Posts from — October 2008

EXODUS

CHAPTER FIVE 
 

      Moses and Aaron now approach Pharoah requesting that the Israelites be allowed to have a a feast in the wilderness apart from the Egyptians.  Pharoah refuses saying that he does not know the Lord.  They ask a second time suggesting that of the Egyptians do not allow the Israelites to the leave the Lord might down upon them with pestileice or with the sword.  He not only refuses he now increases the work load of the Hebrews.  

Pharaoh is hard.  My translation says, “Obdurate.”  It is a nice word, but I do not like it because you have a problem when you get into the “hardness” of the Pharaoh’s heart, and that is a problem.  Who caused the Pharaoh to have a hard heart?  Did God cause it, or did the Pharaoh cause it.  We will take a little bit of a look here.  That is why I think obduracy is a nice English word, but not a good translation.   

Exodus 6:1 is going to demonstrate the power of Yahweh.  We will see great things.  In chapter 6:1, the Lord answered Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.  How will you know who I am?  In My mighty deeds.  You watch Me.  My mighty hand will send them away compelled by my outstretched arm; he will drive them from his land.”  That is some power; that is some God.  That is the God that says: “I cause to be what happens.”  You will know Me in what I do. 

      The plot on Chapter 5 is that on one side is the stubborn Pharaoh, and on the other side you have God.   It gives Moses his mission.  The other great thing that we somewhat take for granted is that when God answers Moses and says:  You want to know who I am; this is who I am.  What is the response from Moses?  No more protests.  He is done with it.  He is probably on his face in front of the Burning Bush.  That response handles everything for him. 

      We now have what they always want to call the bad guy.  He is the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh and his crafty magicians.  On the other side, we have Yahweh.     In between, we have Moses.  Moses is the mediator.  He is the one who is going to run between Pharaoh and God, so that God can do His mighty deeds, and Pharaoh can have a hard heart, so that God can do more mighty deeds.  Then Pharaoh can harden his heart even more.  So God can continue to do more mighty deeds.  Moses is feeling that he cannot believe this is happening.  So this is the plot of the story.

      Yahweh’s conflict is with specifically with the gods of Egypt.  This is not a problem for Yahweh.    What He is interested in is what one man has done to another man.  That is what He is interested in; the inhumanity to man by man.  He is concerned about the fact that the Egyptians have rejected Yahweh and have now enclaved their fellow human beings. That is what He is interested in. It is a heart to heart concern, which brings Yahweh down. 

      The gods of Egypt, as a matter of fact, are mentioned only once.  You will find them in Chapter 12:12:  “For on this same, I will go through Egypt striking down every first-born of the land, man and beast, executing judgment on all of the gods of Egypt, Adonai, “I the Lord!”  Why is God upset with the Pharaoh?  Remember, we said that when we understand Yahweh’s translation of His name as the One who causes events in history to happen from His will, this is what He causes.  He causes the partnership between man and woman; He causes creation; He causes all that He has created to be wonderful and good.  As the creation story goes on, God looks at it each time He creates something and says it is good.  That is beautiful.  Why is He upset with Pharaoh?  He is upset with Pharaoh because Pharaoh, on the other side of the coin, thinks he is in charge. He has rejected God and now oppresses His people, Pharaoh’s own relatives.          

Why does the text use the “God of the Hebrews”.  To better understand this you must first understand the notion of inherited blessing and then trace it chronologically.  The line of blessing is the line of God’s first born son of the nations.  Since the beginning of  Adam and Eve in scripture there has always been a blessed line.  Now if you track Adam to Seth;  Seth to. .Noah; Noah to Shem;  Shem to. . .Eber (from whom we get the name Hebrews); Eber to. . . Abraham; Abraham to Issac; Issace to Jacob to . . .See Genesis 11; 

Eber is a water shed figure.  Scripture records that when Eber became a father, the earth was divided which was he named his son “Peleg”, a name that means “division” (Gn: 10:25). This is a direct reference to the Tower of Babel.  In building this famous ancient Tower the accursed Hamites tried to create a sort of heaven on earth in an attempt to seize the covenant blessing that had been passed to Shem’s descendants. Note that what the descendants of Ham are recorded as saying: “Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in Heaven and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered aboard upon the face of the whole earth (Gn 11:4).  In the Hebrew language the word for name is SHEM.  In other words there is a Hamitic rebellion against Shem, the son of Noah who inherited the covenant blessing, and against Shem’s heirs, Eber and the Hebrews.  The result is disaster and leads God to confuse the world’s languages, dividing and scattering the people.  Amongst these scattered people are the heirs of Ham, who included the Egyptians and the Canaanites (Gn 10:6).  

Now track Egypt’s line.  They are descendants of Ham and his children.  This is why I state that Moses is declaring that Egypt and the other sons of Ham are on the wrong side of a very old schism and have run off and have now enslaved their very kinsmen (the Hebrews).   The God of the universe is the God of the Hebrews, the God of Eber.

So note that the Egyptians are descendants of Noah as well.  So when Moses and Aaron say to the Pharaoh, “The God of the Hebrews” sent them they are importing a great deal about the Pharaoh and his people.

First: They are of the same family.

Second: Pharaoh’s Hamite line has rejected God and pretends not to know Him. 

Also be aware of what will be the promised land — the land of Canaan (the son of Ham).    
 
 
 
 
 

THE BEGINNING OF THE DEPARTURE

THE PLAGUES

CHAPTER SIX 
 

      When we looked at the name of Yahweh, out of Chapter 3:12-15, we understood the name Yahweh to be “I Am who I Am.”  This is the traditional understanding and translation. 

Can we come to a better definition or a better statement of what “I Am” means?  When we look: “ I Am or I cause to be what is”  or  “I cause to be what happens.”  We began to see that that was reflective of Yahweh’s presence, at least as understood in the Book of Exodus.  The name is important because now we are going to look at the plagues and then we are going to look at the actual departure.  We have to recall basically what we are saying:   I Am who I Am denotes what?   God never tells us Who He is.  Why? 

What is the best understanding is the explanation to the Hebrew?  God is a God Who says He will always be present with us.  God is a God who says that if you want to know who I am, what do you look for?  Look for Me in My words, and in My deeds, and My actions, and then you will know Who I am.  I will not tell you My name; I will tell you that I am the God that causes things to be.  I cause what happens to happen.  If you want to know Who I am, where do you look for Me?  You look for me in My mighty deeds and in My power.  That is how you know what the name is, or who Yahweh is.  So you never get a definition.  That you know Yahweh by what Yahweh brings to pass.  You know Yahweh by what Yahweh causes to happen.  That is who Yahweh is. 

Who is God is answered, therefore, in events that will happen in the future.  Keeping that in mind, let’s look just for a moment before we get back into the plagues on this origin of the Yahweh cult.   

      But, I think you have to, again, ask the question, Where did it come from?  How does it happen that Yahweh, rather than some other name, is the personal name of the God of Israel.  When you do a careful reading of the text in Exodus 3, you will find that there are two words that are commonly bantered about in the text, the general term of God: translated Elohim.  You find Elohim in Ex:3:1,

“Meanwhile, Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.  Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”  God, in the Hebrew:  “Elohim.”  You find it again in verse 4,

“When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush.” 

You find it again in verse 11, “But Moses said to God.” 

You find it again in verse 12,

“I will be with you; and this shall be your proof that it is I who have sent you:  when you bring my people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this very mountain.” 

Sometimes the special word Yahweh is found.  You find Yahweh in Ex 3:2.  This is just a breakdown of one little chapter on the differences between “Elohim” and “Yahweh”

You want to look for the different traditions involved here.

In Exodus 3:2:  “There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush.” 

You find it again in verse 4:  “When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him.”

So Lord, Yahweh, God, Elohim, and on and on it goes in verses 7 and 15.  This is one of the evidences when scholars begin to break down the text that the narrative itself represents a blending of sources.  A blending of what we call the different traditions.  The different traditions are closely aligned. 

      We have what is called Pentateuchal traditions.  Four main traditions  basically of what we believe comprise the whole of the Pentateuch.  Let us look at the first of four traditions.  

First: The Yahwistic tradition.  As I mentioned, this is referred to as “J” because from the beginning when he calls God, Yahweh.  The explanation of why it is not “Y” and why it is “J.” comes from the time of Solomon, about 950 B.C., originating in the royal circles of Jerusalem.  Therefore, the king has an important place here, because the faith-unity of the community of Israel revolves around the king, who is the representation of God here on earth.   Therefore: “J” for Jerusalem rather than “Y” for Yahewh.

      Second: The next tradition is the Elohistic tradition denoted by the letter E.  It calls God, Elohim, Lord.  It came into being perhaps around 750 B.C., As you note  the time line is moving forward.  It is in the northern kingdom, after the kingdom of David and Solomon is split into two, into the two different kingdoms.  There is a large amount of usage with the message of the prophets, like Elijah and Hosea.  Great importance is attached to the prophet.  In the “E” tradition of the plagues, and especially of the crossing the Red Sea, the “E” tradition focuses on Moses as prophet.  About 700 B.C., both of these traditions come together.  It is a fusion called “Jehovistic,” If you have a Bible which outlines all of the different Pentateuchal traditions, you will see some verses with J E, which means it is a blending both of the Yahwistic and the Elohistic.   

Third:  The Deuteronomic is done by the letter “D.”  It began in the northern kingdom and was completed in the city of Jerusalem.   

Fourth:  “P” is the last one, representing the Priestly tradition.  During the Babylon exile, which is at the very end, 587 to 538 B.C., after the deportation, the priest re-read the traditions to keep up the people’s faith and their hope.  These four traditions and developments of the different sources in the Pentateuch were brought together in the five volumes itself that were known as the Pentateuch.  Around 400 B.C. is what scholars mostly agree would be the completion time, often attributed to Ezra the priest.   

We are going to go back to this because we want to look at what is “inside” when we do the famous departure from Egypt and the crossing of the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea). 

      Many scholars conclude that the narrative represents a blending of sources in the Book of the Exodus.  You are blending both the name of God and the name of the Lord, two different sources together.  In some verses that are strung exactly together you will have verse 15a and 15b, in which you have mention of the word: God, Yawheh, and then the word: Lord, Elohim.  It seems that what scholars have concluded is that it is based on two views of the time when first of all Yahweh was introduced according to the Yawhistic tradition.  The worship of Yahweh goes all the way back into the Book of Genesis, before the flood to the generation of Enoch, who is the grandson of Adam.  If you go back to Genesis 4:26b:  “At that time men began to invoke Lord by name,” at that time, men began to call upon the name of Yahweh.  On the other hand, E and P, these sources, the Elohistic and the Priestly tradition, refrain from using the name of Yahweh in the period covered by the Book of Genesis.  So when you go through it and look for their traditional sources, they do not use that word.  The name is associated, therefore, with special revelation to Moses, the central figure in the Book of Exodus in terms of the human figures.  We looked at Yahweh in terms of His name and the characters involved in the passages that we were dealing with, up until the time of the plagues that we had the Pharaoh on one side, we had Yahweh on the other side, and we had Moses in the middle.  That Moses gets a message from Yahweh because Yahweh hears: remember this is active, not passive, Yahweh hears, Yahweh listens, Yahweh has taken into His heart the cries of His people in bondage and in slavery.  And so He comes to Moses, and He says, this is what you are supposed to do:  You go to the Pharaoh and you tell him this.  So Moses becomes the intermediary between what might be considered the forces of darkness and evil.  Remember, what is in his heart?  He is hard; he is obstinate.  God does not move that person (Pharoah) to come to a belief in God by the signs and wonders that God does.  This is not how God operates.  That God does signs and wonders in our life to show that God is involved in your life and that you are not alone down here – that God hears, God listens, and God takes action.  That is all that the Book of Exodus is trying to tell you.  And He is trying to tell you the same thing today as if He were trying to tell you in 1200 B.C.: That God hears the cry of the poor, God hears those who are subjected to slavery, God hears those in bondage, God hears those who are sick and infirmed, God hears those to whom many people have put heavy burdens upon their back.