Jeremiah 46-52: Prophecies against Other Nations

What's interesting to me about the prophets is that they have prophecies to other nations (that is, besides Israel and Judah) at all.  After all, Israel and Judah are the nations God sent them to.  So I think in a way these prophecies were for their benefit, to show them that God wasn't just picking on them, and also that the nations around them who were corrupt or whatever would get punished too.  Also there are asides in some of these that are directly for the Jews - for instance, at the end of the prophecy against Egypt God tells his own people that even though he's going to destroy Egypt, he's going to save the nation of Israel - they're going to be punished, but not wiped out completely.

The other interesting thing to me about these prophesies are that sometimes God says he's going to completely destroy a nation - such as Kedar and Hazor and Babylon - but with some of the other nations, God promises eventual restoration.  He says, "I will restore the fortunes of _____" sometime in the future, and he says it of Moab, Ammon, and Elam.  I have no idea who Elam is, but Moab and Ammon were the sons of Lot's daughters (and also of Lot . . . eww), so they were kind of cousins to the Israelites.  So that's kind of neat I guess.

In the prophecy against Babylon, God promises to return Judah to the promised land and that in those days "search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none; and for the sins of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant."

The wording at the end of that sentence is very important for Christians, I think - "for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant."  I have been reflecting recently on the difference between a pardon and an exoneration in legal terminology.  When a defendant is exonerated, it means that it is officially declared they did not commit the crime and therefore cannot be charged for it; they are innocent.  A pardon is when a person who has already been convicted of a crime is forgiven of that crime.  It's still understood that they were guilty of the crime, but they no longer have to serve the consequences of doing it (jail time or whatever it is).

When we are saved, we are not exonerated.  God, for whatever reason, doesn't remove our pasts and make it so that we never sinned.  He also doesn't pretend like we never sinned (God doesn't pretend, I don't think). Instead he gives us a pardon: he says "yes, you did these crimes against me, but you are no longer responsible for the punishment - I'll take care of that."  He frees us from our prisons and lets us live again.  And it's not because we deserved it.

Some people might think it's unjust of God to pardon criminals, especially if they don't do anything to deserve that pardon.  God is just - he does require that the debt be paid - but it was paid by Jesus when he shed his innocent blood in our place.  God is just, but he is also merciful, and he loves us so much that he made a way to come to us when we lacked the strength to go to him.  The great thing about God is, and Jeremiah 51 makes this point, nobody can tell God he did the wrong thing and get him in trouble for it.  When I was in college, my history professor was the chair of the history department.  He would cancel class from time to time when he was going to visit his grandchildren out of state or something like that.  And nobody could tell him not to, because he was the head of his department (I guess the dean or vice president or president could've told him not to, but on the other hand he'd been there longer than any of them put together so they pretty much let him do things the way he wanted).  There's nobody above God.  He gets to make the rules.  That would be a scary thought if you didn't trust God.  If you believe that God is good and just, then it's a comfort.

In chapter 52, the fall of Jerusalem is described again, including the blinding of Zedekiah and the murder of his sons (not in that order).  But at the very end it says that Jehoiachin, who was the king of Judah before Pharaoh put Zedekiah up, finds favor with the king of Babylon (this is after Nebuchadnezzar), and the king restores him to his former title, although he stays in Babylon, and he gets to eat at the king's table the rest of his life.  I don't really know why the king of Babylon did that or what affect it had on Jehoiachin or the people of Judah, but I think it's a nice note to end such a depressing book on.

Jeremiah 30-38: More of the Same

There are two main points to this passage: 1) the future deliverance of Israel and Judah, and 2) Jeremiah gets in trouble for telling people that Babylon is going to conquer Jerusalem.  It's kind of a recurring theme in this book, if you haven't noticed.

I really like this one passage in chapter 30 though.  Check this out:
"For thus says the LORD, 'Your wound is incurable, And your injury is serious.  There is no one to plead your cause; No healing for your sore, No recovery for you. . . . Why do you cry out over your injury? Your pain is incurable. Because your iniquity is great And your sins are numerous, I have done these things to you. . . .  I will restore you to health, And I will heal you of your wounds,' declares the LORD" (30:12-13, 15, 17a).

Basically every religion or philosophy in the history of religion has treated sin/evil as a problem that we need to overcome in order to be acceptable to God.  A lot of them treat it as something caused by something external to us - pleasure, society, ignorance, lack of resources, etc., and if we could just eliminate those things, we would be perfect.  But that's really wishful thinking.  Sin is a problem that is inside of us, inside of me.  I can remove myself from situations that tempt me to sin, but I cannot remove sin from within me.  In short, I can't make myself perfect.  Neither can you.  You can try all you want, but I promise you'll never succeed.  And here the Bible says this problem, this "wound," is incurable.  That's depressing, right?  But then it says that God will heal us, will remove the sickness.  Christianity - true Christianity - is the one religion in which it is God who makes man acceptable, not man who cleans himself up for God.  God chose to meet us where we are - not halfway or three-fourths of the way or almost there - He came all the way to where we are, broken and bleeding and utterly sick inside, touched us as we were in that state, and took the plague on Himself so we could be free of it.  That's the gospel.

There's a lot in this passage about God restoring Israel, about His faithfulness to her, including the famous verse "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (31:3a).  God promises to make a new covenant with His people, putting His laws within them in their hearts, and forgiving all their sins.  Once again, the problem of sin is addressed - God gave people the Law, but they didn't follow it.  Was there something wrong with the Law?  No, the problem was with the people.  The Law was outside them, and in their hearts they were still lawless.  We don't need more laws or new laws, we need new hearts.  That is what God gives us when we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Now, this is the part where it switches gears.  In chapter 32, King Zedekiah gets really fed up with Jeremiah and imprisons him, probably because Jeremiah was telling everybody that Nebuchadnezzar would conquer them and they should surrender, and now Jerusalem is under seige.  Jeremiah calls out to God, and God responds by telling him again what He is going to do - Nebuchadnezzar is going to capture the city and burn it, this is a punishment for all the sin of Judah, there is going to be a remnant preserved, and God will restore them to the promised land and set up a righteous King over Judah (pretty sure He means Jesus).  But in the mean time, he tells Jeremiah to tell Zedekiah what's in store for him: he's going to be captured, but not killed by Nebuchadnezzar (although honestly, what happens to him is probably worse than dying).

Oh, there's an interesting story in here that I want to mention.  God tells Jeremiah to invite some people over and serve them wine.  Jeremiah does so, but they say they can't drink wine because their whole family from generations back is under an oath not to drink wine or live in houses or grow vineyards, and they've all kept it.  God blesses these people (they're called Rechabites) for their obedience and uses them as a foil, of sorts, of Israel.  Here you have a bunch of people whose ancestors gave an oath to their father not to do some arbitrary stuff that isn't even wrong to do, and they've kept it all these years.  Israel, on the other hand, took a similar oath to obey God, and not do stuff that was actually bad, and they haven't kept it all no matter how hard God has tried to steer them back on track.  It's not like it was impossible to follow God's laws - the Rechabites have illustrated that it is possible to keep an oath your ancestors made - they just didn't do it.

So then there's another run-in with Zedekiah.  Jeremiah has this other guy named Baruch (Baruch is one of the few Hebrew words I know; it means "bless" or "blessed") write all his prophecies in a scroll, take it to the temple, and read it.  Some officials overhear him and want to take the message to the king, but they tell Baruch to hide while they take the scroll to Zedekiah.  It's a good thing they told him to do this, because when Zedekiah hears the scroll read, he cuts it up and throws it into the fire and gives orders to seize Baruch and Jeremiah.  Luckily they stay hidden.

I wonder if the officials who heard Baruch really thought Zedekiah would listen to the scroll?  After all, he had just thrown Jeremiah in prison.

Later, Jeremiah is trying to take a trip, and he's captured because a guard thinks he's defecting to the Chaldeans (that's Babylon).  They put him in jail, but King Zedekiah sends for him.  This is where things get interesting.  Zedekiah is the guy who threw Jeremiah in prison and burned up his scroll, but now it starts to seem like Zedekiah actually wants to listen to Jeremiah.  The two men talk, and Zedekiah gives Jeremiah a little bit more freedom (confines him to the guardhouse) and commands him to be given a ration of bread for as long as there's any bread in Jerusalem.  Then later, some guys hear Jeremiah preaching and throw him into a cistern, which is basically a well that's gone dry (well, mostly dry).  But some guy finds out and reports it to Zedekiah, and Zedekiah orders him to be taken out of the well and has another interview with him.  We find out that Zedekiah is really just afraid of the Jews.  Some of them have gone over to the Chaldeans and Zedekiah is afraid that if he surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar, he's going to be turned over to them.  Jeremiah tells him that won't happen and that it'll be in his best interests to surrender now.  Zedekiah sounds like he believes him, but he makes Jeremiah promise not to tell anybody what they've talked about, and he doesn't follow Jeremiah's instructions because he's afraid of his officials.

I think I know what's going on here.  See, Zedekiah is not actually the rightful king of Judah.  He was set up by Nebuchadnezzar in place of Josiah's son Jehoiachin, but Jehoiachin is still alive.  I think Zedekiah is worried that if he does anything to upset the delicate balance that is Jerusalem right now, he's going to get fired, either by Nebuchadnezzar or by his own people.  I think he's worried that the people haven't fully embraced him as the real king and that if he surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar that will be even more proof of weakness.  I think that is why he's acting like this.

The trouble is, decisions that are motivated by fear are rarely wise, especially if you know that they aren't the right decisions.  I'm pretty sure Zedekiah knew Jeremiah was right, based on what I read in this passage.  But he was afraid to do the right thing, and to me, that means he was a weak king and didn't deserve his throne.  Doing the right thing is usually very difficult and sometimes brings about lots of opposition.  Sometimes our circumstances are such that it's also risky to do the right thing.  But easy or not, safe or not, wise or not, God calls us to obedience, and God blesses obedience like he blessed the Rechabites.  Maybe if Zedekiah had more faith in God, he would've had the courage to obey Him.

Isaiah 52-66: Restoration for the Transgressors

Okay, I know I dropped the ball again for a while on this blogging thing.  It's difficult to blog about these prophetic books because they kind of say the same thing over and over and while that's not a bad thing, it makes it difficult to feel like I'm saying anything new.  So my next several posts may be a bit shorter and cover larger passages, because I'm really trying to just point out what sticks out to me.

Anyway, so in chapter 52 Isaiah starts talking about the exalted servant of God.  And then in chapter 53 he talks about the suffering servant.  Jews believe these are two different people, whereas Christians believe both passages are referring to the same person: Jesus the Messiah.  I have always wondered what the Jews think about chapter 53, because the language is that of sacrificial atonement - that our sins, sorrows, transgressions, etc., are placed on this person, that he is a guilt offering, that somehow this bearing of our iniquities justifies us.  For Jews who believe that justification comes through keeping the Law and making animal sacrifices, what does this passage mean to them?

Recently, the thing that has struck me about Isaiah 53 is that it's not just our wickedness that Jesus atoned for.  Verse 4 says "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried."  In the margin of my Bible I wrote this:  "Not just our sins, but our sorrows - not just our wrongs, but also our hurts.  Jesus knows what all of our pains, griefs, shame, trauma, feel like, because He carried it.  It, too, was nailed to the cross, which means it, too, will be redeemed."  To me, that is a very comforting thought.

The next three chapters are pretty positive: God's lovingkindness and covenant of peace can never be shaken, God offers mercy freely, God's boundless mercy is incomprehensible because God Himself is incomprehensible, being obedient to God will yield blessing, etc.

Following this are three chapters of warnings and judgments and stuff like that.  There's an indictment of rulers who don't acknowledge God as higher than them, and there's a call to fasting so that God will hear.  But as it is, the text says, God doesn't hear because the people's sins have created a barrier between themselves and Him.  I find the juxtaposition of these two verses very telling: 59:1 says, "Behold, the LORD's hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear."  Then the very next verse says, "But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear."  So it's not that God can't hear, but that He doesn't - I think He's waiting for repentance - He's waiting for us to turn from our wickedness in order to truly seek Him.  Because the thing is, people would cry out to God and stuff, but at the same time they were holding on to these idols and sinful practices and stuff, so it wasn't really God that they wanted; they just wanted a bailout.  And I think this is what I do too.  What I pray for the most is help when I'm in trouble.  I think I need to seek God for His own sake, not just to be my cleanup crew.

Chapters 60-66 cover a few different ideas, but I think they all are built around the central theme of the Day of the Lord, the restoration of Zion, and the redemption of man.  Someof the language is very messianic (or at least was used by Handel in writing Messiah): "Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you."  Some of the language sounds like the book of Revelation: "No longer will you have the sun for light by day; Nor for brightness will the moon give you light; But you will have the LORD for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory," and, "the days of your mourning will be over," and (chapter 65) "behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind."  Chapter 61 opens with the passage that Jesus read in the synagogue when He began His ministry: "The Spiri of the Lord God is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted . . ."

But at the same time that all this happy glorious stuff is going on, God also says that at this time He will judge the nations and will pour our His wrath on those who are wicked.  But to those who follow God, God will show mercy and compassion and will save them.

Chapter 65 reminds me of the book of Romans (actually it's quoted in the book of Romans), because it talks about God being found by people who didn't seek Him, while at the same time He is pursuing people who want nothing to do with them.  Paul says that this is referring to the Gentiles compared to the Jews.  All this time, God has been making appeal after appeal to the Jews, and they really couldn't care less what He has to say.  But when the gospel is brought to the Gentiles, they accept this brand new God that they didn't even know before.  But in this future time that Isaiah keeps referring to, the time when God makes a new heaven and earth, everyone will acknowledge God and everything will be great.  Even lambs will be safe in the company of animals that used to be their predators.  It just now struck me that this is the context of the verse, "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear."  Does that mean that this verse doesn't apply to right now?  Because it seems to me that God does and has answered prayers before they were prayed or even at the same time.  So if God is already doing that now, I wonder what this verse will mean about what things will be like in the future.

Anyway, so the chapter ends basically with a comparison between the future state of the righteous and the future state of the wicked.  It's very clear that everybody ultimately will see and know who God is and will bow before Him, but only some will share in His glory and joy.  For those who persisted in transgression, there is only agony and death, which really sucks. 

I think the message is clear - the message of this whole book - that God extends mercy and forgiveness to everybody (because He makes intercession for the "transgressors," who are the wicked people - that's all of us), but not everybody is going to participate in that.  Ultimately, God is going to come down and give everybody what they really want, and it's either going to be Him, or it's going to be Not Him.  It's a message to take God seriously, to take repentance seriously, and not to be complacent about the thought of God's judgment, because it's real, and it's coming.  It's a sobering thought, but only if you're living outside God's mercy.

Isaiah 40-51: God Is Great, God Is Good

This passage is one of my favorites in the whole Bible.  It contains verse after verse describing God's greatness, His power, His supremacy, His mercy, His love, his faithfulness, His constancy.  If you are ever in a dark place, I recommend you read these twelve chapters.

I think instead of offering commentary - because let's face it, the content of these chapters is essentially the same as the content of the last 39 - I'm going to quote the verses that stood out to me the most.  By the way, somebody at my small group pointed out that Hebrew literature is full of what is called chiastic structure, which is something I learned about in theology class.  It's a way of organizing topics symmetrically so that the first topic and last topic are the same.  For instance, if the writer had two topics to talk about, topic A and topic B, in a chiastic structure he would talk about A, then B, then B, then A.  If he had three topics he would order it ABCCBA, and so forth.  So that is why Isaiah is so back-and-forth all the time.

Now on to my verse highlights.  I'll organize them by topic.  All verses are from the NASB, all emphases mine.

God's Greatness

40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.

40:10 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him.
Behold, His reward is with Him
And His recompense before Him.

40:12-13 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
And marked off the heavens by the span,
And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
And weighed the mountains in a balance
And the hills in a pair of scales?
Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
Or as His counselor has informed Him?
With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge
And informed Him of the way of understanding?

40:25-26 "To whom then will you liken Me
That I would be his equal?" says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing.

40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable.

41:4b I, the LORD, am the first, and with the last.  I am He.

42:8-9 I am the LORD, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images.
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.

43:10-13 "You are My witnesses," declares the LORD,
"And My servant whom I have chosen,
So that you may know and believe Me
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
And there will be none after Me.
I, even I, am the LORD,
And there is no savior besides Me.
It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed,
And there was no strange god among you;
So you are My witnesses," declares the LORD,
"And I am God.
Even from eternity I am He,
And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?"

44:6-8 Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
"I am the first and I am the last,
And there is no God besides Me.
Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it;
Yes, let him recount it to Me in order,
From the time that I established the ancient nation.
And let them declare to them the things that are coming
And the events that are going to take place.
Do not tremble and do not be afraid;
Have I not long since announced it to you and delcared it?
And you are My witnesses.
Is there any God besides Me,
Or is there any other Rock?
I know of none."

44:24 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb,
"I, the LORD, amd the maker of all things,
Stretching out the heavens by Myself
And spreading out the earth all alone."

45:5-7 I am the LORD, and there is no other;
Besides Me there is no God.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me;
That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun
That there is no one besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other,
THe One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the LORD who does all these.

46:9-10 Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
ANd from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, "My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure."

God's Love, Provision, and Care

40:11 Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,
In His arm He will gather the lambs
And carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the nursing ewes. 
40:28-31 He gives strength to the wear,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

41:10 Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

41:13 "For I am the LORD your God, who upholds your right hand,
Who says to you, 'Do not fear, I will help you,'
Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel;
I will help you," declares the LORD, "and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel."

43:1b-5 Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
For I am the LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I have given Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your place.
Since you are precious in My sight,
Since you are honored and I love you,
I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
And gather you from the west.
44:21 Remember these things, O Jacob,
And Israel, for you are My servant;
I have formed you, you are My servant,
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me.

46:4 Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you.
49:15-16 Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before me.

51:12-13 I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies
And of the son of man who is made like grass,
That you have forgotten the LORD your Maker,
Who stretched out the heavens
And laid the foundations of the earth,
That you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor,
As he makes ready to destroy?
But where is the oppressor?

God's Mercy and Forgiveness 
 
40:1-2 "Comfort, O comfort My people," says your God.
"Speak kindly to Jerusalem;
And call out to her, that her warfare has ended,
That her iniquity has been removed,
That she has received of the LORD's hand
Double for all her sins."

44:22 I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud
And your sins like a heavy mist.
Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

48:9 For the sake of My name I delay My wrat,
And for My praise I restrain it for you,
In order not to cut you off.

50:2b Is My hand so short that it cannot ransom?
Or have I no power to deliver?

God is truly amazing, and it is amazing to read all these declarations.  As you can see, some of the verses span many topics so it was kind of hard to categorize them, because the truth is that part of what makes God great His love and care for His people, His grace and forgiveness.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading all that if you made it this far. :)

Isaiah 24-31: Present Suffering, Future Glory

I took my advice and found a book to help me understand the stuff I'm reading a little better, and it's been very, well, helpful.  The book is called Eerdman's Handbook to the Bible and it's a 1992 edition so I don't know how accessible it is today, but I really like it because it gives a lot of background historical information and, at least in what I've read so far (just Isaiah), it summarizes the verses without trying to add a slant to them like some commentaries do.

So we left off in chapter 24.  Chapter 24 is about the final judgment of the earth and everything basically being completely destroyed in in.  One of the things it says that I have a question about is in verse 21, where it says "the LORD will punish the host of heaven on high."  That refers to the angels, right?  I don't think it's a reference to heavenly bodies, because of course they're amoral, and because the next line refers to judging the kings on earth.  So maybe this is when Satan and his angels are thrown into the lake of fire.

But then in chapter 25 there is a song of praise to God, which kind of seems weird after a chapter of death and destruction, but it's because the judgment makes way for restoration, healing, and everlasting peace.  I think it's like what Isaiah said about Egypt, that the LORD strikes, "striking but healing."  It's as if the two go hand in hand, like you can't get healed unless you first clean up the mess - like if you break a bone, you have to get it set for it to heal properly.  For some reason, this is the way God likes to work.

One of my favorite passages is in chapter 26, which continues praising God for His preservation, providence, goodness, and majesty.  It goes like this (I memorized it in KJV): "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.  Trust thee in the LORD forever, for in the LORD Jehovah is everlasting strength" (26:3-4).  This is one of those "anchor" type verses for me.  What I mean is, it's one of those things that just reminds me to trust in God and anchors me to Him, so to speak, because not only is He the source of my strength, but He is also the source of my peace.  And that's very important, as I've been discovering lately.

It says in this chapter that God's hand is clearly at work in the world, but some people just don't see it.  It says that our own efforts are futile when we try to do things ourselves, but God can make even the dead live - it's God who makes all our efforts and actions produce something real.

Next it talks about Israel being delivered and restored, that through their suffering they'll turn to God and be forgiven, and they'll return to the land and worship God.

Chapter 28 goes back to the bad news.  After dwelling on the wonderful result, Isaiah focuses for a while on the events that must happen to produce the result - the conquer and captivity of Israel.  This was written just before the fall of Samaria, but not very much before.  And at the time, the people of Judah are continually following the example of Israel, so Isaiah's message is really for them, telling them what's going to happen to Israel and warning them that they're next if they continue on that path.  Judah is acting like a teenager right now - teenagers think they're indestructible.  They can't imagine ever getting in a car accident, or becoming deathly ill, or anything like that.  Judah is thinking that whatever bad stuff comes their way, it won't really hit them, but there's absolutely no reason for them to have that security because they're not hiding in God, and they know it.  The warning continues through chapter 29.  It sounds like the people of Judah are following God on a superficial level - claiming YHWH as their God, following the traditions God established way back in Exodus, etc., but there is nothing behind them.  It says "their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote" (v.13).  It reminds me of a line in Romeo and Juliet, in which Father Lawrence criticizes Romeo's "love" for Rosaline, saying "thou didst read by rote that could not spell" - somebody who pretends to read something that they actually have memorized, because they can't even spell.  In other words, there's no mental process, no comprehension, no analyzing or even thinking about what is being done; it's just a routine, like washing your hands.  That's all God is to them.  But God knows that a day will come when these spiritually blind and deaf people will see and hear and worship God from their hearts.

Chapter 30 describes a current event.  Judah has made an alliance with Egypt during the Assyrian invasion of Samaria, and they think that means they're safe.  This chapter starts off with something I think is very important - it says, "woe to the rebellious children . . . who execute a plan, but not Mine: (v.1).  Sometimes we - and I'm talking about Christians now - make a plan that we think is very sound and reasonable (Egypt was still a major world power, probably a good ally), but just because you are a Christian and you made a plan, doesn't mean it's God's plan.  Just because you're a Christian and you're doing something, doesn't mean you're acting on God's behalf.  Like, all this talk about judgment and vengeance and the wrath of God?  If you act in those ways, and you're a Christian, it doesn't mean you're executing God's justice and vengeance and wrath.  It says that Judah went to Egypt without even consulting God.  Do we really take time to seek God's will before making a decision, or do we simply make a decision based on what we've already decided we believe about what God wants?  This is a very relevant warning, I think, and I mean that for myself too.

So basically, God says the alliance will fail and Judah will be humiliated.  But then there's great news.  Verse 18 says, "Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.  For the LORD is a god of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him."

That verse is like a breath of fresh air to me.  It tells me two things about God: first, that God is patient with us.  I know I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite parts in the Bible is 2 Peter 4:9, where it says God "is patient with you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to be brought to salvation."  God is waiting on us.  Just like in My Fair Lady where the dad says "I'm willing to tell you; I'm wanting to tell you; I'm waiting to tell you!"  God is willing, wanting, waiting to lavish His grace and compassion on us.  Why is He waiting?  Because He wants us to want it, I think.

The second thing this verse tells me is that compassion is just.  People make a big deal out of the supposed dichotomy between justice and mercy (or grace, or love).  In God's reality, they are the same thing.  God isn't 1/2 Justice and 1/2 Mercy, or mostly mercy with a little bit of justice, or something like that. This verse says that God is gracious and compassionate because He is a God of justice.  Isn't that amazing?

So once the people wise up and realize this, then things will be just fine.  God Himself will be the teacher of the people and all those idols are going to be thrown away forever, and even the land and the animals will be blessed, and the light - the light!  The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter than it is right now.  Why?  Because God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).  It sounds glorious to me.

But then Isaiah reminds us of what else is going to happen -  judgment against the wicked and the proud.  Listen to this - "burning is His anger and dense is His smoke" (v.27, I thought it sounded cool) - fire, overflowing torrent, consuming fire, cloudburst, downpour, hailstones.  And God says Assyria will be terrified - they better be!

Finally, God condemns the Jews for trusting in Egypt and not in Him, because Egypt itself is going to fall, and it's God who will be the deliverer in the end.  The chapter (and this passage) ends with a call: "return to Him from whom you have deeply defected," because when the rubber hits the road, every other defense is going to fall.

Judges 10-12: Jephthah

I know what you're thinking.  Jephthah?  Why does he get his own blog post?  Isn't he a little blurb like Othniel and Shagmar?  Acutally no, his story actually does have three whole chapters.

Well, the first chapter of Jephthah's story isn't about Jephthah, it's about the Philistines and Amorites oppressing Israel.  The Philistines and Amorites keep popping up all over the place - we're going to be seeing them for a while, and the Philistines will actually become more and more prominent the further on we go.  Isn't that great.

So what we learn in chapter 10 is that there are a couple judges after Abimelech's death and before Jephthah comes into play: Tola the son of Dodo (I know! it's even better than Joshua son of Nun) and Jair the Gileadite.  So after they're both gone, Israel again does evil, and then the Amorites and Philistines kind of take over.  Israel cries out to God, and God says, I delivered you from everybody else, but you still left me to serve other gods, so I'm not going to save you this time (how about I'll leave the quotes off unless I'm directly quoting the Bible - that way there's no confusion).  But the people of Israel say something very interesting: "We have sinned, do to us whatever seems good to You; only please deliver us this day."  I think that when you can surrender yourself to God and say "do whatever you want," you've reached a good place to be.  But Israel is pretty desperate here, apparently.

I love what the next verse says: the Israelites got rid of all their foreign gods and served the LORD - and remember, this is before God delivers them or even raises up a judge.  And then it says, "and He [God] could bear the misery of Israel no longer."  Doesn't that statement amaze you?  When we are suffering, God's not up there rubbing His hands together saying "aha, finally they are good and miserable!"  It grieves God - I think He hurts when we hurt, because He loves us.  He would really not have any of this bad stuff happen to people, but remember, God is on a mission here.  He is on a mission to save the whole world, and He's going to do whatever it takes to accomplish it.  What does that have to do with anything?  Well, if Israel stops following Him and does its own thing for the rest of history, how do you suppose He's going to bring the Messiah into the world in the first place?  It seems clear to me that God wanted Jesus to be born and grow up in a place where the LORD was known and served.

So anyway, enter Jephthah, hereafter Jeph because Jephthah is too long to type..  Jeph is an interesting person right off the bat because he's the son of a prostitute.  But interestingly enough, we know who his father was, a guy named Gilead - in fact, it appears that Jeph was raised in his father's house.  Gilead has a wife, and he and his wife have sons, and when they grow up they drive Jephthah out of the house because he's an illegitimate son.  Now, if I remember my Torah right, people who had illicit sex were supposed to be killed or else made to marry if they were both single consenting adults, so technically this situation shouldn't exist.  But sometimes God takes things that shouldn't be, and does something really cool with them.  Bad stuff happens, and we can't always just get rid of it, but God can do something even better than erasing it - He can redeem it.

So Jeph is an outcast living in a place called Tob, and some guys who are apparently real losers hang out with them (seriously, my Bible calls themn "worthless fellows").  But Jeph must've been one heck of a fighter or something, because when the Ammonites start going to war with Israel, the elders from Jeph's hometown go out and find him and say, hey, we want you to be our chief so you can fight these Ammonites.  Jeph says, Um, didn't you guys kick me out?  Name one good reason why I should listen to you just because you're in trouble.  The elders say, because you'll become our chief.  So Jeph goes with them.

Jeph has an interesting battle tactic.  He sends a message to the king of Ammon saying, why the heck are you guys fighting us anyway?  The king replies, because you guys took our land away and we want it back.  Jeph says, No way dude, that's not how it happened.  And he tells them the story that we already know from Numbers: how Israel asked very nicely to pass through Moab, and Moab wouldn't let them, so they had to go around, and they had to go by Ammon, and they asked very nicely to pass through Ammon, and Ammon not only wouldn't let them, but went out to war against them.  Is this all coming back?

Anyway, Jeph's point is that after all this, God gave the land of Ammon to the Israelites, so the Ammonites lost their right to live there; they can live in whatever land their own god gives them (nice touch).  But he might as well not have said anything, because the king doesn't listen.

So of course, Ammon and Israel go to war, and Jeph does something really stupid.  He makes a vow that if they win, he'll give whatever walks out of his door first as an offering to God.  So of course Israel wins because God is with them, and Jeph goes home, and what - or should I say, who - walks out his door first? His daughter.

Okay, so I think scholars are probably divided on what actually happens to Jeph's daughter, because the Law forbids human sacrifice of any kind.  In fact, we learned all about the redeeming of the firstborn sons, since firstborn animals were offered as sacrifices, but instead of doing that with their children they would offer an animal in the son's place.  Now, the text says that Jeph's daughter goes into the mountains to mourn being a virgin her whole life, not that she goes to mourn being about to die, and when she comes back the text says that she had no relations with a man, so I think that what actually happened is that she just lived a celibate life, and maybe she spent the rest of her life in the Lord's service or something, kind of like what Hannah did with Samuel.  Here, I found a little article that explains it in further detail: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2320

Anyway, so those Ephraimites once again are really miffed that they weren't invited to join the battle.  What is up with Ephraim?  Every time the people on the other side of the Jordan get in a fight, they want a piece of it.  Only this time the Ephraimtes tell Jeph they're going to burn his house down because he didn'task them to fight.  Jeph tells them that he did call Ephraim and ask for their help and they just didn't give it.  That part wasn't in the story already, so we didn't know about it.  Then Ephraim and the people of Gilead fight each other, and Jeph's team wins.  It kind of looks to me that what has happened is exactly what these people's ancestors were worried about when they made their memorial altar - that there would be a rift between the Israelites to the west of the Jordan and those living in Gilead, and that the people in the main part of Israel would say that the other guys weren't really part of them.  Ephraim says to the people in Gilead, "You are fugitives of Ephraim, O Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and in the midst of Manasseh."  I don't know what that means, but it sounds like it means "You're not real Israelites."  Their ancestors tried to prevent that from happening, but it happened anyway.

Oh, but this is really funny.  After this battle, there's a kind of lingering feud between Ephraim Gilead, and when crossing the Jordan the people all have to say the password: Shibboleth.  See, Ephraimites apparently couldn't make a "sh" sound, and they would say "Sibboleth," and then the Gileadites would know the person was an Ephraimite.  I think that's funny.

The end of this chapter just mentions all the people who judge Israel after Jeph, but the most significant ting about any of them is that the judge named Isban has thirty sons and thirty daughters, and another judge named Abdon has forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys.

Jeph's story is kind of a weird one, but I think he was a cool guy overall.  I really don't think he killed his daughter.  I like that he attempted diplomacy.  And I love that we see the heart of God in this story.

Joshua 7-12: Six Chapters of War

Jericho is the first of many cities in the area of Canaan to be destroyed by Israel, and once it gets flattened, the Hebrews are chomping at the bit to go on to the next city.  But if you're at all familiar with the story, you know that they jumped the gun on this one.  It's a little town with a little name: Ai.

What happens is, in the case of Jericho (and several of the other cities), God told the people that they couldn't take anything from Jericho.  Not just that all the people had to die, or even that all the people and all the animals had to die, but they couldn't even take gold or silver out of the city.  So along comes this guy named Achan, and I'll give you three guesses what he does.  Yeah.  To be specific, he takes a lot of something: a mantle, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weight fifty shekels.  A shekel is 9.56 grams, or a little over a third of an ounce.  200 shekels is a little over 4 pounds, and fifty shekels is about one pound.  Now, I don't know what the subjective value of these things would have been to that society, but right now, gold is being traded at over $1000 per ounce and silver at over $16 per ounce.  So if Achan had taken that amount of gold and silver today (I have no idea what a mantle is), it would amount to about $18,783 in gold and $1125 in gold that he stole.  That's if it were today.

So math aside, Achan screwed up, so after being found out and confessing, he is stoned to death - and not just him, but his family too.  Why is that?  I looked up some commentaries and one of them pointed out that Achan is the fifth generation after Judah, making him one of the older Israelites, maybe in his 50s at this time.  Based on that and the fact that God had previously commanded that no child was to be killed for the sin of their father, I think it is a safe inference to make that Achan's children 1) are adults, and 2) along with Achan's wife, knew about his sin and hid it from Joshua.  Being an accomplice to an evil - or just not saying anything - is sometimes as bad as doing the crime yourself.

So after this matter gets cleared up, so to speak, Israel goes on to defeat every tribe that is in the land God has promised them.  Different people try different things to defeat them, including making a sneaky promise, banding together with other tribes, and so forth, but nothing works.  A total of 31 kings, including the ones we've already learned about in Numbers and earlier in this chapter, are defeated by the Hebrews.

One of the kings mentioned, one of five actually who join forces in an attempt to stop Israel in its tracks, is named Adoni-zedek, and can you guess what city he is king of?  Jerusalem.  If you know any Hebrew at all, you probably know that the word "Adonai" means "lord," and you may also know that "zedek" means "righetousness."  Put those words together next to Jerusalem, and does this name sound familiar to you at all?  It sounds frighteningly close to Melchizedek, the guy Abraham met waaaaaaaay a long time ago in Genesis.  But this guy appears to be bad and definitely not in Israel's side.  Descendant?  Unrelated coincidence?  I have no idea but it's really weirding me out.

What do we learn about God in a chapter that basically is one war story after another?  I think we learn first of all that he was faithful to Abraham and the covenant he made with him and Isaac and Jacob.  I think we also learn that God is punishing the sins of the Canaanites.  Depending oon what city they go to, there are different levels of destruction that must be brought to the city; in some, every living thing is killed.  In others, every living thing is killed and none of the spoil can be touched.  In some, only the people are killed, and in the ones outside the promised land, only the men are killed.  I read this and I recall a passage way back in Genesis that I will paste here for you:

Genesis 15:13-16 "God said to Abram, 'Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.  But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.  As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.  Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquty of the Amorite is not yet complete.' "

In other words, God had already given the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants, but he was going to give the pagan people in the land four hundred more years to repent and turn from their ways.  It seems from the context like they were just doing things a lot more immoral than what was going around in the surrounding areas, because God didn't call for any kind of conquest or judgment on any other tribes.  And I really believe that if these nations had  turned to God, he would have forgiven them.

And this in turn brings a passage to mind from 2 Peter.  Read it with the Canaanites in your mind:

"[B]y the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.  But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.  But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (3:5b-9).

God is patient with us - he is literally waiting for us to repent, and sometimes he withholds judgment in anticipation of that.  But there is evidently a point at which the time is up, when you either have repented or you are not going to.  The Bible says that today is the day of salvation - not tomorrow, not someday when you get around to it.  We don't know what exactly the Canaanites were doing that God disliked so much, but we do know that everybody does things that are wrong, and I even think everybody does things that are in rebellion of what we know is right.  And in the end, all sin separates us from God.  You cannot endure his presence unless you are no less than perfect.  I don't think it's because God is an Adrian Monk germ-freak afraid to get his clothes dirty; I think it's because our God is a consuming fire and everything that is not pure and holy already will be scorched when it comes into contact with him.  That's a problem, and that problem is what the nation of Israel was created to demonstrate.  The only way for us to enter God's presence is for something completely innocent to stand in our way - and friend, you and I will never be that.  No matter how good you become in your life, you can't erase the bad things you've done.  Only one person can do that, and his name is Jesus.  His blood is the only detergent that can wash the stain of our sins completely away.  All you have to do is take your dirty laundry to him and ask him to clean you.  The Canaanites had four hundred years to get things straight with God, and they missed the opportunity.  Don't let it pass you by.

Deuteronomy 27-34: A Big Decrescendo before the Climax

So here we are, the Law has been reiterated, Moses is about to die, and the Israelites are about to go into the Promised Land under the direction of Joshua.  Everything builds up, and then there's this major let-down before the ending.

First of all, Moses tells the people that when they get to the Promised Land they are to go up to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim (which are conveniently right next to each other) and write down all the blessings of God on Gerazim and the curses of God on Ebal.  Then there's a list of all the curses - e.g. ";Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'"

In chapter 28 we read the blessings that will be written on Mount Gerazim, which are the blessings for obeying God.  It's pretty thorough.  Then to counter that, we read all the curses that will happen if the people do not obey God; it's the reverse of every one of the blessings, plus some more elaboration.

In chapters 29-30, Moses makes a covenant with Israel to obey God, and he tells them again what will happen to the people who disobey God - and then tells them that they are going to disobey God as a nation pretty soon, but that when they turn back to Him, He will restore them from all the curses they're going to bring on themselves.  He beseeches them to "choose life in order that [they] may live."

So here comes the let-down.  In chapter 31, God tells Moses that the people are totally going to turn away from Him and that He is going to be angry with them and bring all those curses He promised on them, and He tells Moses to teach the people a song as a witness to them.  He also has Moses write the words of the Law down at this point.

Chapter 32 is the song of Moses, which basically states the greatness of God and everything He did for His people Israel, and how they turned from Him and as a result, He removed His blessing from them, and how He avenges all of His enemies.  At the end of that, God tells Moses to go up to Mount Nebo to see the Promised Land before he dies, and reminds him that he's not going in because of his own stubbornness and disobedience.  Major bummer to be reminded of that right before you die, right?

So that's the low point.  In spite of all the hype, God totally knows that Israel is not going to remain faithful.  And Moses, being the smart cookie that he is, knows it too.  The good thing is, God promises redemption and restoration; He's not going to turn His back on Israel forever.

In chapter 33, Moses blesses Israel tribe by tribe.  Some of the tribes, like Levi and Joseph, get long blessings, and some of them, like Reuben and Dan, get really short two-liners.  But each blessing is personal to that particular tribe, and it reminds me of when Jacob blessed his sons one at a time before he died.

So then Moses climbs Mount Nebo and God shows him the land he promised to Abraham.  I have to think that this was a really incredible, beautiful sight to Moses.  Imagine pouring more than forty years of your life into a goal, and finally being able to see it, even if you can't touch it.

What's really weird is what happens next.  Moses dies up on the mountain, but it appears that God is the one who buries him - it just says "He buried him," and nobody else is mentioned as having gone up with Moses, and furthermore, it says that nobody knows where Moses' grave is.

A lot of people say that Joshua or somebody wrote this last part of Deuteronomy, but I don't really think so, because it's written as if it's been a long time since Moses died.  Listen to this:  "Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses."  Doesn't it seem like there would have been a lot of prophets between Moses and the writing of this epilogue?  I don't know, maybe Joshua wrote it when he was really old.

Anyway, remember how I thought Abraham and Aaron got good epigrams?  Moses' is the best.  Check this out:

"So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.  And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day.  Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.  So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end. [. . .]

"Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Etypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel."

Wow!  That is a lot to be said about somebody, especially by God - since God inspired the Bible, including these words here.  You know, Moses was kind of a screwy person sometimes.  He didn't want the job God called him to do, and he fought and kicked against it; he appears to have had marital problems, and he had a bad temper that led him to disobey God once or twice.  But you know, that stuff can be said about anybody.  Moses was a great man not because he was a man without fault, but because he was a man God used.  Face it, we all screw up.  We all have personal problems and family problems and whatever other kinds of problems, but that doesn't mean that God can't use us.  I guess what I've learned from the story of Moses is that when God decides to do something, He goes all the way.  Just go with it.  If God wants to use you for something, don't fight Him about it.  You may not think you're qualified - and you may be right - but I don't think God particular cares what we're qualified for.  Whatever holes we have in our resume, He is perfectly capable of filling.  If we are on God's side, then even a problematic human like you or me or Moses can do extraordinary things.

Numbers 1-4: Let's Talk Math

It took me a while to get this far, because honestly, this book gave me some trouble from the beginning. I kept getting distracted by the fact that there were so many dang Israelites, and I didn't know if the numbers in the Bible were reasonable. I since found a site that really helped me out (click here).

Anyway. This is a difficult book for me to read when I'm trying to learn things about God. Why? Because so far it's a lot of lists and counts and repetition. It's very easy to start skimming and write it off as not important. I mean, how many sermons have you ever heard on any of the first four of Numbers? Speaking for myself, I haven't heard any (although I'm sure there have been some - my parents' church is reading through the Bible in a year and the sermons each Sunday reflect the week's readings).

I was going to do the first six chapters in this post, but chapters 5 and 6 are really on a different subject, so I'll do those next.

Here's the first four chapters of this book in a nutshell:

• Chapter 1: All the men in Israel who are of fighting age (20 or older) are counted. The heads of each tribe and the number of fighting men in each tribe is given. The Levites aren't numbered because they don't fight.
• Chapter 2: God tells Moses where each tribe should camp (north side, west side, etc.), and it tells you again who the head of each tribe is and how many fighting men are in each tribe, in case you had forgotten.
• Chapter 3: Now the Levites get numbered (all the males 1 month old and up), but they are given jobs in the tabernacle. Each clan has a different area of focus. Then all the firstborn sons of Israel are numbered, and the numbers of the Levites are supposed to match up, but there are 273 fewer Levites so the Levites get 5 shekels for every man they lack. This is part of the redemption of the firstborn thing that I'll come back to.
• Chapter 4: The duties of each of the three Levite clans are explained, and they're counted again but only the men between ages 30-50.
  

So as you can see, not a lot happens. What can we learn about God from this passage? What does the author, Moses or whoever, want us to know from reading this?

I think the first and most obvious answer is history. Judaism revolves around the exodus from Egypt. What happened between Goshen and Canaan is not only the basis their holidays, dietary customs, and moral code; it is their heritage. My family has this book of genealogical records that reads like this:

1. (first and last name) and wife, (first and last name).
1. (1st kid's name)
2. (2nd kid's name)
3. (3rd kid's name, etc.)
2. (1st kid's name) and wife, (first and last name).
1. (1st kid's name)
2. (2nd kid's name)

You get the picture. That's all the book is. Why the heck would somebody want to write about that? Because it's history. It tells me where I came from and to whom I belong. There's not a single complete sentence, or even a verb, in the whole thing, but from reading it I learn a lot about my past. I think Numbers is kind of the same way.

In keeping with that, I think another main point of Numbers is that it's history, not fantasy. The numbers in this book are intended as real numbers. Figurative and symbolic numbers in the Bible are generally 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40 (and a few multiples), along with "ten thousand times ten thousand" and "seventy times seven." The author of this book intends for the audience to know that what they are reading is a real story.

Let's keep going with that thought. When God spoke to Abraham and promised to make him a great nation, He gave a figurative number as well: "as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sand on the seashore" - that's how many descendants Abraham would have, right? Now in Numbers, we see that God has turned that figurative number into a real number. The promise that existed only as an idea for so long has become a reality, and we can see that the Hebrews are a huge group of people, perhaps 2 million or more in total. God was faithful to Abraham in making his descendants numerous, and because of that, we can trust that God will be faithful to give Abraham's descendants the land He promised them as well, even though we won't see it happen for a few more books.

Now I would like to talk about the redemption of the firstborn. This seems to come up a lot in the Torah, and always under different circumstances. We first saw in Exodus 13 that God said the firstborn of every human and animal belonged to Him and was sanctified (set apart), because of the plague of the firstborn that freed the Hebrews from slavery. Because of this, every firstborn had to be redeemed (bought back). The animals and the sons were redeemed by sacrificing a lamb. Next, in Exodus 22:29-30, we see God mention giving the firstborn of their sons to Him again. Exodus 34 repeats what we saw in chapter 13. Finally here, in Numbers 3:40-51, it says that the firstborn sons are redeemed moreover by the Levites, who do not own any land or fight in battle but are constantly serving as priests, intercessors between God and man. That's why there were supposed to be as many Levites as there were firstborn sons, but they were just short so they had to substitute with money.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what all the symbolism behind this concept means. On the surface, it's plain that God wanted the people to know they belonged to Him, and that their possessions - whether livestock or their own children - were a gift that He had given and could take away, as He took the firstborn of all Egypt. I feel like there's more to this, but I don't know what. If anybody has studied this passage, please elaborate on it for me.

Numbers is a difficult book because it appears so surfacey. I think, though, that there's a lot more depth to it, and that the more I read it the more I will understand. As I posted in my Xanga the other day, I'm glad that I don't understand this book very well, because it reminds me of how much more the Bible has to teach me.

Exodus 7-12: My Deliverer Is Coming

Let me preface this post by saying that I really wish I had my Prince of Egypt soundtrack with me right now, or that I had ripped it onto my computer, because it's been running through my head since I started Exodus.

We start with God telling Moses exactly what's going to happen: Aaron is going to talk for him, Pharaoh's not going to listen, plagues are going to hit Egypt, Israel's going to be saved, and all Egypt will know that YHWH is God. Then we see it all happen more or less exactly the way God told Moses it would.

Imagine with me for a second that you're Pharaoh. You have the coolest empire in the world right now, and you've got a bunch of slaves to make it cooler by building stuff for you (we know that the Hebrews built Pithom and Raamses; we don't know what else they built. We also don't know that they were the only slaves in Egypt, and they probably weren't). If I remember 7th grade history right, approximately 2/3 of Egypt's population was the slave class. That doesn't mean 2/3 of the population was Hebrews, necessarily, but there were quite a few of them. So if you were Pharaoh, and some guy came to you and asked you to let a huge chunk of your population, your cheap labor force, and the people who make your empire cool, go off into the wilderness for a couple days, you would say no too.

I don't think the plagues were just about letting the Hebrews go. They were about showing Egypt - and the rest of the world, because word spreads - that the Hebrew God was number one. That's why the text says over and over, "then you will know that there is no one like Me in all the earth" (9:14) and things like that.

The Egyptians, as we all know, were polytheists. They worshipped the sun and the river and all this other stuff, and a lot of their gods were represented as birds or frogs or dogs or what have you. In sending plagues that attacked various Egyptian deities, God was asserting His sovereignty and authority over the gods of Egypt. If Egypt is powerless before YHWH, then surely no other nation could stand before Him. That's what I think, anyway.

I find the parts about Pharaoh's heart being hardened very interesting. Four times (after the first, third, fifth, and seventh plagues) the text says "Pharaoh's heart was hardened," twice (after the second and fourth plagues) it says "Pharaoh hardened his heart," and four times (after the sixth, eighth, and ninth plagues and before the tenth) it says "The LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart." Hebrew writers are usually pretty intentional about patterns and stuff, so I think these distinctions are worth noticing. Some people seem to think that God hardening Pharaoh's heart means that God made Pharaoh act against his will, like if God had left him alone, he would've let the Hebrews go the first time. That's not what I see in the text. First of all, it doesn't draw any extra attention to the fact that God hardens Pharaoh's heart; secondly, it specifically shows Pharaoh hardening his own heart, and thirdly, by the time we get to where it says that the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, he's already done it himself six times (including the time Aaron's staff became a snake), so by now he's in such a habit of being contrary, the real miracle is that he ever let the Hebrews go.

I also find it interesting and sort of odd that it's only during the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth plagues that God sets Goshen, where the Hebrews are, apart from the Egyptians. Did they have to endure the other five? The text gives us no reason to believe they didn't, because it makes such a point of God setting them apart when He did. To take the text at face value, we have to assume that the Hebrews dealt with water turned into blood, frogs, gnats (or lice), boils, and locusts just as the Egyptians did. Weird, isn't it? But that seems (to me) to be the way God does things. He doesn't typically remove His people from disasters and trials and persecutions; He preserves them through those things. That's what He did with Noah and his family, and that's what He's been doing with the Israelites, and that's what He did with Job, and that's what He did with the early church, and that's what He does with us today. That's why I stopped believing in a pre-trib rapture. God has never been in the habit of stopping bad things from happening to His people. We can never be sure that He'll remove us from evil, from pestilence, from persecution, or even from difficult situations, but we can be sure that He will be faithful to be with us and help us through those times.

Finally, we have Passover. This is one of my favorite parts of the entire Bible I think, and I can't possibly do it justice with my writing, but I'll try to show you what I find fascinating about this passage.

First each family has to take a year-old lamb, a perfect lamb, and keep it in the house for four days. Now, I don't have much experience with lambs, but we bought a lobster from Walmart one time for dinner, and before we had even gotten home my little brother had already named it. If you keep a cute fluffy animal in your house for more than a few seconds, you can just bet that everybody will fall in love with it. Then four days later you slit its throat. That's kind of morbid, isn't it? Killing something that for a while was a sort of pet?

The second thing is that they have to put the blood on their doorways using a hyssop branch. Later on, when we get into Leviticus and talk about the sacrificial system, we'll see hyssop is used a lot in sacrifices to cleanse the people from sin. When I read this, I immediately thought of Psalm 51, where David says "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow." I'm pretty sure that is a direct reference to the blood of a sacrificial animal that was sometimes sprinkled on the people (like at Mt. Sinai) to represent that the animal's death covered their sins and made them blameless before God. But as Hebrews says, "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins," because they're only animals. That's why people had to sacrifice them day after day, year after year, from the first sacrifice back in the Garden of Eden until the Atonement Day when Jesus died. After that, all those sacrifices became obsolete, because the blood of the true sacrifice, the only sinless man who ever lived, had been sprinkled over the people, washing us and covering our sins for good.

The third thing is that this wasn't just for the Hebrews. At the end of the chapter it says foreigners could eat the Passover meal if they became circumcised first, and I wonder if there were any Egyptians who did what Moses said and were spared that night. It says that "a mixed multitude" went out of Egypt with them - does that mean some Egyptians went with the Hebrews? I don't know. I think the text leaves that option open.