Seder 104: Psalm 90---Moses' Humble Prayer for Wisdom and Mercy

 The superscription of Psalm 90 identifies it as "a prayer of Moses, the man of God."  Psalm 90 is the only psalm attributed to Moses, but a midrash on this psalm (90.3 in Midrash Psalms) proposes that Psalms 90-100 were all written by Moses and relate to the eleven tribes that he blessed in Deuteronomy 33.  This midrash relates Psalm 90 to the tribe of Reuben, seeing a call to repentance in Psalm 90:3:  "Return, O children of man!"  Psalm 91 is linked with the tribe of Levi, which "dwells in God's shadow" in its work at the tabernacle and temple.  Psalm 92, with its emphasis on singing praises to God, is associated with the tribe of Judah.  

Moses begins by praising God as eternal creator, ruler, and protector (verses 1-2).  Human beings, on the other hand, have a fleeting existence and are prone to sinfulness (verses 3-11).  Our proper response to this reality is to submit to God and learn wisdom (verse 12).  Moses also prays for mercy, and asks for help so that we might accomplish something of value in our short lives.  

We recognize Moses' humility (Nu 12:3) in this prayer. He learned much about God, human nature, and reality during his life, and we see these things in Psalm 90 as well.

Seder 124: Numbers 27---Appointing the Next Leader of Israel

 Knowing that he would not be going into the Promised Land, Moses in the final months of his life tried to do as much as possible to prepare the Israelites for future success.  Concerned more about Israel's future than his own, he asked God, "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that that congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd" (Nu 27:16-17).

God's response was to instruct Moses to anoint Joshua as his successor (verses 18-23).  Joshua would not have quite the "face-to-face" relationship with God that Moses had (see Num 12:6-8), but God would be working with him closely.

It was surely no surprise to Moses that Joshua, his longtime assistant, would be Israel's next leader.  Joshua was one of only a few from the older Exodus generation still alive (Num 26:65).  He is described in Nu 27:18 as "a man in whom is the Spirit", and in Deut 34:9 as "full of the spirit of wisdom."  God would not be working with Israel through a dynasty, but through leaders who were people of faith.

Are Nu 27:18 and Deut 34:9 saying that Joshua was led by the Holy Spirit?  I believe the answer to this question is "yes."  In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on November 12, 2022, Kyle Kettering observed that Christian theology has too often downplayed the extent of the work of the Holy Spirit before the Pentecost event in Acts 2.  (Sometimes this can result from misinterpreting passages like John 7:39.)  Certainly the work of the Spirit has increased through history, but the Spirit has been active from the beginning.  

Kyle related a midrashic tradition about the meaning of Moses' request in Nu 27:16-17.   According to this tradition, Moses was asking God for a new leader who would, like God, understand each person's spirit and be able to work with everyone.  God replies that he'll show Moses all the future leaders, the prophets and judges.  Moses sees, though, that the only one who will understand every spirit will be Messiah, who will have "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord" (Isa 11:2).

The Gospel of Mark shows that Jesus, following in Moses' footsteps, was concerned that the people of Israel have a good shepherd to lead them (Mk 6:34).  Through the Spirit described in Isa 11:2, he taught the people.  

Kyle explained that in both Jewish and Christian tradition, those who follow God in believing loyalty ared led by the Holy Spirit.  One who is led by the Spirit 

• exhibits the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23).
• puts the practices of the old nature to death (Rom 8:13).
• enjoys a close connection to the Father (Rom 8:15).
• lives a brave and powerful existence (2 Tim 1:7).

Jesus embodies all of these things and has modeled for us a life by the Spirit.

Seder 111: Numbers 12---Moses' "Cushite Wife" and the Jealousy of Miriam and Aaron

A wise saying has been attributed to the 19th century American financier J.P. Morgan:  "There are two reasons for everything----a good reason, and the real reason."

Moses' older siblings, Miriam and Aaron, at one point "spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married" (Num 12:1).  Since the "Cushite woman" is mentioned in the Bible only in this verse, her identity has been the subject of much speculation. 

We know that Moses had a wife named Zipporah, daughter of Jethro the Midianite (Ex 2:21-22; 3:1).  When Moses returned to Egypt he did not bring his family into the dangerous situation he would be facing, but he was reunited with his family at Mt Sinai (Ex 18:2,5).  

In Hab 3:7, we read, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble."  This parallelism in this verse indicates that "Cushan" is another name for "Midian" or some part of Midian.  Based on this verse, one possibility is that the "Cushite wife" is Zipporah, with "Cushite" meaning "from Cushan."  Perhaps some friction had developed between Miriam and Zipporah, the two most important women in Moses' life.  

On the other hand, the adjective "Cushite" is usually a reference to Cush, the region south of Egypt in today's Sudan.  Some have speculated that Zipporah's mother was a Cushite, so that Zipporah could also be called a Cushite.  

Another possibility is that Moses had married a Cushite who was part of the "mixed multitude" that joined the Israelites on the Exodus.  Perhaps Zipporah had died, or perhaps they had had a falling out related to the "circumcision incident" recorded in Exodus 4, or perhaps this was just an additional wife.  Miriam could have been critical of this second marriage.  

There was also a body of legend surrounding the first 40 years of Moses' life, before he fled to Midian.  Stephen seems to make reference to this in Acts 7:22 when he says that Moses "was mighty in his words and deeds."  Josephus records a legend in which Moses, while acting as an Egyptian military leader, marries a Cushite princess.  Perhaps this was the Cushite wife, and Miriam  was criticizing something about this marriage.  

Some today wonder if there was a racist aspect to the criticism of the Cushite wife.  It is known that ancient Egyptians tended to harbor some prejudice against Cushites.  

Rabbinic tradition proposes an elaborate and imaginative scenario meant to portray everyone in the best possible light.  In this scenario Miriam and Aaron are saying that Zipporah is special and distinctive in the same way that a Cushite's dark skin is distinctive, and they are critical of Moses because he has become so focused on spiritual matters that he has stopped sleeping with Zipporah.  

Whatever the identity of the Cushite wife, the real reason for Miriam and Aaron's complaint is that they wanted a more prominent leadership role in Israel.  They said, "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses?  Has he not spoken through us also?" (Num 12:2)

Moses is described here as "very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth" (v 3).  The word for "meek" could be a reference to humility, or it could be a reference to how weighed down he was by the burden of leading the Israelites.  In any case, he didn't reprimand his older sister and brother.  

But God did.  God made it clear that Moses had a special relationship with him and was to be treated with appropriate respect (vv 4-9).  And he struck Miriam with a serious skin condition.  Her skin became "like snow," perhaps a sort of poetic justice if Miriam had said something derogatory about the skin color of the "Cushite wife."  

Moses interceded for his sister.  "O God, please heal her---please" (v 13).  And God did so after a week of punishment.  In Num 11-12 God's mercy is prominently displayed, as Rob Wilson pointed out in a sermon at Church of the Messiah on Aug 6, 2022.

Seder 86: Mark 1:40-45---Why Was Jesus Angry?

 When John the Baptist sent two disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus was really the Messiah, Jesus listed a number of mighty works that bore witness to his messiahship: "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them" (Luke 7:22).  

We can understand why Jesus included "lepers are cleansed" in this list.  The book of Leviticus gives instructions for the priests on how to identify a defiling skin condition, but it is not expected that the priests could take such a condition away.  In Jewish tradition, taking away a skin condition was considered to be tantamount to resurrecting the dead---b Sanhedrin 47b.  This tradition is based on Num 12:12.

So it was an amazing miracle when Jesus removed this kind of skin condition.  One of Jesus' disciples was known as "Simon the Leper" (Matt 26:6; Mark 14:3), and it has been speculated that Jesus healed Simon of his condition.  

That speculation is believable in light of other things that we read in the Gospels.  Mark 1:40 says that a man with a skin condition approached Jesus and implored him, "If you will, you can make me clean."  This man exhibited a commendable faith in Jesus, and Jesus responded by touching the man and taking away his condition (vv 41-42).  

The ESV says that Jesus was "moved with pity" in this situation.  Some early manuscripts, though, say that Jesus was "moved with anger" (see the NRSV footnote).  Textual scholars believe that this may have been the original wording, since it is not likely that a scribe would have wanted to attribute anger to Jesus.

Matthew Thiessen suggests that the most likely answer is to be found in the man's qualifying clause "if you will."  How could the man, with all his faith, not realize that Jesus had come for the purpose of overcoming all the forces of death?  He wanted the man to know this, and he wants us to continue to know and proclaim it.

Seder 84: Lev 13---Ritual Impurity from a Skin Condition

 Old Testament scholar Richard Hess has pointed out that Leviticus 13 belongs to a genre not often seen in ancient sources, the Bible in particular:  an algorithm.  

The algorithm in Lev 13 is a procedure to be followed by Israel's high priest in identifying whether a person has a skin condition that would render that person ritually impure.  The procedure includes questions like:  Is the condition spreading? Is there discoloration?  Is the condition more than superficial?  Does it cover part, but not all, of the person?  Affirmative answers could lead to a decision that the person was ritually impure.  

Commentators have a number of suggestions on what kinds of skin conditions are in view in Lev 13.  Our English translations use the word "leprosy", derived from the Greek word lepra, which was used for a number of skin conditions.  The condition we now call "leprosy", Hansen's disease, was not one of them.  As far as we know, Hansen's disease did not reach that part of the world until the second century BC, and its symptoms do not seem to match the description in Lev 13.  (Thiessen has a good discussion of this in his book.)

As with other kinds of ritual impurity, there was a connection with death.  A person with this kind of condition, involving lots of flaking skin, looked a little bit like a zombie.  The key factor seems to be how the person's skin looked.  

Commentators point out that the high priest was not acting in a medical capacity in implementing this algorithm.  If the person was declared impure, that person was not being quarantined for a disease.  The conditions in view here are not highly contagious.  In fact, if the condition completely covered the person, which could be a big problem medically, the person would not be considered ritually impure (vv 12-13).  

There are three examples recorded in scripture where a person was divinely punished for a serious sin with this kind of condition:  Miriam in Num 12; Gehazi in 2 Kings 5, and King Uzziah in 2 Chron 26. 

I would argue that these special cases do not reflect the usual situation being described in Lev 13, for three reasons:

1. Leviticus 13 does not say that the condition was a punishment for sin. 
2. Other kinds of ritual impurity involve things that happen in life rather than sins.
3. There would be no need for the algorithm laid out in Lev 13 if this condition were usually a divine punishment.  In the three special cases mentioned above, the fact that they had this kind of condition was obvious to everyone.

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.