40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 87 (Exodus 20:18-21:11)

Episode Date: June 28, 2017

The 10 Commandments may be in the rearview mirror but God isn't done speaking. Two kinds of fear? Instructions for altars. What is worship really about? Everything is religious? Rules for Old slavery. Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price begin sorting through what God says following the 10 commandments in this episode. Check it out!

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes of the Old Testament. I am Daniel Emery Price, joined by Chad Bird. Chad, how are things in Texas? Things are hot in Texas, Dan. I bet they are. We reached triple digits this weekend, so anybody who goes outside needs to be close to water. Pretty much. Stay cool. But besides that, everything's good.

All right. Yeah, man. Everything is good here. It's not quite that hot. The weekend was hot. Man, it was humid. we've been getting some uh some rain and stuff and then it got super hot and the humidity was at like a hundred percent yeah yeah it's like swamp conditions down here too oh man i mean the heat is one thing but man when it's when it's like 90 and 100 humidity it is miserable yeah this is the time of year when every prayer begins with thanksgiving for swimming pools and acs top two top two things we give thanks for that's right that's right well uh last week we uh we

figured out our way through the ten commandments and uh i think that uh there's going to be some more sort of uh explaining of some commandments coming for a little bit yeah that's exactly right So we're going to have a brief few verses here where it's not specifically about commandments, even though there's an aspect of it there. But then once we get past the end of chapter 20 and then into 21, actually through 23, we're going to have a whole lot of full on of laws and legal situations and judgments and stuff like that. So we got more of that coming. But for now, we have verses 18 through 26 of Exodus 20, which are a little break from the commandment giving and a little more focus on worship as well as the role of Moses as a mediator between God and Israel. So that's where we're at. So after at the very end of the beginning of the Ten Commandments, we have in verses 18 through 21, kind of the the awestruck response of the people, as well as the request that they make. It says that so this is right after right after the Ten Commandments are giving are given, it says, and all the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountains smoking. So they saw all this stuff going on in addition to hearing God speak.

So they got thunder and lightning and this trumpet blasting and this whole mountain looking like a volcano about to erupt. And it's no surprise that it says when people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. What else are they going to do? Right. They're scared to death and they make a request at this point. Then they said to Moses, Speak to us yourself, and we will listen. But don't let God speak to us, lest we die. So the people are so terrified that they beg that they hear no more words directly from the mouth of God. That's how frightened they were by not just the sound of God speaking, but all of this accompanying stuff that's happening. the volcano type uh look of the of the mountain and thunder and lightning flashes like there's

this big storm going on so don't speak to us anymore don't let don't speak to us yourself and we'll listen but don't let god speak to us lest we die so they they they're so scared that they think if they hear one more word directly from god that's it they're going to die right on the spot so moses tries to calm them down a little bit he says don't be afraid because God has come in order to test you and in order that the fear of him may remain with you so that you may not sin. I think this is important. Well, first of all, notice we have two words for fear here. Don't be afraid, he says. It almost sounds contradictory at first. He says, don't be afraid because God has come in order to test you in order that the fear of him may remain with you

so that you may not sin i looked in the hebrew and the root is exactly the same on both of these both these hebrew words the word for afraid and the word for fear i mean it's it's it's not two different words but it's exactly the same word so i think this is the case where we have we have two different kinds of fear going on and sometimes it's called uh uh what's the terminology like servile fear like the fear of a servant as opposed to filial fear which is the fear or the honor of respect that a son has for his father. So Moses is saying kind of two different things here. He said, don't be afraid like a slave might be afraid, because God's come

in order to test you. Instead, let there be this kind of filial fear or a respectful fear of him. May that remain with you so that you may not sin. So the purpose of God coming was in order to test them, in order to, when he gave the Ten Commandments, when all of this was happening, this was a test of the people, so that they may have this fear of him, and in order that they may not sin.

So that's the purpose of God's appearing. That's the purpose of him speaking these Ten Commandments, is to keep them from breaking the Ten Commandments, to keep them from living a life in which they don't fear him, And as a result, break the commandments. Yeah, I think that it's sort of like there are things that you can be afraid of because you think they're going to kill you. If I go and approach an active volcano, I'm going to be afraid because that thing might kill me or I'm afraid that I'm going to die. i can also approach uh and a sort of inactive volcano and and be in awe of it and i'm in awe

of it knowing that could kill me you know yeah um maybe i'm not you know concerned that that's that that there's not lava pouring out of it and i'm not like in immediate danger but i'm in awe of it knowing that this is a powerful powerful thing and i am uh near it yeah those are different things right and i think that that's probably maybe that's probably a crappy example but uh that's kind of how how i see it you can be terrified of something because it's about to kill you or you can just be terrified of something because of uh who you are in comparison to it yeah i think i think that's a great great example so he first of all they're they're afraid they're going to die so that's his that is his first meaning of his first phrase so don't be afraid

don't be afraid that you're about to die because you're not god didn't come here in order to kill you if he wanted to kill you you'd already be dead so don't be afraid in the sense that you're about to you're about to be completely destroyed by god that's not going to happen he's come in order to test you, to give you his words. And the result of this, what he wants is that a healthy fear, a healthy respect, a healthy awe might be instilled in you as a result of this experience that you've had, in order that you might learn as a result of that fear and that love and that respect to keep the commandments that he's just given to you. Yeah, so it's a different kind of fear it's a different prompting of the fear itself one is just a concern for one's life

one is a concern for the words of of god that he's just given i think it's i think it's interesting too that uh it's kind of forward looking that from this point on moses does become the mouthpiece of god so that when god wants to speak to the people he doesn't take over a mountain and speak his words from that mountain like he does here. Instead, he gives his words to Moses and then Moses delivers them to the people

so that when you see Moses speaking, when you hear Moses speaking, you hear God speaking. The reason I think this is significant and forward-looking is because Moses becomes a... He's kind of got a dual role here. I mean, sometimes Moses is contrasted

with the Messiah. John does that. The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John is there contrasting Moses with Christ. Moses becomes kind of the symbol of the law, and so he then is contrasted with Christ, who is the embodiment of the gospel. That's one aspect of Moses. But there's another aspect to him, which is actually a parallel with Christ, or a type, or a foreshadowing of christ and we see this for example in later in in the torah in the 18th chapter of deuteronomy where we have a prophecy of another prophet like moses who is to come who will have word of god and who will be like moses this great prophet and that is a prophecy

of of the messiah so in that way moses actually is a uh an embodied prophecy of the coming of of the messiah because just as just when the people heard moses speaking they heard god speaking just as he was the the face and the mouth of god so christ is the face and the mouth of god more than that of course but in that way he parallels with with moses so from this point on when you hear moses you hear god and just like when you hear christ you hear the father speaking So as a result of this, the people, they stand at a distance still, and while they're standing way back, Moses goes forward. It says, Moses approached a thick cloud where God was. So that's the end of this first little section of the Ten Commandments.

And then we have the last few verses of the chapter, which have to do with worship, with altars, with God's activity at those altars. And I think this is a foundational section for our understanding of Old Testament worship. any time that i teach about the parallels between new testament and old testament worship this is always one of my one of my go-to passages from the old testament because i think it's it's insightful as to really the kind of the essence of what old testament worship was all about so here's what it says verse 22 god says to moses presumably this is while he's in this thick cloud that he just entered. He says, you shall say to the sons of Israel, you yourselves have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. This is reflected later in Deuteronomy where it

says you didn't see an image, you didn't see a form, but instead all you heard was a voice. So what did you see? Well, you really didn't see anything of God. Instead, you heard him speaking to you from heaven and as a result of this this is verse 23 now you shall not make other gods besides me gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves so you didn't see any form of god and so don't try don't try to be replicating some image of god on earth we talked about this when we covered the the second or the first commandment about making images so god didn't give an image back then so you don't make an image of him instead they just heard a voice but notice this so verse 23 starts out saying you shall not make other gods 24 starts

out this way you shall make so you shall not make and now you shall make what will so what shall you make you shall make an altar of earth for me and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings and your sheep and your oxen in every place where i cause my name to be remembered i will come to you and bless you so notice what what uh what god is saying here he says don't make images of god because that's that's not what i want he says instead i want you to make an altar of earth for me for your sacrifices. So in some ways, the altar serves as the positive counterpart to idols. Instead of having an image of God, a gold or a stone or a wood or a silver image of God, which is prohibited, instead you are to make an altar. Because if you

In other words, if you want to see God, if you want to see where God is active, if you want not an image of him, but an act whereby he is imaged forth, then here's what you do. You build an altar of earth and you offer sacrifices because it's at that altar where the sacrifices are offered that I'm going to manifest who I am to you. And here's how I'm going to do it. This is how the verse ends. It says in every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. So to kind of get the whole thing together here, God is saying no image is the gold and silver. Instead, I want an altar of earth where you offer sacrifices. And in that place, wherever these altars are built later, there will only be one altar. But at this point, there could be multiple altars in every place where you have one of these altars of earth.

where I cause my name to be remembered, that is, proclaimed, taught, spoken, sung, however that remembrance takes place, I will come to you and I will bless you. So God's purpose in having the Israelites build altars for sacrifice is not so that God gets anything out of it. He's not hungry for the flesh of bulls and goats. He's not thirsty for the blood of these sacrifices. It's not like the pagan concept of sacrifice, whereby the altar is basically the mouth of the deity, whereby we feed him. Instead, the altar is a place where God comes in order to bless his people. so the purpose of the old testament worship is for god's name to be remembered at these altars

in order that god might come and give his gifts give his blessings give his forgiveness and healing and all the other good things that he gives at this place of at this place of sacrifice now there's other places i mean we've seen uh where you know where people make sacrifices and uh there's even other places where people make altars uh but you can correct me if i'm wrong but i believe this is the first place where god commands people to build altars and make sacrifices yeah i believe it is uh we have abraham building altars isaac building altars even no jacob building altars yeah even noah even noah after the yeah even noah right exactly yeah yeah no and well and even before then we have uh we have uh cain and abel you know they're

they're offering sacrifices so right after genesis 4 right after right after creation in the fall we already have sacrifices being offered to top altars but yeah this is the first place where there's a command given to build an altar with with some with some specifications here it's supposed to be an altar of earth and not an altar of stones or uh i mean of cut stones or or anything upon which a tool has been has been wielded yeah so yeah this is this is the first play where that's commanded yeah you had no uh set in stone sort of sacrificial system before this yeah this is the beginning of uh it's kind of a it's kind of evolution uh maybe that's not the best word but there's certainly a growth or a change that takes place with regard to sacrifice

and altars in the old testament really in the torah itself because early on like we have here you could have more than one altar of course there were tons of altars in in genesis but later it will be restricted to the one altar in front of the tabernacle or temple where sacrifices could be offered but at this point that's not the case uh but but i'm glad you asked about the commandment part because that is significant here um god commands her to be altars altars of earth where sacrifices are to be offered so he he by his word he has said this is what he wants and thus by his word he's promised to be there which is one of the foundational truths about about worship the reason worship is so important is because i mean yeah is god everywhere of course he's everywhere

he's omnipresent the church has always confessed that but he hasn't promised to be everywhere for you in the sense of being there in order to bless you and to forgive you and to pour his life into so one of the one of the reasons that we've always had worship in the sense of corporate portion is that that's where god has promised to be he's promised to uh to be in the water of baptism he's promised to be in the bread and wine of the lord's supper he's promised to be in the preached word for you in order that he might give you the gifts that he desires to give you so you have the you have the specific located promise that here i am on your behalf in order to come to you and and bless you yeah a lot of times i say this uh i think we get this all twist around

backwards and upside down and we think when we think about going to church uh which is sort of modern day going to the altar right um we think like well that's where i go i go to church on sunday and sunday is where i go and i go and i serve god and this sort of thing but the opposite is actually true uh you can serve god all week long wherever you are at just doing whatever you do uh sunday is where you go specifically to the place where god has said he will be to serve you that's that's the whole idea behind it is uh yeah god's everywhere and you can serve him you're serving him all week doing whatever it is that he's put you in a vocation to do Sunday, not the day where you go to serve him

in some specific locale that's actually where you go to a specific locale to be served by God yeah, exactly, he doesn't come to be served but to serve and to give his life his ransomed life into us over and over again

it really is the complete opposite of what I think the vast majority at least, I can't speak for Catholics but I think I can speak for most Protestants, their understanding I mean, worship is, you know, it's a chance to go and to give ourselves to God, to give him praise, give him service, to give him whatever we're going to give him. But really the opposite is true. Anything that we give to God in worship is nothing more than an echo of what he's first given to us.

It's the fruit of his labor. So he speaks his word to us and that echoes from us back to him. but we are the ones we are the ones who are there to be served and to respond to that with praise and thanksgiving there's a great line in well it's reflected in the Old Testament

but it's a line from the Greek Orthodox liturgy thine own of thine own have we given unto thee so that expresses anything that we might do in worship thine own of thine own have we given unto thee so we're just giving back to God what he's first given to us but that's not

why we came that why we came is in order that we might gather around his gifts and he might just like he did with the disciples take a towel and and a basin and wash us clean wash our feet wash our hearts and minds and and all of all of who we are with his grace yeah i mean i i kind of view all of all of worship you know you're sort of praising and singing and worshiping god that's all just an amen that's what it is and an amen by definition is a uh it's an agreement right so this is you agreeing with what is already been done i mean you go there and sure you participate and uh but your participation is is amening uh what god has already done which is you know why it's important that your songs be about what god has done i mean throughout the church i mean

throughout for the jews too their songs consist of the the mighty things that god has done for the children of men that's that's the whole deal um his his mighty acts of salvation and deliverance and this sort of thing and uh so when we gather the parts that we do sort of participate in or the giving to god is just amending the things that he's already done so we sing about redemption we sing about the cross and the resurrection and and all of this stuff um and in doing that we are we are just saying amen like which is why i love uh hymns with the word amen side note it's like being invited to a feast right and you're all seated around the table and the people that invited you they provide all the food and the wine and the atmosphere and

the service and and all you're doing is saying this is this is great this this tastes wonderful i love this wine right yeah you're simply acknowledging the the the wonderful nature of the gift yeah nobody thinks of i mean i gotta go i gotta i gotta go work at this at this feast i've been invited to no you're just there to enjoy and to to relish the food and the drink that's been provided you by you from someone else someone who cares for you someone who loves you and that that's what worship is so we say thank you we say this is fantastic this tastes wonderful in other words we say amen to what what god has done that's right say law all right so uh chapter finishes up with uh just a couple of of uh regulations about what kind of

altars are supposed to have that it's supposed to be altars of stone that is raw stone and not cut stone or stone that a tool has been wielded upon so it's supposed to be uh in its natural natural state okay so that kind of wraps up uh the uh the chapter about the ten commandments and uh now we're going to enter a whole new section here in fact it's a it's a rather long section it's uh it's divided in different ways i think most most people divide or not divide but as far as like this section it covers three chapters so it's chapters 21 22 and 23 some people include 24 we're just going to stick with chapters 21 through 23 and it's it's it's been called for some time now and i think uh it's it's fair enough term for it

the book of the covenant and the reason it's called that is because so 21 through 23 give various kinds of kinds of laws and rules and regulations and then when you get to chapter 24 you have this great ceremony of the the covenant and the reading of the covenant and the sacrifice it takes place and so on and so forth and chapter 24 verse 7 says then he that is moses took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and they respond all the lord has spoken we will do so that's where we get this phrase the book of the covenant from 24 verse 7 and uh it's it's a it's a section that stands on its own i mean it's it's uh it's it doesn't have any narrative in it uh it's uh it's got a lot of a lot of correspondences within the various parts

of it that uh unite it together into one unit so i mean really this could have been just one chapter they divided into three just to shorten to shorten it and it deals with uh with lots of different very practical considerations for the life of the israelites for instance it deals in this first section with how they are to treat their servants or their slaves it has sections about uh property and property damage it has sections about uh physical injury to someone else including murder sections on theft and it also has sections upon uh how you are to to uh to give back to your neighbor if you've taken from him or if you've caused any property damage to to what it what is his that's actually some relationships and marriage you know there's

there's and then at the end it deals with some some uh what we would think of as more religious matters that is a sabbatical year and various aspects of worship so there's a whole lot here and uh we're not gonna we're not gonna spend time going on going on over every single one of these laws and regulations but we will cover some of them but to begin with i think it's good to just reflect upon kind of some broader some broader issues that have to do with these uh with all of these very specific laws that we have here because we're going to encounter this over and over we're going to see this later in exodus we're going to see it throughout leviticus uh numbers deuteronomy And all throughout the Torah, interspersed, you have very specific laws that relate to the life of Israel.

I think one of the first things that is worth pointing out is that, and I kind of hinted at this a minute ago, that we tend to think of, when we hear God's laws, divine laws, we automatically assume that it has something to do with what we would call the sacred spheres of life, or the religious spheres of life. But there is no division in the Old Testament between what we would call sacred and secular or the religious and the secular aspects of life. That division simply did not exist.

We might use it. We might bring that into the text. But for the people of Israel, there was no division here. Every law, every rule was theological because everyone was given by God and everyone was to be kept as a reflection of who God is and who the people of Israel are because of his adoption of them as his people. So even though, for instance, these first few laws in chapter 21 deal with slavery and the freedom of servants after a period of years, this is intensely theological. It's a religious law because every single aspect of life, our relationships, our property, our actions toward our neighbor, every single one of those is is theological because all of life for the israelite all of life is lived in the presence of god and so everything that they do every relationship

that they have is done in view of who they are as the chosen adopted holy people of god and so it doesn't matter which aspect of life we're talking about it's all religious and i think there's a lot that we can a lot that we can learn from this because what we tend to do is to have very specific boxes in which we place things in our life so we have the we have the religious box which is a sunday kind of box right that's where we're concerned with religion with the things that are sacred and then once we get out of that whether we're doing something that's for pleasure or entertainment or whether we're doing something with work and making money or We're doing something with our family, whatever.

We don't think of those as religious activities. We don't think of those as, in some way, holy. But if we have an Old Testament religious, Old Testament theological perspective, then they are. Everything that we do, every relationship that we're in, every activity in which we're engaged is theological in that respect. And it's lived out in the presence of God, presence of God always. That's one of the first things I think we have to keep in mind about these laws. that we might say, well, why is this in the Bible to begin with? This doesn't have anything to do with religion.

Well, it does. Everything has to do with religion because we are religious creatures. So everything that we do, everything, every relationship that we're in is infused with our relationship with God or the lack of that relationship with God. We reflect it in what we do. Another thing to keep in mind here, and we'll see this especially reflected here in these laws, is that throughout the Old Testament, there's always an intense concern for the weaker members of society. So here we have servants in view, the poor are in view, the widows are in view. All of those who basically don't have the powerless in society, the disenfranchised in society are often those that the Old Testament laws speak of because they're the ones who need protection.

They're the ones who are most susceptible to acts of injustice by the powerful, the haves against the have nots. So you see this divine concern, in fact, this promise of even divine judgment, divine concern for the poor, for the oppressed, as well as divine judgment against those who would in some way mistreat them or take advantage of them. So God always has an eye on those who are lower, those who are suffering, those who are deprived, those who are most open to abuse by those who are in a position to take advantage of or to abuse them. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's hard to understand that everything that has to do with your neighbor, or that is other people, is inherently religious and has to do with God since your neighbor is made in the image of God. It really just kind of boils down to that. I mean, everyone around you is someone who is an image bearer of God. And so how we interact with them and how we treat them is inherently theological because it's how we're treating somebody who is made in the image of God

and whom God values because God certainly values his own image. So when you look at it like that and you look at people as image bearers of God, then and then how can how can the way we interact and treat them have nothing to do with the one whose image they bear right yeah what a difference it would make if uh every person we every person we had dealings with whether it's co-workers or family members or just people on the street if every face that we saw we said to ourselves this is a person created in the image and likeness of god or to take it even a step further this is one for whom christ died right yeah yeah and all of all of your actions become theological at that point yeah i do uh and and that's that's kind of

the uh the the underlying message of much of chapters 21 through 23 even though it might Even though some of these might strike us as strange because they are not of our culture, because we're historically so separated from this, that really is the concern. It is it is the concern to treat the neighbor with mercy and justice and not to let not to let self-concern or hatred or revenge or anything like that in some way dictate how we interact with our neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. So let's we don't have a whole lot of time left, but we can at least kind of get a flavor for what some of these are. some of these are like this is the way it starts out it says uh now these are the in hebrew the mishpatim which is literally the judgments my translation as ordinances or uh rules laws whatever you want to call them uh which you are to set before them so this is god speaking to moses and moses is then to relay these on to onto the people and the first section as i've mentioned

deals with slaves and i think that in and of itself is significant because the fact that concern for slaves or servants is placed at the very front of these of these laws actually links it to the whole story that we've been covering up to this point because where do the israelites just come from well they came from 400 years of servitude they were uh they were enslaved by the egyptians and so god has just emancipated them from that bondage and so because because of that the talk of slavery and servitude is something that's going to resonate with them right away and here's here's the here's an example of of the laws if you buy a hebrew slave that is if you buy if you in some way acquire one of your brothers or sisters here it's going to be a concern for the

for the males if you in some way acquire a hebrew servant he shall serve you for six years but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment so this was actually pretty common in the ancient world uh suppose you for some reason became impoverished and you had no other choice but to sell yourself into slavery uh then people often did that i mean this continued for for a long time in many different many different cultures there were if you had no way to provide for yourself then basically you indentured yourself to someone else and they were required to to take care of you uh and then you'd you'd work for them so your your pay was basically your room and board and whatever else you needed but you belong to them and here it says that that

can happen that's fine uh but it can only go on for six years and on the seventh that person is is a free man without payment so the rabbis rabbis had a saying that uh that a hebrew who acquires a hebrew as a slave also acquires a master and the reason they said that is because there are so many rules about how you are to treat your servant properly that it's almost like he's a master over you in fact another section of deuteronomy says that not only you're to let him go after six years but you are to basically fill his pockets and his his luggage full of all sorts of good things uh when you when he's when he's finally set free so he's protected he uh is is given is given uh gifts at the end of his servitude and you can only keep him so long

and then it goes on it says if he comes alone then he goes out alone so if he comes in he's a single guy but then he goes out as a single guy if he's a husband of a wife then his wife goes out with him so if he's married then when he leaves his servitude is over his wife goes with him but suppose this happens and this is actually pretty common too suppose while he's there his master gives him a wife that was pretty common in this culture too and she has children sons and daughters well then the wife and her children belong to the master because he provided them and they belong to the household and if that's the case then he has to leave them behind he goes out by himself but if a slave plainly says look i love my master i love my wife i love

my children i won't go out as a free man i'd rather stay here as a servant with my family and then go out as a free man. If that's the case, if he makes that decision, then his master brings him to the sanctuary, to the door of the door or doorpost, and they pierce his ear with an awl. And that becomes the symbol that he is to serve that master permanently. That would be his decision not to leave this wife and children

that were provided to him by his master and said he's going to stay there and be with them for his life. That kind of gives you a flavor for what we're going to be looking at. We are out of time, but we'll be looking at a few more of these in the next episode.

I know that we're out of time, but as a side note, I think that because, as Americans anyway, for our American listeners, when the Bible talks about slavery Or even in the New Testament Paul brings this up quite a bit

In Romans especially We have such a bad history with it That it's a difficult thing for us to sort of maneuver And to deal with Because we think slavery And we rightly think of something real horrific Because as sinners We did not do a good job of this

In any way, shape, or form And maybe that is a good image of slavery to sin. Maybe that's exactly what that looks like. But certainly, for the people of God, what was referred to as slavery was certainly something very different. Yeah, it was, in many ways, it was a self-willed slavery, self-willed servitude. Maybe indentured is a better word to use because that was pretty common not very long ago, just a couple centuries ago, where one would indenture oneself to someone else so you basically became their servant willfully for a designated period of time yeah and that's that's what was happening here with uh

yeah with the israelites yeah and obviously very important to to state that mistreatment was strictly forbidden yeah in fact we to those uh later in the chapter that uh there were there were strict regulations against uh punishing if you if you if you willfully injured your servant, then he could go free. He was to be protected in every situation.

Alright, and we're out of time. We'll get back into it next week. Chad, thanks for hanging out, man. You bet, man. Enjoyed it. See you next time. © transcript Emily Beynon