Numbers 26: The second census

Numbers 26: A Census of the New Generation

A new census is taken of all the male Israelites age 20 and older. This number indicates the number of Israelites who are able to go to war and does not include the Levites, who are in charge of the tent of meeting and do not go to war. This census numbers the generation that is to enter the promised land, and parallels the first census of Numbers 1 that totaled the number that escaped Egypt. The preceding generation was sentenced to die in the wilderness because of their iniquity. Even Moses is to die (Aaron has died already). The last of the Egyptian generation died in Numbers 25, with the exception of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. Only Joshua and Caleb will see the promised land, a reward for their steadfast faith in the Lord.

A Census of the New Generation: Numbers 26
I'll put this here to save you the trouble: the census records 601,730 men age 20 and older. Compare this to 603,550 of the Egyptian generation. The numbers have not declined so much since the start of the exodus.

Inheritance of land will be determined by the size of the tribe.

Here is how this chart works: The top level is the (deceased) tribal forebear, along with the number of descendants within that tribe. Beneath are his sons. Beneath those are their sons. It might seem a bit strange that the daughter of Zelophehad are all mentioned. This is done for a good reason - as we will discover in tomorrow's reading.

• Reuben (43,730)
• Hanoch
• Pallu
• Eliab
• Nemuel
• Dathan [deceased]
• Abiram [deceased]
• Hezron
• Carmi
• Simeon (22,200)
• Nemuel
• Jamin
• Jachin
• Zerah
• Shaul
• Gad (40,500)
• Zephon
• Haggi
• Shuni
• Ozni
• Eri
• Arod
• Areli
• Judah (76,500)
• Er [deceased - way back in Genesis]
• Onan [deceased - in the same story]
• Shelah
• Perez
• Hezron
• Hamul
• Zerah
• Issachar (64,300)
• Tola
• Puvah
• Jashub
• Shimron
• Zebulun (60,500)
• Sered
• Elon
• Jahleel
• Manasseh (Son of Joseph, whose tribe is divided to maintain 12 tribes with the removal of the Levites) (52,700)
• Machir
• Gilead
• Iezar
• Helek
• Asriel
• Shechem
• Shemida
• Hepher
• Zelophehad (has no sons)
• Mahlah (daughter)
• Noah (daughter)
• Hoglah (daughter)
• Milcah (daughter)
• Tizrah (daughter)
• Ephraim (Son of Joseph, whose tribe is divided to maintain 12 tribes with the removal of the Levites) (32,500)
• Shuthelah
• Eran
• Becher
• Tahan
• Benjamin (45,600)
• Bela
• Ard
• Naaman
• Ashbel
• Ahiram
• Shephupham
• Hupham
• Dan (64,400)
• Shuham
• Asher (53,400)
• Imnah
• Ishvi
• Beriah
• Heber
• Malchiel
• Serah (daughter)
• Naphtali (45,400)
• Jahzeel
• Guni
• Jezer
• Shillem

A census is then taken of the Levites, counting every male age one month and older. The total comes to 23,000.

In fact, two genealogies are given. The first genealogy consists of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.  This genealogy then descends into the line of Aaron: Kohath is the father of Amram, whose wife is Jochebed daughter of Levi. Amram and Jochebed's children are Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Aaron's children are Nadab, Abihu (both deceased) Eleazar, and Ithamar.

The second genealogy consists of the Libnites, Hebronites, Mahlites, Mushites, and Korahites.

So What
Again, the Israelites that complained in the wilderness have all died out, with the exception of Caleb, Joshua, and Moses. And Moses will die before the Israelites enter the promised land. The chapter ends:

These were those enrolled by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who enrolled the Israelites in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho. Among these there was not one of those enrolled by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had enrolled the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai. For the Lord had said of them, ‘They shall die in the wilderness.’ Not one of them was left, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
(Num. 26.63-65)

Numbers 18-19: The place of Levites and priests in society

Numbers 18: Responsibility of Priests and Levites / The Priests' Portion / The Levites' Portion
Numbers 19: Ceremony of the Red Heifer

Yesterday's reading closed with the Israelites fearing for their lives after the violent deaths of those who approached the Lord where only priest should tread: "We are perishing; we are lost, all of us are lost! Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all to perish?" (Num. 17.12-13). Today's reading offers a response clarifying the roles of the priests and Levites as the Israelites wander in the wilderness.

Responsibility of Priests and Levites: Numbers 18.1-7
The Lord directly tells Aaron that he and his sons shall be held responsible for offenses committed by the priests. The Levites are added for offenses connected with the sanctuary - probably meaning that if a Levite goes near the sanctuary, he will die. The Levites are to serve the priests in the day-to-day tasks of ministering to God and the people, actions connected with the tent. However, they may not approach the utensils of the sanctuary or the altar, otherwise the Levites, Aaron, and Aaron's sons will all die. Duties of the sanctuary and the altar are the responsibility of the priests only.

God declares Aaron's priesthood to be a gift, and the Levites to be a gift as well. But Aaron and his sons must be diligent in their priestly duties to avoid death.

The Priests' Portion: Numbers 18.8-20
The Lord declares to Aaron that he and his sons are in charge of the sacrifices, and for that reason receive the leftovers of the most holy offerings (grain, sin and guilt), whether bread or grain or animal.

Elevation offering belong to all of Aaron's family, the women included.

The best of the wine and grain and the first fruits also belong to the entire family, as well as every devoted thing to the Lord and the firstborn of all creatures (except for the firstborns of humans and unclean animals, which are redeemed).

In exchange for this means of sustainment, Aaron and his family are not allotted land, and their possessions are to be shared with all the Israelites.

The Levites' Portion: Numbers 18.21-32
Likewise, the Levites receive no allotment of land or inheritance. They survive on the tithes of grain and wine from the Israelites. These tithes are in turn tithed and given to God. That is, they are given to the Aaronite priests for their own use. (As if the Levites were not angry enough already!) The best of all the tithes is given over to Aaron and his sons. The rest is "payment for you service in the tent of meeting" (Num. 18.31). To profane the holy gifts is to invite death.

In contrast to what is stated above, the Lord explicitly commands Aaron that the Levites will bear responsibility for their own offense. Huh.

Ceremony of the Red Heifer: Numbers 19

Now that that is all cleared away, it is time to lay down some commandments. Oh yeah.

The Lord commands that the Israelites bring a red heifer to Moses and Aaron. The red heifer is to be without blemish or defect and a yoke must never have been laid on it. The heifer will be given to the priest Eleazar, who will slaughter it outside the camp. Eleazar will take some of the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the tent of meeting. The heifer should then be burned by another, and the priest will throw cedar, hyssop, and crimson material on the fire. The priest and the one who burns the heifer must then wash their clothes and body. They may reenter the camp, but will remain unclean until evening.

A clean person is to take the ashes and deposit them in a clean place outside the camp. The ashes will be used in the water for cleansing. This person too shall wash his clothes and will be unclean until evening.

What follows are commandments regarding the water for cleansing.

Anyone who touches a dead body will be unclean seven days. They will purify themselves on the third and seventh day with the water of cleansing, and become clean. Those that do not will be cut off from the Lord. If a person dies in a tent, every person who enters the tent as well as the tent itself must be cleansed with the water.

Learn More
The red heifer will feature more prominently into later stories. Just you wait.

The red heifer, it is said by some, is a requirement if the Third Temple of Israel is to be built. See more on the history and modern implications of the red heifer at the Temple Institute web site. [The Temple Institute is an organization in Jerusalem whose long-term goal is to "do all in our limited power to bring about the building of the Holy Temple in our time."]

For more on the contemporary fundamentalist Christian take on the red heifer, check out The End of Days by Gershom Gorenberg. It takes a look at religion and politics inside and outside of Israel, exploring the tensions, similarities, and differences between them. Though written before September 11, 2001, its look at religious fundamentalism in the Middle East and America is indispensable.

Numbers 16-17: Why narrative strands don't necessarily matter

Numbers 16: Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
Numbers 17: The Budding of Aaron's Rod

The HarperCollins Study Bible offers the following footnote for Numbers 16:

"In this section on the revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, there is some mixing of traditions: the complaints are against Moses or Aaron or bother; the complaints are about secular or sacred leadership; either Levites or Reubenites or even the whole community are the rebels; the rebels are swallowed whole or burned by fore from the Lord."

Yikes! That's quite some weaving! But keeping track of the myriad strands keeps us from realizing what the author is truly trying to say: that the Israelites are wary of leadership, wayward in their faith of God, and generally disobedient. And really, the biblical author could be saying this about humankind in general. There will always be the dissenters and the people that think they could do it better. But in the biblical narrative, we are shown that there is a supreme leader - the Lord. And if the Lord is not obeyed or the Lord's intermediaries are not obeyed, tragedy will strike the guilty. With few exceptions (see Job) the bible is fairly straightforward in this respect: Obey God and all is well. Disobey God and all is not well. Yet it is the obedience and disobedience that drive biblical narrative. Dialectical tensions between God and the Israelites - the tensions between divine will hand human freewill - ensure the lively narrative we know.

I will try to tell the narrative as completely as possible, but the important part is the message.

Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: Numbers 16
Korah (a Levite), along with Dathan and Abiram (both Reubenites) gather 250 Israelite men and confront Moses [or Moses and Aaron]. They tell Moses: "You have gone too far! All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. So why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?" (Num. 16.3).

There are actually two separate and contradictory arguments here. The first is an argument for a sort of theological communism. Because God resides in the tent of meeting among all the Israelites, all the Israelites deserve equal access to him. The second argument, which runs contrary to the first, is that the Levites should have as much access to God as Moses and Aaron because they have been declared separate from the rest of Israel. The first argument equalizes all the Israelites. The second only equalizes the Levites with Moses and Aaron.

Moses responds to the second argument (argued by Korah, as it concerns the Levites only) with a test. The next morning, Korah and his company of 250 are to light censers (trays that hold coal on which incense are burned). The one that the Lord has chosen will then become apparent. Moses then rebukes the Levites for their pride, asking, "is it too little that" God has set them apart so that they may serve him. They are in a favored position, and yet they want more.

Moses then responds to the first argument by calling for Dathan and Abiram (who made this argument because they are members of the lay people and therefore would believe in equality for all). They respond using the same phrasing Moses used to rebuke the Levites: "Is it too little that" Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. In their estimation, Egypt is "a land flowing with milk and honey," why not then return? Clearly they have forgotten about their oppression.

Angered, Moses tells the Lord to pay no mind to the offering of the people that doubt the Lord.

The next day, the people gather before the tent of meeting and God appears in a pillar of cloud. The Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron, telling them to step aside so he may consume the congregation. Moses and Aaron intercede on behalf of the people a la Abraham: "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one person sin and you become angry with the whole congregation?" (Num. 16.22). The Lord changes his command, telling Moses that the congregation should get away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram stand at the entrance to their tents along with their wives and children [this shows that God's wrath extends to the children of sinners]. Moses stands before them and declares that the congregation will know that the Lord sent Moses if the men and their families are swallowed up by the ground and they go down alive to Sheol [not hell, but a shady underworld].

As soon as Moses finishes speaking, the ground "opened its mouth and swallowed them up" along with their families and household goods [the passage of Numbers 16.31-33 mentions only Korah, though the spirit of the story would have the others swallowed up as well]. The earth closes up over where they stood. This thoroughly freaks out the congregation, which does not respond by acknowledging Moses as their leader, but rather by running away fearing they too will be swallowed up. That seems to be a pretty rational response, actually.

Meanwhile, the 250 men [probably Levites, as they are actually allowed to handle the censers] offering incense are all consumed by the fire of the Lord, a la Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu. The moral of the story seems to be obey God and Moses.

Interestingly, the censers are purified by the blaze, as the sacrificers become the sacrificed and sanctify the censers. The holy bronze censers, consecrated in the fire of the Lord [comprised of the burning of unfaithful men] are hammered out as a covering for the altar. This serves as a reminder that only the descendants of Aaron, the priests, may offer incense before the Lord.

What follows is one of the tensest cinematic moments of the Bible.

The next day there is backlash as the Israelites accuse Moses and Aaron of killing the people of the Lord. The two turn around and find God has appeared in the form of a cloud in the tent of meeting.

God has had it with these people.

God tells Moses, "Get away from the congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment." At this Moses falls on his face, as a way of begging the Lord not to do so. Moses tells Aaron to quickly take incense into the congregation, because God has cast a plague on them. The plague has already begun by the time Aaron gets there, and people are dying all over the place. Aaron makes atonement for the people with the incense. "He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stopped" (Num. 16.48). A vengeful God, however, has killed 14,700 by the plague, in addition to those who died along with Korah and the 250 burned improperly offering incense.

The Budding of Aaron's Rod: Numbers 17
There is one final display of Aaron and Moses' divinely-granted leadership, a response to the first argument above. The Lord tells Moses to get a staff from each ancestral house and write each man's name on the staff. Aaron's name is to go on Levi's staff (having already proved his authority over them). The staffs are placed before the Lord in the tent of the covenant. The next day, Aaron's is discovered to have sprouted, a symbol that Aaron is divinely chosen.

God attempts to use the staff as a deterrent against rebellious Israelites: "Put back the staff of Aaron before the covenant, to be kept as a warning to rebels, so that you may make an end of their complaints against me, or else they will die" (Num. 17.10).

As today's reading has shown, however, constancy is hard to come by. And if the congregation always has something to complain about. Having lost the battle for equality, they mourn, "We are perishing; we are lost, all of us are lost! Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all to perish?" (Num. 17.12-13. The answer is no. If the people stay away from the tabernacle and allow the Levites to perform their sacrifices, no one will die.

Numbers 3

Levite Day!

Sons of Aaron / Duties of the Levites / Census of the Levites / Redemption of the Firstborn

The Levites were sort of glossed over in the previous two chapters because they function separately from the twelve tribes. As we will see, the Levites serve a ritual function for the Israelites.

Sons of Aaron: Numbers 3.1-4

The chapter kicks off with a brief genealogy of Aaron and Moses "at the time when the Lord spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai" (Num 3.1). This specific detail helps to set the location - or at least remove the reader in time and space from the revelation on Mount Sinai.

Aaron's sons are Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Nadab and Abihu died for making an offering incorrectly back in Leviticus 10. They left no children. Eleazar and Ithamar, however, continued to serve as priests, assisting their father.

Duties of the Levites: Numbers 3.5-13

The Lord tells Moses to gather the Levites. A distinction is then made between the Levite Aaron and his descendants and the rest of the Levitical tribe. The tribe will perform duties for Aaron in front of the tent of meeting. They will perform ritual functions and be responsible for the upkeep of the tabernacle. However, the Levites will not be priests.

The Lord then tells Moses that he accepts the Levites as substitutes for the firstborns that are to be consecrated to God. This dedication of the firstborns (and substitution of the Levites) is explicitly linked to the killing of the firstborns in Egypt. God states:

The Levites shall be mine, for all the firstborn are mine; when I killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the firstborn in Israel, both human and animal; they shall be mine. I am the Lord.
(Num. 3.12-13)

Rather than requiring compulsory service of the firstborns that have been consecrated for the Lord, the Levites in effect redeem the firstborns, in some ways they are similar to the scapegoat, taking on some symbolic aspect of a feature of a group of people.

Census of the Levites: Numbers 3.14-39

The Levites were ignored in the census covered yesterday, but today their own census is taken.

The census is taken by ancestral houses (the sons of Levi), which are broken up into clans (the sons of the sons). The heads of the ancestral houses are Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

• Gershon's sons: Libni and Shimei. 
• Kohath's sons: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. 
• Merari's sons: Mahli and Mushi.

The Levite census reports males one month old and upward. Contrast this to the census of the other twelve tribes, which counted males of fighting age, 20 and up. The Levites do not have to fight, and therefore all their males are counted. The census results also list the location where the ancestral house is to camp, as well as the responsibilities of the group, pertaining to specific parts of the sanctuary. Below are the results of the census:

Gershonites

Members: 7,500

Leader: Eliasaph son of Lael

Camp to the west of the tabernacle

Kohathites

Members: 8,600

Leader: Elizaphan son of Uzziel

Camp to the south of the tabernacle

Merari

Members: 6,200

Leader: Zuriel son of Abihail

Camp to the north of the tabernacle

Moses and Aaron and Aaron's sons are to camp to the east, in the most desirable position. Eleazar son of Aaron is to be chief over all the leaders and all those responsible for the sanctuary.

The text states the census comes to 22,000, but in fact the total should be 22,300. I'm not going to quibble over 300 people.

Redemption of the Firstborn: Numbers 3.40-51

The firstborns are all to be enrolled, even though the Levites serve as substitutes for them. And remember God's commandment that all firstborn humans and livestock are to be given to God? Well, the Levites' livestock is to serve as a substitute for those livestock that were to be sacrificed! That is pretty convenient. And it turns the Levites into a very symbolic people. They are people utterly devoted to God. Indeed, they represent all the firstborns. Their cattle exist simply so other cattle do not need to be sacrificed to God.

There just so happen to be 273 firstborns among the Israelites who have no Levites to substitute for them. That is, the firstborn Israelites outnumber the Levites. These firstborn Israelites are to be redeemed at five shekels apiece. The money is given to Aaron, presumably for the preservation of the sanctuary. The system is interesting. It is based on the arbitrary belief that each firstborn must be dedicated to the Lord, and that the Levites may redeem them. The rest of the money is a sort of a tax, therefore, for the number of firstborns being out of balance with those taking care of the sanctuary. This truly is government at work.

Leviticus 8.1-10.20

The Rites of Ordination / Aaron's Priesthood Inaugurated / Nadab and Abihu

My two summer reads that have stood out so far are Richard Russo's Straight Man and Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. I found the former to be more entertaining, the latter to be more informative. I might be heading to Spain in the next year and would like to catch a bullfight. Now that I know what I should look for, or at least what I should have looked for had I watched a bullfight in the 1930s.

The reason I tell you this is that both in some ways follow the same literary mode of Leviticus up until this point. Russo has a tendency in his books to spend many, many pages characterizing his characters. By the time a plot develops, the reader knows the characters well enough that actions can be anticipated and irony injected with ease. Russo is able to make a brief mention in the second half to an old joke or story from the first half that the reader will understand and appreciate. That is, he gives his reader a strong base to understand the narrative.

Hemingway takes a similar approach in Death in the Afternoon, though because the book is so long, large amounts of information appear interspersed with narratives that demonstrate the importance, legitimacy, or irony of the information and say something about it. It is Russo's technique repeated throughout the book, rather than characterizing all at once.

The bible's method of presenting information and narrative is similar to Hemingway's. The latter part of Exodus contained a large amount of instructions regarding the building of the tabernacle and the ordination of the priests. The first seven chapters of Leviticus are comprised of instructions regarding sacrifice. But here, in chapters eight, nine and ten, the narrative unfolds into a thrilling story of life and death (stories of sacrifice are usually about life and death, but not always thrilling). You have (or have not) put up with the lengthy factual sections. Here is some action for you.

The Rites of Ordination: Leviticus 8.1-36

The Lord tells Moses to gather Aaron, Aaron's sons, the vestments, anointing oil, a bull, two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread, and assemble the congregation at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

Moses then carries out what the Lord has commanded in Exodus. He washes Aaron and his sons, dresses them, anoints them and the altar and utensils, and proceeds with the sacrifices.

The bull is sacrificed, as prescribed, as a sin offering. The first ram is sacrificed as a burnt offering. The second ram is offered as a sacrifice of ordination.

Moses then anoints the altar, Aaron, his sons, and their vestments, with oil and blood.

Aaron and his sons are instructed to boil the flesh at the entrance of the tent. They are to eat it and burn what is left. They are then to remain at the entrance of the tent of meeting for seven days before their ordination, not leaving during that week. This seems to be a test to prove their devotion to God. The week inside the tent of meeting puts them in a liminal state, between the world of the Israelites and the face of God. After the week is over, they will be able to serve as intermediaries between God and the people, a status that is symbolized in the week-long ceremony.

Aaron's Priesthood Inaugurated: Leviticus 9.1-24

On the eighth day Aaron and his sons make a sin offering and burnt offering themselves, as well as a sin offering, burnt offering, two offerings of well-being, and a grain offering for the people. The sacrifices are required to cleanse the priests and congregation before the Lord appears in the newly-created tabernacle, "For today the Lord will appear to you" (Lev. 9.4).

Aaron performs all these offerings, and then lifts his hands and blesses the people. Moses and Aaron then enter the tent of meeting and come out and bless the people, presumably imbued with holiness. The glory of the Lord then appears to all the people in the form of fire. In a brilliant display of pyrotechnics, fire "came out from the Lord" (or more likely where the Lord would sit, on the mercy seat) and consumes the burnt offering and fat sitting on the altar (Lev. 9.24). The presence of God legitimates the ceremony and serves as the climax of the story. The people shout and fall on their faces, just as Moses fell on his face when he first encountered the Lord.

Nadab and Abihu: Leviticus 10.1-20

Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, each take his censer, puts lit coals in it, and lays incense on top. They offer "unholy fire" (literally "unauthorized coals") before the Lord, in a way that has not been commanded.

For not following God's law, fire again shoots out from the ark of the covenant and consumes Nadab and Abihu, so that they die before the Lord. It is a grotesque irony. The purification of the sons and the congregation had just been completed, and now through an act of disobedience all of Israel has been polluted by the deaths. The more obvious gruesomeness, of course, is that the subversion of purifying effect of fire in sacrifice. Now fire does not purify but rather serves as retribution for sin. Through the second fire, everything is sullied.

The elements are rearranged and reversed. Priests performing sacrifice properly purify themselves and others through fire. Priests performing rituals incorrectly are themselves destroyed by fire as through a sacrifice.

There is a lesson in this Moses tells Aaron:

This is what the Lord meant when he said,
   “Through those who are near me
   I will show myself holy,
   and before all the people
   I will be glorified.”
(Lev. 10.3)

The Lord has certainly shown himself holy (read: apart from sin). The Lord has also certainly demonstrated the importance of proper glorification (as sacrifice is a form of glorification).

Aaron falls silent, further emphasizing the reversal of the scene. Whereas the first fire invokes the noise of the people, the second fire invokes silence.

Moses tells Mishael and Elzaphan, Aaron's cousins, to carry away Aaron's departed sons outside the camp. The two brother carry their dead cousins by their tunics out of the camp as commanded. Moses then warns Aaron's other two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, against disheveling their hair and tearing their vestments, which are traditional signs of mourning. Otherwise they will die and wrath will strike the congregation. The brothers, after all, still have to aid their father as priests. The rest of Israel, however, may mourn. The sons further are warned that if they leave the entrance of the tent of meeting, they will die, for the anointing oil is upon them.

The Lord tells Aaron that he and his sons should not drink wine or strong drink when in the tent of meeting (which presumably means they may not be under the influence while there) or they will die. The reason for this is that the priests are to serve as an intermediary between the divine and mundane realms:

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean; and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.
(Lev. 10.10-11)

Moses tells Aaron and his sons that they are to eat of the grain offering in a holy place, as commanded. The elevated breast and thigh, however, may be consumed by Aaron's family in a clean place.

Moses then confronts Aaron about a purification offering that had been entirely burned, instead of offering a portion to God and keeping the rest to eat. After all, this offering, when eaten, makes atonement for the entire congregation. Aaron responds that he offered a sin and burnt offering earlier in the day, but that tragedy had befallen him nonetheless. Aaron is wary about eating the flesh of a sacrifice that led to such a disaster. Instead, he presented the entire sacrifice to God. Moses agrees with his assessment.

Today's reading is a perfect example of the dialectical tensions of the bible. For not following God's commands precisely, Nadab and Abihu lose their lives.

Leviticus 6.8-7.38

Instructions Concerning Sacrifices / Further Instructions

The first post in the laws of sacrifice dealt with spontaneous sacrifice. Yesterday's post covered sacrifice of expiation. Today's post lists sacrifices in their order of sanctity.

Instructions Concerning Sacrifices: Leviticus 6.8-7.10

The Lord instructs Moses to relay the following to Aaron and his sons:

Burnt Offering
When a burnt offering has been reduced to ashes, the priest, wearing the linen vestments and undergarments, should take the ashes and place them beside the altar. He should then change clothes and carry the ashes to a clean place outside the camp. [This keeps the garments from becoming sullied by the outside world.]

The fire on the altar should perpetually burn, with wood added every morning.

Grain Offering

As prescribed before, a priest should take a handful of the choice flour/oil/frankincense mixture and burn it. The priests will eat what is left in the form of unleavened cakes in a holy place, the court of the tent of meeting. No leaven should be added; it is a portion allotted by God and most holy. The holy bread makes the priests holy in turn, and anything that touches them becomes holy.

Offering of a priest's anointing

On the day a priest is anointed, he should offer one-tenth an ephah of choice flour, half in the morning and half at night. It shall be prepared with oil in a griddle. The entire grain offering should be burned - the priests cannot partake of it.

Sin Offering

 The sin offering should be slaughtered in the same place as the burnt offering. The priest who offers it shall eat it in the court of the tent of meeting. Anything that touches the flesh of the sacrifice will become holy, but if blood splatters on a garment, it is to be washed in a holy place. Likewise, an earthen vessel holding blood should be destroyed and a bronze basin holding blood should be scrubbed.

Every priest should eat the flesh of the sin offering. However, if blood its is brought into the tent of meeting to atone the place, the animal is to be entirely burned.

Here the dual nature of blood is evident. Sacrificed blood is a cleansing force for the altars, but outside the holy place contact with blood leads to ritual impurity.

Guilt Offering

The guilt offering should be slaughtered in the same place as the burnt offering. The blood should be dashed on the sides of the altar. The fat, broad tail, kidneys, and appendage of the liver should be removed. After these are burnt, the sacrificing priest is to eat the flesh it in a holy place.

Misc.

The priest that makes atonement with an animal is given the right to eat its flesh. Likewise, a priest who offers a grain offerings that baked or prepared in a pan or griddle eats the portion leftover after the sacrifice. All other grain offerings, though, those uncooked, are split among the priests.

Further Instructions: Leviticus 7.11-38

Thanksgiving Sacrifice
What follows is the ritual of the sacrifice of well-being.

If the sacrifice is offered in thanksgiving, it should be accompanied by a thank offering of unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of choice flour well soaked in oil. Clearly two traditions are intertwined here, as the next instruction states a thanksgiving sacrifice should be accompanied by cakes of leavened bread. One cake will be sacrificed, and the rest will go to the priest who performs the sacrifice.

Next the accounts are clearly conflated. Here bread does not act as the thanksgiving aspect of a sacrifice of well-being. Rather, the text contradicts itself so that the thanksgivings sacrifice is the bread and meat.

In any case, the flesh of a thanksgiving sacrifice should not be left until morning.

Then the text refers to votive and freewill offerings, which have not even been introduced yet! (The Bible is not necessarily meant to be read through "front-to-back," though this is the method I have chosen because it is easy.) These two offerings may be eaten on the day after the sacrifice, but must be burned on the third day. Anyone who eats meat past its expiration date incurs guilt.

Eating Flesh
It's okay to eat flesh as long as it hasn't touched anything unclean and you yourself are clean. If you eat flesh from a sacrifice of well-being while in a state of uncleanliness, you will be cut of from your kin.

Fat and Blood
The people of Israel may not eat the fat of an ox, sheep or goat.

You can do what you want with the fat of an animal that dies or is torn apart by wild animals - except eat it. Otherwise you'll be cut off from your kin.

You may not eat the blood of anything. Don't you want to remain with your kin?


If you make a sacrifice of well being, you personally must bring the fat and breast to the fire. The breast will be raised as an elevation offering and then be given to the priests, along with the right thigh, which belongs specifically to the priest that dashes the blood.

Sacrifice is a perpetual due of the people, the priests perpetually there to ensure it is performed properly.

The bible wraps it up nicely:

This is the ritual of the burnt-offering, the grain-offering, the sin-offering, the guilt-offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being, which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, when he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai.
(Lev. 7.37-38)

Leviticus 1.1-3.17

Burnt Offerings / Grain Offerings / Offerings of Well-Being / On Leaven and Honey and Blood

Leviticus 1-5 characterizes two types of sacrifices: spontaneous sacrifice (1-3), sacrifice of expiation (4-5). Chapters 6-7 restate these in order of sanctity.

Today's post will cover spontaneous sacrifices. These aren't spontaneous in the sense that they just happen, but spontaneous in the sense that they are not motivated by purification from accidental sin. These are gifts.

Note: I am not an anthropologist or sociologist. I am not here to discover how sacrifice functioned for the Israelites. As the HarperCollins Study Bible points out, "[N]o single theory can encompass the sacrificial system of any society, even the most primitive" (152). But sacrifice is rife with symbolism and metaphor, something that I can examine as literature. Just as meals function as communion, sacrifice functions as...Well, we are about to find out!

Burnt Offerings: Leviticus 1.1-17

The Lord, speaking from the tent of meeting, tells Moses to tell the people that when any bring an offering of livestock to the Lord, it should be from the herd or flock.

A burnt offering should be a male without blemish. The one who offers it should bring it to the entrance of the tent a meeting and lay his hand on its  head "and it shall be acceptable in your behalf as atonement for you" (Lev. 1.4). What the offering is atoning for, exactly, is not mentioned. For this reason, it is not considered a sacrifice of expiation, which are made to atone for specific sins.

The animal (here "bull") is slaughtered, and Aaron's sons should dash the blood on all sides of the altar at the tent of meeting. The animal is to be flayed and cut into parts, which Aaron's sons arrange over a wood fire on the altar. The entrails and legs should be washed with water first, but the whole thing should be turned to smoke on the altar, offering a pleasing odor to the Lord.

The animal serves an important symbolic function within the sacrifice. First of all, it is property, coming from a herd or flock. One cannot hunt it. As a piece of property, it has a greater connection with the sacrificer. An unblemished animal stands juxtaposed to the human, who is so easily fouled by inadvertent sin. When the sacrificer places his hand on the animal's head, there is a deliberate juxtaposition of pure and sullied which acknowledges that this unblemished animal will come from the hands of a human into the hands of God. The sacrificed animal functions as an intermediary between man and God. Though owned by humans, the animal is pure, unblemished. Because of this binary property, it can pass from the profane/mundane to the sacred realm.

Burning is the method by which the animal passes from human to divine realm. The animal turns from a corporeal being into smoke, which floats away. Smoke is a strange, almost supernatural thing, present but always moving, shapeless, mysterious, not unlike the cloud that sits over the tent of meeting. Through fire, the animal is able to take on this state.

Burnt offerings of birds have their own process, this one blade-free. Turtledoves or pigeons are the acceptable bird burnt offerings. The priest wrings off its head, drains its blood against the side of the altar, removes the crop and throws it among the ashes at the east side of the altar, and tears it open by the wings. The priest then turns it to smoke on the altar, offering a pleasing odor to the Lord.

Birds are perhaps a bit less personal than cattle, but (presumably) not everyone can afford cattle

Grain Offerings: Leviticus 2.1-16

For a grain offering, the worshipper is to take choice flour, add oil and frankincense, and bring it to Aaron's sons. A priest takes a token handful and turns it to smoke on the altar, creating a pleasing odor to the Lord. What is left goes to Aaron and his sons.

Can't afford frankincense? You can have it your way. Just cook the grain in one of the following ways:

1. Offerings baked in an oven should be unleavened cakes of choice flour mixed with oil or wafers spread with oil.
2. Offerings prepared on a griddle should be choice flour mixed with oil, unleavened. The bread should be broken into pieces and have oil poured on it.
3. Offerings prepared in a pan should have choice flour in oil.

The priest should take the grain offering to the altar and turn the token portion into smoke. The rest goes to Aaron and his sons.

There is to be no leaven or honey (which promotes leavening with the addition of yeast) in grain offerings. These may be brought to the Lord as an offering of choice products, but not offered for a pleasing odor.

Grain offerings should be made with "salt of the covenant with your God" (Ex. 2.13).

Offerings of first fruits (barley) as grain offering should be from fresh ears, and parched with fire (roasted). Oil and frankincense should be added. The priest should turn a token portion into smoke.

Offerings of Well-Being: Leviticus 3.1-17

Offerings of well-being, like burnt offerings, should be an animal of the herd (like goats) without blemish. Unlike the burnt offerings, however, the animal can be male or female.

The offerer should lay his hand on the head of the animal and slaughter it at the entrance of the tent of meeting. The priest should dash the blood against the sides of the altar.

The sacrifice itself should consist of the fat covering the entrails, the kidneys with the fat on them, and the "appendage of the liver," which HarperCollins notes is "the caudate lobe of the liver" (Lev. 3.4). Aaron's sons will turn these into smoke, offering a pleasing odor to the Lord.

If you offer a sheep, the process is the same, except you shall offer the broad tail as well.

The section ends:

All fat is the Lord’s. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, in all your settlements: you must not eat any fat or any blood.
(Lev. 3.16-17)

The fat and blood of the animals are reserved for the Lord. The sacrificer may eat the rest. God gets a portion of all the meat that a person eats - the tastiest portion (fat) and the portion of life (blood).

On Leaven and Honey and Blood

Above I call blood a portion of life. I could also call it a symbol of life because it represents the life force that flows through many living things. But blood can also be a symbol of death. Contact with blood outside of this context results in impurity. Rather than being a positive force of life, in these contexts (including touching a dead body and menstruation) blood is a negative force of sin, perhaps even death.

Blood is therefore holy or not depending on where it is shed and who sheds it. The only instance of blood as a purifying entity seems to be as a sacrifice of an unblemished animal by a priest at the altar. In any other context contact with blood is a sin.

Blood has a dual nature. It is the circulating fluid that ensures life (though the ancient Israelites probably did not know about the circulatory system). The way we know this is empirical: when an animal bleeds out, it dies. Animals need blood to live. But blood outside the body is a force of death: dying animals bleed out. It is the context of the blood's appearance that determines the blood's sanctity and purifying power. Proper sacrifice at the altar creates the blood of life, holy and purifying. Any other context results in the blood of death, compounding sin on those who come into contact with it.

What about leaven (yeast) and honey? Isn't yeast living? Yes. But that is not how the ancient Israelites saw it. Leaven was a symbol of death and dying, and because the sugar from honey aided the process, it too was unfit for sacrifice. Bread is dead. You do not give life to bread by adding yeast to flour and sugar. Certainly, this activates the yeast, but yeast was not known to be living until very recently. So leaven really just added to the process of death - the bloating, if you will pardon the image.

This means that wine also could not be a burnt offering, because what is wine but grape juice that has been dead for a long time? Just think about that the next time you enjoy a Pinot Noir. Dead grapes. Delicious long-dead grapes.

Exodus 40.1-38 / Exodus Wrap-Up

The Tabernacle Erected and Its Equipment Installed / The Cloud and the Glory / Exodus Wrap-up

The Tabernacle Erected and Its Equipment Installed: Exodus 40.1-33

The completed construction of the tabernacle represents the beginning of a new era in the history of the Israelites. The tabernacle is to be set up on the first day of the first month (of the second year). The new year symbolizes a new beginning, a new iteration of life for the Israelites. Instead of the various altars before, they now have a single place from which to serve God. More importantly, God is always with them, his earthly dwelling always carried from one location to the next. Though they seek the promised land, they are continually in God's presence. This does not make them ritually holy, but it does set them apart from the other peoples inhabiting the wilderness and, in fact, the people of the past, who were not constantly in God's presence. To be constantly in the presence of God creates a different way of living that had never been seen. Yet the close proximity will not ensure an end to dialectical tensions. In fact, it will highlight them in chapters to come.

God commands Moses to set up and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it. Aaron and his sons shall then wash themselves and be dressed as prescribed.

Moses does all this apparently by himself, on the first day of the first month of the second year.

The Cloud and the Glory: Exodus 40.34-38

The cloud comes to cover the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle. This cloud is the same cloud that covered Mount Sinai, where it was for a time "homeless" until the construction of the tabernacle and the mercy seat, where the divine presence could reside. The divine presence is so strong, so holy, that even Moses is not able to enter the tent of meeting (the innermost tent) when the cloud settles upon it.

The cloud is related to the pillar of cloud and fire that initially led the Israelites out of Egypt; just as the pillar of cloud becomes a pillar of fire at night, the cloud is filled with fire at night. Also, the Israelites follow signs from the cloud, just as they followed the pillar. The cloud leaving the tabernacle is a sign that the Israelites should be moving on. This is the angel of the Lord that God has promised would lead them.

Exodus Wrap-up

Exodus ends with movement, a suitable (and almost cinematic) ending to a story of escape and preparation to be led through the wilderness. We are in year two of the forty year wandering.

The dialectical tensions between the Lord and the Israelites are brought into the foreground in this chapter more than in Genesis. Genesis does contain the greatest of all dialectical tensions, the first display of human desire defying God's commandments. And there is no doubt that many people die in Genesis because of their actions contrary to God's will. Exodus, however, narrows the focus to God's own people, and the situation becomes more complicated. It is one thing for Abram to plead for the salvation of Lot's family in Sodom and quite another thing for Moses to plead with God to continue leading God's people to the promised land. The Israelites will not survive without God, but they lack faith in God. More troubling is the golden calf incident, in which another god replaces the true God so quickly after their leader disappears, seemingly taking his god with him. Here the Israelites seem to want their own God, rather than the one they were born with. But without faith in God, the Israelites will struggle.

Isn't that interesting? The more the Israelites need God, the more they need to trust in God, but the less likely they are to have that trust because they are in need. That is the scene played over and over throughout Exodus - one of its strongest themes.

The next book, Leviticus is a book largely comprised of instructions for the priests - its early rabbinic name was "Priest's Manual." It is an instruction manual stuck in the middle of a story. But there is literature in it yet!

Exodus 32.1-35

The Golden Calf

Moses has been on Mount Sinai since chapter 24, when he left Joshua halfway up the mountain (Ex. 24. 13) and went up to receive instructions from God. When last we left Moses, he received two stone tablets from God. What follows is a story of parallel thoughts and actions

The Golden Calf: Exodus 32.1-35

Moses has been out of the picture for a whole eight chapters, and the Israelites are starting to get antsy. Just before Moses went up the mountain, the Israelites twice promised to obey the Lord's command. Now Moses their leader has been gone for a whole eight chapters! What are they to do? The Israelites gather around Aaron and say to him:

"Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."
(Ex. 32.1)

It seems that God has disappeared along with Moses. The Israelites do not say that God brought them out of Egypt, as stated in the First Commandment, which the people of Israel have already heard: "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" (Ex. 20.1). Rather, it is Moses that brought the people out of Egypt, and as he disappears, so does the God associated with them.

The people should remember God, but the dialectical tension (the difference between God's desire and Israel's desire) prevails. The people here, having been rescued by God and having lost their leader, search for a new god - and a new leader.

For someone that has seen firsthand the power of God and been granted the ability to perform miracles, Aaron is quick to forget about the God of his brother. Perhaps he is just a pushover, because he quickly decides to create idols, disobeying Commandment Two.

Aaron tells the Israelite to collect gold earrings worn by the women and children - perhaps the same earrings that the Israelites took from the Egyptians as they left Egypt. Aaron melts down the gold and forms and image of a calf. He tells the Israelites, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" (Ex. 32.4). That is not a correct statement, but perhaps what it is the Israelites, who believe they have lost their leader in a thick cloud on a trembling mountain, wish to hear. Suddenly Aaron finds he is the greatest authority of the Israelites - quite a bit of power has suddenly been bestowed upon him. And, as Peter Parker would say (quoting his Uncle Ben), "With great power comes great responsibility."

Aaron continues to parody the true Lord and the rituals of Israelite religion, building an altar before the calf and declaring that tomorrow will be the festival of the Lord. The next day people offer burnt offerings and other sacrifices, eat and drink, and then "revel" (with a sexual connotation). The practice of Israelite worship, of course, is entirely free of sex.

The Lord tells Moses to return to the Israelites:

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’
(Ex. 32.7-10)

The Lord's sentiment parallels that of the Israelites. Just as the Israelites divorce themselves from God and emphasize Moses' role in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, God divorces himself from the Israelites, calling them "your people," and emphasizes as well Moses' role in leading the Israelites. Moses is caught in the middle as a negotiator between God, who is having trouble keeping his followers, and the Israelites, who are having trouble keeping faith in God.

Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites in a scene reminiscent of Abraham interceding on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. The difference is that Abraham was essentially imploring God for the sake of Lot and his family. Moses implores God for the sake of all the Israelites, who have lost their way. He makes an appeal to reason, asking God why God would destroy the people that he just brought out of Egypt, thereby having the Egyptians to believe that God is an evil God. Moses then invokes the divine covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel - the covenant of land and progeny. Moses' argument is strong enough that the Lord decides not to bring disaster on the people.

Moses goes down the mountain carrying the two tablets of the covenant, both written on both sides by the hand of God. He encounters Joshua who says that the noise is like the sound of war. But Moses knows better:

It is not the sound made by victors,
or the sound made by losers;
it is the sound of revelers that I hear.
(Ex. 32.18)

When Moses sees the calf and the people dancing, his anger burns hot (paralleling God's burning wrath). Moses throws the tablets from his hands, breaking them at the foot of the mountain. This symbolic action has Moses destroying the embodiment of the word of God in front of the people who have disobeyed God's commands. That is, the commands that have been broken figuratively by disobedience are broken literally into fragments of text because of the disobedience.

Unlike God, Moses punishes the Israelites for their sins. Moses burns the calf and grinds it into a powder, puts it in the water, and has the Israelites drink it

What follows is a conversation between Moses and Aaron that parallel the previous conversation between God and Moses. The role have been transposed: Moses, who as a representative of the people calms God, now is calmed by Aaron, who is the new representative of the people.

Aaron seeks to calm his lord's burning anger, bringing the dialectical tension into the forefront, which God did in God's conversation with Moses:

And Aaron said, ‘Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. They said to me, “Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So I said to them, “Whoever has gold, take it off ”; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’
(Ex. 32.22-24)

That's Aaron, removing the blame from himself. The bible is laconic, but Aaron should not be presumed innocent due to a lack of detail. Aaron's defense obscures the fact that he created the calf himself, and characterizes him as a liar, or at least inconstant. With Moses gone, Aaron gave into the demands of the Israelites. With Moses back, Aaron blames the Israelites for their wickedness while removing blame from himself. Oh, and Aaron seems to have a problem maintaining order, and the narrator is quick to point out that this is to the derision of their enemies, who probably now see the Israelites as a depraved group of people going wild in the wilderness with no leader.

It's time for retribution.

Moses has all those on the Lord's side come to him at the gate of the camp. The Levite males gather around and Moses delivers a command from God (one that we never actually saw Moses receiving): Each man is to kill "your brother, your friend, and your neighbor" (Ex. 32.27). Whether these are singular or collective nouns, I cannot say. Each man might kill three men, or perhaps a greater number. Perhaps each man should only kill one other man, as indicated by the phrasing in verse 29 (below). In any case, 3,000 people fall that day. Moses says to the Levite men: "Today you have ordained yourselves (or "Today ordain yourselves) for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day" (Ex. 32.29).

Like Abraham and Jacob, these men were tested with violence to prove themselves worthy of service to the Lord. Unlike Abraham, they did not have to kill. Unlike Jacob, they killed and did not wrestle. But clearly the connection between violence and faithfulness is established. The killings also may serve as an attempted action of mass purification, but this idea is not pursued by the biblical authors.

The next day Moses tells the people that they have sinned a "great sin." He goes up to the Lord to try to make atonement on their behalf. Moses pleads their case, and asks if their sin is not forgiven, that God should "blot me out of the book that you have written" (Ex. 32.32; a divine roll of the living is an ancient tradition to many middle eastern cultures). God replies that God [only] blots out the names of those who sin.

The Lord then commands Moses to lead the people to "the place about which I have spoken to you" (Ex. 32.34). The angel of the Lord will lead them. And God promises to punish the Israelites when the day comes to punish their sins.

The chapter ends with a dig aimed at Aaron:

Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf—the one that Aaron made.
(Ex. 32.35)

The author seems to take Aaron to task. At first the author seems to reiterate Aaron's point of view, that it was the people that made the calf, but the author corrects this with the truth. Indeed it was Aaron that made the golden calf.

Tomorrow: Sayonara, Sinai.

Exodus 29.1-46

The Ordination of the Priests / The Daily Offering 

The Ordination of the Priests: Exodus 29.1-37

-or-

(How to consecrate a priest [if you are Moses])

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Welcome back Aaron, and keep leading the people.

Ingredients:

• One young bull without blemish
• Two rams without blemish
• On basket containing:
• Unleavened bread (made with choice what flour)
• Unleavened cakes mixed with oil (choice wheat flour)
• Unleavened wafers spread with oil (choice wheat flour)

Directions:

Dressing

1. Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the tent of meeting
2. Wash them with water
3. Dress Aaron in the priestly vestments
4. Anoint Aaron with oil
5. Dress his sons with their vestments

Sacrificing the bull

1. Bring the bull before the tent of meeting
2. Have Aaron and his sons put their hands on the head of the bull
3. Slaughter the bull
4. Put some of the blood on the horns of the altar with your finger
5. Pour the rest of the blood a the base of the altar
6. Take the fat, liver, kidneys and “turn them into smoke” (burn them) on the altar
7. The flesh of the bull, its skin, and its dung should be burned outside as a purifying “sin offering”

Sacrificing the first ram

1. Have Aaron and his sons put their hands on the head of the ram
2. Slaughter the ram
3. Dash the blood against all the sides of the altar
4. Cut the ram into parts
5. Wash the entrails and legs
6. Burn the entire lamb. “It is a pleasing odor, an offering by fire to the Lord” (Ex. 29.18)

Sacrificing the second ram (the ram of ordination)

1. Have Aaron and his sons put their hands on the head of the ram
2. Slaughter the ram
3. Put some of the blood on Aaron and his sons in the following places:
4. Right ear lobe
5. Thumb of the right hand
6. Big toe of the right foot
7. Dash the rest of the blood against all sides of the altar
8. Take some of the blood against the altar, mix with anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and his sons and their vestments. This makes them and their vestments holy.
9. Take the fat, tail, liver, kidneys, and right thigh with the contents of the basket: one loaf of bread, one cake of bread mixed with oil, and one wafer.
10. Place all these on the palms of Aaron and his sons
11. Have Aaron and his sons raise the breads and innards as an elevated offering before the Lord
12. Take the innards and breads and burn them on the altar on top of the burnt offering. This is an offering by fire to the Lord

Eating the ram of ordination

1. Boil its flesh in a holy place
2. Aaron and his sons should eat the flesh of the ram and the breads in the basket
3. Eat outside the tent of meeting
4. Only Aaron and his sons can eat this food, which through sacrifice has purified them. The food is holy.
5. Leftovers should be burned

Moses’s portion

1. Take the breast of the ram of ordination
2. Raise it as an elevation offering; it is your portion.

The seven-day ordination

1. Ordination should last seven days
2. Every day a bull should be offered to atone for sins.
3. An additional sin offering should be made every day for the altar,
4. The altar shall also be anointed and consecrated each day for even days
5. Anything that touches the holy altar shall become holy itself.

Note
These things should be a perpetual ordinance for Aaron and his sons.


The Daily Offering: Exodus 29.38-46

The Daily Offerings

1. Each day sacrifice two one-year-old lambs, one in the morning and one in the evening
2. Sacrifices should be held at the entrance of the tent of meeting
3. Each shall be sacrificed with one-tenth an ephah of flour (about 9 cups) mixed with 1/4 hin oil (about 1.4 gallons)
4. Serve with 1/4 hin wine as a drink offering

Final note on holiness
God says:

It shall be a regular burnt-offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you, to speak to you there. I will meet the Israelites there, and it shall be sanctified by my glory; I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar; Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate, to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them; I am the Lord their God.
(Ex. 29.42-46)

So what does all this mean?

God's meals, the burnt sacrifices given to him, parallel the meals that the priests eat. Except God, being God, gets a lot more food - the equivalent of a few loaves of bread, an entire lamb, and 1.4 gallons of wine. God does not eat this food - it is a symbolic offering. But there is something to be said for the communion (not the New Testament type). When characters in a book share in food it represents communion, getting to know each other and sharing in a situation. It is a connection on spiritual level played out on the physical level with the eating of food. It's a way to say, "Hey, we eat the same food. We understand each other. We're in this together." Even though God is seated on his throne in the Holy of Holies, he is still among his people Israel.

So what is Holiness? This section demonstrates well the "separate" aspect of holiness. The animals have to be without blemish. You have to be physically and ritually clean when you approach God. God cannot come into contact with commonness. Hence the layers of separation of the tabernacle, described in the posts previous to this one. Though among the Israelites and having communion through sacrifice, there is still a distinct separation.

A good deal of this separation is through ritual. Through ritual you can purify yourself so that you may encounter or make sacrifices to God. There are three different ways the priests must dispose of the blood of the three sacrificed animals. Each method has a distinct purpose. The bull's blood consecrates the horns of the altar. The first ram's blood consecrates the altar itself. The second ram's blood consecrates the priests. There is an order to the ordination, and a meaning behind everything.

Notice, though, that rather than dirtying, the blood of sacrificed animals purifies. The blood of sacrificed animals does not pollute like human blood (menstrual and from wounds). Rather, because the getting of the blood has meaning, the blood itself is ritually purifying. So it is not just ram's blood that purifies, it is the blood of a sacrificed lamb.

One final note on holiness: Even the altar needs to be consecrated and have its sins atoned for (Ex. 29.36). Through contact with people (or perhaps exposure to the elements), the altar becomes impure and must be purified. But the altar also has the power to consecrate. Anything that touches the altar will become holy (Ex. 29.37).

Exodus 27.1-28.43

The Altar of Burnt Offering / The Court and Its Hangings / The Oil for the Lamp / Vestments / The Ephod / The Breastpiece / Other Priestly Vestments

Today's reading consists of two sections: instructions for building the open-air court outside the tabernacle and instructing for creating vestments that the priests should wear

The Court of the Tabernacle

The open- air court is to be a rectangle containing the tabernacle and altar and having the following dimensions: 50 cubits on the North-South axis and 100 cubits on the East-West axis. The tabernacle lies in the western end, the altar in the eastern end.

The Altar of Burnt Offering: Exodus 27.1-8

The hollow altar should be made with boards of acacia wood and measure 5 cubits long by 5 cubits wide by 3 cubits high. There should be a horn attached to the four corners, each overlaid with bronze.

Pots for ashes, shovels, basins, forks, and firepans should be made of bronze.

There should be a grating of bronze with four bronze rings at its corners. It should be placed under the ledge (inside) of the altar, halfway down the body.

The altar is transported with poles of acacia wood overlaid with bronze (not gold!) that fit through the rings.

The Court and Its Hangings: Exodus 27.9-19

For the north and south sides of the tabernacle a 100-cubit-long hanging of fine twisted linen shall hang from 20pillars (presumably of acacia wood) in 20 bronze bases. The hooks and bands of the pillars should be silver.

The west side should have a 50-cubit-long hanging with 10 pillars and 10 bases.

The east side, also 50 cubits long, shall consist of 15-cubit hangings on either side, each supported by 3 pillars in 3 bases. The curtains form a sort of gateway.

The gate should be a screen twenty cubits long made of fine twisted linen and yarn in blue, purple, and crimson, embroidered with needlework. It should be supported by four pillars with four bases.

All the pillars around the court should be banded with silver and have silver hooks. Their bases should be bronze.

Bronze pegs will be used to pin the cords that stabilize the pillars to the ground (think of a rain fly on a camping tent).

The Oil for the Lamp: Exodus 27.20-21

The Israelites should make olive oil for the lamp. The lamp, located outside the Holy of Holies, should be lit every evening and tended until morning by Aaron and his sons. This shall continue every night through the generations.

Vestments for the Priesthood

Vestments: Exodus 28.1-5

Aaron and his sons (Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar) are to serve God as priests. They shall wear vestments crafted by the most skilled of the Israelites. These vestments include: breastpiece, ephod, robe, checkered tunic ("fringed" in other readings), turban, sash. These shall be made of gold, blue, purple and crimson yarn, and fine linen.

The Ephod: Exodus 28.6-14

The ephod, a long vest, is to be made of the materials and colors listed above. Two shoulder-pieces attached at the edges shall hold it together. It should have a decorated band of the aforementioned materials.

The names of the sons of Israel should be engraved on two onyx stones, six names to a stone, in order of birth. The stones should be mounted on a gold filigree (an ornament of woven gold chains) on the shoulder-pieces.

[The location of the stones is such that the priest has the tribes of Israel immediately resting on his shoulders - a constant remind of history for both him and those who see the stones.]

Two chains of pure gold should be attached to two settings of gold filigree.

The Breastpiece: Exodus 28.15-30

The "breastpiece (or "pouch") of judgment" should be made in the same unifying style of the other fabricated accessories: with gold, blue, purple, and crimson yarns and twisted linen. This "judgment" is divination. Intrigued? Read on.

The breastplate is to be a square when doubled, a span long (about 8 inches) and a span wide. Stones should be set in gold filigree into it in four rows, three stones to a row. [Here again appears the number twelve].

• Row 1: Carnnelian, chrysolite, emerald
• Row 2: Turquoise, sapphire, moonstone
• Row 3: Jacinth, Agate, Amethyst
• Row 4: Beryl, Onyx, Jasper.

Each stone should be engraved with the name of a tribe of Israel.

Two cords of twisted gold chains should fit through two gold rings at the edges of the breastpiece, attaching to the settings on the ephod.

Gold rings on the ends of teh breastpiece should be bound to the rings of the ephod with a blue cord, so that the breastpiece lies on the decorated band of the ephod and does not come loose.

All this is for Aaron's benefit:

So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgement on his heart when he goes into the holy place, for a continual remembrance before the Lord. In the breastpiece of judgement you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron’s heart when he goes in before the Lord; thus Aaron shall bear the judgement of the Israelites on his heart before the Lord continually.
(Ex. 28.29-30)

What is the Urim and the Thummim? According to HarperCollins, these are, "according to comparative evidence, light and dark stones extracted from the pouch for the purposes of divination" (132). Huh.

Aaron's vestments are a perfect example of form following function. Aaron is clad in many reminders of history, and anyone who sees him will be reminded as well. The stones are close to Aaron's heart, physically placed near the center of his being and source of emotion.

Other Priestly Vestments: Exodus 28.31-43

The Robe
Worn underneath the ephod, it is one piece, with an opening for the head in the middle. Around the opening is a woven binding so the robe does not tear. The lower hem should have a pattern of alternating gold bells and (the other three colors ubiquitous in the temple) blue, purple, and crimson pomegranates. The sound of the bells ensures that the Lord will hear Aaron coming when he enters the Holy of Holies - otherwise Aaron might die.

The Rosette (or Shiny Plate
This should be made of gold and have be engraved with "Holy to the Lord." It should be fastened to the front of the turban with a blue cord. The plate is like a lightning rod or guilt vacuum - sucking up the guilt incurred by the Israelites that comes with making their donation.

Checkered tunic and Turban
Made of fine linen.

Sash
Embroidered.

For Aaron's sons
They shall wear tunics, sashes, and headdresses. Moses shall anoint them all and ordain and consecrate them, so they may serve God as priests.

They shall wear linen undergarments reaching from the hips to the thighs. This way there is no way they might expose their nakedness to God. The drawers are to be worn in the tent of meeting, near the altar, and in the Holy of Holies. Otherwise, they will bring guild on themselves and die.

Exodus 18.1-27

Jethro's Advice: Exodus 18.1-27

Moses' father-in-law Jethro hears of all God has done for Moses and Israel, and journeys to the wilderness along with Moses' wife Zipporah and their two children, Gershom and Eliezer.

On these names
Gershom is named with Moses' explanation, "I have been an alien in a foreign land" and Eliezer with the explanation: "The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh." Eliezer seems a bit...anachronistic, no? This is probably because the naming ceremony occurs at a point in the story after the escape from Egypt. The name speaks to the events surrounding the naming. So in effect, it is the bible itself (or the authors at least) that name Eliezer. There is no way Eliezer could have been named what he was by Moses, because that defies the chronology of the bible. But the author does not worry about Moses' chronology. Rather, it is the story's chronology that is important. Eliezer's name makes perfect sense to this author, given the events at the time of his introduction (as opposed to his birth).

Moses goes out to meet his father-in-law and the two greet each other and go into the tent. Jethro, a priest of Midian, rejoices for all the Lord has done for Israel:

‘Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because he delivered the people from the Egyptians, when they dealt arrogantly with them.’
(Ex. 18.10-11)

Jethro offers up a burnt offering sacrifice to God. Aaron and the elders join in a meal with Jethro - a communion in the non-Christian sense of the word. [And this is coming from an Egyptian priest! Do I smell a conversion? Or is that just the sacrifice?]

The next day Moses sits as a judge from morning to evening. Jethro asks him what's up, to which Moses replies that he settles disputes because he knows the statutes and instructions of God. Jethro responds that this is ridiculous - Moses will surely wear himself out! He offers some advice: teach the people the statutes of God. And also delegate responsibility among trustworthy men to settle minor disputes. Moses will still settle the major disputes, but it will be less of a burden.

Moses does so, and Jethro returns to Midian.

Tomorrow: To Mount Sinai.

Exodus 17.8-16

Amalek Attacks Israel and is Defeated: Exodus 17.8-16

Israel encounters its first attacking army in the wilderness after escaping Egypt: from the Amalekites. Amalek, of course, is a son of Esau - so this is in a way a battle between the line of Jacob/Israel and the line of Esau. Israel holds the birthright and the divine blessing of land and progeny, so should prevail in this land. But this is not as easy as it initially seems.

Moses tells Joshua to choose some men to go out to fight Amalek the next day. Moses says he will take his stff and stand on top of the hill by the place they will battle.

The next day Moses, Aaron and Hur make their way to the top of the hill. When Moses holds his hand up, Israel prevails. When he lowers his hand, Amalek prevails. It is not explicitly stated whether Moses holds a staff at all during this time. In any case, Moses' hands grow weary, so Aaron and Hur have Moses sit on a stone while they hold his hands up. By sunset, Joshua has defeated Amalek.

The tale closes:

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this as a reminder in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.’ And Moses built an altar and called it, The Lord is my banner. He said, ‘A hand upon the banner of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.’
(Ex. 17.14-16)

This leaves us with a quandary: If the Lord will utterly block out the remembrance of Amalek, why will war continue from generation to generation? Would it not be easier to simply blot out Amalek?

And I'm not being facetious here. There is a great irony to God saying he will blot out the remembrance of Amalek. God could simply say he will blot out Amalek, but by destroying the memory as well, he extinguishes their historical import; in fact, the Amalekites will have no history, and the Israelites will have no history of them. But the Israelites do have the history of the Amalekites. We are reading it!

Perhaps I am misreading "remembrance." Perhaps that only means contact with them. i.e. when they are gone people still remember the tribe through collective memory, but there the lack of contact eliminates this different understanding of "remembrance" by contact.

Any thoughts?

Exodus 17.1-7

Water from the Rock

Water from the Rock: Exodus 17.1-7

The Israelites journey from Sin by stages to Rephidim. There is no water there, and the people quarrel with Moses, demanding he give them water. "Why do you quarrel with me?" Moses responds. "Why do you test the Lord?" (Ex. 17.2)

Yet the people still complain: "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" (Ex. 17.3). This parallels the congregation's accusations when there was no food: "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger" (Ex 16.3).

In fact, the three episodes of complaint build to a climax in this chapter. When encountering bitter water, the people simply complain, "What shall we drink?" (Ex. 15.24). When there is no food they accuse Moses (and therefore the Lord) of tryign to kill them. By the time they again thirst at Rephidim, the people demand water and accuse Moses of trying to kill them. Their hostility is so great that Moses cries out to the Lord, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me" (17.4). We can see the anger of the Israelites building like waters behind a dam - and the dam is ready to burst.

Again the Lord has a plan. Moses is to go before the elders of Israel with the very staff he used to strike the Nile. As the Lord stands in front of the rock at Horeb, Moses is to strike it, releasing water that the people may drink.

Moses does this, and calls the place Massah (test) and Meribah (quarrel).

On Dialectical Tensions
The Moses narrative, as noted in a previous post, if fraught with dialectical tensions, and these three consecutive stories serve very well to demonstrate the these tensions - the dissonances of desires experienced between God and God's people.

God needs to work hard to keep his people believing. After the Israelites cross the Red Sea, we read:

Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

(Ex. 14.31)

They had complained before, but see God's power. They even sing out the triumph of the Lord in the Song of Moses that immediately follows.

Immediately afterwards the people are back at it, complaining about bitter water. After the bitter water is made sweet, the Lord makes the following "statute" and "ordinance":

If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.

(Ex. 15.26)

This does not directly address the situation. The complaint about bitter water is a matter of trust. The Israelites must trust in the Lord. What this ordinance addresses, however, is the Israelites' following of God's commands, which does not necessarily include actually trusting him to deliver water and food. God and the people are speaking about two different things. The Israelites want to be nourished, God wants them to do what is right in his sight. The two are not mutually exclusive.

They soon again complain against the Lord. And since Moses is the Lord's ambassador on earth, any complaint against Moses is also a complaint against the Lord. Here, however, Israel's disobedience, warned about in the previous chapter, is executed. Not only do the Israelites not trust in God, they do not keep the Sabbath and disobey God's command to not keep manna overnight.

This time, God has Aaron keep manna as a reminder of how the Israelites were fed in the wilderness, a symbol of the Lord's protective power. This time, God and the Israelites seem to be speaking the same language. God gives a sign (as though of a covenant) that the people will be protected.

But the people still do not feel protected and demand water at Rephidim. Even when the Israelites and God agree on the issue, there is still a tension over God's execution.

A Word on Water
Moses' staff is frequently associated with water. It turns the Nile to blood, parts the Red Sea, and releases water from a rock. But was it in fact Moses that struck the Nile, as the Lord claims? In Genesis 7, the chapter in question, the Lord in fact instructs Moses twice with what to do with his staff. This is the result of two different traditions. The first has Moses striking the river, the second has Aaron striking the river. The actual execution is ambiguous:

Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood.

(Ex. 7.20)

But through contextual clues we discover that in fact it is Moses that strikes the water. Aaron is commanded simply to take the staff and stretch his hands over the waters of Egypt. It is Moses who is to strike the Nile.

Tomorrow: A fight in the wilderness.

Exodus 15.22-17.7

Miracles in the Wilderness

Bitter Water Made Sweet / Bread From Heaven

Bitter Water Made Sweet: Exodus 15.22-27

Moses orders Israel to set out form the Red Sea, and they travel three days into the wilderness of Shur. In the end, it turns out, Moses actually fulfills part of his promise to Pharaoh. However, no sacrifices are made here. Instead, the congregation complains about the bitter water at a place called Marah (which incidentally means "bitterness").

The people complain to Moses about the undrinkable water. Moses, in turn, cries out to God, who shows Moses a piece of wood he should throw into the water to make it sweet.

The Lord makes a "statute and an ordinance" to "put them to the test":

If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.
(Ex. 25-26)

God's people must show their respect to God in order to stay in God's good standing and stay plague-free. This is not a covenant, but a commandment.

The people make their way to Elim, which must seem something of a paradise, having 12 springs and 70 palm trees. They camp by the water. The two numbers suggest completeness and perfection. Twelve perhaps represents the  sons of Israel, thereby encompassing the whole of Israel: there is a spring for each tribe. Seventy or any multiple of seven, represents completeness or perfection. These numbers are not to be taken literally, but they serve to demonstrate continuities within the narrative: 12 palms for 12 tribes, 70 springs for the whole (as in having "wholeness") congregation.

Bread From Heaven: Exodus 16.1-36

The whole congregation again sets out and finds itself in Sin, betwen Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from Egypt. As they left on the fifteenth, this means that the Israelites have travelled exactly one month. This will be their seventh stop and their third complaint.

The entire congregation complains that there is no food in the wilderness, whereas in Egypt they had their fill of bread and meat. They go so far as to accuse Moses of plotting to kill them with hunger.

The Lord gives Moses a plan. The Lord will test the Israelites by raining bread from heaven that the Israelites must go and prepare. On the sixth day, they are to collect twice as much, as they cannot do work on the Sabbath and bread will not fall that day. This is an indication that this portion comes from the P-source. The Priestly redactors were very careful to make sure the people written about in the Bible follow the central tenants of religion.

The next verse, however, seems to indicate a different source, with a different command (Ex. 16.6). Moses tells Aaron to tell the Israelites that:

In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?
(Ex. 15.6-7)

Moses then tells the congregation that the Lord will provide meat in the evening and bread in the morning. Wait a minute. The Lord said nothing before about meat. Where did that come from? A different source, obviously.

And Moses rebukes the congregation too, saying that their complaint is not directed at Moses and Aaron, but the Lord.

The story then repeats itself, with a twist. Moses tells Aaron to speak to the congregation. Aaron speaks to them facing the wilderness, while behind them the Lord speaks to Moses in a cloud. The Lord then gives moses the commandment of meat and bread that Moses had informed the Israelites about above. The text appears to be out of order - the traditions twisted around one another.

In any case, quails come that evening...and are not mentioned again. Huh.

In the morning there is a layer of dew in the camp, and when it lifts, there is a fine layer of a flaky substance on the ground. It is manna, a substance "like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey" (Ex. 16.31). It melts away with the heat of the day. The Israelites are puzzled at first, but Moses commands them to collect it, one omer per person. They do, and everyone somehow every day ends up with a perfect omer. Some leave it to morning, which is forbidden, and find that it is foul and wormy. Others do not collect two servings on the day before the Sabbath, and go hungry for a day. The manna kept over into the Sabbath, by God's doing, does not become foul overnight.

The people learn from disobeying the rules, but that does not mean God is happy about it. Rather, God sees the people as not obeying his instructions.

In spite of this, the Lord commands Moses that an omer should be kept through the generations, so that future generations may see how the people were fed (for forty years) in the wilderness after being led out of Egypt. Aaron puts an omer of manna in a jar and places it before the (anachronistically placed) covenant for safekeeping.

Oh, wondering what an omer? It's one-tenth of an ephah. Duh. And how much is an ephah, you ask? An ephah is 22 liters. So an omer is 1.1 liters. 1.1 liters is about 4.6 cups. 4.6 cups of manna per person, per day.

Tomorrow: Water from the Rock.

Exodus 11.1-12.32

Warning of the Final Plague /  The First Passover Instituted / The Tenth Plague           

Warning of the Final Plague: Exodus 11.1-9

Text One

The Lord comes to Moses and tells him that the Lord will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and Egypt. After this, Pharaoh will actually drive the Israelites out. The Israelites (male and female) are to ask their neighbors for silver and gold in fulfillment of the promise in Exodus 3.21-22: “…when you go, you will not go empty handed; each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in a neighbor’s house for jewelry of silver of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians.” (Because we’ve already been told this, God does not need to be explicit the second time. However there is the inconsistency of men and women versus women only.)

The Lord ensures the Israelites’ favor among the Egyptians, and Moses becomes “a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s officials and in the sight of the people” (Ex.11.3). Moses is the second man to achieve this explicit prominence in Egypt; the first was Joseph. It is only Pharaoh that does not appreciate Moses. But because God makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt rather than those-who-like-Moses and those-who-don’t, the Egyptians will all suffer the last plague. That is not to say that the impending destruction is Pharaoh’s fault. Indeed, it is God who is demonstrating God’s greatness.

In every other plague-story in which Moses speaks, he explicitly speaks to Pharaoh. Here this is not so, perhaps out of the author’s deference to Moses’ exclamation in Exodus 10.29: “Just as you say! I will never see your face again.” In any case, Moses delivers an address to an unknown audience regarding the next plague: death to every firstborn in Egypt, even Pharaoh’s and the firstborn of livestock (which were apparently resurrected after the fifth and seventh plagues). A great cry will go up through the land, “such as has never been or will ever be again” (Ex. 11.6). But not even a dg will growl at the Israelites and their animals because of the distinction the Lord makes. All the officials of Pharaoh will bow before Moses, begging him to leave. Then Moses promises he will. And then Moses’ audience is revealed in Exodus 11.8: “And in hot anger he left Pharaoh.” He has been speaking to Pharaoh this whole time! This is a bit of a surprise ending, for the narrator until now has always specified Moses’ audience at the beginning of his address.

Then appears an anachronistic fragment:

The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, in order that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

[Text Two] Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

Pharaoh has already not listened to Pharaoh, so why does God tell him this now? Likewise, what are these “wonders” that Moses and Aaron performed before Pharaoh? These are not mentioned. Sure, there are plagues, but a wonder is something more akin to Aaron’s rod becoming a snake (see Ex. 7.8: “Perform a wonder”). I suspect these are fragments from a different tradition that have been placed here to close the narrative. In fact, the narrative unit of plagues closes to make way for a long explanation of Passover. So perhaps the reference to wonders and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart serves as the closing of an “envelope” that opens with Aaron’s wonder with the rod and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart that precedes the first nine plagues and description of the tenth.

The First Passover Instituted: Exodus 12.1-28

Text Two

The Lord establishes to Moses and Aaron that henceforth this month shall be the first month of the year. The Lord then gives instructions on how to hold a proper Passover. I have rearranged the instructions below (Exodus 12.3-13) so that you too can carry out your own Passover as it is instructed!

• On the tenth of the month each family should get a lamb. (Ex. 12.3)
• If your household is too small for a whole lamb, join your neighbors. (Ex. 12.4)
• The lamb
• May be a sheep or goat. (Ex. 12.5)
• Must be without blemish. (Ex. 12.5)
• Must be a year-old male. (Ex. 12.5)
• The lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people attending. (Ex. 12.4)
• On the fourteenth of the month, each family of Israel should slaughter its lamb at twilight. (Ex. 12.6)
• Take some of the blood of the slaughtered lamb and put it on the doorposts and lintel of the houses the lamb is being eaten in. (Ex. 12.7)
• During the night the Lord will pass through Egypt and kill all the firstborns, humans and animals. (Ex. 12.12)
• The blood will be a sign for God. God will pass over the houses with blood (Ex. 12.13).
• Prepare the lamb
• Roast it over a fire (head, legs, and organs intact). (Ex. 12.8-9)
• Do NOT eat it raw or boiled. (Ex. 12.9)
• Eating the lamb
• Eat the lamb the same night it is slaughtered. (Ex. 12.8)
• Serve with unleavened bread and roasted herbs. (Ex. 12.8)
• Gird your loins and wear your sandals. Have your staff in your hand during the meal. (Ex. 12.11) In other words…
• Eat hurriedly. (Ex. 12.11)
• Do not let any of the lamb remain until morning. Burn anything that remains in the morning. (Ex. 12.10)

Text ?

What follows these instructions is what seems to be a separate text, this one concerning the festival of unleavened bread. The first indication? It opens, “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you” (Ex. 12.14). Later God commands, “You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 12.17). This very day has not happened yet! It will happen very soon, but the modifier very indicates that God is speaking to Moses on the day that the Israelites escape Egypt.

Here are the instructions for carrying out your own festival of unleavened bread, an annual festival of the Lord to commemorate the Lord bringing Israel out of Egypt:

• Begin the festival on the fourteenth day of the month (Passover) and continue for seven days. (Ex. 12.18)
• Eat only unleavened bread for seven days. Anyone who eats leavened bread during this time will be cut off from Israel. (Ex. 12.15, 19, 20)
• Day One
• Remove all leaven from your house. (Ex. 12.15, 19)
• Hold a solemn assembly. (Ex. 12.16)
• Don’t do any work besides preparing meals. (Ex. 12.16)
• Day seven
• Hold a solemn assembly. (Ex. 12.16)
• Don’t do any work besides preparing meals. (Ex. 12.16)
• Celebrate the festival annually. (Ex. 12.14)

Text ??

Here a new text begins, with Moses giving instructions to the elders of Israel regarding the first Passover:

• Select a lamb for your family. (Ex. 12.21)
• Slaughter said lamb. (Ex. 12.21)
• Using a bunch of hyssop as your brush, touch the lintel and two doorposts of your house with the blood of the slaughtered lamb. (Ex. 12.22) This will be a sign to the Lord to pass over the house.
• Do this yearly, and continue the practice in the land the Lord will give to Israel. (Ex. 12.24)
• When children ask, “What do you mean by this observance?” reply, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.” (Ex. 12.26-27)

The Israelites do just as the Lord commands Moses and Aaron.

Note that the second set of instructions for Passover, the instructions that Moses gives, differ slightly from the first set of instructions, the instructions that God gives.

The Tenth Plague: Exodus 12.29-32

The Lord strikes down all the firstborns at midnight: even of the animals and of Pharaoh. Pharaoh awakes during the night, and he and his officials and all of Egypt cry out; “there was not a house without someone dead” (Ex. 12.30).

Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron during the night and commands them to leave with all of Israel and their flocks and herds. He pleads, “And bring a blessing on me too!” (Ex. 12.32).

Plague Wrap-Up

Why do I believe that this story is a composite text? There are a number of reasons. At times Moses and Aaron act together. Other times Moses acts alone. In Exodus 9.8 God speaks to Moses and Aaron, regarding the plan for the sixth plague. For the rest of the plagues God speaks to Moses only. Likewise, God speaks to the brothers in Exodus 12.1 and 12.28.

Furthermore, the plagues are brought about by three different entities.

For the first plague it is not specified who brings about the plague. It is most likely Aaron, as he is with Aaron, who afterwards delivers plagues 2 and 3. The Lord delivers plagues 4, 5, and 10, using Moses as an intermediary to warn Pharaoh of the impending plague. Moses delivers plagues 6, 7, 8, and 9. If there was one consistent text, it might have been more consistent, more formulaic in its plague-giving.

Speaking of which, there are formulas for the plagues. Plagues 1 through 10 open with: “Then the Lord said to Moses…” The only exception to this rule, as noted above, is plague 6, when God speaks to Moses and Aaron.

Seven of the plagues come with warnings to Pharaoh: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10. Of these, only 10 does not contain the command, “let my people go.” There are no warnings to be delivered to Pharaoh for plagues 3, 6, and 9.

All of these indicate to me that there are separate interwoven texts that create the overarching story of the plagues.

Additionally, Moses is summoned before Pharaoh following plagues 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10. [This structure helps to demonstrate the intensification of God’s plagues, and perhaps the sentiment of Pharaoh’s officials to let the Israelites go. As the plagues get worse, Pharaoh responds more frequently by allowing the Israelites to leave.