Seder 117: Ezekiel 20:25---What Do You Mean, "Statutes that were not good..."?

 Ezekiel 20 takes place "in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month."  Commentator Ralph Alexander (EBC) estimates that this date is in July or August of 591 BC.  At this point some elders of Israel came to Ezekiel to "inquire of the Lord" (verse 1).  Alexander speculates that they may have been wondering whether the Egyptians would be able to deliver them from Nebuchadnezzar's dominance.  

Whatever the question, God refuses to dignify it with an answer.  Through Ezekiel, he reminds them of Israel's long history of rebellion,  going all the way back to the nation's sojourn in Egypt.  It is revealed, for example, that one reason for the length of that sojourn was the sin of idolatry (verses 7-8).  

Israel's disobedience, God declares, continued during its wilderness years.  As a result, "I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life" (verse 25).  

What does God mean here?  Sadly, as commentator Daniel Block explains, there have been Christian interpreters, starting with Justin Martyr in the second century (see Dialogue with Trypho, chapters 18-22), who gave an antinomian reading of this verse. By this reading, God gave Israel "bad laws" after the sin of the golden calf as a punishment.  

An examination of Ezekiel 20 shows some immediate problems with this sort of interpretation.  Whatever these "bad laws" were, they did not include the Torah revealed at Sinai, which was a blessing intended to lead to abundant life (see Lev 18:5, quoted in verses 11, 13, 21).  Also, these bad laws were given a generation later, to the children of those who were rescued from Egypt (verse 21).  

There seems to be a clue to the meaning of verse 25 in the frequent references to idolatry in the prophecy, including child sacrifice (verse 26; see e.g., Lev 18:21).  God may mean in verse 25 that he "gave Israel over" to such practices to allow them to suffer the consequences and be brought to repentance.  That is the kind of interpretation given, for example, by Walter C. Kaiser in Hard Savings of the Bible.  This kind of language is used in a number of places in the Bible (Ps 81:12; Acts 7:42; Ro 1:24-25). 

Seder 46: Exodus 4:10---Did Moses Have a Speech Impediment?

During Moses' calling at the burning bush, Moses says that he is "not eloquent," but "slow of speech and of tongue" (Ex 4:10).  Based on this statement, many have wondered if Moses stuttered or had some other kind of speech impediment.

Commentator Douglas Stuart points out that in the Ancient Near East, it was customary for people to be extremely modest when being offered an important responsibility, and that is surely what is going on here.  Moses ends up doing a lot of speaking in the Pentateuch and shows no signs of lacking eloquence or speaking skill.  As Stephen later said in Acts 7:22, Moses was "mighty in his words and deeds."

We see similar modesty from Jeremiah (Jer 1:6) and from Saul (1 Sam 9:21), for example. 

Seder 11: Genesis 12-13---Separating from Lot

 The biblical narrator often reports the actions of the characters without giving explicit moral evaluations of those actions.  That leaves plenty of room for readers to second guess the characters.  

For example, in Genesis 12:1 God instructs Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you."  

Verse 4 reports Abram's response:  "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him."  Abram was certainly obedient in leaving his country.  But in taking his nephew Lot along, had he really left his kindred and father's house behind?  

Abram and Lot later part ways after disputes between their herdsmen make it advisable for them to separate.  It is after that separation that God affirms the promise of the land to Abram (Ge 13:14-18).  

In a 2011 paper in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament ("Rethinking the Place and Purpose of Genesis 13") scholar Dan Rickett suggests that the timing of this promise is not a coincidence.  After Lot's departure, Abram has complied fully with the directive of Genesis 12:1.

We are not told why Abram brought Lot along in the first place.  By the time that Abram left, we know that Lot's father Haran had died (Ge 11:27-29), and apparently Abram's father Terah had also died (Acts 7:4).  Perhaps Abram felt responsible for Lot.  

One midrash proposes that Lot insisted on going along with Abram, as Lot's descendant Ruth later would with Naomi (Ruth 1:16-17).  At that point, according to this proposal, Lot wanted to be Abram's disciple.  In this scenario Abram was justified in bringing Lot along on his journey.  

But those who adopt this scenario then have to explain the later parting of the ways between Abram and Lot.  For example, Joseph Soloveitchik proposes that something changed during their time in Egypt.  When they came out of Egypt with greater wealth, Lot may have become more interested in growing his fortune than in blessing the nations, leading to his separation from Abram.  

Seder 73: Psalm 132---The End of the Ark's Pilgrimage

 Psalm 132 is the longest of the psalms of ascent (120-134), a group of psalms associated with pilgrimage to Jerusalem for festival days.  It is a psalm about the ark of the covenant being transported to Jerusalem in the days of King David (2 Sam 6; 1 Chron 15-16).

In this case the ark was not on a temporary journey to Jerusalem for a festival.  In fact, the ark was finally coming to rest at Zion at the end of a long pilgrimage.  "Arise O Lord and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might," we read in Psalm 132:8.

The psalm praises David's tireless efforts to bring the ark to Zion and asks that God remember David for these efforts (vv 1-5).  God responds that he will remember his covenant with David, a covenant that includes the promise that a Davidic king will rule forever.  

Psalm 132 includes a messianic prophecy.  Of Zion God says, "There I will make a horn sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed."  Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, refers to this prophecy in Luke 1:69.

There is another reference to Psalm 132 in Acts 2:30, where Peter mentions the oath of Psalm 132:11 in his Pentecost sermon.  And Stephen in Acts 7:46 alludes to Psalm 132:5.

On September 17, 2021, Kyle Kettering gave a sermon on Psalm 132 at Church of the Messiah.  He noted another significant theme of Psalm 132, that of God as teacher (see v 12).  "Who is a teacher like him?", Job 36:22 asks.  Isa 2:3 pictures people from all nations coming to Zion to learn from him.  

Seder 45: Exodus 2---Moses, a Deliverer-In-Training

 While the Israelites suffered in slavery, God had not abandoned them.  He arranged for Moses, the man through whom he would work to deliver Israel, to be raised in Pharaoh's household.  As Stephen would later tell it, "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds" (Acts 7:22).  One story, related by Josephus, has him become an Egyptian military leader.  (It was in this capacity, the story says, that Moses obtained the Cushite wife spoken of in Num 12.) 

As an adult Moses chose to embrace his Israelite identity.  Heb 11:24-26 states, 

"By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.  He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward."

Stephen says that he was 40 years old (Acts 7:23) when he saw an Israelite being beaten by an Egyptian (Exo 2:11).  Moses then "looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand" (v 12).  

Verse 12 does not mean that Moses looked around to see that no one was looking.  Instead, he was hoping that someone would do something to stop the injustice being perpetrated upon the Israelite.  

The Hebrew expression in Exo 2:!2 also appears in Isa 59:16, which says of God.  "He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him." 

Moses' heart was in the right place, but he was not ready to lead Israel's exodus.  The death of the Egyptian was probably an accident, but he should not have killed him.  When what he had done was discovered, he fled Egypt for Midian, where he rescued a damsel in distress, married her, and settled down as a herdsman working for his father-in-law Jethro.  Another forty years would go by before God called him for a special mission.