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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
When the book of Exodus opens, the Hebrews are subjected to “hard” bondage (1:14; 6:9). Yahweh sees it, and graciously delivers them from the bondage, but hardness returns. Four times in Exodus, Yahweh charges that Israel, though delivered from the hard bondage of hard-hearted Pharaoh, has become “hard” of heart themselves (Exodus 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9). They haven’t fully been delivered from their hard bondage until they are delivered from hardness of heart.
In Isaiah 19:4, the prophet warns that Israel is going to suffer the same hardness. When Yahweh comes to judge Egypt, He is going to turn them over to the kind of bondage that they once imposed on Israel: “I will give the Egyptians into the hands of a cruel masters” (the plural is in the Hebrew text). Ultimately, this is good news, since the God who gives into hard bondage also delivers from all manner of hardness.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 4:11 am
Exodus 18:12: Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
When Abram returned from defeating the kings who had taken Lot captive, Melchizedek met him with bread and wine. A Gentile God-fearer, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, brings food for the Abram.
Jethro is a new Melchizedek. He is also a Gentile priest, but one who worships the God of Israel. And after Moses has led Israel in the defeat of the Amalekites, Jethro brings out an ascension offering and sacrifices and prepares a meal for Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel. (Significantly, Genesis 14, the chapter that mentions Melchizedek, is also the first place in Scripture that refers to the Amalekites).
This is not the first time Moses has eaten bread with his father-in-law.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 7:16 am
Israel complained about conditions in the wilderness.
Some in Israel wanted to return to Egypt.
In Egypt, they worshiped Egypt’s gods.
Therefore: The complaint in the wilderness was a complaint against Yahweh, and conversely a call to turn back to the gods of the fathers.
The logic is identical to that of the worshipers of the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah’s time: “we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine” (Jeremiah 44:17-18).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 4:41 am
First Pharaoh attacks Israel. Then the Amalekites attack, an attack from a fraternal enemy, a descendant of Esau (Genesis 36). Finally, Moses gets attacked by various rebels within Israel. Israel gets attacked by the Gentiles, by the brother Amalekites, by nearer brothers within Israel. And Moses has to lead Israel from all three forms of bondage.
These, of course, are identical to the three courts that try Jesus: Pilate the Roman, Herod the Idumean/Edomite, and the Jewish Sanhedrin.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, February 21, 2011 at 8:42 am
In today’s sermon text, Israel fights Amalekites for the first time. It is not the last battle with Amalek. Saul has to fight them too, and David, and they aren’t finally wiped out until the book of Esther.
Each time Israel defeats Amalek, other Gentiles turn to the Lord. After the victory under Moses, Jethro the priest of Midian advises Moses. When David defeats the Amalekites who attack Ziklag, he forms an alliance with Hiram of Tyre. While the Jews in Esther’s day slaughter Haman’s allies, Gentiles throughout the Persian empire turn to Yahweh.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 7:41 am
Exodus 17:10: Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought against Amalek, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
There are two locations in this story, and two groups of people. Down below, in the valley, Joshua and the armies of Israel fight the Amalekites. Up on the top of a hill overlooking the battle stand three men, Moses, Aaron, and Hur, together holding up the rod of the Lord.
As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, the focus of attention is entirely on the top of the hill. What tactics does Joshua use against the Amalekites? How many chariots does he have? Who has the biggest army? We aren’t told. What we do know is that Moses needs help holding up the banner of Yahweh.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 7:35 am
Why, Augustine asks, did Moses make Israel drink the ground-up gold of the calf? It’s an allegory of incorporation of the Gentiles. The golden calf is Gentile idolatry, but it is broken and humbled, ground down to dust, and then sprinkled on the water for Israel to drink – Israel here meaning, Augustine says, “the preachers of the gospels.”
Thus, “through baptism, these former pagans are admitted into these Israelites’ bodies, that is, into the body of Christ, which is the church. . . . So this calf, by the fire of zeal, the keen penetration of the word, and the water of baptism, rather than swallowing the people, was instead by them swallowed.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 5:55 pm
In Contra Faustum, Augustine glosses Exodus 15:27 with this: “the twelve sources watering the seventy palm trees prefigure the apostaolic grace that waters the people in the number seven times ten, so that the ten commandments of the law my be fulfilled by the svenfold gift of the Spirit.”
And Gideon’s fleece: “What is the drenched fleece on the dry threshing floor and later the drenched threshing floor with the dry fleece but originally the one nation of the Hebrews that holds hidden in its holy people the mystery of God, which is Christ, the mystery that the whole world lacked? But now that it has been revealed, the whole world has it, while that nation lacks it.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 12:48 pm
In Genesis, firstborn sons are a brutish lot. Cain is the firstborn of firstborns, also the first fratricide. Ishmael mocks Isaac and is driven from Abraham’s camp. Esau would have been another Cain but for his brother Jacob’s wiliness. Jacob’s elder sons conspire to send Joseph into slavery and trick their father into believing he is dead.
In the beginning, firstborn sons slaughter and sacrifice their brothers. Then Yahweh makes a new beginning. He delivers His firstborn son Israel by delivering the firstborn of Israel. At Passover, the pattern of Genesis begins to unravel. Instead of sacrificing, the firstborn are redeemed by sacrifice.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 7:23 am
On Sinai, Moses intercedes for Israel, asking Yahweh to go with them. First, Yahweh promises to send His Angel ahead; finally, He promises to go before Israel Himself.
The sequence of events from Exodus 19-40 is a double-covenant sequence. Israel agrees to do all that Yahweh commands, and Israel’s representatives eat and drink in Yahweh’s presence to seal the covenant (Exodus 23-24). Then Israel breaks covenant (Exodus 32), and Moses intercedes for a new covenant (Exodus 33-34), which Yahweh grands (34:10).
This small double-covenant sequence foreshadows the large covenant sequence of Scripture: First Yahweh sends His Angel, and then Yahweh comes in person. First the Angel, then Jesus. Moses, we might say, is pleading on the mountain for incarnation.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 6:18 am
Exodus lists the nations of the land of Canaan seven times, and the lists shift through the book. The lists are:
Exodus 3:8: give land of 6 nations (Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite).
Exodus 3:17: give land of 6 nations (same as in 3:8).
Exodus 13:5: give land of 5 nations (Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Hivite, Jebusite).
Exodus 23:23: angel goes before to land of 6 nations (Amorite, Hittite, Perizzite, Canaanite, Hivite, Jebusite).
Exodus 23:28: send hornets to drive out 3 nations (Hivite, Canaanite, Hittite).
Exodus 33:2: angel goes before to drive out 6 nations (Canaanite, Amorite, Hittite, Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite)
Exodus 34:11: I go before to drive out 5 nations (Canaanite, Hittite, Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite).
Never does Exodus list 7 nations (cf. Deuteronomy 7:1). The Girgashites are never mentioned in Exodus. Never does Exodus list 10 nations, as Genesis 15:19-21 does.
There are several patterns evident in these Exodus lists.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 6:11 am
Exodus 12:42: “It is a night to be guarded for Yahweh for having brought them out of the land of Egypt; this night is for Yahweh, to be guarded by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.
Exodus 12 cannot remind us often enough that the Passover took place at night. Eat the flesh the same night; Yahweh goes through Egypt on that night; Pharaoh arises in the night, and calls Moses in the night, and when it’s all over, Yahweh has made it a night to remember, a night to be commemorated at night throughout the generations of Israel’s history.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 7:41 am
Exodus 12:43, 45, 48: This is the ordinance of the Passover: no son of a stranger is to eat of it. A sojourner or hired servant shall not eat of it. But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to Yahweh, let all his males be circumcised.
Passover is for Israel and for Israel alone. Non-Israelites are all allowed to participate in the other feasts of Israel, but not Passover. No strangers, no sons of strangers, no hired servants are allowed to share the meal. Passover makes the assembly of Israel, and the feast that commemorates the event is for Israel.
As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, though, the thrust of the final verses of Exodus 12 is to explain how strangers can join in the festivities. No stranger or son of a stranger can share in the feast that makes the assembly, but if a stranger or a servant wants to share in the celebration, he can become an Israelite by circumcision. Long before Jesus comes along to tear down boundaries between Jew and Gentile, Israel is already punching holes in the wall that divided insider and outsider, stranger and native.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 7:08 am
Armies travel on their stomachs, and, as Pastor Sumpter will show today, Israel marches out of Egypt as an army. But the exodus is a haphazard operation if there ever was one.
The Israelites leave with the unleavened bread cakes that they baked before leaving, but they have no traveling provisions and no plan. As soon as they get over the Red Sea, they are in a wilderness without water or food. If this were a US military action, we’d want to see some heads roll at the Pentagon.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 6:39 am
Pharaoh drives Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 12:39), just as Yahweh drove Adam and Eve from Eden (Genesis 3:24) and Cain from the land (Genesis 4:14).
The analogy could work in several directions. Israel has eaten forbidden fruit in Egypt, and Yahweh drives them from the good land of Goshen into the wilderness. As Adam was thrust out of Eden to rule the earth, so Israel is thrust out of Egypt to become a people of the heavens, like stars. Perhaps Egypt is a fallen Eden, a Sodom from which Israel is fortunate to escape.
The verb “drive out” (garash) is used twelve times in Exodus, sometimes of Israel’s forced departure from Egypt but a number of times of Israel’s forced expulsion of the Canaanites from the Eden land. The people thrust out becomes the people that thrusts out.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, November 5, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Israel worshiped the gods of Egypt while in Egypt (Joshua 24:14). What did that involve? As explained by Jan Assmann (Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (George L. Mosse Series)
Much of Egyptian religion involved identification with a city or town, each of which, like the Greek city-states, had a resident patron deity. This was both a religious and a political identification: “The foci of social and political identification were the temple and its lord, a specific deity. . . . Being a citizen of a town meant to be a follower of its ruling deity. Residence determined religious belonging.” Yet Egypt also had a sense of imperial identity, which again was both religious and political: “The gods Horus and Seth represented Lower and Upper Egypt, respectively, and, later, Egypt and the foreign countries. The sun god Re (later Amun-Re) represented the unified empire.” That not only gave coherence to Egypt as a whole, but also provided a structure in Egyptian political life that mirrored the structure of the divine pantheon.
For the Egyptians, the gods were remote from the earth, “having withdrawn from earth and made themselves invisible.” In their place, “they installed the state on earth to present them in the forms of kings, images, and sacred animals. The most important task of the state was to ensure divine presence under the condition of divine absence and to maintain a symbiotic relationship between man, society, and the cosmos.” According to Egyptian political theology, “the king acts as representative of the creator, installed on earth ‘for ever and ever’ in order to establish ‘Ma’at’ (true order and justice) and to expel disorder. The king depends on god, whom he imitates and represents, and god depends on the king for maintaining the order of creation on earth among the living. God created the king ‘in his image,’ so to speak,’ and ‘image of God,’ is, in fact, one of the most common royal epithets.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 7:39 am
My colleague Toby Sumpter suggests that the plunder Israel takes from Egypt is a “bride price” as well as the proper gift for a manumitted slave.
The “bride price” idea works. Pharaoh has, like the Pharaoh of Abram’s day, claimed a bride for himself, Yahweh’s bride. He has tried to seize her, and now he is sending her out, under duress, to her true husband, Yahweh. To compensate for his attempt to seize her, she takes gold and silver and material along with her. Israel the bride goes out to cut a marriage covenant at Sinai, with the materials she’ll need to build a honeymoon home.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, October 16, 2010 at 7:28 am
A reader, Daniel Hoffman, comments on my post about the dogs of Egypt:
“A while back I saw it pointed out somewhere (I am pretty sure it was John Currid in his book ‘Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament’, but I don’t have it on hand to check) that the Egyptian god of the dead was Anubis, who was usually pictured with the head of a dog or jackal. The statement that ‘against the children of Israel not even a dog will bark,’ while the Egyptians are threatened with death, could possibly be an allusion to Anubis. It would go along with what you suggested several days ago about Pharaoh telling Moses and Aaron, “Ra is before you” from Exodus 10:10.”
If this works, then it implies that Yahweh not only defeats the gods of Egypt, but turns them against Egypt. That is consistent with earlier plagues: The Nile becomes a source of death, frogs pile up all over the land, the son of god Pharaoh drives Egypt over a cliff.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, October 15, 2010 at 6:26 am
On the first Passover night, Yahweh promises that “against any of the sons of Israel a dog shall not sharpen his tongue, whether against man or beast” (Exodus 11:7). By implication, dogs will be sharpening their tongues against the Egyptians. Dogs are urban scavengers in the Bible, typically feeding on the corpses of slain people. In Goshen, there will be no corpses to feed on; but Egypt will be a canine banquet.
Exodus 11:7 is the Bible’s first reference to dogs, and sets the pattern for later uses. A number of times in 1-2 Kings, Yahweh threans to send the dogs to eat the slain members of a corrupt dynasty, a sign of utter destruction (1 Kings 14:11; 16:4; 21:19, 23-24, 38; 2 King s9:10, 36). When Hazael calls himself a dog (2 Kings 8:13), it means that he regards himself as a scavenger, picking at bones, rather than a king. And he will be a dog, sharpening his tongue against Israel.
All of these later references to dogs reach back to the Exodus. The houses of Jeroboam, of Baasha, of Ahab – all are “Egyptian” houses against which the Lord sends the dogs of Egypt.
Thanks to Toby Sumpter and CJ Bowen for a discussion of this passage.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, October 15, 2010 at 2:55 am
In today’s sermon text, Yahweh tells Moses that He performs signs so that Israel can recount His works in the ears of “sons and sons of sons.” A few verses later, Yahweh says that He brings more locusts than “your fathers and the fathers of your fathers have seen.” God is eternal, and that means His acts are not confined to the present, but affect the past for the sake of the future.
Past and future don’t have the same status for Yahweh.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 7:05 am
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