SUMMARY OF EXODUS WITH POINTS ON CHAPTER 13 ONWARDS.

The Book of Exodus begins more than four hundred years after Joseph, his brothers, and the Pharaoh he once served have all died. The new leadership in Egyptfeeling threatened by Jacobs descendants, who have increased greatly in sizeembarks on a campaign to subdue the Israelites, forcing them into slavery and eventually decreeing that all Hebrew boys must be killed at birth in the Nile River. The Hebrew women resist the decree, and one woman opts to save her newborn son by setting him afloat on the river in a papyrus basket. Fortunately, Pharaohs daughter discovers the abandoned child and raises him after he has been nursed, naming him Moses. Moses and Aaron return to Egypt, where Moses organizes the Israelites and confronts the Pharaoh, demanding the release of the Hebrew people. Moses performs a miracle, turning his staff into a snake, but Pharaoh is unimpressed and only increases the workload for the Israelites. God responds by inflicting a series of ten plagues on Egypt. God turns the Nile River into blood, causes frogs to cover Egypt, turns all of the dust in Egypt to gnats, and causes swarms of flies to come into the houses of Pharaoh and his officials. God then strikes Egypts livestock with a disease, creates festering boils on humans and animals, and sends thunder, hail, and fire that destroy crops, livestock, and people. God sends swarms of locusts, and covers Egypt with a darkness that can be felt (10:21). Before each plague, Moses demands the Israelites release, and after each plague, God purposefully hardens Pharaoh so that he refuses the request (4:21, 7:22). The tenth and final plague kills all the firstborn males in Egypt. Before the plague, Moses instructs the Hebrew people to cover their doorposts in the blood of a sacrificed lamb as a sign for God to protect their homes from his killings. Pharaoh surrenders and releases the more than 600,000 Israelites who, in turn, plunder the Egyptians wealth. Upon leaving, Moses enjoins the Israelites to commemorate this day forever by dedicating their firstborn children to God and by celebrating the festival of Passover, named for Gods protection from the final plague (12:1443). Guided by a pillar of cloud during the day and by fire during the night, Moses and the Israelites head west toward the sea. Pharaoh chases them. The Israelites complain that Moses has taken them to die in the wilderness, and Moses, at Gods bidding, parts the sea for the people to cross. Pharaoh follows and Moses closes the waters back again, drowning the Egyptian army. Witnessing the miracle, the people decide to trust Moses, and they sing a song extolling God as a great but loving warrior. Their optimism is brief, and the people soon begin to worry about the shortage of food and water. God responds by sending the people food from heaven, providing a daily supply of quail and a sweet bread-like substance called manna. The people are required only to obey Gods commandments to enjoy this food. Soon thereafter, the Israelites confront the warring Amalekite people, and God gives the Israelites the power to defeat them. During battle, whenever Moses raises his arms, the Israelites are able to rout their opponents. Three months after the flight from Egypt, Moses and the Israelites arrive at Mount Sinai, where God appears before them, descending on the mountain in a cloud of thunder and lightning. Moses climbs the mountain, and God gives Moses two stone tablets with ten commandments inscribed on them regarding general, ethical behavior as well as an extended series of laws regarding worship, sacrifices, social justice, and personal property. God explains to Moses that if the people will obey these regulations, he will keep his covenant with Israel and will go with them to

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retrieve from the Canaanites the land promised to Abraham. Moses descends from the mountain and relates Gods commandments to the people. The people agree to obey, and Moses sprinkles the people with blood as a sign of the covenant. Moses ascends to the mountain again where God gives him more instructions, this time specifying in great detail how to build a portable temple called an ark in which Gods presence will dwell among the Israelites. God also emphasizes the importance of observing the Sabbath day of holy rest. Moses comes down from the mountain after forty days, only to find that Aaron and the Israelites have now erected an idola golden calf that they are worshipping in revelry, in direct defiance of the Ten Commandments. Moses breaks the stone tablets on which God has inscribed the new laws, and God plans to destroy the people. Moses intercedes on the Israelites behalf, begging God to relent and to remember his covenant. Pleased with Moses, God is appeased and continues to meet with Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend, in a special tent set aside for worship (33:11). God reaffirms his covenant with Moses, and, fashioning new stone tablets to record his decrees, God declares himself to be a compassionate, loving, and patient God. At Mosess direction, the Israelites renew their commitment to the covenant by erecting a tabernacle to God according to the exact specifications God has outlined. While Genesis explains the origins of the world and of humanity, Exodus is the theological foundation of the Bible. Exodus explains the origins of Torahthe law of the Jewish people and the tradition surrounding that law. Torah is not merely a list of laws, but, rather, the notion of law as a way of life. Indeed, the law exists as a way of life for Moses and his people. Although portions of Exodus are devoted to legal matters, the declaration of law in Exodus always comes in the form of a story, relayed by discussions between God and Moses, and between Moses and the people.These laws and tradition are filled with symbols of Gods promise to the Israelites. In Genesis, God uses symbols such as the rainbow and gives people new names, like Abraham, as signs of his covenant. Such personalized signs are useful when communicating a promise to a single person or family. In Exodus, however, God attempts to communicate his promise to an entire nation of people. Social laws about how the Israelites should treat their slaves and annual festivals such as Passover are signs that a community of people can easily recognize and share. In this sense, obedience to Gods laws is less a means of achieving a level of goodness than it is a way for the people to denote their commitment to Gods covenant. The Hebrew word for Exodus originally means names, and Exodus is often called the Book of Names. The book discusses the different names God takes and the various ways God manifests himself to the Israelites. When God tells Moses that his name is I AM (3:14), God defines himself as a verb (in Hebrew, ahyh) rather than a noun. This cryptic statement suggests that God is a being who is not subject to the limits of peoples expectations or definitions. Most often, however, God reveals himself to the people through theophany: extraordinary natural phenomena that signal Gods arrival or presence. Theophanic events in Exodus include the pillars of cloud and fire, the thunder at Mount Sinai, and the miraculous daily supply of manna. Such spectacles demonstrate Gods attempts to prove his existence to a nation of doubting people from whom he has been decidedly absent for more than four hundred years. The unwillingness of the people to accept Gods existence is never more apparent than when the Israelites worship a golden calf in the shadow of the

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thunderous Mount Sinai. As a result, Gods final manifestation of himself is the tabernaclespecifically, the Ark of the Covenant, a golden vessel in which Gods presence, or spirit, will reside. Like the law, the Ark is an effective symbol of God, for it is an object that the people not only build as a community according to Gods specifications but also as a religious vessel that can be picked up and carried wherever Israel goes.Moses is the first true hero we encounter in the Hebrew Bible. He manifests all the traits of a traditional hero. He overcomes timidity and inner strife. He challenges Pharaoh, leading Israel to great feats. And he wields his own weapon, the miraculous staff. These elements give Moses traditional heroic status, but Moses also presents us with a new type of herothe religious priest. All of Mosess political and military dealings serve the one end of delivering the Israelites to God, physically moving them from Egypt to Mount Sinai and interceding to God for them when they disobey. As God declares early on, Moses is Gods representative to the people, and Moses makes Gods relationship with Israel a personal one. Instead of a series of incendiary explosions, Moses presents Gods instructions to the people through conversation and conveys Gods desire to destroy the Israelites by breaking the stone tablets in front of them. Most importantly, Mosess dialogue with God enables the author to portray God in softer, human termsas someone who listens, grieves, and is actually capable of changing his mind. Chapter 13: Recap, Circumcision, and Magic Moses reminds the people how big a deal their liberation from Egypt was, and proclaims that the festival of the Lord will occur every year to commemorate the event. This was the guy who said he wasn't qualified to do the job. Just look at him now! Circumcision is established as a way to mark God's covenant on males. In a not-so-great turn of events, God steers the Israelites away from the land he promised them. He does this because the Philistines, a coastal nation, are in the way of Canaan, the land God promised the Israelites. God is worried that if the Israelites get into a war with the Philistines, they will forget that he, God, just saved them. So they go the long way around. God leads the people "in a pillar of cloud by day," and "a pillar of fire by night" (13:21-22). Whoa. Moses takes the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had wanted to be moved with his people. Chapter 14: The Parting of the Red Sea God tells Moses to take the Israelites in a funky direction so Pharaoh will think they're aimlessly wandering around. God will also harden Pharaoh's heart so that he regrets letting the Israelites go. Pharaoh's heart is hardened. Again. Pharaoh decides to go after the Israelites. He rallies 600+ chariots to do the job. Quick note: here's a great example of the text contradicting itself a little bit. If Israel has 600,000 men, then how does Pharaoh expect to beat them with 600 chariots? The text could be trying to make Pharaoh seem stupid, or it could be the work of two different writers. You decide. Back in the story, the Israelites see the Egyptians advancing, and start panicking. When Moses cries out to God, God tells him to stretch out his hand and divide the sea.

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God's angel keeps the Egyptian army at bay while the sea opens up to create a passageway. The Israelites pass through the sea on dry land. Picture that. Seriously. The Egyptians follow the Israelites, but God closes the sea on them once the Israelites are through. Yep, the Egyptians all drown. Yikes. Chapter 15: Sing! Sing! Sing! Moses and the Israelites sing a song to God after their triumph. Wouldn't you be singing after that? The song that the Israelites sing has a ton of historical nuggets: it talks about the character of God, has a different understanding of water (check out "Symbols" for more), and also celebrates the destruction of the Canaanites. But wait. The Israelites haven't even gone into Canaan yet, so what's going on? There's a contradiction in the text. This one's a sure bet. Why would you sing about something that hasn't happened yet? We're pretty sure we have two texts from different times that were combined; so what we see looks like a contradiction, but it's just two different pieces of literature that got combined years after both were written. Voil! Back in the story, Miriam sings her own, slightly shorter, song. As they're traveling in the deserts, the Israelites can't find fresh water. They complain to Moses, who asks God for help. The solution? Moses throws a piece of wood into the brackish water, and it becomes sweet. God makes a rule that if the Israelites do right by God's rules, they won't be punished with the diseases the Egyptians got. Thanks, God. Chapter 16: Food, or Something Like It Not surprisingly, the Israelites get hungry. They complain to Moses, who asks God for help. God tells Moses that each day, he will give the Israelites food, but that they can't take more than their fill for one day. Every sixth day, he will give them twice as much food, so that on the seventh day (the Sabbath), he can take a break. Moses and Aaron announce this to the people, and just like that, a bunch of quail show up in the camp as meat. Then, some weird stuff, "on the surface of the wilderness, a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground," rains down (16:14). Everyone wonders what it is, but they eat it anyway. Hey, they were hungry. The Israelites call the food "Manna," and describe it as "like coriander seed, white, and with the taste of wafers made with honey" (16:31). The Israelites have trouble following God's instructions to finish all the manna each day; and when they try to save it, it gets all nasty with worms. Yum. When they save it on the sixth day, it keeps for the next day, but some people go out on the seventh day looking for it anyway, even though God said it was a day of rest. God gets annoyed. Duh. Moses and Aaron save some of this stuff and eat it for forty years in the desert. Yepforty years. Chapter 17: The Israelite Water Board Convention and Amalek Again in the desert, the Israelites do some more complaining. This time, it's about

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the lack of water. The desert is one dry place. Moses asks God for help again, and God shows Moses a rock. Moses hits the rock with his magic staff, and water pours out. That was easy. Next up, another tribe, the Amalekites, attacks. Moses chooses his lieutenant, Joshua, to go out and fight the enemy. As long as Moses holds his staff up on his outpost looking out at the battle, the Israelites win. But eventually Moses gets super tired. Solution? Aaron and another guy rig a rock to hold Moses's arm up in place the whole day. Genius. The Israelites win. A quick note on "the wilderness of Sin." It's not a sinful wilderness. Sin was actually an ancient deity of the moon. It's like when people say, "These are the woods of John the Baptist," or something else like that. Chapter 18: Jethro and the Israelite Court System Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, comes for a visit. He brings Moses's wife Zipporah and Moses's sons Gershom and Eliezer (who finally has a name). It's unclear whether Moses and Zipporah were getting along well before this. Moses fills Jethro in on all that has happened to the Israelites, and not surprisingly, Jethro is amazed. Jethro, Moses, and Aaron worship and eat together. Like ya do. We finally get an idea of Moses's day job: he's the judge of all the Israelites. 600,000+ people. Think about that. Jethro knows this is tough business. He tells him, "This is nuts. You'll tucker yourself out doing all this. Why don't you appoint some minions who will apply God's laws? Just take the big cases for yourself." Moses agrees that this is a way better idea than what he's been doing. Having been the perfect plot-mover, Jethro goes home to Midian. The Holy Zone Three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites arrive at Sinai. God tells Moses to assemble everyone for a big announcement. But one thing: they can't come up onto the mountain (where Moses chats with God) or they'll die. Noted. Everyone washes up to look nice for the party. God descends upon the mountain in fire, smoke, and eerily loud trumpet blasts. God tells Moses, "Do not let either the priests or the people break through to come up to the Lord; otherwise he will break out against them" (19:24). Notice here that access to God is restricted to the few. For a guy who wants to adopt these people as his own, God doesn't seem to want to get too close to them. The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments are some of the most influential words in the entire Bible, and they've influenced thousands of years of Western thinking. Even in our day-to-day lives, the Ten Commandments resonate with how people think about right and wrong. As you go through them, think about how they relate to your life. We dare you. God gives the people the Ten Commandments orally. Let's tackle them one by one. Commandment One: We're Exclusiveor are we? "You shall have no other gods before me." (20:3)

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"Before" has also been translated as "besides." Naturally, this has provoked a lot of debate. "Before me" seems to imply that the worshipper can mess around with other gods as long as God is number one, but "besides me" implies an exclusive relationship. See how this can get tricky? If this sounds like two lovers talking about their relationship, then you're on the right track. God often acts like a spurned lover, and there are a lot of complicated issues in this marriage. Bottom line: God is getting promoted. Commandment Two: No Idols. Ever. "You shall not 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. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for 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, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments." (20:4-6) Back in the ancient world, idol worship of statues and other objects was very common. It's pretty natural to attach yourself to an object, if you think about it. The main idea here is that these idols were contrary to the religious ideas of the writers. They believed that their God held something more intangible, more powerful than could be produced in a crude clay statue. This doesn't mean that God doesn't appear to the Israelites physically. No one is saying "God is an idea, not a force." After all, God is saying this to the Israelites in person in smoke and fire. What the Commandment does say is, "We're not going to engage in this particular form of physical worship anymore." Commandment Three: Oaths, Swearwords, and Blasphemy "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name." (20:7) This one is all about respect for God. For the ancients, it wasn't a ban on naughty words, but an attempt to elevate God's name and give it some cultural currency. In other words, the writers wanted to make sure that God's name had some panache behind it. Think about The Godfather when Vito "swears on the souls of his grandchildren," or when Westley in The Princess Bride refuses to accept Inigo's word as a Spaniard because, "I've known too many Spaniards." Oaths means something and the writers here are just trying to give this stuff a punch. Blasphemy isn't just a ban on swearwords, but a ban on using God's name flippantly. Commandment Four: Chillaxin' on a Weekend "Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any workyou, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it." (20:8-11) When you think about it, this is a pretty good idea for society. Why shouldn't everyone just work all the time? We'd get way more done. Especially for the ancients, who had crops to worry about, this was a big deal. Taking aside one day for higher concerns (like God) is a major breakthrough because it moves the ancient world from pure survival mode to a more cosmopolitan way of life. If you're thinking about the next place to find food all day, you definitely aren't thinking about man's condition in the universe. Commandment Five: The One Parents Always Cite "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that

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the Lord your God is giving you." (20:12) This one isn't just an attempt by parents to overcome their children. It's about setting up a society that works, and works well. Here's the thing. You probably can't have a functional society that standardizes parental disrespect (unless you're George Orwell and this is 1984). Commandment Six: Killingor Murder? NRSV: "You shall not murder." (20:13) KJV: "Thou shalt not kill."(20:13) Ah, translations. "Murder" implies that you took another life for your own advantage. "Killing" might imply that there was a better reasonafter all, Moses himself killed a man. This is nasty moral territory, folks. Given that God himself authorized Israelites to kill Amalekites, it's reasonable to assume that this rule only applies to your community. War seems like an exemption, and God himself takes life. It's messy, but the writers probably left it that way intentionally. Commandment Seven: No Adultery "You shall not commit adultery." (20:14) Remember, in ancient times, one man could have multiple wives, no problem. This isn't a romantic endorsement of marriage or anything. The writers are just trying to make sure that their society has rules. What this passage is really saying is that a married woman cannot have sex with a man who is not her husband. Sorry, galsthat's just the way this world worked. Commandment Eight: No Stealing "You shall not steal." (20:15) Seems pretty straightforward, right? But what about the Israelites "plundering" the Egyptians in 3:21-22? Wouldn't you say that counts as a kind of stealing? Also, what about taking the land in Canaan that God himself said belonged to other people? God has made it clear from the beginning that he's giving the land of others to the Israelites. Is that stealing, or just ancient regional politics? Yeah, it's complicated. Commandment Nine: Testifying and Witnessing "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." (20:16) Basically, you could take this two ways. You could interpret in Law & Order style and say that this commandment only prohibits lying on the stand in a trial. So if you see something happen, you can't lie about it when asked by the man. Makes good social sense, right? You could also take it as a complete ban on all lying. On a smaller scale, isn't lying bearing false witness? If you're not being truthful, then aren't you technically just a bad witness to life? In both cases, here's another attempt to regulate society and create a functional system of laws. That's not to say that there were no laws before the Commandments, but this represents an attempt to get everything written down. Commandment Ten: Hey Jealousy "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (20:17) On one level, this seems like a good idea. Envy and jealousy produce crime, so why not just ban it? A few historical goodies on this commandment. First, doesn't this seem like a way for people to deal with social inequalities? If everyone had an identical ox, why would you need to be envious of someone else's?

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Second, check out how "wife" gets lumped in with all kinds of property. That's just the way it was. Slavery is also taken for granted. No surprise there, since it's all over the Bible. Finally, did you notice that the images on this list are very pastoral? It's basically farm equipment and animals. Moses's is a very farming-oriented society. What would you put on today's list? iPads? Computers? Houses? Money? The End And that's it. Those are your ten commandments. But we're not done. Duh. Think about these commandments in this way: If you're a city planner, would you put up a "No Smoking" sign in a place where people don't smoke? Of course not. We're not saying that the ancient world was anarchy before these commandments, but you wouldn't make rules unless you had good reason. Whoever wrote this stuff (God, Moses, the Biblical writers, or your grandmother) had a very certain idea in mind about how they wanted society to look. When we think of this chapter in a literary framework, even more question pop up: How would these rules look if Moses had said them? How would they look if God wasn't cloaked in fire and smoke? The point is that context matters. If Dumbledore or Gandalf says something, we shut up and listen. There's some speculation that the writers of the Exodus story inserted these rules to make them seem like God said themif that's the case, it's kind of a brilliant strategy. If you want to dig into the archaeological, legal, and historical meat of these commandments, you'll find endless work on the subject. Most scholars agree that whoever wrote these commandments was heavily influenced by the world around them. Basically, the list boils down to Hittite influences to the north, Egyptian influences from the south, and Mesopotamian influences from the west. Hammurabi's Code looks an awful lot like the Ten Commandments, and Hittite treaties may have also been at work. A quick dip back into the story: After God gives out the Commandments, the people freak out and tell Moses that he should be the one talking to God. They're too scared. We might be, too. The Book of the Covenant Whoa. Why are we suddenly combining all these chapters? Fear not, Shmoopers. We've got your back. This chunk of Exodus is considered to be one of the oldest pieces of legal mumbo-jumbo in the entire Bible. The thing is, the tone and content of this group of writings doesn't match the Ten Commandments and the stuff before it. We basically go from cosmic concerns about human life to technical laws about slaves and property. The document looks a lot like Mesopotamian legal code, and the Hebrew itself is a bit older. If you were writing this volume, and you needed to insert an older document into the new stuff, the moment right after the Ten Commandments is a great place to do it. It's like a network putting a new TV show on right after something they know people will watch. Better ratings, you know? P.S. This all comes to us as a revelation from God to Moses. Apparently God is a sucker for property law. The whole thing is worth reading, but we're going to give you a greatest hits section that gets at all the relevant pieces. Most of these laws are laid out in a format that was very common in the ancient world at the time: "Ifthen" Hypotheticals were the basis for lawand for exceptions to it. 20:22-26: Altar Law

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God makes it clear here that he doesn't want any gold or silver idols around his altar: "You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings" (20:23-24). This sounds kind of new age. Back to the earth, right? Also, check out how pastoral this statute is; anyone could build an altar to this guy. Oh, and one other thing: if you use stones, just make sure that they're not "hewn" stones that have felt iron. Only the super-organic stuff. 21:1-11: Slave Law Here we get some specifics: Male Hebrew slaves have to serve six years; children born to slaves remain slaves; female slaves can be used as concubines; and some slaves, if they don't want to be freed, can be enslaved for life. Bottom line: slavery was a huge part of ancient culture. 21:12-27: Violence Law Punishments abound here. Unpremeditated murder gets you sent away, but premeditated murder, kidnapping, matricide, and patricide all get you killed. Notice how infanticide isn't mentioned at all. Why? Because child sacrifice was a reality. (But in 21:22, the author notes that injuring a pregnant woman and inducing miscarriage has a financial penalty.) Check out this passage in 21:20-21: "When a slave owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner's property." Yowza. Talk about walking a fine line between gruesome murder and property management. That's how these people thought, though. Slavery just was a part of life. P.S. Famous line alert! When the author talks about injuring a pregnant woman, he notes that, "If any harm follows [the woman's miscarriage], then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." (21:23-25). There it is. Biblical justice in action. 21:28-36: Property Law Basically, don't be dumb with your animals. If a crazy, wild ox you own kills someone, it's your fault. If a docile, nice ox kills someone, it's not your fault. Common sense type stuff. But check out how stinkin' specific the passage gets though: "If someone leaves a pit open, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit shall make restitution, giving money to its owner, but keeping the dead animal." Well, we're glad we settled that. At least we get to keep the dead animal. 22:1-15: Restitution Law (Compensation) Even though the Ten Commandments tell the Israelites not to steal, they have laws just in case someone does it. Notice how agricultural these laws are. We're done talking big-time revolution/freedom story, and we're on to drab legal jargon about how many oxen Bob should get for his stolen one. These animal laws certainly make us think twice about whether this is a different text from a different time. It's like moving from a Ben Stein lecture to a Michael Bay movie, Bible style. 22:16-31: Sorcery, Betrayal & Child Sacrifice Just when you thought things couldn't possibly get any more boring, suddenly we get this crazy set of laws. Verses 16-18 deal with women's issues, which, needless to say, were a lot more messed up back in the day. We get prohibitions against female sorcery ("You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live") and a determination that a man who sleeps with a virgin shall "pay an amount equal to the bride-price for

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virgins" in case her father doesn't want to sell her. Yowza. Then, we get prohibitions against bestiality ("Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death"), sacrificing to other gods, and an important paragraph on reciprocal justice. What is reciprocal justice? Have a look-see: "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans." Basically, the idea is that your experiences should dictate both your actions and their consequences. We're not quite at the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12), but you can see the idea emerging in these kinds of passages. As if all that weren't enough, we then move on to banking interest law, pawn law, rotten meat law, offering law, and a law against cursing your leader. Rapid fire, boom, boom, boom. Finally, we get something big in 22:29-30. Child sacrifice law. Child sacrifice was common in the ancient world, but the Israelites wanted to replace it with circumcision. You can feel the tension between those two in this passage: "The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me." Ever wondered why Jewish male babies are circumcised eight days after they're born? Sounds like a way better deal for the firstborn than death. 23:1-9: Universal, Fair Justice This one's easy: don't mess with other people. Don't lie at someone else's trial; bring back Bob's donkey when it gets lost; don't take bribes; be nice to immigrants. Oh, and here's an interesting issue that relates to our times: "When you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to the poor in a lawsuit." Decide the case on its own merits, and don't be biased against one side. Sounds like the pledge they make you take at jury duty. 23:10-13: A Sabbath Year? Yep, the Sabbath doesn't only apply to weeksit applies to years. If you're a farmer, save enough during years 1-6 because in year 7, the poor and the wild animals get to use your fields. If you were a farmer, how would you feel about this? Turns out this is actually smart in agricultural terms. Some crops, like cotton, tax the land, and you can't grow anything on the soil until the nutrients are replenished. 23:14-19: Festivals, Fairs & Pageants Festival time, folks. God declares that three festivals shall be held each year: one at Passover; the Festival of Weeks, now celebrated as Shavuot in Judaism, at the beginning of the harvest; and the Festival of Booths, now celebrated as Sukkot in Judaism, at the end of the harvest. These are big moments for the ancients. Eventually, they'll pilgrimage to festivals at the Temple of Solomon. 23:20-33: Conquering Canaan God promises that an angel will aid the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan and warns the Israelites not to be seduced by the inhabitants' worship of other gods. No matter how low-cut their dress. God also mentions that he won't get rid of all of these people overnight. Otherwise, the wild animals would overwhelm Israel (you'd think they could handle things with 600,000 men). Instead, it'll happen gradually over a number of years.

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Who's On First? Whew. Now that all that nice legal mumbo jumbo is over (hint: it's not), let's get back to our tour of Mount Sinai. God tells Moses in 24:1-2, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance. Moses alone shall come near the Lord; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him." Basically, this is Moses's party. The elders get to witness stuff, but they can't really be in tune with God like Moses can. Moses goes to the people and reads to them from the Book of the Covenant. You know, just some light reading. Everyone is hunky-dory, so Moses sprays the people with animal blood to make everything nice and official. Talk about the blood oath of blood oaths. Here's where things get confusing. Moses and the elders go up to see God, and the text is pretty explicit about them doing it together. Didn't God say that this was a Moses-only club? Here's the actual text in 24:9-10: "Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness." Seems like some hardcore chilling to us. Then, by verse 12, we're back to square one. Moses puts Aaron in charge of the people, goes up to Mount Sinai, and enters the cloud of God: "Now 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. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights." This time, it sounds like it's a Moses-only gathering. So why is verse 12 (where Moses goes in alone) paired with verses 9-10 (where they all go together to check God out)? Could this be two different texts spliced into one product? See if you can divide up the chapter.