(Exodus 20:18 - 21:11)
When the people witnessed the fire and flashes of light, heard the voices and what sounded like the blast of trumpets, and saw the smoke rising from the mountain, they withdrew in fear and stood far aback. They told Moses, "Let you speak to us and we'll listen, but don't have Jehovah speak to us or else we will die."
Moses assured them, "Don't be afraid! Jehovah has come to test you, to put the fear of God in you so you will not sin."
The people continued to keep their distance, while Moses approached the dark cloud of thick smoke where Jehovah was. Jehovah said to Moses, "Tell the people of Israel this:
'You see for yourselves that I speak to you down from the sky. --- You must not worship me by making idols of silver or of gold. Instead, build for me an altar of stone from the earth. On it you will consecrate to me the burnt sacrifices and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and oxen. In every location dedicated to me, I will be present to bless you. When you make the stone altar for me, do not dress the stones, for if a tool has been used upon them, the stones are defiled. Also, do not have steps leading up to the altar, in case the nakedness of your private parts be revealed to those below.'
"These are the laws and regulations you must set before your people:
"If you purchase a male Hebrew slave, he will serve you for six years, and on the seventh year he must be set free without any payment on his part. If he was unmarried when he entered service, he must leave as a single man. If he had a wife, she may leave with him. However, if the master furnished him with a wife and she bore him children, then the wife and children will belong to the master. The slave may depart with only what he brought with him. However, if the slave explicitly declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and children, and I don’t want to be set free,’ then the master will bring him before a judge authorized by Jehovah. The slave will stand at the doorpost and, in a public ceremony, his earlobe will be pierced with an awl as a sign that he will serve his master for life.
"If a man sells his daughter, different rules apply. If she displeases the man to whom she was sold, then the transaction should be voided, and he must allow her to be bought back. (He does not have the right to resell her to a foreign buyer, for that would be a breach of contract on his part.) If he betroths the girl to his son, then he should treat her the same as any other daughter-in-law. If he acquires an additional wife, then the first wife’s share of food, her clothing allowance, or her connubial privileges must not be reduced or abridged. If he fails to fulfill any of these three obligations to her, she may go free without his being compensated.
Notes
1. The original idea of Jehovah's visit was for him to address the entire people of Israel assembled at the foot of the holy mountain. It seems much more likely that they consisted of a few thousand people and not a couple million as is suggested by the text. A congregation of the latter number isn't really conceivable. Moses would have had trouble managing even a few thousand and indeed he does. The people, however, are frightened by what is probably the landing of a rocket ship, the roar of the engines, the fire, smoke, and flashing lights. Consequently they hang back and insist that Moses speak with Jehovah for them. This is the natural and traditional role of the priest, to act as a mediator between the people and their god. Historically, when someone bypasses the middleman and accesses, or claims to access, the divine on his own (whether it be a ruler like Pharaoh Akhenaton or a peasant girl like Joan of Arc) trouble usually ensues.
2. Part of Jehovah's purpose in making a personal appearance is to inspire the people with fear, a tactic frequently used by rulers and parents to compel obedience.
3. Jehovah takes this opportunity to relate the details of his laws. Was there someone present, Moses, Aaron, who was jotting this down in shorthand as his god spoke? Assuming that Moses did have an encounter with Jehovah, it certainly remains an open question whether all the laws of Moses were really passed to him from Jehovah, or if they were formulated at a later time and then conveniently inserted into the narrative at this point.
4. It is not surprising that the first thing Jehovah can think of when giving laws to his people is something that concerns himself, the altars his people will build for him so that can enjoy seeing animals having their throats cut and their carcasses slashed up and burned. The next subject he touches upon is slavery, an institution of which he, no more enlightened than the rest of the benighted ancient world, approves.
5. Jehovah wants his altars to be made of rough stone, nothing finished or dressed or even touched by a tool. (Perhaps Jehovah was doing his people a favor by not demanding that the altar be anything fancy. It might be remembered that the Israelites were supposedly brick-making slaves, unskilled labor. They would have no experience working in stone. All the sacred monuments of Ancient Egypt were constructed of stone, but secular buildings were made of mud brick. Thus, the Israelites would have had no hand in the construction of the temples whose ruins have endured from antiquity.) The fashioning of religious statuary, altarpieces, and temples have always been a tremendous spur to the development of art and architecture. This was true in ancient times, in medieval times, even during the Renaissance and after. Jehovah apparently wants none of it. He has no inclination to teach his people to create works of art or to construct great buildings, even to honor himself. He thus far shows no interest in his people's progress or in the development of civilization. Except to impose an onerous welter of laws upon them to control every aspect of their behavior, he seems intent on keeping them at a primitive level. This is in contrast to most ancient gods (of myth?) who come to earth to impart knowledge and teach skills and even help build things.
6. Jehovah demands that there be no steps leading up the altar, as seems to be a common characteristic of altars, which are often raised so that they can be seen from afar. The reason for this is that he doesn't want anyone to peek up the priest's skirts. Nobody in those days thought of wearing long johns under those drafty robes. And we have already seen that nakedness was a big taboo with the Hebrews. (Noah's son Ham learned that accidentally seeing your drunken old man unclothed was an offense sufficiently heinous to curse your descendants forever!)
7. Many translations insist on referring to those in the Bible who are obviously slaves as servants. In modern terminology, a servant is someone who works for wages and is free to leave his master's employ whenever he wishes. A bonded or indentured servant, such as we had in the early days of our country, were obliged by contract to work for a certain term to pay off the cost of their passage. Unless they were convicts, these bondsmen entered into servitude of their own volition. A slave, on the other hand, is impressed into servitude (or born into it), he works without wages and entirely at his master's behest, and has no freedom to leave. The Jehovan law gives the slave some rights and that’s admirable, but it is disturbing to realize that a man's wife and children are, under some circumstances, not his own. (Since Jehovah, through an effort that can only be described as epic, freed the Israelites from bondage, one would think he would take a dimmer view of slavery, but no.)
No comments:
Post a Comment