Tag Archive | Ten Commandments

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 36

Feb5

Day 36. Reading Exodus 19 – 21. 

Read the scripture for today. What do you learn about God? Share what you learn with others.

Exodus 19.

After the exodus from Egypt and the Red Sea Crossing, Israel moved in stages across the desert for about three months, learning lessons about their God’s care for them and coming together as a “nation.” Finally, they arrived at Sinai and camped in front of the mountain.

(This was a fulfillment of God’s promise to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3:12. “I will be with you, and this shall be a sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”)

It’s good that Moses (at 80) is in good shape, for now begins a series of climbs up and down Mt Sinai to meet with the LORD. 

First thing: a contract between God and the people must be ratified. “IF you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

“All that the LORD has spoken, we will do,” they answered. Okay, cool.

Then, God told Moses to instruct the people on a few things. 

  • They were to clean and consecrate themselves.
  • They were to stay away from the mountain and not even touch its edge. (or die). 
  • When a ram’s horn sounded long and loud, they were to come to the mountain’s edge and wait.

Moses and the people obeyed. On the third day, smoke wrapped Mt. Sinai when the LORD descended on it in FIRE. The earth quaked, and a great smoke plum rose up like from a kiln. God’s voice thundered to Moses.  “Tell the people to keep back again!  NO LOOKEY-LOOS!  Then, get Aaron and come up to me on the mountain.“

Exodus 20.

On the mountain of Sinai, God gave His TEN COMMANDMENTS. (As a “preamble” to the “constitution” of Israel.)

  • NO other gods come BEFORE ME.
  • NO carving images of anything, and NO bowing down or serving anything but the LORD.
  • NO profaning the Name of the LORD your God.
  • REMEMBER what I said about the SABBATH Day. Rest, NOT work.
  • HONOR your parents.
  • NO murder.
  • NO adultery.
  • NO stealing.
  • NO lying about anyone in court.
  • NO coveting anything that anyone else has.

The people heard the rumbling thunder of God’s voice, felt the earth’s violent shaking, and saw the billowing fire and smoke.  They stood far off and pleaded with Moses to intercede for them. 

“Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, and that you do not sin.”

Exodus 21.

God then gave Moses some other laws to honor Him in worship and for righteous/fair treatment of others.

  • How to build and use altars for worship that will please God.
  • How to treat slaves and when to release them (REMEMBER, YOU were slaves!)
  • How to deal with those who hurt others by striking or cursing them.
  • What to do if violence causes a woman to miscarry or abort a baby.
  • Reinstating the Noahic law of “equal retribution for equal offense.” (eye for an eye, but no more)
  • Restitution if one of your animals hurts someone or what you do causes harm to another.

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(More tomorrow on liability, social justice, holidays (holy days), and that “carrot” in front of them: the conquest of the Promised Land.)

 

 

#2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 40

Feb9

    Day 40 —  We are in the second month! We’ve been reading for over a 1/12 of a year! Praise God! I hope that it’s become a GOOD habit that will continue.

   Day 40 – Exodus 30 – 32  (Alters, Workers, the golden calf)

Moses is still on Mt. Sinai – how glorious to be in the presence of Almighty God for weeks at a time – no food or water, just GOD!

Now that the special clothing of the priests has be laid out, God shows Moses how the priest will approach God in chapter 30. The Incense Alter set next to the veil in the Holy Place is where he will offer sweet smelling incense to God. In Revelation, incense is pictured as “the prayers of God’s people.”  Morning & evening Aaron is to offer it on this alter.

God even tells Moses how anointing oil should be made – the finest spices, liquid myrrh, cinnamon, aromatic cane, cassia, and olive oil, and also the incense – sweet spices, pure frankincense, and salt to burn before the Holy of Holies. A head tax would be levied on every person in Israel, 20 years old. There were to pay a half-shekel. Rich and poor would give the same to the Lord’s offering. This would help pay for the needed items to serve in the Tabernacle.

Also a Bronze Basin (Laver) would be made and placed between the great alter of sacrifice in the courtyard and the entrance into the tent of meeting. Here the priest would wash hands and feet before entering the Holy Place.

In Chapter 31, God picks the two men who will oversee all this construction of the Tabernacle etc. Bezalel ben Hur of Judah, and Oholiab ben Ahisamach of the tribe Dan. These men God had “filled with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood, to work in EVERY craft.” 

And to ALL ABLE MEN, God gave ability to make everything He’d commanded, the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony with the mercy seat, all the furnishings of the tent, the table & utensils, the lampstand, the alter of incense, the alter of burnt offerings, and the basin and stand. Also, they would be skilled to make the finely-worked garments for Aaron and his sons, and the oil and the incense.

WOW!  And yet today God has also given to His church, men of special ability to lead well, and He’s given to the congregation other abilities (gifts) to minister and serve.  God is so good!

God now again stresses the importance of the SABBATH-keeping to His people. It was a sign, a covenant, between God and the people that they could KNOW him and be SANCTIFIED by Him.  It was a sign for them…forever.

Then God gave Moses the tablets of stone on which were engraved “by the finger of God” the Ten Words.

Chapter 32 takes us down the mountain, and WAY DOWN into degradation.  Impatient or fearful about Moses being away almost six weeks (was he dead?), the people asked Aaron to make “a god” to lead them.  They had God Almighty, Lord and creator of Heaven and Earth, and they wanted an idol made with human hands.  Sheesh!!

So Aaron called for them to donate gold earrings (which should have been given for the articles of the Tabernacle).  He fashioned it with a “graving tool” and made a golden calf (a famous god of Egypt).  Seriously???  Wasn’t Aaron present with the LORD did all those miracles through Moses before Pharaoh? Didn’t he KNOW the true God?

He also proclaimed a “Feast to the LORD.”   With a graven image of a COW???  Didn’t he remember the FIRST TWO commandments of the Ten, that they all had agreed to? The LORD first, and NO graven images??

The people “sat down to eat the feast, then rose up to play.”  This wasn’t charades or Scrabble.  “Play” here meant a wild, uncontrolled sex-orgy. This is how PAGANS worshiped idols, not the people of God the Most Holy LORD.

God was so angry he told Moses He would kill them all and make a “new nation” from his descendants. But Moses fell on his face and pleaded FOR GOD’S SAKE, not to destroy Israel, His children. Moses did not want God’s name or power to be denigrated in the eyes of the surrounding nations.  God, of course, was testing Moses, and Moses passed.

Then Moses & Joshua descended Sinai to see that revelry.  He was so angry & distraught he hurled the stone tablets at them. And the stone was broken, just as the laws on it had been.

“Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin on them?” asked Moses.

“You know these people, they are set on evil. They gave me gold. I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

WHATTTT????  Is he saying “the people made me do it?” Or is he trying to show that the miracles they performed before Pharaoh, were still working in him?   Either way, Moses destroyed the image, ground it to dust and mixed it in water, and made the people drink it.

Then Moses drew a line in the sand. WHO IS ON THE LORD’S SIDE?  The Levites (Moses’ own tribe) stepped over it and stood with him. Then he sent them on a violent, bloody mission of mercy for Israel. They killed the 3000 false worshippers with their swords.  And Moses ordained THEM, the Levites, for the service of the LORD.

And Moses returned to the mountain of God to intercede for the nation … and for his brother.  Moses even offered HIS OWN LIFE in place of the sinning nation (shadows of the work of Christ).

God forgave.  But there are also always consequences to sin. The LORD sent a plague on the people because of the calf THAT AARON MADE.

#2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, days 35 & 36

Feb5

   Day 35 & 36 —  We are in the second month! We’ve been reading for a 1/12 of a year! Praise God! I hope that it’s become a GOOD habit that will continue. (SUNDAY’s reading is combned with MONDAY’s)

   Day 35 – Exodus 16-18  (Manna, Rest, Water/Rock, War!)

In chapter 16, Israel leaves the oasis of Elim and treks on through the Wilderness (heading to Sinai). The ex-slaves get tired and hungry…and they grumble against Moses (which is actually grumbling against God.)

“O, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full… You’ve brought us out here to kill us all with hunger!”

God tells Moses He has heard their grumbling. “At twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. THEN you shall KNOW that I AM the LORD your God.” And God did just as He said. Quail covered the camp in the evening and when the dew lifted in the morning, a “fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost” covered the ground.

“Ma-nah?” they asked. “What is it?”

“It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat,” Moses explained. Then he told them how to collect it and “cook” it.  Every morning they were to collect an omer (about a cup full) for each person in their tent. That was enough “flour” to make bread for an adult for the day. They could bake or boil it. It was “like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey”.) They were to collect their “daily bread” each morning for six days. On the 6th day, they would collect double. No “manna” would appear on the seventh (or Sabboth) day. This was a day of rest for Israel.

Of course there were those who collected more, and it rotted overnight, and some that failed to collect double on the sixth and went hungry while they rested. (Sigh!)  But soon the regimen was established. It would continue more than 40 years, right up until the day they waited to cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land. What faithfulness of God!

They moved on in the wilderness to Rephidim, where their oasis water ran out. (Chapter 17). Again with the grumbling. “Give us water to drink!” them demanded. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us with thirst?”  Moses cried to the LORD, “What am I do to with this people?”

“Moses, take your staff and some elders. Go to a rock I’ll show you and STRIKE THE ROCK in their presence.  He obeyed, and a GUSH OF WATER flowed out from the rock. And all the people drank. (Remember this scene!)

Then out of the blue, an Amalek army came to fight against the ex-slaves. (Amalekites were descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau.)  Moses sent Joshua to gather a rag-tag bunch of men to fight them (with what?). He did, and Moses stood on a hill over looking the battle, his arms (with the staff) raised. The Israelites started to win, but when he got tired and his arms sagged, they started to lose. Aaron and Hur (Caleb’s son) sat him down and held up his arms. And so Joshua and Israel WON THE WAR!!

And God Almighty cursed the Amalekites forever. (They were almost wiped out in Saul & David’s time, but it was Esther who made the final “coup de gras” when she instigated the death of the wicked Haman, the last descendant.)

Chapter 18 briefly tells how Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, brings him his wife and two sons, and gives his son-in-law some good advice. “What you are doing is not good.” You are going to wear out, Moshe, my son. Look for able men to bear the workload with you. Make sure they are able men who fear God, are trustworthy and hate bribes, and let them set up higher and lower courts to judge on the issues of this great people. You just take the tough cases.   Hey, it sounded good to Moses, and he did just that.”

Jethro praised and sacrificed to the LORD who had delivered them all out of the hands of the Egyptians. Then he went back home to Midian.

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     Day 36 – Exodus 19-21  (Mt. Sinai, 10 Commandments, Laws )

Chapter 19. Three months after escaping Egypt, the mass of Hebrew ex-slaves arrive at Mt.Sinai (Horeb), the place where God met Moses in the burning bush and promised to see them there again.  It’s a scary place – the mountain is tall and craggy, and when God descends on it, it’s aflame, with billowing black smoke clouds, a continuous loud trumpet-blast sound, and earthquakes. WHOA!

God warns that the people (even their animals) cannot touch the mountain without dying. After ritually cleansing themselves (body & soul) they can approach NEAR, and God speaks. (What a message!!) He tells this rag-tag crew of Jacob’s descendants that they are His “treasured possession among all the peoples,” and that they will be a kingdom of priests and holy, so they can mediate between Him and all the other nations on the earth. Only, they must “obey My voice and keep My covenant.”

YES! they cry. “All that the LORD has spoken we will do!”

(Isn’t this OUR heart’s desire too with our God? If only we COULD do it. But, we, like they, are born sinners and prone to disobey.)

And while the consecrated people stood at a distance the rumbling, shaking, smoking, firey scene escalated. God warns the people again to stay back, then calls Moses up into the mountain.

Chapter 20 gives the familiar TEN COMMANDMENTS (or Words), the summary of how the people of God should act towards Him and others. These ten are summarized further for Israel, by the Lord Jesus in the TWO GREATEST COMMANDS.  1) Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (covers the first four of “the ten”).  2) Love your neighbor as yourself (covers the next six of “the ten”). (Matthew 22:37-39)

Jesus added to this in the Sermon on the Mount by telling them to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)  And he further amplified #2 to His disciples, saying that they were to “Love one another as I have loved you.) meaning that self-sacrifice is involved in this kind of love. (John 15:12)

Chapter 21 lists some more detailed rules Moses was to set before the people concerning; slaves, murder/manslaughter, how “an eye for an eye” was to be used as a standard, and the beginning list of laws about restitution.

(Israel was to become the holy People of God.  We will see how that works out.)

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