel is a mending Gospel. Problems had been caused by certain ones who called themselves Christians but did not believe in the deity of Christ. In his Gospel John mended the damage caused by this lack of faith in Christ’s deity. His Gospel reveals clearly that Christ is God. Furthermore, we have pointed out that in the very Gospel which emphasizes the deity of Christ the eating and drinking of the Lord are also emphasized. We have also seen that in the book of Revelation we find reference to both eating and drinking. This indicates definitely that John’s ministry, like that of Paul, stresses the importance of eating and drinking the Lord. Without eating and drinking, there is no way for us to be proper Christians. It is of vital importance that we learn how to drink the living water. There is the need to give our attention to all that the Bible reveals concerning how to drink the Lord.

leviticus is the direct continuation of what precedes it at the end of Exodus, and the narrative at the end of Leviticus continues directly into Numbers. Ch 1 takes up the story from the time the divine Presence enters the Tabernacle, on the first day of Nisan (the first month, in the spring) in the year following the exodus (Exod. ch 40). From within, God calls to Moses and imparts to him, in a series of encounters (Lev. chs 1–27), His laws and commandments. Since Numbers begins on the first day of ʾIyar (the second month) in the same year (Num. 1.1), it emerges that the entire book of Leviticus covers but one month.

Resting in Him MY PRESENCE WILL GO WITH YOU, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Sometimes when you are quite weary, all you can think about is finding rest. As a result, your awareness of My Presence grows dim. I assure you, though, that even when your attention falters, Mine remains steadfast. Rejoice that the One who always takes care of you has an infinite attention span! Even the most devoted parents cannot be constantly attentive to their children: They have to sleep some of the time. Also, they can be distracted by other demands on their attention. Many deeply loved children have drowned when their devoted parents took their eyes off them ever so briefly. Only I have the capability of watching over My beloved children continually—without the least interruption. Instead of worrying about where and when you will find rest, remember that I have promised to provide it for you. Worrying wastes vast quantities of energy—the very thing you need most to help you reach a resting place. If you were driving a car with little gas in the tank and the nearest service station was far away, you would drive carefully and steadily—so as to minimize gas consumption. Similarly, when you are low on energy you need to minimize consumption of this precious commodity. Go gently and steadily through your day, looking to Me for help. Rest in the knowledge that My watch-care over you is perfect. Thus, you make the most of your limited energy. Whenever you are struggling with weariness, come to Me and I will give you rest. See also Exodus 33:14; Psalm 121:2, 3; Matthew 11:28 (From Jesus Lives by Sarah Young)

If we partake of Christ as the real manna, we shall find it difficult to lose our temper....This heavenly food causes our lusts to be restricted. It also deals with our selfish ambition. On the one hand, the heavenly manna nourishes us and heals us; on the other hand, it eliminates the negative things in us. Because eating is such a crucial matter, the regulating of man’s diet is another basic concept in the Bible.

Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner. —Exodus 17:15 (NAS) When a younger friend wanted to have a mentoring Bible study with me, we selected a book on the names of God revealed throughout Scripture. Together, we discovered how God has made Himself known in names: Creator, God Who Sees, God Most High, All-Sufficient One, the Lord Will Provide, the Lord Is Peace, and many more. The one I especially like is the Lord Is My Banner—Jehovah-nissi. We learned that a banner in the days of the Israelite exodus from Egypt was not the flag we think of today, but a bare pole topped with a shiny ornament that glittered in the desert sun. Early in their journey the Israelites refused to enter the land God had promised when scouts reported the inhabitants were “too strong” and “men of great size” (Numbers 13). But after Moses informed them that their lack of trust was going to cost them forty years of desert wandering, they rethought it. The problem was, they decided on a course of action that did not include God. Jehovah-nissi was not out in front leading the way. The incident was disastrous for them, and they endured forty years of wilderness for failure to follow God. There is a place where God shows His banner. If I am hesitant to follow—or off chasing something else—I could likely end up where I don’t want to be. Going my own way once nearly cost me my family. God’s Jehovah-nissi name is really about protection. God’s way leads to the “path of life” (Psalm 16:11). In following, I am protected. Lord, turn my eyes to where You are shining, and I will have found my way. —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Mt 16:24; Jn 8:12

The exodus also served to orient Jewish festivals increasingly toward God’s actions in history, in contrast to polytheistic festivals which focused on the gods’ actions in nature. The role of Pesaḥ and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as commemorations of the exodus completely eclipsed their presumed earlier significance as spring agricultural and livestock festivals (12.6–14 n., 14–20 n.). Sukkot, although essentially an agricultural festival, ultimately comes to commemorate the Israelites’ dwelling in booths following the exodus (Lev. 23.43).

Slow It Down God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. Genesis 1:5 by T. Suzanne Eller Everyone knows morning comes first, and then evening. Right? So I was surprised to read in Genesis 1:5 that the order was, in fact, reversed: “And there was evening, and there was morning.” God started with evening, a time of rest, and a day followed, in which he continued to create. We live in a culture where we work all day, and then eventually we might take time to rest. To order our days the way God does—with rest as a priority—is a challenge. I learned to prioritize God’s way when, at age 32, I was diagnosed with cancer. I told the doctor I didn’t have time for cancer, but cancer didn’t consult my schedule. My life changed while going through treatment as I put aside activities that previously had seemed vital. Out of that difficult time came a new list of priorities. At the top of the list: to balance my life. I learned to climb between the sheets and put aside my worries—to rest my body and mind. To slow down when life became crazy and assess what is important. I began to see evening as the first part of my day. This concept changed my life, physically and spiritually. Recently I had two speaking events sandwiched together. As the dates approached, time with my heavenly Father became “evening.” In preparation for my events, I listened to the heart of my Father instead of going over my notes. Out of that rest sprang fruitful ministry during the day. Learning to live with evening, or rest, as a top priority is an ongoing process. Many times I ask God to help me reprioritize, make time for physical rest and put “evening” back where it belongs. More Verses to Explore: Exodus 20:11 Psalm 91:1 Mark 6:30–31

COVENANT The basic structure of the relationship God has established with His people is the covenant. A covenant is usually thought of as a contract. While there surely are some similarities between covenants and contracts, there are also important differences. Both are binding agreements. Contracts are made from somewhat equal bargaining positions, and both parties are free not to sign the contract. A covenant is likewise an agreement. However, covenants in the Bible are not usually between equals. Rather, they follow a pattern common to the ancient Near East suzerain-vassal treaties. Suzerain-vassal treaties (as seen among the Hittite kings) were made between a conquering king and the conquered. There was no negotiation between the parties. The first element of these covenants is the preamble, which lists the respective parties. Exodus 20:2 begins with “I am the LORD your God.” God is the suzerain; the people of Israel are the vassals. The second element is the historical prologue. This section lists what the suzerain (or Lord) has done to deserve loyalty, such as bringing the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt. In theological terms, this is the section of grace. In the next section, the Lord lists what He will require of those He rules. In Exodus 20, these are the Ten Commandments. Each of the commandments were considered morally binding on the entire covenant community. The final part of this type of covenant lists blessings and cursings. The Lord lists the benefits that He will bestow upon His vasssals if they follow the stipulations of the covenant. An example of this is found in the fifth commandment. God promises the Israelites that their days will be long in the Promised Land if they honor their parents. The covenant also presents curses should the people fail in their responsibilities. God warns Israel that He will not hold them guiltless if they fail to honor His name. This basic pattern is evident in God’s covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the covenant between Jesus and His church. In biblical times, covenants were ratified in blood. It was customary for both parties to the covenant to pass between dismembered animals, signifying their agreement to the terms of the covenant (see Jeremiah 34:18). We have an example of this kind of covenant in Genesis 15:7-21. Here, God made certain promises to Abraham, which were ratified by the sacrificing of animals. However in this case, God alone passes through the animals, indicating that He is binding Himself by a solemn oath to fulfill the covenant. The new covenant, the covenant of grace, was ratified by the shed blood of Christ upon the cross. At the heart of this covenant is God’s promise of redemption. God has not only promised to redeem all who put their trust in Christ, but has sealed and confirmed that promise with a most holy vow. We serve and worship a God who has pledged Himself to our full redemption.

Nor is there reference to an exodus in contemporary Egyptian sources. Such a reference is not really to be expected, however: Egyptian royal inscriptions avoided mentioning setbacks and defeats unless they were followed by victories, and administrative records from the time and place of the exodus have mostly perished.

These verses, as v.18 shows, recount the establishment of a covenant between God and Abram. Thus it is fitting that in several respects the account should foreshadow the making of the covenant at Sinai. The opening statement, “I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans” (v.7), anticipates a virtually identical opening statement for the Sinaitic covenant (Ex 20:2): “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” The expression “Ur of the Chaldeans” is a reference back to 11:28 and 31 and grounds the present covenant in a past act of divine salvation from “Babylon,” just as Exodus 20:2 grounds the Sinaitic covenant in an act of divine salvation from Egypt. The coming of God’s presence in the fire and darkness of Sinai (Ex 19:18; 20:18; Dt 4:11) is foreshadowed in Abram’s fiery vision in this chapter (vv.12, 17). In the Lord’s words to Abram (vv.13 – 16), a connection between his covenant and the Sinaitic covenant is established by a reference to the four hundred years of bondage for Abram’s descendants and their subsequent “exodus” “and afterward they will come out,” v.14).

And He said, My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Exodus 33:14

And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” -Exodus 33:14 - MEV

Good question. You have studied your history, and you know that slaves were property, not human beings, so they were objects instead of subjects to the government. To view another human being as property—objects instead of human beings—would not be biblical, because a slavemaster would kind of be acting like God–ruling over others and trying to use them for their own desires. That is not right, because the Bible says that no one is like God, and they shouldn’t act like a God over other people, because there is only one God, as one of the Ten Commandments mentioned. “Also, even if human beings were allowed to act like God, the way those types of people rule over their slaves is unbiblical, because they do not follow the commandments about love. The New Testament says that we should love, forgive, and help others the same way Jesus did, but if people are going to objectify each other and view each other as property, slave masters' intentions to love, forgive, and help others would be reduced, if not unfulfilled. “You also mentioned the New Testament’s commandments. You are correct, there are verses about slaves. Titus 2:9-10 says, ‘Slaves must always obey their masters and do their best to please them. They must not talk back or steal, but must show themselves to be entirely trustworthy and good. Then they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive in every way.’ By law, a slave would have to obedient to his or her master, so Paul was sent to show that God acknowledges the existence of this law, but even though this law was used, notice how slaves are required to not argue and steal, and they are required to be trustworthy. Those are values that were taught to freed believers! Titus 3:9 talks about preventing quarrels, Exodus 20:15 literally says, “Do not steal,” and Proverbs 11:13 condemns slanderers and praises trustworthy people, so even though slaves were still expected to follow the law, they, like other believers, had the opportunity to uphold biblical values and become strong Christians. Colossians 4:1 also says, ‘Masters, be just and fair to your slaves. Remember that you also have a Master—in heaven.’ This verse actually ensures the welfares of slaves. The laws that the government enforced at that time probably did spread the notion that slaves are property, and so, by law, slaves were still property, but by Christ, they were quite equal to the status of a freed believer. Their was care for slaves’ welfares, which, under Christ, raised them to a greater status than just property. They were property by law, but children of Christ through God.

hatred in and of itself is not evil. Hatred can in fact be a good thing, even a beautiful thing. We should bear in mind that indifference, not hatred, is love’s opposite. Hatred is a part of love and a sign of its vitality. Hatred is love in its ferocious and militant form. Whether it is a good hatred or a bad hatred depends on what, precisely, it is aimed at. Hatred aimed at the cancer patient is bad. Hatred aimed at the patient’s cancer is good. Not just acceptable, or admissible, but good. If you love a person, you must hate his cancer. There is no way to love someone while being indifferent, or tolerant, toward the disease that ravages him. Hatred always seeks to annihilate. So we should not want to rid the world of hatred unless we have rid it of all the things worth annihilating. Unfortunately, we have not accomplished that task and never will. There are many ugly, terrible, deadly, revolting things in our world, and we must have a raw, raging hatred for all of them—especially sin. The Bible repeatedly speaks of this holy and righteous hatred, and commands us—not merely allows us, but commands us—to have this sort of hatred in our hearts: Psalm 97: “Let those who love the Lord hate evil.” Proverbs 8:13: “To fear the Lord is to hate evil.” Romans 12:9: “Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.” Proverbs mentions seven things that God Himself hates, and in four places in the Bible (Genesis 4:10, Genesis 17:20, Exodus 2:23, James 5:4) we are told of sins so abominable that they “cry out” to Him for vengeance. A passage in Revelation is particularly interesting: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people.… Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” God can find few redeeming qualities in the church in Ephesus—except for its hatred and intolerance. Those are the two things He cites positively, the two that they need not repent of. What redeeming qualities will He find in the church in America?

Those people who are using God’s name to threaten others and to scam others. Remember, You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name. Exodus 20:7

Remembering—the good others have done, the evil others have done, and one’s moral obligations—is an indispensable aspect of a good and meaningful life. Who are we, if not our memories? I

Among Bible scholars one of the most common interpretations is that being created in the image of God means being given the special role of “representing . . . God’s rule in the world.”8 The Torah’s view is that people are God’s “vice-regents” and “earthly delegates,”9 appointed by God to rule over the world. One traditional Jewish commentator, R. Saadia Gaon (882–942), anticipated this understanding of Genesis, arguing that being created in the image of God means being assigned to rule over creation (Saadia Gaon, commentary to Gen. 1:26).

Highlight – Exodus 15:1–21 A Story for All Time Moses’ song celebrates the event from which this book gets its name: “the exodus” from Egypt, when a band of slaves escaped from the most powerful civilization on earth. The psalmists never tired of celebrating that event in song (see, for example, Psalms 78 and 105), and the prophets later harked back to the days of the exodus to stir the conscience of their nation. The Israelites’ liberation gave inspiration to the slaves of the American South, who often memorialized the exodus in their spirituals.

Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you ... The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.

In the Bible, Jewish exiles returned from the Babylonian exodus, and so, too, would modern Jews. After all, that was the very purpose of the establishment of the State of Israel.

if things which are good in themselves as being the handiwork of a good Creator are called vanity, it is because they are compared with things which are better still. For example, compared with a lamp, a lantern is good for nothing; compared with a star, a lamp does not shine at all; the brightest star pales before the moon; put the moon beside the sun, and it no longer looks bright; compare the sun with Christ, and it is darkness. " I am that I am, " God says; [ Exodus 3: 14 ]

Aten, a minor solar god – a red disc from which long rays emanated and reached down to earth – was converted into the supreme God, in fact the one and only god, by Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh. Aten evolved into Jehovah, and Akhenaten’s religion evolved into Jewish monotheism. Akhenaten, or someone very close to him, is the true Moses of the Bible, standing up for the One God against Egyptian polytheism, and leading a mass Exodus of his monotheistic followers away from pagan Egypt to a new Promised Land. Jehovah, therefore, is just a modification of a minor Egyptian sun god.

celebrations and with the Jewish festivals in particular. Hence the way in which Christian baptism celebrates a new kind of exodus, and the eucharist a new kind of Passover.

At this time, God placed the fear of man into all the animals, including the dinosaurs (Genesis 9:211). As a result, this could have amplified the aggressions between man and some animals. And this in turn would have caused man to try to eradicate certain beasts like dinosaurs that people were uncomfortable around (or even for food or sport). God Himself was even involved in taking out a sea reptile (e.g., Leviathan per Psalm 74:14,12 Isaiah 27:113). Dinosaurs were likely a target for removal from inhabited land due to expansion; certain dinosaurs were likely counted with other beasts of the field (Exodus 23:29,14 Isaiah 43:2015). And a final factor to consider is the lack of ideal food sources after the Flood, which may have contributed to some animals developing a taste for blood and becoming carnivorous.

Merril Unger who penned Unger’s Bible Dictionary in the mid-1900s wrote: (Hebrew tannin) This word is used in the Authorized Version with several meanings: (1) In connection with desert animals (Isa. 13:22; 34:13, 14, etc.), it is best translated by wolf, and not by jackal as in the Revised Version. The feminine form of the Hebrew tannah is found in Mal. 1:3. (2) Sea monsters (Psa. 74:13; 148:7; Isa. 27:1). (3) Serpents, even the smaller sorts (Deut. 32:33; Psa. 91:13)….one of the Hebrew words, usually rendered dragon is in some places translated serpents (Exodus 7:9, 10, 12).27 Unger was still debating against jackals in the mid-1900s for another creature — a wolf!

He said, "If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all His decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the LORD who heals you." –Exodus 15:26

The difficulty comes in the few places in the Bible where the genre is not easily identifiable, and we aren’t completely sure how the author expects it to be read. Genesis 1 is a passage whose interpretation is up for debate among Christians, even those with a “high” view of inspired Scripture.17 I personally take the view that Genesis 1 and 2 relate to each other the way Judges 4 and 5 and Exodus 14 and 15 do. In each couplet one chapter describes a historical event and the other is a song or poem about the theological meaning of the event.

Well, in the Bible, not only does Moses, acting on the Lord’s behalf, kill thousands of his own people, the Israelites, because they worshipped an idol (see Exodus, chapter 32, especially verses 25 to 29); but, later, when the Lord learns that the men of Israel—here we go again—are having sexual relations with the women of Moab, and are being seduced by these women into worshipping their gods instead of “the one true God,” then that “one true God” orders Moses to “take all the chiefs of the people of Israel and impale them in the desert sun.” (This is once again from the book of Numbers, chapter 25, verses 1 to 5.)

9. The God introduced by the Torah began the long journey to belief in human equality—solely as a result of the Torah statement that each of us is created in God’s image. Slavery was abolished on a wide scale first in the Western world—by Christians who were rooted in the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible and who specifically cited the Torah doctrine that all humans are created in God’s image. 10.

All through the Bible, the presence of Moses is felt. And though he’s not mentioned until Exodus 2:2, he had written the book of Genesis, God’s authoritative and foundational story of who we are, how we got here, why things are as bad as they are and, yet, why we can hope anyway.

Exodus 3:13–15 God’s Name God’s statement “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex 3:14) is essentially in answer to the question, “What is your name?” God’s initial answer seems evasive. He is hinting at the real answer, though, since the Hebrew words for “I am” sound a bit like “Yahweh,” the name finally revealed in Ex 3:15 (“the LORD”). Two aspects of how divine names were utilized in ancient Egypt may relate to this revelation of God’s name. First, ancient Egyptians believed in a close relationship between the name of a deity and the deity itself—i.e., the name of a god could reveal part of the essential nature of that god. In Egyptian texts that refer to different but important names for the same deity, the names are often associated with particular actions or characteristics, and the words used tend to sound similar to the names with which they are associated. One can say there is wordplay between the action or characteristic and the name. For example, one text says, “You are complete [km] and great [wr] in your name of Bitter Lake [Km wr] . . . See you are great and round [šn] in (your name of) Ocean [Šn wr].” One can discern a similar wordplay at work in Ex 3:14. The action God refers to is that of being or existing. The wordplay consists in that the statement “I AM” comes from the Hebrew consonants h-y-h, while the name in Ex 3:15 contains the consonants y-h-w-h. Both words come from the same verbal root, and the linguistic connection would be immediately clear to an ancient listener or reader. It is not that God’s name is actually “I am” but that “Yahweh” reveals something about the essence of who God is—an essence that relates to the concept of being and to the idea of one who brings others into being. A second aspect of divine names in Egypt may be relevant. Deities sometimes had secret names, and special power was granted to those who knew them. Certain Egyptian magical texts (e.g., the Harris Magical Papyrus) give instructions on how to use the words of a god and thereby wield a degree of that god’s power.

Also, the Israelites must have admired this man who chose to be one of them, when he could have led an utterly charmed life as an Egyptian prince.

Here we must take a step back once more, because it is not as well known as it ought to be that in the world of second-Temple Judaism there was a strong sense, not just that Israel’s fortunes needed to change, but that Israel’s God needed to come back to his people, to the Temple. Ezekiel had described the divine glory leaving Jerusalem, and had prophesied that it would return to a rebuilt Temple, but nobody ever said they’d seen it happen. There is no scene anywhere in the literature of the period to correspond to Exodus 40, where the divine glory fills the newly constructed tabernacle, or 1 Kings 8, where the same thing happens to Solomon’s Temple.

If you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and obey it, and do what is right, then I will not make you suffer the diseases I sent on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.

The Book of Jasher is a historical book recommended by the Bible, and it is still in existence today. According to the text, it was written over 3,500 years ago, around the same time as the biblical book of Genesis. It covers the same time period as Genesis and Exodus but has twice as much information.

books. Clines’s (1978) ground-breaking work on the Pentateuch is one such study. Lamenting atomistic exegesis that cannot see the forest for the trees, he shows how the Pentateuch is bound together by a tripartite promise of God to Abraham: land, descendants and relationship. The different books treat the aspects of the one promise variously. Genesis stresses descendants; Exodus and Leviticus the relationship with God; and Numbers and Deuteronomy mainly land (Clines 1978: 45–60). As well as factors already mentioned, the zoom-lens features probably resulted from an overemphasis on philology