Over the past ten weeks, we have heard and thought about various moments in the story of Moses, the reluctant prophet who came to stand tall in the stories told about the origins of Israel—Moses, the infant who was rescued by Egyptian women; Moses, who was called by God to lead his people to freedom; Moses, who received the Torah from God; Moses, who led the people through the wilderness for forty years;
Moses, who saw the promised land but died before he was able to enter that land. As the writer of Deuteronomy states, “never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut 34:10). Here are the blog posts I have made about this extended story of Moses and the Israelites.
Land rights. Land claims. Land has always been a bone of contention-in the past, as in the present. This week, the lectionary invites us to consider land. The Hebrew Scripture passage contains an important statement about land a land claim, as it were.
“This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob”, God declares to Moses in the last moments of his life (Deut 34:4), as he stands on Mount Nebo, surveying “the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain- that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees as far as Zohar” (Deut 34:1–3).
That land encompassed all the land of Canaan, which later becomes the land of Israel. It is the land which was in contention between different peoples long before the story of Moses was written on the scroll that became part of Torah.
That was most likely sometime before or during the period that Josiah ruled as king of Judah, when he commanded the high priest Hilkiah to undertake an audit of funds in the temple. We are told that, in the course of this audit, Hilkiah said to Shaphan his secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord” (2 Ki 22:8). That’s presumed to be the first version of what we know as Deuteronomy, which later found its place as the fifth of “the five Books of Moses”.
That same land, promised to Abraham, claimed by Moses, is in contention today. It has had a chequered history. The ancient land of Canaan eventually became the land of Israel, then (along with Judaea) part of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina (132–390), and then of the Diocese of the East in the Roman Empire (to 536). What followed the fall of the Roman Empire was a millennium and a half of Muslim rule of this land, first as a part of Bilad al-Sham, the Greater Syria region, under various Caliphates.
The region continued to be part of various organisational configurations under successive Muslim rule, on into the Ottoman Caliphate (from 1517) and then into the modern era. (I am not an expert, by any means, of this ancient and medieval history; for this summary, I am dependent on what I read in what I consider to be reputable sources.)
In the early 20th century, the place where Arabs identifying as Palestinians lived was decreed to be the British Mandate of Palestine (1920–1948). The ancient conflicts, it was hoped, would be well in the past. A place for Palestinians in the modern world was, it was thought, now settled.
But this was not to be, as we well know today.
In part in response to the horrors of the Shoah, exposed by the ending of World War Two, the modern state of Israel was created in 1948. The new nation took 78% of the area which had been provided for Palestinians in the British Mandate. That this was now Jewish territory was a blessing for Jews, but it was a huge irritant to Palestinian sensibilities, which has referred to the period from 1948 onwards as the Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe. In the early years of the Nakba, significant number of Palestinians fled the area declared as Israel, as (in one estimate) over 500 Palestinian villages were repopulated by Jews, becoming refugees with no national identity.
The contested regions of the Gaza Strip (along the east coastline of the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank (land immediately to the west of the River Iordan) became known as “the Palestinian Territories”.
Another irritant has been the fact that they have been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, and subsequent expansion of Israeli settlements into areas where Palestinians live has exacerbated the situation. And so those who were dispossessed become the dispossessors of others, and the cycle continues.
So when we hear, this coming Sunday, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob”, we can be sure that we know these territories; we know the conflicted situation in the modern era; and we know how the ancient texts describe and lay claim to Israelite “ownership” of the land.
When Abraham left his homeland to settle in Canaan (Gen 13:12) and when the Lord God later formalised a covenant with Abraham (then aged 99 years, we are told), the promise was made by God that “I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding” (Gen 17:8).
That same phrase, “a perpetual holding”, is subsequently spoken by Jacob, as he tells Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim of God’s words, “I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers; I will make of you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your offspring after you for a perpetual holding” (Gen 48:4).
That land, Canaan, is a problem that sits at the heart of the story that the Bible recounts in its early narrative books. It becomes a problem at the heart of life for the millions living in that region today, as I have outlined above. The biblical narrative tells of numerous battles leading to the defeat of many tribes: the Moabites (Judg 3:26–30) and the Ammonites to the east Judg 10:6–11:33), as well as “the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you” in the land (Deut 7:1; see also Josh 3:10; 12:8; 24:11), and also the Anakim (Josh 11:21–23).
Further, as recent events in Australia have powerfully reminded us, there is a problem right at the heart of the narrative that has been constructed about modern Australia. Our most recent failure even to accept a modest proposal to recognise the existence of First Peoples on the continent prior to 1788, is testimony to that problem. Although the First People of Australia were not completely destroyed and eliminated, they continue to be discriminated against in a multitude of ways.
Both the ancient Israelite narrative and the contemporar Australian narrative tell a story of a group of people who invade, conquer, massacre, colonise, settle, marginalise, and then claim as their own what had previously belonged to others who had long been there before them.
It’s a story, in both instances, that we need to hear, understand, and appreciate. We need to develop awareness of just how easily we adopt the victor’s point of view, and uncritically retell it, without thinking any more about the pain, hurt, anguish, and generations-long damage that was done, in each case.
That is hard to do. I am a white Australian, raised on the myths of the great Australian character, taught from my schooldays onwards about the glories of the British Empire and the values of western society. Understanding the situation of First Peoples in Australia takes time, focus, empathy, energy, and persistence.
And I am a Christian, raised on the stories of the Bible, taught from Sunday School onwards about the promises God made to the chosen people about the holy land that had been selected for them. Getting into the mindset of a people from so long ago, who have almost (but not quite) been written out of the story, is hard to do.
The story of the Hebrews entering the land of Canaan, battling the inhabitants and colonising the territory, lies underneath the whole story of Exodus, wilderness, and conquest, which is at the heart of the biblical narrative that accounts for the origins of Israel as a nation.
A specific set of stories which tell of that invasion and conquest is found in all its bloody detail in the book of Joshua. That book tells, in a highly stylised way, of the entry of the people of God into the promised land. It is a key incident in the extended narrative history that stretches from Genesis to 1 Kings, from slavery in Egypt, through the long haul of wilderness wanderings, to the establishment of the kingdom of Israel under King David.
That story has multiple historical problems, and needs to be understood as a mythological saga telling of the nature and identity of the people, rather than an accurate historical account of “what actually took place”. See
Invasion and colonisation, Joshua 3 and contemporary Australia (Pentecost 23A)
This ancient story of invasion, conquering, massacre, colonisation, settlement, marginalisation, and then the claiming as their own what had previously belonged to others, resonates strongly with the experience of indigenous peoples in so many places in the modern era of history-including, and especially, in Australia.
Time and time again, from late medieval times onwards, “explorers” set out from Western powers, “discovered” new lands, followed by “settlers” who came and established “civilisation”, most often by means of “subduing” the indigenous peoples, making them subservient to the “new order” and even, in many instances, punishing those who resisted their new ways, utilising various means of killing the indigenous peoples.
This is the dynamic at the heart of the story of “Israel entering the promised land” which is told in Ioshua. It is also at the heart of the story of “establishing British civilisation in the land of Australia” which is the story of the continent on which I live the land now called Australia. The imposition of a new way of living by a more powerful force, the subjugation of those who already were living in the land, and the use of violence and murder to ensure that the new order was maintained and could flourish all of this is in the history of Australia since 1788.
The story of invasion and settlement of Canaan, the defeat and decline of the various indigenous peoples of that land, resonates with the contemporary Australian experience of the indigenous peoples of the continent and its islands. Which gives us pause for thought: how, then, do we hear and understand that story recounted in Joshua, which is prefigured in this final chapter of Deuteronomy? What land claims do we accept from this ancient text? And how does that guide us, today, as we consider the land claims that are being made?
See also my discussion of the wav that biblical literalism has fed into the modern conflict over this land at
“Show me your glory, I pray”, Moses prays. It is a bold request. It is one to which God responds—although not in exactly the way that Moses hopes for. We hear the account of this request, and of God’s response, in the final passage (Exod 33:12–23) in the sequence of passages from Exodus that the lectionary has been offering during this series of Sundays after Pentecost.
After the incident we heard last Sunday—that involving the idolatry of the golden bull (Exod 32:1–35)—Moses now yearns to know that he has found favour with God: “if I have found favour in your sight”, he prays, “show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favour in your sight” (33:13).
In response, God promises that “my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (33:14), but Moses presses his case: “show me your glory, I pray” (33:18). Not just the divine presence, but the glory of God is what Moses seeks.
God does not respond exactly as Moses hoped for, saying that “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (33:19).
What the Lord affirms to Moses is subsequently echoed in the prayer that Moses offers Aaron and his sons: “the Lord bless you and keep you … and be gracious to you” (Num 6:22–27)—a ancient prayer which lives on in Christian spirituality and liturgy!
However, the Lord God stops short of full self-revelation, declaring, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (Exod 33:20). Moses is granted a view of God’s “back”, but is not able to see the face of God (33:23). Now, the Hebrew word here translated as “back” refers to the “hindquarters”—a polite way of saying that Moses saw only God’s exposed buttocks, rather than his smiling face. Almost every translation chooses the polite wording, “my back”. The King James Version comes closest to an honest translation with “my back parts”. We might best translate this verse as “you will see my backside, but not my face”.
Yet the request for God’s face to shine upon people is pressed in a number of psalms. “There are many”, says the psalmist, “who say, ‘O that we might see some good! Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!’” (Ps 4:6). In Psalm 31, the psalmist sings, “Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love” (Ps 31:16). Again in Psalm 67, the psalmist echoes more explicitly the Aaronic Blessing, praying, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us—Selah—that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations” (Ps 67:1–3).
The psalmist prays for God’s favour to be shown to the faithful people of Israel (Ps 90:17; 106:4; 119:58) and the ancestral sagas record that God showed favour to Noah (Gen 6:8), Joseph (Gen 39:4), Moses (Exod 33:12-17), the people in the wilderness (Lev 26:9), Samuel (1 Sam 2:26), Manasseh (2 Chron 33:12-13), and the remnant who returned to the land (Ezra 9:8). God’s gracious favour endures through the generations.
The favour of the Lord is manifested most often in “the glory of the Lord” which shines over Israel. Moses experiences this on the top of Mount Sinai, when “the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel” (Exod 24:16–18). That glory had already been seen by the Israelites in the wilderness of Sin (Exod 16:10), and that glory filled the tabernacle when the people had finished constructing it (Exod 40:34–35).
The closing verse of the book of Exodus notes that “the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey” (Exod 40:38). A number of other references to this are made throughout the books of the Torah (Lev 9:6, 23; Num 14:10; 16:19, 42; 20:6; Deut 5:24). This appears to have continued on until the ark of God was captured by the Philistines, for at that moment “the glory has departed from Israel” (1 Sam 4:21–22).
Centuries later, at the time that Solomon prayed his lengthy prayer of dedication of the newly-built Temple in Jerusalem, “when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10–11; 2 Chron 7:1–3).
The glory of the Lord was then closely associated with the Temple in ensuing centuries, as various psalms attest (Ps 24:3–10; 96:7–8). “O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides”, one psalmist sings (Ps 26:8); yet other psalms extend the location of God’s glory, exulting that it extends “over all the earth” (Ps 57:5, 11; 72:19; 102:15; 108:5) and even “above the heavens” (Ps 8:1; 19:1; 57:5, 11; 97:6; 108:5; 113:4; 148:13).
By the time of the prophet Isaiah, this wider scope of the glory of the Lord was sung by the seraphim in their song, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa 6:3), whilst a little later another voice sang that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14). During the Exile, another prophet, looking to the return of the people to the land of Israel, declared that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isa 40:5).
Another exilic prophet had a series of visions in which “the glory of the Lord” was seen (Ezek 1—39), culminating in a declaration by God that “I will display my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them” (Ezek 39:21), followed by a vision in which “the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east”, and at that time “the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the inner court; and the glory of the Lord filled the temple” (Ezek 44:4–5).
Later still, a prophetic voice during the time of return to the land declared to the people that “the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you; nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isa 60:2–3). And well after that, another prophet attributes to “one like a human being, coming with the clouds of heaven”, the gift of “dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Dan 9:13–14).
Another way that this vision of God was sought was through yearning for the ability to “see God face to face”. That’s what Moses experienced at Sinai (Deut 5:1–4), and what he experienced when he went out of the camp, to where the tent was pitched, for “ whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses … thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exod 33:7–11).
That’s what Jacob had experienced at the ford of the Jabbok (Gen 32:30). That’s what Moses continued to experience through the wilderness years (Num 12:7–8), as Moses reports: “you, O Lord, are seen face to face, your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night” (Num 14:14). Moses is remembered as unique amongst the prophets because he was one “whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut 34:10; see also,Sir 44:5).
Gideon was also privileged to see the angel of the Lord face to face (Judg 6:22), while Ezekiel tells Israel that God declares to them, “I will bring you out from the peoples … and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face” (Ezek 20:34–35).
And most strikingly and strategically of all, it was on the top of Mount Sinai that Moses had the most direct encounter with God of any in the ancestral sagas: “Moses came down from Mount Sinai; as he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Exod 34:29). It was said that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exod 33:11).
Paul draws on the scriptural idea of the divine glory when he writes to the Romans that “we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Rom 5:2), and that it is through the work of the Spirit which gives hope to the whole creation that it will “obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). He tells the Thessalonians that “God … calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess 2:12) and speaks of the life of believers as being “sown in dishonour … raised in glory” (1 Cor 15:43).
So Paul advises the Corinthians, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31), and later on tells them that “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).
And Paul celebrates that God “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6), rejoicing that Jesus “will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself” (Phil 3:21).
Later writers pick up on this motif of believers sharing in the glory of God. Writing in the name of Paul, one affirms that “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27), while another declares that that God “called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 2:14). Another writer speaks of God “bringing many children to glory” through Jesus (Heb 2:10), yet another celebrates that God will “make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing” (Jude 24).
This, of course, leads into the notion in later Christian theology that heaven can be described as the place of glory—the place where James and John wish to be seated alongside Jesus (Mark 10:37), the place where believers are raised (1 Cor 15:43), the place where faithful elders will “win the crown of glory that never fades away” (1 Pet 5:4), the place where the place where Jesus himself is ultimately “taken up in glory” (1 Tim 3:16).
And that glory was most clearly seen, one writer maintains, in Jesus, when “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). For the author of John’s Gospel, the full manifestation of heaven (glory) was made on earth, in Jesus, who was God’s only son, “who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18).
“You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob” (Ps 99:4). So the psalmist sings, in the psalm offered by the lectionary for this coming Sunday. Noting that leaders of the past have called out to God and been answered—Moses, Aaron, and Samuel (99:6)—the psalmist praises God, “you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings” (99:8).
In this psalm it is the king, the “Mighty King, lover of justice [who has] established equity” (99:4), whose “royal scepter is a scepter of equity” (Ps 45:6), modelled on the Lord God himself, who “judges the world with righteousness [and] judges the peoples with equity” (Ps 9:8; see also 67:4; 75:2; 96:10; 98:9). Accordingly, King David is remembered as the one who “administered justice and equity to all his people” (2 Sam 8:15; 1 Chron 18:14), and the opening words of the book of wisdom attributed to King Solomon are “love righteousness, you rulers of the earth, think of the Lord in goodness and seek him with sincerity of heart” (Wisd Sol 1:1).
Divine justice is regularly noted in tandem with God’s mercy forgiveness. “Great is your mercy, O Lord; give me life according to your justice” (Ps 119:156); and “in your steadfast love hear my voice; O Lord, in your justice preserve my life” (Ps 119:149). The prophet Isaiah tells the rebellious people of his day, “the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you—for the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him” (Isa 30:18).
Likewise, through the prophet Hosea, the Lord God promises to Israel, “I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy” (Hos 2:19), whilst centuries later, Ezekiel reminds the exiles of God’s pledge: “I say to the righteous that they shall surely live, yet if they trust in their righteousness and commit iniquity, none of their righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall die” (Ezek 33:13). Justice and mercy belong hand-in-hand, as yet another prophetic voice declares as the exiles are returning to the land: “in my wrath I struck you down, but in my favour I have had mercy on you” (Isa 60:10).
God’s mercy sat at the heart of the covenant made with Israel; the Lord affirms to Moses, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exod 33:19). So in the longest psalm, declaring persistent praise of the Law, the psalmist offers the petition, “let your mercy come to me, that I may live, for your law is my delight” (Ps 119:77). A number of other psalms likewise contain petitions God to show mercy (Ps 25:6; 40:11; 51:1; 69:16; 123:3).
Jesus, centuries later, brings together mercy and justice when he accuses the scribes and the Pharisees of hypocrisy, as they “neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matt 23:23).
Justice, of course, is at the heart of the covenant that God made with Israel. Moses is said to have instructed, “justice, and only justice, you shall pursue” (Deut 16:20), the king is charged with exhibiting justice (Ps 72:1–2; Isa 32:1), whilst many prophets advocate for justice (Isa 1:17; 5:7; 30:18; 42:1–4; 51:4; 56:1; Jer 9:24; 22:3; 23:5; 33:15; Ezek 18:5–9; 34:16; Dan 4:37; Hos 12:6; Amos 5:15, 24; Mic 3:1–8; 6:8).
That God is righteous is likewise declared in scripture (Deut 32:4; Ps 145:7; Job 34:17). The psalmists regularly thank God for God’s righteousness (Ps 5:8; 7:17; 9:8; 33:5; 35:24, 28; 36:6; 50:6; etc) and note the importance of humans living in that same way of righteousness (Ps 18:20, 24; 85:10–13; 106:3, 31; 112:1–3, 9).
The book of Proverbs advises that the wisdom it offers is “for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity” (Prov 1:3) and the prophets consistently advocated for Israel to live in accordance with righteousness (Hos 10:12; Amos 5:24; Isa 1:22; 5:7; 28:17; 32:16–17; 54:14; Jer 22:3; Ezek 18:19–29; Dan 9:24; 12:3; Zeph 2:3; Mal 4:1–3; Hab 2:1–4).
This psalm thus focusses some important elements in the Israelite understanding of God, summarising notes from many places elsewhere in Hebrew Scriptures. These recurring notes of the nature of God then form the basis for a Christian understanding of Jesus, who affirms mercy (Matt 23:23), teaches righteousness (Matt 5:6, 10, 20; 6:33), offers forgiveness (Mark 2:10; Luke 23:34; 1 John 1:9), and exudes grace (John 1:14–18). The affirmation made in this ancient Jewish psalm is one that we Christians can joyfully sing and affirm!
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Since I wrote this blog post, the situation in the Middle East has erupted once again. My reflections in the early stages of the present inflammation of that conflict is at
The psalm which is offered for this coming Sunday (an excerpt from Psalm 106) was surely chosen to complement the reading from Exodus offered by the lectionary. The first cluster of verses from this psalm (Ps 106:1–6) invite us to praise the Lord, for God’s “steadfast love endures forever” (v.1). The Lord is one who is able to show favour to people, to deliver them, and to grant prosperity to “his chosen ones” (vv.4–5).
The final verse of this selection offers a contrast, noting that “both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly” (v.6), before the second selection of verses (vv.19–23) recounts the famous episode of sinful behaviour by Israel, known popularly as “the Golden Calf episode”—which is what is told in the narrative of Exodus 32, the Hebrew Scripture reading for this coming Sunday (Exod 32:1–14).
This story most likely relates to the god who was regarded as the head of the gods amongst the Canaanites—El, who was often depicted as a bull. The bull was the strongest animal in the ancient farmyard, and thus a fitting symbol for a powerful god. The Israelites chose to imitate that god through their golden construction. The story told in Exodus 32 and summarised in Ps 106:19–23 mocks the Canaanite god, depicting him as more like a calf.
By adopting a Canaanite symbol, the Israelites had turned from God (v.21). It seems they would deserve their fate—although Moses interceded and saved them from divine wrath (v.23). Moses is the hero who stands in the breach, to convince God to change God’s mind. This is a difficult statement, worth pondering further. What sort of god wishes to wreak savage wrath on people? And also, what kind of god is one who changes their mind in response to human petition? Both aspects challenge elements of classic theological understandings of God.
The language of the wrath of God “burning hot” (vv.10, 11, 22) resonates with the constant prophetic warning that God will use fire to destroy people and places because of their sinfulness (Isa 1:7; 5:24; 30:27–28, 30, 33 18–19; Jer 4:4; 6:27–30; 20:47–48; Hos 8:14; Joel 2:1–3; Amos 1:4—2:5; Nah 1:15). Zephaniah portrays utter devastation through divine judgement: “neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath; in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed” (Zeph 1:18). That is an intense fire indeed!
However, the final prophet in the Christian Old Testament, Malachi, reworks this imagery, offering some hope; God’s messenger on The Day of the Lord “is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness” (Mal 3:1–4).
The references to good and silver in these prophetic oracles sits interestingly in juxtaposition to the Exodus story, in which Aaron “took the gold [from the ears of the people], formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf” (Exod 32:4), before he “built an altar before it” and proclaimed, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord” (v.5).
So the people gladly “offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being” on that altar. The burnt offerings mimick the daily burnt offerings (Exod 29:42), where the Lord God promises “I will meet with you, to speak to you there; I will meet with the Israelites there, and it shall be sanctified by my glory” (Exod 29:42–43). The sacrifices of well-being recall “the burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord” made during the ceremony to ratify the covenant (Exod 24:5).
The people, under the leadership of Aaron, are deliberately imitating key components of the worship of the Lord God, but in this instance, they are worshipping an idol made with their own hands—in direct disobedience to the commandment “not [to] make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exod 20:4).
And so, having offered their sacrifices, “the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel” (v.6). But not so God, for as he had warned the people, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me” (Exod 20:5). God will not let this transgression pass; as he says to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are; now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (Exod 32:10).
A number of psalms reflect the desire for God to punish evildoers severely; “pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them” is the cry of one psalm (Ps 69:24). Another psalm notes the vengeance of God—“in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth” (Ps 58:2)—and suggests that “the righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked” (Ps 58:10). The graphic picture of a furious God intent on wreaking damage raises difficult theological questions for us as we read such passages.
The image of fiery punishment comes from the story of Daniel (Dan 3:1–30) and appears again in the last book of the New Testament, where the prophet describes his visions of “the lake of fire that burns with sulfur” (Rev 19:20; 20:10, 14–15), also described as “the second death” (Rev 20:14; 21:8). It is there that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet “will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20:10).
In the Gospel of Matthew, in particular, eternal punishment in a fiery furnace features also in the words of Jesus, as he threatens sinners with “the furnace of fire” (Matt 13:43, 50; 25:41), a place of “eternal fire” (Matt 18:8; 25:41), “the hell of fire” (Matt 5:22; 18:9). This builds on the warnings found in Mark’s Gospel about the punishment in store for those who put stumbling blocks in the way of “these little ones”—they will be condemned to “the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:42–48). These warnings are repeated by Jesus in Matt 18:6–9.
So Jesus follows the prophetic and narrative insistence, in Hebrew Scripture, on the judgement of God being rightly expressed when sinfulness abounds. And the story of Aaron and the golden calf is a clear demonstration of God’s intent to exact punishment.
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But the story takes a turn, when Moses mounts a passionate plea to God, asking for the divine fury to be turned away from the sinful people. Invoking the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses implores, “turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people” (Exod 32:12–13).
In this week’s commentaries in With Love to the World, my friend Jione Havea has offered an incisive insight into this story as recounted in Exodus 32. He writes as follows:
The plot is straightforward: Israel complained to Aaron that Moses has disappeared for too long, Aaron organized a golden calf as their God, the Lord became angry and decided to wipe Israel off, Moses appealed for Israel’s sake, and “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (32:14). The Lord reconsidered, and changed their mind.
Previously, in Exodus 2:23–25, God had changed their mind and re-membered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In that instance, God responded to the groans and cries of the people. There is a comparable event in Nineveh: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them” (Jonah 3:10).
In the case of Nineveh, the people changed God’s mind on the basis of their own actions (Jonah 3:5) and agenda (Jonah 3:9); in the golden calf episode, Moses interceded on behalf of Israel. The story line is the same: God changed their mind. Change of mind (read: repentance) is not evidence of weakness in the character of God. Rather, it is evidence of being present, and of honouring the Tongan quality of va (relationship) over against immutable doctrines. We are called to do likewise.
And so, in the story, as he saw the golden calf at base camp, Moses burned in anger—because of the people, and because his own brother Aaron played a key role in their going astray. He was so angry that he broke the tablets of the covenant that the Lord godself wrote. The Lord repented (v.14) but Moses revenged (vv.19–20). He burned and grounded the golden calf into water, and made the people drink it. And he ordered the sons of Levi to kill people—whether “your brother, your friend, and[or] your neighbour”—who were NOT on the Lord’s side (v.27).
The Lord changed their mind—but to the opposite effect. This time, the Lord decided to blot out the people who sinned against the Lord (v.33). Because of the golden calf sinners, the Lord sent a plague (v.35). This time, divine repentance led to destruction—echoing the divine repentance that led to the flood (see Gen 6:5–7).
These stories show that the Lord’s book may have been written (cf. Exod 32:33), but it has not been closed. The Lord may still change their mind, and there is no guarantee that it will be for the reparation of covenant or for the destruction of people. Caveat emptor.
I am watching the events in Israel with deep sadness and high apprehension. The simmering hotspot of the Middle East has erupted, yet again, in a vicious and worrying way.
I am not a political expert, although I have watched the sequence of events in that region for decades, reading a lot at different times about what has been going on. I don’t really have any connection with Palestinians, but have had quite a lot to do with Jews in Australia over the decades of my ministry, from local contacts with rabbis in neighbouring synagogues through to membership of my church’s national dialogue group with the Jewish People.
I have also been a member of working groups that prepared resources for the national Assembly to consider as they reflected on the relationship that the Uniting Church has with Jewish people, including a paper presented to the 1997 Assembly and then further work which resulted in the Statement on Jews and Judaism which the 2009 Assembly adopted.
That 2009 Statement included an affirmation “that the State of Israel and a Palestinian State each have the right to live side by side in peace and security” (#15), and an encouragement to the members and councils of the UC “to pray and work for a just and lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians” (#24). Both of these clauses hold good in the current situation.
Just over a decade ago, the then Assembly President, the Rev. Alistair Macrae, launched a set of resources, Prayer for Peace, which provided practical and prayerful ways of working for peace in the Middel East. He said, “The pursuit of peace is at the core of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We echo his words when we share the greeting ‘peace be with you’ with members of our worshipping congregations each week. Jesus expresses the centrality of peacemaking in the Beatitudes; he preaches that peacemakers will be the children of God (Matt 5:9).”
The President continued, “Our commitment to being peacemakers takes us down many paths to peace. It’s our responsibility and imperative to explore all options that could bring about peace in our hearts, our homes, our communities and in our world.”
I think that many of the suggestions in this resource also hold good today, including the Prayer For Peace In Palestine which was provided by a National Working Group set up at that time:
“God of peace, we pray for peace in Palestine, the land where the Prince of Peace walked long ago; Let there be an end to the cycle of violence and vengeance that has prevailed there for so long; Let there be an end to the frequent killing and maiming of people, victims of hate and prejudice; Let there be an end to all political agendas that justify and prolong the conflict. God of peace, hear our prayer.
“Bring justice for all the people of Palestine regardless of race, culture or religion; Sustain the courage and determination of all those who work for peace and keep them strong in the face of threats and persecution; Establish such mutual respect and harmony between Christians and Muslims that they will live and work together for the sake of all. God of peace, hear our prayer.
“Keep our own hearts and minds free from fear and prejudice; Help us to be instruments of your peace where we are. God of peace, hear our prayer.”
That is one thing that we can do, at this time: pray for peace.
There’s another dimension to the current situation that I think bears some consideration. That is the reality of the current political situation, that the lands in the region currently claimed as the modern state of Israel are contested lands, with both Palestinians and Jews laying claim to that area as their ancient ancestral lands.
Whilst there is contention about these claims, there is one matter that I believe merits thoughtful consideration. The claim made by the hard-line right in Israel—reflected in the boundaries of the current state of Israel, including the occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights—rests on certain biblical texts which, with an ideologically-based orientation, indicate that “God gave this land to the people of Israel”.
In particular, the large extent of land in view under this claim rests on the biblical description of the territory ruled under Solomon, the much-venerated and highly-valorised king of the United Kingdom of Israel around three millennia ago, in a number of texts in the so-called historical narratives of Hebrew Scripture. Whilst those books might look in many ways like historical narratives, we should take care not to assume that contemporary understandings of history can be easily applied to those passages from antiquity.
The land that the biblical texts claim was ruled by King Solomon, from Egypt to the Euphrates
In considering these texts, we should begin by noting that the way that Solomon is presented in the Hebrew Scriptures can only be characterised by the term “hyperbolic exaggeration”. It is not an authentic historical depiction of the man; it is a hagiography. Indeed, the actual existence of Solomon in historical reality (in contrast to being a literary character in the Bible) is highly questionable. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, writing in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (Simon and Schuster, 2001), claim that “The glorious epic of the united monarchy was — like the stories of the patriarchs and the sagas of the Exodus and conquest — a brilliant composition that wove together ancient heroic tales and legends into a coherent and persuasive prophecy for the people of Israel in the seventh century BCE.”
In the story told in the biblical text, King Solomon was said to have “excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. Every one of [those kings] brought silver and gold, so much, year by year.” (2 Chron 9:22–24). That’s quite a claim!
This wonderfully wise, insightful, discerning man, Solomon—bearing a name derived from the Hebrew for peace, “shalom”—became a powerhouse in the ancient world, we are told. But he did not always live as a “man of peace”. Indeed, the narrative indicates that he used his 4,000 horses and chariots and 12,000 horsemen to good effect; we read that “he ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt.” (2 Chron 9:26; also 1 Ki 4:21). This was the extent of land that had been promised to Abraham (Gen 15:18), and it was more than any other ruler of Israel, before or after him.
So Solomon was remembered as king over the greatest expanse of land claimed by Israel in all of history. Solomon was a warrior. And warrior-kings were powerful, tyrannical in their exercise of power, ruthless in the way that they disposed of rivals for the throne and enemies on the battlefield alike. Think Alexander the Great. Think Charlemagne. Think Genghis Khan. Think William the Conqueror. This is an integral part of the heritage that the story of Solomon bequeathed to Israel: the memory of an aggressive, dominating ruler, lording it over the region. Even though the modern state of Israel doesn’t have a king, this is an image that is being acted out today, in the politics of the region.
Solomon reigned for 40 years—a long, wealthy, successful time—although “forty years” in the biblical narrative should not be understood to be a precise time, but more a statement that this was “a long, extended time”. Solomon exemplifies the model of kingship which survives through into the modern era. We expect kings to rule. We expect them to invade and enforce and dominate, for that is the heritage passed on. (And I won’t comment on Solomon’s marital relationships; I will leave 1 Kings 11:3 to speak for itself!)
This exaggerated, idealised view of things is evident in so many ways in the portrayal of Solomon, who was seen to be filled with “wisdom and knowledge”, and granted “riches, possessions, and honour, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like” (2 Chron 1:7–12, especially verses 10 and 12).
It is also worth noting that the large reach of land that Solomon ruled over, even more extensive than the oft-cited phrase “from Dan to Beersheba” (Judg 20:1; 1 Sam 3:20; 2 Sam 3:10; 17:11; 24:2, 15; 1 Ki 4:25; 1 Chron 21:2; 2 Chron 30:5), did not continue past his death. The hagiographical exaggeration of territory under Solomon is not noted in the period after his death. The narrative books that recount the stories of the kingdoms of Israel, in the north, and Judah, in the south, in the centuries after Solomon, indicate that the scope of those kingdoms was more constrained.
In the light of this, I don’t think it is responsible to lay claim to the whole, extended territory of the land, from the biblical passages noted, as the scope for the modern state of Israel which was created in 1948. I therefore have sympathy for Palestinians who have lived on the land for thousands of years prior to 1948, as they understand this to be their ancestral land.
I also have sympathy for Jews, both those living in the land of Israel today, as well as those living in diaspora, for whom the land of Israel has a powerful symbolic significance—especially since the Shoah of 1933—1945 and the terrible genocide perpetrated by the Nazis against Jews in so many countries during that period. Granting them land in the area where their ancestors long ago had lived, a homeland that gives them security in the modern world, is important and necessary.
That said, I don’t agree that Palestinians should take matters into their own hands to seek vengeance against people in Israel in the way that they have done, once again, in recent days. In the same manner, nor do I think that the Israeli forces should respond in the aggressive and violent manner that they have done, once again, in recent days. Too many people are dying and being injured, making any possible progress towards peace with justice even more difficult each day.
We need to seek once more the peace of these peoples. And we need to find that peace on the basis of justice. Neither terrorist attacks nor military crackdowns will achieve this. They will simply exacerbate a dangerous situation.
“Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:14). “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matt 5:9). “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deut 16:20). “… the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced …” (Mat 23:23).
The Hebrew Scripture reading for this coming Sunday contains a set of well-known words—the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1–20), given to Moses on Mount Sinai, for him to take down to the people of Israel as their set of guidelines for faithful living within the covenant. That covenant was sealed by God and Moses in the previous chapter (19:1–8).
These words set the pattern for life that the Israelites are to follow. They accept and commit to this way of life, declaring “everything the Lord has spoken we will do” (19:8). Those Ten Commandments are then followed by multiple other commands for living (20:22—23:19). It is these commands that the people are instructed to live by, to which they again make their commitment: “all the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (24:3).
Moses then confirms this in a very public way: he arranged for “burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen [to be] offerings of well-being to the Lord”, as well as dashing half of the blood from those offerings against the altar he had constructed (24:5–6).
Then we read that Moses “took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient’” (24:7)—and the remaining half of the blood from the offerings was dashed on the people, who are told “see, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (24:8).
What do we make of these familiar words? The Ten Commandments are probably one of the most well-known passages in Hebrew Scripture—even if most people would struggle to identify the specific requirements of all ten of the commandments. It’s more “the vibe of the thing” that we recall, rather than the precise words.
Here are ten things about these Ten Commandments that help us to understand and appreciate their significance—both in Judaism, the religion that developed from ancient Israelite practices, as well as in Christianity, which appropriated the stories, songs, oracles, and teachings of Judaism as the foundation for its own development.
1. The description of these commandments. In Judaism, this collection of ten commands is known as the Aseret ha-Dibrot, a Hebrew phrase often translated by Jews today as “Ten Statements” or “Ten Declarations”. This is how this collection of “the words of the covenant” are described at Exod 34:28 (and again at Deut 4:13; 10:4). The second word in that phrase is simply “word”—so we might well think of these ten statements as “Ten Words” spoken by God to provide guidance and instruction to the Israelites.
2. The two versions of these Ten Words. The first version of these words is what we have in Exodus 20. (The lectionary edits the selection offered, omitting verses 5–6 and 10–11, to shorten some of the longer parts.) The second version appears in Deuteronomy 5. There are many similarities between the two versions, although the Deut 5 version is longer. One noteworthy difference is the instruction relating to the sabbath; “remember the sabbath day” (Exod 20:8), contrasted with “observe the sabbath day” (Deut 5:12). The difference in the verb is a just slight nuance of difference.
3. Two tablets of stone. Moses is given “two tablets of stone” by God, who informs him that they contain “the law (torah) and the commandment (mitsvah), which I have written for their instruction (horotam, from yara)” (24:12). The Hebrew words used here are part of a larger group of terms which describe all the instructions given throughout the first five books of scripture, the Torah. These tablets are later described as having been written “by the finger of God” (31:8), noting also that “the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets” (32:6).
These two tablets are the ones that are notoriously broken by Moses in his anger when he discovers that the Israelites, in his absence, had made an image of a golden calf (32:19). This leads to the production of a replacement set of stone tablets, which Moses himself wrote under God’s instructions (34:1–4, 28).
These two tablets have most likely influenced the interpretation of the Ten Words as comprising one set of words in which the orientation is towards God (“you shall have no other gods … you shall not make an idol … you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God … remember the sabbath day”, 20:2–11) and a second set oriented towards other humans (“honour your father and your mother, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbour, [and] you shall not covet”, 10:12–17). This, in turn, may have been an influence on the later rabbinic exposition (taken up by Jesus) of the Law as requiring love of God and love of neighbour (see Mark 12:28–31 and parallels).
4. How many laws do we have to remember? The natural desire to summarise and synthesise long lists into shorter, more readily remembered lists, may well account for the desire, in this encounter between Jesus and the scribe, to reduce all the commands to two. But there were other aspects involved in this process.
The Rabbis observed that the Torah, the first five books of scripture, actually contain 613 commandments (mitzvoth). There are 248 positive commands (“you shall …”) and 365 negative commands, or prohibitions (“you shall not …”). Collectively, these are known as mitzvoth, commandments; they comprise the Torah, the Law. In strict Jewish households, every one of them must be carefully observed.
However, the Babylonian Talmud (b. Makkoth 23b—24a) reports a rabbinic sermon in which various texts were cited in an attempt to make it easier to remember the central principles of the Torah. Rabbi Simlai declared that David reduced the 613 laws to eleven, citing Psalm 15. After him, Isaiah came, and found the basis in six commandments, quoting Isaiah 35:15-16.
Then the famous Micah triplet is cited, involving just three laws, “do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8); before a later section of Isaiah is cited, noting that it proposed just two laws, “maintain justice, and do what is right” (Isa 56:1). Finally, Rabbi Simlai said there was an even shorter way to remember all the laws, and he cited Amos 5:4 as a single command: “seek me and live”.
Rabbi Nahman bar Isaac, however, proposed another prophetic text which provides one statement that summarises the Torah: “the righteous person lives by their faith” (Hab 2:4). This verse, of course, is familiar to Christians from Paul’s citation of it at Rom 1:17 and Gal 3:11.
Another way to summarise the Law is offered by the story of Rabbi Hillel, who is approached by a Gentiles seeking to convert to Judaism. Hillel says to the enquirer, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!” (b.Shabbat 31a). In like manner, when he was asked “which commandment is the most important of all?” (Mark 12:28), Jesus replies by citing two simple words: to love God (Deut 6:5) and to love neighbour (Lev 19:18).
5. Reading these words regularly. The Ten Words are read in full three times each year in Jewish synagogues. Jews follow a one-year lectionary, in which every verse in the first five books of scripture (the Torah, or the Five Books of Moses) is read in sabbath service during the course of the year. The weekly readings (called parashot, or “portions”) begin with Gen 1 and conclude with Deut 34. (The Jewish calendar follows the lunar cycle, and so it has 12 months of 29 or 30 days each, with an extra month added seven times every nineteen years. It’s complicated!)
So the Exodus passage is heard in the week when Exod 18:1—20:23 is read; and later in the year, the Deuteronomy version is heard, when Deut 3:23—7:11 is read. The Ten Words are also read at the Feast of Shavuot, which in the Jewish cycle of festivals is when the giving of the Law (the Ten Words) is remembered.
6. Quoted in the New Testament. The various commandments of these Ten Words are quoted in assorted New Testament passages. Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel, affirms that all of the Law holds good; he comes to fulfil, not abolish, the Law (Matt 5:17). In the Sermon on the Mount, he specifically interprets—and intensifies—commands relating to murder and adultery, as well as not using God’s name in vain (Matt 5: 21–37).
Elsewhere in this Gospel, Jesus reinforces the importance of honouring parents (Matt 15:14) and of keeping this and further Words (murder, adultery, stealing, and lying, Matt 19:18). Paul likewise affirms that “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” and “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:8–10). In that passage, he cites four of the Ten Words (those relating to adultery, murder, stealing, and covetousness).
Earlier in the letter, he has referred to those words relating to stealing, adultery, and idol worship (Rom 2:21–22). Worshipping God, the first Word, is commended at Matt 4:10 and Luke 4:8; avoiding idol worship is advocated in the letter of the Jerusalem Church (Acts 15:20) and by Paul (1 Cor 6:9–10). The Sabbath is kept by Jesus (Luke 4:16) and Paul (Acts 17:2), as well as at Heb 4:9. Covetousness is condemned by Jesus (Luke 12:15) and Paul (Rom 7:7–11). So all ten of these Ten Words are affirmed in the New Testament—some on a number of occasions.
7. Numbering the list of ten. Judaism, unlike Catholicism and Protestantism, considers “I am the Lord, your God” to be the first “commandment”. Catholicism, unlike Judaism and Protestantism, considers coveting property to be separate from coveting a spouse. Protestantism, unlike Judaism and Catholicism, considers the prohibition against idolatry to be separate from the prohibition against worshipping other gods. No two religions agree on a single way to divide this stream of words into a list of ten distinct commands. So whose list should we follow?
8. Torah as a gift. To the Israelites of the past, as well as to Jews of today, the Torah is experienced as a gift which enriches their lives, not as a crass demand which weighs them down. The relationship that the people of Israel had with God was signalled in the Covenant that is offered to them. Exodus reports that the Lord spoke to Moses, “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples—indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exod 19:5–6).
The Covenant is an outworking of this deep and abiding relationship between God and God’s people. That Covenant was not an idealised or abstract idea; it was known and expressed in each of the 613 laws contained within the Hebrew Scriptures. So the Law was considered to be a gift to the people, to be celebrated and valued as much as to be kept (Ps 19:7–11, 40:8, 119:97–104, 169–176). These Ten Words thus play a vital role in the shaping of society so that we live in ways that keep us in covenant relationship with God.
9. The basis of ethics. The Ten Words have formed a solid foundation for ethical principles, not just in Judaism and Christianity, but in wider societies more generally. During the early centuries of the church, these commandments are referenced in various documents, including the second century Didache, and they came to occupy their place in the developing catechism of the church, as Augustine of Hippo indicates in his Questions on Exodus.
The medieval scholastic, Thomas Aquinas, declared in his Summa Theologiae that these commandments provided “the primary precepts of justice and all law, and natural reason gives immediate assent to them as being plainly evident principles”. In his Institutes of the Christian Faith, Jean Calvin provides a detailed consideration of the Ten Commandments. He writes that “God has so depicted his character in the law that if any man [sic.] carries out in deeds whatever is enjoined there, he will express the image of God, as it were in his own life … it would be therefore a mistake for anyone to believe that the law teaches nothing but some rudiments and preliminaries of righteousness by which men [sic.] begin their apprenticeship, and does not also guide them to the true goal, good works.”
Their influence continues into 21st century societies across the globe. Writing in the Desert News (a conservative LDS publication), Paul Edwards proposes that “as long as people yearn for a cohesive and cooperative society that supports familial ties, secures the integrity of personhood and property, shuns petty jealousies and violence, and seeks to treat all alike in the eyes of social authority and before God, then the Ten Commandments — which accomplish these and much more — will continue to be inescapably relevant.”
10. The last word on the Ten Words relates to the last of these ten commandments. It is a curiosity not often commented on—but this last command indicates that these words are directed towards the males in the community, not to everyone, males and females alike. The final command specifies that a person “shall not covet your neighbour’s wife”, and the wording used clearly indicates that these words are directed towards males. It doesn’t say, “you shall not covet your neighbor’s husband”—which is the first indication that the instruction is directed towards men.
Further, we might note that Hebrew is a language in which gender can be indicated in the choice of words; and in this instance, every time the possessive pronoun “your” appears in this commandment, each of those possessive pronouns are masculine. It is your (male) neighbour’s house, your (male) neighbour’s wife, your (male) neighbour’s slave or ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your (male) neighbour.
And it is noteworthy that there are feminine words used in this commandment (wife and maidservant), so the distinction is being drawn with intention and care. It is the male who possesses house and male slave and ox and donkey, as well as female slave and wife—all are possessions of the male. Which is only to be expected in the patriarchal culture in which these commandments were articulated.
And so, as we hear these Ten Words this coming Sunday, there are many things for us to reflect on!
The psalm that is offered by the lectionary for this coming Sunday (Psalm 19) contains some very well-known phrases. It deals with the way that we know God, and know about God—through creation, and through scripture. Those two “ways of knowing” form the basis for the later theological development of the notions of “natural revelation” (that we can know about God by observing the world around us) and “scriptural revelation” (that we can know about God by reading and studying the scriptures).
However, in this psalm, although there are two clearly delineated sections (verses 1–6 and 7–13) with a concluding verse 14, there are overlaps and connections between those two sections. Howard Wallace notes that “there are certain connections between the [two] parts of the psalm: word connections (e.g. ‘hid’ and ‘hide’ in vv. 6 and 12; ‘heart’ in vv. 8 and 14) … also the theme of ‘speech’ ties the psalm together (e.g. in vv. 1, 2, and 14, and presumed in the words ‘precepts’ and ‘commandments’)”. He concludes that “these connections invite us to consider the psalm as a unity with the meaning of the whole greater than the sum of the parts.”
Creation is the focus in the first six verses. The psalmist’s view is fixed on “the heavens”, which are “telling the glory of God” (v.1). In those heavens the Lord “has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy” (v.4–5)—clearly a description of the daily movement of the sun across the sky (from our perspective), from east to west, as verse 6 then elucidates.
In other psalms, the psalmist praises God for the heavens as the place where “you have set your glory above the heavens” (Ps 8:1); as a consequence, “the Lord has established his throne in the heavens” (Ps 103:19). By contrast with earthly idols—deaf, dumb, blind, immobile, mute—“God is in the heavens” (Ps 115:3–7; 123:1), from where he blesses the house of Israel (Ps 115:12–13).
So a recurrent refrain is, “your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds” (Ps 36:5; 57:10; 108:4). “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth” is another repeated prayer (Ps 57:5, 11; 108:5). In the same mode, another psalm rejoices that “your power and your righteousness, O God, reach the high heavens” (Ps 71:19).
However, another psalm declares that God “thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice; and he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings, and routed them” (Ps 18:13–14). These natural elements, in the view of this psalmist, reflect the righteous judgement of the Lord—a view that we would distance ourselves from, today. (See also Ps 50:4–6; 76:7–9.)
By contrast, the rain that poured forth from the heavens when the people of Israel were in the wilderness “restored your heritage when it languished … in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy” (Ps 68:7–10). So the heavens can be the source of nourishment and refreshment, as another psalm affirms: “he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; he rained down on them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven” (Ps 78:23–29).
Along with “the moon and the stars that you have established”, the heavens are seen to be “the work of your fingers” (Ps 8:3). “The Lord made the heavens” (Ps 96:5), “the heavens are yours, the earth also is yours”, other psalms offer, declaring that “the world and all that is in it—you have founded them” (Ps 89:11). It is “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made”, the psalmists sing (Ps 33:6; 102:25; 136:5), providing a bridge which connects both the heavens and the Law of the Lord, as in Psalm 19. Both the creation and the scriptures are the Lord God speaking to humanity.
The Law of the Lord is what shapes the second part of the psalm (verses 7–14). Those verses contain a ringing affirmation of the Torah as “perfect, reviving the soul … sure, making wise the simple … right, rejoicing the heart … clear enlightening the eyes … pure, enduring forever … true and righteous altogether … more to be desired than gold … sweeter also than honey” (Ps 19:7–14).
The terms used here in parallel to describe Torah (law, decrees, precepts, commandment, fear, ordinances) are found regularly in the narrative books to describe the collection of laws (Deut 8:11; 11:1; 1 Ki 2:3; 6:12; 8:58; 2 Ki 17:34–37; 1 Chron 22:13; 28:17; Neh 9:13; 10:29) as well as right throughout Psalm 119. See
Such affirmations of Torah sound out insistently throughout the majestically grand doublets of the 176 verses which are artistically-arranged into acrostic stanzas of Psalm 119 (“happy are those … who walk in the way of the Lord … I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight”, vv.1, 174). This psalm indicates that the Law shapes the way that the covenant is kept; and the covenant gives expression to the steadfast love and grace of God.
So much is Torah valued, that it apparently offers perfection: “the law of the Lord is perfect” (Ps 19:7), which we might compare with “I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad” (Ps 119:96). In this regard, the psalmist’s appreciation for Torah as perfection seems to reflect the priestly desire for people to offer perfect sacrifices, without blemish (Lev 22:21), and Solomon’s desire to build the Temple as a perfect house for God (1 Ki 6:22).
Indeed, such a conception of perfect Torah also resembles the sage’s musings regarding Wisdom: “to fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding” (Wisdom 6:15), and thoughts found in a prayer attributed to Solomon: “even one who is perfect among human beings will be regarded as nothing without the wisdom that comes from you” (Wisdom 9:6).
Much value is accorded to these words of Torah. As well as calling the law “perfect”, we hear that “the decrees of the Lord are sure” (Ps 19:7), a claim echoed in another psalm (Ps 93:5). The precepts of the Lord that are right (Ps 19:8; see also 119:75, 137, 172) means that one who is faithful and obedient will be led “in right paths” (Ps 23:3) as they pray “put a new and right spirit within me” (Ps 51:10). “The commandment of the Lord is clear” (Ps 19:8) is a claim that informs the later portrayal of those who trace the course of Wisdom “from the beginning of creation … [who] make knowledge of her clear” (Wisd Sol 6:22).
The psalmist extends the adoration of the Law, declaring that “the fear of the Lord is pure” (Ps 19:9), a claim extended in another statement found in wisdom texts, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Sir 1:18, 27; 19:20). A further elaboration, “the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Ps 19:9), is the way that Ezra describes the laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Neh 9:13). They are righteous (Ps 119:7, 62, 106, 160, 164), good (119:39), the basis of hope (119:43) and comfort (119:52).
The closing affirmation, “more to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps 19:10), is echoed in “how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Ps 119:103). By contrast, when Job asks, “where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?”, he proposes that “gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold” (Job 28:12–19), and concludes, “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28:28).
Meditation and prayer is then affirmed in the final verse which brings the psalm to a close: “let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (v.14). They echo the plea of another psalm, “hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth” (Ps 54:2).
Yet another psalm affirms that “all the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord, for they have heard the words of your mouth” (Ps 138:4), while in another psalm the prayer is, “may my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord” (Ps 104:34). Finally, the closing verse of Psalm 19 resonates with a similar affirmation in Psalm 49, “my mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding” (Ps 49:3).
It’s a good question: “is the Lord among us, or not?” It’s a question posed by the Israelites in the story that the lectionary presents for our consideration this coming Sunday (Exod 17:1–7). It’s a question that people of faith have asked, time and time again, throughout history. It’s a question that is still asked, in our own time, by people experiencing difficulties in their lives.
The people of Israel have been travelling in the wilderness. They entered the wilderness of Shur after crossing the Red Sea (15:22), and continued on into the wilderness of Sin (16:1). We are not told how long they had been in this desert wandering, when they arrived at Rephidim; the whole “wilderness wandering” saga of the Israelites is quite blurred, not only in terms of time, but also in terms of places. It is, after all, a story—not a history, as I have noted in previous blogs. So the teller of this story deems these details unimportant. What is important, by contrast, is what the storyteller chooses to highlight: complaints, leadership, and provision.
The people had already raised a complaint against Moses and Aaron when they had no food to eat (Exod 16:2–3). God had responded by providing food—quails and manna (16:13–14). That precedent, surely, must have meant that, when confronted with another lack—this time, of water—they might immediately have turned to God in prayer, requesting that God supply water. We might have thought this. But no—once again, they turned on their leaders: “the people quarreled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink’” (17:2A). “Is the Lord among us, or not?”, they wonder.
Moses, understandably, pushes back, saying, “why do you quarrel with me? why do you test the Lord?” (17:2b). Perhaps another line of response—following on from the observations I made in my post last week about the incident in the wilderness of Sin (ch.16)—might have been to show some understanding that the people had been through a series of traumatic events—oppressive slavery, a number of plagues, a hurried escape from Egypt, and then witnessing the mass drowning of the Egyptian army.
The cumulative experience of these traumas could well explain the attitude of the Israelites; suffering piled upon suffering, distress multiplying distress, and an acting-out of bad behaviour, as the text indicates. (Bearing in mind that this is a story, not an actual historical event, so it portrays characters as created by the narrator, and is not reporting on real historical people; and noting also that contemporary psychological insights should be applied with great caution—if at all—to stories from antiquity!)
But the story indicates that the people did not cave under the pressure from Moses. In response to his accusatory questions—“why? why?”—we are told, “the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’” (17:3). It’s an unreasonable accusation. Moses most certainly was not leading them out of their state of slavery to kill them—he was seeking to save them, to rescue them and bring them into a new state of refuge and safety.
However, their state has led them to make unreasonable accusations. So Moses then intercedes with God: “what shall I do with this people?”, noting that “they are almost ready to stone me” (17:4). The crisis has not been averted! “Is the Lord among us, or not?” remains a key question.
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The response of God is not to equip Moses with words to speak to the Israelites (which is what he did when calling Moses, initially, in Exod 3:15–22), but to encourage Moses to act in a way that will persuade the Israelites (as he did when Moses pushed the point, earlier on, in Exod 4:1–9). “Is the Lord among us, or not?” Moses is going to ensure that they sense that he is, indeed, present.
The prophet, in ancient Israel, was called and commissioned to speak words to the people—to be the mouthpiece of the Lord God—and also to enact the justice and mercy that God shows towards the people, in deeds. That dual role is integral to the calling of Moses (Exod 3:1—4:17), who serves as the role model supreme for prophets in Israel (Deut 18:15; 34:10) and serves also as the template for Jesus, as Peter declares (Acts 3:20–26).
So Moses leads the people by acting in a way that directly meets the ends of the people. “Give us water”, they cry; so Moses struck the rock, confident that “water will come out of it, so that the people may drink” (Exod 17:6)—and indeed, the water did flow, and the people did drink. “Is the Lord among us, or not?” Moses is hoping to demonstrate that this is a question that invites—indeed, requires—the answer, Yes!
That place, like many other places in the narratives of Genesis and Exodus, is named for what takes place there. However, the place is not named in a way that highlights “the people drank”. Rather, it is named Massah and Meribah, “because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (17:7). Massah means “testing” and Meribah means “quarrelling”. That’s quite a name for this place to be known by!
The place is to be remembered for the difficulties that took place there—not for the miracle of providing water at that place. The larger narrative of the dramatic Exodus from Egypt and the lengthy wilderness wanderings does not shy away from the difficulties and conflicts of that part of the story. Those tensions and conflicts need to be told, and remembered. The wilderness was not an easy place to be. “Forty years” in the wilderness (that is, a heals-long time, indeed) was not an enjoyable experience to have.
Elsewhere in Hebrew Scripture, the forty years in the wilderness are remembered and described in ways that overlook or remove any reference to those difficulties and conflicts. Jeremiah, at his calling, is charged to declare the word of the Lord: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (Jer 2:2). One psalm retells the saga of the Exodus from Egypt and the time in the wilderness (Ps 136:10–16) and inserts a repeating refrain of gratitude to God after each statement, “his steadfast love endures forever”. This psalm makes it seem like it was a wonderful experience to have had!
Similarly, Hosea remembers fondly how the Lord God loved Israel and “led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love; I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks; I bent down to them and fed them” (Hos 11:1,4)—although he does note that, sadly, “the more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols—yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them” (Hos 11:2–3). That’s a realistic recollection of the time.
So various psalms, likewise, remember this time as a difficult period of time. One psalmist recalls this very incident as a time “when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, thought they had seen my work; forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways’” (Ps 95:10).
Another psalm remembers the strong faith evident through the Exodus, but goes on to lament that “they believed his words; they sang his praise; but they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel … they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert … they were jealous of Moses in the camp, and of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord” (Ps 106:12–16). In Deuteronomy, this time is remembered as “the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions” (Deut 8:15).
Two ways of remembering those years: a time of great blessing from God; a time of great testing for Israel. “Is the Lord among us, or not?” is a key question—one worth remembering and pondering in any time of difficulty or challenge. We might well ask ourselves, then: how do these two very strong memories—these two vivid expressions of the drama of Israel—relate to one another, inform one another, enrich one another?
This coming Sunday, we will hear a story that didn’t happen—yet a story that is always happening. Like all the stories we have heard in previous weeks—stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, of Isaac and Rebekah, stories of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, and the twelve sons of Jacob, the stories of Joseph and his brothers and the stories from early in the life of Moses—these stories did not actually happen as they are reported; but they are told because the dynamics at work in the stories reflect the realities of life as humans experience it.
I don’t think we can say that these ancestral stories happened as actual historical events. Certainly, the historical elements in the story of the Exodus are impossible to validate using the standard methods of historical criticism. However, they are worth remembering and retelling, because they are always happening, in the murky depths of human life.
So this year in the lectionary cycle, as we read and hear these stories yet again, they refresh our understanding of life and they take us into the centre of our existential being. They have been told and retold throughout the centuries, because they express things that are deep within our lives.
The people depicted in the wilderness in today’s passage (Exodus 16:2–15) are quite relatable characters, to me. We are introduced to “the whole congregation of the Israelites” right at the start, and are told that they “complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness” (v.2). I’m going to pass on making any connection between this verse and any congregation of which I have been a part, or in which I have ministered. Let’s just say that humans complaining should not be a surprise to us!
However, let’s pause and consider: the complaint raised by the Israelites against Moses and Aaron appears to be quite unreasonable. How long have they been travelling in the wilderness? And already they seem to think that life was better for them back in Egypt, where “we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread”. Now, in the wilderness, the accuse their leaders of wanting “to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (v.3).
However, if you put yourself into the situation of the Israelites, you might well have a more empathic understanding of their situation. Their years in Egypt were intensely difficult: the Egyptians “set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labour … [they] became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service” (Exod 1:11–14). How were the Israelites to respond? Fright? Fight? or Flight??
We might hypothesise—imagining what might have been going through the minds of the Israelites in the story as they considered their situation. (As noted above, I don’t think that this was an actual historical event—but it is told in Exodus as a history-like narrative, and that history-like character invites us to consider how the hypothetical characters in that story might have thought and acted.)
In such a situation, fright would have been an understandable response. The power of the Egyptian overlords would have generated fear amongst the Israelites as they struggled to complete the increasingly demanding tasks imposed upon them. As there presumably were many years between the death of Joseph (Gen 50:26) and the time when “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exod 1:8), that suggests that fright gripped the people and paralysed them into inaction. They continued as slaves under increasingly difficult conditions.
The thought of fight might have entered the minds of some—standing up for their rights and asserting themselves in order to gain freedom may well have been suggested, even debated, during this extended interim period. Indeed, as the story recounts, Moses himself, fuelled by a passion for justice and a dislike of injustice, was known to have intervened with passion and force into a situation of injustice—such that “he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk; he looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Exod 2:11–12). The next day, fearing that his actions were known, he fled across the desert to Midian, where he remained for quite some years.
Would Moses have thought to press hard against his Egyptian overlords, agitating for them to act justly in relation to the Israelites? His initial thoughts in this regard may well have been completely deficient—that is, until he had encountered God in the burning bush (Exod 3:1–5). From that bush, the voice had come, commissioning Moses to approach Pharaoh “to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt” (3:10).
Moses, of course, argued with God about what that would mean (3:11–4:17)—but in the end, he returned to Egypt (4:18–31) with the intention of confronting Pharaoh, to say “Let my people go” (5:1). The initial request was simply “so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness” (5:1)—but Pharaoh was resistant, leading to the long sequence of divinely-initiated plagues (7:14—10:28), culminating in the plague of the death of “all the firstborn in the land” (12:29–32).
It was flight, however, which won the day for the Israelites—after they, in turn, had been convinced by Moses that this was what God wanted them to do (12:3, 21–28). And that flight, according to the story line, was supported by the interventions of the divine into the sequence of human events: “at midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon” (12:29), and then “the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, company by company” (12:51), and then “the Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night” (13:21).
Then, when confronted with the sea in front of them, “the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the Israelites, who were going out boldly” (14:8), and then “the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers.” (14:21–23).
And so the story resolves the tension: “the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.” (14:27–29).
The Israelites, so the story reveals to us, had thus experienced a long sequence of frightening and troubling events—culminating in their witnessing the mass drowning of the army that was pursuing them. The narrator makes it clear that “the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore” (14:30). Today, meeting people who had experienced such a sequence of events, we would recognise that they had been immersed in a series of traumas, and we would readily explain their current state of being with reference to PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder.
Of course, as we have noted, the narrator shrugs all of this off with the glib summation, “Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians; so the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (14:31). The narrator expects the people in the story to move on. And so we are then given the full set of lyrics of the song that Moses led the people in singing, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously … the Lord is my strength and my might … this is my God, and I will praise him” (15:1–18), followed by a recapitulation of the earlier verses in the song that Miriam and the women sang, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” (15:21).
But as the story continues on, the narrator cannot but help give indication of the ways that the trauma of this long sequence of events has impacted on the Israelites. The first indication of that comes in the complaint of the people when they could find no water; they cried out to Moses, and God intervenes again to enable him to provide water for drinking (15:22–25). The next indication comes in the passage which the lectionary offers us this coming Sunday, when another set of complaints is brought against Moses and Aaron, for the people are now hungry (16:1–3).
A further indication of this will be our focus on the following Sunday, when we hear the story of another moment of complaint, at Rephidim (17:1–7). And there are further stories of complaint at Num 11:1–15 and 14:1–4.
If we enter into the story and imagine the state of the people, there can be no doubt that they would have been gripped with terror and fear—wondering what the future would hold, lamenting the difficulties of the present, and looking back already on the past with “rose-coloured glasses”, unable to remember exactly how difficult and oppressive it was for them to live in Egypt.
And yet, the narrator wants us to understand that, in the midst of the complaints raised by the people, there was hope: they camped at a fertile oasis at Elim (15:27), they ate the quails and manna provided each day (16:13–18; Num 11:7–9); they had water to drink at Massah and Meribah (17:7).
The story that is shaped in the narrative of Exodus has a strong belief in an active, interventionist deity. That is possible to claim with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that the people did survive their time in the wilderness, did have nourishment and water, did eventually enter the land promised to them, and did settle and become prosperous in the land. That is the blessing of telling a story long after the time in which it is set; the long range result can be known!
It was not the case in the midst of the story, as the events being narratives took place. Doubt and fear grounded in uncertainty, as well as dysfunction generated by repeated traumatic events, would have blurred and marred any sense of confident hope, surely. And that is precisely the situation that we find ourselves in, today. Life is “happening” to us. We do not have a guarantee of the end-in-view, the longterm result that is hoped for. We ,I’ve by faith, with hope, yearning and trusting.
So the story we hear this coming Sunday (Exod 16:2–15) tells of God’s provision for the people of Israel—and, by extension, for people of faith today—as they, and we, live with an attitude of hopeful expectation and patient faith.
The climax of the story, at least in terms of the verses that the lectionary offers us, is the simple affirmation that the “fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground”, the “bread from heaven” that they found, was indeed “the bread that the Lord has given you to eat” (16:4, 14–15).
Later in the chapter, we are told that this was the staple diet of the people for “forty years” (16:35), which is the standard biblical expression for “a very, very long time”. And much later, of course, in Christian tradition, Jesus of Nazareth is presented as “the bread from heaven”, the “living bread” which is given “for the life of the world” (John 6:31–51)—bread which lasts, not for ”forty years”, but “forever” (John 6:51).
Also in the story told in Exodus 16, we are told that “the house of Israel called it manna” and that “it was like wafers made with honey” (16:31). An explanation of this name—drawn from the comment made in Numbers—is that the phrase means “this is aphids”, indicating that the dew was crystallised matter deposited by insects. (See “the manna was like coriander seed, and its color was like the color of gum resin”, Num 11:7.)
An alternative explanation for the name manna lies within the text of Exodus itself; for when the people ask, “what is it?” (16:15), the Hebrew is man hu. And so the name reflects the initial puzzlement—a nice ironic twist, indeed.
How do we read this story today? For me, the story of the first half of Exodus has really strong resonances with the story of millions of people in the world today. These are people that we call refugees and asylum seekers—people fleeing from oppression and mistreatment in the land where they were born, travelling through difficulties and dangers, to seek the safety of refuge in a new land; a land that becomes, for them, a land of hope, a land of promise.
The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, keeps track of current numbers and publishes a summary each year. For 2022, the figures are:
You can see the consistent rise in numbers throughout this century, reflecting the persistence of civil war and uprisings in many places. Each person in those millions of people has experienced trauma, sought to escape, travelled along difficult pathways on land or sea, and is seeking safety in another country—or is patiently waiting to be resettled from the refugee camp where they are, into another country.
The UNHCR notes that over half of all refugees under UNHCR’s mandate and other people in need of international protection (52% in total) come from just three countries: 6.8 million from the Syrian Arab Republic, 5.7 million from the Ukraine, and another 5.7 million from Afghanistan. Just over a third (38%) of the 35.3 million refugees are being hosted in five countries (Türkiye, Iran, Colombia, Germany, and Pakistan), so there are a number of countries that are well-off and could well allow for a larger intake of refugees, to share in some of that burden of hosting and resettling such people.
Perhaps the Exodus story can resonate in our current global context, and remind us of the value of people who are seeking the safety of refuge, the importance of meeting their needs, and the necessity of remembering the trauma that they experienced which has pushed them to flee their homeland and seek safety elsewhere. The people of Israel, in the ancient story told by Exodus, were refugees, seeking asylum in a foreign land. And as people of faith, we might well ponder: how do we serve as the agents of God, to offer to refugees and asylum seekers, today, “the bread that the Lord has given [them] to eat”?
An Informed Faith 