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Last week we saw
the nine out of the ten plagues that God unleashed upon Pharaoh and
Egypt. At the last meeting of Moses with Pharaoh the two men came to a
deadlock and Pharaoh refused to let Israel go to worship God in the
wilderness and warned Moses not to appear before him again or he would
die. Moses replied: "Thou hast spoken: I will appear to thee no more."
This is how chapter ten ends, but chapter eleven mentions the last
warning of the tenth plague being announced to Pharaoh. Moses did not
appear before Pharaoh again so Moses must have warned Pharaoh of the
tenth plague before departing from his presence.
The tenth
plague is the killing of all the firstborn of Egypt from the firstborn
son of Pharaoh to the firstborn son of a maid and even unto the
firstborn of all the cattle. Before the plague is executed, a lot of
preparation is required of the Israelites, because immediately after,
their exodus from Egypt will begin and they must all be ready and
waiting for the signal to begin the great journey to the Promised Land.
God tell Moses to secretly tell the people that everyman is to ask of
his Egyptian neighbour things of silver and gold and cloth. For all the
years the Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians they never received
wages so now it was time for the Egyptians to pay up what was due to the
Israelites. It would seem that after the nine plagues the Egyptians
respected and feared the God of the Israelites because the Egyptians
looked favourably upon the Hebrews and gave them whatever they asked
for. Moses himself was greatly respected and was very great in the sight
of the Egyptians, and in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his
servants.
Moses warns
Pharaoh: "Thus saith the Lord, About midnight I will go out into the
midst of Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from
the firstborn of Egypt that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the
firstborn of the maidservant that is beside the mill; and unto the
firstborn of all cattle. And there shall be a great cry throughout all
the land of Egypt, such as hath not been, and such as shall not be
repeated any more. But among all the sons of Israel shall not a dog
growl with his tongue, at man or beast: that ye may know by what means
the Lord shall put a difference gloriously between the Egyptians and
Israel. And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down
themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow
thee: and after that I will go out. And Moses went out from Pharaoh in
anger." As already said, all this was told to Pharaoh at the last
meeting when he told Moses not to appear before him again or else he
would die.
A new
chapter now begins with the establishment of the Jewish Pascha. The Lord
tells Moses that this month will be the beginning of months, in other
words it will be the beginning of the year. Until now the Jewish New
Year began with the Autumn Equinox. From the Exodus the Jews were to
have two new years, a civil and a religious new year. The month of the
religious New Year is called Nisan and falls between our months of March
and April.
Moses now
gives instructions to Israel on how they must prepare for the Lord's
Passover. On the tenth of the month every head of the house is to take
an unblemished male lamb or goat under a year old into his house and
feed it until the fourteenth of the month. If the members of the house
were few then neighbours were to be invited to make up the numbers.
According to Jewish tradition the number of people needed to eat a whole
lamb is between 10 and twenty so if there were only 5 or 6 people in the
house they had to make up at least 10 people by joining up with the
neighbours. On the evening of the Fourteenth the lamb was to be killed
and from the blood they were to mark the two side doorposts and the
upper doorpost of the houses where the lamb was to be eaten. The lamb
was to be roasted with fire in other words barbequed and all of it had
to be eaten from the head to the feet and even the insides. That is why
at least 10 people were needed, five or six people would have had
difficulty eating a whole lamb. It had to be roasted whole without
breaking the bones.
This was
because the Pascal Lamb of the Old Testament is a symbol and image of
the true Pascal Lamb Jesus Christ, who as the Messiah will come to be
sacrificed upon the Cross and as St. John tells us in the Gospel: "these
things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him
shall not be broken." (John 19:36)
It was to be eaten on that night with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
The unleavened bread was to remind them of the haste in which they had
to leave Egypt. It was also symbolic of purity. As leavened bread would
rise this was symbolic of being mixed with decay and evil and so
unleavened bread was symbolic of purity and virtue. The bitter herbs
were to remind them of their bitter slavery to the Egyptians. They had
to eat the Passover meal quickly and be dressed with their loins girded,
their sandals on their feet and their staves in their hands and ready to
go because it’s was the Lord’s Passover. Nothing was to be left until
the morning. Anything that could not be eaten and the bones were to be
burnt with fire.
The event
was to be remembered for all times as a feast unto the Lord and from the
fourteenth of the month until the twenty first no one was to eat
leavened bread and if anyone did eat leaven bread he would be cut off
from the house of Israel.
At midnight
the destroyer angel of the Lord passed over the land of Egypt and in
every house that did not have the blood on the doorposts, the firstborn
of that house died a sudden death, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh to
the servants and captives and firstborn of the cattle. And Pharaoh and
all the Egyptians rose up in the night and there was a great cry in all
the land of Egypt because there was not a house wherein there was not
one dead.
Pharaoh, who
at the last meeting with Moses threatened him with death if he was to
appear before him again now calls Moses and Aaron by night, and said
unto them, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and
the sons of Israel: go, serve the Lord your God, even as ye say. Also
take with ye your sheep and your oxen; bless me also, I pray you. Thus
now without conditions Pharaoh gives leave and without delay for the
Israelites to depart from Egypt. All the Egyptians were in a panic and
hasted to see the back of them because having lost their firstborn they
now feared for their own lives. Before leaving we are told that they
asked of the Egyptian things of silver, gold and raiment which the
Egyptians gave freely to see them go.
The
Israelites are ready to begin the great Exodus and because they didn't
have time to leave the dough they had prepared to rise and then bake it,
they bundled it into cloth and carried it on their shoulders.
The Passover
had two meanings, the first was that that night the Lord passed through
the land of Egypt and smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. As
he went, he passed over all the houses that had the blood on the
doorposts and the firstborn of the Israelites were saved. The second
meaning, which we will see next, is the passing over of the Red sea
which is a sign of the deliverance from evil, the travelling from death
to a new life. The event is celebrated by the Jews even to this day
according to the instructions by God that they were to celebrate it and
never forget how he delivered Israel from bondage and led them to the
land of milk and honey.
The word
Passover in Greek is Pascha and in the New Testament it is celebrated
with a new meaning. It means the passing over of Christ’s body from
death to the Resurrection: The passing over of man from this life of
bondage to the devil to the heavenly land of milk and honey; to
Paradise. This for us is the New Passover, Pascha or Easter, the feast
of all feasts where man is delivered from the evil that had him in
bondage until Christ set us free through his death on the cross and his
Resurrection. Notice that the Jews had to kill an unblemished lamb and
put the blood on the doorposts. For us the unblemished lamb that is
sacrificed is Christ himself and his blood is not painted externally on
our doorposts but within us who are according to St. Paul the temple of
the Holy Spirit. Our mouth is the door of this temple as is expressed in
a prayer before Holy Communion: “I am not worthy, Lord and Master, that
Thou shouldest come under the roof of my soul; But for that Thou
desirest, O Lover of mankind, to dwell in me, I make bold to draw near.
Thou biddest me to open the doors that Thou, my Creator, mayest enter in
with mercy proper to Thee, and bring light to my darkened mind.”
The
Israelites gathered at Rameses to begin their long journey to the
Promised Land. The text says that there were 600 thousand men on foot
besides the baggage. The baggage refers to the women and children under
twelve and the elderly. This would bring the total number that left
Egypt over 2 million. This number raises many questions. In our last
talk we saw that from the time Jacob came to Egypt until the exodus
there are only 215 years. The number of Israelites that came with Jacob
totalled 75 souls so how in just over two hundred did they multiply to
two million. It has been suggested that this was a copying mistake and
could in the original text have been 6 thousand men which would make the
total number about 25 thousand. This suggestion would be acceptable if
the number 600 thousand was only mentioned once, but it is mentioned
again in a much later chapter of Exodus (39) and in the Book of Numbers,
which gives detailed figures of all the tribes, the number six hundred
thousand is mentioned three times.
Another
suggestion to justify the large number is that the Hebrew word for
thousand can also be interpreted as chief so that the text would read
600 chiefs on foot besides the baggage. But if this is how it was to be
interpreted the total number of Israelites would only be between 2 and 4
thousand. This suggestion clearly doesn't have a leg to stand on because
in the Book of Numbers, Moses takes a poll of all the tribes of the
males over twenty years old who were able to go to war and the figures
of just one tribe is much larger. For example from the tribe of Reuben
there are 46,500 men and from the tribe of Simeon 59,300.
It would
therefore be preferable to keep to the text without trying to justify
that it was a copying mistake or that it was a mistranslation no matter
how difficult it is to believe that from 75 people the Israelites grew
to a staggering two million plus. In fact it is not impossible for the
Israelites to have reached two million or even over four million. When
Jacob came to Egypt his family members were 75, without the wives, but
with them would have also came hundreds of home born servants. We know
from the time of Jacob's grandfather Abraham that these servants
numbered 318 men without women and children. These would have more than
doubled by Jacob's time and would have followed the family to Egypt.
Then we have the intermarrying of the Israelites with the Egyptians and
the fact that polygamy was a common practice at the time and the
exceptional fertility of the Israelites as mentioned in the first
chapter of Exodus: "And the sons of Israel increased and multiplied, and
became many in number, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land
multiplied with them." Without taking all these factors into
consideration and just limiting the numbers of Abraham's servants and
Jacob's immediate family to 600 people we can reach a much higher figure
in the 215 years of Israel's sojourn in Egypt. The Septuagint speaks of
five generations from the time Israel came to Egypt which would make
each generation over forty years, but if we allow the average of 25
years for each generation giving us four generations every hundred years
and deduct one generation to allow for the death of the elderly, we have
in the 215 years between 6 and 7 generations which if we multiply that
each person would have at least five children which would be less than
average as it was common to have many more children, then we have a
figure of over 9 million for six generations and almost 47million for
seven generations. Thus over two million is not an exaggerated or
unbelievable figure but a very realistic number.
After
telling us of the six hundred thousand men on foot without the baggage
which we have already said refers to the women, children and elderly,
the next verse tells us that a great mixed company also went with them.
The mixed company probably refers to prisoners of war in Egypt who saw
the miracles of the Israelites and not withstanding Pharaoh's tyranny
over them decided to leave with the Israelites. Also many Egyptians
would have been influenced to follow the Israelites after seeing the
wonders of God. Many of these would have been families of Egyptians who
had intermarried with the Israelites. Again this becomes clear from the
following verses. God gives Moses and Aaron new commandments for the
Passover meal which all Israelites are to keep as a yearly vigil for all
generations, but God stresses that the Paschal meal is only to be eaten
by the Israelites. The strangers among them, the hired servants and any
proselytes are forbidden to eat of the Passover unless they first
receive circumcision and then they would be accounted equal to a
homeborn Israelite.
God
continues giving instructions to Moses and Aaron on how they must keep
the six days of unleavened bread as a memorial and on the seventh day to
have a feast unto the Lord. Along with this reminder God gives them
instructions on how they must sanctify to him every firstborn of the
sons of Israel and every firstborn of the beasts again as a memorial
that the Lord brought them out of Egypt from the house of bondage. Every
firstborn of man and beast had to be offered as a sacrifice unto the
Lord. If the firstborn was of an ass which was considered as unclean,
this was to be exchanged for a sheep or if this was not possible then
the owner of the ass had to pay the equivalent of its value in silver to
the temple. Again the firstborn of men had to be replaced by a money
offering. This was 5 shekels of silver. A shekel was a weight measure
equivalent to 11.5 grams so 5 shekels was 55.5 grams of silver.
From Egypt
there are two ways to reach the Promised Land. The shortest and easiest
is the direct route but they had to go through the lands of the
Philistines. God deliberately leads them the long way round down towards
the Red Sea and across to the Sinai Desert because if they were to
encounter war with the Philistines they would have been tempted to
return to Egypt as it was close by. Moses took with them the bones of
Joseph because before he died he made the Israelites promise that when
the Lord leads them out of Egypt they were to take his bones with them.
So travelling from Rameses they came a short distance and encamped at a
place called Otham beside the wilderness. God led the way during the day
with a pillar of cloud and by night with a pillar of fire. The pillar of
cloud went before them to lead the way, but sometimes stood behind them
to protect and hide them. This was not some manmade pillar of smoke, it
came all the way down from heaven to earth and apart from leading the
way it gave them shade from the midday sun and remained with the
Israelites for many years.
From Etham
God tells Moses to lead the people to a place called Magdala which was
beside the Red Sea. From here they couldn't go any further. To the east
was the Red Sea, south was Mount Attakah which reached into the sea so
there was no way the people could go over it, west was the desert and
north were the Egyptian chariots.
In the
meantime Pharaoh did not reckon on the speedy departure of the
Israelites. When he gave them the permission to leave, he was in
mourning for the death of his son, but deep down he had no real
intention of letting them go. When Pharaoh was told that the Israelites
had left and where they had encamped, he realized that they were trapped
because the wilderness had shut them in. With a hardened heart he
repented of sending away the Israelites because now they had no one to
serve them. So Pharaoh gathers together his army of six hundred
chariots, all the horses of the Egyptians, the captains and infantry and
sets off in pursuit of the Israelites. The Egyptians very quickly caught
up with the Israelites and encamped behind them. When the Israelites saw
the Egyptians they were frightened and turned against Moses saying:
"Because there were no graves in Egypt, did you bring us forth to slay
us in the wilderness? What have you done to us? Didn't we tell you to
leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians for it would have been
better to serve them than to die in this wilderness." Moses calls to the
people to have courage, to stand still and see how the Lord will deliver
them from the Egyptians who they will see no more. The Lord will fight
for you and you shall hold your peace.
So the Lord
instructs Moses to take up his rod and stretch his hand over the sea to
divide it so that the sons of Israel can go through the sea as on dry
land. To hold back the Egyptians until two million people had time to
cross the Red Sea, the angel of the Lord which went before the camp of
Israel removed and went behind them, the pillar of cloud also removed
from before them and stood behind them so that it stood between the camp
of the Egyptians and the camp of the Israelites. The cloud concealed the
Israelites from the Egyptians by causing a thick impassable blackness.
It would seem that the angel of the Lord also stopped the Egyptians from
trying to pass through the blackness.
Moses then
stretches forth the rod with his hand and the Lord, with a strong south
wind divided the sea so that there was a wall of water on the right and
a wall of water on the left leaving a passage of dry land for the
Israelites to pass over the other side. The passage must have been
fairly wide because even though the passing of the Red Sea took many
hours from evening to the following dawn, the passing of two million
people could not have happened in single file: there must have been room
for many rows of people, the cargo and the great many herds of cattle
and sheep. In fact there are some who believe that the sea divided into
twelve different passages, one for each of the 12 tribes of Israel. This
they base on Psalm 135 which says: "To Him which divided the Red Sea
into parts; for His mercy endureth for ever." Divided into parts of
course does not necessarily mean more than two parts and if the tribes
passed over the Red Sea separately, Moses, who gives us so many details
of even minor incidents, would not have overlooked such an important
fact.
With the
first light the Egyptians began their pursuit of the Israelites, but the
going was slow because the Lord had bound the axles of the chariots
together and caused them to go heavily. When they were all in the sea
passage the Lord told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea and the
walls of water collapsed covering and drowning the Egyptians.
Now how did
Moses divide the Red Sea so that the Israelites passed over to the other
side as though on dry land and how did he close again the divided sea
after them so that the Egyptians drowned and Israel was delivered from
the enemy? It says in the Bible that God told him to lift up his rod and
stretch out his hand over the sea. The movement of his hand made a
vertical line with the rod. To close the sea again, he held up the rod
and made a horizontal line. Thus Israel was saved through the sign of
the cross. Through the sign of the Cross the waters parted and the
people crossed over from death to a new life in the Promised Land. The
sign of the cross was even in the Old Testament a sign of victory and we
see it prefigured many times in the story of the Israelites before they
entered the Promised Land. The Cross therefore was given as a sign of
salvation in preparation for the coming of Christ who through his death
on the Cross would open the way to the true Promised Land, who would
open for us the passage from this life of death to eternal life in
Paradise?
In the New Testament Moses is seen as a type of Christ and the crossing
of the Red Sea symbolic of the washing in Baptism. In fact St. Paul, in
his first Epistle to the Corinthians, sees The crossing of the Red Sea,
the eating of the miraculous manna from heaven and the water from the
rock, which we shall see as we progress further into the story; he sees
all the events, as foreshadowing the true Baptism and the partaking of
Christ's Body and Blood, the true manna from heaven.
So with
Israel safely across and the enemy drowned in the Red Sea, Moses and the
sons of Israel sing a song unto the Lord praising and glorifying his
wondrous salvation. The song is known as "the song or ode of Moses" and
many of the verses are still sung in our Orthodox Liturgical rites. As
the men sung, Moses' sister Miriam, named in the text as Miriam the
Prophetess, took a timbrel in her hand and led the women to dance.
Miriam is called a prophetess because in the Book of Numbers (12.2) we
read that she also along with Moses and Aaron received divine
revelation. In the camp of the men Moses was the leader and among the
women Miriam was chief.
After
travelling for three days in the wilderness the people were thirsty for
water. They came to a place of water called Marah, but the water was
bitter and undrinkable. After seeing the ten plagues against Egypt and
the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, Israel faces its first trial,
its first test of faith in God which they miserably failed. They should
have trusted God for all their needs, but the people murmured against
Moses saying "what shall we drink". God showed Moses a log of wood and
told him to throw it into the water. Miraculously the water became sweet
and the people drank of it. Having failed the first test of faith, God
tells the people that if they listen to his voice and his commandments
and do what is pleasing unto him, they have nothing to fear: all they
need do is ask for his help and he will give it.
Now the miracle was by God and not by some natural or magical power
belonging to the wood, but the Church Fathers see in this another
foreshadowing of the wood of the cross that sanctifies, blesses and
sweetens the bitterness’s we encounter as we journey through our earthly
life. The miracle of the bitter waters into sweet waters was temporary
and only for the Israelites journey. After this the waters again became
bitter. The waters of this place are so high in nitrate that even today
they are considered the worst and most bitter waters in the Sinai
Peninsula.
After this
they came to a refreshing Oasis called Elim where there were twelve
wells of water, and seventy palm trees: and they camped by the waters.
This again is symbolically seen by the fathers as representing the 12
Apostles and the 70 Apostles. How long they stayed there we are not
told, but their next stop between Elim and Sinai was on the fifteenth
day of the second month after their exodus from Egypt. Here the people
again began to murmur against Moses and Aaron saying: "It would have
been better if we had been smitten by the Lord in the land of Egypt
where at least we had meat and bread to the full, for you have brought
us into this wilderness to kill us all with hunger." Their murmuring
against Moses and Aaron was in fact murmuring against God and another
show of their lack of faith in him. In answer to their needs, God sends
them quails that covered the camp in the evening, which was for their
evening meal and manna, the bread that rained down upon them from
heaven, which was their morning meal. The miracle of the quails is very
similar to the miracle of the draught of fish in the New Testament.
During spring a great number of quails migrate from Africa towards Egypt
and the Sinai Peninsula heading north and return again in the autumn.
They literally flood the coast of the Red Sea. Tired from their long
journey they fall and can be caught by hand. The miracle here is that
the quails appeared after their normal migration period in late May or
June and in quantity to feed more than two million people. Thus it was
not a natural phenomenon, but a miraculous gathering of the quails just
as the fish gathered into the nets of the Apostles.
The word
manna in Hebrew literally means, “What is this?”, because when they saw
it that is what they said, “What is this.” It looked similar to
coriander seed, but white in colour; and the taste of it was like wafers
made with honey. It miraculously appeared every morning and they were to
collect just enough for each person to eat on the same day. If they were
greedy and collected a lot it was not enough and if they collected less
it fulfilled their need. It could not be preserved and if they tried to
keep some for the next day, as many did, it filled with maggots and
stank. Only on the Friday were they to collect double portions to keep
the extra for the Sabbath day which was a holy day unto the Lord and
they were not allowed to work. Only on this day did the manna remain
fresh for two days. Some didn't observe the Sabbath and went out to
collect the manna but find none. All the years that Israel was under the
tyranny of the Egyptians it was impossible for them to keep the Sabbath,
but now as free people there were two reasons to observe the day of
rest: the first as the divine rest which we saw in Genesis in the
creation of the world and second as a remembrance of their freedom from
Egyptian slavery.
Moses told
Aaron to fill a golden pot with the manna which was to be kept as a
witness for future generations of how the Lord sustained them in the
wilderness and provided them with manna for forty years. Later the
golden vessel was to be placed in the Ark of the Covenant along with the
Ten Commandments.
Now in the
Gospel of St. John we read that the Jews wanted a sign from Christ to
prove that he was from God. It says: “What sign shewest thou then, that
we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat
manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to
eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses
gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true
bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from
heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord,
evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of
life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on
me shall never thirst. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and
are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man
may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from
heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the
bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of
the world.” So we see that Christ himself sees in the manna that he sent
to the Israelites a foreshadowing of the true bread of life which is his
very own flesh. The golden vessel with the manna is also a prefiguring
of the Mother of God. As the golden vessel was filled with the manna of
old, the Mother of God's womb was filled with Christ, the true manna
from heaven. The golden vessel also prefigures the vessel we have on the
Holy Altar called the "Artophorion" in which we preserve the Body and
Blood of Christ in dried form so that we give holy Communion to anyone
in need at whatever time of day.
The
Israelites journey to the promise land was not an easy journey. It was
full of trials and temptations which God sent upon them to test their
faith and worthiness to be called his chosen people. They had the
miracles of the plagues he sent to the Egyptians, the parting of the Red
Sea, the two columns of cloud and fire which went before them and showed
them the way, the bitter waters made sweet, the quail, the daily manna,
but still they did not have complete trust in God to deliver them from
every occasion. At there next stop at a place called Raphidin they were
out of water a second time, but they did not remember all the good
things God had bestowed upon them, but murmured against Moses that it
would have been better if they had remained in Egypt in spite of all
their suffering than die of thirst in the wilderness. Moses cried unto
the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready
to stone me. God answered him saying: Behold, I will stand before thee
there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there
shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. St Paul in his
first epistle to the Corinthians, speaking on the things that the
Israelites experienced says: “Brethren, I do not want you to be unaware,
that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; And all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; all
ate the same spiritual food; And all drank the same spiritual drink: for
they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were
overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the
intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.” 1 Cor.
10: 1-6)
While they
were encamped at Raphidin the race called the Amaleks came to war
against them. Amalek was the third son of Esau the son of Isaac. The
reason for the war was because the Israelites cattle and sheep were
grazing in the fields held by the Amaleks. The battle would continue all
day and stop in the evening until the next dawn. Moses tells Jesus of
Nun, who in the KJB is named as Joshua, to select capable men to go out
and fight against the Amaleks and he will stand on the top of the hill
with his rod in his hand. This is the first mention of Jesus of Nun
whose name was originally Avsis according to the Book of Numbers, but
was later given the name Jesus meaning saviour, because of his victory
over the Amaleks.
On the hill
overlooking the battle ground, Moses held up his hands forming a cross
with his body. As long as his hands were up the Israelites prevailed,
when he tired and let down his hands the Amaleks prevailed. To keep
winning, Aaron and Hur held up his hands until the battle was fought and
they were victorious. As we have seen before, the sign of the cross was
even in the Old Testament a sign of victory. Here we also have the first
mention of Hur. Along with Aaron he was appointed to be a judge of the
people when Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Law. He was also
the grandfather of Bezaleel who was the architect for the tabernacle of
the testimony where the Ark of the Covenant was to be placed.
After the
victory over the Amaleks a new chapter (18) begins which actually
belongs to a later period. Inserted here is the visit of Moses' father
in Law with his wife and children. The Israelites are still camped at
Raphadin, but the visit from Moses family came when they were at Sinai
as also the establishment of the Judges which happened after the law was
given. It seems that Moses the author decided to bring forward the event
so that it would not disrupt the story of the giving of the Law which is
not just the Ten Commandments and needs many chapters to be completed.
Moses father
in law Jethro, the priest of Midian had heard of all that God had done
for Israel, how he brought them out of the land of Egypt, and took
Zipporah, Moses' wife who had returned to her father and Moses's two
sons and came to Moses in the wilderness. After the greeting Moses tells
Jethro all that God had done unto Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel's
sake and all the things that happened on their journey. Jethro was
astonished at all the things he heard and after blessing the Lord, made
whole burnt offerings and sacrifices to God. Part of the sacrifices were
laid out for the evening meal where Aaron and all the elders of Israel
came to dine with Jethro.
In the
morning Moses sat to judge the people. As the spiritual and national
leader it was his duty to hear all the problems and grievances of the
people and give judgement on how to deal with the problems. He would sit
from morning to night and the people would wait their turn to be heard,
which with two million people, someone could wait all day and night for
an audience. When Jethro saw what was happening he reproached Moses for
causing so much inconvenience to the people. Moses justified himself
saying that the people seek judgement from God, so they come to me and I
give judgement upon each and teach the statutes of God and his law.
Jethro continued to criticize Moses that he was doing it all wrong and
that he will soon wear himself out. Jethro then counsels Moses on how to
solve the problem. He tells him to concentrate only on the spiritual
matters, praying for the people and helping them to walk in the ways of
the Lord, but for all the other problems to select capable men who are
humble, righteous and fear the Lord and to set them as captains over the
people, captains of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and captains of
tens. They shall judge the people at all times and only when the matter
is too burdensome shall they bring the problem to him, but all the
smaller matters they shall judge themselves. Moses listened to his
father in law and did as he said and made captains to judge the people.
Later through God's command Moses elects 72 of the elders to whom God
grants the gift of prophecy. This is the establishment of the Judges of
Israel who ruled the people before Israel had kings.
Next follows
the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the tabernacle of the testimony
which we will see next week.
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