[If the previous chapters were disturbing and intriguing, these next 5 chapters are frustrating if not downright boring, so much so readers probably tend to skip them altogether. One begins to wonder why Divine Revelation would include minutiae that might be interesting only to carpenters, tailors, and craftsmen but then why not, YHWH wants His visible Presence among His people to be observable to the nations who would marvel at a people whose God actually travels with them in theophanies of cloud and fire. So why not build a special tent for YHWH, but only according to His specifications; remember He is a God of details so they must pay careful attention, as should we.

Images from Google

Actually, our first exposure to the construction of this portable dwelling for the God of Israel was early on in our Messianic orientation, because we had a bible teacher who loved to teach this topic over and over, understandably because so much detail (as you will read in these chapters) had to be explained as relating to New Testament teaching. Second to the topic of the Last Supper being the Passover Seder, our Messianic teacher considers the Tabernacle in the Wilderness as a structure where every little detail is related to the ministry of Jesus Christ. Some of our S6K members have attended seminar after seminar on the study of the Tabernacle; some of us even constructed mini-copies for final projects if we wanted to receive a certificate.

One sample teaching series on the web explains clearly why Christians/Messianics are encouraged to seriously study the details of this structure: [http://www.hadavar.org/drupal/content/messiah-and-tabernacle-0]

This series concentrates on . . . . the Book of Exodus exploring both the original construction and importance of Israel’s Tabernacle in the wilderness as well as its Messianic significance, [taking] you through the texts from a Jewish perspective. The series will unfold the original instructions given to Israel and the New Covenant truths they portray. Finally, you will learn how these truths relate to Believers today.

The Tabernacle course is designed to enhance your understanding of this significant portion of the Bible, to deepen your understanding of Jesus and His priestly work on the behalf of Believers, and to strengthen your walk with the designer of the Tabernacle, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You will find yourself better equipped to share the Messiahship of Jesus with your Jewish friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors.

Well, at least the original “Designer” is acknowledged in these teachings as the God of Israel’s Patriarchs. Now that we are re-reading the TNK in its proper context of focusing only on YHWH and Israel, minus the connection with the New Testament and its God, we do finally understand the real purpose of this temporary dwelling of Israel’s God with His people and not surprisintly, it had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity’s second person of its trinitarian godhead no matter how fascinating is the forced connection made in every detail.

From the time of the giving of the Covenant, the 40 years of wilderness wanderings and through the conquest of the promised land, the constant reminder ‘I will be your Elo’hiym and you will be my people’ is visibly and symbolically demonstrated by the centrality of this Tent of Meeting not only when the Israelites encamped, but also as they journeyed through the wilderness, and even as they fought their battles with the hostile desert-dwellers, gentile nations whose territory they had to pass through.

So back to the question in our title: Do we have to read these chapters?

There is always blessing in reading, absorbing, remembering divinely-revealed instructions, in short, YES!

Translation is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses; additional commentary from AST/ArtScroll Tanach and P&H/Pentateuch & Haftorahs. Reformatting and highlights ours; images are from Google.–Admin1.]

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Exodus/Shemoth 35

[Tabernacle image from Google Images]

AND
1 Now Moshe assembled the entire community of the Children of Israel

and said to them:

These are the words that YHVH has commanded, to do them:
2 For six days is work to be made,

but on the seventh day,

there is to be holiness for you,

Sabbath, Sabbath-ceasing for YHVH;

whoever makes work on it is to be put-to-death!
3 You are not to let fire burn throughout all your settlements on the Sabbath day.
4 Now Moshe spoke to the entire community of the Children of Israel,

saying:

This is the matter that YHVH has commanded, saying:
5 Take, from yourselves, a raised-contribution for YHVH,

whoever is of willing mind is to bring it,

YHVH’S contribution:

gold, silver, and bronze,
6 blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet, byssus and goats’-hair,
7 rams’ skins dyed-red, tanned-leather skins,

acacia wood,
8 oil for lighting,

spices for oil of anointing and for fragrant smoking-incense,
9 onyx stones and stones for setting,

for the efod and for the breastpiece.
10 And everyone wise of mind among you

is to come and is to make all that YHVH has commanded:
11 The Dwelling, its tent and its cover,

its clasps and its boards,

its running bars, its columns and its sockets;
12 the coffer and its poles,

the purgation-cover and the curtain for the screen;
13 the table and its poles and all its implements,

and the Bread of the Presence;
14 and the lampstand for lighting and its implements and its lamps,

and the oil for lighting;
15 and the site for smoke-offering and its poles, and the oil for anointing,

and the fragrant smoking-incense;

and the entrance screen for the entrance of the Dwelling;
16 the site for offering-up and the bronze lattice that (belongs) to it, its poles and all its implements;

the basin and its pedestal;
17 the hangings of the courtyard, its columns and its sockets, and the screen for the gate of the
courtyard;
18 the pins of the Dwelling and the pins of the courtyard, and their cords,
19 the officiating garments for attending at the Holy-shrine;

the garments of holiness for Aharon the priest

and the garments of his sons for acting-as-priest.
20 So the entire community of the Children of Israel

went out from Moshe’s presence,
21 and then they came, every man whose mind uplifted him,

and everyone whose spirit made-him-willing brought YHVH’S contribution

for the skilled-work on the Tent of Appointment, for all its service (of construction), and for the garments of holiness.
22 Then came men and women alike, everyone of willing mind,

they brought

brooch and nose-ring and signet-ring and necklace, every kind of gold object,

every man that wished to elevate an elevation-offering of gold to YHVH;
23 and everyone with whom could be found

blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet, byssus and goats’-hair, rams’ skins dyed-red and tanned-leather skins,

brought it.
24 Everyone that raised a raised-contribution of silver and bronze

brought YHVH’S contribution,

and everyone with whom could be found

acacia wood for all the work of the service (of construction), brought it.
25 And every woman wise of mind,

with their hands they spun

and brought their spinning-

the blue-violet, the purple, the worm-scarlet and the byssus,
26 and every one of the women whose mind uplifted them in practical-wisdom

spun the goats’-hair.
27 And the exalted-ones brought

the onyx stones and the stones for setting,

for the efod and for the breastpiece,
28 and the fragrant-spice and the oil

for lighting, for oil of anointing, for fragrant smoking-incense.
29 Every man and woman

whose mind made-them-willing to bring (anything) for all the workmanship

that YHVH had commanded (them) to make through Moshe, the Children of Israel brought it, freewill-offering for YHVH.
30 Now Moshe said to the Children of Israel:

See,

YHVH has called by name

Betzalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Yehuda,
31 he has filled him with the spirit of God

in practical-wisdom, in discernment and in knowledge,

and in all kinds of workmanship
32 to design designs,

to make (them) in gold, in silver and in bronze,
33 in the carving of stones for setting and in the carving of wood,

to make all kinds of designed workmanship,
34 and (the ability) to instruct he has put in his mind,

he and Oholiav son of Ahisamakh, of the tribe of Dan;
35 he has filled them with wisdom of mind

to make all kinds of workmanship

of the jewel-cutter, the designer and the embroiderer,

in blue-violet, in purple, in worm-scarlet and in byssus,

and of the weaver-

makers of all kinds of workmanship

and designers of designs.

Exodus/Shemoth 36

1 So are Betzalel and Oholiav to make,

and every man wise of mind

in whom YHVH has put wisdom and discernment,

to know (how) to make all the work for the service of (constructing) the Holy-shrine

for all that YHVH has commanded.
2 So Moshe called

for Betzalel, for Oholiav,

and for all men wise of mind into whose mind YHVH had put wisdom,

all those whose mind uplifted them to come-near for the work,

to make it.
3 And they took from Moshe all the contributions

that the Children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of (constructing) the Holy-shrine, to make it.

Now they brought him further, freewill-offerings in the morning, (every) morning;
4 and came, all the wise-ones who were making all the skilled-work for the Holy-shrine,

man after man, from their skilled-work that they were making,
5 and said to Moshe, saying:

The people are bringing much more

than enough for the service of (doing) the work

that YHVH has commanded, to make it!
6 So Moshe commanded and they had a call go throughout the camp, saying:

Man and woman-let them not make-ready any further work-material for the contribution of the Holy-shrine!

So the people were stopped from bringing;
7 the work-material was enough for them, for all the work, to make it, and more.
8 Then made all those wise of mind among the makers of the work,

the dwelling, of ten tapestries

of twisted byssus, blue-violet, purple and worm-scarlet;

with winged-sphinxes, of designer’s making, was it made.
9 The length of each one tapestry, twenty-eight by the cubit,

and the width-four by the cubit,

of each one tapestry,

one measure for all of the tapestries.
10 Then were joined five of the tapestries, each-one to each-one,

and five tapestries were joined, each-one to each-one.
11 Then were made loops of blue-violet

on the edge of the one tapestry, at the end of the one joint;

thus were made in the edge of the end tapestry at the second joint.
12 Fifty loops were made on the one tapestry,

and fifty loops were made at the end of the tapestry that is at the second joint,

opposite the loops, this-one to that-one.
13 Then were made fifty clasps of gold

and then were joined the tapestries, this-one to that-one, with the clasps,

so that the dwelling became one-piece.
14 Then were made the tapestries of goats’-hair for a tent over the dwelling,

eleven tapestries were they made.
15 The length of each one tapestry (was) thirty by the cubit,

and four cubits, the width of each one tapestry,

one measure for the eleven tapestries.
16 Then were joined five of the tapestries separately a

nd six of the tapestries separately.
17 Then were made loops, fifty (of them), at the edge of the end tap estry, at the joint,

and fifty loops were made at the edge of the second joining tapestry.
18 Then were made clasps of bronze, fifty (of them),

to join the tent together,

to become one-piece.
19 Then was made a covering for the tent, of rams’ skins dyed-red,

and a covering of tanned-leather skins, above it.
20 Then were made the boards for the Dwelling,

of acacia wood, standing-upright;
21 ten cubits the length of the board

and a cubit and a half the width of each one board,
22 with two pegs for each one board, parallel this-one to that-one,

thus were made for all the boards of the Dwelling.
23 And then were made the boards for the Dwelling:

twenty as boardwork on the Negev border, southward,
24 and forty sockets of silver were made beneath twenty of the boards,

two sockets beneath each one board for its two pegs

and two sockets beneath each other board for its two pegs;
25 and for the second flank of the Dwelling, on the northern border, were made twenty as boardwork,
26 with their forty sockets of silver,

two sockets beneath each one board

and two sockets beneath each other board.
27 And for the rear of the Dwelling, toward the sea, were made six boards,
28 and two boards were made for the corners of the Dwelling, at the rear,
29 so that they were of twin-use, (seen) from the lower-end,

and together formed a whole-piece, toward the top, toward the first ring;

thus were made for the two of them, for the two corners.
30 So there were eight boards with their bases of silver, sixteen bases,

two bases each, two bases beneath each one board.
31 Then were made running-bars of acacia wood, five bars for the boards of the Dwelling’s one flank
32 and five bars for the boards of the Dwelling’s second flank,

and five bars for the boards of the Dwelling at the rear, toward the sea.
33 Then was made the middle running-bar, to run amidst the boards,

from (this) end to (that) end.
34 And the boards were overlaid with gold,

and their rings were made of gold, as holders for the bars,

and the bars were overlaid with gold.
35 Then was made the curtain

of blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus;

of designer’s making was it made, with winged-sphinxes.
36 Then were made for it four columns of acacia

and were overlaid with gold, their hooks of gold,

and four bases of silver were cast for them.
37 Then was made a screen for the entrance to the Tent

of blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus,

of embroiderer’s making,
38 and their columns, five (of them),

and their hooks, and their tops and their binders were overlaid with gold-

and their bases, five, of bronze.

Exodus/Shemoth 37

1 Then Betzalel made

the coffer, of acacia wood,

two cubits and a half 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 for it a rim of gold all around.
3 He cast for it four rings of gold

(to be) upon its four feet,

with two rings on its one flank

and two rings on its second flank.
4 He made poles of acacia wood

and overlaid them with gold,
5 he brought the poles into the rings on the flanks of the coffer, to carry the coffer.
6 He made a purgation-cover of pure gold,

two cubits and a half its length

and a cubit and a half its width.
7 He made two winged-sphinxes of gold,

of hammered-work did he make them,

at the two ends of the purgation-cover.
8 One sphinx at the end here

and one sphinx at the end there,

from the purgation-cover did he make the sphinxes, at its two ends.
9 And the sphinxes were spreading (their) wings upward,

with their wings sheltering the purgation-cover,

their faces, each toward the other;

toward the purgation-cover were the sphinxes’ faces.
10 He made the table of acacia wood,

two cubits its length,

a cubit its width,

and a cubit and a half its height.
11 He overlaid it with pure gold.

And he made a rim of gold for it, all around,
12 and made a border for it, a handbreadth all around,

thus he made a rim of gold for its border, all around.
13 He cast for it four rings of gold

and put the rings at the four edges, where its four legs (are).
14 Parallel to the border were the rings,

holders for the poles, to carry the table.
15 He made the poles of acacia wood, and overlaid them with gold,

to carry the table.
16 He made the implements that are on the table:

its dishes and its ladles,

its jugs and jars, from which (offerings) are poured,

of pure gold.
17 He made the lampstand of pure gold,

of hammered-work did he make the lampstand, its shaft and its stem,

its goblets, its knobs and its blossoms were from it;
18 six stems issuing from its sides,

three lamp-stems on the one side,

three lamp-stems on the second side:
19 three almond-shaped goblets on the one stem, with knobs and blossoms,

and three almond-shaped goblets on the other stem, with knobs and blossoms-

thus for the six stems that were issuing from the lampstand.
20 And on the lampstand (itself) four almond-shaped goblets, with their knobs and their blossoms,
21 a knob beneath two stems, from it,

a knob beneath two stems, from it,

and a knob beneath two stems, from it,

for the six stems that were issuing from it.
22 Their knobs and their stems were from it,

all of it one-piece of hammered-work, of pure gold.
23 He made its lamps, seven (of them),

and its tongs and its trays, of pure gold.
24 From an ingot of pure gold did he make it, with all its implements.
25 He made the site for smoking-incense, of acacia wood,

a cubit its length and a cubit its width,

squared, and two cubits its height,

from it were its two horns.
26 He overlaid it with pure gold-

its roof, its walls all around, and its horns,

and he made a rim of gold for it, all around.
27 Two rings of gold did he make for it, beneath its rim,

on its two flanks, on its two sides,

as holders for poles, to carry it by (means of) them.
28 He made the poles of acacia wood,

and overlaid them with gold.
29 And he made the anointing oil of holiness

and the fragrant smoking-incense, pure, of perfumer’s making.

Exodus/Shemoth 38

1 Then he made the slaughter-site of offering-up, of acacia wood,

five cubits its length, five cubits its width, square,

and three cubits its height.
2 He made its horns on its four points,

from it were its horns.

He overlaid it with bronze.
3 He made all the implements for the slaughter-site,

the pails, the scrapers, the bowls, the flesh-hooks, and the pans;

all its implements, he made of bronze.
4 He made for the slaughter-site a lattice, as a netting of bronze is made,

beneath its ledge, below, (reaching) to its halfway-point.
5 He cast four rings on the four edges of the netting of bronze,

as holders for the poles.
6 He made the poles of acacia wood

and overlaid them with bronze.
7 He brought the poles through the rings on the flanks of the altar,

to carry it by (means of) them;

hollow, of planks, did he make it.
8 He made the basin of bronze, its pedestal of bronze,

with the mirrors of the women’s working-force that was doing-the-work at the entrance of the Tent of Appointment.
9 And he made the courtyard:

on the Negev border, southward,

the hangings of the courtyard, of twisted byssus, a hundred by the cubit,
10 with their columns, twenty, their sockets, twenty, of bronze,

the hooks of the columns and their binders, of silver.
11 And on the northern border, a hundred by the cubit,

their columns, twenty, their sockets, twenty, of bronze,

the hooks of the columns and their binders, of silver.
12 And on the sea border, hangings, fifty by the cubit,

their columns, ten, their sockets, ten,

the hooks of the columns and their binders, of silver.
13 And on the eastern border, toward sunrise, fifty by the cubit,
14 (namely:) hangings of fifteen cubits to the shoulder-piece,

their columns, three, their sockets, three,
15 and for the second shoulder-piece-(over) here and (over) there for the gate of the courtyard- hangings of fifteen cubits,

their columns, three, their sockets, three.
16 All the hangings of the courtyard all around, of twisted byssus,
17 and the sockets for the columns, of bronze,

the hooks of the columns and their binders, of silver,

and the overlay for their tops, of silver, they themselves bound with silver,

all the columns of the courtyard.
18 The screen of the courtyard gate, of embroiderer’s making,

of blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus,

twenty cubits in length,

their height along the width, five cubits,

corresponding to the hangings of the courtyard,
19 their columns, four, their sockets, four, of bronze,

their hooks, of silver,

and the overlay for their tops and their binders, of silver,
20 and all the pins for the Dwelling and for the courtyard all around, of bronze.
21 These are the accountings of the Dwelling,

the Dwelling of Testimony,

that were accounted by Moshe

for the service of the Levites,

under Itamar, son of Aharon the priest:
22 So Betzalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Yehuda

had made

all that YHVH had commanded Moshe,
23 and with him, Oholiav son of Ahisamakh, of the tribe of Dan,

carver, designer, embroiderer in the blue-violet, purple and worm- scarlet and byssus.
24 All the gold that was made-use-of in the work, in all the work of (building) the Holy-shrine

all the gold from the elevation-offering (was)

twenty-nine ingots and seven hundred thirty shekels, by the Holy-shrine shekel.
25 And the silver accounted for by the community (was) a hundred ingots,

and a thousand and seven hundred and seventy-five shekels by the Holy-shrine shekel,
26 a beka/split-piece per capita, the half of a shekel by the Holy-shrine shekel,

for every one who went through the counting,

from the age of twenty years and upward,

for the six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty.
27 There were a hundred ingots of silver for the casting of the sockets of the Holy-shrine and of the sockets of the curtain

a hundred bases per hundred ingots, an ingot per socket.
28 And the thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five they made into hooks for the columns,

and overlaid their tops and bound them.
29 And the bronze from the elevation-offering (was) seventy ingots,

and two thousand and four hundred shekels.
30 They made with it the sockets for the entrance of the Tent of Appointment,

the slaughter-site of bronze, the netting of bronze that belonged to it, all the implements of the slaughter-site,
31 the sockets of the courtyard all around and the sockets of the courtyard gate

and all the pins of the Dwelling and the pins of the courtyard, all around.

Exodus/Shemoth 39

1 Now from the blue-violet and the purple and the worm-scarlet

they made the officiating garments for attending at the Holy-shrine

and they made the garments of holiness that are for Aharon,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.
2 Then was made the efod

of gold, blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus.
3 Then were beat out sheets of gold

and they were split into threads,

to make-use-of-them amid the blue-violet, amid the purple, amid the worm-scarlet and amid the twisted byssus,

(all) of designer’s making.
4 Shoulder-pieces they made for it, (to be) joined together,

on its two ends joined.
5 The designed-band of its efod that was on it, was from it, of like making,

of gold, blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.
6 They made the onyx stones,

surrounded by braids of gold,

engraved with seal engravings, with the names of the Children of Israel.
7 They placed them on the shoulder-pieces of the efod,

as stones of remembrance for the Children of Israel,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.
8 Then was made the breastpiece

of designer’s making, like the making of an efod,

of gold, blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus.
9 Square it was, doubled they made the breastpiece,

a span its length and a span its width, doubled.
10 They set-it-full with four rows of stones-

a row of carnelian, topaz, and sparkling-emerald, the first row,
11 the second row: ruby, sapphire and hard-onyx,
12 the third row: jacinth, agate, and amethyst,
13 the fourth row: beryl, onyx and jasper;

surrounded, braided with gold in their settings.
14 And the stones were with the names of the Children of Israel,

twelve with their names,

signet engravings, each-one with its name,

for the twelve tribes.
15 They made, on the breastpiece, laced chains, of rope-making, of pure gold:
16 They made two braids of gold and two rings of gold,

and put the two rings on the two ends of the breastpiece,
17 and put the two ropes of gold on the two rings on the ends of the breastpiece,
18 and the two ends of the two ropes they put on the two braids,

and put them on the shoulder-pieces of the efod, on its forefront.
19 They made two rings of gold,

and placed them on the two ends of the breastpiece, on its edge that is across from the efod, inward,
20 and they made two rings of gold and put them on the two shoulder- pieces of the efod, below, facing frontward, parallel to its joint, above the designed-band of the efod.
21 They tied the breastpiece from its rings to the rings of the efod, with a thread of blue-violet,

to be (fixed) on the designed-band of the efod;

the breastpiece was not to be dislodged from the efod,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.
22 Then was made the tunic of the efod,

of weaver’s making, all of blue-violet.
23 The head-opening of the tunic (was) in its middle, like the opening for armor,

a seam-edge for its opening, all around-it was not to be split.
24 They made, on the skirts of the tunic, pomegranates,

of blue-violet, purple, worm-scarlet and twisted byssus.
25 They made bells of pure gold

and they put the bells amidst the pomegranates

on the skirts of the tunic, all around, amidst the pomegranates:
26 bell and pomegranate, bell and pomegranate,

on the skirts of the tunic, all around,

for attending,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.
27 They made the coat of byssus, of weaver’s making,

for Aharon and for his sons,
28 and the turban of byssus,

the splendid caps of byssus,

the breeches of linen, of twisted byssus,
29 and the sash of twisted byssus, blue-violet, purple, and worm-scarlet, of embroiderer’s making,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.
30 They made the plate (for) the sacred-diadem of holiness, of pure gold,

and wrote upon it writing of signet engravings:

Holiness for YHVH.
31 They put on it a thread of blue-violet, to put on the turban from above,

as YHVH had commanded Moshe.

32 Thus was finished all the service (of construction) for the Dwelling, the Tent of Appointment. The Children of Israel made (it)

according to all that YHVH had commanded Moshe,

thus they made.
33 And they brought the Dwelling to Moshe:

the tent and all its implements,

its clasps, its beams, its bars and its columns and its sockets,
34 the covering of rams’ skins dyed-red and the covering of tanned-leather skins,

the curtain for the screen,
35 the coffer of Testimony and its poles

and the purgation-cover,
36 the table, all its implements and the Bread of the Presence,
37 the pure lampstand, its lamps-lamps for arranging, and all its implements,

and the oil for lighting,
38 the site of gold,

and anointing oil and the fragant smoking-incense

and the screen for the entrance of the Tent;
39 the slaughter-site of bronze and the netting of bronze that belongs to it, its poles and all its implements,

the basin and its pedestal;
40 the hangings of the courtyard,

its columns and its sockets,

and the screen for the courtyard gate,

its cords and its pegs

and all the implements for the service (of constructing) the Dwelling, the Tent of Appointment;
41 the officiating garments for attending at the Holy-shrine, the garments of holiness for Aharon the priest and the garments for his sons, to be-priests-
42 according to all that YHVH had commanded Moshe,

thus had made the Children of Israel,

all the service (of construction).

[P&H: Credit is here given to the nameless donors and workers, who made the achievement of Bezalel and Oholiab possible.]

43 Now Moshe saw all the work, and here: they had made it

as YHVH had commanded,

thus had they made.

Then Moshe blessed them.

[P&H: i.e., expressed his thanks by invoking a blessing upon them. The time had been short, the task great and arduous, but the labourers, fired by holy enthusiasm and zeal, had joyfully completed the work they had undertaken. Moses does not pronounce his blessing at the beginning of the sacred enterprise. Beginnings are easy; completions are as hard as they are rare.]

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 34 – "Hew you two tablets of stone like the first"

November 20, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

[The previous chapter ends with Moses catching a guarded glimpse, a rear view of YHWH’s glory; what words could possibly describe what he saw? Being in YHWH’s Presence evidently starts reflecting on Moses himself, for at the end of his private personal meetings the face of Moses glows to where the Israelites could not look upon him and he had to resort to covering his face.

While YHWH’s patience occasionally runs thin as it did in the Golden Calf incident, His grace abounds nonetheless. With the people breaking the Covenant with their idolatry, YHWH gives them a second chance though He does not replicate the first set of tablets with another divine issue; this time Moses who broke them has to produce the material himself. Surely this one looked man-made but as we have said earlier, it is not so much the material that matters, rather it is the Words of God that do not have to be written on anything except in human minds and hearts, then externalized in conduct, behavior, and action. Yet, would it not have been better to have had the original? What a privilege the chosen people had from the very beginning, and yet even to this point, they seem to take it for granted. Reading in hindsight, we tend to think: why? Had we been in their place, we would not have cherished the supreme privilege of being chosen and directly ruled by the True Creator God! But we cannot judge, we know what we know today because of the record provided for us in the Torah—mistakes and consequent judgment. Had we been slaves and children of slaves for 400 years, we would have had the same slave mentality and our orientation would be much the same.

P&H notes:

“Neither Aaron nor the elders (XXIV, 9) were to be with him on the mountain. Moses alone was this time to witness the Revelation. The Rabbis remark that the first Tables were given amid great pomp and upheaval, physical and psychic; and they were destroyed. The Second Revelation was given in silence, to one human soul alone in mystic communion with his Maker; and these Tables endured, for the salvation of Israel and mankind.”

Translation is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses. Commentary from AST/ArtScroll Tanach and P&H/Pentateuch and Haftorah, ed. Dr. H.J. Hertz, added as well. Reformatting and highlights ours.–Admin1.]

Image from www.israelcraft.com

Exodus/Shemoth 34

1 Then YHVH said to Moshe:
Carve yourself two tablets of stone
like the first-ones,
and I will write on the tablets the words
that were on the first tablets
which you smashed.
2 And be ready by the morning:
go up in the morning to Mount Sinai,
station yourself for me there, on top of the mountain.
3 No man is to go up with you,
neither is any man to be seen on all the mountain,
neither are sheep or oxen to graze in front of this mountain.
4 So he carved two tablets of stone like the first-ones.
Moshe (started) early in the morning
and went up to Mount Sinai,
as YHVH had commanded him,
and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
5 YHVH came down in the cloud,
he stationed himself beside him there
and called out the name of YHVH.
6 And YHVH passed before his face
and called out:
YHVH YHVH
God,
showing-mercy, showing-favor,
long-suffering in anger,
abundant in loyalty and faithfulness,
7 keeping loyalty to the thousandth (generation),
bearing iniquity, rebellion and sin,
yet not clearing, clearing (the guilty),
calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons and upon sons’ sons, to the third and fourth (generation)!
8 Quickly Moshe did-homage, on the ground, bowing low,
9 and said:
Pray if I have found favor in your eyes,
O my Lord,
pray let my Lord go among us!
Indeed, it is a hard-necked people-
so forgive our iniquity and our sin,
and make-us-your-inheritance!
10 He said:
Here,
I cut a covenant:
before all your people I will do wonders
such as have not been created
in all the earth, among all the nations.
Then shall all the people among whom you are, see
the work of YHVH, how awe-inspiring it is,
which I do with you.
11 Take care for yourself
regarding what I command you today!
Here, I am driving out before you the Amorite,
the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite and the Yevusite,-

[AST: 11 Beware of what I command you today]

12 take-you-care,

lest you cut a covenant

with the settled-folk of the land against which you are coming,

lest they become a snare among you.
13 Rather:

their slaughter-sites you are to pull down,

their standing-pillars you are to smash,

their tree-poles you are to cut down.
14 For: You are not to bow down to any other god!

For YHVH-

Jealous-one is his name,

a jealous God is he!

[AST: For you shall not prostrate yourselves to an alien god for the very Name of HaShem is ‘Jealous One.’ He is a jealous God.]
15 -Lest you cut a covenant with the settled-folk of the land:
when they go whoring after their gods
and slaughter-offer to their gods,
they will call to you to eat of their slaughter-offerings;
16 should you take of their women (in marriage) for your sons,
their women will go whoring after their gods,
and they will cause your sons to go whoring after their gods.
17 Molten gods you are not to make for yourselves!
18 The Pilgrimage-Festival of Matzot you are to keep;
for seven days you are to eat matzot, as I commanded you,
at the appointed-time, in the New-moon of Ripe-grain, for in the New-moon of Ripe-grain you went out of Egypt.
19 Every breacher of a womb is mine,
and every one that your herd drops-as-male, breacher among oxen and sheep;
20 the breacher among donkeys you are to redeem with a sheep,
and if you do not redeem it, you are to break-its-neck.
Every firstborn among your sons you are to redeem.
No one is to be seen before my presence empty-handed.
21 For six days you are to serve,
but on the seventh day, you are to cease,
at plowing, at grain-cutting, you are to cease.
22 The Pilgrimage-Festival of Weeks you are to make for yourselves,
of the first-fruits of the wheat cutting, a
s well as the Pilgrimage-festival of Ingathering
at the turning of the year.
23 At three points in the year
are all your male-folk to be seen
before the presence of the Lord, YHVH,
the God of Israel.
24 For I will dispossess nations before you, and widen your territory,
so that no man will desire your land,
when you go up to be seen before the presence of YHVH your God,
at three points in the year.
25 You are not to slay my blood offering with anything fermented.
You are not to leave-
overnight, until morning, the pilgrimage- offering of Passover.
26 The premier of the firstfruits of your soil you are to bring into the house of YHVH your God. You are not to boil a kid in the milk of its mother.
27 YHVH said to Moshe:
Write you down these words,
for in accordance with these words
I cut with you a covenant, and with Israel.
28 Now he was there beside YHVH
for forty days and forty nights;
bread he did not eat
and water he did not drink,
but he wrote down on the tablets the words of the covenant,
the Ten Words.
29 Now it was
when Moshe came down from Mount Sinai
with the two tablets of Testimony in Moshe’s hand,
when he came down from the mountain
-(now) Moshe did not know that the skin of his face was radiating because of his having-spoken with him,-
30 Aharon and all the Children of Israel saw Moshe:
and here, the skin of his face was radiating!
So they were afraid to approach him.
31 Moshe called to them,
and then Aharon and all those exalted in the community came back to him,
and Moshe spoke to them.
32 Afterward all the Children of Israel approached,
and he commanded them
all that YHVH had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.
33 Now when Moshe had finished speaking with them,
he put a veil upon his face.
34 Now whenever Moshe would come before the presence of YHVH, to speak with him,
he would remove the veil, until he had gone out;
and whenever he would come out and speak to the children of Israel that which he had been commanded,
35 the Children of Israel would see Moshe’s face,
that the skin of Moshe’s face was radiating;
but then Moshe would put back the veil on his face,
until he came in to speak with him.

————————————————————————————————-

Here’s a bit of trivia — what happens when Scripture is twisted, mistranslated, misrepresented:

(Photo from Google Images; writeup from Wikipedia)

The marble sculpture appears to depict Moses with horns on his head, though some modern artists and historians claim that there were never intended to be horns.^[2]

The depiction of a horned Moses was the normal medieval Western depiction of Moses, based on the description of Moses’ face as “cornuta” (“horned”) in the Latin Vulgate translation of Exodus.^[3]

The Douay-Rheims Bible translates the Vulgate as, “And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord.”^[4] This was, however, a mistranslation of the original Hebrew Masoretic text which uses a term equivalent to “radiant”,^[5] suggesting an effect like a halo. The Greek Septuagint translated the verse as “Moses knew not that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified.”^[6]

The church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch comments about this: “Jerome [the translator of the Old Testament into Latin], mistaking particles of Hebrew, had turned this into a description of Moses wearing a pair of horns – and so the Lawgiver is frequently depicted in the art of the Western Church, even after humanists had gleefully removed the horns from the text of Exodus.”^[7]

The assumption for centuries was that Michelangelo simply “didn’t know better” than the accepted mistranslation. However, as Rabbi Benjamin Blech pointed out in his 2008 book, Sistine Secrets,“—–[The statue] never had horns. The artist had planned Moses as a masterpiece not only of sculpture, but also of special optical effects worthy of any Hollywood movie. For this reason, the piece had to be elevated and facing straight forward, looking in the direcion of the front door of the basilica. The two protrusions on the head would have been invisible to the viewer looking up from the floor below — the only thing that would have been seen was the light reflected off of them.” ^[2]

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 34:6 – The Rabbis – "God's Nature in 13 Attributes"

November 20, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

[Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses; commentary is from AST/ArtScroll Tanach and Pentateuch & Haftoras, published by The Soncino Press, edited by Dr. J. H. Hertz. Reformatting and highlights ours.]

Exodus/Shemoth 34

1 Then YHVH said to Moshe:

Carve yourself two tablets of stone

like the first-ones,

and I will write on the tablets the words

that were on the first tablets

which you smashed.
2 And be ready by the morning:

go up in the morning to Mount Sinai,

station yourself for me there, on top of the mountain.
3 No man is to go up with you,

neither is any man to be seen on all the mountain,

neither are sheep or oxen to graze in front of this mountain.
4 So he carved two tablets of stone like the first-ones.

Moshe (started) early in the morning

and went up to Mount Sinai,

as YHVH had commanded him,

and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
5 YHVH came down in the cloud,

he stationed himself beside him there

and called out the name of YHVH.
6 And YHVH passed before his face

and called out:

YHVH YHVH

God,

showing-mercy, showing-favor,

long-suffering in anger,

abundant in loyalty and faithfulness,
7 keeping loyalty to the thousandth (generation),

bearing iniquity, rebellion and sin,

yet not clearing, clearing (the guilty),

calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons and upon sons’ sons, to the third and fourth (generation)!

[AST] Hashem passed before him and proclaimed: HaShem HaShem, God, Compassionate and Gracious, Slow to Anger, and Abundant in Kindness and Truth; Preserver of Kindness for thousands of generations, Forgiver of Iniquity, Willful Sin, and Error, and Who Cleanses — but does not cleanse completely, recalling the iniquity of the parents upon children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations.

P&H Commentary: THE REVELATION OF GOD’S NATURE IN THE THIRTEEN ATTRIBUTES

God’s ‘ways’ are now proclaimed unto Moses in the thirteen characteristic qualities of the Divine Nature enumerated in v. 6 and 7. Judaism has been very chary of definitions of God. He is the En sof, the Infinite, the Undefinable. However, the Thirteen Attributes give us a definition of God in ethical terms. All schools of Jewish thought agree that these momentous and sublime attributes enshrine some of the most distinctive doctrines of Judaism. The Rabbis made v. 6 and 7 containing the Thirteen Attributes of Divine Mercy, the dominant refrain in all prayers of repentance.

God reveals the ‘name of the LORD’, i.e. His characteristic qualities, to Moses. The Rabbis held that there are thirteen distinct attributes in these two verses; though there are differences as to their precise enumeration. The enumeration in the following comments is in accordance with the views of Rabbenu Tam, Ibn Ezra, Mendelssohn and Reggio.

the LORD, the LORD. Heb. Adonay, Adonay. ADONAY denotes God in His attribute of mercy; and the repetition is explained in the Talmud as meaning, ‘I am the merciful God before a man commits a sin, and I am the same merciful and forgiving God after a man has sinned. Whatever change has to be wrought must be in the heart of the sinner; not in the nature of the Deity. He is the same after a man has sinned, as He was before a man has sinned.’

God. Heb. el. The all-mighty Lord of the Universe, Ruler of Nature and mankind.

merciful. Heb. rachum; full of affectionate sympathy for the sufferings and miseries of human frailty.

and gracious. Heb. ve-channun; assisting and helping; consoling the afflicted and raising up the oppressed. ‘In man these two qualities manifest themselves fitfuly and temporarily. It is otherwise with God: in Him, compassion and grace are permanent, inherent and necessary emanations of His nature. Hence, He alone can be spoken of as rachun ve-channun’ (Mendelssohn).

long suffering. Or, ‘slow to anger.’ Heb. erech appayim; not hastening to punish the sinner, but affording him opportunities to retrace his evil courses.

abundant in goodness. Or, plenteous in mercy. Heb. rav chesed; granting His gifts and blessings beyond the deserts of man.

and truth. Heb. ve-emet; eternally true to Himself , pursuing His inscrutable plans for the salvation of mankind, and rewarding those who are obedient to His will. Note that ‘chesed’, lovingkindness, precedes ‘emet,’ truth, both here and generally throughout Scripture; as if to say, ‘Speak the truth by all means; but be quite sure that you speak the truth in love.’

keeping mercy unto the thousand generation. Heb. notzer chesed la-alafim. Remembering the good deeds of the ancestors to the thousandth generation, and reserving reward and recompense to the remotest descendants.

forgiving iniquity. Heb. noseh avon; bearing with indulgence the failings of man, and by forgiveness restoring him to the original purity of his soul. The Heb. for ‘iniquity’ is avon; sins committed from evil disposition.

transgression. Heb. pesha; evil deeds springing from malice and rebellion against the Divine.

sin. Heb. chattaah; shortcomings due to heedlessness and error.

will by no means clear the guilty. i.e. He will not allow the guilty to pass unpunished. Heb. venakkeh lo yenakkeh. The Rabbis explain: venakkeh ‘acquitting—the penitent; lo yenakkeh, but not acquitting —the impenitent.’ He is merciful and gracious and forgiving; but He will never obliterate the eternal and unbridgeable distinction between light and darkness, between good and evil. God cannot leave repeated wickedness and obstinate persistence in evil entirely unpunished. His goodness cannot destroy His justice. The sinner must suffer the consequences of his misdeeds. the unfailing and impartial consequences of sin help man to perceive that there is no ‘chance’ in morals. The punishments of sin are thus not vindictive, but remedial.

visiting . . . upon the children. This law relates only to the ocnsequenes of sin. Pardon is not the remission of the penalty but the forgiveness of the guilt and the removal of the sinfulness. The misdeeds of those who are God’s enemies are visited only to the third and fourth generation, whereas His mercy to those who love Him is unto a thousand generations.

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 33 – "for no man can see My Face and live"

November 20, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

[Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses. Commentary from P&H/Pentateuch and Haftorah, ed. Dr. H.J. Hertz, added as well. Reformatting and highlights ours.–Admin1.]

If the previous chapter was the most disturbing, this one is the most intriguing!

Imagine the Creator, the Self-revealing True Elo’hiym—

not only prepares Moses for the most important role of mediator between Him and His chosen people;
gives His Identifiable Name to Moses early on in their first encounter;
backs him up with miraculous power visible and witnessed by all involved in the deliverance of the slaves from bondage;
then allows this handpicked mediator to plead for the yet-to-be-TORAH-transformed chosen people who still have slave mentality, still are culturally and spiritually connected to the only land they had ever known and called ‘home’ – Egypt;
meets ‘Face-to-face’ at the Tent of Meeting while the multitude watch from a distance;
and finally, for the biggest favor ever granted to man, agree that Moses would get a glimpse of HIS GLORY, protected under the covering of a rock.

Has anyone else in the TNK given this much access, privilege, special treatment? And yet this man Moses is the epitomé of the rare virtue of humility. Someone said that when you think you are humble, most likely you’re not, because it is something others perceive in you that you are not even aware of.

Images for picture of the tent of meeting in exodus – Report images

As you continue to read through this chapter, place yourself in the sandals of the person watching from a distance the meetings between Moses and YHWH at the Tent of Mow’ed. How would you feel as Joshua guarding the tent while waiting for Moses; little did he know he would be taking over at the appointed time for a warrior-leader to lead in the conquest of the promised land. Surely the Presence of YHWH even as theophanies of the pillar of fire and glory cloud must have been awesome, for what other God in those days and in our days has been that visible, communicative and interactive with man?

In fact these stories are so incredible that they are relegated by skeptics and unbelievers to Jewish legends, except one has to wonder: what people would put on record such a dismal national history from beginning to end in their own sacred scriptures? What people’s history is at the same time their Bible? You would think that a people as persecuted as the Jews would censor if not excise from their chronicles, such as would cause them embarrassment, shame, condemnation, particularly when their scriptures claim themselves as having been chosen as the recipients of and model for the TORAH life. But that is both the wonder and the proof of the divine source of the Hebrew Scriptures, specifically Torah. Landless, land-given, exiled from land, conquered land, land under foreign domination, no land, back in the land shared with hostile enemies determined to threaten their national life therein . . . truly, no other people could have survived so many drastic changes in and threats to their destiny as connected to a specific divinely set-apart piece of geography.

We who read the Hebrew Scriptures today see the continuation of the modern state of Israel from the history of their beginnings and strivings with their Elo’hiym Whose track record so far proves He will fulfill His prophetic utterances about His chosen at the end of the age.

Exodus/Shemoth 33

1 YHVH said to Moshe:

Go, up from here,

you and the people that you brought up from the land of Egypt,

to the land of which I swore to Avraham, to Yitzhak and to Yaakov, saying:

I will give it to your seed.
2 I will send a messenger before you

and will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite, the Hivvite and the Yevusite-,
3 to a land flowing with milk and honey.

But: I will not go up in your midst,

for a hard-necked people are you,

lest I destroy you on the way!
4 When the people heard this evil word

they mourned,

no man put on his ornaments (again).
5 Now YHVH said to Moshe:

Say to the Children of Israel:

You are a hard-necked people-

if for one moment I were to go up in your midst,

I would destroy you!

So now, take down your ornaments from yourselves,

that I may know what I am to do with you.
6 So the Children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Sinai on.
7 Now Moshe would take the Tent

and pitch it for himself outside the camp, going-far from the camp.

He called it the Tent of Appointment.

And it was,

whoever besought YHVH

would go out to the Tent of Appointment that was outside the camp.
8 And it was:

whenever Moshe would go out to the Tent,

all the people would rise,

they would station themselves, each-man, at the entrance to his tent,

and would gaze after Moshe

until he had come into the Tent.
9 And it was:

whenever Moshe would come into the Tent,

the column of cloud would come down

and stand at the entrance to the Tent,

and he would speak with Moshe.
10 And all the people would see

the column of cloud

standing at the entrance to the Tent,

and all the people would rise,

they would bow down,

each-man at the entrance to his tent.
11 And YHVH would speak to Moshe

face to face,

as a man speaks to his neighbor.

Now when he would return to the camp,

his attendant, the lad Yehoshua,

would not depart from within the Tent.
12 Moshe said to YHVH:

See,

you, you say to me:

Bring this people up!

But you,

you have not let us know

whom you will send with me!

And you,

you said:

I have known you by name,

and you have found favor in my eyes!
13 So now-

if I have, pray, found favor in your eyes,

pray let me know your ways,

that I may (truly) know you,

in order that I may find favor in your eyes:

See,

this nation is indeed your people!
14 He said:

If my presence were to go (with you), would I cause you to rest-easy?
15 He said to him:

If your presence does not go,

do not bring us up from here!
16 For wherein, after all, is it to be known

that I have found favor in your eyes,

I and your people?

Is it not (precisely) in that you go with us,

and that we are distinct,

I and your people,

from every people that is on the face of the soil?
17 YHVH said to Moshe:

Also this word that you have spoken, I will do,

for you have found favor in my eyes,

and I have known you by name.
18 Then he said:

Pray let me see your Glory!
Exodus 33:19 He said: I myself will cause all my Goodliness to pass

in front of your face,

I will call out the name of YHVH

before your face:

that I show-favor to whom I show-favor,

that I show-mercy to whom I show-mercy.
20 But he said:

You cannot see my face,

for no human can see me and live!
21 YHVH said:

Here is a place

next to me;

station yourself on the rock,
22 and it shall be:

when my Glory passes by,

I will place you in the cleft of the rock

and screen you with my hand

until I have passed by.
23 Then I will remove my hand;

you shall see my back,

but my face shall not be seen.

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 32 – 2nd commandment broken, 2 Tablets broken

November 20, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

[Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses. Commentary from AST/ArtScroll Tanach and P&H/Pentateuch and Haftorah, ed. Dr. H.J. Hertz, added as well. Reformatting and highlights ours.—ADMIN1.]

This chapter is probably one of the most disturbing to read because of so much strange behavior on the part of all characters except perhaps for Yehushuwa [Joshua] and the Ma’lak [angel/messenger]:

1. The Mixed Multitude — What should we really expect from a mass of newly-freed slaves who have not had time to adjust

from slavery to freedom;
from confinement in Egypt to journeying through the unrestrained space in the wilderness;
from Egypt taskmasters/Pharaoh, to a new Master they cannot see,
from having secure food supply in Egypt to being totally dependent on the Provider of daily manna and water from a rock;
- Who speaks through an appointed leader most of the time;
- until they finally hear His voice during the ratification of the Covenant;
from no choice in Egypt to freedom to refuse or accept laws from a new Master;
from polytheism and idolatry in Egypt, to believing, trusting, connecting, and worshipping only One God.

With everything they had witnessed so far in the 50 days journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai, there was enough reason to learn to trust, love, be faithful to this new Master, this God whose self-revealed Name is YHWH.

Easy for us to say at a distance and from hindsight, but is a paradigm shift really that easy to make?

How long does it take to be convicted?
What does it take to be convicted?

The answer could only be given individually;

have you shifted allegiance from your former belief to YHWH?
How long did it take for you,
and what ultimately persuaded you to do so?

For the mixed multitude, for sure, rabble-rousers, mob psychology and majority decision played a big part in swaying the people to misbehave.

And by the way, of all God-created creatures, why a calf . . . to worship, that is? How could people really worship—not even a real cow—but an image of a cow?

Aaron should have argued with the people of the idiocy of thinking that God would even look like a cow? It is said that in India where people are practically starving, sacred cows are allowed to roam around free to this day; ‘Holy Cow’ indeed!

2. Aaron — To be the brother and spokesman for Moses, Aaron appears all-too-willing to accede to the clamor to make an idol; he did not even argue for the wisdom of waiting for Moses, or saying out flat NO to violating the 2nd commandment!

Hearing is different from obeying; mentally agreeing has yet to be lived out in behavior. Later when all those who participated were slain, Aaron was spared from the same fatal punishment. Why? Did Aaron simply fear for his life?

The rabbis try to put the blame of the Golden Calf incident on the non-Israelites among the mixed multitude:

AST: What began as an error of fact mushroomed into a grievous misunderstanding of Israel’s relationship with God. Thinking that Moses was dead (v.1), the people felt that they needed a tangible presence to take his place as intermediary between themselves and God. This was not a denial of God. Aaron acquiesced to them because he felt that it would be best for him to appear to yield until he could wean them from their error.
P&H: The Rabbis explain that the people expected Moses to return on the 40th day, inclusive of the day of his ascent; but he remained 40 clear days on Mount Sinai. When he did not appear on the day they expected him, the people concluded that he was dead, and a feeling of utter helplessness possessed them. They demanded a visible god. . . . Aaron’s’ intention may have been to cool their ardour, thinking they would hesitate to sacrifice their ornaments. To Aaron’s astonishment, the people at once complied with his request. ‘What a fickle people!’ say the Rabbis: ‘one day they give their silver and gold for the Sanctuary of God; and on the morrow, they do the same for a golden calf.

3. Moses — Temper, temper, it’s one thing to be indignant and another to be angry so as to lose self-control. Imagine smashing the tablets made by YHWH Himself instead of handling these with extreme care! That is not a sign of a mature leader (wasn’t he 80+ old by this time?). . . but to his credit, he pleads for mercy for his people, reminding YHWH “what would the Egyptians think?”

4. YHWH — Does God “repent”? Or was His threat just an act, to test Moses as a leader, how Moses would react? Then He goes ahead and surgically removes the idolaters. Surely the first 3 commandments are personal to Him and idolaters as well as non-participating watchers on the sideline must learn that lesson the hard way; no second chances . . . but why spare Aaron, the idol-maker himself?

Keep these questions in mind as you read through this chapter. Start noticing as well the strange interchanging reference to Israelites in the plural (they, their) as well as the singular (he, it) within a sentence. If readers keep this in mind, then the “suffering servant” of Isaiah 53 is easier to understand in the same context as referring to Israel.

NSB@S6K

———————————

Exodus/Shemoth 32

1 Now when the people saw that Moshe was shamefully-late in coming down from the mountain,
the people assembled against Aharon
and said to him:
Arise, make us a god who will go before us,
for this Moshe, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
we do not know what has become of him!
2 Aharon said to them:
Break off the gold rings that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters,
and bring (them) to me.
3 All the people broke off the gold rings that were in their ears,
and brought (them) to Aharon.
4 He took (them) from their hand,
fashioned it with a graving-tool,
and made it into a molten calf.
Then they said:
This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you up from the land of Egypt!
5 When Aharon saw (this), he built a slaughter-site before it,
and Aharon called out and said:
Tomorrow is a festival to YHVH!
6 They (started) early on the morrow,
offered offerings-up
and brought shalom-offerings;
the people sat down to eat and drink
and proceeded to revel.
7 YHVH said to Moshe:
Go, down!
for your people
whom you brought up from the land of Egypt
has wrought ruin!
8 They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them,
they have made themselves a molten calf,
they have bowed to it, they have slaughtered-offerings to it, and they have said: This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!
9 And YHVH said to Moshe:
I see this people-
and here, it is a hard-necked people!

[AST: I have seen this people, and behold! it is a stiff-necked people. Comment; Stiff-necked is the familiar simile for stubbornness, because a stiff-necked person never looks back once he has embarked on a course (Ibn Ezra).]

10 So now,
let me be, that my anger may flare against them
and I may destroy them-
but you I will make into a great nation!
11 Moshe soothed the face of YHVH his God,
he said:
For-what-reason,
O YHVH,
should your anger flare against your people
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with great power,
with a strong hand?
12 For-what-reason
should the Egyptians (be able to) say, yes, say:
With evil intent he brought them out,
to kill them in the mountains,
to destroy them from the face of the soil?
Turn away from your flaming anger,
be sorry for the evil (intended) against your people!
13 Recall Avraham, Yitzhak and Yisrael your servants,
to whom you swore by yourself
when you spoke to them:
I will make your seed many
as the stars of the heavens,
and all this land which I have promised,
I will give to your seed,
that they may inherit (it) for the ages!
14 And YHVH let himself be sorry concerning the evil
that he had spoken of doing to his people.

[AST: HaShem reconsidered regarding the evil that He declared He would do to His people.]

15 Now Moshe faced about to come down from the mountain,
the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand,
tablets written on both their sides,
on this-one, on that-one they were written;
16 and the tablets were God’s making,
and the writing was God’s writing,
engraved upon the tablets.

[AST Comment: Moses smashed the incomparably sacred physical embodiment of the word of God in the sight of a people that had shown itself unworthy of receiving it. This spectacle shocked them into recognition of the enormity of their sin.]

17 Now when Yehoshua heard the sound of the people as it shouted, he said to Moshe:
The sound of war is in the camp!
18 But he said:
Not the sound of the song of prevailing,
not the sound of the song of failing,
sound of choral-song is what I hear!
19 And it was,
when he neared the camp
and saw the calf and the dancing,
Moshe’s anger flared up,
he threw the tablets from his hands
and smashed them beneath the mountain.
20 He took the calf that they had made,
burned it with fire,
ground it up until it was thin-powder,
strewed it on the surface of the water
and made the Children of Israel drink it.
21 Then Moshe said to Aharon:
What did this people do to you
that you have brought upon it (such) a great sin!
22 Aharon said:
Let not my lord’s anger flare up!
You yourself know this people, how set-on-evil it is.
23 They said to me: Make us a god who will go before us,
for this Moshe, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
we do not know what has become of him!
24 So I said to them: Who has gold?
They broke it off and gave it to me,
I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.
25 Now when Moshe saw the people: that it had gotten-loose,
for Aharon had let-it-loose for whispering among their foes,
26 Moshe took-up-a-stand at the gate of the camp
and said:
Whoever is for YHVH-to me!
And there gathered to him all the Sons of Levi.
27 He said to them:
Thus says YHVH, the God of Israel:
Put every-man his sword on his thigh,
proceed and go back-and-forth from gate to gate in the camp,
and kill
every-man his brother, every-man his neighbor, every-man his relative!
28 The Sons of Levi did according to Moshe’s words.
And there fell of the people on that day some three thousand men.
29 Moshe said:
Be-mandated to YHVH today,
even though it be every-man at the cost of his son, at the cost of his brother,
to bestow blessing upon you today.
30 It was on the morrow,
Moshe said to the people:
You, you have sinned a great sin!
So now, I will go up to YHVH,
perhaps I may be able to purge away your sin.

[AST: “You have committed a grievous sin! And now I shall ascend to HaShem —perhaps I can win atonement in the face of your sin.”]

31 Moshe returned to YHVH and said:

Ah now,

this people has sinned a great sin,

they have made themselves gods of gold!
32 So now,

if you would only bear their sin-!

But if not,

pray blot me out of the record that you have written!

[AST: “I implore! This people has committed a grievous sin and made themselves a god of gold. And now if You would but forgive their sin—but if not, erase me now from Your book that You have written.“]

33 YHVH said to Moshe:

Whoever sins against me,

I blot him (alone) out of my record.

[AST: HaShem said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I shall erase him from My book.“]

34 So now,

go,

lead the people to where I have spoken to you.

Here, my messenger will go before you,

but on the day of my calling-to-account,

I will call-them-to-account for their sin!

[AST: Behold! My angel shall go before you, and on the day that I make My account, I shall bring their sin to account against them.”]

35 And YHVH plagued the people

because they made the calf that Aharon made.

. [AST: Then HaShem struck the people with a plague, because they had made the calf that Aaron had made.]

ISRAEL

Did you know? ISRAEL & RP – 3

November 19, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

Monument in Israel honors Filipinos

For saving 1,200 Jews from Holocaust

By Volt Contreras

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines — Before Schindler’s List, there was another document—the Philippine visa—that saved hundreds of Jews from the gas chambers and mass graves of the Holocaust.

In 1939, two years before World War II reached the Pacific, the Commonwealth government under President Manuel L. Quezon allotted 10,000 visas and safe haven to Jews fleeing Nazi Europe . Some 1,200 Jews made it to Manilabefore the city itself fell to Japanese invaders.

Before sunset on June 21, 70 years later, the first ever monument honoring Quezon and the Filipino nation for this “open door policy” was inaugurated on Israeli soil.

The monument—a geometric, seven-meter-high sculpture titled “Open Doors”—was designed by Filipino artist Junyee (Luis Lee Jr.). At the program held at the 65-hectare Holocaust Memorial Park in Rishon LeZion, Israel’s fourth largest city south of Tel Aviv, the mere mention of “Taft Avenue” by one of the speakers brought Ralph Preiss to the verge of tears.

Image from Philippine Daily Inquirer

Preiss, a father of four now in his 70s, later explained that Taft Avenue was where a synagogue-run soup kitchen provided the first hot meals he had as a refugee. Hewas eight when he arrived from Rosenberg, Germany, with his parents at the port of Manila on March 23, 1939.

“If I stayed in Germany I would have been killed,” Preiss, a retired engineer living in Connecticut in the United States, told the Inquirer in aninterview.

“My cousin who lived in Berlin and whose father was a lawyer went to Paris [instead]. The Paris police handed them over to the Nazis, and they were sent to Auschwitz and got killed,” he recalled, adding: “I’m very grateful to the Philippines for opening the doors and letting us in.”‘Salamat sa inyo!’ At the program with an audience of around 300, Max Weissler, glib as a jeepney driver plying the streets of Quiapo, barked onstage: “Thank you! Salamat sa inyo lahat, lahat nandito! Nakapunta kayo lahat! Salamat sa inyo!”

“Unfortunately,” Weissler noted, “very little is known about this great deed of President Quezon and the Filipino people during the Holocaust. Very little is known about this among us Israelis, the Jews around the world, and even in the Philippines .”

Weissler was 11 when he and his German family settled in Pasay City. To eke out a living, his mother baked cakes that his father sold. They all survived the war, and Weissler went on to fight another by joining the US Army in the Korean War.

“We came to Manila with practically nothing and always found help one way or another from the Filipinos,” Weissler said. “They have an open heart, and this is why we have this monument.”

3 triangles

Junyee won a competition held by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in February 2007 for the monument project. He bagged a P300,000 cash prize for his design, which bested seven other entries, including one submitted by a National Artist, according to the Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Rendered mainly in steel and set on a base of marble tiles shipped from Romblon, the monument depicts three doors of ascending heights (three, five and seven meters).

Viewed from above, Junyee’s work joins together “three triangles”—one representing the triangle of the Philippine flag, and the others signifying the two triangles that form the Star of David in the Israeli flag.

Etched on the marble floor are three sets of “footprints” approaching the doors. The prints are said to be those of Weissler, fellow Jewish refugee George Loewenstein, and Doryliz Goffer, a young Filipino-Israeli born in the Philippines and a granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

Modena’s mission

In November 2005, speaking before the Rotary Club of Jerusalem, then Philippine Ambassador to Israel Antonio Modena launched a “campaign for the remembrance of the Philippines’ humanitarian support for the Jews,” according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

That campaign merely proposed that a marker for the Philippines be placed on the Holocaust Memorial Park’s “Boulevard of the Righteous Among the Nations,” which features a row of red granite blocks with the names of countries and number of persons in each country who saved Jews.

But the response from then Rishon LeZion Mayor Meir Nitzan “surprised” the Philippine mission: Not just a slab of granite but a monument with its own prominent spot in the park was to be built to thank the Philippines and its people.

Technical and financial difficulties delayed the completion of the monument for two years; Modena and Nitzan originally set the inauguration in 2007 to mark the golden anniversary of Philippine-Israeli relations.

Modena died of lung cancer in February 2007. His name is first on the dedication plaque unveiled at the “Open Doors” monument on June 21. Modena’s campaign was said to have been inspired by the 2003 book “Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror” by Frank Ephraim. The 246-page eyewitness account gathers the voices of 36 refugees, who described in detail their arduous journeys to Manila , the lives they tried to build, and their fresh ordeals under Japanese rule.

Born in Berlin, Ephraim was eight when he fled to Manila with his parents in 1939.After the war he immigrated to the United States, began a career in naval architecture and later worked with the US Department of Transportation.

Ephraim died in August 2006. “He was very attached to the Philippines and was very anxious to go back there. We were supposed to go, and then he got lung cancer and that was the end of it. It was just too bad,” said his American widow Ruth, another special guest at the inaugural.

Filipino pride

Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano, who attended the inaugural on the invitation of the Israeli government, shared passages from the book which, he said, “made me proud to be a Filipino.”

Quoting Ephraim, Durano read: “Filipinos were a tolerant people who never interfered or took any action against the Jews. [Their temple] on Taft Avenue was very visible and Jews attended services and congregated in front of the temple without the slightest disturbance.

“There was never a ghetto in Manila, and Jews lived in close proximity with Filipinos, and all sides introduced neighbors to each other’s cuisine, music, culture and history.”

According to Durano, the “Open Doors” monument “celebrates the most powerful force on earth, second only to God’s will, and that is the human will.”

“It was just amazing, the will of these Jewish families who escaped to Manila.Some had to go through Siberia, some had to take boats for weeks and months,” he said.

But also, Durano said, the monument “celebrates the Filipino heart …a heart that touches others with compassion, a heart that makes one a blessing to the world.”

ISRAEL

Did you know? ISRAEL & RP – 2

November 17, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

Jews honor Manuel L. Quezon on his 134th birthday/Sunday, August 19th, 2012

By Nena C. Benigno/Philippine Daily Inquirer

As the country commemorates the 134th birthday today, August 19, of Manuel L. Quezon, he is also honored by thousands of Jewish families who have survived and prospered because they found a home in Manila at the darkest time in their history as a race.

It was a point of no return.

German and Austrian Jews—1,200 of them—narrowly escaped Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers just before the German dictator rounded up 6 million Jews who were eventually tortured and murdered in his concentration camps.

Sunday, August 19th, 2012
Image source: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=photo+of+Manuel+L+Quezon

“The mob was screaming bloody murder: ‘Kill the Jews!’” recalls child refugee to Manila John Odenheimer who saw Nazi storm troopers rampaging through their Jewish neighborhood.

“We caught the last train out of Berlin, they closed the border after us,” recalls German refugee Guenther Leopold, whose house was smashed and ransacked by Nazi soldiers. “There was nothing left (but broken) glass on the floors.”

The year was 1940. On the other side of the world, a Filipino leader opened his country to fleeing Jewish refugees when no other country would take them.

President Quezon opened the Philippines’ doors to up to 10,000 Jewish refugees.

“We went to the Philippines because it was the only place that gave us a visa,” recalled Harry Brauer, one of the Jews who escaped captivity, during that black period of ignorance and anti-Semitism.

The German and Austrian Jews were given visas to work in Manila.

‘Moral courage’

“Other countries did not think [saving the Jews] was that important, I don’t presume to say,” said Quezon’s daughter Zeneida Quezon Avanceña. “But I know dad had the moral courage to do it because he believed in the sanctity of human life and the right of people to live as they believe they should.”

The dramatic rescue plan for the Jews was devised by three men who mapped out a strategy over weekend nights playing poker and smoking cigars. They were: Quezon, who would sanction the Jews’ official entry and even donate his own land in Marikina and Mindanao for their settlements; American High Commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt, who risked his political career convincing US government officials to issue thousands of working visas for Jews to the Philippines; and Herbert Frieder and his sons, owners of the Philippine-based Helena Cigar and Cigarette Factory, who provided jobs in their factory for the Jews, raised money to transport them to Manila, found them housing and schools for their children.

‘Open Doors’ monument

Quezon was the President of the first democracy in the “Far East,” extending safety and liberty to the Jews who would set up the first democracy and Bible-believing state in the Middle East.

The tradition of freedom of worship and support for the biblical “chosen people” would manifest again seven years later when the Philippines became the only Asian nation to vote in the United Nations for the partition of Palestine and the recreation of the state of Israel. Many of the refugees to Manila eventually resettled in Israel.

The Filipinos and Quezon are honored in Israel by an attractive and imposing “Open Doors” monument in Rishon Lezion Memorial Park just off Tel Aviv built in 2009. It commemorates the historic and spiritual ties between two peoples scattered among the nations, united by their commitment to freedom, humanitarian principles and faith in the God of the Bible.

The story of the Jews’ dramatic escape from the Holocaust and their resettlement in the Philippines is recorded in the book “Escape to Manila,” written by refugee Frank Ephraim. A film that records that modern-day Exodus, titled “Rescue in the Philippines,” is being produced by Frieder Films and 3 Roads Communications, a preview of which will be shown on “The 700 Club Asia” on GMA News TV during a “Special Focus on Israel” beginning on September 15.

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 25 – "Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them."

November 16, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

[This is a Sinaite’s perspective/commentary given as introduction to this chapter.. We usually present the Chapter un-interrupted by commentary so that our visitors can read through and focus on the words of YHWH and understand on his own, without help. The next post features commentary per verse from our usual 3 sources. Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.–Admin1.]

———————————

What a brilliant idea only the Creator could conceive!

This invisible God plans to travel among His chosen people and how does He intend to do this? A visible portable special dwelling, much like the tents that His people set up when they camp, and take apart when they move.

The contents? Perfectly designed minimalist furniture, symbolic and functional, all fitting the purpose of the mishkan.

Image from noelrt.com

What earthly dwelling could possibly contain the God of the universe? Surely, this was not so much for Him as it was to make His ‘visibility’ plain among His people as well as to the nations who would watch this bunch of freed slaves cross their territory with the Presence of their powerful God journeying with them.

A God traveling with His people or a people traveling with their God—what a spectacle it must have been! YHWH manifesting as pillar of fire by night and glory cloud by day, announcing His Presence in the Ark of the Covenant, speaking to Moses from the Tent of Meeting.

The remaining chapters of Exodus/Shemoth are devoted to details in the construction of the sanctuary. We know that following instructions is not as easy as it sounds, so Moses is shown a pattern.

As Christians/Messianics, we were given the impression that YHWH had shown Moses a vision of the heavenly tabernacle on which he would base the earthly tabernacle, based on the NT book of Hebrews. The original verse in Torah however shows that the pattern was shown to Moses on the mountain, but nothing is said about Moses getting a glimpse of the heavenly sanctuary:

Vs. 40. And see that you make them after their pattern,

which has been shown you in the mountain.

Indeed, how could an earthly replica even resemble the original ‘heavenly’ dwelling of God? Solomon declared in his prayer (1 Kings 8:27) when he dedicated the magnificent Temple he was privileged to build in Jerusalem:

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth?

Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.

How much less this temple which I have built!”

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Exodus/Shemoth 25

1 Now YHVH spoke to Moshe, saying:
2 Speak to the Children of Israel,

that they may take me a raised-contribution;

from every man whose heart makes-him-willing, you are to take my contribution.
3 And this is the contribution that you are to take from them:

gold, silver, and bronze,
4 blue-violet, purple, and worm-scarlet (yarn), byssus, and goats’-hair,
5 rams’ skins dyed-red, tanned-leather skins,

acacia wood,
6 oil for lighting,

spices for oil of anointing and for fragrant smoking-incense,
7 onyx stones, stones for setting

for the efod and for the breastpiece.
8 Let them make me a Holy-shrine

that I may dwell amidst them.
9 According to all that I grant you to see,

the building-pattern of the Dwelling and the building-pattern of all its implements,

thus are you to make it.
10 They are to make

a coffer of acacia wood,

two cubits and a half its length,

a cubit and a half its width,

and a cubit and a half its height.
11 You are to overlay it with pure gold,

inside and outside you are to overlay it,

and are to make upon it a rim of gold all around.
12 You are to cast for it four rings of gold

and are to put them upon its four feet,

with two rings on its one flank

and two rings on its second flank.
13 You are to make poles of acacia wood

and are to overlay them with gold
14 and are to bring the poles into the rings on the flanks of the coffer,

to carry the coffer by (means of) them.
15 In the rings of the coffer are the poles to remain,

they are not to be removed from it.
16 And you are to put in the coffer

the Testimony that I give you.
17 You are to make a purgation-cover of pure gold,

two cubits and a half its length

and a cubit and a half its width.
18 You are to make two winged-sphinxes of gold,

of hammered-work are you to make them,

at the two ends of the purgation-cover.
19 Make one sphinx at the end here

and one sphinx at the end there;

from the purgation-cover are you to make the two sphinxes,

at its two ends.
20 And the sphinxes are to be spreading (their) wings upward

with their wings sheltering the purgation-cover,

their faces, each-one

toward the other; toward the purgation-cover are the sphinxes’ faces to be.
21 You are to put the purgation-cover on the coffer, above it,

and in the coffer you are to put

the Testimony that I give you.
22 I will appoint-meeting with you there

and I will speak with you

from above the purgation-cover,

from between the sphinxes that are on the coffer of Testimony-

all that I command you

concerning the Children of Israel.
23 You are to make a table of acacia wood,

two cubits its length,

a cubit its width,

and a cubit and a half its height;
24 you are to overlay it with pure gold.

You are to make a rim of gold for it, all around,
25 you are to make for it a border, a handbreadth all around,

thus you are to make a rim of gold for its border, all around.
26 You are to make for it four rings of gold

and are to put the rings at the four edges, where its four legs (are).
27 Parallel to the border are the rings to be,

as holders for the poles, to carry the table.
28 You are to make the poles of acacia wood, and are to overlay them with gold,

that the table may be carried by (means of) them.
29 You are to make its plates and its ladles,

its jars and its jugs, from which (offerings) are poured;

of pure gold are you to make them.
30 And you are to put on the table

the Bread of the Presence, before my presence, regularly.
31 You are to make a lampstand of pure gold;

of hammered-work is the lampstand to be made, its shaft and its stem;

its goblets, its knobs and its blossoms are to be from it.
32 Six stems issue from its sides,

three lamp-stems from the one side,

and three lamp-stems from the second side:
33 three almond-shaped goblets on the one stem, with knobs and blossoms,

and three almond-shaped goblets on the other stem, with knobs and blossoms-

thus for the six stems that issue from the lampstand;
34 and on the lampstand (itself) four almond-shaped goblets, with their knobs and their blossoms,
35 a knob beneath two stems, from it,

a knob beneath two stems, from it,

and a knob beneath two stems, from it,

for the six stems that issue from the lampstand.
36 Their knobs and their stems are to be from it,

all of it hammered-work, of pure gold.
37 You are to make its lamps, seven (of them),

you are to draw up its lampwicks so that they light up (the space) across from it.
38 And its tongs and its trays (shall be) of pure gold.
39 (From) an ingot of pure gold they are to make it, together with all these implements.
40 Now see

and make,

according to their building-pattern which you are granted to see upon the mountain.

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 21-22 – "If you will . . . then I will. . ."

November 13, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

Most people are familiar only with the 10 Commandments, the Decalogue.

The medieval Jewish scholar “Rambam” or Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides, counted all the commandments from Exodus through Deuteronomy and came up with the number 613. Don’t be overwhelmed by that number and don’t give up reading through the “instructions”.

Please remember that in the original historical and cultural context, many of these instructions were intended to address the inter-relational problems that would arise during the wilderness wanderings of this mass of people who have to be taught how to live with each other in all their levels of relationship and various situations.

Notice the title of this article: “If you will . . . then I will . . .” It stresses the conditional premise of this covenant. The blessings for obedience as well as the curses for disobedience are spelled out; most often, they are natural consequences of individual, communal or national choice. If we follow YHWH’s dietary laws, we experience good health. If we elect an incompetent or corrupt president, we suffer the consequences of putting such a leader there. And so on. The Law-Giver (YHWH) need not interfere, results are automatic or inevitable or to be expected.

As early as this time, OTHER-centeredness is immediately being inculcated in their community consciousness, with special care and attention to the disadvantaged members (servants, widows, orphans, the stranger).

If you wish to read a categorized, more systematic set of statutes, ordinances, commandments, please go to [http://www.jewfaq.org/613.htm] where Tracey R. Rich has already done an excellent job.

The translation we have been using in this website is being replaced by EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses. The Chapter here is to be read through, uninterrupted by commentary, as the Torah should be read, at least initially. This will be followed by another post on the same chapter, with verse-by-verse commentary from our usual sources: Pentateuch and Haftorah (Dr. J.W. Hertz, Everett Fox, Robert Alter, etc.).

NSB@S6K

——————————

Exodus/Shemoth 21

1 Now these are the regulations that you are to set before them:
2 When you acquire a Hebrew serf,

he is to serve for six years,

but in the seventh he is to go out at liberty, for nothing.
3 If he came by himself, he is to go out by himself;

if he was the spouse of a wife, his wife is to go out with him.
4 If his lord gives him a wife, and she bore him sons or daughters,

the wife and those she bore are to remain her lord’s, and he is to go out by himself.
5 But if the serf should say, yes, say:

I love my lord, my wife and my children, I will not go out at liberty!,
6 his lord is to have him approach God’s-oracle,

and then he is to have him approach the door or the post;

his lord is to pierce his ear with a piercer,

and he is to serve him forever.
7 When a man sells his daughter as a handmaid,

she is not to go out as serfs go out.
8 If she is displeasing in the eyes of her lord, who designated her for himself,

he is to have her redeemed;

to a foreign people he has not the power to sell her,

since he has betrayed her.
9 But if it is for his son that he designates her,

according to the just-rights of women he is to deal with her.
10 If another he takes for himself,

(then) her board, her clothing, or her oil he is not to diminish.
11 If these three (things) he does not do for her,

she is to go out for nothing, with no money.
12 He that strikes a man, so that he dies,

is to be put-to-death, yes, death.
13 Now should he not have lain in wait (for him), but should God have brought him opportunely into his hand:

I will set aside for you a place where he may flee.
14 But when a man schemes against his neighbor, to kill him with cunning,

from my very slaughter-site you are to take him away, to die!
15 And he that strikes his father or his mother,

is to be put-to-death, yes, death.
16 And he that steals a man,

whether he sells him or whether he is found in his hand,

is to be put-to-death, yes, death.
17 And he that insults his father or his mother,

is to be put-to-death, yes, death.
18 When men quarrel, and a man strikes his neighbor with a stone or with (his) fist, yet he does not die, but rather takes to his bed:
19 If he can rise and walk about outside upon his crutch,

he that struck (him) is to go clear,

only: he is to make good for his resting-time, and provide-that-he-be-healed, yes, healed.
20 When a man strikes his serf or his handmaid with a rod, so that he dies under his hand,

it is to be avenged, yes, avenged;
21 nonetheless, if for a day or two-days he endures,

it is not to be avenged, for he is his own “money.”
22 When two men scuffle and deal a blow to a pregnant woman, so that her children abort-forth, but (other) harm does not occur,

he is to be fined, yes, fined, as the woman’s spouse imposes for him,

but he is to give it (only) according to assessment.
23 But if harm should occur,

then you are to give life in place of life-
24 eye in place of eye, tooth in place of tooth, hand in place of
25 hand, foot in place of foot,/burnt-scar in place of burnt-scar, wound in place of wound, bruise in place of bruise.
26 When a man strikes the eye of his serf or the eye of his handmaid, and ruins it,

he is to send him free at liberty for (the sake of) his eye;
27 if the tooth of his serf or the tooth of his handmaid he breaks off,

he is to send him free at liberty for (the sake of) his tooth.
28 When an ox gores a man or a woman, so that one dies,

the ox is to be stoned, yes, stoned, and its flesh is not to be eaten,

and the owner of the ox is to be clear.

29 But if the ox was (known as) a gorer from yesterday and the day-before, and it was so designated to its owner,

and he did not guard it,

and it causes the death of a man or of a woman,

the ox is to be stoned, and its owner as well is to be put-to-death.
30 If a ransom is established for him,

he is to give it as a redemption for his life, all that is imposed for him.
31 Whether it is a son it gores or a daughter it gores,

according to this (same) judgment it is to be done to him.
32 If (it is) a serf the ox gores, or a handmaid,

silver-thirty shekels-he is to give to his lord, and the ox is to be stoned.
33 When a man opens up a pit, or when a man digs a pit, and does not cover it up, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,
34 the owner of the pit is to pay, the worth-in-silver he is to restore to its owner, and the dead-animal is to remain his.
35 When a man’s ox deals-a-blow to his neighbor’s ox, so that it dies,

they are to sell the live ox and split its worth-in-silver, and the dead-animal they are also to split.
36 Yet if it was known that it was a goring ox from yesterday and the day-before, and its owner did not guard it,

he is to pay, yes, pay, an ox in place of the ox, and the dead-animal is to remain his.
37 (Now) when a man steals an ox or a lamb, and slaughters it or sells it,

five cattle he is to pay in place of the ox, and four sheep in place of the lamb;

Exodus/Shemoth 22

1 if in (the act of) digging through, the stealer is caught and is struck down, so that he dies, there is to be on his account no bloodguilt;
2 (but) if the sun rose upon him,

bloodguilt there is on his account;

he is to pay, yes, pay-if he has nothing, he is to be sold because of his stealing.
3 (Now) if what was stolen is found, yes, found in his hand, whether ox, or donkey, or lamb, (still) alive,

twofold he is to pay.
4 When a man has a field or a vineyard grazed in,

and sends his grazing-flock free, so that it grazes in another’s field,

the best-part of his field, the best-part of his vineyard he is to pay.
5 When fire breaks out and reaches thorn-hedges, and a sheaf-stack or the standing-grain or the (entire) field is consumed,

he is to pay, yes, pay, he that caused the blaze to blaze up.
6 When a man gives silver or goods to his fellow for safekeeping, and it is stolen from the man’s house;

if the stealer is caught, he is to pay twofold;
7 if the stealer is not caught, the owner of the house is to come-near God’s-oracle,

(to inquire) if he did not stretch out his hand against his neighbor’s property.
8 Regarding every matter of transgression,

regarding oxen, regarding donkeys, regarding sheep, regarding garments, regarding any kind of loss about which one can say: That is it!-

before God’s-oracle is the matter of the two of them to come;

whomever God’s-oracle declares guilty, is to pay twofold to his neighbor.
9 When a man gives his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a lamb, or any kind of beast, for safekeeping,

and it dies, or is crippled or captured, no one seeing (it happen),
10 the oath of YHVH is to be between the two of them,

(to inquire) if he did not send out his hand against his neighbor’s property;

the owner is to accept it, and he does not have to pay.
11 But if it was stolen, yes, stolen away from him,

he is to pay it back to its owner.
12 If it was torn, torn-to-pieces,

he is to bring it as evidence; what was torn, he does not have to pay back.
13 When a man borrows it from his neighbor, and it is crippled or it dies:

(if) its owner was not with it, he is to pay, yes, pay;
14 if its owner was with it, he does not have to pay.

If it was hired, its hiring-price is received.
15 When a man seduces a virgin who has not been spoken-for and lies with her,

(for) the marrying-price he is to marry her, as his wife.
16 If her father refuses, yes, refuses to give her to him,

silver he is to weigh out, according to the marriage-price of virgins.
17 A sorceress you are not to let live!
18 Anyone who lies with a beast

is to be put-to-death, yes, death!
19 He that slaughters (offerings) to (other) gods is to be devoted-to-destruction.

Only to YHVH alone!
20 Now a sojourner you are not to maltreat, you are not to oppress him,

for sojourners were you in the land of Egypt.
21 Any widow or orphan you are not to afflict.
22 Oh, if you afflict, afflict them . . . !

For (then) they will cry, cry out to me,

and I will hearken, hearken to their cry,
23 my anger will flare up

and I will kill you with the sword,

so that your wives become widows, and your children, orphans!
24 If you lend money to my people, to the afflicted-one (who lives) beside you,

you are not to be to him like a creditor,

you are not to place on him excessive-interest.
25 If you take-in-pledge, yes, pledge, the cloak of your neighbor,

before the sun comes in, return it to him,
26 for it is his only clothing,

it is the cloak for his skin,

in what (else
) shall he lie down?

Now it will be that when he cries out to me,

I will hearken,

for a Compassionate-one am I!
27 God you are not to curse,

an exalted-leader among your people you are not to damn.
28 Your full fruit of your trickling-grapes, you are not to delay.

The firstborn of your sons, give to me.
29 Do thus with your ox, with your sheep:

for seven days let it be with its mother, (and) on the eighth day, give it to me!
30 Men of holiness are you to be to me!

Flesh that is torn-to-pieces in the field, you are not to eat;

to the dogs you are to throw it.

Exodus/Shemoth

Exodus/Shemoth 20c – The DECALOGUE – Commandments V-X (Jewish Perspective)

November 12, 2012 s1n4i600o-adm1n-d3v Leave a Comment

[These are notes from another RESOURCE we recommend as MUST OWN; this has been hailed as a great scholarly achievement by authorities of the Bible everywhere. Its translation is based on the American Jewish Version of TNK. Reformatting and slight editing ours.]

The Soncino Press

PENTATEUCH & HAFTORAHS

Hebrew Text English Translation & Commentary,Edited by Dr. H. H. Hertz

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FIFTH COMMANDMENT: HONOUR OF PARENTS

This Commandment follows the Sabbath command, because the Sabbath is the source and the guarantor of the family life; and it is among the Commandment engraved on the First Tablet, the laws of piety towards God, because parents stand in the place of God, so far as their children are concerned. Elsewhere in Scripture, the duty to one’s parents stands likewise next to the duties toward God (Lev. XIX, 3).

honour thy father and thy mother. By showing them respect, obedience and love. Each parent alike is entitled to these. For although ‘father’ is here mentioned first, in Lev. XIX, 3 we read ‘each one shall fear (i.e. reverence) his mother and his father.’ And this obligation extends beyond the grave. The child must revere the memory of the departed parent in act and feeling. Respect to parents is among the primary human duties; and no excellence can atone for the lack of such respect. Only in cases of extreme rarity (e.g. where godless parents would guide children towards crime) can disobedience be justified. Proper respect to parents may at times involve immeasurable hardship; yet the duty remains. Shem and Japheth throw the mantle of charity over their father’s shame: only an unnatural child gloats over a parents’ disgrace or dishonor. The greatest achievement open to parents is to be ever fully worthy of their children’s reverence and trust and love.

that thy days may be long. i.e. the honoring of one’s parents will be rewarded by happiness and blessing. This is not always seen in the life of the individual; but the Commandment is addressed to the individual as a member of society, as the child of a people. The home is infinitely more important to a people than the schools, the professions or its political life; and filial respect is the ground of national permanence and prosperity. If a nation thinks of its past with contempt, it may well contemplate its future with despair; it perishes through moral suicide.

SECOND TABLE: DUTIES TOWARDS FELLOWMEN

The first five Commandments have each an explanatory addition; the last five are brief and emphatic Thou shalt not’s. Our relation to our neighbors requires no elucidation; since we feel the wrongs which others do to us, we have a clear guide how we ought to act towards others. These duties have their root in the principle ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’, applied to life, house, property and honor.

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT: THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE

thou shalt not murder. The infinite worth of human life is based on the fact that man is created ‘in the image of God’. God alone gives life, and He alone may take it away. The intentional killing of any human being, apart from capital punishment legally imposed by a judicial tribunal, or in a war for the defense of national and human rights, is absolutely forbidden. In Greece, weak children were exposed; that is, abandoned on a lonely mountain to perish. Jewish horror of child-murder was long looked upon as a contemptible prejudice. ‘It is a crime among the Jews to kill any child,’ sneered the Roman historian Tacitus.

Hebrew law carefully distinguishes homicide from willful murder. It saves the involuntary slayer of his fellow-man from vendetta; and does not permit composition, or money-fine, for the life of the murderer. Jewish ethics enlarges the notion of murder so as to include both the doing of anything by which the health and well-being of a fellow-man is undermined, and the omission of any act by which a fellow-man could be saved in peril, distress or despair.

For the prohibition of suicide,

Gen. IX, 5: your blood of your lives. lit. ‘your blood, according to your own souls.’ The Rabbis understood these words literally, i.e. your life-blood, and based on them the prohibition of suicide.
will I require, i.e. I will exact punishment for it.
beast. If an animal killed a man, it must be put to death; see Exod. XXI,28-32 for ‘the law concerning an ox which gored a man.
at the hand of every man’s brother.
Better, at the hand of his brother-man (M. Friedlander). This clause emphasizes, the preceding phrase, ‘and at the hand of man.’ If God seeks the blood of a man at the hand of a beast which kills him, how much more will He exact vengeance from a human being who murders his brother-man!

SEVENTH COMMANDMENT: THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE

adultery. ‘Is an execrable and God-detested wrong-doing’ (Philo). This Commandment against infidelity warns husband and wife alike against profaning the sacred Covenant of Marriage. It involves the prohibition of immoral speech, immodest conduct, or association with persons who scoff at the sacredness of purity. Among no people has there been a purer homelife than among the Jewish people. No woman enjoyed greater respect than the Jewish woman; and she fully merited that respect.

EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: THE SANCTITY OF PROPERTY

thou shalt not steal. Property represents the fruit of industry and intelligence. Any aggression on the property of our neighbor is, therefore, an assault on his human personality. This Commandment also has a wider application than theft and robbery; and it forbids every illegal acquisition of property by cheating, by embezzlement or forgery. ‘There are transactions which are legal and do not involve any breach of law, which are yet base and disgraceful. Such are all transactions in which a person takes advantage of the ignorance or embarrassment of his neighbor for the purpose of increasing his own property’ (M. Friedlander).

NINTH COMMANDMENT: AGAINST BEARING FALSE WITNESS

The three preceding Commandments are concerned with wrongs inflicted upon our neighbor by actual deed: this Commandment is concerned with wrong inflicted by word of mouth.

thou shalt not bear false witness. The prohibition embraces all forms of slander, defamation and misrepresentation, whether of an individual, a group, a people, a race, or a Faith. None have suffered so much from slander, defamation and misrepresentation as the Jew and Judaism. Thus, modernist theologians still repeat that, according to this Commandment, the Israelite is prohibited only from slandering a fellow-Israelite; because, they allege, the Heb. word for ‘neighbor’ here, and in ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ (Lev. XIX, 18), does not mean fellow-man, but only fellow-Israelite. This is a glaring instance of bearing false witness against Judaism; and is proved to be so by XI, 2 (‘Let every man ask of his neighbor, jewels of silver, etc.’) where the word neighbor cannot possibly mean an Israelite, but distinctly refers to the Egyptian. In this Commandment, as in all moral precepts in the Torah, the Heb. word neighbor is equivalent to fellowman.

TENTH COMMANDMENT: AGAINST COVETOUS DESIRES

covet. i.e. to long for the possession of anything that we cannot get in an honest and legal manner. This Commandment goes to the root of all evil actions—the unholy instincts and impulses of predatory desire, which are the spring of nearly every sin against a neighbor. the man who does not covet his neighbor’s goods will not bear false witness against him; he will neither rob nor murder, nor will he commit adultery. It commands self-control; for every man has it in his power to determine whether his desires are to master him, or he is to master his desires. Without such self-control there can be no worthy human life; it alone is the measure of true manhood or womanhood. ‘Who is strong?’ ask the Rabbis. ‘He who controls his passions,” is their reply.

thy neighbor’s house. i.e his household. The examples enumerated are the objects most likely to be coveted.

This commandment is somewhat differently worded in the Decalogue which is repeated by Moses in his Farewell Addresses to Israel. That difference, together with the other slight variations in that Decalogue from the original in this chapter of Exodus, is dealt with in the Commentary on Deuteronomy.