(With apologies for those expecting the daily Bible teachings… ran into timelessness… but now we are ‘back.’ Thanks for your patience)
Introduction
Today’s lesson is to the point. And it’s a powerful and needful reminder of the role of Israel in the world in 1500 BCE and our role in the world in 2025. After a couple of months of wilderness wandering and God’s daily provisions, the people came to a place well known to Moses. Mt Sinai was the location of the burning bush. That was where God instructed the 80-year-old future leader of the Israelites and answered his objections to the job. In today’s chapter, the people, remember there are near 3 million of them, gather in the orderliness assigned them, at the foot of this mountain.
We are not privy to the time it would take or did take to conduct the conversations between all the players: the Almighty and Moses, Moses and the elders, the elders and the people, the people and Moses, and the Almighty and Moses again. There seems to be significant back-and-forth, and we are only reading the highlights. Even so, they are powerful and relevant to them in their days and us in ours.
The setting
For those with biblical literacy, we know that in the next chapter we will be reading the 10 commandments. That this pair of tablets with those 10 phrases are going to be handed to Moses is historical and deep in our memory banks. But the people of Israel did not know what was going to happen. They had been setting up camp and then at the whim of the cloud or fire, they had to move. Camping is not a fun exercise, unless you are an outdoorsy type of person, and I’m imagining that most of the recently-freed slaves wanted to settle a bit, for a month or two, or return to the ‘permanence’ of life in Egypt. But God had something else in mind for his people.
The setting for the encounter is a mountain. The one today labelled as Mt Sinai is about 2,280 metres tall which is about 50 metres taller than Mt Kosciuszko, Australia’s highest mountain. In the wilderness of the Arabian desert, it would have been a significant site. And Moses leads the people there, and I’m imagining that he feels comfortable about this situation. The last time he was there, Moses was commissioned to go get the Hebrews out of Egypt and bring them to meet God and worship God there. (Ex. 3.12) Job complete. Done and dusted.
But don’t miss this return to Sinai had a major purpose for Moses. We read in 3.12, “And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”
When the people are gathered at Sinai, God promised to confirm that it was actually he who sent Moses to Egypt to bring the people out. As I read this agan today, I project myself into the scene and agree that it would be really important to have such a confirmation that God was still involved in our lives. That confirmation would serve Moses well over the next few decades.
Also the people were to worship God at this mountain. The setting was therefore not merely a resort or a landscape, but mostly a chapel; a place of worship. No matter what else you have done in your life, or the people of Israel had done in their lives, when you get to this Sacred Space, it’s time to worship. It’s time to exalt the name of the Almighty. Worship changes everything. Fixing your eyes on the Lord of life puts your own life in perspective. All the troubles, all the heartaches, the disappointments, as well as the pleasures, the happiness… all of it is subjugated to reality in worship to God.
The mandate
God’s preamble through Moses to the people of Israel is “you have seen… what I did…I bore you…I brought you to myself.” All very active verbs. All reminders of the purposes of God in history. But then the words shift to the future.
“ If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (19.5-6)
We have a role to play; it’s not a drama; it’s not a film from a Hollywood studio. It’s the mandate of the Almighty for Israel and then later for the entire people of God. Here are the two conditions: We are told that we are to listen (that’s not the first, nor will it be the last, time we hear that—if we hear it at all) to God and also to keep his covenant. His Bris. His agreement. His statement of who he is and who we are. Simple, eh?
Three times in these two verses (.5-6) the Hebrew word LEE is used. It means “to me” or “for me.” It makes these commandments and in fact this entire setting very personal. It’s not the same as Mission Impossible. “Your mission, Mr Phelps, should you decide to accept it is… As always, the secretary will disavow … this tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds. Good luck, Jim.” That’s not the type of mission on which Moses is assigned. It’s not a rule book or an assignment for espionage. It’s a personal mission of representation.
What are those three declarations?
1) You will be to me a special treasure.
2) All the earth is mine (for me)
3) You will be for me a kingdom of priests
Israel’s role as a community is clear, succinct and personal. We are to be a treasure to God. Then as representatives ( ambassadors) of God to the world, to bring the nations (all the earth) to him.
Is that how Israel imagined itself in 1500 BCE? Maybe as a treasure. And maybe even as God’s personal representatives, but priests to serve the nations? I doubt it. In fact, throughout our ancient history, and dare I say it, even in modern history, we insulate ourselves and then modulate this 3rd saying to mean something like this.
Yes, God wants us to be priestly, and thus we should be a light to the nations by living distinct from them, learning Torah or Jewish life and customs, being noble and righteous so that they may see who we are and if they want, they can join us. Solidarity, not salvation, is offered.
Yes, this may be a simplification but conduct a survey of 100 Jewish people and I will aver that 95% would say something similar to the previous paragraph. But if all the earth belongs to God, and we are responsible to bring God’s truths (Torah, respect, Yeshua, covenant, etc…), then we are obligated to speak and to act. Some use the phrase “practice what you preach” which assumes we should “preach what we practice” as well.
My challenge today is that we should be a praying people, for the Jewish people, and all in our sphere of influence, that each of them might know Yeshua personally. And to know God wants to make them his special treasure, and to use them as his agents to bring the world to himself. And that includes me today en route to Istanbul and you wherever you are in the world.
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