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Professor Christine Hayes: So following the
theophany at the burning bush, Moses returns to Egypt,
and he initiates what will become ultimately a battle of
wills between Pharaoh and God.
The story in Exodus has high drama, and lots of folkloric
elements, including this contest between Moses and Aaron on the
one hand, and the magicians of Egypt on
the other hand. This kind of contest is a very
common literary device.
It's a kind of "our boys are better than your boys" device.
The Egyptian magicians who are initially able to mimic some of
the plagues that are brought on by God--they are quickly bested,
and Yahweh's defeat of the magicians is tantamount to the
defeat of the gods of Egypt.
There are ten plagues.
These include a pollution of the Nile, swarms of frogs,
lice, insects, affliction of livestock,
boils that afflict humans and animals, lightning and hail,
locusts, total darkness, and all of this climaxes in the
death of the firstborn males of Egypt in one night.
And source critics looking at this material discern numerous,
diverse sources that are interwoven throughout.
These sources preserve different traditions on the
number and the nature of the plagues,
as well as the principal actors in the drama:
God, Moses, Aaron.
So according to the source critical analysis,
no source contains ten plagues.
J has eight and E has three, and P has five,
and some of them are the same as one another,
and some of them are different, and so on.
Some of them are unique to one source, some are not,
but ultimately, the claim is that these have
all been merged, and have left us then with an
overall total of ten.
This may in fact be true.
Nevertheless, as much as we like to engage
sometimes in this kind of analysis about the sources that
have gone into the composition of the text,
it's also always important to keep your eye on the final form
of the text as we've received it.
Literary analysis that is sensitive to the larger contours
of the account will reveal the artistic hand of the final
editor. I have charted this at the top
of the board here.
Some scholars have noticed that the plagues are organized in
three sets of three.
There are literary links that connect them and make it clear
that these are three sets of three,
followed by the climactic tenth plague--and again,
three and ten are ideal numbers in our biblical texts.
Each set of three shares certain structural and literary
features. So in each set,
the first and second plague are forewarned--that's what the FW
is on the side--whereas the third plague is not.
So a warning, a warning, and then a third
plague; a warning, a warning,
and then a third plague; a warning, a warning,
and then a third plague.
In each set, the first plague is accompanied
by a notation of the time in the morning.
It's also introduced by God's speech, when God says,
"Present yourself before Pharaoh," and to do this in the
morning. So each of the first plagues in
the sets of three is introduced this way.
Now the second plague in each set of three is introduced with
the divine instruction, "Go to Pharaoh."
The third plague in each set has no forewarning and no
introduction. So this sort of structural
repetition creates a crescendo that leads then to the final and
most devastating plague, which is the slaughter of the
Egyptian firstborn sons.
The slaughter may be understood as measure for measure
punishment for the Egyptians' earlier killing of Hebrew
infants, but it's represented in the
biblical text as retaliation for Egypt's treatment of Israel,
and Israel is referred to as the firstborn son of Yahweh.
So in Exodus 4:22, Yahweh tells Moses to say to
Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord, 'Israel is my firstborn son.
I have said to you, "Let my son go,
that he may worship Me," yet you refuse to let him go.
Now I will slay your firstborn son.'"
So it's seen as retaliation.
In this last plague, God or his angel of death
passes over Egypt at midnight, slaying every Egyptian
firstborn male. Moses orders each Israelite to
perform a ritual action, and this action will protect
them from the slaughter.
The ritual consists of two parts.
Each family is told to sacrifice a lamb.
The lamb will then be eaten as a family meal,
and its blood will be smeared on the doorposts to mark the
house so the angel of death knows to pass over that house,
--and the pun works in Hebrew, as well as English,
which is kind of handy.
In addition, each family is to eat
unleavened bread.
So according to Exodus, this Passover ritual was
established on Israel's last night of slavery while the angel
of death passed over the dwellings that were marked with
blood. The story attests to a
phenomenon that's long been observed by biblical
commentators and scholars, and that is the Israelite
historicization of preexisting ritual practices.
In other words, what we probably have here are
two older, separate, springtime rituals.
One would be characteristic of semi-nomadic pastoralists:
the sacrifice of the first lamb born in the spring to the deity
in order to procure favor and continued blessing on the flocks
for the spring. The other would be
characteristic of agriculturalists:
it would be an offering of the very first barley that would be
harvested in the spring.
It would be quickly ground into flour and used before it even
has time to ferment, to quickly offer something to
the deity, again, to procure favor for the rest
of the crop. It's supposed by many that
Israel was formed from the merger, or the merging of
diverse groups, including farmers and shepherds
in Canaan. The rituals of these older
groups were retained and then linked to the story of the
enslavement and liberation of the Hebrews.
So you have older nature festivals and observances that
have been historicized.
They're associated now with events in the life of the new
nation, rather than being grounded in the cycles of
nature. This may in fact be then part
of the process of differentiation from the
practices of Israel's neighbors, who would have celebrated these
springtime rituals.
So now the blood of the sacrificial lamb is said to have
protected the Hebrews from the angel of death,
and the bread now is said to have been eaten,
consumed in unleavened form, because the Hebrews left Egypt
in such a hurry. They had no time to allow the
dough to rise. Historicization;
and we'll see this historicization of rituals
recurring again and again.
And following the last plague, Pharaoh finally allows the
Israelites to go into the desert to worship their God,
but he quickly changes his mind, and he sends his infantry
and his chariots in hot pursuit of the Israelites,
and they soon find themselves trapped between the Egyptians
and something referred to as Yam Suph,
meaning Reed Sea.
It isn't the Red Sea.
That's a mistranslation that occurred very,
very early on, so it's led to the notion that
they were at the Gulf of Aqaba, or somewhere near the actual
big ocean water. Some of the Israelites despair,
and they want to surrender.
"Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die
in the wilderness?
What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?
Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt,
saying let us be, we will serve the Egyptians,
for it's better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the
wilderness." But Moses rallies them,
and then in the moment of crisis, God intervenes on
Israel's behalf. Once again, source critics see
in the account of the parting of the Reed Sea,
in Exodus 14 and 15, three different versions of the
event that have been interwoven.
I have to stress, though, that scholars differ
very much on where the seams in the text are,
what parts of the story belong to J, or E, or P,
so you'll read very, very different accounts.
There's some consensus, but a lot of disagreement.
One thing that most people do in fact agree on is that the
oldest account of the event is a poetic fragment that's found in
Exodus 15, verses one to 12, in particular.
This is often referred to as the Song of the Sea,
and here the image is one of sinking and drowning in the Sea
of Reeds. You have a wind that blasts
from God's nostrils, the waters stand straight like
a wall, and at a second blast,
the sea then covers the Egyptians, and they sink like a
stone in the majestic waters.
The hymn doesn't anywhere refer to people crossing over on dry
land. It seems to depict a storm at
sea, almost as if the Egyptians are in boats,
and a big wind makes a giant wave,
and another wind then makes it crash down on them.
So they're swamped by these roiling waters.
But the name Yam Suph, Reed Sea, implies a more
marsh-like setting, rather than the open sea.
John Collins, who is a professor here at the
Divinity School, points out that this
image--particularly in poetic passages--this image of sinking
in deep waters, occurs often in Hebrew poetry.
It occurs particularly in the book of Psalms,
where it's a metaphor for distress.
In Psalm 69, the Psalmist asks God to save
him, for "waters have come up to my neck.
/ I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold.
I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me".
But a few verses later it's clear that the poet isn't really
drowning: this is a metaphor for his difficult situation.
"More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me
without cause. Many are those who would
destroy me, my enemies who accuse me falsely."
So Collins suggests that the poem in Exodus 15 is celebrating
and preserving a historical memory of an escape from or a
defeat of Pharaoh, and that the drowning image is
used metaphorically, as it is elsewhere in Hebrew
poetry to describe the Egyptians' humiliation and
defeat. Later writers take this poetic
image and fill out the allusion to drowning in this ancient
song, and compose the prose accounts
in Exodus 14, in which the metaphor is
literalized. According to these prose
accounts now, Pharaoh's army was literally
drowned in water.
But even in the prose accounts in Exodus 14,
we can see a composite of two intertwined versions.
In the material that's usually associated with P,
Moses is depicted as stretching out his staff,
first to divide the waters, which stand like a wall so that
the Israelites can cross over on dry land;
and then, he holds out his staff to bring the waters
crashing down on the Egyptians.
But according to one little section--this is just verses 24
and 25 in Exodus 14; some attribute this to J--it
seems that the Egyptians were stymied by their own chariots.
The image we get there is that the Israelites are working their
way through the marsh on foot, and the Egyptians' chariot
wheels can't make it through the marsh.
They get stuck in the mud, and this forces them to give up
the chase. So, the final narrative that
emerges from this long process of transmission:
perhaps a core image of escape on foot,
where chariots are bogged, a poem that describes the
defeat in metaphorical terms using a drowning and sinking
image, and then prose elaboration on
these previous traditions that have a very dramatic element of
the sea being parted and crashing down on the Egyptians.
A long process of transmission, interweaving,
literary embellishment has gone into the creation of this
account in Exodus 14 and 15.
But the story as it stands reiterates a motif that we've
seen before: that of the threatened destruction of God's
creation, or God's people,
by chaotic waters, and of divine salvation from
that threat. What's interesting about the
Song of the Sea, this poetic fragment in Exodus
15, is that here the Hebrews adopt
the language of Canaanite myth and apply it to Yahweh.
If you still have that sheet that was handed out before,
listing different epithets for Baal,
and listing epithets for Yahweh, it would be handy to
have that, or to take a look at it later again,
because the description of Yahweh is that of a storm god in
Exodus 15. He heaps up the waters with a
blast of wind, like a storm at sea,
and this is reminiscent of the Canaanite storm god Baal,
as you see on your handout.
Baal is said to ride on the clouds, he's a storm god,
and he's accompanied by wind and rain.
At the beginning of the rainy season, Baal opens a slit,
or makes a slit in the clouds, and thunders and shakes the
Earth. In one important legend that we
have from the Canaanite texts, the Ugaritic texts,
he defeats an adversary who's known as Prince Sea,
or Judge River. After he vanquishes this watery
foe, he is acclaimed the king of the gods, and the king of men,
and he is housed in a home, not a tent as El was.
El was housed in a tent, but now this Baal is housed in
a permanent structure, a home that is on top of a
mountain, and is built of cedar.
Now, ancient Hebrew descriptions of Yahweh employ
very similar language in the poetic passage here in Exodus
15, but also in other poetic passages.
So, for example, Psalm 68:5, "Extol him who
rides the clouds, the Lord is his name," Yahweh
is his name. So "Extol him who rides the
clouds, Yahweh is his name," as if to say not Baal.
So Yahweh is described like Baal, as riding on the clouds.
Psalm 29 also employs the language of a storm god.
"The voice of the Lord is over the waters.
The God of glory thunders, the Lord, over the mighty
waters." Some scholars think this
actually was originally a psalm about Baal that was simply
adopted and referred to Yahweh.
Images of God engaged in a battle with some kind of watery
foe also appear in the Psalms.
Psalm 74: "O, God, my king from of old,
who brings deliverance throughout the land;
it was You who drove back the sea with Your might,
who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters;" and so
on. Judges 5 is also another
ancient song fragment in verses four to five.
It uses the same kind of imagery.
Now, Michael Coogan, who's a very important biblical
scholar and an expert in the Canaanite texts,
the Ugaritic materials, has made some intriguing
observations in connection with the biblical representation of
Yahweh in terms that are so reminiscent of the storm god,
Baal . He notes that Baal was the key
figure in a change, a change in the religion of
Canaan, that happened somewhere between
1500 and 1200 BCE, and that is also the
traditional time for what we think of as the Exodus and the
introduction of Yahwism, or the differentiation of
Yahwism. At this time,
somewhere in this period, there was a transfer of power
in the Canaanite pantheon from the older gods to younger gods.
The older god El, the sky god,
was replaced by the younger storm god, Baal,
and he was replaced by virtue of his defeat of Prince Sea,
or whoever this watery foe is.
So El is replaced by Baal after a defeat of some watery foe.
Coogan notes that about the same time, there seems to have
been a similar change in many of the world's traditions,
or many of the traditions of the region.
We have a younger storm god who usurps power from an older god
by virtue of a victory over a water god.
Remember Enuma Elish, which we read at the very
beginning of the semester.
You have the young storm god, Marduk, who defeats Tiamat,
the watery ferocious deep monster,
and does so by blasting a wind into her, and so establishes his
claim to rule, instead of the old sky god, Anu.
In India, the storm god Indra about this time assumes the
place of a previous god, Dyaus.
In Greece, Zeus, who is associated with a storm,
thunder--lightening bolts you think of in the hands of
Zeus--he replaces Kronos, who had been the head of the
pantheon. And so here in Exodus,
we find that just as the nation of Israel is coming into
existence, just as the Israelites are
making the transition from a nomadic existence to a more
settled way of life ultimately in their own land,
there seems to be a collective memory of a similar change in
her religion. Like the storm gods in the
myths of Israel's neighbors, Yahweh heaps up the waters with
a blast of wind. He wins a stunning victory,
he establishes himself as the god of the Israelites in place
of El, who was worshipped by Israel's patriarchs,
remember. And like the Canaanite god,
Baal, Yahweh, as we will see as we continue
to read the text, will eventually want a house
for himself atop a mountain, Mount Zion, and it will be
lined with cedar.
There are of course, important ways in which
Israel's use of the storm god motif diverges from that of
other Ancient Near Eastern stories.
The most important is that Yahweh's battle is a historic
battle, rather than a mythic battle.
The sea is not Yahweh's opponent, nor is Yahweh's enemy
another god. Yahweh is doing battle here
with a human foe, the Egyptian pharaoh and his
army. The sea is a weapon deployed.
It's a weapon in the divine arsenal, and it's deployed on
behalf of Israel, but,
again, Yahweh is depicted by the biblical writer as
transcending nature, using forces of nature for a
historical purpose, acting in history to deliver
his people, and create a new nation, Israel.
So just as in Genesis 1, the universe is created when
the wind of God parts the primeval waters,
so in Exodus 14 and 15, a new nation is created when
the wind of God parts the waters of the Reed Sea.
But to describe what was understood to be a historic
event, a one time event, not a recurring mythical event,
but a historic event, the ancient Israelites employed
language and images drawn naturally from the traditions
and myths of their broader cultural context,
or I should say, that were the cultural context
in which they themselves existed,
while at the same time differentiating themselves to
some degree. Now, as has long been noted,
the Exodus event became the paradigm of God's salvation of
his people, and when I say salvation,
I don't mean that in the later Christian sense of personal
salvation from sin.
That's a notion that's anachronistically read back into
the Hebrew Bible.
It's not there. Salvation in the Hebrew Bible
does not refer to an individual's deliverance from a
sinful nature. This is not a concept we find
in the Hebrew Bible.
It refers instead, to the concrete,
collective, communal salvation from national suffering and
oppression, particularly in the form of
foreign rule or enslavement.
When biblical writers speak of Yahweh as Israel's redeemer and
savior, they are referring to Yahweh's physical deliverance of
the nation from the hands of her foes.
We're going to see this increasingly as we move to the
prophetic material.
So the exodus is a paradigm for salvation, but it would be a
mistake, I think, to view the Exodus as the
climax of the preceding narrative.
We've gotten to this point now: we had this big dramatic scene
at the Reed Sea, but the physical redemption of
the Israelites is not in fact the end of our story.
It's a dramatic way-station in a story that's going to reach
its climax in the covenant that will be concluded at Sinai,
and as many sensitive readers of the Bible have noted,
the road from Egypt leads not to the other side of the Reed
Sea, but on to Sinai.
God's redemption of the Israelites is a redemption for a
purpose, a purpose that doesn't become clear until we get to
Sinai, for at Sinai the Israelites
will become God's people, bound by a covenant.
And so the story continues.
In the third month, after the Exodus,
the Israelites arrive at the wilderness of Sinai,
and they encamp at the mountain where Moses was first called by
God, the text says.
The covenant concluded at Sinai is referred to as the Mosaic
covenant. So this is now our third
covenant that we have encountered;
we will have one more coming.
And the Mosaic covenant differs radically from the Noahide and
the Abrahamic or patriarchal covenants that we've already
seen, because here God makes no
promises beyond being the patron or protector of Israel;
and also, in this covenant, he sets terms that require
obedience to a variety of laws and commandments.
So the Mosaic covenant is neither unilateral--this is now
a bilateral covenant, mutual, reciprocal
obligations--nor is it unconditional like the other
two. It is conditional.
So this is our first bilateral, conditional covenant.
If Israel doesn't fulfill her obligations by obeying God's
Torah, his instructions, and living in accordance with
his will, as expressed in the laws and instructions,
then God will not fulfill his obligation of protection and
blessing towards Israel.
Now, the biblical scholar Jon Levenson, here,
maintains that historical critical scholarship has been
unkind to biblical Israel, because of a pervasive bias
between the two main foci of the religion of ancient Israel.
Those are (1) the Torah, or the law-- understood as the
law--not a great translation, I prefer instruction,
but Torah, taken to mean the law on the one hand;
and, (2) the temple on the other.
He says that, on the one hand,
negative stereotypes rooted in Paul's condemnation of Mosaic
law as a deadening curse from which belief in Jesus offers
liberation--that account colors scholarly accounts of the giving
of the Torah. On the other hand,
a Protestant distaste for priest-centered cultic ritual
colors scholarly accounts of the temple,
and its meaning for ancient Israelites.
These biases are so much embedded in our culture,
he says, they permeate the work of even secular scholars of the
Bible, so that a negative view of the
law affects interpretation of the book of Exodus.
Scholars tend to place great emphasis on the deliverance from
Egypt as the high point in the Exodus narrative,
rather than the more natural literary climax,
which is the conclusion of the covenant at Mount Sinai,
and the delivery of the Torah.
So Levenson, in his book Sinai and
Zion, tries to correct this prejudicial treatment.
He says he seeks to give the two central institutions of
Torah on the one hand, and Temple on the other,
a fair hearing. So in his book,
Sinai and Zion, Levenson explores what he calls
the two great mountain traditions that express these
central concepts: the tradition of Mount
Sinai--that's where Israel received the Torah,
and entered into this defining covenantal relationship with
God--and then on the other hand, the tradition of Mount Zion.
Zion will be the future site of the nation's holy temple in
Jerusalem. Mount Zion is in Jerusalem,
it's the Temple Mount today where the mosque now is.
Today, we'll consider Levenson's analysis of the Sinai
tradition as an entrée into the Israelite concept of the Torah,
and the covenant bond, its meaning and its
implications. Levenson stresses the
importance of the covenant formulary.
There are Ancient Near Eastern parallels to the Sinai covenant
of the Bible--especially Hittite treaties that date 1500 to 1200,
or so; also Assyrian treaties in about
the eighth century, but they are in many ways
continuous with what you find in the Hittite treaties--treaties
between a suzerain and vassal.
Remember we talked about two types of treaties:
suzerainty treaties and parity treaties.
Parity treaties between equals, but suzerainty treaties are
between a suzerain, who has a position obviously of
power and authority, and a vassal.
He details the following six elements, which I hope you can
all see , especially in the Hittite treaties.
They're not all found in every treaty, but they're often enough
found that we can speak of these six elements.
First there is a preamble.
That's found in every one.
The suzerain identifies himself.
Second of all, there's generally an account of
the historical circumstances that are leading to the treaty:
so some kind of historical prologue.
Then we usually have some sort of set of stipulations and
requirements, upon the vassal generally.
Fourth, there's generally some arrangement, either for the
publication of the treaty, or its deposition,
its safe-keeping in some sort of shrine.
There is generally a concluding invocation of witnesses,
usually the gods are invoked as witnesses to a binding oath,
some kind of covenantal oath that brings the treaty into
effect, and it's witnessed by gods.
Lastly, there will be very often a list of blessings for
the party who obeys, and curses for the party that
violates the pact.
The curses are particularly emphasized in the Assyrian
treaties. Levenson then identifies many
of these elements in Yahweh's very first speech to Moses.
Moses and the Israelites arrive at Sinai, in Exodus 19,
and God says the following in verses 3b to 8:
The Lord called to him from the mountain,
saying, "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare
to the children of Israel: 'You have seen what I did to
the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings
and brought you to Me.
Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant,
you shall be My treasured possession among all the
peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine,
but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation.' These are the words that you
shall speak to the children of Israel."
Moses came and summoned the elders of the people and put
before them all that the Lord had commanded him.
All the people answered as one, saying, "All that the Lord has
spoken we will do!"
And Moses brought back the people's words to the
Lord. So Levenson,
who draws actually on long-standing work by other
scholars, and earlier in the twentieth
century even, Levenson finds several of the
main elements of the Hittite suzerainty treaties in this
speech. So verse 4, "You've seen what I
did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles'
wings," is the historical prologue.
That's the reason that we're in the situation we're in now,
and making this covenant.
Verse 5 contains God's stipulations.
It's a very general condition--"If you obey my
laws." Basically, keep my covenant,
obey me faithfully, that's the conditional.
That's going to be filled out and articulated at great length
in the subsequent chapters when all the laws they have to obey
are spelled out. The second half of verse 5 and
6 gives the reward: God is conferring on the
Israelites this elevated status of royalty, of priesthood;
"You'll be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation."
In verse 8, the people solemnly undertake to fulfill the terms
of the covenant, so we have at least three of
the steps that we find in the Hittite treaties,
as well. If we take a broader view of
the full biblical account of Israel's covenant with God,
all six elements can be identified in the biblical
narrative. They're scattered throughout
the text, however.
We have the preamble, and the historical background
to the covenant in God's summary introduction to the people in
Exodus 20: "I am Yahweh who brought you out of the land of
Egypt." It sums it all up:
introduction, who I am, and why we are
historically connected.
So this fact of God's bringing Israel out of Egypt,
presumably establishes God's claim to sovereignty.
The terms of the treaty are then stipulated at great length
in the instructions that are found in Exodus chapter 20
through chapter 23.
Moses reads the book of the covenant--it's called the Scroll
of the Covenant--publicly: this is said in Exodus 24:7.
In Deuteronomy we read that it will be deposited for
safekeeping in a special ark.
The Israelites vow that they'll obey Exodus 24:3,
also 7b. The covenant is then sealed by
a formal ritual. In this case it's a sacrifice
in Exodus 24:8. In a monotheistic system you
can't really call upon other gods to be witnesses to the
sealing of the oath, so we have heaven and earth
being invoked as witnesses--Deuteronomy 4:26;
Deuteronomy 30:19; 31:28--heaven and earth,
the idea being perhaps the inhabitants thereof should
witness. As for blessings and curses,
we have a long list of each found in Leviticus 26,
and Deuteronomy 28, also interesting reading.
Some of these curses, particularly the ones in
Deuteronomy bear a very striking resemblance to curses in an
Assyrian treaty that we have that dates to about 677 BCE the
Assyrian king Esarhaddon--and many of the curses are really
almost word for word.
So while no one passage contains all of the elements of
the Hittite treaty form, there are enough of them
scattered around to suggest it as a model, as well as its later
instantiation in Assyrian culture.
So what's the meaning of this?
Why does it matter that Israel understands its relationship
with God, and uses the covenant as a vehicle for expressing its
relationship with God, the vehicle of the suzerainty
treaty? According to Levenson,
the use of a suzerainty treaty as a model for Israel's
relationship to Yahweh, expresses several key ideas.
It captures several key ideas.
First, the historical prologue that's so central to the
suzerainty treaty, grounds the obligations of
Israel to Yahweh in the history of his acts on her behalf.
So it's grounded in a historical moment,
and we'll come back to this and what that might mean about her
perception of God.
Second, the historical prologue bridges the gap between
generations. Israel's past and present and
future generations form a collective entity,
Israel, that collectively assents to the covenant.
And even today, at Passover ceremonies
everywhere, Jews are reminded to see themselves,
they're reminded of the obligation to see themselves as
if they personally came out of Egypt,
and personally covenanted with God.
The historical prologue, thirdly, explains why Israel
accepts her place in the suzerain-vassal relationship.
Israel's acceptance of a relationship with God doesn't
stem from mystical introspection,
or philosophical speculation, Levenson says.
Instead the Israelites are affirming their identity and
their relationship with God by telling a story,
a story whose moral can only be that God is reliable.
Israel can rely on God, just as a vassal can rely on
his suzerain. The goal is not,
Levenson says, ultimately the affirmation of
God's suzerainty in a purely verbal sense.
The point is not mere verbal acclaim of God as suzerain.
Levenson points out that the affirmation of God's suzerainty
is rendered in the form of obedience to commandments,
not mere verbal acclamation.
Observance of God's commandments is,
as Levenson puts it, the teleological end of
history. Why is that important?
Unless we recognize that the road from Egypt leads
inextricably to Sinai, that the story of national
liberation issues in and is subordinate to,
is ultimately subordinate to, the obligation to God's
covenantal stipulations and observance of his laws,
then we run the risk of doing what has been done for some
centuries now: of reading Exodus as first and
foremost a story of a miraculous delivery,
rather than the story of a relationship,
which is expressed through obligations to the observance of
specific laws, commandments,
and instructions.
The suzerain-vassal model has further implications.
Levenson and other scholars, point many of these out.
Just as the Ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties
specified that vassals of a suzerain are to treat other
vassals of the suzerain well, Israelites are bound to one
another then as vassals of the same suzerain,
and are to treat one another well.
So covenant in Israel becomes the basis of social ethics.
It's the reason that God gives instructions regarding the
treatment of one's fellow Israelites.
So the suzerain-vassal relationship grounds the social
ethic within Israel.
Also, just as a vassal cannot serve two suzerains--that's
pretty explicit in all the treaties,
you owe exclusive service to your suzerain--so the covenant
with God entails the notion of Israel's exclusive service of
Yahweh. The assertion is not that there
is no other god, but that Israel will have no
other god before Yahweh.
The jealousy of the suzerain is the motivation for prohibitions
against certain intimate contacts with non-Yahweh
peoples, because these alliances will
end up entailing recognition of the gods of these peoples.
The covenant with Yahweh will also, we shall see soon,
preclude alliances with other human competitors.
If Israel serves a divine king, she can't, for example,
serve a human king, and that's an idea that will
express itself in biblical texts,
as we'll see, that are clearly opposed to the
creation of a monarchy in Israel.
Not everyone was onboard with the idea that Israel should be
ruled by a king. So there are texts that will
object to the creation of the monarchy of King Saul,
and King David, and so on.
There are also texts that are going to object to alliances
with any foreign king, or subservience to any foreign
king, whether it's Egypt or Assyria or Babylonia.
So subservience to a human king, native or foreign,
is in these texts considered a rejection of the divine
kingship, which is the ideal--the
exclusive kingship of Yahweh--and it's seen as a
breach of the covenant.
Now, Ancient Near Eastern suzerainty models also speak
repeatedly of the vassal's love for the suzerain.
Vassal so-and-so will love the Assyrian lord so-and-so,
and that's an element that is not absent at all in the
biblical texts that deal with the covenant bond.
The Israelites promise to serve and to love Yahweh.
That's an additional theme that's associated regularly with
the covenant. It's one that we'll take up in
greater detail, though, when we get to the book
of Deuteronomy, where it is stressed to a
greater degree than it is in Exodus, but for now,
we can accept Levenson's claim that Sinai represents an
intersection of law and love, because of the use of the
suzerainty model.
So the covenant concept is critical to the Bible's
portrayal and understanding of the relationship between God and
Israel. The entire history of Israel,
as portrayed by biblical writers, is going to be governed
by this one outstanding reality of covenant.
Israel's fortunes will be seen to ride on the degree of its
faithfulness to this covenant.
The book of Exodus closes, with the construction of the
sanctuary, and when the sanctuary is completed,
the text says the presence of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
This is a sign of divine approval.
The long section where we have the receipt of the instructions
for the building of the temple, and then we have an actual
account of those instructions being fulfilled,
not the temple, tabernacle, excuse me:
it's just a tent structure at this stage--so receiving the
instructions and then the actual construction of the tabernacle,
that extends from Exodus 25 to the end of the book,
Exodus 40; but it's interrupted in Exodus
32 by the account of the Israelites' apostasy with the
golden calf, which is a great and very ambiguous story.
The moment of Israel's greatest glory is to be the moment of her
greatest shame. As Moses receives God's
covenant on Mount Sinai--he's there at the top of Sinai
communing with God-- the Israelites who are encamped at
the foot of the mountain grow restless,
and rebellious, and they demand of Aaron a god,
because they don't know what's become of "this fellow Moses."
They say: what about this guy, Moses?
They use a very colloquial kind of term to dismiss him.
So Aaron, feeling the heat, makes a golden calf,
and the people bow down to it, and someone declares,
"This is your God, oh Israel, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt."
Well, an enraged God tells Moses: You know what's going on
down there? And he tells him to descend
from the mountain.
The people are sinning, they've already gone astray,
and he says: I'm through.
I want to destroy the nation, and I'm going to start a new
nation again from you, Moses.
Moses manages to placate God momentarily, and then he turns
around to face the people.
He comes down from the mountain, he approaches the
camp, he's stunned by what he sees.
He's carrying the tablets, the instructions,
and then he smashes them at the foot of the mountain in fury.
He manages to halt the activities.
He punishes the perpetrators, he has a few choice words for
Aaron. This temporary alienation from
God is ultimately repaired through Moses' intense prayer
and intercession.
It actually takes several chapters to reach a resolution,
and God pouts for quite a while,
but a renewal of the covenant does occur, and another set of
stone tablets is given, and according to one rabbinic
text the broken tablets, as well as the new tablets,
are both placed in the ark.
And this embarrassing episode is just the beginning of a
sequence of embarrassing events that will occur as the
Israelites move from Egypt towards the land that's been
promised to them.
Most of these episodes will occur in the book of Numbers,
and they involve the rebellion of the people in some way,
generally God's fury in reaction to that rebellion,
Moses' intervention usually on behalf of the people,
and God's appeasement.
The book of Numbers recounts the itinerary of the Israelites
throughout the 40 years of their wanderings and encampments
around the sacred tabernacle.
The tabernacle always moves in the center of the tribes,
and they're positioned in certain specific positions
around the tabernacle as they move.
They stay at Sinai for a year, I believe, in the text,
before they begin their movement, and Numbers contains
some law, and much narrative material.
The material tells of God's provision for the people in the
desert, but it also tells of the Israelites' constant
complaining, and rebellion.
The Israelites rebel against Moses and God,
and they long for Egypt.
There are several times when God threatens to exterminate
them, but Moses manages to dissuade him.
In Numbers 14, for example,
when the Israelites complain again, God is determined to
destroy them, and Moses intervenes,
and the intervention leads to a compromise.
God swears that none of the adults who witnessed the Exodus
-- with the exception of Joshua and Caleb,
who did not join in the rebellion -- none of the adults
who witnessed the Exodus would see the fulfillment of God's
salvation, and enter the Promised Land.
This means the Israelites will have to wander for 40 years in
the desert until all of those who left Egypt as adults pass
away, leaving a new generation that
hasn't really tasted slavery, to enter the land and form a
new nation. The book of Numbers,
I think, is most remarkable for the relationship that it
describes between Moses and God.
I love reading these particular stories, and just hearing the
dialogue between them, and imagining it,
because the two of them alternate in losing patience
with the Israelites, and wishing to throw them over.
But each time the one convinces the other to be forbearing.
The relationship between Moses and God is a very intimate one,
very much like a husband and wife,
who are working together as partners and parenting a
difficult child. They're partners in the
preparation of Israel for their new life, readying Israel for
life in God's land as a nation, as a people.
I'm going to just give you two examples of the way Moses and
God act as a check upon each other.
The first excerpt is from Numbers 14, and it shows Moses'
ability to placate the wrath of God.
Now, in this story, the Israelites express great
fear. They've just heard a report
from a reconnaissance team that scoped out the land,
and they come back and say: Oh, boy, you know,
it looks really bad--and that they think that the chances of
conquering the Promised Land are very, very slim.
The whole community broke into loud cries,
and the people wept that night.
All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron.
"If only we had died in the land of Egypt," the whole
community shouted at them, "or if only we might die in
this wilderness! Why is the Lord taking us to
that land to fall by the sword?
Our wives and children will be carried off!
It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!"
And they said to one another, "Let us head back for Egypt."
… the Presence of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting
to all the Israelites.
And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will this people
spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all
the signs that I have performed in their midst?
I will strike them with pestilence and disown them,
and I will make of you a nation far more numerous than they!"
But Moses said to the Lord, "When the Egyptians,
from whose midst You brought up this people in Your might,
hear the news, they will tell it to the
inhabitants of that land….
If then You slay this people to a man, the nations who have
heard Your fame will say, 'It must be because the Lord
was powerless to bring that people into the land He had
promised them on oath that He slaughtered them in the
wilderness.' Therefore, I pray,
let my Lord's forbearance be… abounding in kindness;
forgiving iniquity and transgression….
Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people
according to Your great kindness, as You have forgiven
this people ever since Egypt."
And the Lord said, "I pardon, as you have
asked…." So note God's offer to start
all over again with Moses.
This is a pattern with this god, you know--create,
gets upset, a flood wipes them out,
let's start again, oh, still not too good,
let's choose one person, Abraham, see how that goes;
oh, disappointed, let's go with Moses--so this is
a bit of a pattern.
But Moses refuses to accept the offer, and instead he defends
the Israelites, and he averts their
destruction. He appeals primarily to God's
vanity: What will the neighbors think if you destroy them?
They'll think you couldn't fulfill your promise.
They'll think you're not the universal God of history.
But the roles are reversed in the following passage,
and this is where the text blows hot and cold.
In fact, there's a rabbinic image, there's a rabbinic
tradition that talks about this period of time,
and has God and Moses talking, and God says:
Listen, between the two of us, whenever I blow hot,
you blow cold, or when I pour hot water,
you pour cold, and when you pour hot,
I'll pour cold, and together we'll muddle
through, and get through here.
The Israelites won't be wiped out.
But in this next passage, which is Numbers 11,
Moses is the one who is impatient with the Israelites'
constant complaints and lack of faith,
and he's ready to throw in the towel.
I'll just read this last passage.
The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving;
and then the Israelites wept and said, 'If only we had meat
to eat! We remember the fish that we
used to eat free in Egypt Okay, we were slaves,
but the food was free, you know?
I just love that line.
We used to eat this fish free in Egypt.
…the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks,
the onions, and the garlic.
Now our gullets are shriveled.
There is nothing at all!
Nothing but this manna to look at!'
… Moses heard the people weeping,
every clan apart, each person at the entrance of
his tent. The Lord was very angry,
and Moses was distressed.
And Moses said to the Lord, "Why have You dealt ill with
Your servant [me], and why have I not enjoyed Your
favor, that You have laid the burden
of all this people upon me?
Did I conceive all this people, did I bear them,
that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your *** as a
nurse carries an infant,' to the land that You have
promised on oath to their fathers?
Where am I to get meat to give to all this people,
when they whine before me and say, 'Give us meat to eat!'
I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much
for me. If You would deal thus with me,
kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no
more of my wretchedness!"
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Gather for Me seventy of
Israel's elders of whom you have experience as elders and
officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of
Meeting and let them take their place there with you.
I will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon
the spirit that is on you and put it upon them;
they shall share the burden of the people with you,
and you shall not bear it alone.
So again, hot and cold.
And in many ways, Moses sets the paradigm for the
classical prophet.
He performs this double duty.
He chastises and upbraids the Israelites for their rebellion
and failures. When he's turning and facing
the people, he's on their case.
But at the same time, he consoles the people when
they fear they've driven God away irreparably,
and when he turns to face God, he defends the people before
God. He pleads for mercy when they
do in fact deserve punishment--and he knows they
deserve punishment.
He even says as much, but please have mercy.
At times he expresses his frustration with the difficulty
of his task, and resentment that it's been assigned to him.
But we'll consider the character and the role of Moses
in much greater detail when we reach the book of Deuteronomy
next Monday. For the coming week,
I would like you to please pay particular attention:
we're dealing with two topics that will be,
I think perhaps for some of you, a little different,
new, alien. We're going to be dealing with
biblical law on Monday, and biblical ritual,
purity text, holiness, temple,
on Wednesday. These are worlds apart from
many of the things we know, so please, there's a lot of
textual reading to do for Monday and Wednesday.
Please do it carefully, and I might even hand out a
little bit of a study guide to help you with that.