Exodus 24-31: some very, very detailed instructions

I've slightly had my comeuppance here. OK, so I decided to talk about the importance of ritual in my last post. But this section is really going for it – although I suppose if you're setting out details of religious rites that are meant to last for thousands of years it could take a while.
But God has obviously put some very serious thought into exactly how he wants worshipping.
So, after a ceremony to celebrate the fact that the Israelites have been given the Ten Commandments (involving, as usual, some gory sacrifices), Moses heads up to the top of Mount Sinai, and doesn't come down for 40 days.
As far as can be told from chapters 25-31, that 40 days is spent being given intensively detailed instructions on what God wants the Ark of the Covenant to look like. Marc obviously finds the instructions rather OTT and the lists pretty boring, but I quite like some of them.
The descriptions of what the Ark should look like is quite enjoyable to read, with excitingly lush materials:

“And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair,
And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood,
Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,
Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate”
(Chapter 25 verses 4-7)

It's a bit like reading fat glossy women's magazines, full of celebrities wearing designer labels and wearing fabulous shoes – you wouldn't necessarily want to do it yourself, but it's kind of fun.
The Ark is also to include something called a Mercy Seat, which explains the origins of the Nick Cave song (also covered by Johnny Cash) which I had vaguely wondered about before. It apparently translates better as a seat of grace, which fits with it being where God shall appear.



One question that occurs to me is exactly where all this gold and other expensive trappings are meant to come from, from a people apparently still wandering around in a desert and who only a few chapters back were busy kicking up a fuss over the prospect of dying of thirst.
Not only do we have extensive amounts of gold and gems on the design spec, with chapter 25's long lists of bowls, candlesticks, vessels and other bits of metalware which have to be made with pure gold, but also lots of precious jewels:

“And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stons: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
And the third row a ligure, and agate, and an amethyst.
And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.”
(chapter 28 verses 17-20)

Many of the cloths have specifically to be purple, which as far as I can remember from my ancient history means that it has to be dyed with extracts from the murex shell, which was fabulously expensive and very much sought after, with major trade routes and conflicts linked to various empires' desire to get their hands on good supplies of it. And we're not just talking the priests' robes here, but also curtains for the temple courtyard which are meant to be 20 cubits in length – which I think is about 30 feet, or 10 metres.
Aaron, Moses' brother, is designated the father of a line of priests, since this is to be a hereditary post – and a rather cushy billet too. As well as getting to wear all that purple, the priest class seems to do rather well out of the massive amount of blood sacrifices ordered, which include large quantities of bullocks, rams and lambs – surely a huge challenge for this desert nomadic people?

“And thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement: and thou shalt cleanse the altar, when thou hast made an atonement for it, and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it.
Seven days thou shalt make an atonement for the altar, and sanctify it; and it shall be an altar most holy: whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy.
Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually.
The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even:
And with one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering.”

(Chapter 29 verses 36-40)
But, it needs noting, the priests get to eat a bit of this stuff – that which isn't completely incinerated as burnt offerings – which implies that they're going to have a better diet than a lot of their people.
And, as with events such as the massacre of Shechem and the Tower of Babel, the actual handing over the the stone tablets gets just a brief mention at the end of these very long and details demands for how ritual must be carried out:

“And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”
(Chapter 31 verse 18)

Exodus 38 to 40: Taber-knackered

Exodus 38

Cripes, I hope this Bezaleel guy got an hourly contract rather than piece rates, cos this job is going on well over time and budget. And I hope he got it in writing...

Verse 1 “And he made the altar of burnt offering of shittim wood: five cubits was the length thereof, and five cubits the breadth thereof: it was foursquare: and three cubits the height thereof”

And he keeps making, verse after verse after verse.

It's almost hypnotic.

Then there's some quantity surveying/cost accounting (verses 24-5)

Exodus 39

And it goes on. And on. Onan onan on. Wankers.

Verse 10 “And they set in it four rows of stones: the first row was sardius, a topaz and a carbuncle: this was the first row.”

And then they get onto the clothes, and make big fashion statements.

Verse 26-7 “A bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, round about the hem of the robe to minister in, as the LORD commanded Moses. And they made coats fo fine linen of woven work for Aaron, and for his sons.”

And finally along comes the quality control guy.

Verse 43 “And Moses did look upon all the work, and behold, they had done it as the LORD had commanded,even so had they done it: and Moses blessed them."

Exodus 40

The LORD gives Moses some presentational and H&S tips on the tabernacle's opening. Moses does as he is told, and the temple becomes the green light/red light for the onward journey:

Verse 35-8 “And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onwards in all their journeys: But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

Ah, so they're on the road again...

And that's that for Exodus, thank the LORD.

Exodus 17-23: rules and regulations

Still wandering in the wilderness in the south of the Sinai peninsula, the Israelites apparently haven't yet learnt the graceful art of gratitude, but continue to get snitty with Moses at every opportunity:

17/2 "Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the LORD?
17/3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst."

Although having said this, the continued concerns about water are a strong reminder of how important a supply of H2O is, and how lightly we now take it in societies where it is still plentiful, and prefigures the significance it has in the conflicts of the modern Middle East and, increasingly, in Africa and Central Asia.


But in this case, Moses resolves the situation by smiting a rock on Mount Horeb, which flows with water – Mt Horeb apparently being another name for Mt Sinai, where there are little green gardens amongst the desert rocks.
The Israelites also find themselves doing battle with the Amalek, a tribe which appears on a number of occasions in the Bible and was the cause in various bits of Jewish theology of discussions over the justification of a war of total extermination – indeed genocide – against another people:

17/13 "And Joshua discomforted Amalek and his people with the edge of his sword.
17/14 "And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."

On a lighter note (though they would hate me for saying this, probably), the Amalek are also identified with the Nephilim, a reference which only sad old goths like me will get excited about.
In Chapter 18, Moses is reunited with his wife and, apparently more importantly, his father-in-law Jethro, to whom he enthuses about God's “goodness” in delivering the Israelites out of Egypt, which given the horrors God seems to have put them through for the sake of repeatedly winding up Pharaoh seems a bit overstating it.
But Jethro does have one use, in teaching Moses the graceful art of delegation and avoiding burnout:

18/22 "And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge : so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee."

I can think of many environmental activists and social entrepreneurs who obviously need to pay closer attention to their Bibles...
Chapter 19 sees God being demanding again, listing the various forms of devotion and worship he's expecting. But he also lays on some fairly spectacular scenes in the runup to the Ten Commandments

19/18 "And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly."

Given that we're in a fairly major volcanic zone, this is the kind of thing that can probably be explained adequately through natural phenomena, but to a few thousand people who live in tents and are vulnerable to dying from cold, heat, thirst and starvation, you can see why it might have quite a psychological impact.
Chapter 20 is basically the Ten Commandments themselves. These largely make pretty good sense in terms of maintaining a stable society, especially in the unstable and difficult situation of roaming around a big desert, where people need to be able to rely on one another and conflicts over each other's truthfulness, light-fingeredness, cattle, oxen, asses, offpsring or spouses could be seriously disruptive.
The comment about:

20/5 "I the LORD thy God a jealous God"

might however be stating the obvious, given many of the pronouncements of the previous dozen chapters.
The ensuing verses dealing with the correct way to perform rituals also emphasise the importance of belief and rites to a people who, by nature of their rather antagonistic tendencies to anyone whose land they turn up in and their wandering nature, need a very strong internal social cohesion. Plenty of anthropology sees ritual (not necessarily the belief behind it) as a form of 'social glue,' bonding people together, and at this point in the Israelites' history this all makes pretty clear sense. The best-known example of this theory is probably Victor Turner's studies of ritual amongst the Ndembu of what was then Northern Rhodesia. See this paper by Mathieu Deflem for a broad discussion of the topic. Chapter 23 also returns to this obsession with ritual, setting out days of rest and feast days.





Chapters 21 to 23 are primarily taken up with a more detailed setting-out of many more rules and laws of Israelite life. A lot of these can be somewhat disturbing in their inequity and sometimes cruelty, but also need to be seen as a product of their time – the problem then arising is when fundamentalist religious believers take them as graven in stone and try to enforce them on other people in a contemporary setting.
So, we have justifications for slavery, with laws which allow for lighter punishments for killing one's slave than for killing a free man (chapter 21 verse 20). Slaveowners can separate husbands and wives or parents and children, and female slaves appear to be subject to sexual use as well as being forced to perform other types of labour. Male ownership of women is also enshrined in rules such as that which states that if a person attacks a pregnant woman and causes her to miscarry, the compensation goes not to her but to her husband – the owner not only of the woman but of her child, born or unborn (chapter 21 verse 22).
The bits about executing cows who kill people is a bit weird, though:

21/28 "If an ox gore a man or woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten,"

although the practice seems not to have entirely died out in the USA until the 20th century. I'm going to refrain from making stereotypical anti-American comments about that, since I've got a feeling the French might have been doing it to farmyard animals too. But I may be thinking of medieval stuff about executing pigs for being witches...
Many of the rules are also a good illustration of the main concerns of an agrarian society, setting out the punishments and compensations involved if people damage crops, set fires or endanger other people's livestock (chapter 22 verses 5 and 6). There are explicit instructions to let fields lie fallow and rotate crops (chapter 23 verses 10 and 11). Widows and orphans also get special protection, which seems fair enough (22/22).
More scariness pops up though, with some famous lines:

22/18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,"

juxtaposed with more weirdness; I mean, I find the idea of bestiality as grim as the next person, but execution does seem a slight over-reaction. But then I'm not a raped sheep:

22/19 "Whosoever lieth with a best shall surely be put to death."

And eating roadkill is, apparently, out, which may disappoint a few strange people who take resource conservation to considerable lengths:

22/31 "...neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs."

And the injunction against 'raising a false report' (23/1) surely means that thousands of tabloid hacks are truly stuffed. But is this a bad thing?



The closing of chapter 23 is, however, another rather chilling outline of the kind of justifications that are used by some Zionists for the right of the modern state of Israel and those even more extreme, violent and disturbing settlers to use any means, up to and including mass murder, to clear the lands of modern Palestine and Israel, possibly extending into Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, of any person who is not Jewish:

23/31 "And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
23/32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
23/33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me."

Exodus 35 to 37: Te Deum or tedium?

Exodus 35

Moses calls a meeting and passes on the Lord's commands...

... sabbath

... kindle no fires on t'sabbath

And Moses creates one of those present lists you do when you're getting hitched, only this time it's for the Lord's temple.

Onyx, linen, shrewbread, candlesticks etc.

And Moses' audience Getteth With The Programme.

Verse 21 “And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him up, and everyone whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the LORD's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation and for all his service and for the holy garments.”

and badgers' skins, silver, bracelets, sugar and spice and snails and puppy dogs tails

It's a regular potlatch, except without the redistribution.

And Moses shouts out some particularly skilled craftsmen (and women)

Verse 35 “Them he hat filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.”

Exodus 36

But Moses' subcontractors/wisemen tell him that there's now More than Enuff Stough

Verse 6-7 “And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.”

And then there's this long description of taches and loops and curtains. Having the decorators in is bloody painful.

Yep, more boards, tenons, shittim wood. More gaudy gaudiness. More cherubims.

It's as boring as the begatting, frankly.

Verse 38 “And the five pillars of it with their hooks: and he overlaid their chapiters and their fillets with gold: but their five sockets were of brass.”

Exodus 37

And he's still at it.

Verse 1-2 “And Bezaleel made the ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half was the length of it, and a cubit and a half of breadth of it, and a cubit and a half the height of it. And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without, and made a crown of gold to it round about.”

And it goes on and on in this vein. Give me a family tree full of Muppims and Amaleks and Beelzebuubs any day of the week (including the sabbath) instead of this.

Te Deum? No, tedium....

Exodus 33 to 34: Farting around in the desert

Exodus 33

God tells Moses that he will wipe out the Canaanites and Amorites and Hittites etc, so his lot can have the land of milk and honey.

Moses takes the tabernacle out of the camp

Verse 8 “And it came to pass when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses until he was gone into the tabernacle.”

Drum roll please...

Verse 11 “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.”

Yeah, I think later on in the Bible we are told that no man has ever seen God's face. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, here we go, that didn't take long.

After Moses gets the LORD back on-side again,

Verse 20 “And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.”

And God comes up with a cunning plan.

Verse 21-3 “And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.”

So, I wonder which part of his body God will be talking out of?

Exodus 34

God replaces the tablets Moses broke.

And here's a familiar bit:

Verse 7 “Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation.”

Er, isn't that collective punishment? Someone call the Hague...

God gives instructions and covenant on ethnic cleansing. (Verses 12 to 16)

Lots of repetition, more promises

Verse 24 “For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders...”

Moses spent 40 days and nights with God this time, and when he comes back to Aaron etc, his complexion is kind of out of whack.

Verse 35 “And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone and Moses but the vail upon his face again, until went in to speak with him.”

Exodus 30 to 32: Calf Pain and DVT (Deity Vengeance Thuggery)

Exodus 30

More shittim wood. This LORD and his priests have a real altar ego.

Verse 3 “And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides thereof, round about, and the horns thereof: and thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold round about.”

Yeah, more Ark architecture. Building it sounds more complicated than the proverbial Ikea flat pack...

But then God gets on the blower to Moses

Verse 12 “When thou takest the sum of he children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them: that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.”

Well, it makes sense, us bloggers think.

Oh, everyone has to pony up half a shekel. And that's a real regressive tax:

Verse 15 “The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.”

Look, this is just a shakedown by the priests. Wise up!!

God tells Moses to get into the oil business, for anointment/atonement purposes

Verse 26 “And thou shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony. And the table and all his vessels, and the candelstick and his vessels, and the altar of incense.”

And God wants patent protection on the brand, against counterfeiters...

Verse 33 “Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon a stranger, shall even be cut off from his people.”

I bet they don't stock the following at Tesco's-

Verse 34 “And the LORD said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense: of each shall there be a like weight:” And though shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy:”

Exodus 31

The LORD boasts a bit about all the sub-contractors he's created/employed to get this latest covenant in on time and budget. And then says the following, which will be of interest to anyone ever arguing with a Christian about how all rules in the Bible need to be followed...

Verse 14-5 “Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore: for it is holy unto you: everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done: but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall be put to death.”

Work on Sunday. Buy anything on Sunday. And you don't see Monday. Clear on that?

And you know what they say about verbal contracts not being worth the tablets of stone they're written on?

Verse 18 “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tablets of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”

Exodus 32

But these Hebrews, they're so fickle...

Verse 1 “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him. Up, make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”

“Wot”? You what? What means wot? I dinna ken.

Aaron gets the gold together

Verse 4 “And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”

God tells Moses his gang has corrupted itself: 'Thou shalt not have a cow, man'

God says 'behold, it is a stiffnecked people'. Which is kind of funny. Has he diagnosed (or caused?) an epidemic of ankylosing spondylosis?

God is threatening more smiting, and Moses has to talk him off the ledge.

Moses gives some good reasons, with good results

Verse 14 “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”

So Moses comes down with the two tablets and sees 'em having a hoe down around the calf

Verse 19-20 “And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.”

Moses blames Aaron, who blames the people.

Verse 26 “Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said “Who is on the LORD's side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves unto him.”

And... erm, am I misreading this??? God goes nuts again.

Verse 27 “And he (Moses) said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate through the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.”

And guess what. No-one bothers to cite Exodus 20: 13 “Thou shalt not kill.”

Verse 28 “And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.”

Holy Fucking Shit. They didn't teach me THAT in Divinity class at Edinburgh House Prep School.

God didn't stop them, God didn't tell Moses to knock it off.

Moses has been leading them astray, and tells them the following day that they've sinned and he's off up to make an atonement. It's a good think rank hypocrisy isn't against the commandments, isn't it Mosey mate...

So Moses tells God (who you'd think knew this already, being omniscient and all, but apparently not).

Verse 31 “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin.... [3000 corpses? Nah] ... and have made them gods of gold.”

And the Lord tells Moses to lead the people away and there will be trouble. Again, not cos of the massacre, but the golden frigging calf.

Unbelievable.

Exodus 13-16: Red Sea and white fluffy food

Having fled slavery in Egypt, the Israelites receive various new orders from God, generally via Moses. Many of those in chapter 13 seem to confirm the patriarchal nature of this religious regime, demanding initially that the firstborn - "whatsoever openeth the womb" - is the property of the LORD, but then moving on to the explicit assertion that it's the male firstborn that is actually of interest.
Not that being of the LORD is necessarily a good thing, unless you're human, as for other species it seems to entail getting sacrificed:

13/15 "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the LORD slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem."

For once, in the this book, being female seems like a better option.
Despite the grim fates it prescribes for an awful lot of male creature, some of the language in this chapter is fantastically powerful and resonant – positively Biblical, in fact:

13/21 "And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; and to go by day and night:
13/22 He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people."

But despite any lyrical tendencies that may be showing themselves, the LORD is still doing the whole dangerous capricious thing, hardening Pharaoh's heart again (in chapter 14 verses 4, 8 and 17), apparently with the continued aim of being able punish the Egyptians for actions which God himself has engendered by the reaction that he inspires in Pharaoh.
Given that this chapter features another great Biblical iconic event, the parting of the Red Sea, this is fairly significant, as it involves the entire Egyptian army, complete with the poor horses who like all those poor animals that died in the Plagues have done nothing to anyone, getting swept away by the wrathful waters after the Israelites have passed.
Like many great events of the Bible, there have been many archaeologists and, to be blunt about it, pseudo-scholars running around trying to find geological and archaeological evidence for real events which might account for the legends. The actual creation of the Red Sea, a northern part of the African Rift Valley which ends with the Dead Sea, isn't really a candidate, since it was a process which happened – whether suddenly or gradually is disputed – tens of millions of years ago. Film director James Cameron, whose other peer-reviewed scientific studies include Titanic and Terminator, managed to tweak Biblical estimates that the exodus probably took place around 1300BCE and push it back a few hundred years to coincide with the huge volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, which probably destroyed the Minoan civilisation on Crete and is often associated with the creation of the legend of Atlantis. This is based on some re-readings of Egyptian carvings to decide that the eruption caused the plagues:

"The Exodus producers believe the waters were turned red by chemicals released by underwater tremors. Something similar happened to the lakes in Cameroon in 1986. If the waters were poisoned, amphibians would hop ashore, producing the biblical plague of frogs. When the frogs died, insects would have bred on their bodies leading to plagues of locusts, fleas and lice.
They in turn would have spread disease to humans, the plague of boils, and animals, the plague of dying livestock. They would also have threatened crops, forcing the Egyptians to store grain which might have then turned mouldy. Contaminated food might account for the plague of deaths among first-born Egyptian males. Weather conditions spawned by the eruption might also have caused the plagues of hailstorms and darkness."
(The Sunday Times, 6th August 2006)

and then the same set of volcanic disturbances resulted in the parting of the waters of the Red Sea.
Whatever.
Most of Chapter 15 of Exodus reads like a hymn of praise the God for this salvation, lyrical and rhythmic and following the kind of verse forms typical of such songs, with repetition of the achievements for which praise is being given, and listing of other victories and strengths:

15/15“Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.”

This gratitude, however, does not last long. Somewhat disempowered by several generations in slavery, the Israelites fairly rapidly start wailing and complaining about the lack of food and water, and generally being ungrateful and showing very little initiative.

15/24 "And the people began to murmur against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?"

This carries on in chapter 16, until finally God resolves the situation by sending manna from heaven, a kind of fluffy white frost which quickly disappears when the sun comes up and “bred worms, and stank” if people tried to gather it up to keep overnight. It does sound wonderful:

16/31 "And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey."

However, the Israelites do apparently have to live on it for the forty (count 'em) years it takes for them to get through Sinai to Canaan (which seems a little excessive, it's not THAT far, and hell they managed to invade the whole thing in less than a week during the Six Day War).
And now I'm going to finish off with a cartoon which doesn't specifically relate to this post but I is vaguely associated with the whole theme of this blog, and which I thought was quite amusing.

Exodus 28 to 29: Priests as the New Boss...

Exodus 28

Aaron is being kitted out for second-in-command

Verse 4-5 “And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplace, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. And they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet and fine linen.”

Good God, gaudy goods.

Get grotesquely garishly glamrockly gaudier... gaah!

Verse 33 “And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about:”

See what I mean?

Ah,

Verse 38 “And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of he holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD.”

Verse 42 is kind of poetic

“And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness: from the loins even unto the thighs shall they reach:”

Exodus 29

Ah, here comes the rationale for all this . Here comes the money shot-

Verse 1 “And this is the thing thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish.”

And the priest class is going to sit on its arse... and scoff unleavened bread, cakes, wafers etc

Verse 22 “And thou shalt take of the ram the fat and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and the right shoulder: for it is a ram of consecration.”

Oh, and Aaron's gladrags will stay in the family...

Verse 29 “And the holy garments of Aaron shall be his sons' after him, to be anointed therein, and to be consecrated in them.”

ah, after all the recipe instructions for rams and so forth, we get to the nub of the issue.

Verse 32-3 “And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy.”

The priest class, entrenching itself...

Yeah, more health and safety hygiene instructions for sanctification of altars etc.

Verse 44 “And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest's office.”

'We're God's henchmen. Do what we tell you.'

Sigh.

Exodus 24 to 27: An Ark that Fugly should stay lost

Exodus 24

So God calls a (tele)-conference, but only Moses can enter the corner office.

Verse 12 “And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law and commandments which I have written: that thou mayest teach them.”

And it's a pretty long conference, I hope Moses negotiated a decent per diem with his HR department.

Verse 16-18 “And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.”

Chapter 25

And God has some fashion requests of his homies.

Verse 4 “And blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen, and goats' hair, And rams' skins dyed red and badgers' skins and shittim wood.”

Shittim wood? This one I'm gonna have to google... Ah, it's a case o' ya typical urban ignorance on my part... Bet wifey knew without googling..

Oh, and now we get design instructions for a certain Ark of the Covenant, from about verse 9 to 20. Sounds kind of tacky, to be honest.

Verse 20 “And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another: toward the mercy seat the faces of the cherubims shall be.”

Something that kitsch DESERVES to be swallowed up in a sandstorm that lasts a year, if you ask me. Which you didn't.

And more kitsch. Is this a menorah?

Verse 37 “And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof: and they shall light the lamps thereof, that they may give light over against it.”

Chapter 26

Nope, no taste. Real nouveau dieu stuff. Gaudy even.

Goat hair curtains? Oh puhlease.

Verse 11 “And thou shalt make fifty taches of brass, and put the taches into the loops, and couple the tent together that it may be one.”

The wife doesn't like taches, btw.

Chapter 27

God keeps micromanaging the worship. He certainly isn't the Do Your Own Thing God of Vatican 2, or Liberation Theology or any of that malarkey. This GOD has OCD.

e.g.

Verse 12-4 “And for the breadth of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits: their pillars ten, and their sockets ten. And the breadth of the court on the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits. The hangings on one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits: their pillars three, and their sockets three...”

And so on...

Exodus 21 to 23: The Leviticus Dry Run

Exodus 21

OK, lots of fruit-loopy laws now, some of which doubtless made sense at the time.

Here are some faves, but they have to be read to be, er, believed.

Verse 17 “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”

Which motherfucker thought that one up? Doh!!

Verse 24 “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Pancreas for pancreas.”

OK, I made the last bit up.

Exodus 22

Verse 16 “And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with here, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.”

Oh, burn baby burn

Verse 17 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Oh, and if you're feeling sheepish.

Verse 19 “Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.”

Man, that'd really get my goat. It would be unbearable.

Here's one for the times

Verse 21 “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger. Nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

And God hammers it home by repeating it Ch 23 verse 9

Chapter 23

Ah, here's Christmas and birthdays screwed then:

Verse 8 “And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous.”

And we get a little biodiversity advice...

Verse 10-11 “And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather the fruits thereof: But he seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.”

And verse 13 “no other gods” schtick again. Slightly low self-esteem there, Bearded Sky Man? Or maybe whoever wrote this down figured out that being the only link to the only God was a powerful position? Just saying...

Oh, and God's gonna send an Angel

Verse 22 “But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.”

Smiting and hornets etc are promised, but not too bluntly...

Verse 29 “I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.”

So don't have too many cows, man...

Verse 31 “And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand: and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land., lest they make the sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.”

Bearded Sky Man, two state it clearly, you really aren't helping here mate...

Exodus 18 to 20: take two tablets and call me in the morning...

Jethro, Moses' father-in-law rocks up.

Verse 7 “And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him: and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent.”

Jethro looks at Moses' workload

Verse 17-8 “... The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee: thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.”

Jethro tulls, sorry, tells Moses how to delegate.

Verse 21 “Moreover thous shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness: and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.”

Moses does as he is told.

Exodus 19

God tells Moses the new deal

Verse 7 "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. These are to the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.”

And says People Get Ready (wash clothes, no shagging for three days) Or rather, no bukkake-

Verse 15 “And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.”

And things get hot.

Verse 18 “And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.”

Sigh. Dry ice machines are SO 1980s...

God tells Moses that he and Aaron are on the guestlist, but the riff-raff cannae come up t'mountain.

Exodus 20

These verses seem vaguely familiar. Oh, yeah, it's the Ten Frigging Commandments.

Verse 18 “And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings [very very frightenings], and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood far off.”

God gets tetchy with the other gods thing, and specifies

Verse 25 “And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for it thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.”

So, all those cathedrals I've gotten chronic unremitting Cathedral-fatigue from? Level them all, let God sort them out...

Exodus 7-12: the plagues of Egypt and Passover

So, over the course of five chapters we have a fairly spectacular series of plagues, all designed to make Pharoah let the Israelites leave Egypt.
In order, we have the bloody, stinking water (which sounds like some kind of 'red tide' algal bloom to me); frogs which die everywhere; lice (ugh); flies (eeuuuwh); murrain, which kills all the cattle and sheep; boils all over everyone, including the 'magicians'; thunder, hail and fire (sounds like a dodgy 70s pop band); the notorious locusts, and finally the death of the firstborn sons.


I have two main problems with these.
Firstly, what did the poor frogs, cows and sheep, and for that matter the firstborn sons, some of whom were presumably just we'uns at the time of being bumped off, do to anyone? This all seems highly unfair. I mean, obviously there is some strategic point to offing Pharoah's son to get him to make policy changes, but:

“even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts”

(the ones that have survived the murrain, presumably). What influence are they supposed to have? How are they supposed to help the Hebrews be allowed to leave? This is all getting very bloodthirsty...
Secondly, it's all a massive set-up. All these plagues are allegedly ways to getting Pharoah to let the poor enslaved Israelites go, but after every one we get a statement like:

“But the LORD hardened Pharoah's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go” (Ch10 v20)

and:

“But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go” (Ch10 v27)

So, apparently Pharoah is supposed to let the Israelites go, but the LORD keeps stopping him. What sort of psycho game is he playing here? I'm just confused now.
But having pretty much nuked the entire livestock , farmland and water supply of Egypt (them Yankees with their Agent Orange got nuttin' on the LORD in a bad mood), the LORD then stops hardening Pharoah's heart enough that the Israelites finally get to leave.
To follow this up, we get the instructions for the Jewish feast of Passover (the night the houses of the Israelites were Passed Over by the Angel of Death seeking the firstborn), or Pesach, with the meal of lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. It's a beautiful and dignified meal – I was privileged to be invited to a seder (Pesach meal) at a leftie kibbutz in the Arava desert 13 years ago, and was very moved at how, even though I was at a table full of usually rowdy teenaged students, everyone remained quiet and solemn for many of the readings which punctuated the servings of food.


I'm not entirely sure I should have been there, though, looking at the official instruction booklet we have here:

“12/43 And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof:
12/44 But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then he shall eat thereof.
12/45 A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof.”

My experience that year amongst young Jewish people who had made aliyah – emigrated to Israel – was also an interesting lesson in the way that ritual can be more important for 'outsiders' and people who need to reinforce community and define themselves, than for those who feel more secure in their identity and community.
These young people – at the time in, I guess their early 20s – had made the choice as British Jews to move to Israel, partly perhaps because of job opportunities (or, quite frankly, to escape the bloody British weather), but substantially, as I understood it, because they felt deeply attached to the notion of a Jewish homeland in Israel and as being part of that project. Most of them, because of the friend I was travelling with, came from left-wing Zionist Jewish youth movements such as RSY Netzer and Habonim.
So, my friend (a non-kosher-keeping Jewish girl) and I, in Jerusalem during Passover, went into one of the many wonderful bakeries in the Arab quarter of the Old City, in search of bread that wasn't matzo. We'd had several days on kibbutz of unleavened matzo being made into all sorts of inventive forms of carbohydrate, and all of them were pretty tasteless and horrible. Basic matzo itself is kind of like cream crackers and actually ok, but it was the efforts to replicate leavened things like pasta and sandwiches using matzo meal that had been tough going.
Friend and I sneaked our illicit leavened bread home, where we planned to respectfully eat it away from people who were keeping proper kosher for Pesach. Not in this flat though. All of those aliyah-making twentysomethings (none of whom would have happily gone in the dark, narrow, spice-and-mint-scented streets of the Arab quarter) fell upon the proper bread like starved things, and the bagfull lasted about ten minutes. And, if keeping Pesach is primarily an expression of identity, a way of defining and celebrating Jewishness in a Britain which has over the centuries been deeply hateful, violent and prejudiced towards them, then why is it still necessary to pursue it once you're home and dry? (Even if it is on contested land...)
And, at the risk of sounding like one of those Daily Mail readers who laments the passing of some bizarre mythical 1950s England full of scrubbed-clean blonde people who skipped around being neighbourly to each other, there is something very sad about the fact that modern society seems to have lost most of its rites and rituals, that we rarely celebrate things together with any sense of poetry and solemnity, that festivals like Christmas seem to largely be an excuse for over-indulgence or an opportunity for desperate and over-worked people to cram some R&R into their lives. We seem to have lost the notion of a ritual meal as a time to share with other people and to step back, getting some perspective on both the past and future. I think it's a sad loss.

Thanks to National Geographic and Discourse.net for the pix