Exodus/Shemoth 6: Who's Who!

[This was first posted October 2012, reposted October 14, 2014.   Commentary is by NSB@S6K.  Translation:  EF Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.  The regular commentaries usually featured will be added later; for now we are simply changing the translation from our former choice. .—Admin1.]

 

 

If you suddenly heard an audible voice speaking to you from out of nowhere (not just in your head), what would you think?  How would you react?  Would you conclude it’s God speaking to you?  If there is not a soul around, you might, but it depends on the message.  

 

If you know the True God and what He has said as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, you would recognize His “voice” through His “message.”  So how vital is it to know that message, that original revelation?

 

Now if you were a Christian believing in the devil and his heirarchy of demonic spirits, there are books and books about deception coming from that “demonic” realm so you’d have to be discerning about who’s speaking to you, might be the ENEMY of your soul; he’s well caricatured in the New Testament scriptures, enough to be recognizable; just make sure you’re not hearing your own deluded thinking. 

 

When we receive a phone-call, isn’t the first thing we ask if the voice is unfamiliar, “who is this please?” But the biblical narratives thus far make it appear that hearing God’s voice was the most natural thing for these biblical figures to experience, so they interact with that speaking God . . . just like Moses here.

 

 

Here’s an enigma:  Has any other god (of man’s imagination) ever spoken to mankind except in legends and myths passed on by word of mouth or in written literature  (man-made scriptures included) and unquestioningly accepted by generation after generation?  Why should the One True God even feel threatened by the non-existence of non-gods, what other god exists to compete with Him? Obviously none . . . except that He has to compete with gods in men’s minds and belief systems.  

 

 

How ironic, God creates humankind, and humankind create their gods, subjecting themselves to ideas that control their behaviour by superstition, myths and legends, and scriptures of questionable sources.  Agnostics and atheists are way ahead of religionists. The study of world religions is truly fascinating, one man or a group of men decide who god is, what god is like, then make rules, convince or coerce others to believe, and a religious system is born.  (Please read this post:  Revisit: A Crash Course in Comparative Religion).

 

 

When you look at the pantheon of any belief system’s gods, could you really believe that men would worship created things, are men that gullible?  Especially if the Creator has taken pains to add to the witness of His awesome creation that He indeed exists, His Revelation which now we read in His TORAH, in this time and age?

 

Exodus/Shemoth 6

 

1 YHWH said to Moshe:  

Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh:  

for with a strong hand he will send them free,

and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.  

2  God spoke to Moshe,

he said to him:

I am YHWH.  

3 I was seen by Avraham, Yitzhak, and by Yaakov

as God Shaddai,

but (by) my name YHWH I was not known to them.

From what we have so far read, Genesis to Exodus 6, the speaking God who picked out these familiar biblical figures had not given anyone His Name.  It appears He merely shared the same generic word for deity.

 

Why did Mosheh not know the Name?  Did he even know this God enough to seek Him? Did any of the Hebrews in Egypt know? We can only guess from their actuations.  For the first 40 years of Mosheh’s life, apparently not; in fact,  it was this God Who sought Mosheh, just like He sought out  Abraham and all the others. Does the True God really do that, just pick out at random from clueless humans and inform them about Who He Is and what He intends to do. . . or does He respond to the individual who seeks Him? 

 

Deuteronomy/Davarim 4:29  

 

29 But when you seek YHVH your God from there 

 you will find (him),

 if you search for him with all your heart and with all your being.

 

The context is the prophesied exile of God’s people who, because they keep seeking other gods, He gives them what they seek . . . only then will they learn.  Is it applicable to others, not just Israelites, not just the Jews?  Why not, gentiles are just like the Jews, they could just as easily get diverted by non-gods, He lets us go our way . . . hopefully we learn and if we keep seeking Him, we’ll get there.  Just look at the journey we each have taken all our lives and look at where we have finally arrived!

 

 

The Christian Scriptures renamed the Hebrew Scriptures as we know, so this 2nd book of TORAH is better known as EXODUS . . . but it should really be known as the original recorders and custodians, the Jews, chose to name it, according to its opening lines: “And These are the Names of the children of Israel” . . . or simply NAMES.

 

Beginning with the unnamed baby drawn from the water, the unnamed Hebrew mother and sister, the unnamed Pharaoh’s sister as well as the unnamed Pharaoh himself, the names are gradually known, as well as and most specially the Sacred Name, HaSHEM . . . YHWH. 

 

This book of names continues . . . .