Why, Augustine asks, did Moses make Israel drink the ground-up gold of the calf? It’s an allegory of incorporation of the Gentiles. The golden calf is Gentile idolatry, but it is broken and humbled, ground down to dust, and then sprinkled on the water for Israel to drink - Israel here . . . . Continue Reading »
In Contra Faustum , Augustine glosses Exodus 15:27 with this: “the twelve sources watering the seventy palm trees prefigure the apostaolic grace that waters the people in the number seven times ten, so that the ten commandments of the law my be fulfilled by the svenfold gift of the . . . . Continue Reading »
In Genesis, firstborn sons are a brutish lot. Cain is the firstborn of firstborns, also the first fratricide. Ishmael mocks Isaac and is driven from Abraham’s camp. Esau would have been another Cain but for his brother Jacob’s wiliness. Jacob’s elder sons conspire to send Joseph . . . . Continue Reading »
On Sinai, Moses intercedes for Israel, asking Yahweh to go with them. First, Yahweh promises to send His Angel ahead; finally, He promises to go before Israel Himself. The sequence of events from Exodus 19-40 is a double-covenant sequence. Israel agrees to do all that Yahweh commands, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Exodus lists the nations of the land of Canaan seven times, and the lists shift through the book. The lists are: Exodus 3:8: give land of 6 nations (Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite). Exodus 3:17: give land of 6 nations (same as in 3:8). Exodus 13:5: give land of 5 nations . . . . Continue Reading »
Exodus 12:42: “It is a night to be guarded for Yahweh for having brought them out of the land of Egypt; this night is for Yahweh, to be guarded by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations. Exodus 12 cannot remind us often enough that the Passover took place at night. Eat the flesh . . . . Continue Reading »
Exodus 12:43, 45, 48: This is the ordinance of the Passover: no son of a stranger is to eat of it. A sojourner or hired servant shall not eat of it. But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to Yahweh, let all his males be circumcised. Passover is for Israel and for Israel . . . . Continue Reading »
Armies travel on their stomachs, and, as Pastor Sumpter will show today, Israel marches out of Egypt as an army. But the exodus is a haphazard operation if there ever was one. The Israelites leave with the unleavened bread cakes that they baked before leaving, but they have no traveling provisions . . . . Continue Reading »
Pharaoh drives Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 12:39), just as Yahweh drove Adam and Eve from Eden (Genesis 3:24) and Cain from the land (Genesis 4:14). The analogy could work in several directions. Israel has eaten forbidden fruit in Egypt, and Yahweh drives them from the good land of Goshen into the . . . . Continue Reading »
Israel worshiped the gods of Egypt while in Egypt (Joshua 24:14). What did that involve? As explained by Jan Assmann ( Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (George L. Mosse Series) ), it involved participation in the whole religio-political system of ancient Egypt. Much of . . . . Continue Reading »
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