Movin on out

Exodus 16:1 - 33:6

Ok so I missed a few days in there. Time to get back in the groove.

If you've been reading along through the stories of Genesis and Exodus you know that this bit we've been in for the last week or so is a tough bit to read...a LOT of rules and regulations.
What has really struck me through all of it is a consistent theme of establishing a nation.

Remember when Jacob (Israel) went down to Egypt the whole "nation" was really just a single large extended family. Now some 400 years later as the Israelites are leaving Egypt they have 600,000 men plus women and children. They may have had a good set of moral standards and rules as a family but what has 400 years of living under Egyptian laws and religious influences done to those rules and standards?

It is easy for us to think, looking backwards, that the established laws we read in the odl testament were in effect but they really had nothing.
SO what do we see?
In chapters 16 and 17 we see the people grumbling about food and water...as though the God who sent the plagues and split the Red Sea was slacking off on the job. Their first complaint comes after a little more than the first month...45 days and they've forgotten!!
We see God bring them into battle where they must trust him for victory and Joshua begin to emerge as a military leader. (Ex 17:10)
In chapter 18 Jethro comes along and helps Moses establish a system for dealing disputes. (Ex 18:17)
God shows up in chapters 19 and 20 and gives the 10 Commandments..and people are afraid of his coming. (Ex 20:19)
Chapters 21 - 24 are the beginnings of a civil code...laws concerning people and property. They wouldn't have had ANY of this of their own before now. This is the basis of a system of laws that any society needs...not just a set of religious observances. The people promise to obey. (Ex 24:3)
Chapters 24 - 30 are the beginnings of the religious regulations, God establishing an understanding of how He is to be worshiped. Remember all the odd superstitious stuff in Genesis? This is now being superseded by specific instructions.
But the people are impatient...
Chapter 31 feels like God wrapping up some closing details.
Chapter 32 is the story of the golden calf.
It has been something like 3-4 months since they walked through the Red Sea on dry land.
It has been just over a month since Moses went up onto the mountain in a fiery display of thunder and lightning.
(Ex 32:1)
"Come make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him."
It's almost like mass ADHD!!!
What strikes me though is that to some degree this isn't as surprising as it first seems.
Remember Adam "walked with God" physically.
Abraham had God show up, physically.
Jacob wrestled with God, physically.
And then for 400 years the Israelites were surrounded by Egyptians who worshipped physical idols.
Since bringing them out of Egypt God has shown himself in much more dramatic ways but without that same style of physicality...
You have got to LOVE Aaron's excuse when Moses comes down and confronts him with what he has allowed to happen:
(Ex 32:23 - 24)
"They said to me, 'Make us god who will go before us...'...So I told them, 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!!!"
"Dude, it was the graziest thing you've ever seen!! Well, after the snake stick and the frogs and the gnats and the locusts and the pillar of fire and the red sea and the mana...."
Maybe Aaron figured Moses would buy it.
Chapter 32 ends with Moses representing an early picture of Christ mediating with God on behalf of the people asking God to forgive them of their sin.
Chapter 33 contains a significant but subtle change in God's relationship to His people:
(Ex 33:2-3)
"I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff necked people and I might destroy you on the way."

We tend to think of their greatest failure as being the story of the 12 spies. But it is at THIS point where God, who was apparently going to lead them all the way Himself, sends a angel in His place.
I wonder what the trip to the promised land would have been like had the people not rebelled here and been lead by God himself.