Moses Part 24 (Numbers 12)

        There really is no introduction to the story of Numbers 12. We jump right in and read that Moses and Aaron are speaking out against Moses because of his Cushite wife (Zipporah). Hold on, what’s going on here?
        First, Zipporah, as we know, was not a Cushite. Cush was a land to the south of Egypt in present-day Ethiopia. Zipporah was a Midianite, who were a people who lived along the east coast of modern-day Saudi Arabia and the Arabian peninsula.
        Cush and Egypt had a sort of rivalry going on where Egypt would try to dominate Cush and Cush would try to dominate Egypt. As a result of this, Egyptians tended to look down on Cushites as second-class people (to be honest, they tended to look down on everyone as second-class). Living in Egypt for so long, no doubt the Israelites adapted some of these racist tendencies despite the fact that they were looked down on as worse than second-class, being slaves and shepherds.
        So in this case “Cushite” was more of a racial epitaph rather than a remark on her origin or race, like calling someone the “n” word. As a Midianite Zipporah was darker skinned than the rest of the Hebrews and of course, she wasn’t Israelite. Therefore, in Miriam and Aaron’s eyes, she wasn’t worthy of being married to their esteemed brother. And so, they started slinging insults at her and, indirectly, at Moses.
        At first we read this and are repulsed by this kind of racism from supposed spiritual leaders. To be fair, this does seem out of character for two people who were held in such high regard by the people and even by Yahveh. After all, Aaron and Moses had formed a pretty epic team before Pharaoh and Aaron had been made the High Priest, a function he performed admirably in, Golden Calf notwithstanding. Miriam had watched over Moses’s basket as a baby and had been recognized as a prophetess by the people. So is this dislike for Zipporah all that is going on or is there something more?
        The next verse is rather revealing. “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses?” they asked rhetorically. “Has he not spoke through us also?”
        Ah, now we get to the real issue. They were jealous. But jealous of what? Of Moses? Up to this point, they’d been quite content to let Moses take the burden of leadership and with it all the grief and glory. So what’s changed?
       The appointment of the elders, of course. It would seem that they had not been consulted in this (remember it was a conversation between Yahveh and Moses) and now they felt that their prestige was being encroached on by these upstarts in the community.
       But why bring Zipporah into all of this? Aside from her not being an Israelite (the racial thing was very real), what was their beef with her? She was a follower of Yahveh and from what we know from the Bible and Ellen White, an all-around good egg, as they said back in the day.
       Remember how this whole elder/judge thing got started back in the day? It was when Jethro brought Zipporah and the kids to join Moses near Sinai. When Jethro visited, he advised his son-in-law to divide up the work load to give himself some breathing room before he ran himself into the ground. Of course Moses listened because, well, it made sense.
        But Miriam and Aaron perceived it as a slight that Moses would so readily listen to a foreigner compared to them, never mind the fact that what Jethro said made perfect sense. Plus, the elevation of people in the camp made them feel like their prestige was being threatened.
       Then the appointing and prophesying of the 70 elders happened, which made the feel even more devalued. This reminded them of Jethro and when they saw how Moses would confide and take refuge in Zipporah (because she’s his wife, duh), feelings of bitterness and resentment welled up and they took it out, unfairly, on her.
        Now it should be pointed out that, despite the fact that I’ve highlighted the rather unsavory stories relating to Aaron and Miriam, they weren’t bad people. Quite the opposite, in fact. Both of them stand as giants of faith and devotion to Yahveh who gave him their lives in service to him and his people.
        And that is part of the point. Even the most noble and devoted people to Yahveh can slip. At the end of the day, we are still flawed humans and we will make mistakes. Moses made his share and we haven’t gotten to his biggest screw up.
        But that’s also the irony of this whole thing. They had no reason to be jealous. Miriam and Aaron had no reason to be jealous. Both were held in the highest esteem in the camp, second only to Moses himself. They were prophets and leaders, individuals whom the people admire, respected, and listened too. And not just because they were Moses’s siblings either, but on their own merits. Miriam was a prophetess and Aaron was the High Priests, positions chosen by Yahveh because of who they were, not because they were related to Moses.
        Yet with all of that, they still felt underappreciated and undervalued by Moses, who relied on them more than anyone else in the camp save perhaps Joshua. It’s kind of ironic given that Moses felt he had too much value and appreciation (Israelite version of appreciation seemed to be incessant complaining).
        Moses response is interesting. The Bible says that he was the meekest or humble person in all the earth, which is weird considering Moses wrote that. Of course it sounds weird because we don’t really understand what “meek” really means.
       Most of us think of meek in terms of self-deprecation. “Oh, I’m really not good at that,” or “I didn’t do a very good job,” or “It’s not a big deal.”
      This is not humility; this is being obnoxious because often when people say this, they really are good at that or they really did do a good job or it really is a big deal. They come across as fake and annoying.
       Rather humility is knowing who you are and who you aren’t. You freely admit your faults and your strengths. You know what you’re good at and what you’re not good at and are content with it (funny how so many things go back to being content). Being humble is about being content in your own skin.
       When you’re content in your own skin, you can look outside yourself. You can worry more about others and less about yourself. As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “A humble man won’t think himself humble because he won’t think about himself at all.” This is because you are at peace with yourself and therefore have no reason to concern yourself with yourself.
        As a result of all this, Moses did nothing. He didn’t need to. While I’m certain his siblings attacking him publicly stung a little, he knew who he was and what he was doing and that was enough. That said, I would like to have seen him come to the defense of his wife but that is another topic for another day.
       Yahveh, on the other hand, was significantly less than pleased. He calls all three of them to the Tabernacle and lays into Miriam and Aaron. “Here my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak out against my servant Moses?”
         Oh snap.
        Aaron and Miriam, Yahveh acknowledges, are prophets. But Moses is something more than just a prophet. He has a connection with Yahveh that is deeper and more profound than a prophet that has receives communication through visions and dreams; Moses gets his directly from Yahveh himself. With other prophets, Yahveh has a working relationship with them: he gives them a message and they relay it to the people. But with Moses, he has a real, deep friendship. They confide and complain and even encourage each other (it’s weird to think of someone encouraging Yahveh but that is what Moses had done, in a way). And this is the guy that Miriam and Aaron decided to publicly call out.
        Yeah, probably shouldn’t have done that.
        Miriam, who was the instigator in all of this, was immediately struck with leprosy. Aaron probably would’ve too, but he got the point and both of them realized that they had made a serious error and repented. Again, Aaron and Miriam weren’t bad people, at least as far as humans go; they simply made a mistake, albeit a big one. But once Yahveh laid down the law, they got the message and moved on.
         Yahveh did end up clearing up Miriam’s leprosy, but she had to stay outside the camp for 7 days. And in deference (and probably to drive home the point that her jealousy was completely unfounded) to her place in the camp, they stayed in the same place until she was allowed to come back.
         At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that Miriam and Aaron forgot their role. They were pivotal, crucial parts of the community but still they were supporting characters to Moses. Their role was to support him in serving the people. It wasn’t about them; it wasn’t really about Moses for that matter. Yet they lost sight of their place and role and thus became jealous.
       The essence of humility is knowing who you are, what your role is, and being content. Not all of us are destined for the spotlight and those that are often have the heaviest burden of all. For some, the role that Yahveh has for them is a background, support role. If that is you, embrace it and accept it.
        The point is that it isn’t about you. It’s about everyone else around; serving them, helping them, and being there for them. You become comfortable in your own skin and then cease to care about you. You just aren’t important to you; Yahveh is; others are.
        That was Moses. When Yahveh was slighted, he burned with anger. He volunteered himself for eternal damnation to save the Israelites. But when it came to him? Meh. Not a big deal. He had more important things to worry about than what people were saying about him.
        That is the essence of humility. To use an analogy from C. S. Lewis and the Screwtape Letters, “God wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. God wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love—a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own.” And that is what Miriam and Aaron lost sight of.
        The other point is that Yahveh has our backs. Moses had a special, unique relationship with Yahveh that is different than almost any other in the Bible (Abraham and Elijah come close). They were friends of the highest order, talking to each other face to face, confiding in each other, encouraging each other, and even on occasion arguing.
         Now don’t misunderstand, they were not even in the slightest equal. Yahveh was still the master and Moses was still very much the servant. But there was a friendship that crossed the master-servant line without changing the status. And if there is one thing about Yahveh, it is that he backs up his friends.
         Moses may not have felt the need to come to his own defense, but Yahveh did. Moses had gone out on a limb many times for Yahveh (most notably the Golden Calf) and now Yahveh was going to go out on a limb for his friend. And boy did he.
         Here’s the point: Yahveh backs up his friends. In this world, as Christians, we are going to have persecution. That is a given (Matthew 5:11, 12). But we can take it because we know that in the end, Yahveh has our backs. We know that one day soon he will return and to those who have persecuted us, he will ask, “Why were you not afraid?”

Moses Part 23 (Numbers 11b)

    As I stated in the last post, this one is going to be focusing on a different part of the same story, kind of what goes on in the middle. What we covered last time was Moses dealing with the Israelites complaints about not having any meat and how Yahveh answered their whining in a "be-careful-what-you-wish-for" way.

    During all this, Moses is having a meltdown of sorts and throws a tantrum, which can be read in verses 11-14. Basically, his point is "I am in way over my head here and need help."

    Now while Moses might go a bit far in saying that he'd rather have Yahveh just kill him on the spot if this is how life is going to go, Moses does have a bit of a point. He is taking care of thousands of people essentially by himself. Anyone who has ever been in a leadership role can attest to how frustrating and exhausting that can get, especially when the people in question are as whiny and petulant as the people of Israel (not trying to be a jerk, but let's be honest, they were).

    Yahveh, although not entirely appreciative of Moses's tone, acquiesces. "Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers or them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you."

    Before we go on, there a couple of questions I'm certain that you might have (I certainly do) that I'd like to address first. Foremost, didn't Moses already have help? I mean, didn't we already do this song and dance routine when Jethro visited? What was Aaron doing in all of this? Why are we going through this again?

    As for Aaron, we saw how well his leadership worked out with the Golden Calf (and, I suppose Nadab and Abihu, a story we didn't get into). In regards to the elders, yes and no. Yes in the sense that Moses already had people working under him as sort of local judges, dealing with the mundane, day-to-day issues of life in a massive, 40-year campmeeting.

    But that isn't what Moses is talking about here. He's talking about spiritual guidance and leadership, kind of like pastors. I mean, Moses is essentially pastoring a several hundred thousand member congregation all by his lonesome. Again, you might say, "What about the priests?" Fair question. A priest's function is different from what we are talking about. Priests act as mediators between man and Yahveh, specifically mediating the forgiveness of sin. They are busy offering sacrifices, the prayers of the people, and doing other such things in the Tabernacle.

    All that is well and good, but dealing a mob of people who want meat to eat isn't exactly in their job description. It is in Moses's. And this is where Moses has the issue. He needs a council of people to take care of the people's spiritual and physical needs on the mass scale, like this. He needs a council of people that will stand with him when the people start acting up again so that he has their strength to lean on.

    And so Yahveh tells him to find 70 elders, or leaders, of the people that he can trust and bring them to tent of meeting. There Yahveh pours out his Spirit on them and they begin prophesying. Moses has help.

    Now this is where the story takes in an interesting twist. You see, there weren't 70 elders in front of the tent of meeting; there were only 68. Two of them, guys by the names of Eldad and Medad (for future parents out there, great names right here) didn't show. The Bible doesn't specifically list the reason for them playing hokey, but Ellen White in Patriarchs and Prophets says that they didn't feel they were worthy of being chosen. I'll buy that. Not that it mattered in the end because worthy or not, they started prophesying too, which must have confused the willies out of their neighbors.

    Joshua, Moses's aide and eventual successor, flipped out at this. To him, Eldad and Medad's absence was a slight to Moses and he did not want them messing with his boss. So he asks Moses to stop them. Moses, with a smile on his face I imagine, turns back to Joshua and tells him to let them be, adding, "Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!" That would certainly make his job a whale of a lot easier.

    This short story has many interesting facets that we could explore, but the one I want to focus on is the role we play in who Yahveh calls, which is to say none at all. Yahveh chooses who he chooses because he's Yahveh and he can. He neither needs nor wants any input from us; he will choose who he will choose whether we think them worthy or not.

    Just look through the Bible at Yahveh's choices, many of which seem strange. We know nothing of Abraham before he was chosen, but Yahveh chose him anyway. Perhaps the reason that Moses was so understanding of Eldad and Medad was because of his own experience, an exiled Egyptian prince living as a shepherd in the Midian wilderness. Not exactly someone I'd have at the top of my prospects list.

    Joseph was a slave. Deborah and Esther were women. David was a shepherd from the hillbilly tribe of Judah in the utterly forgettable town of Bethlehem. Elijah was basically a hobo. Jeremiah was a kid. Mary was an unwed teenager. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were uneducated (by Jewish standards) fishermen. Matthew was a tax collector. Simon was a militant Zealot. Cornelius was a Roman centurion. Saul/Paul was a lawyer, member of the Sanhedrin (elite ruling council), and a violent persecutor of Christians.

    Yet Yahveh called all of these people. The only common thread between all of them was that Yahveh called them. They weren't always the best or brightest or most influential. Yahveh didn't care about social norms and customs; he plays by his own set of rules, ones that we are to follow and yet are often strange to us.

    Even the Israelites themselves weren't chosen because of their own merit. They weren't the biggest or the most powerful or the nicest people; Yahveh chose them because, well, he did.

    We have zero role to play in this process. We are only told to accept his choices whether we like them or not because he is Yahveh and he makes the decisions.

    Think of it like a company: the boss is the one who makes decisions on who to hire and who not to hire. If you are not the boss, and in this scenario we aren't, once the decision is made, you have to accept it and live with it, like it or not because the boss is the boss and you are not the boss. Works the same way here.

    I bring this up because of the whole debate surrounding women's ordination, a topic I have thus far avoided. At its base foundation, ordination is the community of Yahveh acknowledging his call on someone's life. By denying ordination to any group of people, women in this case, we are essentially saying to Yahveh that he cannot call this person. Not only is this attitude incredibly arrogant, it's also stupid. I mean, try telling your boss whom he can and cannot hire.

    Yahveh calls who he calls and sometimes (often) that calling is not what we would expect or even do. But that isn't our call to make, is it? So when we someone who is called by Yahveh and we are tempted to think like Joshua, "We should put a stop to this," maybe we should rein ourselves in a bit and think instead like Moses, "Would that all of Yahveh's people were called like this."

Moses Part 22 (Numbers 11a)

    As you can probably guess from the title, we are skipping the rest of Exodus, the entirety of Leviticus, and a good chunk of Numbers. There are a couple of reasons for this: first, as mentioned numerous times, this is a character study of Moses, not a commentary on the first five books of the Bible or a commentary on the emergence of the Israelite people. As such things like the sanctuary and its services and the sacrificial and civil laws of Israel are not going to be dealt with. This is not to say that these things are not of importance or do not have value; simply that in and of themselves they are not significant to the Moses narrative.

    That said, there are a couple of stories that we are skipping, most notably being the erection of the Tabernacle and the Nadab and Abihu fiasco. Each story has great value and lessons to be drawn from, but again, they are not specifically related to the Moses narrative although he does make an appearance in each. Additionally, each story is so intractably tied with the ceremonial and Levitical laws that I found it impossible to know where one stopped and the other began. Thus for the story and its application to make sense I would have to dive in depth into either the sanctuary or the priestly laws and that was something that I felt would distract from the main tenor of this series. That and frankly I was lazy.

    With that out of the way, we turn our attention to Numbers 11. You'll note in the title that there is an "a" mark by the chapter number. This means that this story will be dealt with in two parts, like several other stories. That is because there is a story within a story going on here. We have the Israelites whining and complaining (shocker) couched around the appointing of elders by Moses to give him some relief. We are first going to deal with the whining and then dive into the appointment of elders.

    So what are the Israelites moaning about this time? It might surprise you, although probably won't, to find out that they are complaining about food. This time there issue is that the manna they've been living off for more than a year at this point is getting old.

    To be fair, I can understand their point. If I was eating the same thing day after day after day for over a year, I'd probably get sick of it too, no matter how good it was. Still, the Bible describes manna as being pretty awesome and knowing Yahveh, I imagine it was pretty healthy too. But nonetheless, the Israelites started whining about it.

    Now when we've dealt with the Israelite complaints before, we've always pointed out that as obnoxious as they come across, the truth is their complaints are pretty legit. First it was they had no water and then they had no food, both of which are necessary for life.

    This, however, is completely different. They have food, and very good food, given by the hand of Yahveh himself. There is no necessity here; they have what they need to live and live well; this complaint is purely about desire.

    Additionally their complaint is the same old routine of "back in Egypt," which is kind of like listening to old immigrants whine about "the old country." If the old country was so great, why are you here now? It's a classic case of selective amnesia where the bad of the old doesn't seem so bad when you're not in it. But I digress.

    The people complain to Moses, who in turns complains to Yahveh. "Why have you dealt ill with your servant?" he says to Yahveh. "And why have I not found favor in your sight that you lay the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,' to the land that you swore to give to their fathers? Where am I going to get meat to give to all this people. For they weep before me and say, 'Give us meat, that we may eat.' I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness."

    Moses, who has been a stalwart up to this point, is finally cracking under the absurdity that is the children of Israel. Again, understandable. These people have been little but trouble and given their liberators no end of grief. They have good, healthy food and they're still not happy. Right now those sheep are looking pretty good.

    Yahveh tells Moses to cool his jets. He'll take care of the Israelites, something Moses has a hard time comprehending, and Moses will get some help (we'll deal with that next. In the end, Yahveh simply asks Moses to trust him.

    Yahveh's solution is brilliantly simple. "You want meat," he says, "Fine. You'll get more meat that you can handle."

    So he drops quail on them by the truck load. The Bible says that he heaped them on to the camp up to two cubits in depth. A cubit is considered to be roughly 18 inches, so the Israelites are walking through quail literally up to their waists.

    Not to pass up an opportunity, the Israelites go way overboard on their sudden meat binge. The Bible says that the least, the least, gathered was ten homers. A homer is about 6 bushels or 220 liters. Again, the least amount gathered was TEN of those. This might be the worst case of gluttony in human history.

    Needless to say they paid for their gluttony and got really sick to the point that a lot of them died. The Bible says that this was a plague from Yahveh but it could also simply have been the result of eating way too much meat and getting massive food poisoning.

    Either way, there are two points here. First, moderation people. It never ceases to amaze me how such a simple concept seems so impossible for our instant gratification society to grasp (me included). Life is meant to be lived in balance, yet so many of us live to the excess, indulging in something until we are sick of it or it kills us.

    This doesn't just refer to food, although Americans are certainly guilty of that. It extends to time, energy, friends, activities; really anything. There are very few things in life that are inherently bad but many, if not all things, can become bad if used to excess and out of balance.

    All of this leads to the second point, which is be careful what you wish for. The Israelites wanted meat so badly that they would sit in the front of their tents and whine about until Yahveh gave them what they wanted. In the end, it nearly killed them (actually did kill a lot of them).

    Yahveh hadn't done that with the manna or water from the rock, so what made the quail different from those things? The answer is that this time, Yahveh had already given them food. They had what they needed. Yet ungratefully, the Israelites demanded something that Yahveh had not given them. This desire is called lust.

    Now don't misunderstand; it's okay to want things. There is a difference between desire and lust. But be careful what you want. Is what you want something you need? Is it something you already have? Because if it is, then why do you want it?

    It comes down to the principle of contentment. Be content with what you have been given. It is okay not to have things. Lust is ultimately desiring something that you don't have and shouldn't have to the point that it becomes an all-consuming desire that drives us insane. Again, the Israelites were so fixated on getting meat that they would sit outside their tents and complain until they got what they wanted.

    That kind of unbridled desire ultimately destroys you. It was that thirst for knowledge that was not meant for her that got Eve (and by extension the rest of us) in trouble in the Garden. Often we think of lust in terms of sex, having an uncontrollable desire to sleep with someone to the point it becomes all we think about.

    But lust can before anything: a car, a girl, a man, food, surfboard, even a pet. All of those have driven people crazy with lust for one reason or another. Lust is destructive and poisonous.

    The cure of course is learning to let things go. Learn to be content with what you have and if you aren't meant to have something, then so be it. Let it go. If the Israelites had learned to do this and be content with what they had, a lot more of them would probably have lived and they all would've done without a serious tummy ache.

    Rule your desires, don't be ruled by them as so many people in today's microwave society are. Learn to let it go and be content.

Moses Part 21 (Exodus 33-34)

    Quick note: As some of you may have noticed, over the last few posts, I have been slowly switching to the ESV. I like the ESV for its preciseness in translating and from now on, that will be my default version. Just a heads up on that.

    After the Golden Calf incident, Yahveh decides that it is time to leave Sinai and head on to Canaan. He will drive out the inhabitants before them but Yahveh himself will not be among the Israelites. He is planning on removing himself from them, which is a sad switch from wishing to dwell among them. Yahveh says this because he realizes how screwed up the Israelites were and didn't want to "consume" them.

    This news crushes the Israelites. The Bible calls it a "disastrous word." Yahveh, who had up to this point been so close and trying to get closer to his people, was now going to be removed, inaccessible. And, stupid as they could be, the Israelites clearly did not want that. They went into mourning, removing their jewelry, which they did not put back on, as Yahveh considered what to do with them.

    This is all background to the real story I want to focus on. I am sure that there are some points that could be drawn from these few verse, but the real meat is what comes next.

    At some point, Moses had set up a "tent of meeting" which eventually was replaced by the Tabernacle, when it was built. The Tent of Meeting is exactly what it sounds like: it was a tent Moses set up outside the camp where he would go and meet with Yahveh. If someone wished to inquire of Yahveh, they would head off to the tent. What they would do there is unclear but as for Moses, he would go in and speak with Yahveh face to face as one speaks with a friend. When he did this, the pillar of cloud would descend on the tent and everyone else in the camp would stand at the entrances of their tents and worship.

    Anyway, after Yahveh tells Moses that he'll help the Israelites get into Canaan but that they're on their own after that, he goes to the Tent of Meeting and has a talk with Yahveh. He tells Yahveh, "See, you say to me, 'Bring up this people,' but you have not let me knew whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name (I know your identity, the core of who you are) and you have also found favor in my sight.' Now there for, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people."

    "My presence will go with you," Yahveh answers, "and I will give you rest."

    "If your presences will not go with me, do not bring us up from here," Moses replies. "For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?"

    Moses is interceding on behalf of the Israelites, practically begging Yahveh to come with them, but on a more personal level, he is saying to Yahveh, "Our relationship as it currently stands isn't good enough. I want to know you more. You say you know me, but I don't know you. I want to know what it is that makes you tick so that I can please you. Please, stay with me and teach me how to be what you want me to be. I need your presence in my life."

    That is a prayer that all of us should pray. Often in today's society we are told to just be ourselves and not let anyone dictate who we should be. "Don't be a people pleaser," we are told. And for the most part, this is sound advice; we shouldn't let other people bend us into being who they want us to be.

    When it comes to Yahveh, however, that advice should be tossed aside. We should bend our personalities, our goals, our values to his. This is called submission, something that people, particularly in our western, American culture, don't like to do. It's scary and sounds manipulative but in truth, it's the best possible thing. Remember that Yahveh made us; he knows our name, our identity, the essence of who we are far better than we know ourselves. He knows what we're capable of and how to get the best out of us. In submitting ourselves to Yahveh, we don't lose ourselves, but in the end are shown how truly awesome we can be.

    Back to the story, Yahveh gives Moses his assurance that he isn't going to leave Moses alone. He will be there for Moses because Moses has "found favor" in Yahveh's sight. Then Moses makes a bold request.

    "Please show me your glory," he asks.

    In English, that doesn't sound like much. But that is an epic request nonetheless. In Hebrew, the word for glory is the word kavod, which also means weight or heaviness. The idea is that a person's "glory" is directly related to the full force or weight of their being. Moses wants to see Yahveh's full weight on display, unfettered and uncloaked

    What makes this request even more incredible is that this just after Yahveh had told Moses that if he went with the Israelites, his presence might consume them almost by accident. Yet Moses is willing to risk that just to get the most intimate look at his friend he possibly can.

    Yahveh surprisingly assents to the request, which shows that Yahveh tends to favor those who make bold requests of him. He tells Moses that he is going to have all of his "goodness" pass by and then he would proclaim his name.

    Admittedly this sounds weird. When we think of glory, we think of bright flashing lights, maybe some thunder and lightning and probably a smoke machine just for good measure. In a sense, I suppose this is understandable as we are very visual beings.

    But that is not what glory means to Yahveh. For him it is his name, which is the definition of his identity. And his identity, his definition is in his goodness. For Yahveh, it is about his character, his substance of being, the very things that makes him Yahveh. It is that that he shows to Moses.

    Again, we don't think of it as a big deal because all that is just words on a page. It isn't the bright, loud, flashy explosion of fireworks that we tend to associate with glory. But revealing that character is apparently so powerful, so intense that Yahveh could not allow Moses to see his face, only his "back," otherwise the experience would incinerate Moses. By the way, the word in Hebrew, atah, is the preposition that means behind or after used here as a noun. So in other words, Yahveh could be saying that all Moses can see is his "after" or wake. That's how powerful Yahveh's character is.

    So Yahveh takes Moses and places him in a cleft in the mountain and causes his glory to pass by. Yahveh proclaims, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation." Moses saw that and worshipped.

    In a way, it is kind of anticlimactic. No flashing lights, not lightning and thunder, no fire and smoke. Just a list of attributes, almost like some guy randomly boasting.

    The truth is, we don't know what Moses actually saw. Whatever it was, it was something so powerful, so awesome that it would've destroyed him had Moses seen it full on. It was as if he was looking into the heart of pure goodness, the source from which all good things flow and to a sinful mind, that is something so foreign, so strange, so alien that the only way he could've described it was through listing Yahveh's characteristics. It was the only way he could get his head around it.

    That kind of experience changes you. It certainly changed Moses to the point that when he came down off the mountain, he glowed. Not the "I'm in love" glow or the "we're having a baby" glow, but a literal, actual, I'm a glow stick glow. It freaked the Israelites out to the point they made him stick a bag over his head.

    A couple of years ago, I wrote a post touching on this same subject and passage titled "Radiance." One of the questions I ask is "Do we glow?" Being with Yahveh changes us, it makes us stand out as different, like we're glowing in a dark room. Jesus himself in the Sermon on the Mount made a comment similar to this in Matthew 5:14-16.

    "You are the light of the world," he says. "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to the whole house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

    Later, in Acts 4:13, the Jewish ruling council, when trying Peter and John, were amazed by the power of their words, despite being uneducated and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

    The point is that being with Yahveh changes you. With a character and essence so strong that if you saw it full on it would destroy, how could being him not change you?

    Have you seen Yahveh's glory? Do you pursue a friendship with Yahveh like Moses did? Have your friends, family, coworkers, or classmates taken note that you have been with Jesus?

    Do you glow?

Moses Part 20 (Exodus 32b)

Where we left off was with Moses interceding on behalf of the Israelites. For those who are reading along at home, you will have noticed that we skipped the gap between Moses's intercessions. This is where we come back to the Israelites.

After his talk with Yahveh, Moses comes back down from the mountain with his aide Joshua (he of the Amalekite battle) and the two tables of stone with the Commandments written on them. As they get closer to the camp, they started hearing the sounds of the celebration wafting up to them. Being the soldier, Joshua immediately assumes that someone is attacking the camp. But Moses, who already knew what was going on, told Joshua that there was party going on.

Up to this point, Moses seems like the coolest head among all the characters in the story. The Israelites had panicked when Moses hadn't returned, Aaron caved under pressure, Yahveh had wanted to eradicate the Israelites, and Joshua was ready to fight a war.

But when he walks into the camp and sees the Israelites dancing around the Golden Calf, he goes bananas. The Bible says that his anger "burned hot." Moses slammed tables of stone against the rocky ground, shattering the 10 Commandments. He then took the Golden Calf, ground it into powder, and tossed it into the water, forcing the people to drink their god.

He wasn't done yet. He rounded on Aaron, demanding what the people had done to him to make him cave. Aaron, in typical spineless fashion, immediately threw the people under the bus, saying that they had forced him and all he had done was to throw their gold in the fire and the calf just magically appeared. Moses didn't really buy it.

Finally Moses begins the executions. He asks the Israelites who is for Yahveh and the Levites volunteer. Moses orders them to strap on their swords and go through the camp, executing anyone who led out in the idolatry. Three thousand Israelites were killed, earing the Levites a commendation for their loyalty.

What is going on here? Doesn't this seem a bit dichotic? I mean just a few verses earlier, Moses was begging Yahveh not to go nuclear on the Israelites and now he flips out on them. And doesn't this seem like a bit of an overreaction too? I mean making them drink the gold water and executing thee thousand Israelites just after pleading for their lives. Why is Moses doing this?

The answer is because he cares. This may seem simplistic, but think about it. Moses cares about Yahveh. Yahveh is Moses's friend, best friend. So when Moses sees his people dancing around an idol, it was like he walked in on his best friend's wife cheating on him. And there was no one sticking up for Yahveh. Needless to say, it made him mad.

Essentially Moses came to the defense of his friend. He was not going to stand Yahveh getting insulted like that. And so he got mad.

But more than getting mad, he did something about it. He didn't just sit there and stew; he called the Israelites out on what they were doing. Admittedly, it was a bit violent, but he did not just let Yahveh's name get trashed. Moses cared.

We live in a world that very casual about how it treats Yahveh and his laws. Popular media and many non-religious people openly mock Yahveh, treating him with dismissal and disdain. The society we live in is almost as flippant towards Yahveh, if not more so, than Moses's Israelites of three and a half millennia ago.

And we do nothing. Now I'm not advocating that we go to the measures that Moses went to. It could be argued that he was a little extreme, although I personally don't think so. But at the same time, we don't stand up for Yahveh and say, "Hey, back off! Treat the God of the Universe with a little respect." Why?

Some of you may point out that if Yahveh is the almighty God of the Universe, then no amount of mocking or derision is going to affect him. That would be like the ant scorning the boot that steps on him. And to a degree, you would be right; we are so beneath Yahveh that we can't truly insult him.

But that's also not the point. This isn't about Yahveh per se; it's about us. What do we do when Yahveh is mocked? Because what we do reflects how much we care about him.

Think of it this way. Has someone ever talked smack, as they say, about a family member or close friend of yours? Unless you have no friends, probably. What did you do? Did you just sit that and say nothing? Join in the jokes? Or did you come to that person's defense?

If you're like most decent human beings, you came to your friend or family's defense. Why? Because you love them and care about them and that is what you do when you care about someone; you defend them even if you know that they'll never hear this critics or really be affected in anyway by it. That smack that has been talked makes you angry and you're going to do something about it.

So why don't we do anything when Yahveh's name is on the line? Could it be that we don't care about him nearly as much as we think or say we do? Could it be that we'd rather sell him out for the sake of our mortal acquaintances then stand up for the person who saved the universe?

The title of this blog is God Likes Us. If you go way back in posts to one of the first ones, I explain a bit about what that means. It means that God (Yahveh) likes us, meaning he enjoys our company and desires our friendship. He wants so badly that he had the Israelites build him a tent so that he could live among them. Yahveh even went so far as to exchange immortal perfection for mortal humanity and then die in our place so that we could live forever with him, if we so chose.

And how do we return this friendship? Often by selling him out or throwing him under the bus. It is sad but true and forces us to think about how much we really do care about Yahveh, the best friend a person could ever wish for. How much we do care and how much we should care.

So next time you hear Yahveh mocked or defied (and there will be a next time), think about Moses. He cared enough to stand up for Yahveh. Do you? Will you?

Moses Part 19 (Exodus 32A)

    Sincere apologies for the delay on this post. The excavation and then getting back to the US have made my life rather hectic the last two months but things are starting to slow down and so hopefully I can be more prolific with these posts.

    Once again we are skipping several chapters. Exodus 25-31 generally deals with the things that Moses and Yahveh discussed while on the mountain, typically pertaining to the sanctuary. Now I am not diminishing in any way from the value of those chapters; they are sensational chapters with a great deal to offer any student of Yahveh's word. But they are not events in Moses's life and as this is a character study, more or less, they are not relevant to this particular discussion. Therefore any examination of the sanctuary and its contents at this time would only prove to be a disservice.

    Also, because there is so much in this episode, like others, we are going to deal with it in two parts. The first part is going to focus on Moses while the second part is going to deal with the Israelites.

    Where we last left off, Yahveh had called Moses up to the mountain and told him that he wanted the Israelites to build him a sanctuary so that he could "tabernacle" or dwell with them. He then details specifically how this sanctuary is going to look and how the services are going to be conducted. All in all it's pretty cool.

    The only problem with all of this is that Moses is up there for a very long time, 40 days to be exact. Down below, the Israelites are getting antsy, wondering where on earth Moses is. Admittedly, 40 days is a long time. I mean, imagine how we'd react if the President dropped off the face of the earth for 40 days. We'd probably declare the President dead and elevate the VP to the big job.

    That, more or less, is what the Israelites did. They figured Moses was either dead or not coming back and gave up on him. Simultaneously elevating Aaron to fill Moses shoes, they give up on Yahveh and demand that Aaron make them gods to go before them. Aaron, who, as we shall see has the backbone of an octopus, capitulates.

    He takes the peoples donation of jewelry and fashions it into the infamous golden calf, probably combining Yahveh with El, the chief Canaanite deity with whom Yahveh has often been confused. El's symbol is the cow. After making the calf, Aaron declares that the following day will be a celebration, to which the people heartily approve.

    Meanwhile on the mountain, these recent developments have not escaped the eyes of the all-knowing Yahveh. Understandably Yahveh is furious when he sees the Israelites, people who had just the previous month sworn to serve him and obey his commands, so quickly jump ship. While 40 days to us may seem like a long time, when you put it in perspective, is it really worth ditching everything over? You couldn't just sit tight for a little longer?

    Apparently not and Yahveh has had enough. Their grumblings and complaints about every little thing were bad enough, but this was outright rebellion against his commands. And if there is one thing Yahveh has little patience for, it is outright rebellion.

    Yahveh's reaction is swift and severe. "Go down," he tells Moses, "for your people who you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. (An aside here: I love how the Israelites are suddenly Moses's people. Kind of like when the kid screws up and the mom says to the dad, "Look at what your kid did). They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are the gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!' I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you."

    Before we judge Yahveh's answer as a harsh overreaction, we have to understand what the Israelites switching gods meant. They had basically signed a treaty saying that they were under Yahveh's rule; essentially they were his vassals. Now, a scant 40 days later, they were breaking that treaty and going into open rebellion against Yahveh.

    To contextualize it in our terms, what the Israelites did was essentially the same thing as what the South did just prior to the American Civil War. They declared themselves independent from the rest of the United States and set up a new president for themselves, Jefferson Davis. The reaction by Abraham Lincoln and the rest of the "Union" was equally swift and harsh as was Yahveh's, albeit far more inept.

    With this context in mind, Moses has a choice. He could step aside and let Yahveh do his thing and turn the Israelites into ashes, as they richly deserved. I doubt any of us would've faulted Moses for taking this option. After all we've discussed in this study about the awesome majesty and power of Yahveh, we can all understand that an angry Yahveh is not someone that any of us want to deal with.

    Or Moses could step in and plead on behalf of the Israelites. There is great risk here. First, he doesn't have a case; they have been caught in the act. It would be like trying to plead the case of someone who was observed committing murder by a bunch of cops. You aren't going to get that person off.    Secondly, he risks putting himself in their camp, which if he fails could have some very unpleasant consequences.     

    Yet this is the option that Moses chooses. For all the griefs that the Israelites have given the prophet since he helped free them from the Egyptians, he still stands in their place (sometimes I wonder if he ever regretted that decision. Probably not).

    "Oh LORD," he said, "why does your wrath burn hot against your people (he's putting them back on Yahveh), whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?' Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit forever.'"

    Surprisingly enough, this works. Yahveh relents and doesn't wipe the Israelites out. Moses goes back down and then flips out himself when he sees the Israelites dancing around the golden calf but that is something that will be dealt with in the following post.

    After Moses personally deals with the Israelites, he tells them that he will try to make atonement for them before Yahveh. Then he does something truly remarkable.

    "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold," Moses laments to Yahveh, "But now, if your will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written."

    At first, this doesn't make sense. What book? Moses is referring to the Book of Life, the book that records all of those who have been saved by Jesus grace. And Moses is offering to have his name erased if it will it will eternally save the Israelites.

    Think about that for a minute. Moses is volunteering for eternal damnation to forgive the sins of the Israelites. And you thought Katniss was brave! This is arguably the bravest statement ever uttered by man.

    Yahveh's response is that it doesn't work like that; Moses cannot take their place. Yahveh punishes only the guilty, not the innocent. He will not destroy the Israelites, but their day is coming and they will pay for their crime. But that is the topic of the next post.

    There was, of course, one major exception to that policy. That exception was Jesus Christ. Jesus, who was the definition of innocent, volunteered for damnation, suffering the second death for all mankind so that no one else had to.

    You see, we have all rebelled against Yahveh in ways that are sometimes worse than even what the Israelites did. Our race has become a blight, a poison in the universe, polluting the holiness of Yahveh's creation. We deserved eradication for our crimes, just as the Israelites did.

    Yet someone took the risk to step in between us and God, just as Moses did. Jesus, although in very nature God himself, surrendered that to become man. And then as a man, surrendered even that to take the full wrath of God's holiness, suffering the penalty that we all should have born, letting his name be blotted out of the book in place of ours.

    I don't know how much the Israelites knew of what Moses offered to save them. Even if they did, I doubt they fully comprehended the full weight of what that offer entailed or how close they came to death that day.

    Neither, for that matter, do we. We live so much of our lives in blissful ignorance in the great awesomeness of Jesus grace. We don't fully comprehend what he sacrificed for us or how close we are to death.

    Perhaps that is the point; Christ suffered and understood it so that we don't have to. But at the same time, we often are prone to treat his gift of grace and salvation with flippancy or even sometimes disdain. We are apt to treat Jesus's grace lightly, forgetting how much that sacrifice cost and how much it gained.

    But then we read stories like this and the veil that shields us from the Great Controversy is pulled back, just slightly, and we begin to realize the power of the cross. Christ stood between us and annihilation, offering himself in our place. We stand alive with the hope of eternity because of that.

    That is why the cross matters. That is what it means. It signifies the moment that someone stood between a race and utter destruction and absorbing it into himself. That is why we worship Jesus today.

Moses Part 18 (Exodus 25:1-9)

    Sorry for the long delay but this last week has been hectic. But I'm back and hopefully will be back to at least two updates a week. No promises as I have a very busy schedule but that's my goal.

    Anyway, where we last left off, Israel had confirmed the covenant and eaten in the presence of Yahveh to seal the deal. Then Moses disappeared into the cloud on the mountain with Yahveh. Now we go into what happened on the mountain.

    A lot happens on the mountain, much of it we won't go into because that, like the 10 Commandments, is a topic in and of themselves. So instead we are going to discuss the epicness of the first 9 verses of chapter 25.

    Moses gets to the top of Mount Sinai and immediately Yahveh tells him to take up a collection of valuable items from the Israelites. Why this sudden tax? So that they can use those items to build Yahveh a tabernacle.

    This raises all sorts of questions, chiefly, what is a tabernacle? The word tabernacle, or sanctuary in some cases, comes from the word mishkan, which literally means "dwelling place." The word mishkan itself is a participle of the verb shakan, which means "to dwell or reside." Yahveh is asking the Israelites to provide him a dwelling place so that he may dwell among them.

    Just stop and think about that for a moment: Yahveh, the almighty creator and sustainer of the universe, wants to live with the people of Israel. He wants them to make him a tent so that he can be close to them without obliterating them. That is huge.

    But it also begs the question why? Why would the lord of the universe want to connect with pitiful, rebellious mortals like us? Wouldn't he want to keep his distance? Apparently not, but why?

    The answer is in the title of this blog: God likes us, meaning he actually enjoys our company. We know that Yahveh loves us; the Bible says so often enough, but we often don't realize that Yahveh actually likes us.

    Now you may be wondering what the difference between love and like is and let me assure you, there is a difference. That difference is outlined in another blog post titled "Love versus Like" and we don't really have the space or time to go into that here. To put it simply, love and like are two separate things: love is a relationship we have with another person, one that goes one way where we would do anything to secure another's well-being. Like is an attitude we have towards something: things we like bring us pleasure and joy, things we don't do not.

    With that in mind, there is apparently something about our company and presence that brings Yahveh joy and pleasure. He wants something from us that makes him happy. That something is our friendship.

    This is a theme that is repeated again and again throughout the Bible, from Adam and Eve to Abraham to the Israelites to the Disciples to the end of time. I could go on and on about this, but that too has been covered in another post. The point is that Yahveh wants our friendship. He wants to be with us.

    Many of our discussions through this Moses study have hit on the awesomeness, power, and sovereignty of Yahveh. Of course there is a lot of truth to that: Yahveh is awesome and powerful and sovereign. But that is not all he is and it is important for us to keep the whole picture in mind when it comes to Yahveh.

    There is a side to Yahveh that longs for friendship and communion with his creations. That is why he wanted them to build him a dwelling place, so that he could be with his people. The same phrase is used in John to describe the Incarnation: the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Again in Revelation, at the end of this age and beginning of the next, the Bible says that "now the dwelling of God is with men."

    We are Yahveh's servants, his subordinates, no doubt. There is a difference between us and him. Yet with all of that, we are still to be more than just his servants: we are to be his friends too. This is not an either/or but a both/and. We are his servants and his friends.

    Will you be more than just a servant of Yahveh? Will you take the time and effort to let him dwell with you? Will you accept his offered hand of friendship? Will you like him back?