Exodus 23-31
Introduction
This lesson continues with the laws for Israel. Since most of the material consists of very detailed instructions on the Tabernacle and priestly garments, the chapters after 24 will only be briefly summarized. Again, please refer to these resources as well: this commentary, the NETS Bible, and this LXX Interlinear.
Exo. 23
Ch. 23 opens with a warning against even listening to gossip, much less spreading it. Slander can’t do much damage without people willing to hear it and repeat it. The command is to demand evidence, and the accomplice shares the guilt of the slanderer. From this comes the next warning against following the crowd in making baseless accusations. And while most would agree that justice should not be perverted to favor the rich, scripture also forbids perverting it for the poor.
The point seems to be interrupted by verses 4-5 to address a sin of omission: seeing another person’s work animal wandering off but not bothering to return it to its owner, just because the owner is someone you don’t like. The same applies if the animal is injured or overburdened and you leave it to suffer instead of helping your enemy relieve their animal.
Now back to partiality in a court of law, but the flip side: Just as it’s wrong to defend the poor in a trial when the poor person is guilty, so also is it wrong to falsely condemn the poor when they’re innocent. In other words, justice must not be perverted just because you can get away with it. No one should be wrongly acquitted or condemned because of their social standing, and more than that, the common practice of accepting bribes is forbidden. This applies even to foreigners.
The next section is usually thought of as a religious law, but it has very practical societal benefit: Not only is every seventh day a sabbath rest for people and animals, so also is every seventh year a sabbath rest for the land itself. The land has a chance to rebuild its nutrients, and the wild animals and poor people can glean whatever grows on its own. Failure to observe this command would eventually lead to Israel being deported to Babylon for the number of sabbath years the land had been robbed of. That turned out to be a total of 70 years, which is how the prophet Daniel knew the time had come for Israel to return to the Promised Land.
Now the text abruptly turns to remind the people to not speak the names of other gods, and then it begins a section on annual religious feasts. This source gives details and dates on all the eventual feasts, but the three described here are:
- Passover
- Unleavened Bread, beginning the next day and lasting for seven
- Tabernacles or Booths, said here to be at the end of the year, though Lev. 23:34 says the seventh month; “year” in this passage refers to the harvest season.
Again we see the reference to “every male among you”, a reminder of Pharaoh’s attempt to kill them all, and a reminder about the other “first fruits”. To this is the added stipulation that a lamb must not be boiled in its mother’s milk, the reason for which we can only speculate about.
There is a clear break at this point to look to the future. The angel is presumed to mean the Angel of the Lord, which most take to mean Jesus, the Person of the Trinity to eventually incarnate as the ultimate Passover Lamb. This is the one who will guide them into the land he is preparing for them. But there are conditions: the people have to listen to him, and the consequences depend on whether or not they do so.
The people are warned that when they come to the Promised Land currently occupied by the ethnic groups listed, they must not worship their gods or behave as they do. God goes on in that section to point out that he cannot drive them out all at once or the land would become desolate and wild animals would become a problem.
Now God defines the boundaries of the land, as shown in this map. The actual occupied area will turn out to be smaller than this due to disobedience. But again the people are warned not to worship the heathen gods or make alliances with the people there, and none of them are to be left in the land.
Exo. 24
All of this has only been the writing out of the covenant, but now it needs to be signed by both parties. Moses, Aaron, and two others are to bring 70 elders with them to worship God from a distance, but only Moses can come near to God. Before they go, the people again affirm their acceptance of the terms, and Moses builds an altar at the foot of the mountain, along with setting up 12 stones to represent the 12 tribes of Israel.
Next Moses has sacrifices made, and he takes the blood and puts half in bowls and half on the altar. Then he reads the whole covenant aloud and the people affirm their acceptance again, so he sprinkles some of the blood on them too, which signs and seals the legal agreement. This symbolized the willingness to give one’s own life should they break the agreement.
Now Moses and the others can go up to the mountain. That’s where they see an appearance of God standing on something they can’t really describe, and they eat the sacrificial meal in his presence. This meal sharing, like the blood sprinkling, was typical of solemn legal agreements, especially involving deities.
Now Moses goes on farther, bringing only Joshua, to receive the stone tablets of the law. They leave the elders in the care of Aaron and Hur, and all of them are to watch over the people. So the glory of God covers the mountain like a cloud for six days, and on the seventh God calls to Moses, at which time the glory of God becomes like an intense fire. Moses goes into that and stays there for 40 days.
Exo. 25
God begins to give instructions on furnishing the Sanctuary or Tabernacle, a portable temple to be set up according to precise specifications and made with the finest materials. This was to impress upon the people that God was among them per the covenant both parties have just agreed to, as a kind of throne room for official meetings. The people had asked for a mediator, and this would be the point at which mediation would take place.
The centerpiece of the Tabernacle would be the famous Ark of the Covenant, whose description you can read up to verse 24. The Ark as depicted in Raiders of the Lost Ark really wasn’t all that bad. The passage goes on to describe all the various utensils and equipment needed for various ceremonies and sacrifices as well.
Exo. 26-27
The specifications continue into ch. 26, while the altar itself is described in ch. 27. Then God adds a courtyard area around the temple with the same quality of materials and attention to detail.
Exo. 28
Now God turns to the matter of a priesthood, comprised of Aaron and his sons. Aaron was likely chosen because he had already been functioning as a mediator for Moses. The priests are assigned special garments of high quality and precise detail, equal to everything else associated with the Tabernacle, and the description goes on for quite a while. Constable has a lot of material on all this, and you can see here and here for artists’ conceptions of how this all was laid out. There are depictions of priestly garments as well.
Exo. 29-31
Ch. 29 is where the ceremonies for consecrating the priests are described, but they will be examined in more detail in Leviticus 8. Ch. 30 continues with additional articles for the Tabernacle and rules for financing its upkeep, while ch. 31 is where God selects skilled workers for its construction. Verse 12 is where God turns back from the priesthood to the people, who are reminded to honor the sabbaths, and that the penalty for failure is death! This is God, and he is to be taken seriously and honored as the one to whom all owe their lives.
To further impress the permanence and seriousness of this covenant, God Himself writes on the two stone tablets. These are called The Tablets of Testimony, meaning a legal witness. It really doesn’t say what exactly was written on them until 34:28, and both the Greek and Hebrew texts say “the ten words” rather than “the ten commandments”. However, the Greek word logos can mean statements or phrases as well as individual words.
As for their sizes, we do know that they will be placed inside the Ark of the Covenant, whose dimensions we’re given, and that Moses was able to carry them in his arms. Some say that they each had half the Ten Commandments, but others that each stone had the same writing so that each of the two parties to the covenant had a copy.
In the next lesson, we will undoubtedly hear the sound of God face-palming over these people, with whom he just went to a lot of trouble to make a covenant. But why did he go to all that trouble, especially knowing how these people are?
As we’re told in Heb. 8:5 and 9:23, the earthly temple and everything about it had to be made precisely as God instructed because they represented what is in heaven. God always has good reasons for everything. We just have to trust him.