Names of God, Part 34

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Study of the furiture of the tabernacle in our pursuit of YHWH as the covenant God who expressed a specifice design in His covenant with Israel. Tonight we examined the curtain, the table, and the lampstand. Special name for tonight is The Greatness on High -- HaG’dulah BaM’romim הַגְּדֻלָּה בַּמְּרֹומִים

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Sunday October 8, 2023

TNOG 20

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Exodus 34:4–8
4 So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. 5 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.
We ended last week with a review of the meaning of the phrase in verse 7 “He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation,” as we noted, this wording means something quite different from what it might seem to mean to the casual reader.
Douglass Stuart in his commentary on Exodus wrote,
“It does not mean that God would punish children and grandchildren for something their ancestors did but that they themselves did not do. Rather, it describes God’s just punishment of a given type of sin in each new generation as that sin continues to be repeated down through the generations. In other words, God here reminded his people that they could not rightly think something like “we can probably get away with doing this in our generation because God punished an earlier generation for doing it, so the punishment for it has already been given, and we don’t have to worry about it.
Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 717.
Just as examination of the listed attributes is helpful, and has become a primary location for understanding the noted attributes of YHWH, the response of Moses, and God’s response to that are just as illuminating and insightful.
So, tonight lets examine

MOSES AGAIN RAISES HIS GREAT CONCERN: WILL GOD GO WITH ISRAEL? (34:8–9)

Exodus 34:8 NKJV
8 So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.
Three instructive points may be taken from this brief verse.
1st
First, note that Moses’ natural and immediate (“at once”) response to being in the presence of God was to worship (“bowed to the ground … and worshiped”).
When human beings are where God is, they ought to honor him by their thoughts and actions. In the Old Covenant his special presence was localized from the point of view of human perception, so people worshiped him where they understood him to have shown himself approachable: either at his visible sanctuary (Sinai, tabernacle, tent of meeting, temple) or where he manifested his glory through a cloud (as here).
In the New Covenant he promises to be present wherever people gather for worship, something akin to the Old Covenant promise to inhabit the tabernacle when it was properly erected and furnished but much democratized because gathering for worship can take place at millions of locations at once, whereas in the Old Covenant it took place legally only at one.
Moreover, in the New Covenant God actually indwells believers through his Spirit, thus making a worshipful approach to all of life appropriate. This worshipful approach is not the same as full-blown corporate worship but an elevation of the significance of daily life for the obedient believer as opposed to the nonbeliever.
2nd
Second, note that for Moses worship preceded appeal. He would certainly again press his deep desire for God’s presence on the journey to Canaan, but first he showed God his priorities: adoration ahead of supplication.
3rd
Third, worship is an act that exalts the one being worshiped but seeks to draw no favorable attention to the worshiper. Moses “bowed to the ground” following the standard way of his culture: reducing his profile and placing himself at the mercy of the one above him, that is, indicating his unworthiness and submission. Worship that draws attention to self, in either the Old or the New Covenant, is flawed.
Exodus 34:9 NKJV
9 Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”
Counting on the merciful characteristics that God described of himself in vv. 6–7, especially the willingness of forgive, and also counting on those qualities to absolve the Israelites of the danger of the (just) punishments God might well have imposed upon them as described in v. 7, Moses continued the appeal for the presence of God that he began in earnest already in Exodus 32:11–13 (with the prayer to spare Israel from death) and had reiterated several times already (e.g., Exodus 32:31–32 ; 33:12–16 , 18 ).
Let me show you out of order, how this unfolds.
Exodus 32:11–13 NKJV
11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
Exodus 32:31–32 NKJV
31 Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! 32 Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”
Exodus 33:12–16 NKJV
12 Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ 13 Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” 14 And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”
Exodus 33:18 NKJV
18 And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.”
In his favor in this appeal was God’s record of reassurance already well established (Exodus 32:33–34 ; 33:2, 14, 17, 19–23 ).
Exodus 32:33–34 NKJV
33 And the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. 34 Now therefore, go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, My Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin.”
Exodus 33:2 NKJV
2 And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
Exodus 33:14 NKJV
14 And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Exodus 33:17 NKJV
17 So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.”
Exodus 33:19–23 NKJV
19 Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” 20 But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. 22 So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. 23 Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”
In other words, each time so far since the incident of the golden bull, God had responded favorably to Moses’ intercession on behalf of Israel. As Moses had asked for a little more certainty of God’s full presence each time, God had responded favorably—much in the nature of ancient Near Eastern bargaining style, where the final goal in mind is reached by small steps rather than by an outright request from the start for what is sought.
He now pressed the case to its final full level: he asked God for two guarantees of grace:
(1) that he would go in Israel’s very midst without restriction on the degree of his presence (“let the LORD go with us”) and
(2) that he would forgive the people’s sin so that they would no longer be under danger of judgment and covenant rejection (“forgive our wickedness and our sin”).
Exodus 34:9
Exodus 34:9 NKJV
9 Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”
Moses thus asked for nothing less than complete acceptance of the nation (“take us as your inheritance”). The verb used here for “take as inheritance” is nāḥal, which has already appeared in Exodus 23:30, 32:13 in reference to Israel’s possession/inheritance of the land of Canaan as a fulfillment of the promises to the Patriarchs and in its noun form naḥălāh as the promised land of inheritance in the song of Moses (Exodus 15:17 ).
Exodus 23:30 NKJV
30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.
Exodus 32:13 NKJV
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
Exodus 15:17 NKJV
17 You will bring them in and plant them In the mountain of Your inheritance, In the place, O Lord, which You have made For Your own dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established.
But here the emphasis is not on the land Israel would inherit but on Israel as the inheritor of Yahweh’s favor and protection—Israel as the firstborn son, the prime heir of the blessings of the father.
This is an example of the way covenant relationships have as their backdrop kinship relationships so that covenant loyalty (ḥesed) is equivalent to family membership. Moses could make this request in spite of the fact that he acknowledged Israel as a “stiff-necked” (stubborn and inclined to rebellion) people. How? Because of God’s forgiving nature, which can dismiss the guilt of even the most rebellious sinners.
Next Week — God’s Answer

GOD’S ANSWER: KEEP MY COVENANT AND I WILL GO WITH YOU (Exodus 34:10–11)

Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 719.

God of Our Fathers — Elohey Avoteynu — אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ

Exodus 3:6 NKJV
6 Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
“I am the God of your father,” he continued, “the God of Avraham [Abraham], the God of Yitz’chak [Isaac] and the God of Ya‘akov [Jacob].” Moshe [Moses] covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Deuteronomy 26:7–8 NKJV
7 Then we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. 8 So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders.
“So we cried out to Adonai, the God of our ancestors. Adonai heard us and saw our misery, toil and oppression; and Adonai brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders.”
1 Chronicles 29:18 NKJV
18 O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep this forever in the intent of the thoughts of the heart of Your people, and fix their heart toward You.
“Adonai, God of Avraham, Yitz’chak and Isra’el our ancestors, guard forever the inclinations of the thoughts in the hearts of your their hearts to you.”
Acts 5:30 NKJV
30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.
The God of our fathers raised up Yeshua …
Acts 22:14 NKJV
14 Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth.
“He said, ‘The God of our fathers determined in advance that you should know his will, see the Tzaddik [Righteous One] and hear his voice.’ ”
The God that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob called their own is still our God today. He revealed himself to them and their descendents. He delivered the children of Israel from slavery and has always been faithful to work mightily on behalf of all those who call on him. Call on him today.

Sunday October 15, 2023

TNOG 21

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

God’s Answer: Keep My Covenant and I Will Go with You (Exodus 34:10–11)

This is God’s Answer to Moses Great Concern or Question about what He will do with Israel.
Exodus 34:10–11 NKJV
10 And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. 11 Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
The assertions of this verse are generally parallel to those of
Exodus 19:4–6 .
Exodus 19:4–6 NKJV
4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
Mercifully, God agreed to full covenant restoration by means of a remaking of the Sinai covenant—a reinstitution, not a revision. This was decidedly not a new covenant, as God had already made clear in Exodus 34:1 by referring to “the words that were on the first tablets,”
Exodus 34:1 NKJV
1 And the Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
This is also clear in Exodus 34:28
Exodus 34:28 NKJV
28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
by his reference to “the words [commandments]” and in the ten sample commandments that are quoted in vv. Exodus 34:14–26 , as sample repetitions of commandments already given in the original covenant statement of chaps. 20–23.
Exodus 34:14–26 NKJV
14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods. 17 “You shall make no molded gods for yourselves. 18 “The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 “All that open the womb are Mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep. 20 But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. “And none shall appear before Me empty-handed. 21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 “And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 “Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. 25 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning. 26 “The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
But this was not merely the sort of covenant renewal that would take place at various future times in Israel’s history either. This was, rather, a divine restoration of a broken covenant, one that had been made temporarily null and void by Israel’s corporate return to idolatry (and therefore automatically polytheism, since there was no monotheistic idolatry in the ancient world) as described in chap. 32.
The covenant needed to be reinstated if it was to be of help to Israel, and Yahweh showed his merciful and patient nature as described by himself so magisterially in vv. Exodus 34:6–7
Exodus 34:6–7 NKJV
6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
by taking the responsibility upon himself to reinstitute it for the benefit of his once and now again covenant people.
Therefore God used the present tense statement, “I am making a covenant with you.” He was making the same Sinai covenant once again, but he was indeed making it anew, remaking it, not just reminding the people of the content of it.
In one of his notes Stuart Douglas says,

The Hb., הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת בְּרִית, lit. says, simply, “I am hereby cutting a covenant” [the words “with you” being an addition by the NIV translators]. Thus the original uses the language for establishing a covenant by the ceremony of cutting an animal as a symbol both of a shared meal uniting the parties as if in a family (since meat is normally cut up to be served to more than one person), as well as of the dismembering/death that would be deserved by the party that breaks the covenant.

As might be expected in the case of a covenant reinstitution, all of the expected features of the covenant structure are represented in some fashion in this chapter.
In keeping with the sort of identification of parties to the covenant normally found in a covenant preamble, God identified himself in v. 6 (“the Lord, the Lord” [“Yahweh, Yahweh”]) and also identified Israel explicitly as the other party (“your people … the people you live among,” v. 10; also “God of Israel,” v. 23; “covenant with Israel,” v. 27).
As regards the prologue (a brief accounting of the relationship of the parties to each other), God’s description of himself in vv. 6–7 constitutes the sort of thing found in a covenant prologue, as does Moses’ description of Israel in vv. 8–9. The stipulations are represented by the ten key sample laws in vv. 14–26, and these are introduced as well by summary commands to obey the covenant in vv. 11–12.
The sanctions are indicated by such promises of blessing as that of v. 10 (“I will do wonders … awesome is the work that I … will do for you”), the driving out of the Canaanites (vv. 11, 24), and the enlargement of territory and protection from enemies (v. 24). Implied curses appear within v. 12 (“they will be a snare among you”), v. 14 (“a jealous God” [meaning one who will punish if disobeyed]), and v. 15 (“they will invite you and you will eat …”).
There is no specific list of witnesses here to the covenant, but the promise of blessing offers witnesses to the blessings that the Israelites would enjoy (v. Exodus 34:10 ).
Exodus 34:10 NKJV
10 And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
The reason for this arrangement as regards the usual inclusion of formal witnesses in a covenant description is presumably that in this as in most biblical covenant contexts, God himself is the ultimate witness to his own covenant; he needs no other witness, whether divine or human or material.

The covenant itself can be seen as the witness between the two parties as well, as in Gen 31:44 (“Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us”) or Deut 31:26 (“Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God. There it will remain as a witness against you”). Likewise, memorial objects, usually stones or stone structures, can serve as witnesses (e.g., Gen 31:46–48, 52; Josh 22:34; 24:27; 1 Sam 6:8). On God as the explicitly named witness to a covenant, see Gen 31:50; Judg 11:10; 1 Sam 12:5; 20:42; Jer 42:5; Mic 1:2; Mal 2:14.

The last of the six covenant structural elements, that of the document clause, is indeed well represented in this passage, in vv. 1, 4 by way of description of the preparation of the tablets for the writing of the covenant so that the parties might each have copies, and also in v. Exodus 34:27 (“Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel”).
Exodus 34:27 NKJV
27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
This verse describes as well God’s special concern for the witness of his people to his sovereign nature as they live for him by keeping his covenant in the midst of nonbelievers. This concern takes the form of a willingness to do great things for his people as an evidence of his greatness (“Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you”). The people could not, however, find a ground for self-confidence in this promise; what God would do was honor himself through the great things he did for Israel rather than through the great things Israel did by which other people were impressed.
In Exodus 34:11
Exodus 34:11 NKJV
11 Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
A requirement precedes a promise in this verse. The requirement is that of covenant obedience—the sine qua non of any expectation for divine blessing in the long term. “Obey what I command you today” is nothing less than a demand for complete adherence to the complete Sinai covenant as it is reinstated by a merciful God on this occasion. What Moses and the Israelites would especially desire as a first sort of blessing once they reached the promised land was then added as a promise: the expulsion of the groups currently occupying the promised land, in accordance with the original covenant guarantees to Abraham.
This verse picks up much of the language of Exodus 23:23
Exodus 23:23 NKJV
23 For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.
and Exodus 23:28
Exodus 23:28 NKJV
28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you.
since it is part of the introduction to the restatement of the covenant through various samplings from or restatements of selected verses in Exodus 20:2–23:33.

Faithful God — El Ne’eman אֵל נֶּאֱמָן

Deuteronomy 7:8–9 NKJV
8 but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
“Rather, it was because Adonai loved you, and because he wanted to keep the oath which he had sworn to your ancestors, that Adonai brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from a life of slavery under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. From this you can know that Adonai your God is indeed God, the faithful God, who keeps his covenant and extends grace to those who love him and observe his mitzvot [commandments], to a thousand generations.”
2 Chronicles 1:9–10 NKJV
9 Now, O Lord God, let Your promise to David my father be established, for You have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. 10 Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this great people of Yours?”
“Now, Adonai, God, you have been faithful to your promise to David my father; for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the grains of dust on the earth. So now, give me wisdom and knowledge; so that I will be also to lead this people.…”
1 Thessalonians 5:24 NKJV
24 He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
The one calling you is faithful, and he will do it.
Loyal and unwavering, steadfast and reliable, constant and dependable, upright and trustworthy, always keeps a promise. These are qualities of a faithful person—and of God. He accomplishes everything he say he will do. Put your hope and trust in him. He will never let you down.

Sunday October 22, 2023

TNOG 22

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Warnings Against Covenants/Treaties with the Inhabitants of the Promised Land (Exodus 34:12–16)

We will be looking at Exodus 34:12-16 tonight
This section (Exodus 34:12–16) and the one that follows (Exodus 34:17–26) represent the stipulations, blessings, and warnings in the reinstituted covenant.
Since the original covenant text was stated in chaps. 20–23 (followed by the ratification ceremony in chap. 24 and after that tabernacle/worship plans), it is natural to regard the Ten Words (Exodus 20:2–17 ) as the opening of the text of the covenant proper and the ending of the Covenant Code (Exodus 23:12–33 ) as its closing. Let’s read quickly through these
Exodus 20:2–17 NKJV
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Exodus 23:12–33 NKJV
12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. 13 “And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth. 14 “Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); 16 and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field. 17 “Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God. 18 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor shall the fat of My sacrifice remain until morning. 19 The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. 20 “Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. 22 But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off. 24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars. 25 “So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. 27 “I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. 31 And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia, and from the desert to the River. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
The Ten Words/Commandments will be repeated on the new tablets (Exodus 34:1, 4 ), and the ending of the Covenant Code is repeated here, though not with exactly the same wording.
Exodus 34:1 NKJV
1 And the Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
Exodus 34:4 NKJV
4 So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
Thus, through an inclusio, the entire original covenant formulation of chaps. 20–24 is renewed—leaving aside, of course, the instructions for formulating the tabernacle/worship implements (Exodus chaps. 25–31) since these refer to things not yet constructed or put into practice and therefore not breakable as part of the covenant-breaking that took place with the golden bull/calf incident of Exodus chap. 32.

Exodus 34:12

Exodus 34:12 NKJV
12 Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.
Exodus 34:12 The warning here follows closely the theme of 23:32–33, which reads, “Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.” The present verse likewise warns against making a covenant (“treaty”; see below) with those “who live in the land” and the danger that doing so would end up being a “snare”—a means of entrapment into sinful covenant breaking—that would lead to disaster. In other words, 34:12 may be regarded as a somewhat abbreviated restatement of 23:32–33.
The word “treaty” is used here misleadingly by the niv to translate the same Hebrew word rendered as “covenant” in the niv of 23:32. Both verses, in fact, prohibit the same thing: any sort of covenant with either the people of the land of Canaan or their false gods. No covenant other than the one Yahweh was giving his people could be entered into by them; their reliance upon him for blessing and benefit must be absolute and exclusive.

Exodus 34:13-14

Exodus 34:13–14 NKJV
13 But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),
Exodus 34:13–14 These two commands, to destroy everything connected with idolatry and to worship no other gods but Yahweh, are chiastically rephrased restatements of Exodus 23:24
Exodus 23:24 NKJV
24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.
Here we see the first mention in the Old Testament of “Asherah poles” or sacred poles/posts [nrsv and other versions].
n this context, as in Deut 7:5 ; 12:3 ; 16:21 , the masculine plural of אֲשֵׁרָה ăšēr probably refers to any sort of carved wooden structure that was used as a divine symbol of some sort in pagan religion in that day rather than being limited only to Asherah poles, that is, pole-based carved representations of the goddess Asherah, the consort of the Canaanite weather-god Baal and a fertility benefactress according to local Canaanite thinking.
Deuteronomy 7:5 NKJV
5 But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.
Deuteronomy 12:3 NKJV
3 And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place.
Deuteronomy 16:21 NKJV
21 “You shall not plant for yourself any tree, as a wooden image, near the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God.
Dr. Douglas K Stuart indicates,
“What Israel had to do if they were to keep the covenant was not again to have any of the accoutrements of idolatry—altars, sacred stones, sacred poles/posts—or any other god than Yahweh. The niv translation of v. 14 (“Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”) may be correct and certainly reflects the way the language of the verse usually has been understood by translators.
Nevertheless, we suggest that the grammar of the Hebrew would more likely yield the following translation for this verse: “You must worship no other god, because Yahweh is jealous for his name. He is a jealous God.” Regarding the concept of Yahweh’s being a jealous God, see comments on Exodus 20:5, where the language first appears in the Old Testament. This is the only verse in the Old Testament in which mention is made of his being jealous for his name, the meaning of which expression is simply that he guards his name’s significance—it points to his nature, character, and uniqueness as the only true God—and will not allow it to be profaned by idolatry or any other misuse.”
Since qnʾ can take an object, as in Prov 23:17 (אַל־יְקַנֵּא לִבְּךָ בַּחַטָּאִים “Do not be jealous of/about sinners”), there is no reason to suppose that the predicate adjectival usage here (“is jealous”) could not function similarly so that שְׁמוֹ, “his name,” would function syntactically as an adverbial accusative of specification (“jealous as regards his name” or simply “jealous for his name”).
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The Lord Who Sets You Apart Adonai M’kadishkhem יהוה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם

Leviticus 20:8 NKJV
8 And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the Lord who sanctifies you.
“Observe my regulations, and obey them; I am YHWH, who sets you apart to be holy.”
Exodus 31:13 NKJV
13 “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.
“Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘You are to observe my Shabbats [Sabbaths]; for this is a sign between me and you through all your generations; so that you will know that I am Adonai, who sets you apart for me.”
John 17:17–19 NKJV
17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
“Set them apart for holiness by means of the truth—your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world. I have sent them into the world. On their behalf I am setting myself apart for holiness, so that they too may be set apart for holiness by means of the truth.”
1 Corinthians 6:11 NKJV
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Some of you used to do these things. But you have cleansed yourselves, you have been set apart for God, you have come to be counted righteous through the power of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and the Spirit of our God.
God gave the people of Isra’el special instructions for holy living, setting them apart for himself, and making them different from the surrounding nations. Are you like all of your neighbors, coworkers, or friends? Ask God to show areas in your life that need to be set apart for him.

Sunday October 29, 2023

TNOG 23

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Continued: Warnings Against Covenants/Treaties with the Inhabitants of the Promised Land (Exodus 34:12–16)

Exodus 34:15

Exodus 34:15 NKJV
15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice,
Exodus 34:15 This command reflects Exodus 23:32 (“Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods”) in a shortened and simplified form but with the same essential message: the Israelites had to regard Yahweh’s covenant with them as absolutely exclusive if they were to benefit from his salvation. If they made any sort of covenant relationship with other gods or with the Canaanites, who worshiped other gods, they would violate the terms of his covenant and suffer the terrible consequences.
Some individuals choose to follow a given religious path by reason of careful, systematic investigation of the evidence and an evaluation of all other options. But most people do not do any such thing. Instead, they imitate what others do, responding to invitations, formal or informal, to join others around them in whatever religious practices seem dominant.
If the Israelites made the mistake of binding themselves in any sort of covenant with any Canaanite group, or all the Canaanite groups, they could expect the natural consequence: a comfortable social and political interaction, followed by a comfortable willingness to consider the validity and efficacy of the Canaanite lifestyle, including its worship practices, followed by an embracing of Canaanite religion.
Such things happened again and again in ancient Israel, in fact. One needs only to look at the religious situation in the days of the Judges or in Josiah’s time (2 Kgs 22–23 )
or in Ezekiel’s (Ezek 8:9ff )
Ezekiel 8:9ff NKJV
9 And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.” 10 So I went in and saw, and there—every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls. 11 And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12 Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’ ” 13 And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.” 16 So He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east. 17 And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. 18 Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”
So, we see how frequently and thoroughly the Israelites turned away from orthodox faith and toward Canaanite idolatry.
Worship of other gods is here called prostitution (znh), a metaphorical or symbolic way of describing infidelity to God’s covenant. Since prostitutes are by definition flagrantly unfaithful to any one person but sell themselves to various people for gain, a people that seeks blessing through various gods and is not religiously pure and devoted to one God can be likened to a prostitute. Thus the Scripture often employs this metaphor for covenant infidelity through idolatry and/or the various practices associated with idolatry.
One of the strong attractions of idolatry for Israelites was the feasting and revelry associated with pagan idolatry. They had already shown themselves enamored of such activities (Exodus 32:5–6 )
Exodus 32:5–6 NKJV
5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” 6 Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
and would surely find it hard to resist joining the Canaanites in what was otherwise forbidden. Indeed, the story of Israelite idolatry at Baal-Peor (Num 25) is further proof that even the generation born in the wilderness would fall easy prey to such temptations. Being invited to eat at a sacrifice was like being invited out in modern times to dine at a fine restaurant: the invitation would be hard to turn down, and refusing probably would even be thought somewhat impolite. So God warned the Israelites strictly against the whole orbit of idolatry, knowing how desirous his people would naturally be of accepting such invitations.

Exodus 34:16

Exodus 34:16 NKJV
16 and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.
Exodus 34:16 Intermarriage in the Bible is never discouraged on ethnic grounds, but religious intermarriage is consistently discouraged on religious grounds. In other words, there is nothing negative associated with the mixing of races, ( Num 12:1 ; Jer 39:16–18
Numbers 12:1 NKJV
1 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
Jeremiah 39:16–18 NKJV
16 “Go and speak to Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring My words upon this city for adversity and not for good, and they shall be performed in that day before you. 17 But I will deliver you in that day,” says the Lord, “and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. 18 For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but your life shall be as a prize to you, because you have put your trust in Me,” says the Lord.’ ”
) but great danger attends the mixing of religions. What eventually became a severe problem blocking progress in the Judean restoration (See Ezra 10; Neh 13) was a risk already for the Israelites at this early stage in their history as a people because they had grown up among varied ethnic groups in Egypt, were camping at Mount Sinai with varies ethnic groups in their midst (Exodus 12:38 ),
Exodus 12:38 NKJV
38 A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds—a great deal of livestock.
and could easily assume that there were few hazards attendant to mixing with other national groups. Over time young men and young women would meet each other and ask their parents to arrange their marriages (as in the prominent example of Sampson in Judg 14:1–10), so it would be almost inevitable that as international marriages then took place, those marriages would bring idolatry into Israel.
It happened that way with Solomon (1 Kgs 11:3–4 ) because marriages in Bible times, as today, were rarely blocked and often not even much discouraged for reasons of religious incompatibility.
1 Kings 11:3–4 NKJV
3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. 4 For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.
But Yahweh insisted otherwise here in the Exodus covenant revelation of His name, knowing the inclinations of his people and the power of romantic attraction to overcome inadequate religious conviction.
Of particular significance was that throughout the biblical world, marriage usually involved a woman leaving her home and family and moving to her husband’s ancestral home to become a member of his family.
The routine paying of the “bride price” in which a groom symbolically purchased his wife reflected this (cf. John 3:29 , “The bride belongs to the bridegroom”), as he took her from her family (to which the “bride price” was paid) and bought/brought her into his.
John 3:29 NKJV
29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.
That bride prices were essentially symbolic rather than a real purchase of property is evidenced by such factors as the low amount Hosea paid for his second wife (Hos 3:2 compared with Deut 22:29 ), with whom he never consummated the marriage
Hosea 3:2 NKJV
2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.
Deuteronomy 22:29 NKJV
29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.
and Saul’s request for a bride price in Philistine foreskins rather than currency (1 Sam 18:25 ).
1 Samuel 18:25 NKJV
25 Then Saul said, “Thus you shall say to David: ‘The king does not desire any dowry but one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to take vengeance on the king’s enemies.’ ” But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.
If the religious convictions and habits of a non-Israelite woman were, as would be expected by the time she reached marriageable age, well established, she would import them into Israel upon getting married to an Israelite and going into Israel to live within his household.
Ruth’s conversion to faith in Israel’s true God upon moving from Moab to Judah (Ruth 1:16 ) represented an exception, not the rule. It is a testimony to Naomi’s strong faith, which Ruth had amply witnessed, but also constitutes an example of marriage-based conversion, even if a rare positive one.
Ruth 1:16 NKJV
16 But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God.
This explains the wording of the warning in this verse, “When you choose … daughters as wives for your sons … they will lead your sons …” It was usually the women coming into Israel through marriage that brought idolatry with them. The women leaving Israel to marry into non-Israelite nations posed little threat to the purity of Israel’s religion. Since Israelite men stayed put when they married, they were not usually the source of the threat either.
Thus this warning was not aimed at women as if they were weaker religiously or more prone to idolatry than men; it was aimed at the fact that women were usually very strong in their faith and that given a chance would share it willingly within their families and neighborhoods.
Again, in this verse we find a second use of the metaphor of prostitution for covenant infidelity (cf. v. 15). These two verses begin the metaphor in the biblical corpus, where it appears repeatedly until Rev 19:2 .
Revelation 19:2 NKJV
2 For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her.”
Exodus 23:32 NKJV
32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
This verse has no specific parallels earlier in Exodus, even in chap. 23 other than continuing the themes of Exodus 23:32. It may therefore be considered somewhat unique to the present context, explaining how idolatry made inroads into Israel if intentional efforts to stop it were not diligently undertaken at all times.

Refiner -- M’tzaref מְצָרֵף

Jeremiah 9:7
Jeremiah 9:7 NKJV
7 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: “Behold, I will refine them and try them; For how shall I deal with the daughter of My people?
“Therefore,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot [Lord of Hosts],
“I will refine them and test them.
What else can I do with the daughter of my people?”
Zechariah 13:9
Zechariah 13:9 NKJV
9 I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
“That third part I will bring through the fire;
I will refine them as silver is refined,
I will test them as gold is tested.
They will call on my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘This is my people’
and they will say, ‘Adonai is my God.’ ”
Malachi 3:2–3 NKJV
2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness.
But who can endure the day when he comes?
Who can stand when he appears?
For he will be like a refiner’s fire,
like the soapmaker’s lye.
He will sit, testing and purifying the silver;
he will purify the sons of Levi,
refining them like gold and silver,
so that they can bring offerings to Adonai uprightly.
Psalm 66:10 NKJV
10 For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined.
For you, God, have tested us,
refined us as silver is refined.
When silver is refined, heat separates the precious metal from the dross. Too much heat harms the silver. Someone asked a silversmith how he knew when the process was complete. The silversmith replied, “When I can see my image in the silver.” Be open to God’s refining process and allow his image to be formed in you.

Sunday January 7, 2024

TNOG 24

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

We have been reviewing the covenant that YHWH established with His people, with the sons of Israel.
We are down to Exodus 34:19
Exodus 34:19 NKJV
19 “All that open the womb are Mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep.
34:19–20a The statements in these verses expand somewhat on the more succinct law in 13:13, “Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.”
Thus, just as the prior law (Exodus 34:18
Exodus 34:18 NKJV
18 “The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.
references commandments from chap. 12, this one references a command from chap. 13—showing that while the new “decalogue” derives mainly from material earlier in chaps. 20–23 and especially chap. 23, it is not limited to that corpus but seeks to reiterate, through sampling, any and all divine covenant requirements from earlier in the book.
Redemption laws represent God’s kindness to his people. By rights he owned everything that was born first among any group, whether animal or human, just as the firstfruits of what was grown were also his. But although he did insist on receiving the first of all that was harvested from crops, he did not in fact want his people to give away to him every person or animal that was born first. Some of these were best kept by their families or their owners. So although they technically belonged to God and ought in theory simply to be given to him, he would allow them to be “repurchased” from him by a payment, and he would receive the payment in lieu of the animal or person. Such was the basic idea behind redemption laws, as indicated by the language of v. 19.
In the case of the present law, three instances of how to handle redemption situations are then indicated paradigmatically in v. 20, as sufficient to represent all similar cases. Since donkeys were not needed at the tabernacle/temple but were beasts of burden that would be much better put to use by individual families on their farms, God allowed them to be redeemed through a substituted lamb or goat kid. Female donkeys would be kept for breeding, but since only one male stud would usually be needed for a herd of donkeys, an Israelite with a large number of newborn male donkeys might choose simply to euthanize some of them quickly, by breaking their necks, rather than go to the expense of substituting a lamb or goat kid for them. This God allowed since in either case he did not want or need donkeys at the tabernacle, either as sacrificial animals or as work animals, and the taking of animal life was simply not a sin as the taking of human life would be.
The final redemption command, “Redeem all your firstborn sons,” leaves no option for euthanasia in the case of humans. God does not want child sacrifice, nor does he want the forcible taking of children from their families for tabernacle/temple service. Therefore all firstborn humans must be redeemed so that they could remain alive and with their families, even though from a theoretical point of view they would be Yahweh’s property from birth.214
Exodus 34:20 NKJV
20 But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. “And none shall appear before Me empty-handed.
34:20b The command “No one is to appear before me empty-handed” restates a principal of worship, verbatim from Exodus 23:15 : believers show their loyalty to God by coming to worship him with a gift rather than with nothing to offer. In the New Covenant the gift is typically monetary, but in the Old it was something that could be eaten, according to the prescriptions of the covenant law, because all worship involved eating a covenant renewal meal, the ingredients of which were provided by the worshipers to be prepared and then shared with the priests and with God. At the times of the three annual festivals (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles) as well as any other times, the worshiper was responsible not merely to “show up” for worship but to “put up” evidence of covenant loyalty to God. Leviticus 1–7 details the nature of the various types of sacrificial offerings that were to correspond to worship needs.

God of Justice Elohey Mishpat אֱלֹהֵי מִשְׁפָּט

Isaiah 30:18
Isaiah 30:18 NKJV
18 Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him.
Yet Adonai is just waiting to show you favor, he will have pity on you from on high; for Adonai is a God of justice; happy are all who wait for him!
Isaiah 45:23-24
Isaiah 45:23–24 NKJV
23 I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath. 24 He shall say, ‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him.
“In the name of myself I have sworn, from my mouth has rightly gone out, a word that will not return—that to me every knee will bow and every tongue will swear about me that only in Adonai are justice and strength.…”
Psalm 97:2
Psalm 97:2 NKJV
2 Clouds and darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Psalm 99:4
Psalm 99:4 NKJV
4 The King’s strength also loves justice; You have established equity; You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
“Might king who loves justice, you established fairness, justice and righteousness in Ya‘akov [Jacob].”
Psalm 111:7
Psalm 111:7 NKJV
7 The works of His hands are verity and justice; All His precepts are sure.
The works of his hands are truth and justice; all his precepts can be trusted.
That’s not fair! Have you ever said that? When it seems like you are being taken advantage of, when things don’t go your way—be encouraged and wait for God to work. His ways are fair and righteous. Put your trust in him.

Sunday January 14, 2024

TNOG 25

Sunday January 21, 2024

TNOG 26

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Exodus 34:24

Exodus 34:24 NKJV
24 For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
The first part of this verse reiterates the divine promise to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan. We reviewed relevant verses of instruction last week.
The second part of the verse continues the theme of the three annual festivals, with a reassurance that must indeed have been important for Israelites potentially worried about what would happen to their farms and homes whenever they would have to leave them three times each year to go to the central sanctuary (see esp. Deut 12).
Would enemies, such as seasonally raiding nomadic groups (cf., e.g., Judg 6:3 )
Judges 6:3 NKJV
3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.
take advantage of this requirement that people leave home periodically? Would ill-intentioned neighbors or outright enemies move boundary stones (cf. Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Deuteronomy 27:17 ; Proverbs 22:28 ; Proverbs 23:10 )
Deuteronomy 19:14 NKJV
14 “You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.
Deuteronomy 27:17 NKJV
17 ‘Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark.’ “And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’
Proverbs 22:28 NKJV
28 Do not remove the ancient landmark Which your fathers have set.
Proverbs 23:10 NKJV
10 Do not remove the ancient landmark, Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
and take land away from its former owners while they were busy worshiping at another location—one that for many of them was several days distant? Leaving home in Bible times could be a frightening matter, but here God reassured his people that if they were faithful in worshiping him, he would be faithful in protecting their homes and lands while they did so. Conversely, the covenant sanctions also warn elsewhere that this sort of thing was precisely what could happen if the Israelites did not keep the covenant.

Exodus 34:25

Exodus 34:25 NKJV
25 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning.
These two commands repeat those of Exodus 23:18 , requiring two separate things: (1) no eating of blood (a Canaanite/pagan practice) and (2) no delay in consumption of the sacrificial meal.
Exodus 23:18 NKJV
18 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor shall the fat of My sacrifice remain until morning.
Exodus 34:25 NKJV
25 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning.
In addition, the Israelites are prohibited from the eating of bread made with yeast, which would undermine the symbolism of unleavened/unyeasted bread as a reminder of the Passover.
This verse offers only a slight change of wording from that of Exodus 23:18 (again giving by means of a wording adjustment the flavor of freshness to this new statement of the covenant but not materially altering the command).
Exodus 23:18 NKJV
18 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor shall the fat of My sacrifice remain until morning.
The concept of not trying to sacrifice or eat offering leftovers, which was stated in Exodus 23:18 with the words “the fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning” is here rendered with the words “do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.” In fact, it was the fat portions that would have most likely been kept and not fully offered to Yahweh by someone trying to get a second meal out of a single offering; but as “fat” serves as a synecdoche for any part of the offering in 23:18, the wording here simply makes more explicit that no part may be retained overnight for consumption when hungry the next day.
The wording here “from the Passover Feast” is likewise a synecdoche in which one feast offering stands for all three as opposed to Exodus 23:18, where “my festival offerings” automatically includes all three. Thus Exodus 34:25 contains one shortening of a concept spelled out in the corresponding verse (Exodus 23:18) through synecdoche and one lengthening of a concept not spelled out in Exodus 23:18 with comprehensive language but suggested there through synecdoche. The many parallels in Deuteronomy to this sort of practice (lengthening some statements from Exodus-Numbers and shortening others) as well as those already cited in the present context suggest that this pattern is actually a standard, if not virtually uniform, practice and not accidental in the citation of covenant laws in different contexts.

Exodus 34:26

Exodus 34:26 NKJV
26 “The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
34:26a “Bring the best of the firstfruits …” repeats verbatim what Exodus 23:19a said,
Exodus 23:19a NKJV
19 The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
but Exodus 23:19a was preceded by a more lengthy set of instructions about the firstfruits of various crops constituting the offering. The point here, once again, is that the crop farmer could not do less than the animal farmer: both must bring God the best and nothing less, and both must bring the best of the first—not the best of what may later be harvested after the worshiper has had first choice at the best. From the point of view of the new covenant in modern times, this requires a tithe from the moment the paycheck is received (and so regularly thereafter), presented to God gladly, yet as a prime obligation to be met before other bills are paid, and not an offering of spare change or a few dollars left over after all other financial obligations have been satisfied, as is more usually the practice. What one offers to God reveals tellingly where one places God in one’s hierarchy of importance. “No other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3 ) encompasses a great deal, including financial priorities.
Exodus 20:3 NKJV
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
Exodus 34:26b “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” repeats Exodus 23:19 verbatim and is also found in Deut 14:21 .
Deuteronomy 14:21 NKJV
21 “You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
The repeated reminders suggested that such a practice was widespread in the world of the Israelites and represented what would be a strong temptation for them once they reached Canaan and saw the local inhabitants relying on this magical technique as a means of increasing the fertility of their flocks. It also probably served as a paradigmatic reminder against all fertility religion techniques in general, such as sowing a field or planting a vineyard with two kinds of seed as a means of getting them to “mate” and thus be fertile (Lev 19:19; Deut 22:9).
Now me are moving into the section that we call the document clause.

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Exodus 34:21

Exodus 34:21 NKJV
21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
The beginning of this verse summarizes what is found in Exodus 20:9–11
Exodus 20:9–11 NKJV
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
and reiterates as well what was taught at length about the Sabbath in Exod 16. But the ending, “even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest,” adds an explanation not found elsewhere, one appropriate for people looking forward to occupying the promised land and being able to farm that land for crops. As the prior command was about participation in worship by providing elements of the worship meal, the present is about participating in worship by taking the time throughout the year to observe the Sabbath and its purposes.
Plowing/planting and harvesting/reaping are the two most intense times in a farmer’s life. The temptation to work seven-day weeks is very strong during these seasons since plowing and harvesting at the right time can be essential to crop productivity, and “beating the weather” can seem to necessitate taking no time off during these crucial periods, that is, working through Sabbath days. But the combination of worship and rest provided by the Sabbath was more important to God—and should have been more important to the worshiper—than farm productivity. In other words, the concept of responding to an emergency, such as is constituted by the need to rescue an animal from a pit on the Sabbath (e.g., Luke 14:5 ), cannot be extrapolated to suggest that maximizing one’s potential for a good crop constitutes a similar emergency and therefore could justify working on the Sabbath day.
Luke 14:5 NKJV
5 Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
In the life of the New Covenant believer, worship, prayer, Scripture study, and Christian service must likewise take precedence over making money, lest gaining the temporal world result in losing one’s eternal soul (Mark 8:36 ; Luke 9:25 ).
Mark 8:36 NKJV
36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
Luke 9:25 NKJV
25 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?

Exodus 34:22-23

Exodus 34:22–23 NKJV
22 “And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 “Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel.
The remaining two festival times are now addressed, albeit a few verses later than the law covering the Passover (v. 18). This divided presentation allows for the in-context treatment of the issues of offering in general, including the sacrifice of the firstborn (Exodus 34:19 ),
Exodus 34:19 NKJV
19 “All that open the womb are Mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep.
redemption of things not intended for sacrifice (Exodus 34:20a ),
Exodus 34:20a NKJV
20 But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. “And none shall appear before Me empty-handed.
the requirement of participation in provision of the worship covenant meal (Exodus 34:20b ),
Exodus 34:20b NKJV
20 But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. “And none shall appear before Me empty-handed.
and the requirement of observance of the Sabbath (Exodus 34:21 ),
Exodus 34:21 NKJV
21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
all topics that quite naturally fit among and are therefore here fitted within—rather than listed before or after—the festival laws. The festival laws thus form an inclusio around the sacrifice/redemption requirements so that timing commands surround method commands in a way that suggests to the Israelites that they must pay attention to both equally: when to worship and how to worship.
It has sometimes been opined that the Israelite festivals were borrowed from the Canaanites, as harvest celebrations that evolved into religious festivals. No evidence for such an approach is found in the Old Testament. What the Bible describes is a divinely revealed set of special pan-Israel worship times linked theologically to the exodus, the nation’s defining moment, but generously scheduled by God to coincide with harvest times so that the Israelites would not be prohibited from successful farming and could offer to God in worship the firstfruits of their farming labors at the natural time to do so, after a harvest. Thus the major worship times followed the major harvest times. Passover followed the harvest of lambs and goat kids (born in the early spring), Pentecost followed the wheat harvest fifty days later; and Tabernacles followed the olive and grape harvest in the fall.
The wording “all your men are to appear” does not prohibit women and children from worship but assigns the representation of families to fathers/husbands in appearing before the tabernacle altar to present to God the sacrifice on behalf of their families.

Exodus 34:24

Exodus 34:24 NKJV
24 For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
The first part of this verse reiterates the divine promise to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, as had been stated in Exodus 23:27–30 .
Exodus 23:27–30 NKJV
27 “I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.
Moreover, the overt first-person promise “I will drive out” represents yet another reassurance that is a result of Moses’ pleading on behalf of the people in chaps. 33–34, Yahweh himself would accompany the people to the promised land and settle them there—not merely sending an angel (Exodus 33:2
Exodus 33:2 NKJV
2 And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
) to do the job and not merely accompanying them under some sort of hyper-limited divine presence devoid of its usual power or glory (Exodus 33:12–19 ). “[I will] enlarge your territory” presumably predicts the creation of the promised land as an Israelite possession by the process of its conquest (described in Josh 1–11) rather than a promise that God would keep enlarging the borders of Israel thereafter.
The second part of the verse continues the theme of the three annual festivals, with a reassurance that must indeed have been important for Israelites potentially worried about what would happen to their farms and homes whenever they would have to leave them three times each year to go to the central sanctuary (see esp. Deut 12).

END OF CLASS 1/14/2024

Would enemies, such as seasonally raiding nomadic groups (cf., e.g., Judg 6:3 )
Judges 6:3 NKJV
3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.
take advantage of this requirement that people leave home periodically? Would ill-intentioned neighbors or outright enemies move boundary stones (cf. Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Deuteronomy 27:17 ; Proverbs 22:28 ; Proverbs 23:10 )
Deuteronomy 19:14 NKJV
14 “You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.
Deuteronomy 27:17 NKJV
17 ‘Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark.’ “And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’
Proverbs 22:28 NKJV
28 Do not remove the ancient landmark Which your fathers have set.
Proverbs 23:10 NKJV
10 Do not remove the ancient landmark, Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
and take land away from its former owners while they were busy worshiping at another location—one that for many of them was several days distant? Leaving home in Bible times could be a frightening matter, but here God reassured his people that if they were faithful in worshiping him, he would be faithful in protecting their homes and lands while they did so. Conversely, the covenant sanctions also warn elsewhere that this sort of thing was precisely what could happen if the Israelites did not keep the covenant.

God of Israel -- El YIsra’el אֵל יִשְׂרָאֵל

Genesis 33:18–20 NKJV
18 Then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan Aram; and he pitched his tent before the city. 19 And he bought the parcel of land, where he had pitched his tent, from the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money. 20 Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel.
… Ya‘akov [Jacob] arrived safely at the city of Sh’khem [Shechem], in Kena‘an [Canaan], and set up camp near the city. From the sons of Hamor Sh’khem’s father he bought for one hundred pieces of silver the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent. There he put up an altar, which he called El-Elohei-YIsra’el [God, the God of Isra’el].
Judges 5:5 NKJV
5 The mountains gushed before the Lord, This Sinai, before the Lord God of Israel.
“The mountains melted at the presence of Adonai, at Sinai, before Adonai the God of Isra’el.”
Psalm 68:35 NKJV
35 O God, You are more awesome than Your holy places. The God of Israel is He who gives strength and power to His people. Blessed be God!
How awe-inspiring you are, God, from your holy places, the God of Isra’el, who gives strength and power to the people. Blessed be God!
Matthew 15:31 NKJV
31 So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.
The people were amazed as they saw mute people speaking, crippled people cured, lame people walking and blind people seeing; and they said a b’rakhah [blessing] to the God of Isra’el

Document Clause: Putting the Covenant in Writing (Exodus 34:27–28)

Exodus 34:27

Exodus 34:27 NKJV
27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
By means of this divine proclamation of its document clause, the renewed covenant is strongly endorsed. That the sovereign and vassal should each receive their copy indicates the arrival at the conclusion of the covenant and its formal approval. Making permanent the covenant by reducing it to writing constituted a sign of its reinstitution, the very thing Moses had been appealing to God for throughout the last two chapters, ever since he had to acknowledge the abrogation of the first covenant by his destruction of its symbolic tablets (Exodus 32:19 ).
Exodus 32:19 NKJV
19 So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses’ anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
So Moses had to write down all the words of the covenant, not just the Ten Words/Commandments, which would be recorded separately and personally on the two tablets by God himself (Exodus 34:1 ).
Exodus 34:1 NKJV
1 And the Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
What did Moses write? Everything from 20:18 to the present point in the narrative that constitutes covenant commands that he had not written down already, specifically the content of chaps. 25–31 minus strictly narrative portions thereof and at least Exodus 34:10–26 .
Exodus 34:10–26 NKJV
10 And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. 11 Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 12 Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. 13 But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods. 17 “You shall make no molded gods for yourselves. 18 “The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 “All that open the womb are Mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep. 20 But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. “And none shall appear before Me empty-handed. 21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 “And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 “Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. 25 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning. 26 “The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

End Teaching 1/21/2024

Exodus 34:28

Exodus 34:28 NKJV
28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Three points are made here: that Moses was in God’s presence for forty days and nights, that he fasted completely during that time, and that God personally (not Moses) wrote the Ten Words/Commandments on the tablets once again.
This was Moses’ second occasion of being atop Mount Sinai in the special presence of God for such a period of time, the first having been described in Exodus chaps. 24–32 and summarized in Exodus 24:18 . Deuteronomy 9:9–25 and Deuteronomy 10:10 reinforce this scenario, both indicating that Moses spent two forty-day periods in God’s presence receiving the law.
Exodus 24:18 NKJV
18 So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Deuteronomy 9:9–25 NKJV
9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’ 13 “Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ 15 “So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. 20 And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain. 22 “Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. 23 Likewise, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. 25 “Thus I prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you.
Deuteronomy 10:10 NKJV
10 “As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you.
Was this length of time necessary because of all that he had to write down? Hardly. That could have been done in a few hours. Rather, he undertook his long fasting out of his deep identification with the people of Israel and his desire for God’s blessing on them. Deuteronomy 9:9 reminds the Israelites of Moses’ forty-day fast in the context of their rebelliousness (Deuteronomy 9:4–8 ),
Deuteronomy 9:9 NKJV
9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
Deuteronomy 9:4–8 NKJV
4 “Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. 7 “Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you.
and Deuteronomy 9:18 states explicitly that the second occasion of fasting was for Israel’s sin, especially the idolatry described in Exodus chap. 32 (“I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so provoking him to anger”).
Deuteronomy 9:18 NKJV
18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
Since Deuteronomy 10:10 says,
Deuteronomy 10:10 NKJV
10 “As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you.
it would seem evident that Moses fasted both times out of concern for the possibility of God’s judgment on the people and that each time his earnest appeal was honored by a gracious God (“listened to me at this time also”).
The antecedent for “he wrote” is not Moses but Yahweh, the nearest grammatical antecedent in the verse. Moses had already made clear that it was God, not he, who wrote the Ten Words/Commandments on these tablets (Exodus 34:1 );
Exodus 34:1 NKJV
1 And the Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
so from the point of view of the narrative, there is no ambiguity about who “he” refers to in the statement. Note also that the term used for what God wrote is, once again, literally “the Ten Words,” since these were of a different rank of significance from the other commandments/statutes/laws.

(9) Moses’ Face Reflecting God’s Glory (Exodus 34:29–35)

Forgiving God -- El Nosey -- אֵל נֹשֵׂא

Nose has the idea of being lifted up - of being carried. While it does mean forgiveness in proper context, it have an an undergirding idea of bearing our sins and grief and frailties. YHWH not only forgives, but he bears and undergirds us in the core of our weakness. Cognates of the word are often translated as raise, or lift in reference to waves or hands
Psalm 99:8
Psalm 99:8 NKJV
8 You answered them, O Lord our God; You were to them God-Who-Forgives, Though You took vengeance on their deeds.
Adonai our God, you answered them.
To them you were a forgiving God, although you took vengeance on their wrongdoings.
Micah 7:18
Micah 7:18 NKJV
18 Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy.
Who is a God like you,
pardoning the sin and overlooking the crimes of the remnant of his heritage?
He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in grace.
Matthew 26:28
Matthew 26:28 NKJV
28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
“For this is my blood, which ratifies the New Covenant, my blood shed on behalf of many, so that they may have their sins forgiven.”
Ephesians 1:7-8
Ephesians 1:7–8 NKJV
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
In union with him, through the shedding of his blood, we are set free—our sins are forgiven; this accords with the wealth of the grace he has lavished on us.…

Sunday February 4, 2024

TNOG 27

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Exodus 34:28

Exodus 34:28 NKJV
28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Three points are made here: that Moses was in God’s presence for forty days and nights, that he fasted completely during that time, and that God personally (not Moses) wrote the Ten Words/Commandments on the tablets once again.
This was Moses’ second occasion of being atop Mount Sinai in the special presence of God for such a period of time, the first having been described in Exodus chaps. 24–32 and summarized in Exodus 24:18 . Deuteronomy 9:9–25 and Deuteronomy 10:10 reinforce this scenario, both indicating that Moses spent two forty-day periods in God’s presence receiving the law.
Exodus 24:18 NKJV
18 So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Deuteronomy 9:9–25 NKJV
9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’ 13 “Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ 15 “So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. 20 And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain. 22 “Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. 23 Likewise, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. 25 “Thus I prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you.
Deuteronomy 10:10 NKJV
10 “As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you.
Was this length of time necessary because of all that he had to write down? Hardly. That could have been done in a few hours. Rather, he undertook his long fasting out of his deep identification with the people of Israel and his desire for God’s blessing on them. Deuteronomy 9:9 reminds the Israelites of Moses’ forty-day fast in the context of their rebelliousness (Deuteronomy 9:4–8 ),
Deuteronomy 9:9 NKJV
9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
Deuteronomy 9:4–8 NKJV
4 “Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. 7 “Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you.
and Deuteronomy 9:18 states explicitly that the second occasion of fasting was for Israel’s sin, especially the idolatry described in Exodus chap. 32 (“I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so provoking him to anger”).
Deuteronomy 9:18 NKJV
18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
Since Deuteronomy 10:10 says,
Deuteronomy 10:10 NKJV
10 “As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you.
it would seem evident that Moses fasted both times out of concern for the possibility of God’s judgment on the people and that each time his earnest appeal was honored by a gracious God (“listened to me at this time also”).
The antecedent for “he wrote” is not Moses but Yahweh, the nearest grammatical antecedent in the verse. Moses had already made clear that it was God, not he, who wrote the Ten Words/Commandments on these tablets (Exodus 34:1 );
Exodus 34:1 NKJV
1 And the Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
so from the point of view of the narrative, there is no ambiguity about who “he” refers to in the statement. Note also that the term used for what God wrote is, once again, literally “the Ten Words,” since these were of a different rank of significance from the other commandments/statutes/laws.

End of Class 2/4/2024

(9) Moses’ Face Reflecting God’s Glory (Exodus 34:29–35)

Exodus 34:29–35 NKJV
29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.
Any reader of Exodus at any time in history might justifiably ask, “What’s the point of all this attention to how much Moses’ face shone? Why does it conclude such an important narrative as that of chaps. 32–34?” In fact, Moses reviewed the story of his radiant face here in considerable detail because it had important implications.
First, it confirmed—even reestablished—his leadership and role as intermediary with God on behalf of the people: Moses really did meet with God, whose glory was so awesome (even when restricted by the cloud in which the meeting took place and even though Moses could only see God’s “back”) that it left an effect upon Moses that everyone else could not fail to attribute to his having been in God’s (limited) presence and therefore to have been confirmed by God as Israel’s human leader.
Second, it confirmed Yahweh’s presence, the very thing sought so assiduously by Moses in his various appeals in chaps. 33–34 and so missed by the people when they thought they might have lost it (33:1–5). If people couldn’t even bear to look at Moses because his face was powerfully affected, however residually and partially, by Yahweh’s glory, then that glory, not at all residual in Yahweh himself, was back among Israel!
Third, it confirmed Yahweh’s greatness. What pagan worshiper ever glowed with the reflection of an idol’s glory? What other nation could claim that its god was so awesome that one who had spent time with him terrified all others in that nation by the mere retained reflection of the divinity’s glory?
Fourth, it reminded all those who seek constantly for an ever-closer relationship with God that one can actually have so close a connection with the only true and living God that one may not even notice the extent of the effect (“he was not aware that his face was radiant,” v. 29)—though, to be sure, the kind of reflected glory Moses experienced would be expected in heaven rather than on earth.
Fifth, as Paul explained in his discussion of this passage in 2 Cor 3:7–18, the “glory that lasts” from the New Covenant was in fact much greater than the Old Covenant glory on Moses’ face that faded over time. Consistent with this emphasis, Jesus taught that any person who knows God through Christ in the New Covenant has gone far beyond even the remarkable glory of Moses after coming down from Sinai because of the significance of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and what it means in terms of the presence of God in one’s life in Christ (Matt 11:11). All who know Christ as Savior and live for him reflect his glory—even more powerfully than Moses did, though without the visible frightening effect—by reason of living the transforming life of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18).
Exodus 34:29
Descending from Mount Sinai, Moses had in his hands the two very special tablets, here called the two tablets of the Testimony—each containing the Ten Words/Commandments representing the sovereign’s and the vassals’ copies of the covenant—that would eventually be placed, according to God’s command, in the ark of the testimony/covenant as symbolic documents confirming the covenant between Yahweh and his only special people on earth.
“He was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord” [Yahweh] indicates that the glory of God is not a painful or harmful thing when borne by one upon whom God’s favor rests. This was partly Paul’s point in 2 Cor 3:17–18. It was a joyous and delightful experience to reflect God by living in his Spirit, something that one doesn’t feel physically but something that nevertheless projects God’s powerful presence in one’s life and upon the lives of others. That Moses should after the fact, when he was no longer in God’s presence directly, still retain a very impressive effect of God’s presence proves the presence of Yahweh among the people, just as they so desired (33:1–5 and thereafter). The presence was obviously there if Moses’ face so obviously reflected it, and that means that God had not withdrawn from Israel as represented by his not having withdrawn from Israel’s mediator with him, Moses.
To this point it could be said that the covenant had certainly been reaffirmed and God’s presence among his people reestablished, but what about Moses’ authority among the people? He had been rejected as their leader during his first long absence (32:1). Though they increasingly showed him respect (as in their posture of worship whenever he would go to the little tent of meeting, 33:7–11), they had not yet otherwise formally acknowledged their mistake in rejecting him as leader and as Yahweh’s representative among them. Yahweh took care of all that by giving Moses an unmistakable credential: radiant glory, residual to an obvious divine encounter, that no one could doubt established him as a favorite of God.240
There has been some debate about what Moses’ face actually put forth. Whatever it was, it came from “the skin of his face” (niv, inexplicably, just “his face”] rather than out of his mouth or from within his cupped hands or his famous staff or any other source. In Hebrew the usual way to indicate that something has “shined” is through the hiphil conjugation of the verb ʿwr. But the text here uses the simple qal of the verb qrn, a root normally associated with “horn.” Many attempted explanations of the implication of this choice of verb have been forthcoming, and most commentators have concluded that the force of the Hebrew is to indicate that the skin of his face “sent forth rays” or “radiated” rather than merely shining brightly or the like. The niv translation “was radiant” is sound, although the adjective “radiant” has come to mean merely “cheerful in appearance” or “obviously happy” (as with “glowing”), so something like “sent forth rays” would seem a less ambiguous rendering of the Hebrew.
Exodus 34:30
Exodus 34:30 It is likely that something other than mere bright light radiated from Moses’ skin because the text never says that anyone was blinded by looking at him or forced to look away or to shield their eyes. Rather, it indicates that people were frightened by what they saw when they looked at his face (“they were afraid to come near him”). Perhaps it pulsed with an odd light; perhaps it gave the impression of brilliance radiating out in various planes; perhaps it looked like it was on fire (see 24:17). Probably it appeared, on a smaller scale, as frightening as God’s glory cloud on top of Mount Sinai was to the Israelites (19:16; 24:16–17) or the pillar of cloud had been to the Egyptians in the wilderness (14:24). Just as the people had been warned not to come near Mount Sinai when God’s glory settled on it (19:12) and found themselves indeed horrified by that glory (20:18–19), now it continued to strike fear into them, even though reduced to a reflected state, when it was as near to them as Moses was upon his return among them after descending the mountain.
The wording of the verse specifically includes Aaron along with everyone else as unable to bear coming too close to Moses, thus pointing out that the leader of the people at the time of the idolatrous rebellion described in chap. 32 now can see for himself Moses’ authenticating divine glory. The people who had once dismissed Moses’ leadership by saying, “As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (32:1) now could see for themselves that what had happened to him was that he had been with and had been accepted by the very God they needed to fear. Moses here carried a small amount of what in larger measure would kill anyone who got too close (cf. 33:20).
Exodus 34:31 Aaron is again mentioned, since his willingness to accept Moses as leader was partly at stake, and the leaders of the people as a whole are mentioned, also suggesting their role in confirming Moses’ leadership over them. Aaron and the elders were now no longer fleeing from Moses (implied in the wording “came back to him”) but were approaching him again at his call to them, which must have included eventually some sort of reassurance that he was not coming to them in judgment and that his face would not kill them or harm them in any way. “He spoke to them” presumably indicates that he explained where he had been, what God had said about being willing to be close to them once again, and other reassurances of the good results of his encounter with Yahweh on the mountain.
Exodus 34:32 Consequently, all the people eventually gathered around Moses (presumably rounded up and brought there by the leaders) to listen to him formally preach the instructions he had received for them in his most recent forty-day stay with God on the mountain. At this time they still were all looking at his radiating face, which must have continued to terrify and amaze them, even though it actually bore no danger for them. Here was God’s prophet speaking the very words of God to them, with a face so terrifyingly glorious that few could manage to doubt that what he was relaying to them was absolutely true and that he had been personally sent by God to make sure they knew it. In light of what is stated in the verses immediately following, it might have been so hard for the people to look directly at him that they listened with their faces turned away or perhaps bowed to the ground.
Exodus 34:33–35 Moses surely did not need a veil for his own comfort (see comments on v. 29), and he certainly didn’t need to protect God from God’s own reflected glory, so he didn’t wear the veil when he was in God’s presence. Indeed, he had already sought the most direct possible exposure to God’s glory (33:18) and would hardly wish to have a diminished experience thereof afterwards. Therefore the veil he donned when neither atop Sinai nor at the tent of meeting was undoubtedly for the people’s sake—not because his unveiled face would physically harm them but because it apparently scared them so much psychologically that they found it hard to be near him.
The people presumably were distracted and unnerved by whatever came from Moses’ face. It must have looked terrible in both senses of that word—causing terror and unpleasant to view. Of course he needed to be near them routinely as their leader and teacher, so use of the veil provided a way for him to deal with them, including in his ongoing role as supreme judge. Verses 34–35 suggest that there were many times that Moses spoke with God directly and closely, a reprise of the implications of the tent of meeting narrative in 33:7–10, with its emphasis on their common face-to-face encounters (33:11). In other words, he was in the very presence of Yahweh when inside the tent of meeting, and later inside the tabernacle, just as much as he was in the very presence of Yahweh when he was in the glory could on top of Mount Sinai. That meant that whatever instructions he received from God from within the tent of meeting or tabernacle were just as authoritative for the people of Israel as instructions he received while on the mountain.

Everlasting God El‘Olam אֵל עוֹלָם

Genesis 21:33 NKJV
33 Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.
Avraham planted a tamarisk tree in Be’er-Sheva [Beersheba], and there he called on the name of Adonai, the everlasting God.
Isaiah 40:28 NKJV
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
Haven’t you known, haven’t you heard
that the everlasting God, Adonai,
the Creator of the ends of the earth,
does not grow tired or weary?
His understanding cannot be fathomed.
Romans 16:25–27 NKJV
25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began 26 but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith— 27 to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.
Now to God, who can strengthen you, according to my Good News, in harmony with the revelation of the secret truth which is the proclamation of Yeshua the Messiah, kept hidden in silence for ages and ages, but manifested now through prophetic writings, in keeping with the command of God the Eternal, and communicated to all the Gentiles to promote in them trust-grounded obedience—to the only wise God, through Yeshua the Messiah, be the glory forever and ever!
Amen.
God, you are without beginning or end. You have existed through all time. You are forever the same, unchanging, infinite, boundless, without measure, and limitless. I find peace in knowing that you are my “forever” God.

Sunday February 11, 2024

TNOG 28

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

(9) Moses’ Face Reflecting God’s Glory (Exodus 34:29–35)

Exodus 34:29–35 NKJV
29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.
Any reader of Exodus at any time in history might justifiably ask, “What’s the point of all this attention to how much Moses’ face shone? Why does it conclude such an important narrative as that of chaps. 32–34?” In fact, Moses reviewed the story of his radiant face here in considerable detail because it had important implications.
First, it confirmed—even reestablished—his leadership and role as intermediary with God on behalf of the people: Moses really did meet with God, whose glory was so awesome (even when restricted by the cloud in which the meeting took place and even though Moses could only see God’s “back”) that it left an effect upon Moses that everyone else could not fail to attribute to his having been in God’s (limited) presence and therefore to have been confirmed by God as Israel’s human leader.
Second, it confirmed Yahweh’s presence, the very thing sought so assiduously by Moses in his various appeals in chaps. 33–34 and so missed by the people when they thought they might have lost it (Exodus 33:1–5 ).
Exodus 33:1–5 NKJV
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Depart and go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ 2 And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” 4 And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the children of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you. Now therefore, take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do to you.’ ”
If people couldn’t even bear to look at Moses because his face was powerfully affected, however residually and partially, by Yahweh’s glory, then that glory, not at all residual in Yahweh himself, was back among Israel!
Third, it confirmed Yahweh’s greatness. What pagan worshiper ever glowed with the reflection of an idol’s glory? What other nation could claim that its god was so awesome that one who had spent time with him terrified all others in that nation by the mere retained reflection of the divinity’s glory?
Fourth, it reminded all those who seek constantly for an ever-closer relationship with God that one can actually have so close a connection with the only true and living God that one may not even notice the extent of the effect (“he was not aware that his face was radiant,” v. 29)—though, to be sure, the kind of reflected glory Moses experienced would be expected in heaven rather than on earth.
Fifth, as Paul explained in his discussion of this passage in 2 Cor 3:7–18 , the “glory that lasts” from the New Covenant was in fact much greater than the Old Covenant glory on Moses’ face that faded over time.
2 Corinthians 3:7–18 NKJV
7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. 11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. 12 Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— 13 unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. 15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Consistent with this emphasis, Jesus taught that any person who knows God through Christ in the New Covenant has gone far beyond even the remarkable glory of Moses after coming down from Sinai because of the significance of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and what it means in terms of the presence of God in one’s life in Christ (Matt 11:11 ).
Matthew 11:11 NKJV
11 “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
All who know Christ as Savior and live for him reflect his glory—even more powerfully than Moses did, though without the visible frightening effect—by reason of living the transforming life of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18 ).
2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Lord God of the Hebrews -- YHWH Elohey Ha‘Ivriyim יהוה אֱלֹהֵי הָעִבְרִיּים

Exodus 3:18 , 7:15–16 , 9:1 , 10:3
Exodus 3:18 NKJV
18 Then they will heed your voice; and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt; and you shall say to him, ‘The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’
Exodus 7:15–16 NKJV
15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning, when he goes out to the water, and you shall stand by the river’s bank to meet him; and the rod which was turned to a serpent you shall take in your hand. 16 And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness”; but indeed, until now you would not hear!
Exodus 9:1 NKJV
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
Exodus 10:3 NKJV
3 So Moses and Aaron came in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
The Egyptians learned the hard way. The God of the Hebrews was the one true God—greater than Pharaoh, and more powerful than any of the false gods of Egypt.

End of Service 2/11/2024

Sunday February 18, 2024

TNOG 29

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Exodus 34:29
Exodus 34:29 NKJV
29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.
Descending from Mount Sinai, Moses had in his hands the two very special tablets, here called the two tablets of the Testimony—each containing the Ten Words/Commandments representing the sovereign’s and the vassals’ copies of the covenant—that would eventually be placed, according to God’s command, in the ark of the testimony/covenant as symbolic documents confirming the covenant between Yahweh and his only special people on earth.
“He was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord” [Yahweh] indicates that the glory of God is not a painful or harmful thing when borne by one upon whom God’s favor rests. This was partly Paul’s point in 2 Cor 3:17–18 .
2 Corinthians 3:17–18 NKJV
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It was a joyous and delightful experience to reflect God by living in his Spirit, something that one doesn’t feel physically but something that nevertheless projects God’s powerful presence in one’s life and upon the lives of others. That Moses should after the fact, when he was no longer in God’s presence directly, still retain a very impressive effect of God’s presence proves the presence of Yahweh among the people, just as they so desired (Exodus 33:1–5 and thereafter).
The presence was obviously there if Moses’ face so obviously reflected it, and that means that God had not withdrawn from Israel as represented by his not having withdrawn from Israel’s mediator with him, Moses.
To this point it could be said that the covenant had certainly been reaffirmed and God’s presence among his people reestablished, but what about Moses’ authority among the people? He had been rejected as their leader during his first long absence as we see in Exodus 32:1
Exodus 32:1 NKJV
1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Though they increasingly showed him respect (as in their posture of worship whenever he would go to the little tent of meeting, Exodus 33:7–11 they had not yet otherwise formally acknowledged their mistake in rejecting him as leader and as Yahweh’s representative among them.
Exodus 33:7–11 NKJV
7 Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. 8 So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. 9 And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. 10 All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. 11 So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.
Yahweh took care of all that by giving Moses an unmistakable credential: radiant glory, residual to an obvious divine encounter, that no one could doubt established him as a favorite of God.
There has been some debate about what Moses’ face actually put forth. Whatever it was, it came from “the skin of his face” (niv, inexplicably, just “his face”] rather than out of his mouth or from within his cupped hands or his famous staff or any other source.
In Hebrew the usual way to indicate that something has “shined” is through the hiphil conjugation of the verb WR. But the text here uses the simple qal of the verb QRN, a root normally associated with “horn.”
Many attempted explanations of the implication of this choice of verb have been forthcoming, and most commentators have concluded that the force of the Hebrew is to indicate that the skin of his face “sent forth rays” or “radiated” rather than merely shining brightly or the like. The niv translation “was radiant” is sound, although the adjective “radiant” has come to mean merely “cheerful in appearance” or “obviously happy” (as with “glowing”), so something like “sent forth rays” would seem a less ambiguous rendering of the Hebrew.
Exodus 34:30
Exodus 34:30 NKJV
30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.
Exodus 34:30 It is likely that something other than mere bright light radiated from Moses’ skin because the text never says that anyone was blinded by looking at him or forced to look away or to shield their eyes. Rather, it indicates that people were frightened by what they saw when they looked at his face (“they were afraid to come near him”). Perhaps it pulsed with an odd light; perhaps it gave the impression of brilliance radiating out in various planes; perhaps it looked like it was on fire (see Exodus 24:17
Exodus 24:17 NKJV
17 The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
Probably it appeared, on a smaller scale, as frightening as God’s glory cloud on top of Mount Sinai was to the Israelites (Exodus 19:16 ; 24:16–17 )
Exodus 19:16 NKJV
16 Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.
Exodus 24:16–17 NKJV
16 Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
or the pillar of cloud had been to the Egyptians in the wilderness (Exodus 14:24 ).
Exodus 14:24 NKJV
24 Now it came to pass, in the morning watch, that the Lord looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians.
Just as the people had been warned not to come near Mount Sinai when God’s glory settled on it (Exodus 19:12 )
Exodus 19:12 NKJV
12 You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, ‘Take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.
and found themselves indeed horrified by that glory (Exodus 20:18–19 ),
Exodus 20:18–19 NKJV
18 Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. 19 Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
now it continued to strike fear into them, even though reduced to a reflected state, when it was as near to them as Moses was upon his return among them after descending the mountain.
The wording of the verse specifically includes Aaron along with everyone else as unable to bear coming too close to Moses, thus pointing out that the leader of the people at the time of the idolatrous rebellion described in chap. 32 now can see for himself Moses’ authenticating divine glory. The people who had once dismissed Moses’ leadership by saying, “As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (32:1) now could see for themselves that what had happened to him was that he had been with and had been accepted by the very God they needed to fear. Moses here carried a small amount of what in larger measure would kill anyone who got too close (cf. 33:20).
Exodus 34:31
Exodus 34:31 NKJV
31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them.
Aaron is again mentioned, since his willingness to accept Moses as leader was partly at stake, and the leaders of the people as a whole are mentioned, also suggesting their role in confirming Moses’ leadership over them. Aaron and the elders were now no longer fleeing from Moses (implied in the wording “came back to him”) but were approaching him again at his call to them, which must have included eventually some sort of reassurance that he was not coming to them in judgment and that his face would not kill them or harm them in any way. “He spoke to them” presumably indicates that he explained where he had been, what God had said about being willing to be close to them once again, and other reassurances of the good results of his encounter with Yahweh on the mountain.
Exodus 34:32
Exodus 34:32 NKJV
32 Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.
Consequently, all the people eventually gathered around Moses (presumably rounded up and brought there by the leaders) to listen to him formally preach the instructions he had received for them in his most recent forty-day stay with God on the mountain. At this time they still were all looking at his radiating face, which must have continued to terrify and amaze them, even though it actually bore no danger for them. Here was God’s prophet speaking the very words of God to them, with a face so terrifyingly glorious that few could manage to doubt that what he was relaying to them was absolutely true and that he had been personally sent by God to make sure they knew it. In light of what is stated in the verses immediately following, it might have been so hard for the people to look directly at him that they listened with their faces turned away or perhaps bowed to the ground.
Exodus 34:33-35
Exodus 34:33–35 NKJV
33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.
Moses surely did not need a veil for his own comfort (see comments on v. 29), and he certainly didn’t need to protect God from God’s own reflected glory, so he didn’t wear the veil when he was in God’s presence. Indeed, he had already sought the most direct possible exposure to God’s glory (33:18) and would hardly wish to have a diminished experience thereof afterwards. Therefore the veil he donned when neither atop Sinai nor at the tent of meeting was undoubtedly for the people’s sake—not because his unveiled face would physically harm them but because it apparently scared them so much psychologically that they found it hard to be near him.
The people presumably were distracted and unnerved by whatever came from Moses’ face. It must have looked terrible in both senses of that word—causing terror and unpleasant to view. Of course he needed to be near them routinely as their leader and teacher, so use of the veil provided a way for him to deal with them, including in his ongoing role as supreme judge. Verses 34–35 suggest that there were many times that Moses spoke with God directly and closely, a reprise of the implications of the tent of meeting narrative in Exodus 33:7–10, with its emphasis on their common face-to-face encounters (Exodus 33:11 ).
Exodus 33:7–10 NKJV
7 Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. 8 So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. 9 And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. 10 All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door.
Exodus 33:11 NKJV
11 So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.
In other words, he was in the very presence of Yahweh when inside the tent of meeting, and later inside the tabernacle, just as much as he was in the very presence of Yahweh when he was in the glory on top of Mount Sinai. That meant that whatever instructions he received from God from within the tent of meeting or tabernacle were just as authoritative for the people of Israel as instructions he received while on the mountain.

Lord of All the Earth -- Adon Kol Ha’Aretz אֲדֹון כָּל הָאָרֶץ

Joshua 3:11–13 NKJV
11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan. 12 Now therefore, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from every tribe. 13 And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.”
“… the ark for the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going on ahead of you across the Yarden [Jordan].”
“As soon as the cohanim [priests] carrying the ark of Adonai, the Lord of all the earth, put the soles of their feet in the water of the Yarden, the water of the Yarden will be cut off upstream and stand piled up like an embankment.”
2 Kings 17:26–27 NKJV
26 So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the rituals of the God of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and indeed, they are killing them because they do not know the rituals of the God of the land.” 27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there; let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the rituals of the God of the land.”
Isaiah 45:12 NKJV
12 I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded.
Isaiah 45:12 NKJV
12 I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded.
“I am the one who made the earth!
I created human beings on it!
I—my hands—stretched out the heavens,
and directed all their number.”
Psalm 24:1 NKJV
1 The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.
The earth is Adonai’s, with all that is in it, the world and those who live there.
Psalm 97:4–5 NKJV
4 His lightnings light the world; The earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
His flashes of lightning light up the world;
the earth sees it and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax at the presence of Adonai,
at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.
All we have has been given to us, but it isn’t ours. It belongs to our God who made it. We care for it on his behalf. Therefore, serve him with gladness and thank him for his good gifts.

Sunday February 25, 2024

TNOG 30

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

The Importance of the Sabbath
Exodus 35:1–3 NKJV
1 Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said to them, “These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do: 2 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. 3 You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”
35:1 The essential prerequisites for the construction of the tabernacle are now in place: God has reiterated the covenant, the nation has been cleansed of those who refused to repent from idolatry, the covenant has been written down and taught to the people, and they have accepted the covenant and Moses’ leadership once again. It is now time for the fulfillment of what God commanded to be made and used for properly worshiping him so that the first response of the believer (worship) can begin as it should.
Why, then, does the story of the fulfillment of the tabernacle construction commands begin with a repeat of Sabbath law? The primary reason is surely that the Sabbath was the sign of the covenant, the visible weekly proof that the people of Israel were keeping their part of the great divinely revealed legal obligation through which came their protection and blessings (see comments on 20:8–11; 31:13, 17). In a certain sense Israel’s formal starting point for keeping Yahweh’s covenant was keeping the Sabbath, that is, the fourth word/commandment, not because doing so was more important than fulfilling the first three words/commandments but because obedience to the Sabbath requirement was the most obviously measurable of them—either in the keeping or in the disobeying. By the fact that he kept (or did not keep) the Sabbath each week, an Israelite showed without ambiguity whether or not he was committed to keeping the covenant. Merely keeping the Sabbath did not confer righteousness if other commandments were violated, but it was an openly visible essential—a sine qua non—of covenant loyalty. Not to keep it would be to say publicly to the world “I am not in covenant relationship with the Lord of the Sabbath.”
In addition, by the placement of the Sabbath law here, God also linked chaps. 25–31, which are mostly dedicated to the topic of worship, with what follows in the rest of chaps. 35–40, which are as well mostly dedicated to worship. A brief summary of the laws about the weekly day of worship, the Sabbath, thus functions like a hinge to connect the command and fulfillment sections. The worship that was to occur every week honored with praise and adoration the giver of the covenant so recently renewed in chap. 34.
A third and somewhat temporal reason for the reiteration of Sabbath teaching at this point in the sequence of events may have been to keep Israelites from violating the Sabbath in the construction of the tabernacle. It might have been readily assumed by the people and perhaps even some of their priests that building something so holy as the tabernacle would trump any concern about the nonholiness of breaking the Sabbath law. In fact, the sign of the covenant can never be denigrated even for a purpose so positive.
35:2 The prohibition against working on the Sabbath day and the death penalty attached to its violation are reiterations of what has already been commanded in 20:8–11 (which, like all the Ten Words/Commandments has no expressed death penalty clause) and 31:13–17, where the death penalty for violating the Sabbath does, in fact, explicitly appear (31:14–15). The wording here has some variations that allow for summation of what was stated earlier (e.g., the wording “Sabbath of rest to the Lord,” which combines the concepts of “Sabbath to the Lord” from 20:10 and “rested on the seventh day” from 20:11 and “Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord” from 31:15).
35:3 The command “do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day” is also a summational statement, a way of stating briefly that no work can be done on the Sabbath, as is clearly spelled out not only in the prior verse but in the prior passages on the Sabbath in chaps. 20 and 31. But what does lighting a fire have to do with working? The answer is that the simplest sort of work that anyone might be tempted to do on the Sabbath (within the category of prohibited work, work that must not be done, in fact) was cooking meals. It would be easy for any Israelite to rationalize that cooking a meal would clearly be allowed since eating was not itself prohibited as work; indeed, eating on the Sabbath had been divinely provided for already through the double supply of manna each sixth day (see comments on 16:14–35).
But the Sabbath law recognized that either allowing or requiring the cooking of meals on the Sabbath would undeniably represent work for the women and/or servants of the family and thus represent a clear violation of the law. So the command against lighting a fire is, by the principle of synecdoche, a command to eat cold food on the Sabbath, that which has been prepared (whether cooked or not) the previous day, so the women and/or servants of the household could have their day of rest and not just the householding men. The prohibition does not mention all fires but only those in private homes since those on the tabernacle altar were entirely appropriate for the Sabbath offerings (Num 28:9). Even so much as gathering firewood, when not a matter of emergency, was considered work and thus merited the death penalty (Num 15:32–36).

The Greatness on High -- HaG’dulah BaM’romim הַגְּדֻלָּה בַּמְּרֹומִים

Deuteronomy 3:24 NKJV
24 ‘O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything like Your works and Your mighty deeds?
“Adonai Elohim, you have begun to reveal your greatness to your servant, and your strong hand—for what other god is there in heaven or on earth that can do the works and mighty deeds that you do?’ ”
Psalm 34:4 NKJV
4 I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.
Proclaim with me the greatness of Adonai; let us exalt his name together.
Psalm 104:1 NKJV
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty,
Bless Adonai, my soul!
Adonai, my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with glory and majesty.
Psalm 145:3 NKJV
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable.
Great is Adonai and greatly to be praised;
his greatness is beyond all searching out.
Hebrews 1:3 NKJV
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
This Son is the radiance of the Sh’khinah [Divine Presence], the very expression of God’s essence, upholding all that exists by his powerful word; and after he had, through himself, made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of HaG’dulah BaM’romim.

Sunday March 3, 2024

TNOG 31

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

God’s Call for Materials (35:4–9)

Exodus 35:4

Exodus 35:4 NKJV
4 And Moses spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying:
Since God had said in Exodus 25:1-2
Exodus 25:1–2 NKJV
1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.
Moses took the command seriously and did not merely pass the word among the people or assemble only the leadership and ask them to relay the command throughout the people. He assembled the whole community (fulfilling the command for each person to be invited to respond), comprised of all those old enough and well enough to gather in one spot, and told them all directly about God’s desire that they respond willingly to his call for the donation of materials. He reminded them that the call for materials came from God as a command and was not something either he or other Israelites had decided on their own was necessary. Everything about the Tabernacle was of divine design and origination. Humans were graciously allowed to participate in its construction, but they could not claim any credit otherwise. It was God who told humans how he wished to be worshiped, not humans who told God what they had decided to do by way of worship.

Exodus 35:5-9

Exodus 35:5–9 NKJV
5 ‘Take from among you an offering to the Lord. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the Lord: gold, silver, and bronze; 6 blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair; 7 ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; 8 oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; 9 onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
The language here duplicates Exodus 25:3–7 verbatim, starting with the words “gold, silver and bronze” (v. 5).
Exodus 25:3–7 NKJV
3 And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze; 4 blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair; 5 ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; 6 oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; 7 onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
In Exodus 25:2 God had commanded, “Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering,”
Exodus 25:2 NKJV
2 “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.
which is paraphrased here appropriately as “From what you have, take an offering for the Lord” (Exodus 35:5 ).
Exodus 35:5 NKJV
5 ‘Take from among you an offering to the Lord. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the Lord: gold, silver, and bronze;
The statement in Exodus 25:2, “You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give”
Exodus 25:2 NIV
2 “Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give.
is here fulfilled by Moses’ declaration, “Everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering.” Moses thus fulfilled God’s command to tell the people to offer the materials by doing just as God had said.
This passage stands as a model for the way things of God are provided for by humans. The covenant community261 responds to what they perceive as a divine call and give freely, without coercion, until the need is met. They give of their own possessions so that each person participates through personal sacrifice. Part of the privilege of serving God is to be found in the opportunity to donate to his purposes things that he has already entrusted to the possession of his people in his common grace. The highest honor a person can have in connection with anything he or she owns and might otherwise have used for self is seeing it given over to and incorporated into that which God thereafter owns and uses for his honor. The story of the donations of the people ends in Exodus 36:4–7, with the report that the donations far exceeded the need, thus confirming that the people took Moses’ call seriously.
Exodus 36:4–7 NKJV
4 Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work he was doing, 5 and they spoke to Moses, saying, “The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded us to do.” 6 So Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, “Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.” And the people were restrained from bringing, 7 for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done—indeed too much.
Having been chastened by the terrible results of their rebellion against Yahweh in the past, they now wholeheartedly responded to an opportunity to show their loyalty.

God of Glory — El Ha kavod -- אֵל הַכָּבֹוד

Isaiah 40:5 NKJV
5 The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
“Then the glory of YHWH will be revealed; all humankind together will see it, for the mouth of Adonai has spoken.”
Psalm 19:1 NKJV
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.
The heavens declare the glory of God, the dome of the sky speaks the work of his hands.
2 Chronicles 5:13–14 NKJV
13 indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying: For He is good, For His mercy endures forever,” that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, 14 so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
… then, when the trumpeters and singers were playing in concord, to be heard harmoniously praising and thanking YHWH, and they lifted their voices together with the trumpets, cymbals and other musical instruments to praise Adonai: “for he is good, for his grace continues forever”—then, the house, the house of Adonai, was filled with a cloud; so that because of the cloud, the cohanim [priests] could not stand up to perform their service; for the glory of YHWH filled the house of God.
Revelation 19:1 NKJV
1 After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!
After these things, I heard what sounded like the roar of a huge crowd in heaven, shouting,
“Halleluyahl!
The victory, the glory, the power of our God!”
In days of old, the glory of God appeared in the cloud and as a raging fire on the mountain. And just as his glory filled the temple. it also appears through us who believe today.

Sunday March 10, 2024

TNOG 32

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

God’s Call for Skilled Workers (Exodus 35:10-19) [Summarizes Parts of 26–28; 30 with Further Fulfillment Especially in 37; 39–40]

This listing of the component parts of the tabernacle, its furnishings, and its courtyard systematically reflects various descriptions of these articles in the command sections of chaps. 26–28 and chap. 30, but it also finds many parallels in 39:32–41, where the original command to provide the tabernacle can also be considered fulfilled as Moses inspected it and found it entirely in compliance with the design God gave him on Sinai.

Exodus 35:10

Exodus 35:10 NKJV
10 ‘All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded:
“All who are skilled among you” summarizes the earlier instructions that various tabernacle parts were to be constructed by “a skilled craftsman” (Exodus 26:1 , Exodus 26:31 )
Exodus 26:1 NKJV
1 “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine woven linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet thread; with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.
Exodus 26:31 NKJV
31 “You shall make a veil woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen. It shall be woven with an artistic design of cherubim.
or “all the skilled men” (Exodus 28:3 )
Exodus 28:3 NKJV
3 So you shall speak to all who are gifted artisans, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments, to consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.
or “the work of a skilled craftsman” (Exodus 28:6 , 15 ).
Exodus 28:6 NKJV
6 and they shall make the ephod of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, artistically worked.
Exodus 28:15 NKJV
15 “You shall make the breastplate of judgment. Artistically woven according to the workmanship of the ephod you shall make it: of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, you shall make it.
Exodus 35:10 NKJV
10 ‘All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded:
The wording “all that the Lord has commanded” (Exodus 35:10) reflects particularly the language of Exodus 31:6 (“I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you:”).
Exodus 31:6 NKJV
6 “And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you:
This concept will also be reiterated in Exodus 39:32 (“the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so they did.”).
Exodus 39:32 NKJV
32 Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished. And the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so they did.
In this situation the biblical theme of God’s use of human beings to accomplish his will is further developed. The emphasis of “Let us make man in our image” (Gen 1:26 ) .
Genesis 1:26 NKJV
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
is not ontological but vocational. It refers to humans being heaven’s representatives on earth to do what God wants done on earth (cf. “as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10 ),
Matthew 6:10 NKJV
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
as the remainder of Gen 1:26 goes on to clarify
Genesis 1:26 NKJV
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
(“let them rule over … all the earth”). God’s genius in creation is demonstrated partly in his delegation of important assignments to humans—assignments of divine design but of human fulfillment.

Exodus 35:11

Exodus 35:11 NKJV
11 the tabernacle, its tent, its covering, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
Building the “tabernacle” (the symbolic house-tent for Yahweh) was commanded as a general, overall requirement in Exodus 26:1 and will be summarized in general in Exodus 39:32–33 as well.
Exodus 26:1 NKJV
1 “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine woven linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet thread; with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.
Exodus 39:32–33 NKJV
32 Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished. And the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so they did. 33 And they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its furnishings: its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
This was followed in the original Tabernacle commandments given to Moses by instructions concerning the various parts of the tabernacle, including the “covering” in Exodus 26:14 (cf. Exodus 39:33 );
Exodus 26:14 NKJV
14 “You shall also make a covering of ram skins dyed red for the tent, and a covering of badger skins above that.
Exodus 39:34 NKJV
34 the covering of ram skins dyed red, the covering of badger skins, and the veil of the covering;
the “clasps” in Exodus 26:6 , 11 , 33 (cf. Exodus 39:34 );
Exodus 26:6 NKJV
6 And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains together with the clasps, so that it may be one tabernacle.
Exodus 26:11 NKJV
11 And you shall make fifty bronze clasps, put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one.
Exodus 26:33 NKJV
33 And you shall hang the veil from the clasps. Then you shall bring the ark of the Testimony in there, behind the veil. The veil shall be a divider for you between the holy place and the Most Holy.
Exodus 39:33 NKJV
33 And they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its furnishings: its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
the “boards/frames” in Exodus 26:15–23 , 25 (cf. Exodus 39:33 );
Exodus 26:15–23 NKJV
15 “And for the tabernacle you shall make the boards of acacia wood, standing upright. 16 Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the width of each board. 17 Two tenons shall be in each board for binding one to another. Thus you shall make for all the boards of the tabernacle. 18 And you shall make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side. 19 You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons. 20 And for the second side of the tabernacle, the north side, there shall be twenty boards 21 and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under each of the boards. 22 For the far side of the tabernacle, westward, you shall make six boards. 23 And you shall also make two boards for the two back corners of the tabernacle.
Exodus 26:25 NKJV
25 So there shall be eight boards with their sockets of silver—sixteen sockets—two sockets under each of the boards.
Exodus 39:33 NKJV
33 And they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its furnishings: its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
the “crossbars” in Exodus 26:26, 28–29 (cf. 39:34);
Exodus 26:26 NKJV
26 “And you shall make bars of acacia wood: five for the boards on one side of the tabernacle,
Exodus 26:28–29 NKJV
28 The middle bar shall pass through the midst of the boards from end to end. 29 You shall overlay the boards with gold, make their rings of gold as holders for the bars, and overlay the bars with gold.
the “posts” in Exodus 26:32, 37 (cf. Exodus 39:33
Exodus 26:32 NKJV
32 You shall hang it upon the four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be gold, upon four sockets of silver.
Exodus 26:37 NKJV
37 And you shall make for the screen five pillars of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold; their hooks shall be gold, and you shall cast five sockets of bronze for them.
Exodus 39:33 NKJV
33 And they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its furnishings: its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
[note that these are different from the posts used to hang the courtyard curtains mentioned in Exodus 27:10–12, 14–17 ; cf. Exodus 39:40 )];
Exodus 27:10–12 NKJV
10 And its twenty pillars and their twenty sockets shall be bronze. The hooks of the pillars and their bands shall be silver. 11 Likewise along the length of the north side there shall be hangings one hundred cubits long, with its twenty pillars and their twenty sockets of bronze, and the hooks of the pillars and their bands of silver. 12 “And along the width of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits, with their ten pillars and their ten sockets.
Exodus 27:14–17 NKJV
14 The hangings on one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three sockets. 15 And on the other side shall be hangings of fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three sockets. 16 “For the gate of the court there shall be a screen twenty cubits long, woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver. It shall have four pillars and four sockets. 17 All the pillars around the court shall have bands of silver; their hooks shall be of silver and their sockets of bronze.
Exodus 39:40 NKJV
40 the hangings of the court, its pillars and its sockets, the screen for the court gate, its cords, and its pegs; all the utensils for the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of meeting;
End of Y
and the “bases” for the posts in Exodus 26:19, 21, 25, 32 , 37 (cf. Exodus 39:40
Exodus 26:19 NKJV
19 You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons.
Exodus 26:21 NKJV
21 and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under each of the boards.
Exodus 26:25 NKJV
25 So there shall be eight boards with their sockets of silver—sixteen sockets—two sockets under each of the boards.
Exodus 26:32 NKJV
32 You shall hang it upon the four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be gold, upon four sockets of silver.
Exodus 26:37 NKJV
37 And you shall make for the screen five pillars of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold; their hooks shall be gold, and you shall cast five sockets of bronze for them.
Exodus 39:40 NKJV
40 the hangings of the court, its pillars and its sockets, the screen for the court gate, its cords, and its pegs; all the utensils for the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of meeting;
[these bases, again, were just for the tabernacle posts and were separate from the base for the lampstand (Exodus 25:31
Exodus 25:31 NKJV
31 “You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece.
) or the bases for the courtyard posts]; Exodus 27:10ff .; cf. Exodus 39:40 ).
Exodus 27:10ff NKJV
10 And its twenty pillars and their twenty sockets shall be bronze. The hooks of the pillars and their bands shall be silver. 11 Likewise along the length of the north side there shall be hangings one hundred cubits long, with its twenty pillars and their twenty sockets of bronze, and the hooks of the pillars and their bands of silver. 12 “And along the width of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits, with their ten pillars and their ten sockets. 13 The width of the court on the east side shall be fifty cubits. 14 The hangings on one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three sockets. 15 And on the other side shall be hangings of fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three sockets. 16 “For the gate of the court there shall be a screen twenty cubits long, woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver. It shall have four pillars and four sockets. 17 All the pillars around the court shall have bands of silver; their hooks shall be of silver and their sockets of bronze. 18 The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits, the width fifty throughout, and the height five cubits, made of fine woven linen and its sockets of bronze. 19 All the utensils of the tabernacle for all its service, all its pegs, and all the pegs of the court, shall be of bronze. 20 “And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually. 21 In the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening until morning before the Lord. It shall be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the children of Israel.
Exodus 39:40 NKJV
40 the hangings of the court, its pillars and its sockets, the screen for the court gate, its cords, and its pegs; all the utensils for the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of meeting;

Giver of the Torah -- Noten HaTorah נוֹתֵן הַתּוֹרָה

Exodus 13:19
Exodus 13:9 NKJV
9 It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt.
“Moreover, it will serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes, so that Adonai’s Torah [teaching] may be on your lips; because with a strong hand Adonai brought you out of Egypt.”
Numbers 19:2 NKJV
2 “This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.
Adonai said to Moshe [Moses] and Aharon [Aaron], “This is the regulation from the Torah which Adonai has commanded.”
Micah 4:2 NKJV
2 Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
… For out of Tziyon [Zion] will go forth Torah, the word of Adonai from Yerushalayim*.
1 Chronicles 16:39–40 NKJV
39 and Zadok the priest and his brethren the priests, before the tabernacle of the Lord at the high place that was at Gibeon, 40 to offer burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly morning and evening, and to do according to all that is written in the Law of the Lord which He commanded Israel;
He left Tzadok [Zadok] the cohen [priest] with his kinsmen before the tabernacle of Adonai at the high place in Giv‘on [Gibeon] to offer burnt offerings to Adonai every morning and evening on the altar for burnt offerings, according to everything written in the Torah of Adonai, which he gave to Isra’el.
James 4:12 NKJV
12 There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?
There is but one Giver of Torah; he is also the Judge, with the power to deliver and to destroy.…

Sunday March 17, 2023

TNOG 33

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

God’s Call for Skilled Workers (Exodus 35:10-19) [Summarizes Parts of 26–28; 30 with Further Fulfillment Especially in 37; 39–40]

This listing of the component parts of the tabernacle, its furnishings, and its courtyard systematically reflects various descriptions of these articles in the command sections of chaps. 26–28 and chap. 30, but it also finds many parallels in 39:32–41, where the original command to provide the tabernacle can also be considered fulfilled as Moses inspected it and found it entirely in compliance with the design God gave him on Sinai.
We reviewed

Exodus 35:10

Exodus 35:10 NKJV
10 ‘All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded:
We also studied

Exodus 35:11

Exodus 35:11 NKJV
11 the tabernacle, its tent, its covering, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
Building the “tabernacle” (the symbolic house-tent for Yahweh) was commanded as a general, overall requirement in Exodus 26:1 and will be summarized in general in Exodus 39:32–33 as well.

Exodus 35:12

Exodus 35:12 NKJV
12 the ark and its poles, with the mercy seat, and the veil of the covering;
The “ark” was described in Exodus 25:10–12 (cf. Exodus 39:35 );
Exodus 25:10–12 NKJV
10 “And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four corners; two rings shall be on one side, and two rings on the other side.
Exodus 39:35 NKJV
35 the ark of the Testimony with its poles, and the mercy seat;
its carrying “poles” were depicted in Exodus 25:13–16 (cf. Exodus 39:35 );
Exodus 25:13–16 NKJV
13 And you shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, that the ark may be carried by them. 15 The poles shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. 16 And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you.
Exodus 39:35 NKJV
35 the ark of the Testimony with its poles, and the mercy seat;
its “atonement cover” in Exodus 25:17–22 (cf. Exodus 26:34 ; Exodus 39:35 ) ;
Exodus 25:17–22 NKJV
17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at one end, and the other cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. 21 You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. 22 And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.
Exodus 26:34 NKJV
34 You shall put the mercy seat upon the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy.
Exodus 39:35 NKJV
35 the ark of the Testimony with its poles, and the mercy seat;

The Lord Our Maker -- Adonai ‘Oseynu יהוה עֹשֵׂנו

From ASAH, to make, we have ASEHNU or OSEYNU
Genesis 1:26-27
Genesis 1:26–27 NKJV
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves …”
So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.
Psalm 95:6 NKJV
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
Come, let’s bow down and worship; let’s kneel before Adonai who made us.
Psalm 100:3 NKJV
3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Be aware that Adonai is God; it is he who made us; and we are his, his people, the flock in his pasture.
Proverbs 22:2 NKJV
2 The rich and the poor have this in common, The Lord is the maker of them all.
Rich and poor have this in common—Adonai made them both.
All of us have been fashioned by God. The next time you are ready to find fault with yourself or others, remember that everything God made is delightful to him, including you!

End of TNOG33 3/17/24

Sunday March 24, 2023

TNOG 34

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

and the “curtain” dividing the holy of holies from the holy place, used as a wrapping for the ark as it traveled (“the curtain that shields it” was described in Exodus 26:31–33 ; cf. Exodus 39:34 ).
Exodus 26:31–33 NKJV
31 “You shall make a veil woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen. It shall be woven with an artistic design of cherubim. 32 You shall hang it upon the four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be gold, upon four sockets of silver. 33 And you shall hang the veil from the clasps. Then you shall bring the ark of the Testimony in there, behind the veil. The veil shall be a divider for you between the holy place and the Most Holy.
Exodus 39:34 NKJV
34 the covering of ram skins dyed red, the covering of badger skins, and the veil of the covering;
These important items are simply listed here without description or elaboration because this listing is part of a brief speech reminding people of what constituted the tabernacle and its furnishings so that they could go home and find or make appropriate materials to donate.
The fulfillment of the original ark command of chap. 25 is found in Exodus 37:1–9,
Exodus 37:1–9 NKJV
1 Then Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits was its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 2 He overlaid it with pure gold inside and outside, and made a molding of gold all around it. 3 And he cast for it four rings of gold to be set in its four corners: two rings on one side, and two rings on the other side of it. 4 He made poles of acacia wood, and overlaid them with gold. 5 And he put the poles into the rings at the sides of the ark, to bear the ark. 6 He also made the mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits was its length and a cubit and a half its width. 7 He made two cherubim of beaten gold; he made them of one piece at the two ends of the mercy seat: 8 one cherub at one end on this side, and the other cherub at the other end on that side. He made the cherubim at the two ends of one piece with the mercy seat. 9 The cherubim spread out their wings above, and covered the mercy seat with their wings. They faced one another; the faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat.
and the original curtain command is in Exodus 36:35 ; Exodus 39:34 .
Exodus 36:35 NKJV
35 And he made a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen; it was worked with an artistic design of cherubim.
Exodus 39:34 NKJV
34 the covering of ram skins dyed red, the covering of badger skins, and the veil of the covering;
The ark was the only object that occupied the holy of holies, the back room of the tabernacle that represented God’s private room.
The table, lampstand, and altar of incense described in Exodus 35:13–15 constituted the three pieces of furniture in the spare but elegant holy place, the front room of the tabernacle.
Exodus 35:13–15 NKJV
13 the table and its poles, all its utensils, and the showbread; 14 also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps, and the oil for the light; 15 the incense altar, its poles, the anointing oil, the sweet incense, and the screen for the door at the entrance of the tabernacle;

Exodus 35:13

Exodus 35:13 NKJV
13 the table and its poles, all its utensils, and the showbread;
The “table” that stood in the holy place, the larger of the two rooms of the tabernacle, was described in Exodus 25:23–27 (cf. Exodus 39:36 );
Exodus 25:23–27 NKJV
23 “You shall also make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 24 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold all around. 25 You shall make for it a frame of a handbreadth all around, and you shall make a gold molding for the frame all around. 26 And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings on the four corners that are at its four legs. 27 The rings shall be close to the frame, as holders for the poles to bear the table.
Exodus 39:36 NKJV
36 the table, all its utensils, and the showbread;
its “poles,” in Exodus 23:27–28 ;
Exodus 23:27–28 NKJV
27 “I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you.
its “articles” (plates, dishes, pitchers, bowls), in Exodus 25:29 (cf. Exodus 39:36 ).
Exodus 25:29 NKJV
29 You shall make its dishes, its pans, its pitchers, and its bowls for pouring. You shall make them of pure gold.
Exodus 39:36 NKJV
36 the table, all its utensils, and the showbread;
The table will be described again as fulfilled through its actual construction in Exodus 37:10–16
Exodus 37:10–16 NKJV
10 He made the table of acacia wood; two cubits was its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And he overlaid it with pure gold, and made a molding of gold all around it. 12 Also he made a frame of a handbreadth all around it, and made a molding of gold for the frame all around it. 13 And he cast for it four rings of gold, and put the rings on the four corners that were at its four legs. 14 The rings were close to the frame, as holders for the poles to bear the table. 15 And he made the poles of acacia wood to bear the table, and overlaid them with gold. 16 He made of pure gold the utensils which were on the table: its dishes, its cups, its bowls, and its pitchers for pouring.
(leaving out in that context any mention of the bread, which was a temporary substance, not a piece of furniture, chaps. 36–38 being devoted to hardware rather than to perishable substances). The “bread of the Presence” that was to be placed upon it constantly as a symbolic offering to God for his personal use in his house was originally described in Exodus 25:30 and will be mentioned again as precisely provided in Exodus 39:36 .
Exodus 25:30 NKJV
30 And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always.
Exodus 39:36 NKJV
36 the table, all its utensils, and the showbread;

Exodus 35:14

Exodus 35:14 NKJV
14 also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps, and the oil for the light;
The “lampstand” was described in Exodus 25:31–36, 39–40;
Exodus 25:31–36 NKJV
31 “You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece. 32 And six branches shall come out of its sides: three branches of the lampstand out of one side, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side. 33 Three bowls shall be made like almond blossoms on one branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like almond blossoms on the other branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower—and so for the six branches that come out of the lampstand. 34 On the lampstand itself four bowls shall be made like almond blossoms, each with its ornamental knob and flower. 35 And there shall be a knob under the first two branches of the same, a knob under the second two branches of the same, and a knob under the third two branches of the same, according to the six branches that extend from the lampstand. 36 Their knobs and their branches shall be of one piece; all of it shall be one hammered piece of pure gold.
its “accessories,” in Exodus 25:38–39 ;
Exodus 25:38–39 NKJV
38 And its wick-trimmers and their trays shall be of pure gold. 39 It shall be made of a talent of pure gold, with all these utensils.
its “lamps,” in Exodus 25:37 ;
Exodus 25:37 NKJV
37 You shall make seven lamps for it, and they shall arrange its lamps so that they give light in front of it.
and its “oil,” in Exodus 27:10–21 .
Exodus 27:10–21 NKJV
10 And its twenty pillars and their twenty sockets shall be bronze. The hooks of the pillars and their bands shall be silver. 11 Likewise along the length of the north side there shall be hangings one hundred cubits long, with its twenty pillars and their twenty sockets of bronze, and the hooks of the pillars and their bands of silver. 12 “And along the width of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits, with their ten pillars and their ten sockets. 13 The width of the court on the east side shall be fifty cubits. 14 The hangings on one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three sockets. 15 And on the other side shall be hangings of fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three sockets. 16 “For the gate of the court there shall be a screen twenty cubits long, woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver. It shall have four pillars and four sockets. 17 All the pillars around the court shall have bands of silver; their hooks shall be of silver and their sockets of bronze. 18 The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits, the width fifty throughout, and the height five cubits, made of fine woven linen and its sockets of bronze. 19 All the utensils of the tabernacle for all its service, all its pegs, and all the pegs of the court, shall be of bronze. 20 “And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually. 21 In the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening until morning before the Lord. It shall be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the children of Israel.
All these are again summarized as fulfilled in Exodus 39:37 .
Exodus 39:37 NKJV
37 the pure gold lampstand with its lamps (the lamps set in order), all its utensils, and the oil for light;
The lampstand is also described as constructed in Exodus 37:17–23 but without the mention of oil per se because, as we have already noted, the bread was a perishable substance, and the descriptions in chaps. 36–38 are limited to tabernacle hardware.
Exodus 37:17–23 NKJV
17 He also made the lampstand of pure gold; of hammered work he made the lampstand. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and its flowers were of the same piece. 18 And six branches came out of its sides: three branches of the lampstand out of one side, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side. 19 There were three bowls made like almond blossoms on one branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like almond blossoms on the other branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower—and so for the six branches coming out of the lampstand. 20 And on the lampstand itself were four bowls made like almond blossoms, each with its ornamental knob and flower. 21 There was a knob under the first two branches of the same, a knob under the second two branches of the same, and a knob under the third two branches of the same, according to the six branches extending from it. 22 Their knobs and their branches were of one piece; all of it was one hammered piece of pure gold. 23 And he made its seven lamps, its wick-trimmers, and its trays of pure gold.

The Greatness on High -- HaG’dulah BaM’romim הַגְּדֻלָּה בַּמְּרֹומִים

First lets take a look at the greatness and magnificence of the Lord God as opposed to lessor gods.
Deuteronomy 3:24
Deuteronomy 3:24 NKJV
24 ‘O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything like Your works and Your mighty deeds?
“Adonai Elohim, you have begun to reveal your greatness to your servant, and your strong hand—for what other god is there in heaven or on earth that can do the works and mighty deeds that you do?’ ”
Psalm 34:4
Psalm 34:3 NKJV
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together.
Proclaim with me the greatness of Adonai; let us exalt his name together.
Psalm 104:1
Psalm 104:1 NKJV
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty,
Bless Adonai, my soul!
Adonai, my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with glory and majesty.
Psalm 145:3
Psalm 145:3 NKJV
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable.
Great is Adonai and greatly to be praised;
his greatness is beyond all searching out.
Hebrews 1:3
Hebrews 1:3 NKJV
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
This Son is the radiance of the Sh’khinah [Divine Presence], the very expression of God’s essence, upholding all that exists by his powerful word; and after he had, through himself, made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of HaG’dulah BaM’romim.
======
D.A. Carson also stated, In his Matthew Commentary from the Expositor’s Bible Commentary
God’s “name” is God himself as he is and has revealed himself, and so his name is already holy. Holiness, often thought of as “separateness,” is less an attribute than what he is.
D. A. Carson
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