Theophany and Law at Sinai- Exodus 19-20

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1 LESSON 13 OF 24 OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D. Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois The following lecture has been produced for the Christian University GlobalNet and is copyrighted by Christian University GlobalNet, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All audio rights are reserved worldwide. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Christian University GlobalNet. The lecturer holds exclusive publication rights to all of the intellectual material in the lecture. Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D.: We turn now to theophany and law at Sinai in Exodus 19 24, especially focusing first on promise and obligation background of the law in Exodus 19:3-8. Notes: Then Moses went up to God [and that is up to God on Sinai], and the Lord called him from the mountain, and said, This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel, You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, so you brought them out of Egypt, and I carried you on eagles wings [that s through the wilderness], and brought you to Myself [that is, at Sinai, the mountain of God as it s called in the text]. Now, if you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you will be My treasured possession. Now this expression treasured possession is particularly important. It s used of the treasure of a king. For example, in I Chronicles 29:3 when David is talking about building the Temple of the Lord, and he is going to contribute all of his wealth from his own special treasured possession his kingly treasures to the Temple beyond what he d already provided for. It says in verse 3, I Chronicles 29, Moreover, in my delight in the house of my God, the treasure I have of gold and silver, I give to the house of my God, over and above all that I have already provided for the holy temple, namely 3,000 talents of gold, and so on. And then he encourages others to also give from their treasuries, but this is specifically the king s treasury. It s what he really values. It s his possession. And that becomes a very important idea in Scripture that these people become the Lord s possession in a treasured sort of sense. This comes through also in the New Testament, where this passage is actually quoted in various places. One being specifically I Peter 2:9: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, a people for 1 of 16

2 Notes: God s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. So the point is that we become this special possession of the Lord in the church just as Israel had been God s special possession. Reflections of this are seen elsewhere in the New Testament as well. For example, when we turn to Ephesians 1 starting with verse 13: In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God s possession, to the praise of His glory. So redemption is for God s possession. Titus 2, as well, in the New Testament, uses a similar kind of idea starting with verse 11: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires [since we are His possession] and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. This is the kind of people God is wanting to make Israel in the Old Testament and us as a church in the New Testament into. We are to become this, this special treasured possession. A king would value this. This would be the king s treasury. The passage goes on: Although the whole earth is Mine; you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all the words which the Lord had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together, We will do everything the Lord has said! So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord (Exodus 19:5-8). So we have, then, first here, starting in verse 5, If you obey me fully and keep my covenant. Now we have here the obligations are anticipated; they haven t really been given yet at this point. And then you have the promise, If you do keep those obligations that are going to be given, then you will be among all the nations my special treasured possession. That s what this passage is really all about. Verse 5b then, the second part then: Out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession, although the whole earth is Mine. Okay you re 2 of 16

3 Notes: going to be the special. Although the whole earth belongs to the Lord, they re going to be His special treasured possession. It s interesting that we start here with the Law in Exodus 19 and 20, and the actual last section of law is in Deuteronomy 26. And when we come to the end of that section in Deuteronomy 26, where we have the Law beginning in chapters 12 26, we have in the last few verses of that chapter really echoing here the beginning of Exodus 19. I ll start with verse 16 of Deuteronomy 26: This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have today declared the Lord to be your God, and that you would walk in His ways and keep His statutes [remember, they even agreed to this initially back in Exodus 19:8, which we just read], His commandments, and His ordinances, and listen to His voice. The Lord has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession, as He promised you [that s what He s referring back to, Exodus 19], and that you should keep all His commandments; and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor; and that you shall be a consecrated people [a holy people that is set above all the other nations] to the Lord your God, as He has spoken. So at the end of the giving of the laws, we have the echo of this beginning where the laws are going to be introduced. This is the goal that God has for His covenant people in Israel and really, in a corresponding way, in the New Testament for His people who are New Testament believers in Jesus. So For you would be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, now these go together. Priests are what was to be holy, and they re to become a kingdom, a nation that is holy as priests. Now there have been several different interpretations of this expression a kingdom of priests. Some have taken it to refer to Israel as a kingdom ruled by priests or a nation whose kings are also priests. There are a couple of passages in the Old Testament that refer to this kind of an idea, one specifically in Isaiah 61, where it says in Isaiah 61 when Isaiah is talking about the coming of the good news and all that belongs to that. We read in verse 1: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn. 3 of 16

4 Notes: There s a day of gladness coming in the midst of all the morning that they ve experienced in the days of Isaiah. Now this is what Jesus actually quotes in Luke 4:21 when He introduces His ministry as Messiah to the people at Nazareth where He grew up in the synagogue at Nazareth. And He says, This has been fulfilled today in your hearing. Verse 4 then in Isaiah 61: They will come about in those days and then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, they will raise up the former devastations; and they will repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks, and foreigners will be you farmers and your vinedressers. But you will be called the priests of the Lord [this is talking about Israel being the priests of all the nations before the Lord]; you will be spoken of as ministers of our God, you will eat the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast [and so on]. The point is that in this passage, Israel is talked about as a priestly mediator for all the nations of the world. And in this sense, according to Exodus 19, Israel was to become the Lord s special treasured people, for all the earth belongs to Him, but they re the kingdom of priests that special people. And in that passage, But you shall be a kingdom of priests to Me. The you is emphatic. As opposed to all the other nations, you in Israel are to be my special kingdom of priests and a holy nation. So that s one side of what it probably means for them to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The other side of it is that they are actually going to become priests in a sense. They are a kingdom of priests, and by the very nature of being a kingdom of priests, they are holy. Priests are always consecrated, made holy to the Lord in a special sort of way. In Exodus 19 24, this seems to be part of the meaning, because in Exodus 24 in the ratification of this covenant that s being introduced in chapter 19, we have this ritual procedure that we ve looked at previously in ratifying the covenant. In verses 3-8, he [Moses] goes on down the mountain and gets ready to read the laws to the people, and then he has eight offerings and sacrifices and uses the blood. And in this context, verse 6 of Exodus 24: Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he splashed on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient! So Moses took the blood and splashed it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance 4 of 16

5 Notes: with all these words. Now this is one of the few places, there really are only two other instances or contexts in which you get the blood actually applied to people. It s normally applied to the altar only. And the other place is the well-known passage in Exodus 28, when we have the consecration of the priests. In Exodus 29:19, we have this passage where it says (when they re making Aaron and his sons into the priests): Then you shall take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. You shall slaughter the ram, and take some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron s right ear and on the lobes of his son s right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet, and sprinkle [really splash] the rest of the blood around on the altar. Then you shall take some of the blood that is on the altar and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and on his garments and on his sons and on his sons garments with him; so he and his garments shall be consecrated, as well as his sons garments with him. Now the action in Exodus 24 is less precise than it is in Exodus 29. This is a kingdom of priests, but then Aaron and his sons are to be the priests of the kingdom of priests. But the point is that applying the blood automatically consecrates the people as priests and a kingdom of priests in a general way to the Lord. So they got that special place just in terms of access to the Lord. As a kingdom of priests, they can have access to the tabernacle whereas the other nations didn t. The only other place where this happens is in Leviticus 14 with the cleansing of the leper. And in that case, again because it s an individual, it s not going to be general splashing of the blood like it is in Exodus 19. But it s going to be like Exodus 29 with the priests. So the blood is put on the right ear lobe and right thumb and big toe of the one who s being cleansed as a leper. Now we ll talk more about that later, because it helps us to understand clean and unclean issues. But the point is this is a consecration procedure. It makes a person holy, and therefore it makes them automatically into a priest on one level or the other, the general for the nation as a whole, but then you have the priests for the kingdom of priests in Aaron and his sons. So I think that that s probably another part of what is intended here when we hear the idea of they are a kingdom of priests. They are mediators for the nations, but they are also priests themselves made into ones who draw close to God. And the key issue there is the fact that they, like priests, can draw close to God. Now the next section, then, after we think about that in terms of promise and obligation. And remember, they go together in the way God 5 of 16

6 Notes: does relationship with fallen people by covenant, promise, and obligation permanent promise and ongoing obligation. Then we come to the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, and we want to spend some time looking at these particular laws that we have here. They re very foundational as we all know. Exodus 20:1-17 is the first statement of the Ten Commandments. It s actually important, though, to realize though that the terminology of the context of the Pentateuch the torah for these Ten Commandments as we call them is really ten words. Now they are repeated in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. And for the literal terminology however if you look, for example, at Exodus 34:28 where you have the second making of the tablets because they are broken at the golden calf incident. In Exodus 34:28: So he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He did not eat bread or drink water, and he wrote on the tablet the words of the covenant of the Ten Commandments, in my New American Standard Bible, but the word there is ten words. And that occurs elsewhere Deuteronomy 4:13 and 10:4. This is the Hebrew terminology for what we have here in Exodus 20 what we call Ten Commandments. This will become important here in a moment when we look at the different enumerations or ways of dividing up these commandments into ten. The first enumeration is what most Protestants would use, or Greek Orthodox Church derives, from Josephus. And here we have in Exodus 20:2-3, first the command to not have any other gods. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me, so that would be the first commandment according to that enumeration. Then we come to images. Not only no other gods but no other images. And we ll walk through these commandments in more detail in a moment. The second commandment is not only no foreign gods but also no images of God. And then the third commandment is how you handle the name of God. You should not take it in vain. And then the Sabbath is the fourth commandment according to this enumeration. Then you have honor parents, then do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, no false witnessing, and then finally the covet commandment, do not covet. Now that s the enumeration according to that tradition. Now Lutherans and Roman Catholics really follow Augustine in their order, and they combine really the first two commandments into one. So foreign gods and images, verses 2-6 become the first commandment in that tradition. So the second commandment then is the name of God not taking it in vain and then the sabbath commandment, honor your parents, and so on down to nine and ten which are really two different covet commandments, because in verse 17 it says this: You should not covet your neighbors house [that s one commandment]; and you shall not covet your neighbor s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. According to that enumeration those are two separate covenant commandments. So they end up with ten combining what the 6 of 16

7 Notes: Protestant tradition would have in terms of the first and the second into one at the beginning. So they have to have, then, two covet commandments at the end, and that s how it is actually stated in verse 17. Now underneath the line where you have the first commandments, across the page you have a note about the Jewish view with regard to these commandments, and they have a different view as well. They have verse 2 as being the first commandment, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. Now clearly that s not really a command of any sort, but you have to remember that in the Hebrew Bible, the terminology is ten words, not Ten Commandments. So each one doesn t have to be a commandment. But the point is that this is one of the ways the Jews enumerate these. So they have the first word as verse 2: I am the Lord your God, and so on. In the Jewish view, foreign gods and images would be the second commandment, and then you have the name of God is third, Sabbath is forth, and so on. In that way, then, following the Protestant listing. So these are different views of how we set up the Ten Commandments that are found in different traditions: Protestant, Lutheran and Catholic, and then the Jewish tradition. Now there are other passages in the Bible especially in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy which suggest kinds of combinations that are like this, and I have those listed there in Exodus 34: In that context, it naturally focuses on the first and second commandments, because that s the context of the golden calf disaster where they had made an image and had called it This is your god O Israel and so on. So the reiteration in the making of that particular covenant there in Exodus 34 and the commandments that are listed is going to focus on the first two commandments, because that was what the violation was about. Then in Leviticus 19 you can see in that passage which is the section where you have the second great commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. In there you get a listing of commandments that really does correspond somewhat to the Ten Commandments and then also in the ceremony on Mount Ebal and Gerizim in Deuteronomy 27. Now what we want to do is we want to walk through some interpretation, some discussion, about each one of these Ten Commandments. Now basically these are foundational principles of Old Testament Law. The rest of the law builds on these principles. It is kind of like our [the United States of America s] Bill of Rights, for example, and the U.S. Constitution or other particular laws that nations have where they set up the basic foundations of law, and that s what the Ten Commandments are here in the Old Testament. Now the first commandment: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other Gods before Me (Exodus 20:2-3). Now this is basic to everything else. I am the Lord 7 of 16

8 Notes: your God. You shall have no other gods before Me. There s this exclusive relationship between Israel and their God. That s basic to everything else. Verse 2 talks about what God has already done for them. It s like Exodus 19:4-5. He s already brought them out of Egypt and so on. So if they re willing to do these commandments, He will be their God in a covenant sense. So what God has already done for them is in verse 2, and in verse 3 what they must do in response to His care for them. That s really what this commandment is about: the exclusive focus on worship of the Lord, and this is foundational to everything else in the entire law, in fact in, the entire Bible. The second commandment: You shall make for yourself no idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of their fathers, for the third and forth generations of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments (Exodus 20:4-6). If someone sins, it has effects not just upon themselves but on their family, and that s just a natural effect. But if a person is loyal to God and shows love to Him, God expands His love throughout down long generations for that person who has committed himself to Him. Now the expression here You shall not make for yourself any other idol. You shall not, it s actually a stronger expression than that in the Hebrew language. Basically it says, You must never in any situation do this. It s not about a particular incident; it s a permanent prohibition, Under no conditions should you ever do this, make an idol in the form of anything in heaven and of earth. In Deuteronomy 4, there s a helpful passage here. And this actually arises out of the nature of the way God presented Himself at Sinai. So in Deuteronomy 4, we ll start with verse 9. This is where He s recounting what happened at Mount Sinai on this day back in Exodus 20. Deuteronomy 4:9: Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, Assemble to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children. You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with 8 of 16

9 Notes: fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud, and thick gloom [he s describing the theophany back in Exodus 19]. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form only a voice. The point is, the fact that God did not show Himself in a form is foundational to their understanding of who He is. He cannot be captured in an image, and if you try to capture Him in an image, you ll have already corrupted your understanding of God. So this is basic to the rationality of who this God really is. He s not to be represented by anything that s natural, because He s supernatural; because He s the God who created all of nature. This, of course, becomes a very sad situation not long after the Ten Commandments are given and the Golden Calf incident in Exodus 32. Exodus 32, Moses is just coming down from getting the tablets of the Law the Ten Commandments and the instructions for building the tabernacle, and we read in Exodus 32:7: Then the Lord spoke to Moses, Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them [obviously it s very quick; they ve just received the Ten Commandments some 40 days earlier]. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation. So the Lord just blew up, you might say, at Israel at this point. Moses, however, stands there right in the middle, and he entreats the Lord, starting in verse 11, and says, O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth? And notice Moses prayer is about God s reputation in relation to this nation. It s really focused on caring for God and His holiness and His reputation. Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. Remember [so he calls now to the covenant patriarchs] Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever (Exodus 32:12-13). 9 of 16

10 Notes: So the Lord changed His mind. That s the way it s translated in my version. It could mean, just as well that very could mean He relented about the harm which He said He would do to His people. Now this is a passage that s much discussed about what s really going on here. And basically this is one of those passages where you learn that from the way it s presented in the Bible a person s prayer that [the] righteous and the fervent and powerful prayer of a righteous man, avails much. And so prayer can actually affect the things the way it s presented in the Bible. And we need to always understand that God presents what we do in prayer, and as we pray in ways that are really for what His concerns are about, like Moses is doing here, that can really strongly affect what actually happens as the way God presents it. Now we don t completely understand all of that. God is sovereign, but God presents Himself as responding truly to prayer, and that prayer really does make a difference. Now the third commandment, then, is You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name (Deuteronomy 5:11). Now this is protecting God s name, so in the early part, your protecting in terms of God s reputation and who God really is. You want to hallow Him make Him clearly understand to be who He is. There are no other gods besides Him and there are no images that can represent Him, so don t represent Him in that way, and now do not misuse His name. God s reputation, who God is, is very important here. So you do not use the name in cursing someone. You do not use the name in taking a false oath. You don t swear by the name of the Lord that this is true and that it be a false oath. You can see examples of these things, for example, in Leviticus 24:16, Deuteronomy 6:13 where both sides of this are concerned: not using the name to curse, but also not using to the name to take a false oath about something that s not true. So this would be a way of taking the name of the Lord in vain and misusing His name. The forth commandment, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your man servant or maid servant nor your animals. Nor the alien within your gates (Exodus 20:8-10). So this is complete rest, even for the animals. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Since He made everything on the six days and therefore rested on the seventh, therefore everything is to rest. Now it s interesting to compare this to the way this commandment is given in Deuteronomy 5, the parallel passage 40 years later on the shores 10 of 16

11 Notes: of Moab. We have, again, observe the Sabbath day and six days you should work and so on, and everyone rests and then in verse 15, the rationale is given different from in Exodus 20. This is in italics: Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15). So in Exodus 20, the rationale is given and then the six days and He rested on the seventh (that s the rationale). And in Deuteronomy 5, the rationale is He brought you out of the land of Egypt and so therefore you should have rest. So this is why you would keep the Sabbath day according to Deuteronomy 5. So now basically what we have here is two different reasons for remembering the Sabbath, and Moses was really concerned about both. It seems that the point of the commandment is the commandment itself, and the rationale can be understood in different ways. The point is that this is to be a nation that has true rest. That s why we have, in Exodus 31 just before the golden calf incident the last thing that is really written about is the Sabbath. Exodus 31:12: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, You shall surely observe My Sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generation, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Therefore you are to observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, [that person shall be cut off from among his people]. Verse 15: For 6 days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in 6 days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed. Now we have here, then, the Sabbath as a sign that is to show the kind of nation, really, the kind of covenant that God has made with Israel. This is to be a nation that truly really has rest. And this is a weekly rest on the Sabbath, but also the festivals, and ultimately, of course, He s bringing them into the land of Canaan. That will be their land, and they will have rest in the land. This is a basic principle of what God is doing giving rest. Now this is associated with the theme that we ve begun with in terms of the significance of God giving rest, and the fact that this is an important theme in the Bible coming 11 of 16

12 Notes: through Jesus again in Matthew 11, Come unto me all you who labor in heavy laden. I will give you rest. This actually becomes a sign of this covenant. Now you may recall that in Genesis 9 when you have the sign of the Noahic covenant, what you have is the rainbow. Now it s in the sky, because rain comes from the sky. So God is not going to flood the earth again, so the rainbow fits in a particular place. It s a way of showing the nature of the covenant. It s put in the sky. In Genesis 17, circumcision is a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, and again the sign is put in the appropriate place at the place of the seed. The promise has to do with the seed. So that s where the sign is put that has to do with the covenant commitment, the covenant bond between God and Abraham and his descendants. Here in Exodus 31, the sign is the Sabbath because that is the mark of the nation. They are a nation at rest with God, and that is manifested in their rest on the Sabbath and their rest in the land and all the themes of rest that run through the Bible. It s an important theme, and the covenant sign suits the nature of the kind of nation God is building here. Now this pattern then of the Sabbath becomes very important also in the New Testament, of course. In Mark 2, there s this passage where we have verse 23: And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the sabbath and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain, and of course they get accused by the leaders of the nation that they re harvesting and so on. That was not the intention of the Law about the Sabbath at all. Then in verse 27, Jesus said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. It s an important principle. The Sabbath is something that was meant to be a relief to the people in life. It was not meant to be a burden. In Matthew 11:28, the passage we just mentioned, where Jesus talks about, Come unto Me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. It is significant that moving right in into chapter 12, right after the end there of chapter 11, At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain (Matthew 12:1). It s the same passage. It s placed right here in Matthew 11 because it s the Sabbath question the conflict that He has with the people. What Jesus is after is what He s saying in Matthew 11, we re all to have rest all those who labor and are heavy-laden can have rest in Him. So then the rest conflict of the Sabbath comes immediately after in Matthew 12. This is all part of thematic work that s done in the Gospels to help us understanding the principles of what Jesus is setting forth. 36:25 The fifth commandment: Honor your father and your mother so that 12 of 16

13 Notes: you may live long in the land your God has given you (Exodus 20:12). Honor your father and mother it s caring for the elderly. We can see this, for example, where Ruth is really honored in Ruth 4:13-15 by taking care of Naomi when she lost her husband and her sons and so on. This is a highly honored sort of thing. In Exodus 21:15, we have kind of a restatement or further development of the principle that we have here. All these principles of the Ten Commandments get developed further in the Law. Verse 21:15: He who strikes his mother or father shall surely be put to death. So this is a strong statement. Verse 21:17: He who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death. Wishing death upon them, cursing them you shall surely be put to death. There s a passage in Deuteronomy 21 that helps us to understand honoring father and mother and the problem of the rebellious incorrigible juvenile delinquent child. That s really what it s about here in Deuteronomy 21 starting in verse 18: If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear. Now the point of this passage is this son has become actually a juvenile delinquent, and there s no way to control him. They didn t have prisons they didn t use prisons in ancient Israel so someone who s become a criminal, even as a young person will be executed. And that s the way it s put. It s not that anytime a child says no to father or mother or something like that, the child is put to death. That s not the point. The point is when they become incorrigible and therefore uncontrollable in society, and then the father and mother should be very concerned about the effects their child has on society. In the New Testament in Mark 7, there s an important passage about honoring your father and mother; it s called the Corban Passage. In verse 9, Jesus says in Mark 7: He was also saying to them, You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother ; and he who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death ; but you say, If a man says to his father or mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban [that is, that it s a gift, 13 of 16

14 Notes: something given to God. It s an offering], you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother [in other words, you substitute that ]; thus you invalidate the Word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that. The point that He s making is that it s easy to make extra laws that actually undo some of the laws that are basic in the Law, and He sees a lot of that happening in His day. Keeping it simple is important. It s very simple: you need to honor, you need to take care of, you need to be concerned about father and mother. And that s part of what it is to be a moral person. Now in Ephesians 6, there s another part of this. Verse 1: Children, obey you parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise). And the idea here is that it s about, You will live long on the land if you honor your father and your mother. Otherwise you corrupt the land and you will lose the land. It ll be part of the corruption of the nation. Verse 3: So that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Now there it s talking about the child. Again, the New Testament context is to honor your father and mother. It goes on and says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, and so on. The point is that there s this commitment to maintaining this in the New Testament as well. And to not use any kind of excuses as well around it. The sixth commandment is You shall not murder (Exodus 20:13). Now this is about illegal and willful killing of the innocent. This is not about capital punishment. Capital punishment is meant to deal with those who illegally and willfully kill the innocent. So it s important to distinguish this as a word for murder; it s not a word for killing. They re two different words in the Hebrew Bible. Now, in Matthew 5 in the New Testament, there s the section and we ll talk about this when we get to Old Testament Law and the Christian but in Matthew 5 after He [Jesus] talks about He has not come to get rid of the law, He says, starting in verse 21 in the Sermon on the Mount: You have heard that the ancients were told, You shall not commit murder and Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, You good-for-nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, You fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. He says, Resolve conflicts with people. Don t create rage. And really the point is that murder and anger, rage, are tied together. In Leviticus 19, this same connection is already there in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 19 starting in verse 17: You shall not hate your fellow 14 of 16

15 Notes: countrymen in your heart. So the Law is concerned about what s going on in the heart, because it connects to what you actually do. You may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord. So the connection is already made here back in Leviticus 19 about the idea of not hating someone in your heart. Now the seventh commandment, You shall not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14), there s of course a great deal that could be said about this commandment. It s referred on the Sermon on the Mount again and so on. I want to look at a couple of passages with you. Turn with me first to Deuteronomy 22:23-24: If there is a virgin girl who is engaged to a man [now they haven t consummated the marriage yet, but there s an engagement, there s a legal agreement], and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, [if a man is found lying with a married woman], then you should bring them both out to the gate of that city and shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. So engagement is a bonding relationship already [in ancient Israel]. In Leviticus 20:10, we have another place where this comes out where it says, If there is a man who commits adultery with another man s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. This is now after the marriage has been consummated and now there is adultery. Again this is a sentence of death. Contrast that with Exodus 22:16-17: If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins. Now the point here is that this girl is not already legally bound to any other man, and so now if there s intercourse between the man and the woman, it s not violating a legal bond, and now the man has to pay the bride price, which is the normal thing that would happen if this were a regular engagement sort of situation. But if the father doesn t want them married anyway, then he has to pay the bride price for the virgin anyway, because he did violate this woman. So, in this case, there s no death. It s a matter of the legal payment associated with marriage and with dowry and bride price. 15 of 16

16 Notes: Now I will come back and talk more about this when we talk more about the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus use of adultery as an example there. So we ll see more about this later. You shall not steal, is the eighth commandment (Exodus 20:15), and there are lots of examples of this. You can look at Leviticus 19:11-13, [which] shows how you can expand on this. And this also comes up then in Ephesians 4:25-28, You shall not steal. Ninth commandment, You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16), this is actually another way to either steal, or to put somebody to death, depending on what your giving false testimony about. And so it s very important in any kind of legal system that people have integrity to tell the truth. It becomes significant when we get to Deuteronomy as well in terms of the court system that s set up for Israel there in Deuteronomy 17 and 19. We ll come back to that as well. The tenth commandment, You shall not covet your neighbor s house; you shall not covet your neighbor s wife or his man servant or maid servant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor (Exodus 20:17). Of course, this goes directly to the issue of the heart. It is important to realize that the Old Testament Law deals with the heart and not just issues of what you do or don t do. Now the book of the covenant then follows the Ten Commandments, and this is a section of law. It s referred to as the Book of the Covenant. Exodus actually though it begins in chapter 20 starting in verse 22 when the Lord said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, You yourselves have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. You shall not make other gods besides Me. So it s kind of reiterating the first commandment, and then we move into the alter laws. That s really the beginning, but there s another beginning there starting in Exodus 21:1, Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them. This section of law is referred to in Exodus 24:4-7 as the words that Moses wrote down, and then it s called specifically the Book of the Covenant in verse 7. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. So that s how this is referred to, this section of law. This course is a part of the curriculum offered through Christian University GlobalNet (CUGN). To learn more, visit us at All material in the preceding lecture is protected by registered international copyright and may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Christian University Globalnet. This section then continues after this, and it actually continues all the way really with law through Leviticus 26. And there s some significant interludes like the golden calf incident in Exodus 32 34, but basically we re moving on through a whole section of law beginning with the introduction in Exodus 19 on through the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20; the Book of the Covenant in Exodus 21 23; and then 24 and following the introduction of the tabernacle and so on, and the ritual legislation. We will talk more about the Book of the Covenant and the nature of law in the Book of the Covenant in the next lecture. 16 of 16