Deuteronomy 6:10-12 "When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."
The first few verses of chapter 6 deal with the permanence God intends for His people and for their land. For generations to come, God plans for them to be prosperous, to be happy, and to be "well." To live a long life. All this milk and honey is theirs, on condition that they follow His commands and decrees. God indicates that He is not a temporal God, to set things in motion, and then leave, contradicting deistic philosophy. God shows here that He is in it to win it, until forever. That's comforting, an idea that not only will one be able to trust God to provide for him in this life, but also to provide for the lives of his descendants. It also suggests that life is short, and God is forever. God will be permanent and unchanging.
How should one "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength?" Those three aspects of a person's life are probably the most intimate, the most conspicuous and the most defining of anyone. And how are they to be used? To love God. Have you thought about what you do with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength? I suggest that this is how God loves, with all His heart, with all His soul, and with all His strength. His defining characteristic would then have to be love. Does God need to be loved? Maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe its not a question at all. Needs imply lack. I believe God will be loved. God must be loved.
I just love verses 10 through 12. It is a reminder of who didn't build the promised land. Vast land, flourishing cities, good houses filled with good things, wells and vineyards and olive groves...everything needed for life. And none of it was done by the heirs. Nothing was done by those who inherited the above good things. It was given, provided. Taken from someone else, and given over to Israel. When these things are enjoyed, it is God who must be remembered and thanked.
Massah, the place where the Israelites quarreled over whether God was with them is invoked here as an example of how not to behave. Rather, the people can trust that God will always be among them, and the easiest reminder is that have everything they need. Their thirst will be quenched.
Moses ends the chapter with a sort of history lesson, how to explain to one's children why they do these things they do, with the sacrifices and the rituals and the rules. It is so that they can be reminded themselves as they teach their children about their history, about how they were slaves in Egypt, how they were delivered for, watched over, and given this promised land. Children would be significantly important in this way, to God, and to the people.
Showing posts with label Water from the Rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Water from the Rock. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Nu. 20: Rock Water, Aaron Dead
Nu. 20:11 "Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank."
There's a lot going on Numbers 20. Two prophets die. Moses gets water from a rock, and is forbidden to lead Israel into the promised land. Edom makes a jerk of itself.
The first few verse sound a lot like Exodus 17, where Israel is mad about having to be in a desert and there being no water. Instead of wishing to be back in Egypt, the Israelites wish they had been struck down like their brothers, when God sent the plague. Brazen.
Furthermore, they ask Moses why they "bring the LORD's community into this desert." I find that the most telling quote from an Israelite to this point. It speaks on a couple levels...First off, that they think of themselves as pretty all right people. They are "the LORD's community." An amazing air of self-entitlement.
Secondly, that Moses is just dragging them around this desert with no regard to what the LORD wants. They were promised land. This promise was passed down from Abraham and was deeply engrained in their culture. Here they were, so close, and this clown Moses was getting them lost in the Sinai wilderness. Moses was deliberately trying to kill them off and keep them from getting was they assumed was theirs.
Thirdly that God and Moses are not communicating, and maybe Moses is spreading rumors to God about the people. Would God not know what was going on?
To solve the "no water" problem, God tells Moses to take his staff, speak to a big rock out there, and that water would pour out.
Moses goes for it, but in his anger at the Israelites, Moses strikes the rock. Not once, twice. Water poured out anyway, even though Moses disobeyed God. Moses' error did not further antagonize the Israelites.
Oh, Moses. Why would you hit the rock? It worked last time, but this time you disobeyed. He rebelled against God at the same time he called the Israelites "rebels" in verse 10. It seems like a very unjust punishment on Moses to not be able to lead the Israelites into the land God promised. God says Moses did not honor Him as holy in the sight of the Israelites. Its sad, I can only guess at the degree of schadenfreude the Israelites must have felt to see Moses get chewed out by God as they watered their livestock. Whoever was going to lead Israel into the promised land was apparently going to have to be more holy than Moses. The waters again were called Meribah, as they were in Exodus.
Moses tries to bring the Israelites through Edom (who were the people descended from Esau). Even thought Israel promises to mind its own business, Edom refused to let them go through their land, even threatening military intervention. A couple things strike me here. First, it must have been engrained in Edom's culture how Jacob deceived their father. Secondly, if Israel needed to go somewhere, it would seem that God could help them overcome any army. Israel avoided war for some reason in this situation. Perhaps it was because it was their brother nation?
Aaron dies at the end of Numbers 20, and Eleazar, Aaron's son, takes over as the high priest. He was gathered to his people, whatever that means. And the only thing I can think of is that he goes to wherever his ancestors are. It is apparent even here that death isn't the end of the person. Korah and his family simply went into "the grave." The people who died previously still exist at some level, and I don't really yet know what that entails. They will be together, apparently, wherever it is they are.
There's a lot going on Numbers 20. Two prophets die. Moses gets water from a rock, and is forbidden to lead Israel into the promised land. Edom makes a jerk of itself.
The first few verse sound a lot like Exodus 17, where Israel is mad about having to be in a desert and there being no water. Instead of wishing to be back in Egypt, the Israelites wish they had been struck down like their brothers, when God sent the plague. Brazen.
Furthermore, they ask Moses why they "bring the LORD's community into this desert." I find that the most telling quote from an Israelite to this point. It speaks on a couple levels...First off, that they think of themselves as pretty all right people. They are "the LORD's community." An amazing air of self-entitlement.
Secondly, that Moses is just dragging them around this desert with no regard to what the LORD wants. They were promised land. This promise was passed down from Abraham and was deeply engrained in their culture. Here they were, so close, and this clown Moses was getting them lost in the Sinai wilderness. Moses was deliberately trying to kill them off and keep them from getting was they assumed was theirs.
Thirdly that God and Moses are not communicating, and maybe Moses is spreading rumors to God about the people. Would God not know what was going on?
To solve the "no water" problem, God tells Moses to take his staff, speak to a big rock out there, and that water would pour out.
Moses goes for it, but in his anger at the Israelites, Moses strikes the rock. Not once, twice. Water poured out anyway, even though Moses disobeyed God. Moses' error did not further antagonize the Israelites.
Oh, Moses. Why would you hit the rock? It worked last time, but this time you disobeyed. He rebelled against God at the same time he called the Israelites "rebels" in verse 10. It seems like a very unjust punishment on Moses to not be able to lead the Israelites into the land God promised. God says Moses did not honor Him as holy in the sight of the Israelites. Its sad, I can only guess at the degree of schadenfreude the Israelites must have felt to see Moses get chewed out by God as they watered their livestock. Whoever was going to lead Israel into the promised land was apparently going to have to be more holy than Moses. The waters again were called Meribah, as they were in Exodus.
Moses tries to bring the Israelites through Edom (who were the people descended from Esau). Even thought Israel promises to mind its own business, Edom refused to let them go through their land, even threatening military intervention. A couple things strike me here. First, it must have been engrained in Edom's culture how Jacob deceived their father. Secondly, if Israel needed to go somewhere, it would seem that God could help them overcome any army. Israel avoided war for some reason in this situation. Perhaps it was because it was their brother nation?
Aaron dies at the end of Numbers 20, and Eleazar, Aaron's son, takes over as the high priest. He was gathered to his people, whatever that means. And the only thing I can think of is that he goes to wherever his ancestors are. It is apparent even here that death isn't the end of the person. Korah and his family simply went into "the grave." The people who died previously still exist at some level, and I don't really yet know what that entails. They will be together, apparently, wherever it is they are.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Ex. 17: Drink Struck Rock, Amalekites Get Doomed
In Chapter 17, there are a couple of very interesting stories. The first is how the Israelites get fresh water from a rock, and the second is the Israelites' first big military victory.
In the middle of the Israelites' wandering, they set up camp at a place called Rephidim. Great place to set up camp, Israel, there's no water there. So what do they do? Freak out and get mad at Moses. Of course. They set their requests too low. They don't really recognize at this point that it isn't by Moses' power that they are fed or able to drink fresh water.
Again with the melodrama. Again with the pining to be back in Egypt.
And Moses, losing his cool, cries out to God, saying, "Help, these people are ready to stone me! What do I do?"
God instructs Moses to take up the same staff with which he struck the Nile back in chapter 7, bring some of the elders out to this rock at Horeb, and strike the rock. God, who will be standing there with him, will cause potable water to flow from the rock. He was probably invisible, or in His cloud. What an amazing miracle! This rock, probably fairly big since it was named "the rock at Horeb," bursts forth with a spring of water that everyone can drink. Awesome stuff. God didn't just make water come up from the ground. Moses had to hit a rock with a stick. Why is that? Couldn't God have just done the underground water thing? I wonder why God chose to go through a man. And water poured out. A lifesaving water. From the rock.
Moses called this place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested God.
God was among them.
Verse 8 begins the second half of the chapter with Israel under attack from the Amalekites (the same Amalekites who were defeated by the king of Elam in Gen. 14:7). Apparently the Amalekites were not too fond of Israel settling there in Rephidim, temporary as it may have been. So Moses goes and finds a man named Joshua to raise an army to fight them.
As Joshua and his men fight the Amalekites, Moses stands on a hill above the battle. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites would be winning. But whenever Moses lowered his hands, the Israelites would begin to lose. How completely weird. Why would it be like this? Moses raises his hands, I don't know if it was a touchdown type of pose or perhaps it was more like his arms were outstretched from his sides, like a "T." When the hands are lowered, Israel faces defeat. One can only speculate.
Anyway, as you'd expect, Moses arms get tired eventually, so Aaron and Hur (I don't know who Hur is yet, I just met him now) get a rock for him to sit on, and then hold his hands up until sunset, giving Joshua enough time to put the Amalekite army to the sword. Victory in battle comes through someone else's actions and power.
God wants this series of events remembered, so he instructs Moses to write it all down on a scroll as such, and to make sure Joshua knows about it, which may be what we are reading here. The name of Amalek will be completely blotted out from under heaven. Was this the son of Esau in Genesis 36:12? Amalekites existed before then though, too. Scary stuff though, to have God say He would blot your name out from under heaven. There's no reason to carry on at this point. And why weren't the Egyptians subject to this kind of fate? Sure, they lost their entire army, but they held the Israelites in cruel bondage for 430 years. God deals with certain people differently at His will, apparently.
Moses' altar to the LORD here is called "The LORD is my Banner." Moses said there was a precedent set here. With the hands lifted up to Him, God will be at war with the Amalekites from now on.
In the middle of the Israelites' wandering, they set up camp at a place called Rephidim. Great place to set up camp, Israel, there's no water there. So what do they do? Freak out and get mad at Moses. Of course. They set their requests too low. They don't really recognize at this point that it isn't by Moses' power that they are fed or able to drink fresh water.
Again with the melodrama. Again with the pining to be back in Egypt.
And Moses, losing his cool, cries out to God, saying, "Help, these people are ready to stone me! What do I do?"
God instructs Moses to take up the same staff with which he struck the Nile back in chapter 7, bring some of the elders out to this rock at Horeb, and strike the rock. God, who will be standing there with him, will cause potable water to flow from the rock. He was probably invisible, or in His cloud. What an amazing miracle! This rock, probably fairly big since it was named "the rock at Horeb," bursts forth with a spring of water that everyone can drink. Awesome stuff. God didn't just make water come up from the ground. Moses had to hit a rock with a stick. Why is that? Couldn't God have just done the underground water thing? I wonder why God chose to go through a man. And water poured out. A lifesaving water. From the rock.
Moses called this place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested God.
God was among them.
Verse 8 begins the second half of the chapter with Israel under attack from the Amalekites (the same Amalekites who were defeated by the king of Elam in Gen. 14:7). Apparently the Amalekites were not too fond of Israel settling there in Rephidim, temporary as it may have been. So Moses goes and finds a man named Joshua to raise an army to fight them.
As Joshua and his men fight the Amalekites, Moses stands on a hill above the battle. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites would be winning. But whenever Moses lowered his hands, the Israelites would begin to lose. How completely weird. Why would it be like this? Moses raises his hands, I don't know if it was a touchdown type of pose or perhaps it was more like his arms were outstretched from his sides, like a "T." When the hands are lowered, Israel faces defeat. One can only speculate.
Anyway, as you'd expect, Moses arms get tired eventually, so Aaron and Hur (I don't know who Hur is yet, I just met him now) get a rock for him to sit on, and then hold his hands up until sunset, giving Joshua enough time to put the Amalekite army to the sword. Victory in battle comes through someone else's actions and power.
God wants this series of events remembered, so he instructs Moses to write it all down on a scroll as such, and to make sure Joshua knows about it, which may be what we are reading here. The name of Amalek will be completely blotted out from under heaven. Was this the son of Esau in Genesis 36:12? Amalekites existed before then though, too. Scary stuff though, to have God say He would blot your name out from under heaven. There's no reason to carry on at this point. And why weren't the Egyptians subject to this kind of fate? Sure, they lost their entire army, but they held the Israelites in cruel bondage for 430 years. God deals with certain people differently at His will, apparently.
Moses' altar to the LORD here is called "The LORD is my Banner." Moses said there was a precedent set here. With the hands lifted up to Him, God will be at war with the Amalekites from now on.
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