The Story and History of Exodus - Part 7: Bread, Water, Rocks and Mountains

1. PRAYER
Almighty God,
your Son has shown us
how to love one another.
May our love for you
overflow into joyous service
and be a healing witness to our neighbors
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

3. Road Trip!

4. Road Trip? !

5. • Food
• Water
• Shelter/shade
• Weapons
PACKING for the DESERT

6. • Food Don’t seem to have any
• Water REALLY don’t seem to have any
• Shelter/shade Surely have something
• Weapons Where’d they get them?!
PACKING for the DESERT

7. What’s happening here? A sea
was crossed and songs were sung.
Freedom at last. But now, the reality
of wilderness-wandering hits: thirst
and hunger, an enemy attack, and just
generally a bad attitude. After three
tense months, the formerly enslaved
Israelites reach Sinai, where they will
stay camped for eleven months.

8. EXODUS 16:4-5
Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘I am going
to rain bread from heaven for you, and each
day the people shall go out and gather enough for
that day. In that way I will test them,
whether they will follow my instruction or not. On
the sixth day, when they prepare what
they bring in, it will be twice as much
as they gather on other days.’

9. Manna = man hu = “What is it?”
1. The people should gather
the food from the sky daily
2. God wants to test whether
the Israelites follow God’s
instructions or not
3. On Friday, the people
should gather double
THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS

10. EXODUS 16:16, 36
This is what the LORD has commanded:
‘Gather as much of it as each of you needs,
an omer to a person according to the number
of persons, each of you shall fetch for those
in his tent…’ An omer* (½ gallon) is a tenth
of an ephah** (about 5-6 gallons).
* Measurement no longer in use by the editors
** Used more than 30x in the OT

11. 1. God’s command mentions a daily
portion; never specifies an amount
2. God’s command implies all the
Israelites were to go out and gather
manna for themselves,
but Moses charges only the
“head of the family” to do so
on behalf of the household
THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS

12. EXODUS 16:19-20
This is what YHWH said: ‘Tomorrow
is a day of rest, a holy sabbath of YHWH.’
Bake what you would bake and boil
what you would boil; and all that is left
put aside to be kept until morning.

13. 1. God’s initial command never
mentions anything about sabbath
2. How do we reconcile Moses saying
things that don’t appear
in the original command?
THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS

14. 1. God’s initial command never
mentions anything about sabbath
2. How do we reconcile Moses saying
things that don’t appear
in the original command?
• Full articulation of short quote?
• Human interpretation of the
shorter divine command?
• Multiple traditions?
THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS

15. …most of the commands issued
by Moses in Exodus 16 are presented
as his own creative elaboration of the
(fairly basic)
divine communication of verses
4–5… (but since) Moses is
God’s closest representative,
the commandments he creates are,
ipso facto, God’s commandments.*
(*Narrative logic, interpretive choice)
PROF. RABBI
DAVID FRANKEL

16. EXODUS 16:33-35
And Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a jar, and put
an omer of manna in it, and place it before
the Lord, to be kept through…generations.’

17. One may concede that some kernels of
actual memories of improvised
sustenance (or military victory,
or manna lasting in perpetuity) during
the Wilderness wanderings might be
preserved in these stories, but the
point the narrative
makes is to convert them
into miraculous events.
ROBERT
ALTER

18. EXODUS 16:33-35
And Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a jar, and put
an omer of manna in it, and place it before
the Lord, to be kept through…generations.’
As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron
placed it before the covenant,* for safe-keeping.
The Israelites ate manna for forty years,
until they came to a habitable land;
they ate manna, until they came
to the border of the land of Canaan.

19. EXODUS 17:1, NUMBERS 20:1-2
From the wilderness of Sin the whole Israelite
community continued by stages as YHWH
would command. They encamped at Rephidim,
and there was no water for the people to drink.
The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness
of Zin in the first month, and they people settled
in Kadesh…and the community was without water.

20. EXODUS 17:2, NUMBERS 20:3
The people quarreled with Moses.
The people quarreled with Moses.

21. EXODUS 17:3, NUMBERS 20:4-5
…and the people grumbled against Moses
and said, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt,
to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
Why have you brought YHWH's congregation
into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die
there? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt
to bring us to this wretched place?

22. EXODUS 17:4, NUMBERS 20:6
Moses cried out to YHWH.
Moses and Aaron came away from
the congregation to the entrance
of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on
their faces, and the Glory of YHWH
appeared to them.

23. EXODUS 17:5, NUMBERS 20:8
Pass before the people; take with you some
of the elders of Israel, and take along the staff
with which you struck the Nile, and set out.
You and your brother Aaron take the staff
and assemble the community,

24. EXODUS 17:6, NUMBERS 20:11
Strike the stone and water will issue from it,
and the people will drink. And Moses did so
in the sight of the elders of Israel.
And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock
twice with his staff. Out issued copious water, and
the community and their beasts drank.

25. DEUTERONOMY 32:48-51
On that very day the Lord addressed Moses
as follows: ‘Ascend this mountain of the Abarim,
Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab,
across from Jericho, and view the land
of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites
for a possession; you shall die there on
the mountain that you ascend and shall
be gathered to your kin…because you broke
faith with me among the Israelites at the waters
of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.

26. The Exodus stories all have happy
endings while the Numbers stories
end with punishments. In the quail
story, God becomes furious with the
Israelites and strikes them down. In
the water story, Moses and Aaron
botch the miracle and although Israel
gets their water, Moses and Aaron pay
with their lives for it, losing the
privilege
to (enter) the Promised Land…
PROFESSOR
JONATHAN
JACOBS

27. …the ideal picture in Exodus
is tempered by the harsh reality
of Numbers. Both tell the same story
but from different points
of view.
PROFESSOR
JONATHAN
JACOBS

28. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:1-4
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers
and sisters, that our ancestors were all under
the cloud, and all passed through the sea,
and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud
and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they
drank from the spiritual rock that followed
them, and the rock was Christ.

29. A QUICK SUMMARY of 17-18
Under Joseph’s military leadership,
Israel miraculously defeats the Amalekites
as Aaron/Hur keep Moses’ hands raised…
Moses’ father-in-law Jethro* gives him
sage advice about avoiding burnout,
both for himself and for the people…
* Israel’s bureaucracy is the brainchild
of a non-Israelite, a Midianite priest

30. EXODUS 19:1b-4
They came into the wilderness of Sinai…
(and) Israel camped there in front of the
mountain. Then Moses went up to God;
the Lord called to him from the mountain,
saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob,
and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did
to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’
wings and brought you to myself.

31. EXODUS 19:5-6a
Now therefore, if you obey my voice
and keep my covenant, you shall be
my treasured possession out of all the peoples.
Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be
for me a *priestly kingdom* and a *holy nation*.

32. The exodus story is about more than
deliverance from slavery; it’s about
how the Israelites move into the
service of YHWH. The end goal
(is to get to) Mt. Sinai, so they can (1)
learn how to conduct themselves as
God’s Chosen People, and
(2) get on the same page about
what kind of worship Israel’s Deliverer
demands.

33. EXODUS 19:10-12
The Lord said to Moses: ‘Go to the people and
consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them
wash their clothes and prepare for the third day,
because on the third day the Lord will come down
upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people You
shall set limits for the people all around, saying,
“Be careful not to go up the mountain
or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch
the mountain shall be put to death.”

34. EXODUS 19:13, 16-17
No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned
or shot with arrows; whether animal
or human being, they shall not live.” When the
trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on
the mountain.’ On the morning of the third day
there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick
cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so
loud that all the people…trembled. Moses brought
the people out of the camp to meet God. They
stationed themselves at the foot of…

35. 1. God SEES / KNOWS / LOVES
2. God says “I will be WITH you.”
3. Jesus sets our VISION of God;
the TEXT gets to speak for itself
4. God works ALL things towards the
RESTORATION of creation
MAJOR THEMES

36. 5. What GOD did for ISRAEL
at the PASSOVER, God did
for ALL in the death, burial,
and resurrection of JESUS
6. God is GRACIOUS and
ACCOMMODATING with EVERYONE as
they read/tell/
hear/write the STORY, and that
INCLUDES you
MAJOR THEMES

37. 7. The DIVERSITY of perspectives
in scripture should be EMBRACED, not
AVOIDED or EXPLAINED
away out of FEAR
MAJOR THEMES

38. We need a FAITH
and a BIBLE that is
STRONG and FLEXIBLE
enough to MATCH the
VARIETY of our lived
EXPERIENCE, not one
that is WEAK and BRITTLE
enough to CRACK at the
SLIGHTEST application of STRESS
ONE LAST THOUGHT

39. CLOSING PRAYER
Life-giving God,
heal our lives,
that we may acknowledge
your wonderful deeds
and offer you thanks
from generation to generation
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.