Reading for September 17th

 Read Exodus 34.17-35. In verses 19-20: On redeeming the firstborn, see comment on 13.13. In verse 24: To covet refers to the inner yearning and strong desire to take something that rightfully belongs to others, especially the poor and less powerful. In verse 29: Moses' unique and close relationship with God caused some of God's divine radiance or light to pass onto Moses. Thus, the skin of his face shone. In verse 33: Just as the cloud veiled the deity's fiery radiance or glory (24.15-18), so Moses put a veil on his face to shield the people from his own shinning radiance. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 16th

God reveals the divine character and makes a new covenant. In 34.1-35: This chapter represents a significant turning point in Exodus. Worship of the golden calf threatened Israel's relationship with God. However, Moses urges God to provide a deeper revelation of God's character. This deeper revelation (vv. 6-7) enabled a new covenant to be restored (vv. 10-11, 27-28). The new covenant repeats a number of laws given earlier in Exodus with an emphasis on not worshipping other gods and laws relating to the Exodus and the sabbath (vv. 12-26). 

 Read Exodus  34.1-16. In verse 4: Moses had broken the former tablets of stone when Israel worshipped the idol of the golden calf. Their idolatry threatened to destroy their relationship with God (32.19). In verses 6-7: These verses reflect important differences in the description of God's character when compared to a similar description in 20.5-6. The changes place more emphasis on God's mercy, grace, and forgiveness while still retaining the element of God's punishment for disobedience. In verse 13: Pillars of stone and sacred poles ("asherim") of wood were used in native Canaanite fertility religion in worshipping the god Baal and Asherah (Judg 6.25). . Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 15th

 Read Exodus 33.1-23. In 33.1-23: Moses seeks assurance of God's presence with Israel.  In verses 2-3: The Lord promises to send an angel, a subordinate divine messenger. However, God's own presence cannot go with Israel lest God's own holiness come in contact with and consume the stiff-necked people of Israel. In verses 5-6: The stripping of Israel's ornaments involves letting go of the jewelry Israel had stripped from the Egyptians (12.35-36). In verse 7: The tent of meeting reflects an older tradition of a tent or shrine in which the deity delivers oracles. Although the tent of meeting probably preceded the tabernacle tradition, the two came to be associated with one another (27.19-21). Moses pitches the tent of meeting far off from the camp rather than at its center in this interim time while God decides what to do with Israel (v. 5).The tent will eventually be located in the middle of the Israelite camp (Num 2.2). In verse14: God's words in Hebrew are literally "My presence will go" (not "with you"). God will go to Canaan but not "with" or "in the midst of" Israel because of its sin. In verse 16: Moses asks that God not only go to Canaan (v. 14), but Moses insists that God go with us or "in our midst." In v. 17, God relents and agrees to Moses' request. In verse 19: On the divine name Lord, see comment on 3.13-15. This verse and God's character revealed to Moses in 34.6-7 add new dimensions by accenting God's compassion and mercy. In 3.13-15, The Lord's name is "I will be who I will be." Here the name is I will be gracious to who I will be be gracious. In verses 20-23: A human could not look directly into the deity's face, for it would cause death (v. 20; see 3.6; Isa 6.5). However, Moses will see more of God than before, he will see God's back ((v.23). Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 14th

 Read Exodus 32.15-35. In verse 15: On the two tablets of the covenant, see comment on 31.18. In verse 17: Joshua is Moses' young assistant (23.13). In verse 19: Moses broke the stone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments (vv. 15-16). The act dramatized Israel's severe disobedience, which broke the formal relationship between God and the people. In verses 21-23; In contrasts to Moses, who takes responsibility and pleads with God on behalf of the people, Aaron blames the  people in order to escape his own responsibility for the rebellion. In verse 24: Aaron's version of the story suggests that the golden calf emerged by itself miraculously out of the fire. The earlier account clearly tells the real story: Aaron himself was the one responsible for making the golden calf (v. 4; see vv. 25, 35). In verses 26-29: the members of the tribe of Levi obey Moses. Thus Moses ordained or set them apart for the service of the Lord as priests. The ordination of the Levites occurs in Num 8. Numbers 16-18 suggests that the Levites will be subordinate to Aaron and the priests in his line. In verse 34: The Lord promises to send my angel, a subordinate divine messenger and commander, to lead Israel to Canaan (23.20, 23). This question will become whether, in addition to the angel, God's own divine presence will go in the midst of Israel to lead them (33.2-3). Comments or  Questions..

Reading for September 13th

 Israel worships a golden calf . In 32.1-35: Israel makes an idol in the form of a golden calf and worships it. This indeed violates the important prohibition in the Ten Commandments against worshipping other gods and making idols (20.3-4). The story has a parallel in a later account about King Jeroboam, who sets up golden calves at two worship sites in northern Israel (1 Kings 12.25-33). 

Read Exodus 32.1-14. In verses 2-3 The gulden rings presumably come from their gold jewelry given to the Israelites by the Egyptians when they fled Egypt (12.35-36). In verse 4: The calf of young bull was a common image for certain Canaanite gods. In verse 7: The Lord tells Moses that now the Israelites are your people. They are no longer God's people. In verse 10: The Lord plans to consume or completely destroy the Israelites for their disobedience. The Lord with then take Moses alone and make of him a great nation. That is the same promise God first made to Abraham (Gen 12.2). In verses 13-14: Moses pleads with God on behalf of the Israelites. Moses reminds God that they are your people (vv. 11, 12; see 33.13). To destroy Israel would to do harm to the Lord's international reputation (v. 12). it would also violate God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 13; see 6.2-8). God swore or made a promise to each of the ancestors in Genesis: Abraham (Gen 13.14-15), Isaac (Gen 26.3), and Jacob/Israel (Gen 28.13). Remarkably, Moses succeeds. The Lord changed his mind about destroying Israel. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 12th

 Read Exodus 31.12-18. In 31.12-18: God gives a concluding reminder of the sabbath commandment. Reference to the work on the tabernacle in the preceding section (31.1-11) occasions the reminder about the regular need to rest from work on the sabbath day (20.8-11). Like the tabernacle that sets apart a sacred time in the community, the sabbath sets apart sacred time in the ongoing life of the community. In verse 18: This action fulfills the promise God made to Moses in 24.12. The two tablets of stone will figure prominently in the next story of the golden calf. They will become signs of the breaking of the old covenant (32.15-16, 19) and the making of a new covenant (34.1, 4). Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 11th

 Read Exodus 30.1-31.11. In 30.1-31.11: The Lord gives instructions for other matters related to the priests and the worship sanctuary. In 30.10: Once a year would be the day of Atonement as specified in greater detail in Lev 16. In verses 11-13: The act of taking a census or counting the people for military or administrative purposes was believed to arouse the deity's anger, there by bringing on a plague (2 Sam 24.10). Thus each person had to pay a ransom or fee of half shekel in order to ward off the plague. Numbers 1.17-47records the first census taken of the Israelites in the wilderness In 31.2-6: The divine spirit (v. 3) fills the two skilled workers, Bezalel (v. 2) and Oholiab (v. 6), with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in their particular skills of artistry and construction. Comments or Questions..