ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #50 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. *** >> One of the things that struck me about this text is that in Verses 1 and 2, God commanded Moses to come up to him. But in Verse 3 and following, Moses goes and does something else first. And only later in Verse 9 does he seem to do what God had commanded him to do. Why did Moses even have this ceremony since God did not command him to do it? >> Your question points to a careful reading of the text. And it often happens that a careful reading of the text such as you reflect raises these kinds of questions about this text. In fact, historical criticism has long held that this entire section is an amalgam of material that's patched together by a not very skillful editor. And I don't think we'll take the time for this text to go into the details for two reasons. One, we've already seen the way that historical criticism tends to treat these texts. And I think you'll understand that it treats this one much the same way that it treats others. Also, there happened to be so many variations with respect to this text that it's hard to even come up with one description that could be general enough to describe what we might call a historical critical perspective. But let's take a look at the text. And I think you will see some of the things in the text that cause you to ask the question that you did, Nick. And also some others to ask the questions that they have asked of the text. And then we'll take a look at sort of what it looks like from a literary perspective and also some of the significant theological elements in this passage. First, why did Moses have this ceremony? You're quite right that nowhere in the book of Exodus does God command Moses to have this ceremony. However, we need to realize that as with any narrative text, we're not given every detail of what happened. In putting together a narrative, the author selects the things that he wants to include for whatever reasons he has of his own. And it's not always obvious to us why the author includes one thing but not another. But in this case, the fact that God has not instructed Moses to do this at any point that's mentioned in the text, I don't think we should take that to -- as any kind of proof that God didn't tell Moses to do it. But rather, you know, simply God didn't inspire Moses to include it in the text. It's in some ways not necessary to think that we have every command to go with every action that Moses or anyone else takes. I think we can take it for granted that God did instruct Moses or suggest or something like that that they should have this kind of ceremony. Just as God instructed them to have the Passover ceremony. Even there we don't get all of the details in God's command that we later get in the description of what they do in the Passover. So I don't think that we should be troubled by that. Ironically, from the historical critical perspective, if all of the details did line up, they would argue that someone invented it because the match-up was too perfect. So I don't think we need to be too troubled with those things. One of the things we do want to be aware of, though, is the way that Chapter 24 brackets the giving of the torah with Exodus 19. And we mentioned that earlier already when we were talking about some of the earlier texts. It's important to remember that, to keep that in mind. Because this is a kind of package. Israel begins to prepare for the formalization of their relationship in the covenant in Chapter 19. They make plans that are concluded here in Chapter 24. So there's a real connection between those two. And the fact that there are so many chapters of material in between shouldn't distract us from the fact that these two events go very closely together. In form we have narrative material in the first two verses. And then we have this cultic or liturgical material in Verses 3 to 8 followed by additional narrative from Verses 9 to 18. So probably by now from reading and from our discussions you can predict what historical critics would do with this text. And you're right that almost universally critical scholars would argue that the liturgical or cultic material in Verses 3 to 8 is from some other source than the narrative material surrounding it. As I said, we're not going to go into the details here because there are too many variations. And the details in some sense don't matter that much to us anyway. It's more important that we understand why. And so I think I would like to take a moment to look at why critical scholars do what they do and why the details of this text seem problematic to many commentators. There are two issues that emerge as people look at this text closely. One is -- one we've already mentioned, what we might call the thematic scene between the narrative and what God commands Moses to do and then the interruption of that narrative with the liturgical material before the narrative resumes. So in Verses 1 to 2 -- as you quite rightly noted, Nick, in your question, in Verses 1 to 2, God commands Moses to come up. But Moses doesn't actually come up until Verse 9. So there's a little gap there. And the gap contains that liturgical material, the ceremony that they do. And so for critical scholars, they would commonly see this kind of seam or break in the narrative as evidence of material from some secondary source. I think we've indicated before that we now know from other ancient near eastern texts that it's not uncommon for this kind of thing to happen in ancient narratives. And so we probably would not need to resort to the kind of explanation that critical scholars have offered. We can defend quite easily the fact that this is the kind of thing that ancient near eastern texts do with some regularity and it ought not to trouble us. There's another issue that both critical and conservative scholars raise when they look at this text. And this really engages not only this text here in Chapter 24 but also the whole of the section from 19 to 24. And that's a kind of problem with the chronology of the text. There seems to be some difficulty with figuring out the exact sequence of the events, especially because there's a lot of going up and coming down on the part of Moses and others and it doesn't always sort of line up exactly. And this has caused some to suggest that maybe what we have in these chapters is material that's not arranged chronologically but some material that's been put together in a thematic way rather than a chronological way. I don't know that it's worth us going through all of the details of this going up and coming down. But let's do just enough to give you a sense of the issue here. The first question I think we need to ask is: Where was Moses when the Ten Commandments were given? Now, almost universally based on the movie we think that Moses was on top of the mountain when he received the Ten Commandments. But let's look at what the text actually tells us backing up to Chapter 9. In Verse 3 Moses goes up, receives an invitation to keep the covenant and then goes down in Verse 7. In Verse 8, Moses goes up, delivers the response of the people, receives a call to prepare and then is warned about the holiness of the mountain not to let people up on it and then Moses goes down again in Verse 14. In Verse 16, on the third day, all the people gather at the foot of the mountain. And then Verse 18 we have the theophany. In Verse 20 Moses goes up again. Receives another warning about the holiness of the mountain. Is told to bring Aaron. And then goes down in Verse 25. So at the end of Chapter 19 Moses has gone down from the mountain, is at the foot of the mountain. Now, at the beginning of Chapter 20 when we get into the Ten Commandments, we're simply told that God speaks to Moses. The assumption on the part of most people is that Moses is on top of the mountain. But according to the narrative, if you follow the chronology of the text, Moses is at the foot of the mountain. And this is reenforced by the fact that after the Ten Commandments in Chapter 20 Verse 19, the people respond to Moses immediately, which suggests that the people heard the Ten Commandments and that Moses was there with the people. So while the text doesn't tell us directly that Moses was at the foot of the mountain, that's probably the conclusion that we ought to draw. That Moses wasn't on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments. He was down with the people. And that everybody heard God say this. And so after that in Verse 21 of Chapter 20, Moses then goes up and approaches God. Again, which reenforces his being down. And here is where it gets a little interesting. At the end of Chapter 20 God has been giving instructions to Moses. He is up on the mountain. Now, at the beginning of Chapter 24 we read Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the elders come up and worship. Well, according to the narrative, Moses is already up. So how could they be coming? And we're told that they worshiped at a distance. So here is the first sort of little problem that Moses -- if you sort of chart Moses' progress, he should already be up on the mountain. So how does he come up again? Well, maybe you might argue that, you know, he went down and the text just doesn't record it. Because in the gap between the end of Chapter 20 and Chapter 24, we have all of those instructions of the Book of the Covenant. And that's the focus of the text. So maybe there's no problem here. And you may well be right about that. In any case, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the elders at the beginning of our text here at the beginning of Chapter 24 go up and worship at a distance. In Verse 2 we read Moses alone should approach Yahweh. In Verse 3 we read Moses went presumably down and tells the people. And they all agree. And they have the covenant ceremony at the foot of the mountain the next day. Then in Verse 9, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the elders go up again. And they see God. And they eat and drink. And then in Verse 12 Moses is told to come up to remain and to receive the tablets. In Verse 13 Moses sets out with Joshua to apparently keep the instruction in Verse 12. Note that. Where did Joshua come from? This is the first time he's been mentioned. Why is Moses bringing him when God told Moses to come up? He didn't say, "Bring Joshua with you." In Verse 14 Moses tells the elders to wait. Here the assumption must be that this is out of sequence because if Moses is already set out with Joshua in the previous verse, he could hardly tell the elders to wait after he left unless you envision him getting halfway up the mountain and saying, "Oh, by the way, I meant to tell the elders that" and turning around and shouting back down the mountain. That doesn't seem like a very reasonable solution to most people. So most people take this to be sort of a non-chronological arrangement that they wanted to emphasize Moses' obedience so they moved it up right after the command. And there's another element they wanted to mention so they just stuck it at the end. In any case, in Verse 15 Moses, apparently alone at this point, went up, waits six days for God to call him to come into the cloud. In the next verse, 16, on the seventh day God invites Moses into the cloud. And Moses enters in Verse 18. And we're told he stays there 40 days and nights. And during that 40 days and nights presumably he receives the material that we have between Chapters 21 or -- excuse me; 25 Verse 1 and 31 Verse 18. At the end of that, Chapter 31 and Chapter 32, we read -- and here we come to the golden calf episode. Moses goes down. That is, he leaves the cloud after interceding for the people. In Verse 17 Joshua speaks to Moses about the noise from the camp. In Verse 19 Moses approaches the camp and sees the people and breaks the tablets. And you know what happens after that. So as you can see, there are a few problems here with Moses going up and down. They are not insurmountable. And there's also some problems with sort of who is with Moses and where Moses is at any given point in the text. These questions are one of the reasons that critical scholars like to argue that we have multiple sources here. They attribute all of this going up and down to different versions of the story being collated or put together. And the editors just didn't do all that careful a job of keeping track of who was where. But there's really another possible explanation that fits this situation very well. If you look at the slide that I put up on the screen here, you'll see that we have here a little image of the mountain. It's not a very good mountain. It's more of a triangle. But I think you get the perspective. And at the foot of the mountain we have Israel, the people. About halfway up the mountain or so we have the elders gathered there. Nahab -- Nadab, Abihu and all of those other folks. About three-quarters of the way up we have Joshua. And then at the top of the mountain we have Moses with the cloud in which God is dwelling. This arrangement sort of reflects the ancient near eastern notion of sacred space. That there is in ancient near eastern religions and also in the Old Testament a clear-cut idea that there's a difference in sort of who can approach God and who can get close to God and that the space becomes more restrictive as you get closer to God. And we see this same theology reflected in the theology of the tabernacle and in the theology of the temple. In the tabernacle we have an area outside the fence as it were where anyone can be. Inside the tabernacle -- inside the fence that marks off the tabernacle area we have a place where only certain people can come, the males of the community. Inside that we have the tent proper within the tabernacle into which only the priests can enter. And finally, within that, the holy of holies into which only the high priest can enter. So we have this very common idea both in the ancient near eastern in general and in the Bible in particular that there are what we might call zones of holiness within this idea of sacred space. So many have suggested -- and I think it's quite reasonable -- that part of what is shaping this discussion of who is where in Chapters 19 to 24 is a reflection of this idea of sacred space. And so all of the details are not mentioned in the text. Because in a sense, they don't need to be for the ancient near eastern reader. They would have understood that certain people could only go up a certain distance. So when it says sort of they went up or they went down, it doesn't necessarily mean that they went all the way up or all the way down together. And that may explain why we get the elders going up and then Moses going up again after that. You know, because the elders didn't go as far up as Moses went in proximity to the presence of God. So I think that's probably the best solution to this what critical scholars sometimes call the problem of chronological or geographical coherence. And this isn't a solution that only conservatives agree to. There are many critical scholars over the last 20 or 30 years who come to say yes, maybe this is a solution to the problem. They still think that there's more than one source in the text. But at least they see this as a way that the text is shaped. So we've talked about the way that this text works to bring the material that begins with Chapter 19 to a conclusion. We've talked about the -- some of the literary issues in the text here with the thematic scene and the chronological coherence issue. Before we leave this text, even though you didn't ask about the theology of the text, Nick, let me just make one important comment I think about this covenant ceremony from a theological perspective. This completes the process of formalizing the relationship between Yahweh and his people. And I said it that way very carefully. Because often in literature, frankly, particularly by Presbyterians who put so much emphasis on covenant as a theological element, one almost gets the impression that the covenant is the whole thing. That the covenant is the really important thing here. I think we would take issue with that and suggest that a careful reading of the text would suggest that the covenant is not the relationship between God. It's the formalization of the relationship. The relationship already existed. God called the Hebrews "my people" all the way back in Chapter 3, the first time he talked with Moses. And he treated them as his people all the way through the drama of redemption and has referred to them as "my people" several times since then. So in God's mind, the relationship already exists. The relationship isn't established by the covenant ceremony. It's formalized or made public by that ceremony. We might think of this in terms of an analogy. Consider the relationship between say you and your wife. That relationship existed before the formal public declaration of that relationship in your marriage. The marriage didn't create the relationship. The marriage was the formal expression of the relationship. So if I ask you about -- if we were close, intimate friends and I asked you sort of how your marriage is going, you wouldn't say, "I don't know. Let me go to my files and get out my marriage certificate and see how it's going." Because the marriage certificate and the marriage ceremony don't constitute the relationship. And the covenant is the same way. Remember, covenant is a sort of theological word that really means nothing more than contract or treaty. And it's the formal declaration of that relationship that is represented in the contract. It's not the thing itself. That's an important recognition I think and something that we should remember when talking about the covenant. That the covenant is not the thing. It is just the way that we talk about the thing. Finally, there's an important christological aspect to this text. And that is, namely, the blood that's shed in the formalization of the covenant ceremony. Here we have in this -- you remember from the description the sacrifice, part of the blood being thrown on the altar and the other part of the blood being thrown on the people. This idea is a very important one in the theology of the Bible. For example, in Leviticus Chapter 17 Verse 11 we're reminded that "The life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." Now, remember, this is Leviticus. So it's after what we have here in the book of Exodus. But nonetheless, an important recognition that the shedding of blood is connected to the work of God in forgiving the sins of the people and, you know, has an ongoing importance. So that when we come to the New Testament, we get significant echoes or reminders of this in the New Testament. For example, one that should stick out to us as Lutherans very obviously is in Matthew 26 Verses 27 to 28 where Jesus takes a cup, when he had given thanks, gave it to them saying, "Drink of it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Jesus in establishing the Lord's Supper makes a direct connection between the giving of his blood in, with and under the wine of the Lord's Supper and the blood that is shed throughout the sacrificial system of the Old Testament leading back to this blood poured out upon the people which formalizes and -- the relationship between God and the people in the covenant. Similarly, the book of Hebrews makes this point, as well. In Chapter 9 beginning with Verse 19. I'm going to skip some stuff and just pick out some selected verses there beginning with Verse 19. There we read "When every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all of the people." Notice we have some details here that we don't get in the book of Exodus. In Verse 22, indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. "For Christ has entered" -- skipping to Verse 26 -- "once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." So the author of the book of Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus' death, the shedding of Jesus' blood, is the once for all conclusion of the process that began when Moses threw the blood upon the altar and upon the people here in Exodus 24. Again, in Hebrews 12 we have this point made clear when the author says, "You have come to Mt. Zion and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." So throughout both the Old and the New Testament, the shedding of the blood and the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar and the people here that we have in Exodus 24 becomes an important prefigurement of the work of Christ. So as we leave this text or at least wrap up this part of our investigation of the text, we want to keep our focus on that as an important theological construct in this text. *** 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. ***