Bible Reading: Exodus through Deuteronomy
THE REST OF THE PENTATEUCH: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
By Adrian Peetoom
Reminder: it is likely that this part of the Bible was put together during and after the Exile by scribes (sometimes called redactors). They combined various oral traditions and written accounts (see “Book of Wars of Yahweh” mentioned in Numbers 21:14) into one cohesive (well, more or less cohesive) narrative. The narrative purports to be a history that nailed down the characters of both God and God’s special people. That narrative will be clear enough, for as long as we do not impose our current academic standards upon it. That narrative will be true, but it may not always be factual.
Take the numbers of Israelites that left Egypt, for instance, in various places designated as “about six hundred thousand – men that is, not counting their families (Exodus 12:37).” Now we’re also told that that Israelite families in Egypt were large, their numbers perceived as threat to Egypt. So let’s assume that 50% of the marching men were of child bearing age, and that 90% of those had four children (allowing for some male and female infertility). So how many bodies marched into the Sinai desert?
Here is the calculation: (9/10 x ½ x600,000) = 270.000 x 6 (husband, wife and four children) = one million, six hundred and twenty thousand (1,620.000) Israelites left Goshen and marched towards the Sinai desert.
But how believable is that figure? Let’s consider. Many times during the next forty years the Israelites packed up their belongings, herded their animals (goats and sheep) together, and wandered to their next destination, ever closer to the Promised Land. Think of it. Say they walked in lines of ten abreast, with 2 meters to spare between lines. That would require 162,000 lines one after the other, making for a column 162,999 x 2 = 325,998 meters deep (that is, almost 33 kilometers!). Now think of the organization of the New York Marathon, with the last and slowest of the 35,000 or so participants starting about an hour after the elite runners, and bunched much closer together for starters. And those are adult runners who immediately go at high speed. My guess is, given the numbers cited which would include many babies and toddlers that the last lines of Israelite families would only begin to move late in the afternoon…
And then my mind stopped speculating, for it’s clear that those logistics put to question the numbers (the “facts”). Moreover, there is not even the hint in any of the available Egyptian and other Mid-Eastern records (admittedly sparse and often uncertain) that anything like such a massive event on that large a scale ever took place. Perhaps “600.000” has another function, a truth rather than a fact function, a reflection of the promises to Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous than stars in the sky and sand on the beach, a promise well underway to being fulfilled. Perhaps also, “Exodus” is a narrative reconstruction of shadowy stories that, together, reflect the hand of God in all human history, a hand believed at any one time but only seen in retrospect. And isn’t that how Exodus was used by Black slaves in the US to get a grip of their own situation? “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land. Tell ol’ Pharaoh, ‘let my people go.’” In the Exodus the writers (redactors), these Exile folks saw themselves, and they didn’t raise the kind of 21st century dumb and irrelevant issues I just did. We need to read these books (basically) as an evocative narrative, not as description or prescription. Its purpose is to have us respond in faith to what we see, and recognize in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the God of Jesus, the God we still worship. While we may also read that narrative for theology, we better not read it as theology. No definitions and careful analysis. A tale, sometimes a tall tale.
These four books may be divided into three chunks:
1. Leaving Egypt (Exodus).
2. 40 years of wandering (Leviticus and Numbers).
3. Preparing for settling in Canaan (Numbers and Deuteronomy).
Leaving Egypt: Exodus 1:1 – 15:21 (skip 6:14-27)
This section may easily be read in one session, and is especially worthy of being read aloud. Plain and simple, it’s an exciting story!
A few observations.
1. There are no Israelite heroes that could, in any way, account for the success of this liberation story. For starters, Moses is a murderer, and a fugitive to boot. Moreover, he keeps telling Yahweh that he won’t be up to the job of confronting Pharaoh, bad speaker that he is. The two Israelite midwives (and we know their names!) seem a lot more courageous than the men, who, in spite of their large numbers, never seem to have contemplated resisting their slave masters. Here’s the point: the whole narrative means to focus on the mighty hand of Yahweh, and not on human factors. That includes the slow but intensifying preparation towards leaving which drives the Egyptians to so such desperation that they heap treasures on their departing slaves (Exodus 12:35-6), treasures that would greatly assist the Israelites as they made their way. Notice that for the first two plagues the Egyptian magicians are able to duplicate Moses’s feats – water turning to blood and frogs everywhere, diminishing Moses’s prestige. But not after that, as the plague screws get slowly turned tighter.
2. The puzzle of Yahweh hardening Pharaoh’s heart. This question: is Yahweh being fair to Pharaoh, by deliberately not having that tyrant give in to the demands of Moses until Yahweh is good and ready? My own view is that we must once more remember the writers (redactors) of this narrative as they composed it. They may have struggled with this question: “In view of the evidence that came his way, how could Pharaoh been so stupid and stubborn? What part of ‘let my people go’ did he not understand?” But that might have raised another question in the minds of the Exile redactors: “What made our recent forebears not see the signs and hear the prophets who told them that they were on the wrong road? Especially the kings! How stupid were they (we)?” Both those questions made them conclude that there is something about Yahweh’s doings we shall never understand. And is that the Egypt dynamic at play? Whatever it is, it must have something to do with Yahweh’s finger into history. And that it wasn’t simply a capricious finger gets demonstrated in the following. In preparation for the seventh plague Yahweh lets ordinary Egyptians know that they may escape the impending damage if they put themselves and their livestock under cover against the coming hail storm (9:13-22). Grace to the Egyptians! My Bible version adds that “Pharaoh’s officials who [by now?] respected what Yahweh said,” did what he had let them in on. Moreover, two crucial crops, wheat and spelt, were saved (9:32).
3. When did Israel begin to experience relief? After they “cried out” (2:23, see also 6:5.) That seems to be an Old Testament pattern. When the People of God no longer look for God, God hides himself. Until they “cry out.” Some theologians see that “hiding” pattern all through history. God is hidden, but he makes himself found to those who look for him. Something to think about as our own culture which doesn’t seem to know that God is (might be) present. Oh, there’s a “supreme being” perhaps, but nothing concrete.
4. Mount Horeb is called “the mountain of God (3:1). Many mountains and other distinguished geological features have become shrine locations in human history.
5. The ruse of the “three days” (5:1-5 and other places, but see 3:17). It is clear that the redactors didn’t see this subterfuge as a moral problem, or if they did they kept stum. Had their exile in Babylon (a very sophisticated city at the time) taught them something about diplomacy, which seems dependent on subterfuge, secrecy, double talk and hidden objectives?
40 years of wandering
The second major chunk. Once again, keep in mind that all this writing was done well after the events, by scribes intent on preserving and restoring the identity of those for whom a return to the promised land seemed imminent, an identity that could only be understood in relationship to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (You might want to read Psalm 137 once more.) Those scribes, using whatever preservation tools were available to them (oral tradition stories, fragments of writing, and their own wisdom and imagination arising out of their own diaspora communities), struggled with these two prime agenda points:
1. Given human imperfections, what is the relationship of Yahweh to his chosen people?
2. What are the rules for living in the Promised Land?
With regards to point 1, those scribes did not lay out a kind of philosophical-theological blueprint. Rather, they offered a number of stories, which, together, form a narrative strand in these four books. God is a character in these stories, and so are the wandering people. Moses stands in between both, functioning as leader for his people, an intermediary, and also as frequent pleader for mercy when those people once again make a mess of things. (Leading some theologians to observe that in all this Moses foreshadows Christ.)
For now I suggest you skip the material relevant to point 2, all those laws and regulations. However, I disagree with those who claim that those portions are of no or little import for us today. Yes, we don’t need to follow the rules for building the “tent” (Tabernacle, Temple) and its accoutrements, to name one example. But many sections are worth pondering. They deal with justice in the land, with ownership and stewardship, with love towards the brother and the sister, with acceptance of the stranger, with violence and retribution. The people are to be “holy,” that is, demonstrable “other” from common humanity ruled by fate and revenge. And as many theologians suggest, while the specifics may not count for much anymore, the principles underlying them, still do. For instance, while old Israel recognized ownership of land, it stepped back from absolute ownership. Every 50 years (Year of Jubilee) all land had to go back to the original families, with other rules preventing clever manipulators to take advantage. Some of those rules are violent in our eyes, it is true. But of course the culture was very different from ours. Prime loyalties were kin, clan and tribe, and violence perpetrated on one’s own required retribution and (often) blood feud. But if you read those laws carefully (and study them as contrasts with similar law codes elsewhere), you will find strands of grace, mercy and neighbourly love, of holiness in other words. Here is an example.
In the so-called “lex talionis” we read: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ((Lev 24:19-22. That sounds cruel, also in the light of Jesus’s “correction” of that as he observes, “But I tell you, turn the other cheek.” (cit). But here is the revelation. That principal may also be read as a beacon of graceful light. For we would be justified to read that section as follows: “Instead of a family for one eye, a clan for one tooth, I say unto you: extract no more than the equivalent.” In other words, no more blood feuds (”honour killings”).
Here is my suggesting for what to read and what to skip:
INCLUDE SKIP (for now)
Exodus 15:22 – 20:21 Exodus 20:22 – 31:18
Exodus 32:1 – 34:35 Exodus chapters 35-40
All of Leviticus
Numbers 10:1 – end of chapter 14 Numbers chapters 1-9
Numbers chapter 15
Numbers chapters 16 and 17 Numbers chapter 18 and 19
Numbers chapters 20-25 Numbers chapters 16-36.
The rationale for my choices is simple: include the narrative portions of these bible books, and bypass the many sections of instruction for life in the Promised Land (so-called ceremonial and civil laws), as well as setting up the judiciary.
As I observed already, read those chapters for the ongoing story of those wandering folks on their way to the Promised Land. Some of the stories are quite moving, actually.
As for the character of the Chosen people, there are points in the narrative that even Yahweh wondered why he chose them. A bunch of complainers, about food, water, danger, the perceived power of the folks now in the land promised to them. Not much faith, not much trust. And at times not even their leaders could be trusted (Numbers 12).
Take Exodus 32, the story of the golden calf (an Egyptian symbol for the divine!). As Moses is on the mountain receiving the Torah, his brother Aaron caves in under the pressure of impatient Hebrews, melting (Egyptian!) gold into a calf, around which he organizes a day of worship. Sure, he means it to be worship of Yahweh (32:5), but Yahweh is not to be worshiped that way, with a symbol of fertility. And listen to what Aaron says when his brother confronts him: “I threw [the gold] into the fire and out came this calf! (32:24).” The old story: Adam blamed his wife, and Eve blamed the serpent! But Yahweh isn’t fooled. “Yahweh punished the people for having made the calf; the one AARON HAD MADE (32:35).”
Also, as you read keep your eye on the figure of Moses. “Now Moses was extremely humble, the humblest man on earth (Numbers 12: 3).” The redactors take great pains to have this narrative be the grace of God, not the merit of God’s people, not even that of Moses (who otherwise is shown to be a great leader). Several times Moses pleads with Yahweh not to abandon his people, bargains, offers himself as sacrifice, cajoles. But even he manages to upset Yahweh, to the point of being denied entry in the Promised land (Numbers chapter 20).
For me the most spectacular tale is the one found in chapters 22-24. I so remember from my childhood the account of Balak, king of Moab, and his attempt to have the invaders cursed by Balaam, a seer. Please note the following.
The king of Moab notices that his people are terrified. What? Terrified of this rag-tag “horde” of nomads, those former slaves of Egypt? Yes, terrified! No normal defenses will do – seer help is needed to invoke a divine curse. And what follows is a comedic chess game between Yahweh and Balaam, with Balaam’s donkey playing a lead role. Now this story follows on the heels of those Hebrew folks having (once more) grumbled about their long trek, claiming that Egypt hadn’t been all that bad, and God getting mad at them once more. Yet several times in the Balaam story we read God claiming that these people are blessed (e.g. 22:12). The blessings are expressed in beautiful poems. If ever a story speaks of the faithfulness of God who has every reason to abandon his chosen people (that’s us, folks) for what we do to him, to our neighbor, and to the cosmos God created, it is this one. Whatever blessings we receive are not earned by us but showers of grace. The whole of these four books speak of this, and the point is made once more in concentrated form in this comedy. God as ultimate author at his very best, and with a sense of humour. My mind’s eye still sees Balaam on a donkey who scrapes Balaam’s leg along the rock to warn him that the road ahead is blocked by an angel.
Preparing for settling in Canaan (Deuteronomy mostly).
In the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers we have seen the Hebrew slaves make their way to the borders of the Promised Land, removing barriers as they progress. They will have to wander one more generation before their children will enter it. In the meantime they have been given laws as a blueprint for what good life (shalom!) can become as they will settle.
In those three books we have also encountered God’s preparing his people to live shalom lives in the Promised Land. Deuteronomy is solely dedicated to that preparation.
(There is broad consensus that this book was actually written a bit earlier than the others, and prior to the Exile. 2 Kings chapter 22 and 23 capture the story of Judah’s king Josiah, who tries to restore his kingdom to what it was intended to be by Yahweh. As the story goes, the current high priest “finds” the Book of the Law, and the king realizes how far removed from that “law” life in Judah has become. Biblical experts think that in fact Josiah holds a new book in his hand, one consistent with Leviticus-Numbers, but with its own character. He has the whole of it read aloud to the people, and makes a covenant with Yahweh to follow it.)
I suggest you read chapters 1-11, skip chapters 12-18, and read chapters 29-end. Here are six observations.
1. 14:22-27. A bit that has always struck my fancy. Tithing leading up to a party, with “strong drink” How Puritan sensitivities struggle with whatever the original Hebrew says. I heard one fundamentalist TV preacher assert that what is meant is “medicine,” for he couldn’t get himself to admit that perhaps Yahweh would have his people enjoy booze (in moderation, of course). And notice the provision for Levites, who owned no land in Israel.
2. Yes, Israel had slaves, but notice that their use is limited in 15:12-18.
3. 19:1-13: Here is where the idea of church buildings as places of sanctuary originates. In the last few years some Canadian and US churches have offered such sanctuary to refugees who were denied landed immigrant status.
4. 24:5. What a humane thing to prescribe!
5. 3:23-end of chapter, and 31:16-18. The first section contains a moving plea by Moses to be as yet admitted to the Promised Land. In the second section Yahweh provides him with a comfort of sorts, saying that after his death the people will not live up to the standards he (and Moses) have set for them. So let this be a comfort, Moses, you won’t have to see the mess they will make of their lives.
6. Chapter 34 – the death of Moses. At age 120, and he didn’t needed glasses. Moreover, his vigour was unimpaired (New Jerusalem version) (his vigor had not been abated, NRSV). Actually, (so I’m told), the Hebrew says something like, “his juices still flowed,” meaning he was still able to make love. Ah, the Bible is such a human, and therefore believable, book!
The People of God have made it all the way to the Promised Land, and they are poised to enter it. We’ll read about that in the next section.