Have you ever heard the term “hangry”? This sometimes happens on long road trips with the family; you’re trying to make it to a certain point before you stop to eat and the people in the car get increasingly cantankerous. My kids call that “hangry.” You are angry because you are hungry. Finally you stop and get something to eat, and the demeanor of the car is transformed to sweetness and love, all because you now have a cheeseburger in your belly. Don’t tell me the soul and body aren’t intimately intertwined.
What-is-it?
God provided a flaky white substance that could be ground up into a sweet flour. It appeared in the morning like dew on the ground and burned off as the sun rose in the sky. The people see it and then ask, “What is it?” In Hebrew, the words are pronounced “Man-na?” And so that is what they end up naming it: what-is-it? Man-na, bread from heaven. There is a poignant devotional piece to this event. God tells Moses to instruct the people to only take enough for the day. If they try to save it up, it will stink and rot with maggots. God wanted them to depend on God on a daily basis, not on their own clever ability to manage their lives. YHWH was building a relationship that required their daily trust. Make yourself vulnerable to God; that is where you grow in intimacy with God.
A peek into the future: 1,500 years later, when Jesus multiplies the loaves and feeds thousands of people, he refers to this story and to himself as the bread from heaven. Jesus is manna. As a priest, when I give people the bread at communion, I often very quietly whisper, “Manna?” before I hand them the bread. “What-is-it?” I am asking. And then I answer my own question, “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.” It is another typology. Manna is the type; Jesus as bread from heaven is the antitype.
Bitterness, questioning, testing, quarreling. The writer of the story is describing the atmosphere of these runaway Hebrew slaves. These are some conflicted folks, scared and full of doubt. The literary device of alliteration, and these four “m” sounds, are framing the events. It is good practice to read the scriptures with a literary sensibility. The writer of this story is “doing a thing” here.
Then there are the Amalekites. This is the first skirmish the Hebrews encounter. God comes to their aid when Moses has his staff raised in the air, but as he fatigues and the staff lowers, they begin to lose. Aaron and Hur find a rock for Moses to sit on and they hold up his arms for him. Make a mental note about the Amalekites. They show up again in the book of 1 Samuel in a very significant manner.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1. Do you get hangry? Would you rather be free and suffer for a while as you get established in your new life, or be a slave and have shelter, food, and water?
2. God told them only to take enough manna and quail for one day’s worth. Do you think it is wrong to store up money or resources? Does it keep us from depending on God?
1. Exodus: Gods and Kings, directed by Ridley Scott (Century City, CA: 20th Century Fox, 2014), film.
Read Exodus chapters 18–21.
You might hear someone at some point in your life say something like, “The United States Constitution is based on the Bible.” While I understand why people who love both the United States Constitution and the Bible would want to make a direct correlation between the two, it just isn’t that simple. The Greeks had quite a bit to do with our modern democracy, and the theocratic form of government we see in Exodus is very different from the representative democracy we have in the United States. However, one thing the two do share is that both are systems of law interpreted by a series of district judges. All laws, whether rooted in a theocracy or a democracy, will need to be applied differently based on context, and that is what judges did for the Hebrews and what judges do in American democracy.
Jethro, Moses’s Midian priest father-in-law, gives him some sage advice. He tells Moses he can’t do everything himself; he needs to enlist some help. So he tells Moses to choose some wise leaders to help him: judges who will weigh in on decisions for groups of 1000, 100, 50, and 10. Moses will weigh in on the decisions in the concentrated echelon of ten; the other judges will weigh in for larger groups.
For the remaining chapters in this section, we are going to be working through the rest of the Torah in two ways. We will continue to follow the narrative of the Hebrews struggling in the wilderness and we will also look at selections from the laws they were developing.
Torah is the Hebrew word for “law” or “teachings” and is also typically the designation for the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also called the Pentateuch (five). In the Hebrew tradition, the scriptures are divided into three collections:
Torah (translated as teachings or instruction, sometimes called “The Law”): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
Nev’iim (the prophets or the history books): Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
Ketuv’iim (the writings): Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles
If you make an acrostic of these three collections, it is TNK, which is then expanded with vowels and pronounced Tanakh (tah-knock). This is the way the Hebrew tradition refers to their scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures.
Torah is specifically those instructions that were given to Moses to guide the life of the Hebrews as they ventured into the wilderness and beyond. In this chapter’s reading, you learned that God gave them a baseline of ten laws. As we read in chapters 21 and 22, there are many more. All total, there are 613 laws or guidelines, and these were called “the Pathway.” In Hebrew it is pronounced Hal-a-cha. It was the way a Hebrew person was supposed to walk, and if they got off that path, it would be the reason for their demise.
When Jewish people refer to Torah, they mean the first five books (noted above); this is their main scripture. The other books in the Nev’iim and Ketuv’iim are important and seen as sacred, but not as sacred as the five of the Torah.
Receiving the Law
God assembles the people at the base of Mount Sinai, sets up a barrier, and forbids anyone to go any further. Only Moses can approach God on the dark mountain. Later Aaron may go with him. Anyone who crosses the barrier is to be put to death with stones or arrows. In this story Moses is like a second Adam, reentering the presence of God that was lost when Adam was banished from the Garden. While in his presence he is given the Ten Commandments and told this:
. . . while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him from the mountain, “This is what you should say to Jacob’s household and declare to the Israelites: You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to me. So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious