Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Bible Book

["GENESIS 49 See also: The Fall 30\u201335 \u25a0 The Flood 40\u201341 \u25a0 The Ten Plagues 70\u201371 \u25a0 The Fall of Jericho 98\u201399 will not destroy the cities if He finds at least ten good people within them. God\u2019s wrath Fire engulfs the sinful while Lot, Cities of sin The story moves to the city of a \u201crighteous\u201d man, makes his escape Sodom, where Lot, Abraham\u2019s with his wife and two daughters Sodom and Gomorrah are nephew, invites two angel- in The Destruction of Sodom and not the only sinful cities in strangers to stay at his home Gomorrah, by John Martin, 1852. the Bible. Other debauched rather than in the town\u2019s square. or lawless settlements include Lot prepares a meal for the angels, The angels warn Lot not to look the other three cities of the \u201cbaking bread without yeast,\u201d back, but Lot\u2019s wife glances behind \u201cValley of Siddim\u201d (Admah, foreshadowing the hasty meal the her and is turned to a pillar of salt. Zeboiim, and Zoar), Edom, Israelites prepare when they flee and Jerusalem. States such Egypt (Exodus 12:8). Saving the penitent as Egypt and Assyria are The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah also censured for their lack Later that night, the men of is traditionally considered to be of morality and disregard for Sodom arrive at Lot\u2019s door and ask: homosexuality, giving rise to the God\u2019s laws. \u201cWhere are the men who came to word \u201csodomy.\u201d However, passages you tonight? Bring them out to us about the cities\u2019 sins focus on These cities of sin were so that we can have sex with them\u201d the abandonment of justice and held up as dramatic warnings (19:5). Refusing the men\u2019s request, neglect of the poor (Isaiah 3:8\u201315 about the terrifying power of Lot offers his two virgin daughters and Ezekiel 16:48\u201350). More God\u2019s wrath. The book of to the crowd instead, but the men significant is what the story reveals Revelation describes the refuse Lot\u2019s offer and try to break about God\u2019s judgments and His destruction of the city of down the door. The angels strike relationship with Abraham. God Babylon at the end of time, the crowd with blindness. They considers the evidence before noting that \u201cthe smoke from warn Lot and his family that God making judgment and allows her goes up for ever and ever\u201d is about to destroy the city. Abraham to bargain with Him. God (19:3). This is a direct is prepared to reward the righteous reference to the smoke from Lot flees from Sodom with only and save the penitent. Nonetheless, fire and brimstone (sulfur) his wife, two daughters, and the His judgment is final: the cities of that rose up from the cities of angels. God rains down fire and sin are not spared. \u25a0 Sodom and Gomorrah during brimstone to destroy the two cities. their destruction. The day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Luke 17:29","50 IN BRIEF NFTEHOAWARTIGYKOONUDOW PASSAGE Genesis 16:1\u201322:19 GENESIS 22:12, THE TESTING OF ABRAHAM THEME Sacrifice SETTING Early 2nd millennium bce Beersheba and the region of Moriah, a three-day donkey ride from Beersheba. KEY FIGURES Abraham Son of Terah, \u201can ordinary man,\u201d who becomes father of Ishmael and Isaac. Sarah Abraham\u2019s wife, mother of Isaac. Hagar Sarah\u2019s maidservant and mother of Abraham\u2019s first-born son Ishmael. Isaac Son of Abraham and Sarah. T he demand God makes of Abraham\u2014to sacrifice his own son\u2014is one of the most extreme tests of faith in the Bible. The fact that Abraham\u2019s son Isaac is the long-awaited child of promise makes the sacrifice even harder to fulfill. At the start of Abraham\u2019s story, when God first tells him to set out into the unknown, he promises to make of him \u201ca great nation,\u201d implying Abraham will have many descendants. He later promises Abraham offspring as numerous as the \u201cdust of the earth.\u201d Despite God\u2019s promises, after many years of marriage Abraham and his wife Sarah remain childless. When Abraham complains to God about his plight, God\u2019s reply is to tell him","GENESIS 51 See also: Origin of Prayer 38\u201339 \u25a0 The Raising of Lazarus 226\u201327 \u25a0 The Nature of Faith 236\u201341 \u25a0 The Crucifixion 258\u201365 \u25a0 Salvation through Faith 301 Sarah presents Hagar, her Egyptian maidservant, to Abraham, in a 1743 painting of the event by Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain. Sarah hopes Hagar will conceive a child by Abraham. to look up at the night sky: his whom you love\u2014Isaac\u2014and go act of faith and set out on another descendants would be as numerous to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice journey into the unknown by as the stars. Abraham\u2019s belief in him there as a burnt offering on a making this second sacrifice. God is firm, but when there is no mountain I will show you\u201d (Genesis child, in desperation, Sarah 22:2). The description of Isaac as As before, Abraham is prompt proposes her maidservant Hagar Abraham\u2019s \u201conly son,\u201d even though to obey God. Rising early the next as a surrogate. Through this union, he has another son, Ishmael, morning, he saddles his donkey, Abraham gains a son\u2014Ishmael\u2014 underlines Isaac\u2019s role as the cuts some wood to make a fire but Sarah remains childless. inheritor of Abraham\u2019s covenant for the burnt offering, chooses with God. For Christians, God two young followers to accompany Then, at long last, with Sarah asking Abraham to kill his \u201conly him and Isaac, and sets off from well past normal childbearing age, son\u201d mirrors God\u2019s later sacrifice Beersheba. After three days\u2019 the miracle happens: Isaac is born. of His own son, Jesus. traveling, they see in the distance This is the child through whom the the place chosen by God for the whole world would be blessed. God\u2019s use of the imperative sacrifice. Father and son bid \u201cgo\u201d occurs in only one other farewell to the two followers and The child Isaac place in the Bible: when God tells set out on the last lap of their When Isaac is old enough to carry Abraham to \u201cgo\u201d from his father\u2019s journey alone. The two of them heavy loads and ask questions, God house and country to the land of \u201cwent on together\u201d (22:6). makes an astonishing demand of Canaan (12:1)\u2014a huge personal Abraham. God calls Abraham, who sacrifice. The now elderly Abraham In a touching gesture of fatherly replies, \u201cHere I am,\u201d the usual reply (according to Genesis, he is 100 care, Abraham gives Isaac the to a divine call in the Bible. God years old when Isaac is born) is wood to carry, while he himself says, \u201cTake your son, your only son, being asked to perform another takes the more dangerous flame torch (or perhaps firestone) and knife. The silence as they walk is \u276f\u276f By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. Hebrews 11:17","52 THE TESTING OF ABRAHAM easy to imagine. After a while, shows that despite the enormity A 6th-century mosaic in the Basilica however, Isaac speaks. \u201cFather?\u201d God asks, he still trusts God to of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, depicts he asks. \u201cHere I am,\u201d replies provide for him. Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham for the second time in the Three angels are in attendance and story. \u201cThe fire and wood are here,\u201d When father and son reach the Sarah hovers in the background. says Isaac, \u201cbut where is the lamb designated place, Abraham builds for the burnt offering?\u201d Abraham an altar from stones, takes the from the Hebrew Akedat Yizhak, replies, \u201cGod himself will provide wood his son has been carrying, \u201cbinding of Isaac\u201d\u2014and places the lamb for the burnt offering, my and places it on top of the altar. He him on top of the wood ready for son\u201d (22:8). Abraham\u2019s speech here binds Isaac\u2014hence the Jewish the sacrifice. name for the story, the Akedah, Abraham reaches out his hand Offerings to the Lord womb among the Israelites and takes the knife to start the belongs to me, whether human process. At this moment, a voice Burnt offerings were common or animal,\u201d the Lord tells Moses cries urgently to him from heaven: to most ancient religions in the in Exodus 13:1. Scholars believe \u201cAbraham! Abraham!\u201d For the Middle East. The meat was the ancient Israelites, in third time in the story, Abraham burned on an altar, its smoke common with neighboring replies, \u201cHere I am,\u201d the repetition rising as a pleasing odor to the peoples, such as the Phoenicians highlighting his unwavering deity or deities. Once religious and Egyptians, practiced child faithfulness. \u201cDo not lay a hand on rituals had become established sacrifice, though it had ceased the boy,\u201d says the voice. \u201cDo not do among the Israelites, such among the Israelites by the 7th anything to him. Now I know that offerings were made morning or 6th century bce. Instead, you fear God, because you have not and evening in the Jerusalem parents made burnt offerings withheld from me your son, your Temple, along with offerings of of animals to \u201credeem\u201d their only son\u201d (22:12). To fear God in the grain and drink. The Israelites firstborn sons. There is an echo Bible is not so much an emotion of also believed that firstborn of the abolition of child sacrifice terror, but rather a profound respect males should be offered to God: among the Israelites in the story for God, implying obedience and \u201cThe first offspring to open the of Abraham and Isaac. trust. Many Hebrew words for fear","the entire world through them. After GENESIS 53 receiving the blessing, Abraham rejoins his followers and they make Festivals of their way home. remembrance Through your offspring A symbolic death Both Jews and Muslims all nations on earth will Some commentators view the celebrate annual festivals ordeal of Isaac as an initiation that remember Abraham\u2019s be blessed, because rite involving a symbolic process willingness to sacrifice his you have obeyed me. of death and rebirth. In many son: for Jews, it is Rosh cultures across the world, young Hashanah, the Jewish New Genesis 22:18 men are put through an ordeal in Year, and for Muslims, the which it seems, for a while, they festival of Eid al-Adha. At also mean reverence and respect. will die. The purpose of the shock Rosh Hashanah, the Akedah, Abraham\u2019s trust and obedience and terror of this experience is to or Binding of Isaac, in Genesis shows he respects God\u2019s will. prepare them for real death when 22, is one of the key Torah it comes. It also creates a rupture readings for the feast. It is Earlier, Abraham told Isaac that with childhood. Through their also invoked in one of the God would provide a lamb for their symbolic death and rebirth, the feast\u2019s special prayers. In this, burnt offering. The Hebrew for young men leave their parents God is asked to remember the \u201cprovide\u201d is the same as the word and infancy behind to take on \u201cmerciful promise\u201d he made for \u201csee.\u201d When Abraham looks up, the responsibilities of adulthood. to Abraham on Mount Moriah he sees a ram in a nearby thicket. where Abraham \u201csuppressed Abraham takes the ram and offers it In many ways, the story of his fatherly love in order to do in place of his son. Genesis tells us Isaac\u2019s near-sacrifice fits this Your will.\u201d The ritual blowing that he named the place \u201cThe Lord pattern. Father and son both of the shofar, or ram\u2019s-horn will provide\u201d (22:14)\u2014suggesting a undergo an ordeal. For Abraham trumpet, is linked to the ram. place where God revealed himself, it is the last test in a life of faith or let himself be seen. and obedience to God, leading to For Muslims, Eid al-Adha a culminating blessing or covenant. (\u201cFestival of the Sacrifice\u201d) Multitude of blessings After this, his life\u2019s journey is nearly commemorates Abraham\u2019s So far, God has blessed Abraham done. The blessing passes to Isaac, unconditional submission to six times in Genesis. The voice the next link in the patriarchal and God, but in Islam it is Ishmael, from heaven now pronounces God\u2019s covenantal chain. \u25a0 ancestor of the Arabs, rather seventh and final blessing upon than Isaac whom Abraham him: \u201cI swear by myself, declares And the scripture was must sacrifice. the Lord, that because you have fulfilled that says, \u201cAbraham done this and have not withheld Hands decorated with henna bid your son, your only son, I will believed God, and it people Eid Mubarak (blessed Eid) surely bless you.\u201d The covenant was credited to him as on Eid al-Adha in India. On this contained in the blessing is righteousness,\u201d and he was day, Muslims sacrifice a lamb to threefold. Yet again, God swears commemorate Abraham\u2019s to make Abraham\u2019s offspring called God\u2019s friend. willingness to obey God\u2019s numerous, \u201cas numerous as the James 2:23 command and sacrifice his son. stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore\u201d (22:17). God promises to give Abraham\u2019s descendants victory in the face of their enemies. In addition, God promises to bless","54 BMYOOAUWY ANDNAOTDWIOPNENOSTPOSLEYEROSVUE GENESIS 27:29, ESAU AND JACOB IN BRIEF two peoples from within you will are not stated, though some be separated, one people will be scholars suggest she is the PASSAGE stronger than the other, and the instrument of God, whose plan for Genesis 25:25\u201329:28 older will serve the younger.\u201d Jacob was revealed to her during her pregnancy. She tells Jacob to THEME According to Genesis 25:25, slaughter two kids from their flock, The power of blessing Esau was the firstborn (\u201cthe first which she will cook. Jacob should to come out was red, and his whole then take the dish to his near-blind SETTING body was like a hairy garment\u201d), father, pretending to be Esau. Second millennium bce but Jacob followed promptly, his Before he does this, she covers Beersheba and Haran. hand clinging to his brother\u2019s heel. his hands and neck with goatskin The boys grow up to be different to make him feel hairy like Esau. KEY FIGURES characters: Esau is a hunter; Jacob The deceit works: Jacob receives Isaac Son of Abraham is quieter. Once, when Esau returns his father\u2019s blessing. and Sarah. from hunting, he finds his brother cooking a stew. When Esau asks for Shortly after this, Esau returns Rebekah The wife of Isaac. some, Jacob agrees on the condition and discovers he has been cheated, that Esau surrenders his birthright\u2014 but the blessing has already been Esau The older twin brother an elder son\u2019s entitlement to a of Jacob. double portion of any inheritance. Too hungry to care, Esau agrees. Jacob The younger twin of Esau. The favorite son I am with you and will Esau is Isaac\u2019s favorite son, Jacob watch over you wherever Laban Rebekah\u2019s brother. his mother\u2019s. When Isaac is old, you go \u2026 I will not leave you almost blind, and near death, he until I have done what I T he story of Esau and Jacob tells Esau to go out and hunt some involves sibling rivalry, game. Esau must then cook the have promised to you. favoritism, and deceit. meat and take the dish to Isaac so Genesis 28:15 The twin sons of Isaac and that he may bless his favorite son, Rebekah have been fighting since a deathbed ritual believed to confer they were in the womb. \u201cTwo God\u2019s presence and protection on nations are in your womb,\u201d God the recipient. Overhearing this tells the pregnant Rebekah, \u201cand exchange, Rebekah wants Jacob to receive the blessing. Her reasons","GENESIS 55 See also: The Testing of Abraham 50\u201353 \u25a0 Jacob Wrestles with God 56\u201357 \u25a0 The Psalms 138\u201343 \u25a0 Sermon on the Mount 204\u201309 \u25a0 The Trinity 298\u201399 given, so cannot be revoked. In Isaac, will extend to him and his Women in Genesis his fury, Esau vows to murder offspring. They will be as numerous Jacob once their father is dead. as the \u201cdust of the earth,\u201d a blessing The four Jewish matriarchs to the whole world. Jacob, a younger in Genesis\u2014Sarah, Rebekah, Jacob\u2019s ladder son who has deceived his brother, Rachel, and Leah\u2014are noted Warned by his mother, Jacob flees receives God\u2019s favor. for their faith and dedication under the guise of finding a wife to God. Even though they among their own people. He heads Laban tricks Jacob struggle to conceive children, for Haran, where Rebekah\u2019s brother However, Jacob\u2019s behavior is they keep faith in God\u2019s plan Laban lives. One night on the punished, and also by a trick. When and acknowledge His role in journey, he has a dream in which Jacob arrives at his uncle Laban\u2019s continuing Abraham\u2019s lineage he sees angels ascending and house, he falls in love with his by granting them miraculous descending a stairway between cousin Rachel. Laban promises him pregnancies, even well past Earth and heaven. God is present her hand in marriage after seven normal childbearing age. in this symbolic bond of the divine years. However, at the end of this and the human. He assures Jacob time, Laban substitutes his eldest Yet the women of Genesis of protection and promises that the daughter Leah at the ceremony. are not passive. They are covenant made with Jacob\u2019s Jacob must work another seven catalysts. Eve sets the history grandfather, Abraham, and father, years to marry Rachel. \u25a0 of humankind in motion when she defies God\u2019s command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and women continually determine who will inherit God\u2019s promise to Abraham: Sarah secures the succession of her son Isaac when she persuades Abraham to expel Hagar and her son Ishmael, and Rebekah engineers for Jacob to receive his father\u2019s blessing instead of his older brother Esau. Esau sells his birthright to Jacob, an impetuous act depicted in one of a series of biblical paintings, c.1860\u201380, by Lady Waterford for Waterford Hall, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, England.","56 BWYOEIULJLRACNNOOABMLEONGER GENESIS 32:28, JACOB WRESTLES WITH GOD IN BRIEF W hen Jacob\u2019s growing However, a dream in which God wealth as a herdsman warns Laban not to \u201csay anything PASSAGE incurs the jealousy of to Jacob\u201d tempers his response. Genesis 31:1\u201333:7 Laban\u2019s sons, who think it is at When Laban asks for the return of their father\u2019s expense, God tells his teraphim, Jacob allows his THEME Jacob to go back to Canaan, \u201cthe uncle to search their tents. The birth of Israel land of your fathers\u201d (Genesis 31:3). Jacob calls his wives Leah and Hearing this, Rachel hides the SETTING Rachel (Laban\u2019s daughters) to tell teraphim in her camel saddle and Second millennium bce them they must leave. He says how sits on it. When Laban searches her Haran and Peniel. God has always been with him, tent, she excuses herself for not enabled him to prosper, and never standing, on the pretense that she KEY FIGURES allowed Laban to do him harm. is menstruating. Jacob chastises Jacob Son of Isaac and Leah and Rachel support Jacob Laban for his lack of trust, and the Rebekah and younger and tell him that \u201call the wealth brother of Esau. that God took away from our father belongs to us and our children\u201d Laban Uncle of Jacob and (31:16). They tell Jacob to do Esau and father of Jacob\u2019s everything that God has told him. wives Leah and Rachel. Return to Canaan Jacob Wrestles with an Angel Leah The eldest daughter Together with his wives and by Edward Jakob von Steinle, 1837, of Laban and Jacob\u2019s first wife. servants, Jacob prepares to escape shows Jacob evenly matched with and sends his livestock on ahead. the mysterious stranger in the place Rachel The second daughter Unbeknownst to Jacob, his second Jacob called Peniel\u2014\u201cthe face of God.\u201d of Laban and Jacob\u2019s second wife Rachel steals Laban\u2019s precious and favorite wife. heirloom idols, known as teraphim, and packs them for their journey. The unknown stranger Three days after Jacob\u2019s escape, A mysterious figure believed Laban discovers that the teraphim to be an angel or God himself. are missing and that Jacob has fled. Furious, he pursues Jacob for Esau The elder brother seven days before catching up with of Jacob. them in the hill country of Gilead.","See also: Covenants 44\u201347 \u25a0 The Ten Commandments 78\u201383 \u25a0 GENESIS 57 Entering the Promised Land 96\u201397 \u25a0 The Fall of Jerusalem 128\u201331 Twelve Tribes of Israel two form a covenant before God, God tells Jacob to making a sacrifice. Jacob promises return to Canaan. During his years of self- never to treat his wives poorly, or imposed exile, Jacob prospers take another wife besides Laban\u2019s Laban pursues Jacob but both in terms of wealth and in two daughters. God tells him not to the number of children born harm him. to his wives and concubines. The wrestling match Nearing Canaan, Jacob His first wife, Leah, bears As Jacob approaches Canaan, he six sons\u2014Reuben, Simeon, receives word that his estranged asks God for protection Levi, Judah, Issachar, and brother Esau is advancing to meet from Esau. Zebulun\u2014while Rachel, his him with 400 men. Shaken by the favorite wife, who struggles news, Jacob sends gifts of camels, A stranger wrestles to conceive, gives birth to sheep, goats, and cattle to pacify all night with Jacob, Joseph and Benjamin, the last his brother. He then has his wives child causing her to die in and sons escorted across the ford who eventually childbirth. In addition, Bilhah, of the Jabbok, while he ruminates triumphs. Rachel\u2019s handmaiden, and on the situation on the sands. Zilpah, Leah\u2019s servant, each The stranger blesses Jacob give birth to two sons by What follows is one of the most and names him Israel, Jacob\u2014Dan, Naphtali, Gad, mysterious passages in the Old \u201cstruggles with God.\u201d and Asher. Testament. A stranger challenges Having received God\u2019s Jacob to wrestle. The ensuing blessing, Jacob enters Biblical tradition holds that struggle lasts the night, with the land of Canaan. these 12 sons, along with two neither party prevailing. Eventually, of Jacob\u2019s grandsons through at daybreak, Jacob\u2019s opponent Jacob\u2019s sons will found the Joseph, would form the 12 realizes that he cannot defeat Jacob. 12 tribes of Israel. tribes of Israel, or Israelites To bring the wrestling match to after the name given to Jacob a close, he touches the socket of by the stranger on the sands Jacob\u2019s hip, dislocating the bone. at Peniel. Despite the pain, Jacob refuses to release his hold until the stranger A mosaic represents the blesses him. In reply, the stranger 12 tribes of Israel descended from tells Jacob that his name will no Jacob. The 12 tribes will eventually longer be Jacob, but Israel (\u201cHe populate Canaan, the Promised struggles with God\u201d) because he Land, from the Wadi of Egypt to has struggled with both God and the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18). man and prevailed. The stranger blesses Jacob and vanishes. The next day, Jacob meets his brother Esau and bows down before him to signal that he means no harm. The two men are reconciled. Scholars dispute the identity of the stranger. Some say, following Hosea 12:3\u20134, that it was the Angel of the Lord; others that it was the spirit of Jesus Christ taking the form of a man. Still more say it was God Himself. \u25a0","58 IN BRIEF BHWWIESEHCAOWDTMRIWLEELAIOLMSFLSEE PASSAGE Genesis: 37:1\u201350:26 GENESIS 37:20, JOSEPH THE DREAMER THEME Dreams and their interpretation SETTING 2000\u20131600 bce Canaan and Egypt. KEY FIGURES Jacob A patriarch, who is also called Israel. Joseph Jacob\u2019s favorite son, born to Rachel. Reuben and Judah Joseph\u2019s half-brothers. Pharaoh Ruler of Egypt. Potiphar Captain of Pharaoh\u2019s guard. T he second youngest of Jacob\u2019s 12 sons, and the patriarch\u2019s favorite, Joseph is celebrated in Genesis as a dreamer. Through keeping faith with the messages of his divinely inspired dreams, Joseph rises to become chief adviser to the Egyptian Pharaoh and brings his family, destined to found the 12 tribes of Israel, into Egypt. Joseph\u2019s story is a continuation of the history of the Israelites\u2019 ancestry, with divine calls and promises, but God is less obviously present than in earlier stories. Here, the emphasis is on the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation. The meaning of dreams From a young age, Joseph believes that his dreams contain messages about future events. However, his","GENESIS 59 See also: Covenants 44\u201347 \u25a0 Esau and Jacob 54\u201355 \u25a0 Jacob Wrestles with God 56\u201357 \u25a0 The Wisdom of Solomon 120\u201323 \u25a0 Daniel in Babylon 164\u201365 Prophetic dreams in the Bible God employs dreams and visions throughout the Bible as a way of revealing and furthering his divine plan. These dreams act as a bridge between God and man. In Genesis 15:1, as Abraham falls into a deep sleep, God uses a vision to restate His covenant with Abraham. Later on in the Old Testament, Samuel, Solomon, and Daniel are all noted dreamers. Samuel has his first vision as a young boy in 1 Samuel: 3, when \u201cthe Word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions,\u201d and in 1 Kings: 3:5, Solomon dreams that God invites him to choose a gift (Solomon asks for a discerning heart to help him \u201cdistinguish between right and wrong.\u201d) In Daniel 7, Daniel is terrified by a vision of four great beasts that represent four future kingdoms, which will only give way to the Son of Man. A composite illustration from a them. Their unease is reinforced on them. The brothers decide to 13th-century illuminated manuscript when Joseph dreams that the take advantage of Joseph\u2019s visit to shows Joseph being lowered into a sun and moon, representing his the remote location to murder him cistern, being traded for 20 shekels father and mother, and 11 stars and thus prevent his dreams from of silver, and traveling to Egypt. (his brothers) pay homage to him. coming true. However, Reuben, Even Jacob is bemused by this and Jacob\u2019s firstborn, opposes this brothers see Joseph\u2019s narration of scolds Joseph: \u201cWhat is this dream proposal and argues against killing his dreams as boastful. In his first you had? Will your mother and I and Joseph outright. He recommends dream, Joseph sees himself and his your brothers actually come and that they strip Joseph of his ornate brothers binding sheaves of wheat bow down to the ground before coat, which is a gift from their in the fields. While his sheaf stands you?\u201d (Genesis 37:10). father, and throw him into a cistern upright, the sheaves of his brothers to die naturally. (Reuben secretly bow down before his sheaf. The Plot against Joseph plans to rescue Joseph when his unwelcome message of Joseph\u2019s In Genesis 37:13, when Joseph\u2019s brothers\u2019 backs are turned.) dream\u2014at least to his brothers\u2014is older brothers are out grazing their However, another brother, Judah, that Joseph is destined to rule over flocks, Jacob sends Joseph to check also troubled by the idea of killing \u276f\u276f","60 JOSEPH THE DREAMER Joseph\u2019s dream An upright sheaf of wheat is surrounded The cupbearer\u2019s dream A hand squeezes one of three by 11 others, which bow down before it. (Genesis 37:7) bunches of grapes into a goblet. (40:9\u201311) Pharaoh\u2019s Egypt their own flesh and blood, suggests As Joseph stays true to his faith selling Joseph to a passing group by resisting sexual temptation, Ancient Egypt was a sharply of Midianite traders for 20 silver God does not desert him in his segregated society. At the shekels. The brothers follow Judah\u2019s suffering. He is put in charge of the top stood the pharaoh, not plan and also dip Joseph\u2019s robe in other prisoners, and interprets the just as a king, but as an goat\u2019s blood to pretend to their dreams of two of them\u2014Pharaoh\u2019s incarnation of divine power. father that their brother has been chief cupbearer and head baker. Below the pharaoh came the killed by a wild animal. He tells them that in three days the nobles and then the priests; at baker will be put to death, while the bottom were the farmers Fortunes in Egypt the cupbearer will be pardoned. and slaves, the largest group. The Midianites sell Joseph on to When his predictions come true, Ishmaelites traveling to Egypt, Joseph asks the cupbearer to put in Although the country was who, in turn, sell him into slavery in a good word for him with Pharaoh, mainly desert, agriculture the house of Potiphar, the captain which he promises to do. along the Nile valley created of Pharaoh\u2019s guard. Joseph serves enormous wealth for ancient his master well and is soon in However, the cupbearer, unlike Egypt. The unusual fertility of charge of the entire household. God, is fallible and forgets his the Nile valley was due to the However, when Potpihar\u2019s wife promise until two years later, when akhet (the annual inundation), falsely accuses Joseph of seducing Pharaoh begins to have strange when the Nile floods. The silt her, Potiphar throws him in prison. dreams. In the first dream, seven left behind enriched the soil, sickly cows devour seven healthy leading to abundant harvests. ones as they graze beside the Nile. Tax on this bounty created In the second, seven sickly ears immense wealth for Pharaoh of grain swallow seven fat ones. and the nobles. At this point, the cupbearer remembers Joseph. Hearing the Hapi, the Nile god, and cupbearer\u2019s story, Pharaoh has Osiris, god of life, received Joseph brought before him. hymns and offerings to ensure the inundation. These gods Joseph is quick to explain the were among more than 2,000 meaning of Pharaoh\u2019s dream, while in ancient Egypt, including also being careful to stress that he Anubis, god of the underworld, Isis, goddess of love, and the Jacob is shown examining Joseph\u2019s sun god Ra. It is not known to blood-stained coat in a 19th-century what extent the Israelites in engraving. Refusing to be comforted, Egypt embraced these gods or Jacob says: \u201cI will continue to mourn stayed true to their one God. until I join my son in the grave\u201d (37:35).","GENESIS 61 The baker\u2019s dream The baker has three baskets of bread Pharaoh\u2019s dream Seven skinny cows devour seven sleek, on his head. Birds eat from the top one. (40:16\u201317) fat cows on the banks of the Nile. (41:4) is simply an instrument of God of need. \u201cGod sent me before you which is also chronicled in the and that the dreams are a sign of to preserve life,\u201d he pronounces Qur\u2019an, which regards him as a God\u2019s purpose. He tells Pharaoh in Genesis 45:5. Pharaoh allows prophet, illustrates the power of that his dreams signify seven years Joseph to bring Jacob and his forgiveness. Crucially for the next of plenty followed by seven years of people to Egypt, where they book in the Bible, the story also famine. He advises Pharaoh to store prosper. They remain there until, explains how the Israelites came supplies of grain during the years of generations later, a new pharaoh, to be in Egypt. \u25a0 plenty in order to use them later. \u201cto whom Joseph meant nothing\u201d Pharaoh takes Joseph\u2019s advice and (Exodus 1:8), comes to the throne. Joseph\u2019s success at interpreting appoints him as his chief adviser. Pharaoh\u2019s dream, shown in this 1894 Joseph devotes his life to painting by British artist Reginald The legacy of Joseph serving others. He always credits Arthur, leads to his appointment as Joseph\u2019s tale does not end here. God for his achievements and Pharaoh\u2019s chief adviser. Eventually, he is reconciled with remains faithful to Him. His story, his brothers, who, during the years of famine, are sent to Egypt by Jacob to buy grain. Joseph forgives his brothers, believing it is thanks to their earlier wrongdoings that he is able to feed them in their time The dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same. God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. Genesis 41:25","DEXEOUDTUESR","OTONOMY","64 INTRODUCTION Moses is born God sends ten Moses parts the God gives and set adrift in a plagues to Egypt Red Sea and the the Israelites Israelites escape instructions for basket on the in order to free Pharaoh\u2019s army. building the Ark River Nile. the Israelites and the Tabernacle. from slavery. EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS 2:1\u20133 7:14\u201312:30 14:1\u201331 25:10\u201327:20 EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS 3:1\u201322 12:31\u201342 19:17\u201320:26 32:1\u201320 A vision of God Moses leads the God delivers the The Israelites fashion appears to Exodus of the Ten Commandments and worship a golden Moses in a Israelites through calf, causing Moses to Moses, who burning bush. the desert. inscribes them on to destroy the stone tablets in anger. R esuming the story of the stone tablets. Israelites from Genesis, the books of Exodus, Leviticus, the Israelites\u2019 flight from Egypt. Other theories draw on the Amarna Numbers, and Deuteronomy follow No archaeological evidence has Letters, a correspondence on clay the liberation of the Israelites so far been found and there is no tablets sent by Pharaoh Akhenaten from slavery in Egypt under the historical record. The Bible does (1350s\u20131330s BCE) in Amarna, Upper guidance of Moses, their receipt not identify the pharaoh at the Egypt, to the rest of the Ancient of the Ten Commandments and time of the Exodus. This lack of Near East. They point to mentions other laws, and their journey to corroboration has led to a hunt for of a group of bandits called haipiru\/ the Promised Land. The central circumstantial evidence, such as haibiru, words similar to \u201cHebrew,\u201d message is one of deliverance the widespread migrations that that are to be driven from the land. through God\u2019s covenant with are known to have occurred in the Moses, a continuation of the eastern Mediterranean during the In 1939, Sigmund Freud, in divine promise begun in Genesis transition from the Bronze Age to his book Moses and Monotheism, and picked up through the Bible. the Iron Age in around 1200 BCE, proposed that Moses was a priest In Christianity, Jesus is seen a period when trade routes changed of Akhenaten\u2019s god, who introduced as a second Moses, who offers and civilizations collapsed. monotheism to Egypt. Despite salvation from death. this, attempts to link the Book of Some scholars link the Israelites Exodus to historical events have The Bible as history with the Hyksos, Semitic peoples proved futile. Scholars have long attempted to who ruled parts of Egypt in the link events in Exodus to historical 1600s BCE but were driven out by Monotheism is all sources in order to verify and date Thutmose III in the 1400s. The Central to the Book of Exodus is the 1st-century historian Josephus doctrine of monotheism, developed Flavius, keen to stress the antiquity from the Book of Genesis. However, of the Jews, supported this idea. the first of the Ten Commandments","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 65 Moses The Israelites Balaam and his Moses gathers records the Ten leave the desert donkey encounter the all of Israel and Commandments recites the Ten on stone tablets for of Sinai. angel of the Lord Commandments. the second time. in the road. EXODUS NUMBERS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY 34:1\u201327 10:11\u201336 22:21\u201341 5:1\u20138:20 LEVITICUS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY DETEURONOMY 8:1\u201336 14:33\u201335 4:39 31:1\u201334:12 Moses\u2019s brother God sentences Moses reminds Moses introduces Aaron and his the Israelites the Israelites Joshua as his sons are ordained to 40 years of that there are wandering in no gods except successor, blesses as priests. the desert. God Himself. the tribes of Israel, and dies. given to Moses on Mount Sinai, to Jewish tradition, the Book of (the Levites). The text of the \u201cYou shall have no other gods Deuteronomy was found in a dusty Pentateuch, or Torah, ends with before me,\u201d is ambiguous. Early corner of the Temple in the 7th Moses dying on the threshold of biblical scholars, convinced that century BCE. the Promised Land of Canaan. monotheism was not present from After his death, the Israelites, led the start of the Bible but developed Building a religion by Joshua, Moses\u2019s appointed over time, believed that this Whenever the Israelites ignore successor, are ready to retake the suggested henotheism, effectively God\u2019s laws, disaster ensues. When land promised to them by God a middle stage between polytheism they worship a false god in the from the polytheistic Canaanites. and monotheism in which one god form of the golden calf soon after is paramount among multiple gods. receiving the Ten Commandments, As religious scripture, the they are condemned to wander Torah is significant to Judaism, However, the text of the Book aimlessly through the desert Christianity, and Islam, and is of Deuteronomy (the \u201csecond law\u201d), for 40 years. During this time, highly influential on Western which follows Exodus, is clear. Not they formalize their religion, culture. For Jews, the Torah is only does it proclaim that there establishing its structure and the most important of the biblical is only one deity, but it establishes liturgy. The Tabernacle, built texts because it establishes God\u2019s a creed, the Shema (\u201chear\u201d), to according to God\u2019s instructions, is relationship with His Chosen reinforce the idea: \u201cHear, O Israel, a moveable version of the Temple People, while for Christians, Moses the Lord your God\u201d (Deuteronomy that will later be built by Solomon foreshadows the coming Messiah. 6:4), a daily declaration of belief. in Jerusalem, and Moses\u2019s brother In the Qur\u2019an, the Torah is referred Aaron founds a hereditary to as al-kitab (\u201cthe book\u201d) and Deuteronomy is a retelling of the priesthood through his bloodline Moses (Musa) is mentioned more Law, which sets out to reestablish times than any other prophet. \u25a0 the Mosaic covenant. According","66 IN BRIEF FBNTIHUOROSTEHUBIGTUWHRDANTISDHUOEPN PASSAGE Exodus 3:1\u20134:17 EXODUS 3:3, MOSES AND THE BURNING BUSH THEME Human inadequacy in the face of God SETTING 14th\u201313th century bce The foothills of Mount Horeb (also called Mount Sinai). KEY FIGURES Moses A descendant of Jacob through his son Levi, tasked by God with liberating the Israelites. He later becomes one of the greatest prophets. Aaron Brother of Moses. Initially more articulate and confident than his brother, he assists Moses in carrying out God\u2019s plan. T he story of God appearing to Moses as a burning bush illustrates not only His compassion toward His initially reluctant prophet, but also His ability to enact His will through ordinary individuals. Although Moses would become one of the most famous figures in the Old Testament by freeing the Israelites from 400 years of slavery in Egypt, at this point in the Bible\u2019s narrative he is an outcast. An Israelite raised in Egypt\u2019s royal court after an Egyptian princess found him floating in a basket, he fled to Midian (possibly in Sinai) after killing an Egyptian he found beating a Hebrew slave.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 67 See also: The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 The Ten Commandments 78\u201383 \u25a0 The Twelve Spies 88 \u25a0 Entering the Promised Land 96\u201397 the flames, his first reaction is one of dread: he hides his face, afraid to witness God. God, however, has a mission for Moses: He tells him that He has heard the crying of the Israelites in bondage and that He has chosen Moses to lead His people out of Egypt. Moses removes his shoes before Uncertain prophet The prophet Moses speaking with God in this 15th-century Moses demonstrates his human painting by Dieric Bouts the Elder. God frailty by demurring in the face Moses is one of the greatest commanded him to remove his sandals of God\u2019s request. He tells God that figures of the Bible\u2014a leader before entering holy ground. he is not the right person for the and lawgiver who is brought mission, fearing that neither up as an Egyptian prince, In Midian, Moses marries a local the Israelites nor the Egyptians becomes a social outcast, woman and becomes a shepherd. will listen to his entreaties. Moses and ultimately goes on to It is while he is tending his flock further complains that the Israelites become a leading prophet. beneath Horeb, the mountain of will not believe that God has shown After avoiding Pharaoh\u2019s God (also known as Mount Sinai), Himself to him, because he does slaughter of the Israelite that God first speaks to Moses. not know God\u2019s personal name. firstborn sons when his Spying a bush that is burning mother hides him in a basket without being consumed by the God is patient with Moses, on the Nile, he returns to his fire, Moses approaches the bush to mirroring the intimacy He has people as an adult to lead investigate the phenomenon. When previously shown to the individuals them out of slavery. After his God appears to Moses from within He chooses to carry out His will, initial reluctance, Moses not such as Abraham (see pp. 44\u201347). only becomes the liberator of He tells Moses \u201cI am who I am\u201d the Israelites, but shepherds (Exodus 3:14), indicating His them across the desert for perpetual omnipresence. To provide 40 years as their spiritual and further evidence of His almighty military leader. A figure of nature to both the Israelites and authority and justice, he to the Egyptians, He gives Moses adopts and enforces God\u2019s the power to perform three \u276f\u276f Ten Commandments. The symbolism behind Moses\u2019s journey The adoption of Moses Moses murders Moses becomes a God speaks by an Egyptian princess an Egyptian who is shepherd, anticipating to Moses from echoes Pharaoh\u2019s mistreating a Hebrew his role as a shepherd a burning bush, a promotion of Joseph slave, foreshadowing the of the Israelites in their symbol of God\u2019s in Genesis (41:41). punishment of Egypt. exodus from Egypt. everlasting presence.","68 MOSES AND THE BURNING BUSH miraculous acts. First, when shows His compassion by allowing St. Catherine\u2019s Monastery in Egypt Moses throws his staff (probably a Moses\u2019s brother, Aaron, a confident claims to be the place where Moses shepherd\u2019s crook) to the ground, it speaker, to assist him on his saw the burning bush. Founded in the becomes a snake. Second, when mission and make up for Moses\u2019s 6th century at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses puts his hand into his cloak shortcomings as an orator. God it is a UNESCO world heritage site. and then withdraws it, his hand tells Moses: \u201cI will help both of you appears leprous and white. When speak and teach you what to do\u201d preparing to return to Egypt with he repeats the action, the hand is (4:15). He then gives Moses another his wife and sons, taking the \u201cstaff restored to health. Third, God tells staff with which to perform of God in his hand\u201d (4:20). Moses that if he takes water from miraculous signs. the Nile and pours it on the ground, A holy site it will turn to blood. Moses must eventually agree The likely location of the episode of to God\u2019s election of him to lead the the burning bush has been greatly In spite of these miracles, Moses Israelites, because in verse 18, he is debated by biblical scholars. The remains reluctant. He blames his Hebrew word for bush\u2014and used lack of eloquence, saying \u201cI am slow in the narrative\u2014is seneh, which of speech and tongue\u201d (4:10). God is remarkably close to \u201cSinai\u201d and encourages Moses, telling him may be a pun, a common feature in that He will be with him and will ancient Hebrew texts. Seneh is also give him the right words to say. widely believed to be another name He entreats Moses to leave, but for Horeb (\u201cGod\u2019s mountain\u201d). The again, Moses refuses, and pleads: word \u201cHoreb\u201d is often interpreted \u201cLord, please send somebody else as \u201cheat,\u201d although others translate to do it\u201d (4:13). As in many Old it to mean \u201cdesert\u201d or \u201cdesolation,\u201d Testament stories, the servant fitting the isolated locations in God chooses to enact His will is which God often communicates not at first particularly worthy or with His chosen instrument. even willing. Moses\u2019s equivocation, indicative of human weakness, Although Mount Sinai is widely contrasts with the strength he later accepted as the location of the finds when he puts his trust in God. bush, some modern scholars insist that evidence points to other sites God eventually loses patience with Moses. His anger \u201cburns bright\u201d against him, yet He also The Kenites hypothesis,\u201d first proposed by the 19th-century German Moses is linked through his theologian Friedrich Wilhelm father-in-law Jethro to a tribe Ghillany, suggests that the known as the Kenites. This Hebrews adopted the cult of nomadic clan of coppersmiths Yahweh from the Midianites, and metalworkers played a key who had previously learned it role in the establishment of from the Kenites. In the story ancient Israel. Believed to be of the burning bush, when God descendants of Cain, many tells Moses \u201cI am what I am,\u201d members of the tribe settled this is translated from the among the Israelite peoples and Hebrew hayah, which in turn influenced their development. gives rise to the word yahweh. God\u2019s clarification to Moses is a Jethro, a shepherd and statement of his identity as the priest, lived in the land of God of the patriarchs and thus Midian, where \u201cYahweh\u201d was the God of the Israelites. historically a deity. The \u201cKenite","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 69 as far away as Hijaz (a region in There the angel of the different things for religious the northwest of modern Saudi Lord appeared to him institutions across the world. Arabia) or northern Arabah (west in flames of fire from The motto adopted by the Jordan). The monks of the Sacred Reformed Church of France, Monastery of the God-Trodden within a bush. \u201cFlagror non consumor\u201d (I am Mount Sinai (also known as Exodus 3:2 burned, I am not consumed), best St. Catherine\u2019s Monastery) are exemplifies the significance that adamant that their complex, in a flames extinguish themselves. the burning bush has acquired narrow valley at the foot of Mount It is possible that this natural in modern times. God is referred Sinai, in Egypt, was built on the phenomenon occurred regularly to elsewhere in the Bible as a site of the burning bush. However, on the plains of the ancient Holy \u201cconsuming fire\u201d (Deuteronomy 4:24 while this part of Egypt, which Land and would have been known and Hebrews 12:29), but the fact includes mountainous desert, is to the oral storytellers and early that the bush remains intact called the Sinai Peninsula due to scripture writers who shaped despite the fire can be interpreted this claim, there is little consensus the Old Testament. as representing God\u2019s infinite about which mountain is the Mount capacity for mercy. Sinai of the Bible. Whatever the explanations for the burning bush, it serves as a In Scotland, Ireland, Canada, The burning bush potent and highly visual symbol Australia, the Netherlands, and Some scholars believe that the of God\u2019s omnipresence. In the early a number of other countries, the inflammable plant Dictamnus books of the Bible, God appears in bush has become the adopted might have inspired the biblical a number of dramatic forms (known symbol of Presbyterian churches. account of Moses\u2019s election by God. as theophany), underlining His In the United States, the Jewish This flowering shrub, native to unique ability to appear in different Theological Seminary has adopted warm, open woodland habitats guises and circumstances. The the symbol with the accompanying and found throughout the Middle declaratory marvel of the burning phrase \u201cand the bush was not East, is covered with isoprene- bush is juxtaposed with Moses\u2019s consumed.\u201d In all cases, the based, volatile oils that can catch ambivalent attitude, reflecting the symbolism associated with the fire easily in hot weather. It is these difference between the divine and image suggests that the Church natural oils that burn\u2014enveloping the human. While God\u2019s reputation suffers yet lives on. \u25a0 the exterior of the entire plant\u2014 as the Almighty is emphasized and not the bush itself, which through the spectacle, Moses\u2019s is generally unharmed once the uncertainty demonstrates human weakness in the face of the divine. Earth\u2019s crammed with heaven, And every The burning bush is one of the common bush afire most dramatic symbols in the Bible with God. and has come to represent many Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poet (1806\u20131861) Dictamnus albus, shown here in a 16th-century manuscript dedicated to St. Mark, may have been the burning bush of Exodus. The plant is covered in a flammable oil used to heal snake bites.","70 IWANLTALSOTCBHHLEOAWONDGATEEDR EXODUS 7:20, THE TEN PLAGUES IN BRIEF T he ten plagues of Egypt by Pharaoh\u2019s advisers, God hardens occur at a time when Pharaoh\u2019s heart and he refuses PASSAGE the Israelites have been Moses\u2019s request. Exodus 7\u201310 enslaved in Egypt for around 400 years. With their trust in God The identity of this Pharaoh is THEME wavering, the plagues act as a a matter of conjecture among Divine intervention sign from God that reaffirms the scholars, since Exodus does not Israelites as His chosen people name him and there is no firm SETTING and shows His superior power agreement about the date of the 14th\u201313th century bce over the many gods worshipped Israelites\u2019 eventual escape from Egypt. by the Egyptians. The Fifth Plague of Egypt by J.M.W. KEY FIGURES On the instructions of God, Turner actually depicts the hailstorm The Israelites Followers of Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh of the seventh plague. The mistitled the patriarch Jacob, who are and ask him to free the Israelites. painting was Turner\u2019s first major work enslaved in Egypt. Although Moses is respected to be shown at the Royal Academy. Moses A future prophet, chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of captivity into the Promised Land. Aaron Moses\u2019s older brother, a Levite and skilled orator. Pharaoh Egyptian leader and enslaver of the Israelites.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 71 See also: Moses and the Burning Bush 66\u201369 \u25a0 The Passover 72\u201373 \u25a0 The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 The Twelve Spies 88 \u25a0 The Final Judgment 316\u201321 Evidence for the plagues The Ten Plagues Over the years, scientists have poisonous mycotoxins (fungal 1. Blood The Nile 2. Frogs Land, made many attempts to discover toxins) infecting the grain River turns to blood, houses, and people evidence for the ten plagues and supply in Egypt. so it is undrinkable. are covered in frogs. explain what caused them. Working in the 1950s, Danish In 2010, new theories of how academic Greta Hort was the the plagues could have resulted first to argue that the plagues from natural causes emerged. were the result of a chain of These included ideas that a shift natural catastrophes in Egypt. in the Egyptian climate from Later, in the 1990s, Hort\u2019s theory wet to dry was the trigger for was given further credibility the first plague, and that the by American epidemiologists penultimate three plagues were John S. Marr and Curtis Malloy, the result of a volcanic eruption who suggested that the tenth on the island of Santorini in plague could be attributed to Greece, causing a large ash cloud to spread across Egypt. Egypt. No record exists of this The plagues not only convince 3. Gnats The dust 4. Flies Swarms in Egyptian sources. Some scholars Pharaoh to free the Israelites, but throughout Egypt of flies cover date the Exodus to around 1446 bce, they also rekindle the Israelites\u2019 turns into gnats. Pharaoh\u2019s officials. which would place it during the faith in the Lord. These powerful 5. Livestock All 6. Boils People and reign of Thutmose III, while others acts demonstrate that the God the livestock of the animals break out say it may have happened as late of their fathers is worthy of worship Egyptians dies. in boils. as 1275 bce, during the reign and superior to the host of pagan 7. Hail A severe 8. Locusts All the of Ramesses II. Several other gods in Egypt, the most powerful hailstorm falls trees and plants are pharaohs have also been proposed. country in the region at that time. on Egypt. devoured by locusts. Plagues reappear as a symbol of 9. Darkness The 10. Firstborn All Plague follows plague God\u2019s wrath and judgment later in sky turns dark for the firstborn sons God\u2019s response to Pharaoh\u2019s refusal the Bible. They include the Seven three days. of the Egyptians die. to free the Israelites is to have Last Plagues that complete God\u2019s Moses summon a series of plagues wrath at the Final Judgment, to afflict the Egyptian people, described in Revelation by the culminating in the tenth and most Apostle John. calamitous: the slaying in a single night of all the firstborn male God\u2019s purpose children and animals of the There is little historical evidence Egyptians (see pp. 72\u201373). for the plagues. The one surviving Excluding this final plague, the document that may provide plagues come in sets of three, a evidence, the Ipuwer Papyrus, number often associated with describes scenes that could match divinity and used by the writers the Exodus story\u2014including a of Exodus as a device to build reference to a river of blood (the narrative tension and expectation. first plague)\u2014but scholars believe The first two plagues in each set that it was written between 1850 are preceded by a warning; the last and 1600 bce, preceding any of the is not. The gravity of the plagues proposed dates for the Exodus increases with each set. by several centuries. \u25a0","72 OWTYOHBHUASETEANRTSYVHHOEEEUTLHPEORINRSOTDCMEWREISRITELEHDLME,GOLINVAYEND EXODUS 12:25, THE PASSOVER IN BRIEF T he Jewish holiday of lambs and smear their blood over Passover commemorates the door frames of their houses, in PASSAGE the Israelites\u2019 deliverance order to distinguish their homes Exodus 12:25 from their Egyptian slavery. It also from those of the Egyptians. celebrates specifically how God THEME makes a distinction between The angel kills the oldest son Passover the Israelites and the Egyptians, of every family in Egypt, including sparing the Israelites from the Pharaoh\u2019s own offspring, the crown SETTING last\u2014and worst\u2014of the plagues. prince. It is this event that forms 14th\u201313th century bce the basis of the Passover holiday\u2014 Nile Delta. God\u2019s tenth plague against the Pesach\u2014celebrated annually by Egyptian people kills all of the Jewish families today, more than KEY FIGURES firstborn sons. In order not to harm 3,000 years later. Moses Leader of the Israelite the Israelites during this plague, people, who ensures that God\u2019s God instructs His Angel of Death, Origins and significance instructions are carried out to a destructive figure, to pass over Scholars are generally in agreement the letter. (hence the name of the holiday) the that, in line with standard biblical Israelites as it carries out His work. chronology, the Passover would Aaron Moses\u2019s older brother, God tells Moses and Aaron to have occurred around 1300 bce. who assists him in carrying instruct the Israelites to sacrifice Most also believe that the event out God\u2019s orders. derives from a protection rite When I see employed by nomadic shepherds as Pharaoh Leader of the the blood, I will they moved in search of pasture. Egyptians, who refuses to pass over you. heed Moses\u2019s warnings of Exodus 12:13 The blood of a lamb, sacrificed God\u2019s intentions. in a protective ritual, symbolized the life-giving power of God and protected the shepherds against any evil forces. The roasting and consumption of the lamb\u2019s meat\u2014part of God\u2019s very detailed instructions to the Israelites at the time of the first Passover\u2014would further seal the links between God and His people. The dramatic escape from Egypt gave this","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 73 See also: The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 The Ten Commandments 78\u201383 \u25a0 Entering the Promised Land 96\u201397 ancient rite a whole new meaning, Passover is also known as the Feast Pesach and Judaism as it came to commemorate the of Unleavened Bread, and during victory of the Israelites\u2019 God over this time Jews discard all traces of The Hebrew name for Egyptian gods and God\u2019s ongoing yeast from their homes and eat Passover, \u201cPesach\u201d is one covenant with His chosen people. entirely unleavened foods. God of the most important Jewish also prescribes the eating of bitter holidays. As with two other God tells the Israelites to take herbs during Passover as a symbol major holidays, Shavuot and part in the ritual of the Passover of the Israelites\u2019 bitter lives as Sukkot, Pesach originally when they enter the land He has slaves in Egypt. required Jews to make a promised to them, and to carry this pilgrimage to the Jerusalem out for generations to come. As God Over the centuries, a number Temple to sacrifice an animal. has protected the firstborns of the of other elements were added to When the Romans destroyed Israelites, their lives now belong to the ritual of Passover, including the Temple in 70 ce\u2014most God, and this ritual observance special wines, foods, prayers, scholars believe it stood on honors that. Passover can also be and blessings. Its significance in the site of the Dome of the seen to represent the idea that Jewish culture is inestimable: all Rock, the Muslim shrine in Israel is God\u2019s firstborn, whom He subsequent acts of deliverance in the heart of Jerusalem\u2014the will continually protect. the Israelites\u2019 history were seen original stipulations of Pesach as consequences of the Exodus had to be altered. These days, The bread of the Israelites (see pp. 74\u201377) and celebrated most Jewish families celebrate As well as eating the meat of the as extensions of the Passover. The the holiday at home, an sacrificed lambs, according to holiday serves as a reminder of arrangement similar to the God\u2019s instructions the Israelites ate the drama and significance of the original biblical tradition of unleavened bread. This meant that Exodus for God\u2019s chosen people. \u25a0 holding the Passover in it contained no yeast and therefore individual homes. had not \u201crisen.\u201d Such was the rush The Israelites prepare for the tenth accompanying the Israelites\u2019 plague of Egypt in this 1639 engraving The term \u201cpesach\u201d may departure from Egypt that there by Johann Sadler. By marking their also refer to the lamb or goat was no time to bake the bread with homes with animal blood, they show that was designated for leavening yeast. Consequently, the God which houses to avoid. sacrifice during the holiday (in recognition of God\u2019s original orders). Known as the Korban Pesach, today this ritual sacrifice remains a central symbol of Passover. It is commemorated in a set of scriptural and Rabbinic passages and the presentation of zeroa, a symbolic meat- based food placed on the ceremonial Passover \u201cseder plate\u201d but not eaten. The seder plate also contains an egg to symbolize sacrifice.","74 IN BRIEF OSTTYOHOVTERUEDRERWITVTHACIHDATHEENEORDSUETA PASSAGE Exodus 14\u201317 EXODUS 14:16, THE EXODUS THEME Divine deliverance SETTING 14th\u201313th century bce Northeastern Egypt. KEY FIGURES Moses God\u2019s appointed leader of the Israelites, who follows God\u2019s instructions to lead them out of bondage. Aaron Moses\u2019s brother, who assists him in guiding the Israelites out of Egypt. Miriam Sister to Moses and Aaron, later a prophetess. Pharaoh Ruler of the Egyptians, who chases after the Israelites, despite having released them from slavery after the plagues of Egypt. C entral to Judaism, the Exodus (from a Greek word meaning \u201cexit\u201d) narrative is the account of the founding of the nation of Israel. The tale also features one of the most famous episodes in the Old Testament\u2014 Moses parting the Red Sea. Following a barrage of plagues sent by God, Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron and tells them that their people can leave. The Israelites\u2014more than 600,000 of them\u2014hastily gather their belongings and make their way out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They are at last free of bondage, but their troubles are not over.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 75 See also: Moses and the Burning Bush 66\u201369 \u25a0 The Ten Commandments 78\u201383 \u25a0 The Golden Calf 84\u201385 \u25a0 The Twelve Spies 88 \u25a0 Entering the Promised Land 96\u201397 Moses leads the Israelites through the Red Sea in this 1849 painting by Vasilii (Wilhelm) Alexandrovich Kotarbinsky. With the waters parted, they are able to walk across the seabed. God leads the Israelites toward directions they are given and two purposes: it tests the faith of the Promised Land, manifesting complain to Moses, who consults His chosen people by making the Himself as a pillar of cloud by day God at every sign of trouble. situation even more perilous while and a pillar of fire by night, in order at the same time defending them to light their way and make the exit Pharaoh\u2019s reaction by luring the Egyptians into a trap. from Egypt as swift as possible. God then does something that is He leads the people southeast, in surprising. He \u201chardens\u201d the heart Pharaoh dispatches an army the direction of the land He has of Pharaoh (Exodus 14:4), prompting of chariot-borne soldiers, which promised to them. The Israelites, the Egyptian ruler to decide to catches up with the Israelites on however, are confused by the pursue the Israelites. This serves the shores of a sea near a place called Pi Hahiroth (Exodus 14:9). (The Hebrew translation of Exodus calls the area yam suf\u2014 sea of reeds\u2014whereas the Greek translation refers to it as thalassa erythra, red sea.) As the Israelites realize they are trapped between the water and Pharaoh\u2019s army, they panic and cry out to Moses. Transformed by God, Moses has lost his former reluctance to lead. He calms his followers by telling them simply to be still and that God will deliver them. God then instructs Moses to raise his staff \u276f\u276f The Red Sea A 1,400-mile (2,250-km) long derive from the presence of large seawater inlet of the Indian blooms of cyanobacteria, or \u201csea Ocean, the Red Sea lies between sawdust,\u201d called Trichodesmium Africa and Asia. At 16\u201318 miles erythraeum, which turns (26\u201329km) wide at its narrowest reddish-brown as it dies off. point and about 165 feet (50m) deep at its shallowest, it would The ubiquity of this weed have been a significant hurdle for on the surface of the Red Sea the Israelites to cross. may also explain the Hebrew name yam suf, \u201csea of reeds.\u201d The name Red Sea has two Although some scholars believe possible derivations. First, the yam suf might refer to a reed- word \u201cred\u201d was used in some strewn freshwater lake that ancient Asiatic languages to existed in ancient times on denote the direction \u201csouth,\u201d just the site of the Suez Canal, it is as \u201cblack\u201d was used for north and also possible that yam suf refers other colors for east and west. to the same weed that turns Alternatively, the name may the sea red.","76 THE EXODUS They said to Moses, \u201cWas it When Moses raises his staff, in Sinai, where he is destined because there were no graves everything comes to pass just as to receive God\u2019s commandments God promised. The Israelites cross for their new nation. in Egypt that you brought dry ground between two enormous us to the desert to die?\u201d walls of water, while God holds the The Israelites\u2019 high spirits do Egyptians back with His pillar of not last long, and Moses is soon Exodus 14:11 fire. Once the Israelites are safely tested by his people once more. across the river, God allows the They complain again that they and stretch out his hand across Egyptians to give chase. When the might have been better off as the water. He assures him that the army reaches the seabed, Moses slaves than risking starvation in waters will part and the Israelites lowers his arms, and the waters the wilderness. However, every will be able to move on across sweep over the Egyptian soldiers time the Israelites complain, God dry land. He further explains to and drown them. This divine act is provides. When the people ask Moses that He will \u201charden the one of several instances in Exodus for more food, God rains a sticky, hearts\u201d of the Egyptians so that in which God demonstrates His breadlike substance from the sky. they will follow the Israelites onto supreme power. This is manna and becomes part the seabed. The repetition of this of the Israelites\u2019 diet during their phrase underlines the dual purpose Song of the Sea 40 years of wandering. When they that God had in mind from the start. Once they have been safely complain of not having enough delivered from Pharaoh\u2019s army, meat, God makes a flock of quail the Israelites celebrate by singing land in their camp every day. For a song in worship of God. Known water, God instructs Moses to as the \u201cSong of the Sea\u201d (Exodus 15), the hymn is led by Moses A fresco on the wall of the Kalam\u00edou and his sister Miriam (see box). monastery in the Peloponnese in Moses then leads the Israelites Greece shows the Egyptians drowning toward his old homeland of Midian as the waters of the Red Sea fall back in the wake of the Israelites\u2019 passage.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 77 The Israelites suffer in the desert. Moses God sends The people is given the manna from are able to draw power to part heaven as food. water from rocks. the sea. God\u2019s miracles prove He cares for Miriam and will deliver His people. After the crossing of the Red strike a rock with his staff, from Protestant settlers fleeing Sea, Miriam, an older sister of which fresh water gushes. This persecution in post-Reformation Aaron and Moses\u2014by three continued divine intervention Europe to 20th-century African and six years respectively\u2014 saves the Israelites, and shows Americans striving for civil rights. leads the Israelite women in the benevolence of God. celebrating, shaking timbrels There is little archaeological (tambourines), singing, and Significance of the Exodus evidence to support the Exodus dancing (15:20). Referred to as The Exodus is at the very heart as historical fact, but the largely a prophetess in this episode of Judaism, but its message of accepted wisdom is that the event in Exodus, she plays a crucial freedom has also inspired many occurred sometime around the role in Moses\u2019s life and is also non-Jewish groups, from early mid-1300s bce and that Moses mentioned in Numbers 12, himself wrote the book that records Numbers 20:1, Deuteronomy The Lord looked down from it. In Exodus 34:27, God tells Moses 24:9, and Micah 6:4. the pillar of fire and cloud \u201cWrite down these words \u2026\u201d and at the Egyptian army and Jesus, in Mark 12:26, quotes from When Pharaoh orders the threw it into confusion. Exodus as the \u201cBook of Moses.\u201d murder of all firstborn male Israelite children, it is Miriam Exodus 14:24 God uses Moses as His who watches over Moses in instrument to rescue His chosen the basket hidden in the reed people not just from slavery but beds of the Nile River. When from a polytheistic society. The Pharaoh\u2019s daughter discovers Exodus story shows God\u2019s power, the baby, Miriam offers to His love for His people, and how He find a nurse for him and encourages and rewards trust and secretly enlists the help of faith. Preceding events anticipate his mother and her own it and subsequent events refer mother. Later in the Bible, back to it. Matthew 2:15 in the New however, Aaron and Miriam Testament alludes to Jesus as the rebel against Moses. God new Israel, come out of Egypt. \u25a0 punishes Miriam with leprosy, but then heals her after seven days. True to her story, the name Miriam means either \u201cbeloved\u201d or \u201cbitter.\u201d","NOTYOU SHALL MURDER EXODUS 20:13, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS","","80 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN BRIEF Israelites commit to obeying Him, Moses is shown with horns in this they will become God\u2019s \u201ctreasured 15th-century woodcut. These are the PASSAGE possession\u201d out of all nations and result of a mistranslation of the Hebrew Exodus 16:1\u201320:17 a \u201ckingdom of priests and a holy for \u201crays of light\u201d in Exodus 34:29. The nation\u201d (19:5\u20136). When Moses relays error was repeated by many artists. THEME God\u2019s message to the elders, they Protecting the Israelites respond enthusiastically to the First, they are to worship Him alone, proposition: \u201cWe will do everything rather than merging their obedience SETTING the Lord has said\u201d (19:8). Moses to God with reverence for the deities 14th\u201313th century bce takes their answer back to God. of other people. Next, they are Mount Sinai, also called Mount forbidden from making any image Horeb, on the Sinai Peninsula, Through Moses, God then or idol of God, because God is not three months after the Exodus. instructs the Israelites to gather to be viewed in comparison to any at a respectful distance from the earthly or heavenly creature. Thirdly, KEY FIGURES bottom of the mountain, while God\u2019s name is to be used with care Moses The leader chosen by Moses returns to the top to receive and respect\u2014never taken in vain. God to challenge the Egyptian the terms of their covenant. A thick The Israelites must never forget that Pharaoh and lead the Israelites cloud then descends over Mount they owe their lives to God and not out of slavery. Sinai, and the people hear thunder any other human or divine leader. and loud trumpet blasts and see God Appears to Moses in flashes of lightning, fire, and smoke. The fourth commandment physical form as a thick, The people tremble in fear. It is instructs the people to keep a thunderous cloud. a clear indication of the gravity Sabbath day, which they could of the relationship that they are never have done as slaves working The Israelites The 12 tribes to share with God. without a Sabbath rest. Just as descended from Jacob, God created the world in six days recently liberated from Egypt. A new covenant and then rested, so the Israelites On the mountain, God gives should work for six days and then T hree months after leaving Moses His terms, or laws\u2014the ten spend a day resting and relishing Egypt, the Israelites arrive foundational rules known as the God\u2019s presence. at the foot of Mount Sinai Ten Commandments, or the in the desert of Sinai, free from the Decalogue (from the Greek, \u201cten The last six commandments rule of Pharaoh for the first time in words\u201d). The first three concern the regulate the relationships between living memory. However, after the Israelites\u2019 relationship with God. God\u2019s own people. They are to initial euphoria of rescue, the honor their parents, and refrain Israelites struggle to know what to do with their newfound freedom. God summons Moses to the top of the mountain and tells him to make an offer to the people of Israel. Having rescued them from the tyranny of Pharaoh and provided for their daily needs in the desert, God is prepared to enter into a covenant with them, just as He entered into a covenant with their forefather Abraham. Although all the earth belongs to God, if the","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 81 See also: The Testing of Abraham 50\u201353 \u25a0 Jacob Wrestles with God 56\u201357 \u25a0 Entering the Promised Land 96\u201397 \u25a0 Call for Repentance 172 from murder, adultery, stealing, commandments for the generation Now if you obey me lying, and coveting things that born and raised during the 40 years fully and keep my do not belong to them. in which the Israelites wander the covenant, then out of all desert (Deuteronomy 5). Centuries nations you will be my After his encounter, Moses later, during the reign of King treasured possession. comes down the mountain and Josiah, the high priest \u201cdiscovers\u201d Exodus 19:5\u20136 tells the Israelites the terms of the Book of the Law languishing the covenant. They respond in a dusty corner of a storeroom at commandments is found in the enthusiastically: \u201cEverything the the Temple (2 Kings 22), and King opening words of the covenant: \u201cI Lord has said we will do.\u201d (24:3). Josiah tears his robe after the word am the Lord your God, who brought Having agreed to the terms, the of God is read to him, mortified that you out of Egypt, out of the land of Israelites wait at the bottom of he has failed to uphold His laws. slavery.\u201d God has already given the Mount Sinai while Moses goes The Bible shows time and again Israelites a new sense of identity back up into the thick cloud of that when the Israelites obey the when He rescued them from the God\u2019s presence. law, they prosper, but when they oppressive rule of Pharaoh in forget it or actively disobey it, Egypt, turning them from slaves Moses stays at the top of Mount disaster ensues. into \u201cpriests\u201d (Exodus 19:6)\u2014God\u2019s Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, representatives on earth. The during which time God provides God\u2019s holy nation Israelites\u2019 life together had been him with tablets of stone, inscribed The Ten Commandments are often made possible by God\u2019s dramatic \u276f\u276f with the terms of the covenant. The misunderstood. Many people see tablets are to be a lasting reminder them simply as a list of \u201cdos and of the agreement between God and don\u2019ts,\u201d but this misses their true His newly rescued people. significance. Although eight of God\u2019s commandments contain the Obedience slips admonition \u201cdo not,\u201d the purpose of Subsequent events in the Bible the commandments is not primarily prove that it does not take long to prohibit, but rather to protect for the Israelites to break more and promote God\u2019s \u201choly nation.\u201d of the commandments \u2013 or to forget The key to understanding the them entirely. Towards the end of his life, Moses must reiterate God\u2019s King Hammurabi, ruler of Babylon Ancient law codes had been conquered. Many take from 1792 to 1750 bce, produced one the form of a treaty, in which the of the earliest known codes of law, Other ancient Near Eastern ruler offers protection in return known as the Code of Hammurabi. societies also had laws to regulate for obedience. Such treaties relationships between people and could be described as case rights relating to property. Some law, in which the law dictates of these laws were recorded in what would be done in certain cuneiform script, inscribed in circumstances. Punishments stone, giving scholars an insight were sometimes specified. In into the people who lived around Babylon\u2019s Code of Hammurabi, the Israelites in their formative for example, theft was punished years as a nation, such as the by death, while herdsmen found Sumerians, Babylonians, and guilty of fraud received a fine. Assyrians. Typically, a king imposed a rule of law on The Mosaic Law resonates communities living under his with these codes, although it is protection, including those that based on the authority of God rather than a human leader.","82 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS The Torah regard for them, and now God gives recitation of these commandments, them commandments to protect due to assertions by opponents, Hebrew for \u201cinstruction\u201d or this new identity, recognizing that possibly early Christians, that \u201cteaching,\u201d torah refers to it would be too easy for them to fall they were the only laws imparted the Ten Commandments back into godless ways. to Moses on Mount Sinai. This and the other instructions had led to the neglect of more given to Moses on the top More than ten than 600 other commands. of Mount Sinai. The Israelites The Ten Commandments form understand that God\u2019s torah the backbone of God\u2019s relationship Open to interpretation has rescued them from the with Israel. There are many other As with many verses in the Bible, restrictive and vindictive rule instructions that Moses receives the Ten Commandments are seen of Pharaoh and see it as a gift from God to pass on to the differently by various groups. and a blessing. Israelites, including instructions Not only do interpretations of the for constructing the Tabernacle, laws themselves differ\u2014does, Throughout the Bible, torah and these additional rules are for example, adultery refer to sexual is recognized as God\u2019s good necessary for the application of the acts outside of marriage, or only to commandments: following the Ten Commandments in everyday the infidelity of married couples?\u2014 torah will enable humankind life. Over time, this larger body of but different denominations place to flourish within appropriate commands and teaching become emphasis on different laws. boundaries. Torah is also used known as torah, which is still the as a collective term for the fundamental set of laws governing The Catholic Church, for first five books of the Bible: Judaism today. example, following the medieval Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Roman tradition, does not include Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In this episode in the Bible, the commandment concerning the These books, often called the Moses is presented as God\u2019s great creation of images of God and also books of Moses, are of lawgiver, and the law is often called specifies as its own commandment foundational importance to Mosaic Law. Today, however, the that you must not covet your Jews because they tell the ten laws have a less prominent neighbor\u2019s wife. The prohibition story of how the Israelites position within Judaism than they came to exist as a nation and did in Moses\u2019s time. According to The rocky heights of Mount Sinai, contain God\u2019s rule for life. In the Babylonian Talmud, a collection where Moses is said to have received every synagogue, the Torah is of interpretations of the torah and the Ten Commandments. Holy places handwritten on parchment Jewish law compiled in the 4th are often also high places, where the scrolls that are kept in the Ark century ce, priests ceased their human is nearer to the divine. of the Law, symbolizing the Holy of Holies in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 83 The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) Then he took the Book of 1. You shall have no other 2. You shall not make for the Covenant and read gods before me. yourself an idol and worship it. it to the people. They responded, \u2018We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.\u2019 Exodus 24:7 against creating images and idols 3. You shall not misuse the 4. Remember the Sabbath is considered by Catholics to be name of the Lord your God. day and keep it holy. part of the first commandment to worship no other gods. However, 5. Honor your father 6. You shall not murder. Greek Orthodox and Protestant and your mother. 8. You shall not steal. denominations retain the Ten 7. You shall not 10. You shall not covet Commandments as recorded commit adultery. anything that belongs in the Book of Exodus. to your neighbor. 9. You shall not give Guide to life false testimony against One of the enduring legacies of the Ten Commandments is their your neighbor. combination of what we often see as religious and secular life. Throughout the Bible, there is no clear distinction made between the spiritual life of God\u2019s people and their practical life, or between public and private spheres. God\u2019s law covered all aspects of their lives, including politics and economics, friendships and family. The Ten Commandments instructed the Israelites to live out their lives as God\u2019s people, showing to other people the justice and generosity that God had first given to them. Because of this positive role of law in the Israelites\u2019 lives, songs were even composed in praise of it. Psalm 17 says: \u201cThe law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.\u201d \u25a0","84 HFTAOHAGVREOEYTLWHHDEAEOVMNRESSCMEHALLIAVPFDEPEASENDDIT EXODUS 32:8, THE GOLDEN CALF IN BRIEF I t is remarkable that the them out of the jewelry and other Israelites\u2019 fall into idolatry gold trinkets they had brought with PASSAGE ever took place at all. Moses them from Egypt. Exodus 32 had only just received God\u2019s Ten Commandments, in which it was Israelite intentions THEME made clear that the Israelites were The reasons why the Israelites are Idolatry to worship only one God, and that quick to forget\u2014or deliberately idolatry was forbidden. Speaking break\u2014the commandments are not SETTING through Moses, God had warned made clear. All that is said is that 14th\u201313th century bce Six of dire consequences should the they believed Moses\u2019s failure to weeks after Moses received Israelites break these laws. return to them meant that he had the Ten Commandments, died. Three traditional explanations near Mount Sinai. Yet, just 40 days after Moses had left his people to continue his The Israelites celebrate a bull-calf KEY FIGURES meeting with God on Mount Sinai, idol in this painting by Filippino Lippi, The Israelites Descendants the Israelites fall into sin by c.1500. The golden calf Aaron makes of the patriarch Jacob. deciding to worship a golden calf, is thought to be an image of the an idol that Aaron, the high priest Egyptian bull god Apis. Aaron Moses\u2019s brother and and Moses\u2019s brother, had forged for the first high priest of the Israelites. He is left in charge while Moses goes to talk to God atop Mount Sinai. Moses Leader of the Israelites, and their communicator with God.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 85 See also: The Ten Commandments 78\u201383 \u25a0 Balaam\u2019s Donkey 89 \u25a0 The role of the Levites Elijah and the Prophets of Baal 125 Descended from Levi, the Exodus Deuteronomy son of Jacob and Leah, the Levites include Moses, According to Exodus, the Deuteronomy makes no Aaron, and their sister Miriam. Israelites create idols in mention of Moses\u2019s Following the incident with their panic because Moses delay in returning the golden calf, the entire is so long returning from from Mount Sinai. tribe is set apart by God because their actions showed the mountain. their loyalty to the Covenant. The Levites\u2019 special role is Exodus places blame on Deuteronomy says that confirmed in Numbers 1, when Aaron for building the Moses intervenes for God tells Moses not to number Aaron with God, but not them among the other tribes. golden calf and letting the what Aaron has done to people run amok. His require this intervention. All of the priests in the Old Testament are descendants of pardoning is not explained. Aaron, and are sometimes called the Aaronide priests. Aaron orders the people to The metal is not Some of the most important melt down gold earrings mentioned\u2014instead, include Ezra, Eli, and the idol is a \u201cmolten\u201d calf. Zechariah, the father of John to make the calf. the Baptist. Those Levites who are not priests are assigned specific duties to do with the Tabernacle. They also interpret the law. The sons of Levi rally when Deuteronomy 10:8\u20139 Deuteronomy 9\u201310 also records the Moses calls them. They kill notes only that the sons golden calf story. However, many of the 3,000 people in the camp details of Exodus 32\u201334 are absent and and are appointed for sacred of Levi are appointed the account does not dwell on the role as God\u2019s priests of Aaron. duty due to their zeal. \u201cat that time.\u201d for the Israelites\u2019 actions are offered them, the Israelites\u2019 idolatrous orders them to \u201cgo back and forth in the works of medieval Jewish actions anger Moses. He persuades through the camp,\u201d slaughtering commentators Rashi, Nahmanides, God not to punish them as severely the idolaters. Some 3,000 perish and Abraham Ibn Ezra. Rashi as He had first intended, and at their hands. This, however, is argues that the golden calf was climbs down Mount Sinai to not their only punishment: God intended as an alternative god. confront them. To illustrate the also strikes them with a plague Without Moses, the Israelites had betrayal their actions have \u201cbecause of what they did with lost their link with God and wanted constituted, Moses smashes the the calf Aaron had made\u201d (Exodus a physical deity to worship. tablets bearing the commandments, 32:35). In a recurring theme in then destroys the golden calf. the Old Testament, disobedience Nahmanides, however, suggests brings disaster for the Israelites. the calf was supposed to replace The prophet returns Moses as the Israelites\u2019 conduit to Moses is determined to punish It might be thought that the God, whereas Ibn Ezra contends the Israelites himself for their Israelites would learn from their that the golden calf acted as transgression. The tribe of the mistake, but this is not the case. nothing more than a pedestal, on Levites responds to his rallying call Baal, Ashtoreth, and Molech are which God was invisibly present. for those faithful to the Lord, and he among three of the false gods they Whatever the reasoning behind later choose to worship. \u25a0","86 BBTHYEEMCPOYLNGASLCEOECRRWYAITLELD EXODUS 29:43, THE ARK AND THE TABERNACLE IN BRIEF G od takes 40 verses of courtyard around the Tabernacle. Exodus to explain to This courtyard contains the altar PASSAGE Moses the Tabernacle\u2019s of sacrifice, on which offerings are Exodus 25\u201327 purpose and how it must be made, and the laver, a bronze basin built. A portable sanctuary, where filled with water in which the THEME the Israelites could commune with priests purify themselves. Creating a sacred dwelling God, it accompanies them during place for God their 40 years in the wilderness. The Tabernacle itself is a tent It is the focus of their worship with acacia wood poles set in silver SETTING until Solomon\u2019s Temple is built in bases and a roof with four layers. 14th\u201313th century bce around 960 bce. The outermost layer is made of The wilderness in which the porpoise skins, the next rams\u2019 Israelites wander for 40 years. Portable temple skins dyed red, the third goats\u2019 At each place they camp, the hair, and the innermost layer is KEY FIGURES Israelites erect a linen tent with made of linen embroidered with Moses Prophet and leader of acacia wood poles to create a depictions of cherubim\u2014hybrid the Israelites who was chosen creatures with human faces. by God to receive the Ten Commandments on top of Holy of Holy Courtyard N Mount Sinai. Holies place Aaron The older brother of Altar of Table of Entrance Moses and the Israelites\u2019 first incense showbread gate high priest. Laver The Tabernacle is a portable temple Tabernacle Veil Door Altar of where God meets with His people. It is Ark of the Covenant Menorah sacrifice placed at the western end of an oblong courtyard with a single gateway on its eastern side.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 87 See also: The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 The Ten Commandments 78\u201383 \u25a0 The Wisdom of Solomon 120\u201323 \u25a0 The Fall of Jerusalem 128\u201331 God appears as a cloud over the Ark by day and as a fireball by night. Whenever the cloud lifts, it is a sign for the Israelites to move on. Inside the Tabernacle are two inner Aaron was God\u2019s choice as high The fate of the Ark rooms. The first is the Holy Place, priest. The lid of the Ark, in Hebrew containing the golden menorah the kapporet, but in English known The last time the whereabouts (the seven-armed lampstand); the as the mercy seat, is solid gold. of the Ark of the Covenant is table of showbread, containing mentioned in the Bible is in 12 loaves of unleavened bread, each Day of Atonement 2 Chronicles 2:35. It details representing a tribe of Israel and Only the high priest was allowed how King Josiah ordered the laid in two rows each week as to enter the Holy of Holies and then Levites to return it to the specified in Exodus 25:23\u201330 and only once a year on the day now Temple of Jerusalem. later confirmed by Leviticus 24:5\u20139; known as Yom Kippur, when the and the altar of incense, also plated Israelites atoned for their sins. The Ark then vanishes in gold. Beyond this, separated Burning incense to shield his eyes from Bible history. One theory by a veil, stands the Holy of Holies from the divine presence, the high is that it was removed from containing the Ark of the Covenant priest would sprinkle blood from a the temple\u2014probably by itself, a wooden chest overlaid newly sacrificed bull onto the Jeremiah\u2014before the fall of inside and out with gold. Four gold mercy seat to atone for his and his Jerusalem. It is said he hid rings are attached to the bottom of family\u2019s sins and then blood from a the Ark in a cave on Mount the chest, through which two poles goat to atone for the sins of the Nebu. Other scholars suggest can be passed to carry the Ark. Israelites in general. King Josiah buried it under a storehouse on the Temple The Ark contains the two stone A second goat was then brought Mount where the Dome of tablets inscribed with the Ten into the Holy of Holies. Placing his the Rock now stands. A more Commandments and a pot of hands on its head, the priest then fanciful theory claims that manna, the food God provides for confessed the Israelites\u2019 sins before Menelik I, the son of Solomon the starving Israelites in the releasing the goat into the wild. and the Queen of Sheba, took wilderness. According to some This ritual is the root of the word the Ark to Axum in Ethiopia, traditions, it also contains Aaron\u2019s scapegoat, as the second goat now where it is still housed in the rod, which had miraculously carries all the sins of the Israelites. \u25a0 Church of St. Mary of Zion. produced blossoms to indicate that Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Exodus 25:8","88 IWATNIDDTOHHEMOSNILFELKYOW NUMBERS 13:27, THE TWELVE SPIES IN BRIEF F ollowing their departure Egypt. Angry at their faithlessness, from Egypt, the Israelites God threatens to destroy the people, PASSAGE approach Canaan, the but Moses intercedes on their behalf. Numbers 13\u201314 Promised Land. Before going further, Moses sends 12 spies, God\u2019s resolution marks a THEME one from each of the 12 tribes, to watershed in the book of Numbers. Lack of faith scout out the land for 40 days. Israel will still enter Canaan but not for another 40 years, due to SETTING A land of plenty the people\u2019s lack of faith. In the 14th\u201313th century bce On their return, the scouts report meantime, they will return to the Kadesh-barnea, Sinai, south a land that is good, flowing with wilderness. Among the older of the Promised Land. the proverbial \u201cmilk and honey\u201d generation, only Caleb and Joshua God promised. As evidence, they will possess the Promised Land. \u25a0 KEY FIGURES bring a bunch of grapes so huge Caleb Son of Jephunneh, of they have to carry it on a pole Your children will the tribe of Judah. One of the between two of them. However, be shepherds here for scouts sent into Canaan, he they say, the people of Canaan forty years, suffering urges the Israelites to take are intimidating and live in for your unfaithfulness, possession of the land. large, well-fortified cities. until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. Joshua Also known as Undaunted, one of the scouts, Hoshea, Son of Nun, from Caleb, believes that God will be Numbers 14:33 the tribe of Ephraim. Another with them to give them this new scout, he supports the view of home. Supported by another of Caleb, that the Israelites the scouts, Joshua, he urges his should take possession of the fellow Israelites to go and occupy land. Later he will succeed it. However, the remaining ten Moses as leader of Israel. exclaim that they cannot attack such formidable foes. The bulk of Moses Israelite leader, who the Israelites side with the ten and intercedes with God for the begin to lament that they ever left rebellious Israelites. See also: Covenants 44\u201347 \u25a0 The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 Balaam\u2019s Donkey 89 \u25a0 The Fall of Jericho 98\u201399","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 89 DOTHOPEENNKLEEODYR\u2019TDSHMEOUTH NUMBERS 22:28, BALAAM\u2019S DONKEY IN BRIEF Balaam\u2019s faithful donkey falls down as an angel bars the way in this 1626 PASSAGE painting by Rembrandt van Rijn. The Numbers 22\u201323 donkey\u2019s quick actions save Balaam from certain destruction. THEME Spiritual blindness T he story of Balaam and Balak. God sends an angel, armed his donkey demonstrates with a sword, to intercept him. SETTING how God can use even Neither Balaam nor other people 14th\u201313th century bce a dumb beast to carry out His can see the angel, but the donkey Banks of the Jordan River. purpose. Balak, the ruler of Moab, can. When the donkey veers off the a land east of the Jordan River, is road, Balaam beats her. On the KEY FIGURES concerned about the spread of the third time this happens, God gives Balaam A prophet thought Israelites and summons the prophet the donkey the power to ask Balaam to come from Mesopotamia, Balaam to curse them. Mounted on why he is beating her. Then God who is hired by Balak, king his donkey, Balaam sets off to meet opens Balaam\u2019s eyes so that he of the Moabites, to curse can also see the angel. Balaam falls the Israelites. facedown and apologizes, as he did not know it was God that had Balak The ruler of the blocked his path. Moabites who formed an alliance with the Midianites The angel tells Balaam that he in a bid to stop the Israelites is free to go, providing he speaks entering and settling the only what God tells him. When Promised Land. Balaam meets Balak, the king orders him to curse the Israelites. Donkey Balaam\u2019s transport Balaam tries seven times. Each on his journey to visit Balak. time, instead of cursing them, he blesses them, underlining the message that God will protect the Israelites if they keep faith. \u25a0 See also: The Fall 30\u201335 \u25a0 The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 The Twelve Spies 88 \u25a0 Elijah and the Prophets of Baal 125 \u25a0 Daniel in Babylon 164\u201365","90 NTHOEORTEHIESR DEUTERONOMY 4:39, ONLY ONE GOD IN BRIEF N obody knows for certain In Deuteronomy, Moses asks the how monotheism, the Israelites: \u201cHas any god ever tried PASSAGE worship of one single to take for himself one nation out of Deuteronomy 4:39; god, emerged in ancient Israel at a another nation?\u201d He reminds them Isaiah 44:6 time when polytheism, the worship of the \u201cmiraculous signs and of many gods or divine beings, was wonders\u201d and \u201cgreat and awesome THEME the norm not only in the Near East, deeds\u201d that they witnessed in Monotheism but throughout the world. What is Egypt. His question does not rule certain, however, is that the SETTING Israelites\u2019 idea of monotheism 14th\u20136th centuries bce would have developed gradually. Moab and Babylon. They may have started by recognizing their god Yahweh as KEY FIGURES superior to all other gods, before Moses Prophet who passed on going on to deny the existence God\u2019s laws to the Israelites, of any others. including that they should worship no other god. One supreme god Although the majority of religions Second Isaiah Prophet who in the region at this time were gave the first indisputable polytheistic, most of them edict of monotheism in the recognized one specific god as Bible. Sometimes known as superior to all the others in their \u201cDeutero-Isaiah.\u201d pantheons. Examples included Marduk for the Babylonians and Ashur for Assyrians, who both Gideon and his men destroy the believed their rulers were divinely altar of Baal in his father\u2019s house, as ordained (although not divine described in Judges 6:27. Worshipping themselves). Almost certainly, any other god was forbidden in the the first Israelites saw their God, Ten Commandments. Yahweh, in a similar light. Yahweh (God) was Israel\u2019s national deity, having delivered the Israelites from Egypt as His chosen people.","EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY 91 See also: The Golden Calf 84\u201385 \u25a0 The Nature of God 144\u201347 \u25a0 The Divinity of Jesus 190\u201393 \u25a0 The Trinity 298\u201399 out the existence of other gods; it time, have developed into the In Deuteronomy, simply points to the uniqueness of entirely monotheistic belief that Moses tells the Israel\u2019s God. The Bible is not yet he was, in fact, the one and only Israelites there proclaiming overt monotheism, god\u2014the belief which exists today is no other God although Moses\u2019s assertion may across the Abrahamic religions. amount to much the same thing. but theirs. The Israelites were only capable Monotheism in the Bible of thinking and expressing Just as the Israelites\u2019 belief in This could mean themselves in the terms available monotheism developed over time, there are no gods on in their own time, and it is possible so did the Bible\u2019s stance on the that this was the only way they matter. In Deuteronomy, Moses the same level. could describe monotheism. says that \u201cthe Lord is God in But as God is separate heaven above and on the earth and above all others, The journey to monotheism below. There is no other.\u201d At first worshipping other gods is Even though the Israelites were glance, this seems like a definite pointless idolatry. moving toward monotheism, the statement of monotheism, but it Bible tells us that they definitely could also be read to mean merely This is enshrined did not think of God as existing that there is no other god like Him. in God\u2019s law as the Ten completely alone in heaven. He had Commandments, which divine messengers, angels, to do It would take generations of forbid making idols or His bidding, and the biblical reflection before a prophet\u2014the placing other gods ahead writers show Him surrounded by so-called Second Isaiah, or Deutero- the \u201chost of heaven,\u201d a whole Isaiah, living during the Babylonian of the Lord. heavenly court. One of the prophet Exile in the 6th century bce\u2014was Deutero-Isaiah goes Micah\u2019s visions in Kings even able to formulate the Bible\u2019s first further, stating explicitly reveals Him taking counsel from explicitly monotheistic statements. that no Gods exist beside attendant spirits. This almost This is recorded in Isaiah 44:6: \u201cThis the Israelite God. polytheistic idea of God as the is what the Lord says\u2014Israel\u2019s King supreme deity over a whole host and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: of other divine beings could, over I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.\u201d \u25a0 Deuteronomy: a new voice Something new enters the Bible liturgy. In Deuteronomy, more in Deuteronomy. The Israelites than in the earlier books, the are on the brink of the Jordan, law is put in the context of the about to cross into Canaan, the passionate relationship between Promised Land. Here, on the God and His people. Because He plains of Moab, Moses, now loves them, God teaches the close to death, recalls God\u2019s people His laws and by keeping tender care for the Israelites, those laws, the people are able urges them to live faithfully, to gratefully respond to that and seeks to prepare them for love. Relationships between the their new life. people themselves are also important. Deuteronomy\u2019s law Leviticus and Numbers have code features statutes that an abundance of Mosaic law- favor the disadvantaged and giving, but the emphasis is on encourage generosity. matters such as purity and","BTHOEOKHSIST","ORICAL","94 INTRODUCTION The city of Gideon destroys The Philistines Ruth travels to Bethlehem Jericho the Canaanites\u2019 pay Delilah to with Naomi and marries falls to the altar to Baal and Boaz. Their child will be Israelites. builds one to God. extract the secret of the grandfather Samson\u2019s strength. of King David. JOSHUA JUDGES JUDGES RUTH 5:13\u20136:21 6:1\u201332 16:1\u201322 1:1\u20134:22 JOSHUA JUDGES JUDGES 1 SAMUEL 24:29 13:1\u201325 16:25\u201330 3:1\u201317 Joshua dies An angel of Samson destroys God appears to and is buried at the Lord the temple of the Samuel and calls Timnath-serah. Philistines and dies prophesizes in the process. him to become Samson\u2019s birth. a prophet. T he Historical Books, Elijah, and Elisha. However, Esther believe that the Israelites slowly which follow the books of and Ruth, which most Christian settled the area, increasing in the Torah, describe how canons include in the Historical number over time. This theory is the Israelites conquer the land of Books (the equivalent of the bolstered by the Book of Judges, Canaan, their experiments with Hebrew Bible\u2019s Prophets), are which suggests the people of the finding a leader, the rise of King considered part of the \u201cWritings\u201d land were never driven out. Efforts David and the monarchy, their fall (Ketuvim) section of the Hebrew to find signs of the conquest at the hands of the Babylonians, canon. For Christians, the inclusion continue today, with archaeologists and the rebuilding of Jerusalem of the Book of Ruth is important in looking for evidence of destruction under Nehemiah. establishing the line of David that embedded in the earth below eventually leads to Jesus. broken pieces of Israelite pottery. The designation \u201chistorical\u201d does not mean that the text is more Like the Exodus, the account A monarchy emerges historical than other parts of the of the conquest of Canaan is German Bible scholar Martin Bible. It is more to do with the style fraught with historical anomalies. Noth (1902\u20131968), who specialized of writing and the reporting of Many of the sites mentioned in the in the early history of the Israelites, specific events, and the inclusion conquest have not been located believed that the theologies of the of dating systems. The texts that or their dating does not align with Historical Books were similar to are included depend on the canon that given by the Bible. Most likely, Deuteronomy, indicating a common being used. For instance, the the authors were drawing on stories date and source: the people are Samuel\u2013Kings texts are found of destruction that had been woven corrupt and need to return to the in the Prophets section (Nevi\u2019im) into the Israelites\u2019 oral history. Mosaic covenant, and emphasis of the Hebrew Bible because of Some scholars doubt that the on the line of David underlines the prominence of Samuel, Nathan, conquest occurred at all and","THE HISTORICAL BOOKS 95 The Prophet King David A chariot of fire Nehemiah and Samuel annoints seduces Bathsheba appears and the Israelites and has her husband Saul, the first killed so that he may takes Elijah to rebuild the walls king of Israel. heaven in of Jerusalem. marry her. a whirlwind. 1 SAMUEL 2 SAMUEL 2 KINGS NEHEMIAH 10:1 11:1\u201327 2:1\u201312 2:17\u20133:32 1 SAMUEL 1 KINGS 2 KINGS ESTHER 17:1\u201351 3:16\u201328 25:1\u201321 2:1\u201318 David battles In his wisdom, Jerusalem falls to King Xerxes Goliath and Solomon settles a Nebuchadnezzar II, of Persia defeats him, using dispute between King of Babylon. a sling and a stone. chooses Esther two mothers as his queen. over a child. the importance of the kingdom of After the events in the Book of Jerusalem Temple, thereby Israel. The text follows a similar Judges, the Israelites cry out for a establishing the way ancient Jews format to the Book of Genesis: king to deliver strong government. would worship for almost 1,000 people are blessed, then fail God, In the Book of Samuel, God grants years. The destruction of the Temple are punished, and then blessed their request in the form of Saul, by the Babylonians in 586 BCE again. Noth cited Judges as an whose successor, King David, would shape the theology of the example of this pattern. As the consolidates the 12 tribes of Israel Jews and have lasting effects on judges (leaders appointed by God as the United Monarchy of Judah Judaism through the centuries. to deliver the Israelites) arise, and Israel. Given that the Bible is they then fail, and the Israelites\u2019 written mostly from the perspective Hopes for a Messiah situation worsens. The story of the of Judah, the central concern of the After the dissolution of the United last judge, Samson (Judges 13\u201316), Historical Books is the rise of David Monarchy following the death of ends in civil war. in Judah, as the prophets later say Solomon, the idea of a Messiah, that a Messiah will come from which originally simply meant Throughout Judges, it is said David\u2019s line. \u201canointed one,\u201d began to change that the people do what is right from someone who would revive the in their own eyes as there is no Material evidence of King monarchy to someone who would king in Israel to lead them. Noth David\u2019s reign and his unification establish the everlasting Kingdom believed the author was compiling of the tribes is scant, although an of God. For Christians, this would both Deuteronomy and the elaborate stone structure that may mean Jesus, whose Davidic Historical Books immediately after have been David\u2019s palace has been ancestry is documented in the the Temple was destroyed by the discovered in Jerusalem. There is, genealogy of Jesus given at the Babylonians in 586 BCE, to offer an however, conclusive evidence start of Matthew\u2019s Gospel. \u25a0 explanation for the fall of Jerusalem. that his son, Solomon, built the","96 CTAAROKKVEEONUFAPNTTHTHEE JOSHUA 3:6, ENTERING THE PROMISED LAND IN BRIEF W hen Moses dies just in the Bible is in Exodus 17:9\u201316, one step away from which tells how Moses chooses PASSAGE Canaan, the land Joshua to lead the Israelites into Joshua 3\u20134 promised to Abraham and his battle against the Amalekites at descendants as an \u201ceverlasting Rephidim, most likely a broad THEME possession\u201d (Genesis 17:8), there is valley, now called Wadi Feiran, Entering the Promised an obvious successor: Joshua, his about 25 miles (40km) from Mount Land faithful lieutenant. God tells Joshua Sinai. Joshua was to win many to prepare to cross the Jordan River: more victories for the Israelites. SETTING \u201cAs I was with Moses, so I will be 14th\u201313th century bce with you; I will never leave you Crossing the Jordan Banks of the Jordan River. nor forsake you\u201d (Joshua 1:5). When the time comes for the Israelites to enter the Promised KEY FIGURES Relatively little is known about Land, Joshua and Caleb are ready. Moses Leader of the Israelites, Joshua\u2019s background. He is an The Israelites, now camping by the who has brought them to the Ephraimite (descended from banks of the Jordan River, are more edge of the Promised Land. Jacob\u2019s son Joseph) who had been born in Egypt. Like the other Joshua Moses\u2019s lieutenant, Israelites, he had followed Moses whom God appoints to lead out of the country when the Exodus the Israelites after the death of began. Joshua was unquestionably Moses. God gives Joshua the Moses\u2019s most faithful disciple\u2014as gift of invincibility in battle. Exodus 33 puts it, he \u201cdid not leave the tent.\u201d He was chosen to go with Caleb Assists Joshua in Moses to Mount Sinai, where God leading the Israelites into issued the Ten Commandments, the Promised Land. and, along with Caleb, was one of the 12 spies sent to scout out Canaan. The first mention of him Moses appoints Joshua to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. This 19th-century engraving highlights Joshua\u2019s role as a military leader by depicting him in a helmet and boots.","THE HISTORICAL BOOKS 97 See also: Covenants 44\u201347 \u25a0 The Exodus 74\u201377 \u25a0 The Ark and the Tabernacle 86\u201387 \u25a0 The Twelve Spies 88 For the Lord your God The parallels with Moses\u2019s parting The significance is bringing you into of the Red Sea 40 years previously of the camp at Gilgal a good land \u2026 a land clearly shows that Joshua has with wheat and barley, taken up Moses\u2019s mantle as God\u2019s Located \u201con the eastern vines and fig trees \u2026 where instrument. It also shows the border of Jericho\u201d (Joshua you will lack nothing. Amorite and Canaanite kings 4:19), Gilgal is the name the Deuteronomy 8:7\u20139 the power of the Israelites\u2019 God. Israelites give to the camp they set up after crossing hesitant. It is spring and the Jordan Keeping the covenant the Jordan River. It remains River, swollen by the rains and the Even though the Israelites are in an important base for them snowmelt from Mount Hermon, is enemy territory, and therefore in during their conquest of in flood. It is easy for two spies to peril, the first thing Joshua does Canaan: they set out from make their way across the river, as once they have set up camp at and return to Gilgal after detailed in Joshua 2:23, but now an Gilgal, 1 mile (1.5km) east of a number of key victories, entire nation must ford it. Jericho, is to use the stones including the fall of Jericho, collected from the Jordan River to the destruction of the royal For three days, they wait, and commemorate their miraculous city of Ai, and the defeat of then God gives Joshua orders for crossing and remind the Israelites the Amorites at Gibeon. the Israelites to cross the river. The that God keeps His promises when people follow God\u2019s commands, and they keep His law. Joshua then In Gilgal, God orders the as God promised, a miracle occurs. follows God\u2019s command to \u201cmake circumcision of all men born Just as the Red Sea had parted for flint knives\u201d (5:2) and circumcises since the Exodus, after which Moses when he led the Israelites all the men who have not fulfilled He says to Joshua,\u201cToday I out of Egypt, the swollen river this everlasting sign of God\u2019s have rolled away the reproach ceases to flow. At Adam, a place covenant with Abraham during of Egypt from you\u201d (5:9). After 19 miles (30km) upriver, the Jordan\u2019s the 40 years in the wilderness. this, it is the site of the first waters \u201cpiled up in a heap\u201d (3:16) Joshua knows that a promise may Passover celebration in the and the riverbed is soon dry. While be deferred by God, as it was after Promised Land. the priests stand with the Ark the Exodus (see pp. 84\u201385), if the of the Covenant in the middle of the Israelites disobey God\u2019s Law. \u25a0 The Tabernacle stays in riverbed, the Israelites cross over on Gilgal until the conclusion of dry ground. When the crossing has That day, the Lord Joshua\u2019s conquest of Canaan, been completed, Joshua orders one exalted Joshua in the sight at which point the Israelites man from each tribe to pick up the move west to Shiloh (18:1) and large stones from the middle of the of all Israel, and they \u201cthe tent of meeting\u201d is set up riverbed and carry them to the far revered him all the days there. Later in the Bible, Saul bank. Once they have done this, is crowned king at a place the priests carry the Ark of the of his life just as they called Gilgal (1 Samuel 11:15). Covenant to the other side. had revered Moses. This is widely believed to be the same location as the Joshua 4:14 Israelites\u2019 camp, although agreement is not unanimous among biblical scholars.","98 NNOOOUNNT,EEACWNADEMNETIN IN BRIEF JOSHUA 6:1, THE FALL OF JERICHO PASSAGE J oshua\u2019s conquest of the Having crossed the Jordan River, Joshua 2, 6 city of Jericho is the start Joshua plans to take Jericho, a THEME of God\u2019s fulfillment of His seemingly impregnable structure. God in war and conquest covenant with the Israelites\u2014their Archaeological evidence reveals SETTING settlement of Canaan, the Promised that the city was built on a mound 14th\u201313th century bce Land. Drawing on oral traditions surrounded by a massive earthen Jericho. The date is disputed and written sources, the authors embankment, with a 12\u201315 foot by some archaeologists. of Joshua probably wrote the (3.6\u20134.6m) high retaining wall KEY FIGURES account during the Babylonian around its base. Two mudbrick Joshua Moses\u2019s successor captivity of around 560 bce in order walls augmented this: one on as leader of the Israelites and to raise the spirits of the exiles. top of the base and the other at commander of their army. The story encourages the Israelites the crest of the embankment. In Rahab A prostitute or inn- to believe that they can prevail, addition, the Bible tells us, Jericho keeper living in Jericho, however poor their chances, if they is well provisioned for a siege. who shelters Joshua\u2019s spies put their trust in God. A spring inside the city walls and helps them to elude their pursuers. The Israelites have been transported to a Renaissance-style cityscape in this 17th-century engraving of a work by Maarten van Heemskerck."]