Day 22. Exodus 16-18

Exodus 16-18

Exodus 16

¹And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

Each month is 28 days, based on a lunar calendar. They are a whole 43 days into the journey. The people have no idea how long the trip is going to be. According to the Exodus account, this is the next station, the Sin Wilderness.

²And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:

God is leading them by day in a cloud and by night by fire, and the people STILL are murmuring against the people who led them out.

³And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

They would rather do work and be full, than be starving in the wilderness.

⁴Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

⁵And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.

This is manna. No one knows exactly what manna was.

¹²I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God.

They got bread in the morning and quail in the evening.

¹⁶This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents.

An omer is about 3.64 liters.
¹⁸And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.

It's not an exact measurement. It's about the amount that a person would need to eat in a day. For some, and omer was more, for some it was less.

The people weren't to save any of it.

²⁰Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them.

How did the worms get in, unless it was worms... worms just don't appear in things, although they believed it did.
²²And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.

The people were worried about the Sabbath. Had they celebrated sabbath yet?

²³And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.

This is the first mention of the word sabbath. Sabbath means "to cease". The seventh day of rest hadn't even been invented yet.

²⁴And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.

²⁵And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field.

²⁶Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.

Manna is already magical stuff that appears on the ground. Now it has the capability of knowing when it's sabbath.

²⁷And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.

It's so magical that it doesn't even appear on sabbath.

²⁸And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?

So far the only laws and commandments are the Noahide laws.

1. no idolatry
2. no murder
3. no theft
4. no promiscuity
5. no blasphemy
6. no eating live animal flesh
7. set up a government.

The sabbath law hadn't even really been formally set up yet. I guess if god says to do something, it's always a formal law.

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

It looked like frost, and was about the size of coriander seed. If it tasted like wafers with honey, why wouldn't they just eat it like that, why make bread out of it.

³²And Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.

³³And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations.

Here we have an out of time order part of the bible.

³⁴As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.

What is "the Testimony"? It was the ten commandments... Moses didn't have these yet.

³⁵And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

Forty years, that's a long time to eat anything.

Exodus 17

¹And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.

Rephidim is the next station. This is where the people were thirsty.

³And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?

First they claim Moses brought them out to kill them with hunger, and now to kill them with thirst.

⁵And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.

⁶Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

So Moses got water.

⁸Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.

Is this Amalek who was in the line of Esau?

⁹And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.

Moses magic wand is useful again.

¹⁰So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

¹¹And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

The picture to the right is "Victory O Lord!" by John Everett Millais. Aaron is on the right, in red. It was painted in 1871.

¹²But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Why was Aaron (the older brother) stuck holding up his younger brothers hands? Why was Aaron in better condition?

¹³And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

This is the first of many times that Joshua will kick some ass.

¹⁴And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

This verse is rather odd in the bible. Yes, the Amalekites have since become extinct. They aren't really mentioned under that name anywhere else than in the bible. In order to "utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek" they would have to be removed from the bible. This poses a problem. In order to actually remove them from remembrance, the bible has to be changed. So, there's a catch 22. Either the bible is right, or it's not... To remove them, it has to be wrong.

Exodus 18

⁵And Jethro, Moses' father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God:

Jethro shows up to the camp, he takes Moses wife and two sons to him.

⁸And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered them.

⁹And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians.

Goodness... it's all based on perspective. First Moses tells about the plagues, then about killing the Egyptian army in the red sea, and Jethro claims that's the "goodness" of the LORD.

¹²And Jethro, Moses' father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father in law before God.

I've always believed that Jethro was a worshiper of the "correct" god. Here we see that to be true.

¹³And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.

Moses was in charge. The man has so far spent less than a year living as a Hebrew, and now he's the person who judges them. Surely this upset the elders. Jethro asks Moses why he does it.


¹⁶When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.

Moses has known God since the burning bush days, and now he's the person who sets out god's statutes and laws. Jethro gives Moses some advice:

¹⁸Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.
...

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

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

If Moses was actually the spokesman for god, why didn't god tell him to set up district courts?

²⁵And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

²⁶And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.

So, Moses got him captains, lieutenants and sergeants. This is one of the first examples of delegation.

Points to ponder:

1. What is manna? Will it ever come back?

2. Amalek who? Oh yeah, he's in the bible.

3. Jethro may not be the judge of the people, but he definitely had influence over the guy who did.