ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #44 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> What is Verse 17 talking about when it speaks of the mountain and the sanctuary and God's abode? >> Well, this really is an interesting question, Eric. Several times in the course of the poem, the poem uses what we might describe as sanctuary language. For example, in Verse 13 we have the reference to God's holy abode. And interestingly, this is in Verse 13 a word that has some pastoral imagery. The word for abode used there is a word used to describe a place where a shepherd might take shelter out in a field. It's a kind of temporary place. A lean to or a shed or something like that. But this isn't a normal kind of residence. This is God's holy residence. So the idea of Yahweh's shepherding his people comes through in the choice of the words there in Verse 13. Similarly, in Verse 17 we have a reference to God planting them on the mountain. And note here that the mountain is described as the place that God has established as his abode. Also in the same verse, in Verse 17, we have the use of the term sanctuary in the phrase the sanctuary that your hands have established. And even in the last verse in the poem, which says, "Yahweh will reign forever and ever" implies a kind of sanctuary because it is in the sanctuary that the gods of the ancient world reign on earth. So by affirming the rule of God, the reign of God, we're also sort of implying a sanctuary context here. The question is: What are all these references talking about? What is this divine abode? What is this sanctuary that the poem is talking about? Because we haven't heard anything about that before anywhere in the book of Exodus. Well, part of the answer is tied up with how you read those problematic verb forms that we were talking about in the last question. But generally there are three alternatives offered by commentators for how to understand what's being spoken of here. The first is to understand all of these references as being references to Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is the holy abode. That it's the mountain that God has established for himself. That it is the -- you know, the sanctuary that he has made, the place where he will reign. The second solution is to suggest that this refers sort of to Canaan in general. To the Promised Land in general. Because remember, the central feature of the Promised Land is this central mountainous spine. So the mountains of Israel in general is offered by some scholars as an explanation for what's being spoken of here. And the third solution that's probably the most common one besides Mount Sinai is that what we have here is a reference to Mt. Zion and the temple. That Mt. Zion and the temple are the sanctuary being spoken of here. Now, remember where the song is being sung. This song is being sung by the shores of Yam Suph where the army of Egypt has just been destroyed. Now, all three of these possible alternatives lie in the future as Moses is singing this song. But the verb forms in the Hebrew text are verb forms that are usually used to talk about the past as we mentioned in talking about the last question. Critical scholars see this as more evidence that the poem was written much later and was placed artificially in the mouth of the Moses. In fact, critical scholars are divided on this issue. Some think Exodus 15 was not originally one poem at all but it was originally two poems. One that was about the victory of the -- you know, victory at the sea. And another one that was about Yahweh's leading his people to his holy abode. And maybe the first one was early but the last one was late and they were artificially put together. But that's sort of a different issue to debate. Now, the question I think for us is: Why would critical scholars take that view? We're not going to solve the problem of the tenses of the verb here as we said in the last question. But I think what we can understand from this is why critical scholars take the position that they do. And I think that's important for us. And the answer is that they take the position that they take because universally critical scholars deny the idea of true predictive prophesy. For historical critics it's virtually a matter of doctrine that since the Bible is a human word and humans simply cannot tell the future, therefore, any reference to telling the future must, in fact, be something that comes from the future that was sort of projected artificially into the past. And this issue gets a lot of debate in commentaries as you might imagine. And you may even have run across it in some of the material that you read in preparation for this class. I think the solution certainly from a conservative perspective is easy enough. As long as you don't reject the idea that prophesy is possible, then there are no real problems in this text. Moses is simply alluding in a prophetic way to what God is about to do as he leads them to the land that he promised the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that he would give to them. It only becomes a problem if you reject prophesy. And if you reject the idea of prophesy, then you have to come up with a very complicated alternative theory. And it's the discussion of those very complicated alternative theories that we often encounter in the commentaries. But as long as we don't reject the idea of prophesy, then the fact that whichever one of these three theories that you prefer, it doesn't really make that much difference because all of them are simply prophetic. As for me, I prefer the Mt. Zion view because I think if you look at the way the text unfolds, all the discussion or -- most of the discussion about them residing in this divine abode happens after the events that are recorded in the book of Numbers that are alluded to in this poem as the other kings in the area tremble and flee before Israel. And so following sort of the chronological sequence of the poem, the place to which they arrive at the end is Israel -- it's specifically Mt. Zion where the temple is built. And because we have a reference both to the holy mountain and to the sanctuary, I think Mt. Zion is the best alternative. But the real issue here is whether one rejects the idea of predictive prophesy or not. And as long as one doesn't, then there are no real problems in this to take -- you know, to have to solve. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***