Annual Bible Reading 2017: Exodus 21-24

18^th January Morning
Exodus 21-23

If you have noticed because this is a Bible study where we are trying to understand the message of the Bible then and what it is now, this morning we have read three chapters. The reason is that since the Bible never had chapters in its original form, it was us who divided it into chapters for readability and referencing. So some content is basically one and so connected that when we follow the psychology of chapter meaning might be lost in the process. So this morning we read three chapters and these chapters are not about any other thing but three things: 1. CRIME 2. CRIMINAL 3. JUDGEMENT.

Immediately after the Israelites had developed their edition of the Hammurabi Code of conduct in ten fundamental laws (Exodus 20), what followed was a definition of crime, an identification of a criminal and the judgment that anyone found guilty deserved. When you read these three chapters, you will categorically see no more than these three themes. Since the law deals with the behavior of psychological and conscience beings, it became sensible for Moses and his team of leaders to use the community known problems and challenges to address them through these three themes. It was important that the Israelites understood what a crime was, who a criminal is and what judgment was to be applied to what case and why.

Now if you have been keen enough, you will realize that, there are interesting things that might too difficult for some of us to believe. Take for instance verse 2: When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. It is unimaginable and not easily comprehended that there could be slaves to slaves. Can you believe this? The Israelites were fresh slaves saved from the ruthless hand of Pharaoh, but guess what, some of these slaves had slaves too.

One commentary puts it this way:

“Slavery was permissible in certain situations, so long as slaves were regarded as full members of the community (Genesis. 17:12), received the same rest periods and holidays as non-slaves (Exodus. 23:12; Deuteronomy. 5:14-15, 12:12), and were treated humanely (Exodus. 21:7, 26-27). Most importantly, slavery among Hebrews was not intended as a permanent condition, but a voluntary, temporary refuge for people suffering what would otherwise be desperate poverty. “When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt” (Exodus. 21:2).

Cruelty on the part of the owner resulted in immediate freedom for the slave (Exodus. 21:26-27). This made male Hebrew slavery more like a kind of long-term labor contract among individuals, and less like the kind of permanent exploitation that has characterized slavery in modern times.” The protection against permanent enslavement also did not apply to foreigners (Leviticus. 25:44-46). Men taken in war were considered plunder and became the perpetual property of their owners.

Women and girls captured in war, who were apparently the vast majority of captives (Numbers. 31:9-11, 32-35; Deuteronomy 20:11-14), faced the same situation as female slaves of Hebrew origin (Deuteronomy. 21:10-14), including permanent enslavement. Slaves could also be purchased from surrounding nations (Ecclesiastes. 2:7), and nothing protected them against perpetual slavery. The other protections afforded Hebrew slaves did apply to foreigners, but this must have been small comfort to those who faced a lifetime of forced labor.

Let us briefly first establish how a slave comes about. The strong capture the week and turn them into their servants. The so-called masters rob everything of the slaves from their country, land, property and most of all they rob their individualism and from that point the slaves cease to be human beings in the minds and perspective of the masters. This is what results into all the brutality and any treatment given by the masters to those they consider slaves.

I have read some books, histories and watched demonstrative movies about the slave trade missionaries to Africa and other regions and I wonder how the Hebrews who had just gone through the same experience could subject any human being to the same status. Aristotle noted long ago, a slave is like a tool or a domestic animal—something the master owns and over which he has complete control. Yet such a “natural slave” has never existed; and no system of slavery has ever successfully dehumanized its slaves to the point where they are indistinguishable from mere property.

I have read many slave letters that narrated the pain a slave went through at the hands of their so-called masters and one letter that has always made me cry more than I do cry when I read others is one by Frederick Douglass. I want you to read it too: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/i-am-your-fellow-man-but-not-your-slave.html. This man just explains what it meant then, and what it means now. He closes his letter with these words:

“I will now bring this letter to a close, you shall hear from me again unless you let me hear from you. I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening their horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy—and as a means of bringing this guilty nation with yourself to repentance. In doing this I entertain no malice towards you personally.

There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other. I am your fellow man, but not your slave,”

When I read these stories in the context that Exodus 21:2 and the Old Testament all through reports of the Jews the slaves and the former slaves had the audacity to own slaves in the form of human beings, then one revelations directly hit the window of my heart and opens wide the door of my understanding that: HE WHO IS A MASTER TO A SLAVE IS IN MORE SLAVERY THAN THAT HE SUBJECTS OTHER HUMAN BEINGS TO.

Whoever treats human beings as slaves is the real slave and while human beings might be slaves to you a fellow human being, you their master is a slave to demonic and principalities of darkness. It might make sense if you are serving a free man as your slave master but the unfortunate bit that comes with life is when you are a slave to another better slave.

Most people are slaves to better slaves in the name of bosses, wives, husbands, children, political powers, etc. These are sick people who have dominated us, abused us and tortured us to the extent of us losing our humanity. Perhaps you married a slave to domestic abuse, a slave to drugs, a slave to sex, an addict, a gluttonous individual, etc. and it her/he who has power over you.

These possessed slaves in the name of masters treat human beings as property something not original in nature. Frederick Douglass put it better than I can when he wrote:

“The morality of the act, I dispose as follows: I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What you are, I am. You are a man, and so am I. God created both, and made us separate beings. I am not by nature bound to you, or you to me. Nature does not make your existence depend upon me, or mine to depend upon yours. I cannot walk upon your legs, or you upon mine. I cannot breathe for you, or you for me; I must breathe for myself, and you for yourself.

We are distinct persons, and are each equally provided with faculties necessary to our individual existence. In leaving you, I took nothing but what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for obtaining an honest living. Your faculties remained yours, and mine became useful to their rightful owner. I therefore see no wrong in any part of the transaction.”

Anyone whose self-esteem makes that of others inferior is a slave master and therefore a slave.

What we see in these three chapters is a contradiction. It seems the Law of thou shalt not kill was restricted to an unofficial killing. The ‘KILL THEM’ ruling we see in these chapters and the capital punishment we see in this book and Deuteronomy makes some of us think that the Law of thou shalt not kill had an exclusive close of the capital punishment. If you killed your neighbor it was not acceptable but if the council of elders by the majority ruled that you should be killed, you couldn’t survive.

That is the problem with the Law, as we may all see no sober mind would conclude that this was the will of God for guilty sinners to be killed just because it has been proven by the majority that they are guilty. We know in our modern times that this would be, “Mob Justice”. And that is why I am one Theologian who does not subscribe to the teaching that the law was given by God and that is why I have consistently exhibited that the laws in Exodus 20 are just but an edition written by Moses on Mount Sinai and then later presented to the Israelites as their new constitution. And to establish these laws, he mystified them by preparing them, in Exodus 19, dictating the written laws to them in Exodus 20 and in Exodus 31:18 mystifying them that these were written by the finger of the Lord.

We know that at a certain point, Moses broke these tablets on which it was assumed that God had written in Exodus 32:19, and he rewrote them Exodus 34:1,4-5. Now as you may see, we can chronologically arrange the events reported in these three chapters 19, 20, 31, 32, 34. And this how it makes more sense: in Exodus 19, they prepare for the Lord and Moses leaves them for a relatively long time and goes to Mount Sinai alone, they make a golden calf to lead them back to  those charismatic moments of a long wait (chapters 30-33), he comes with the tablets but before he reads them, there is already an established new religion of the golden calf with a compromised timid Aaron as the leader. Moses in anger crashes the Sinai project of editing thousands of the Hammurabi Code and making them ten. Then in chapter 34:1,4-5 he goes back alone again.

Let us apply some critical thinking here, if the laws were God’s work why were they always written in secret and not before the eyes of all the Israelites as it was the trend with all the miracles and the important issues in the wilderness? So brother Moses goes back and rewrites his project and then the events reported in chapter 20 occur. What was read was the second edition since the first tablets were broken, we cannot tell what was on them, only Moses can.

However, we can tell by the emphasis on other gods in the first two similar laws Exodus 20:2-6 and the emphasis on the fourth law in Exodus 20:8-11 which is basically about a special day that distinguished this new religion of Israel from the Egyptian religion of the calves that they had instituted in his absence. When you read all the laws, these are the longest and they actually form the two poles (Mono-God and Day of his Worship) of the Theology of what we know as Judaism.

Now I must let you appreciate the work that Moses was inspired to formulate the ten Laws, these have worked as the basis of many civilizations in history and modern legal states. The key factors that he addressed in the Decalogue are serious matters that concern human Anthropology and Sociology wherever they are. Man is placed in the universe and he is connected to the entire universe by his two relationships since he is a social being. These two relationships are first vertically aligned and secondly horizontally allied. Due to his vertical orientation man is a worshipping beast and regardless of the quality of the deity he worships, he is continuously worshipping something directly or indirectly. His worship instincts are beyond his control and they control him rather.

For that reason, the first four laws concern this relationship. On the other side of man, his welfare is an ingredient and part of the web of the ecosystem, so for him to survive or even thrive he has to relate properly and systematically with his environment.  And that includes all nature and fellow human beings as well. And that is what the last six laws are about. These laws have stood the test of time for two reasons: first because what we have in the Bible is a second edition inspired by God through King Hammurabi, then edited by Moses with the help of Jethro (his father in law), and secondly because these laws are coherent and corresponding to the universal natural, historical and scientific laws of existence in a chaotic world.

I am an advocate of the obedience to these universal laws and I do not entertain those who literary obey them religiously as they are stated at the expense of the spirit of these laws. First of all, these stated universal laws for a chaotic world are not permanent, they are here with us as long as this chaotic world exists (Mathew 5:17-18), and they will have no use in a world where there is no chaos and neither its thought. They work as social control measures to naturally (intentionally or accidently) chaotic world and people (Romans 3:31).

That is what Exodus 21-23 is about and that is why I have already stated that these chapters are about: The Crime (as defined upon an existing conclusion in the binding law), The Criminal (guilty offender of the law), and The Judgment (Justice). All these are fundamentally based in the Law. However, the Old Testament through its legal construction and theology, does not teach the spirit of the law (what ought to be done), but the consequence of the violation of the law (death).

Now let us be careful here, it is important to emphasize that when we disobey the laws of the world in which we are naturally connected to, it will lead to death. But the problem with obeying the law at the expense of its spirit, is that we end up constrained, groomed and nurtured in DON’Ts and our behavior never materializes into the Dos. The Old Testament mentored a community that was so obsessed with what shouldn’t be done but never knew what should be done. When the Law says thou shalt not have others gods, and an individual does away with all other gods but remains indifferent to the existing one God does not mount to the truth that he has obeyed the commandment in the Law.

Every law has its commandment and its underlying ordinance. If we keep the Law by not doing what it condemns but not do what it indirectly ordains then we are equally violators of what matters more than a stated law; and that is the commandment. It upon this theological understanding that the entire New Testament Theology spins and this was launched by the words of Jesus Christ in answering a legal expert in the religion of Judaism in Mathew 22:35-40: And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

While in Mathew 5:17-18, Jesus emphasized that The Law was here to stay long as this chaotic world exists. He revealed that Christians had to up their game from restrictive DON’Ts to active Dos. (Mathew 5:43-48). Christians therefore should live the ten laws for the secular world in political constitutions and constitutional courts and we are to do the spirit of the law which LOVE. And this Love is exhibited in 1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5:22-23. Where love is, there is no need of the Law.

Then why must we keep the law? The answer has already been discussed, we keep the Law for social-order purposes. The Law is there to forcefully (with threats and punishments Exodus 21-23, Deuteronomy) maintain law and order. Whether we are believers in Christ, or non-believers, we are all subject to the universal laws of existence and while we might individually maintain law and order, our neighbors might intentionally or accidentally do otherwise and that is why we need, laws in place (Mathew 5:17-18; Romans 3:31).

If we understood this truth, the problem surrounding the gospel of whether we are Saved by Grace through Faith alone (Antinomianism) or we are Saved by Grace through Faith that keeps the Law (Nomianism) would be solved. While the Law in the Old Testament and in modern days deals with the criminal (SINNER: Deuteronomy 21:21), Grace and Faith in the New Testament deals with the crime (SIN: 2 Corinthians 5:21).

18^th January Evening
Exodus 24

There is an interesting verse in this chapter that justifies my argument about the mystification of the Law. Here it is: The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tables of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” (Exodus 24:12 RSV). If you do not subscribe to my chronology that I discussed in the morning, then how do fit in this verse that is in 24 together with those in 31-34? See you tomorrow my brothers and sisters. May God keep you.

God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.

Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER

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