The Fellowship Residency Program has introduced me to the idea of reading commentaries alongside scripture. By next August, I will have read through the entire Bible as well as The King in His Beauty, our selected commentary.
As I am reading, I am writing a little bit about each of the books of the Bible so you and I can have a more thorough understanding of the scriptures. I invite you to follow along with me as we learn the Bible in its entirety from Genesis to Revelation. This does NOT encompass the entire book, but it is a good place to start. I encourage you to read for yourself and begin your own Biblical journal along the way. To read some of my other related posts, click here.
The Great Escape – Pharaoh was filled with fear with Israel’s booming population and as a son of the serpent, he tried to wipe out the people. Ironically, the people’s deliverer would be rescued by Pharaoh’s own daughter. When he realized Moses was chosen to lead Israel out of Egypt, he tried to put him to death. Moses fled into exile. This symbolizes Jesus’s flee back into Egypt to escape King Herod’s wrath. Meanwhile. Moses fought with God that he was ill-equipped to take on the task of deliverer and recognized that he could do nothing with God. God reminded him that he is the “I AM” or the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” and will always fulfill his promises. The exodus from Egypt at the hand of God is a blatant act of the Lord’s redeeming love and gives them an idea of what they can expect in the future. As Pharaoh repeatedly promises that God’s people can go, he resisted the Lord through the hardening of his heart and the Lord also hardened his heart. It is also helpful to note that God send the plagues so that the people could not attribute Israel’s liberation to anything other than God himself and the goodness of his ultimate plan. The redemption of his people and judgment of Egypt revealed that the Lord is to be praised and feared as a “loving savior, a mighty judge, and a sovereign king.” The Lord’s victory is celebrated annually in Israel as the festival of Passover and Unleavened Bread as a reminder that: 1. they too deserved judgment, but God would “pass over” their family if they applied blood to their door as a symbol of the Lamb of God and 2. They were in such a hurry to leave Egypt that they were unable to leaven the bread before leaving thus symbolizing the removal of evil from God’s people. The exodus from Egypt is a reminder that the Lord Yahweh has and will continue to be the God who keeps his covenant promises and will continue to do so for all of time. If Israel forgot, then so would thankfulness. If thankfulness was forgotten, then so is faith (p.33).
The Mosaic Covenant – The Mosaic Covenant took place on Mount Sinai and was between the people of Israel and God. There is debate as if the covenant paralleled that of the suzerain-vassal treaties of their time that included 1. A preamble, 2. Historical prologue, 3. Stipulation of the covenant, 4. The deposition of the covenant in the sanctuary for periodic reading, 5. Witnesses to the covenant, and 6. The curses and blessings of the covenant. It appears that it had almost all of those properties. It is not a covenant for legalistic purposes, but due to the grace and mercy of God for they did not deserve the deliverance themselves. The covenant is simultaneously conditional and unconditional. The Lord will follow through, but the covenant demands that the people obey. The people are not commanded to go and spread to other nations. Instead, others will see them and be drawn to Yahweh. The most striking feature of the covenant is the supremacy of God above all else, their ultimate failure as a people group. The commandments ultimately say that whatever one’s heart desires is what one worships and God desires that we would only worship him above all else. The covenant was established by a covenant meal with offerings and sacrifices as well as with blood sprinkled on the altar to represent the forgiveness of sin requires sacrificial blood spread.
The Tabernacle – The word tabernacle emphasizes that God dwells with his people and means “tent of meeting. The tabernacle was a place that Israel could fellowship with God. There is great debate about what the tabernacle represents. It should have been a draw for a place for people to dwell with him. However, the altar was the place for sacrifices, because humans are unholy and cannot enter into the presence of God without some sort of atonement. The many compartments of the Tabernacle are symbolic of the truth that God is separated from humans primarily because of their sinful natures. He desires to dwell with us. He wants his glory to fill us.
Exodus 32 - End – Almost immediately, Israel turned to blatant idolatry by building and worshiping a golden calf. The Lord was gracious, but his grace did not extend to actual heart renewal so that they may obey Him. A theme emerges that exposes the deeply rooted sin issue of humans and inability for laws to fix the issues. The covenant of Moses was only designed to last until the coming of the Messiah and was completely dependent on human obedience whereas the Abrahamic covenant was a promise to be fulfilled until the end of time. Moses offered to atone for Israel, but since Moses was flawed, he was unable to atone for the sins of all. Israel’s punishment was that unless they sought the Lord, they were unable to meet him in the tent due to their sin. The book ends with Moses again pleading for a renewed covenant. The Lord agrees, and again takes his place in the tabernacle.