Of altars and taxes and lavers... a study in Exodus 30

 Introduction

 80 years ago Jewish people were finally emancipated from Nazi Germany’s forced labor camps and allowed to settle down. Many chose to move to another country, including Israel or Australia. But many settled back into their country of birth, in Europe or Russia. The war was finally over.

Throughout our history we have been chased from one country to another. At least in the last 800 years, this is true. England, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, all have laws in their history of hostility to Jews and a record of expulsion. Being Jewish meant forced travel. 

This was certainly the case in the beginning of our post-Egyptian history as well. Moses took the captives, who had been away from home in forced labor camps for centuries and delivered them. But we didn’t immediately settle into new housing provided by the government. We moved. From one area of the Sinai desert to another, over the course of 40 years. That’s a substantial amount of time! 60 years ago I was getting ready for my Bar Mitzvah as a 13-year-old puppy in Kansas City. I think 60 years is a long time.

But the point is that moving is tough on people, and we need some stability whilst we move around. One of the foundational teachings for the Jewish people is that our stability is found in God, and not in a permanent place. We could live in Tehran or New York or Melbourne and be found to be comfortable with God because God was our strength and song, and He became our salvation. No physical structure was ever to give us a sense of the permanent. God alone was our permanent. 

Now, into that mix, of faith and longing, comes the instruction by God to Moses about a traveling tent. Something to make statements to the people around and to the people of God at the same time. 

The statements were:

1)    God is alive and well and wants to dwell with Israel.

2)    The people of God owe God everything

3)    There is one way to know God and to follow Him

We’ve been studying the furniture and the tabernacle and the priesthood. Today we look at the altar of incense, the half-shekel census tax, and the laver. It’s a little particular, but I don’t want you to miss out on the overall picture. The picture is designed to teach us about God and His presence. He wants us to see the big picture and not get lost in the details, but definitely to observe the details.

Altar of incense (acacia, gold, daily, smell)

The box of incense is a strange item to be sure. 359 days of the year it is in the Holy Place, this middle section of the layout. It takes its place along with the menorah and the table of showbread, about which we will be speaking later. But one day of the year it moves into the Holy of Holies. Can you guess which day that is? That’s right, Yom Kippur. We see that described in its uniqueness in Hebrews chapter 9.4. There we read, “the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant…”

But that unusual day should not make us forget the original design and purpose of the altar itself. 

It was to be made of acacia wood, that very common material out in the wilderness. Then it was to be overlaid with gold. That’s not so common. But the ladies had taken the gold from the women in Egypt so it was bountiful. Acacia speaks to the ordinary nature of humanity in service to the Almighty. He will overlay us with his purposes. He will make us what He wants. But he starts with ordinary stuff—you and me—and not the grand. You might better imagine God doing a makeover than a choice of a supermodel. In other words, there are not many who are very excellent from the beginning. Most of us are common.

The apostle Paul teaches this with “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” (1 Cor. 1.26)

God wanted the people to see an ordinary thing turned extra-ordinary.  That’s why He did the overlay thing. We all standardize when we are overlaid with extraordinary gold. And we all reflect an image that is powerful and royal. The gold in the Tabernacle reflects the deity of God. 

God will make us ordinary beings to be used by Him in His service and thus reflect Him. We bring ourselves; God brings the gold and we are useful to His purposes. 

God wanted the ordinary thing to be used daily. I like the expression we read in verses 7 and 8. “Burn it every morning… and at twilight” Note the order of things. When the Bible says “evening and morning”, it means “one day.” When the Bible says it in the opposite manner, “Morning and evening”, I get the impression that it means “continual.” Why is that? The Jewish day is counted from evening to morning. (See Genesis 1). So “evening to morning” is one day. But morning (of one day) to evening (of next day) sounds like a method of communicating ‘continuity’ and thus means ‘daily.’

God is not a once-a-week reality. He is a daily concern of the people of God. He wants to be known and adored. He wants to be filling our lives and our tabernacles with His presence.

The use of incense was first and foremost a sensory problem solution. If you have a wandering community in the wilderness, and it’s hot, the people stink. The slaughterhouse described in the recent lessons, (Exodus 28-29), would have had similar smells. Leftover blood doesn’t sit well with the nose. Carcasses left in the open attract vermin and birds of prey, but are not useful in polite society. Thus the incense was primarily a cover-up of the aromas. 

Look I was a hippie, and we used incense to cover the smells of marijuana in those days, and to protect ourselves from unwanted visits by the police. Incense does a great job in overwhelming even ordinary smells.

The Bible uses the phrase “the prayers of the saints’ (Revelation 5 (cf. Ps 141:2; Lk 1:10; Rev 8:3-4)) to help us understand the metaphor of the incense. Prayers are to be said morning and evening. Prayers will fill the house of God with symbols of His presence. Prayers cover up a lot of unholy things. Prayer accomplishes what smoke screens do in modern techno-concerts.  Prayer will fill the house of God with Godlikeness and with the inescapable possibility of remembering the Almighty.  If you pray in the morning and in the evening, you will fulfill the mandate of Paul to “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thes. 5)

Yom Kippur and the altar of incense

Why then was the altar moved in the Holiest of All on Yom Kippur? And really a bigger question is “how!?” The poles are affixed to the side of the box, which was only a meter tall and half a meter wide and long. It sat usually on a box in the Holy Place. So during Yom Kippur preparations, the High Priest would have to move the box into the Holiest of All. How did he do that? The bible doesn’t describe this, but it must have been a lot of work. The box would have weighed enough for Aaron at 83 years old to get a good workout!

Why then was the altar moved? 

I believe that it is a symbol of the combination of priestly and personal responsibility in the Yom Kippur sacrifice. The priest does something, in fact many things, on that day. Israel is called to participate, and the number one way we are ‘called’ is to smell the incense. You know the phrase, “wake up and smell the coffee.’ Now someone else made the coffee. Your job, in reality terms, is to simply smell it. 

That’s what God is after with Israel. He will make sure that atonement is made. Israel must participate along with Him on that day. Don’t’ miss it. We are required to smell the coffee each day, but on one day Atonement is merged with this altar in some very significant way. Miss this and you will not have the benefits of forgiveness of sins.

The half shekel tax (.11-16)

The word for “ransom” or “atonement” signifies “to deliver or redeem by a substitute.” In this case the substitute was money by taking a census. Usually a census was equivalent to mustering troops; that is why it was so dangerous in David’s case (2 Sam. 24). It is clear, however, that those who were numbered under the proper circumstances would be under divine protection. 

The shekel was mentioned in 21:32. A “half shekel” would be about one-fifth of an ounce. This tax was to be paid by adults of military age. The fact that the rich were to give the same amount as the poor shows that it was not how much one had that obtained atonement for his life. The proceeds from the census tax were to be used by the Levites in their service for the Lord and were also to serve as a memorial for the Israelites (v. 16).

This half shekel was to determine how many adults there were in Israel. That’s it. It wasn’t for atonement in the sense of redemption from sins, merely as a counting devise.

The laver (.17-22)

This scrub basin is one of my favorite pieces of furniture in the entire Tabernacle. It was to be made of bronze, and was to be used by all the priests in their feet and hands as a lavatory. After all the sacrifices and butchering of the entrails and the kidneys and the …and traveling in the unsettled dust of the wilderness, a sink makes a lot of sense. 

In chapter 38.8, we read “he made the laver of bronze with its base of bronze, from the mirrors of the serving women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting.” Whether the mirrors were made of sand/glass as in modern days or just by polishing brass or bronze, the point is clear. The wash basin was a place where you could see yourself in a mirror if there were water or if there were not. 

As we continue to unpack the meanings in the Tabernacle, I believe the laver has very great significance. It is a place of cleansing, and that cleansing is directly related to the mirrors of the women. What could that symbolize?

Reading two verses in the Newer Testament may help us.

Paul wrote the Ephesians:

“He (Yeshua) might sanctify her, having cleansed her (the church) by the washing of water with the word” (5.26) and again in James’ letter we read

But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does. (1.22-25)

I believe the laver is a symbol of the Scriptures that have the capacity to cleanse and to reveal to us what we need to fix. God help us if we investigate the pattern of the Tabernacle or the pattern of the apostles or the pattern of the Lord Yeshua and find it all interesting, but we do not adjust ourselves to God’s purposes. It’s as silly as a man who looks into the Bible, reads it, then forgets what he reads. Let’s say when I look in a mirror and see a smudge, I wash it! Our cleansing is by the water of the word, and that Word is a mirror of our God who wants to cleanse us all, inside and out, with His Spirit.

I don’t believe any part of the Tabernacle was designed to be ‘outside’ or ‘external’ only. Each piece was to teach us of God’s program and God’s promise of His presence with us and all people. 

Thus the laver is a teaching devise to remind us of the place of cleansing, both inside and out, for the believers, and the role of the Word of God in such cleansing. Let His word dwell in you richly and thus be ever seeing yourself in it. As a result of seeing yourself and learning, we not only hear, but we become doers of the very law of God which is described as a law of liberty. Doing God’s word brings liberty. That’s what the wash basin is all about.

Three gifts (Gold, incense, myrrh)

One last point, and it’s about the magi in the Christmas story. Hang in there, it’s not as far-fetched as I just introduced it.

“The magi came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell down and worshiped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.” (Matthew 2.11)

Whoever the magi were, they had some presents to bring Yeshua. And what they brought Him indicated that they understood something about his life and ministry. For our story today I am reminded of the three gifts, each one already listed here in Exodus 30 (.3, .4, .8, .23). These three gifts are Tabernacle-based. In other words, the magi who had learned the Bible from the people in the Babylonian captivity and the deposit they left, were reflecting something in particular. The magi believed as you and I do, that Yeshua is the Tabernacle of God among men. Their gifts said, “Yeshua, you are the priest and you are the Tabernacle. I want to be with you and you with me. God is Immanuel, God is dwelling with me, the Tabernacle of God is with men.” 

 Friends, as we travel along with God in our world, in Sydney, in the Eastern suburbs, in Australia, Korea, Greece, or wherever we go, we have to have our hope fixed in Him. Our hope is not fixed in the permanence of a building or the efficacy of the ministers there. It’s certainly not in our government or its leaders. Our hope is fixed in Yeshua, the Tabernacle of God among men, as He lives with us and in us this day. To God be the glory forever, amen.

Lessons learned

I believe we should see applications from our chapter today. 

1)    God’s demands on his  people for participation are not to be yielded to the clergy and the priesthood. We all are a priesthood to the Almighty

2)    Daily prayers will make sure that we are thinking about God throughout the day

3)    No one gets special favors in Israel; all alike are called to pay the same for the count. We all count in God’s eyes.

 

Exodus 2: Chosen to Deliver

 Introduction 

Where God gets involved in the human condition, and we as humans can actively see such involvement, we state 'there must be a God.' We admit that things are rotten in Denmark, that there is trouble in River City, that things cannot seem to get any worse, and then it does. But then we turn and view the work of God, in someone's enterprise, or in another's relief or in the rain in the parched west, and we boldly announce, "There is a God." 

Oswald Chambers, Scottish theologian died 1922) is quoted as saying, "Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace." Of course Chambers is referencing the story in the book of Daniel about the 3 friends of Daniel and their experience in the Furnace that consumed everything, except them! It is a metaphor for troubles in this world, and Chambers is encouraging us in the midst of troubles. Most of us seek no pain and suffering. Many would rather avoid all misery. But as Chambers says, "some things are only learned" in such misery. 

In this chapter, we see various scenes of a drama.  The Jewish people are longing for someone to help, and the king is also. Where is deliverance? 

Act 1: In Egypt at birth. The delivering one is delivered 

Today's story begins near the river Nile. Egyptians viewed the river as a god which supplied them with bounty, produce, rest and comfort. The river will play a significant role in the rest of the book.  Jewish heroes may just pop on the scene, but they are from somewhere and their genealogy matters. The story features the princess of Pharaoh welcoming a basket with a baby, and she noted it was a Hebrew baby. How did she know he was Jewish? I believe it was the circumcision of the boy which was distinguishing.  I'm guessing that there was some kind of arrangement signed or spoken and thus at the end of the contracted time, Miriam brought Moses back to the princess. The future deliverer is delivered out of the Nile and out of the care of the princess and spared for sparing. God's plans will not be thwarted. 

Act 2: 40 years later: Conflict resolution. 

The story skips ahead. There is no need for equal measurement in the drama. And he gets to the next major conflict, the one between an Egyptian and a Jewish man. Something angered Moses. Probably it was the injustice.  Even so, the people to whom Moses is being sent, or at least is beginning to be sent, don't exactly welcome him as their deliverer. That will be the case throughout our Jewish history, summed up most dramatically in the person of Yeshua, Jesus who will be rejected to the end of his days by many of the very people to whom He was sent.

Act 3: In Midian: Moses delivering the daughters of Jethro

Moses exits after being outed and approaches the area of Midian, and sees some women being taken advantage of by some shepherds who no doubt muscle their way into the wells. These women are daughters of a man we know as Jethro. Moses delivers the women. As a direct result he gains a wife in Zipporah.

The new couple have a boy whose name means a Stranger There. In other words, Moses' ministry is not to be a settler in that place, in the wilderness, but rather, somewhere else. Strange, isn't it, since he spent another 40 years in the wilderness with the disagreeable people of our ancestry.

Act 4: Back in Egypt: Where is the Deliverer?

Our story today ends with the aching of the Jewish people back in Egypt. They don't know the adventures of Moses. They don't even know he's our hero yet. They think he was a one-off wonder who fancied himself a hero. But what they were not seeing was God's plans and God's sculpturing of his hero, the servant of God, Moses.

Conclusion: What do we learn as a result of reading this text?

1)    God has begun the answer to your prayers long before you even pray them

2)    God's choice of His deliverer is not always a welcome one to the people to whom he is sent

3)    God's plans will not be thwarted

4)    Jesus, God's eternal choice as Messiah and Lord, carries on the deliverance ministry of Moses, and is not always welcomed by his own people

 

Joseph's Legacy. (Chapter 1)

 What’s in a name?

Introduction to Exodus

Three men died 60 years ago, and each one had a tale to tell the planet. Their stories are more than fiction however. They impacted their worlds and as a result have affected ours even though none of them ever lived in Australia. The men are a pair of authors who were both obvious philosophers and the 35th President of the US. In order: CS Lewis, Aldous Huxley and John Kennedy. 

One of my favorite authors is Peter Kreeft who is prolific in his own way and a Lewis devoteé. He writes of these three in a book entitled "Between Heaven and Hell", Kreeft imagines a meeting somewhere beyond earth for these famous men. Dismissing the obvious theological problem of conversations in a sheol-type venue, the story line is quite good as he has them share their own philosophies. Lewis the believer, Kennedy the wishy-washy Catholic agnostic and Huxley the self-assured atheist. But in the realm of the after life, neither Huxley nor Kennedy is so sure. Lewis gains all the substance that the down payment of his faith had guaranteed him so many years before. 

Now sixty years after their passing, what remains of our awareness of these men? What about any historical person and what do we learn of life from them? I'm hearing the word 'legacy' as I ponder these opening comments. And I believe legacy is key in any long-ranged enterprise. Our concerns as fathers or as men or as Australians or as Jews or ... you fill in the blank... is 'what will remain?" 

This is the beginning of a series. I encourage you to read a section from the Scriptures and try to learn what that has to say to us as 21st Century people. For some, Bible rejecters we might call them, this consideration is old fashioned or irrelevant, filled with myths or fables from another time. But for others, this is a book with legacy. This is the handed-down traditions of men and women of God who had lives that were shaped by their relationship with the Almighty and who want to help shape our lives so many generations later. 

We could call this series "Out of Africa" since that's what the Latin compilers of the biblical texts decided to name the 2nd book, Exodus. The name of course means 'going out.' But the Hebrew name for the book, like all the biblical books, is taken from the first few words of the text. The Hebrew name for this book is "Sh'mot" meaning 'names.' 

In Shakespeare’s classic, Romeo and Juliet, the servant states “Find them out whose names are written here. … but I am sent to find those persons whose names are here writ.” After their first kiss, the star-crossed lovers separate. Act II features Juliet’s soliloquy, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo,” and continues with “Tis but thy name that is my enemy, thou art thyself though not a Montague,. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O be some other name! What‘s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title/ Romeo, doff thy name and for that name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.” Like Juliet we ask, “what’s in a name?” 

And the answer is, it's our legacy. It's our past, our present, and our future. It's everything that has shaped us and made us into our person and our family and our community. It's what lies ahead for us in the future of risk and reward. And it's in the understanding of our name and our nature and our legacy that we forge our life's choices today. Knowing who we were and who we shall be is what helps us decide today what we will do. 

AND NOW Chapter 1....

Joseph's legacy

Exodus 1

Who we were

Who we are is directly related to who we were! Joseph was the hero of the last 13 chapters of the previous book of the Bible, that is Genesis. And this story does what every good author would do, brings in the past to begin our new story. We read "And Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation." (:6) It brings to conclusion the stories of the past. You would think that there would be residual effects from Joseph's life. He was the prime minister in the famine of 7 years that hit this entire region of the Fertile Crescent. But what effects were there? We read that after a time, "a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." (:8). The history of Joseph and the family of Egypt was lost to the new Pharaoh. The new king either didn't read history or didn't care what had happened before. Remember, we can learn from what people teach or what people do or as in this case what people don't do. The Egyptians were in debt to the family of Joseph. They should have had a sympathetic relationship to the man and to the family of the man. But we Jews were too many and thus caused the new leadership to fear. (:10) It is estimated we numbered 3 million.

Who we are

The Jewish people are still called Hebrews here.  The first use of that term was in Genesis when Abram was so titled. (14.13) But now we are given a new name "Sons of Israel." Of course, this derives from the name of Jacob, father of Joseph, who got the new name, Israel after the wrestling match with the angel of the Lord. (Genesis 32) The 11 other sons of Israel are listed Reuben, Simeon, Levi…Gad and Asher (Ex. 1.2-4).

Who we will be

The hint of our tomorrow is in the text as well. What God did in the past is evidence of His plans for us in the future. He wants us to represent Him on the earth. And He will preserve us, no matter what others who devise evil will do. Note how difficult the Egyptians made our lives.  

Listen for these toughening verbs from verses 11-14:  "afflict them with hard labor...   And the Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them."

Pharaoh's antagonism is aimed at the little Jewish boys and thus at the future of the community. But that anger and hostility will be featured in the drama as we continue to read.

Conclusion: What do we learn as a result of reading this text?

1)              Choose well because your choices today become your life tomorrow

2)              God will preserve His people whom He foreknew

3)              God's choices of a people will override all other human choices

4)              We are called to a legacy and a future with God

 

 

Pondering God (Part 23)

23 May. Continuing our study of God. He is a man of war. A warrior. A battler. God gets involved in situations, for His name's sake, and fights. Maybe you are imagining a scene from Game of Thrones or Superman, El Cid or Star Wars. Each of those has some mystery like the Heavenly battle and the Heavenly Battler. But it's not quite right.

There is justice, after all, which matters and the whole idea of God doing things for His own glory, and for His people. I imagine the similarities can be visible. 

But it's more than that. After the Jewish people escaped Egypt in about 1500 BCE, in the original Exodus, Moses leads the people in song. Not bad for an 80-year-old crooner. One line is "The LORD is a warrior; The LORD is His name." (Exodus 15.3)

This shout of exaltation is as big as a GOOOOOOOOAAAAALLL by a World Cup announcer. It's as noisy as a chest-beating self-congratulations by Lebron James after taking Game 4 in the Eastern finals in the NBA. 

Moses is making God's name known in the Red Sea, as they cross from Egypt into the wilderness. Listen to other phrases in that song. "He is highly exalted", "He has hurled the horse and rider into the sea." And again, "Your right hand, O LORD, is majestic in power, Your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy. "

Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous of the Lord. 

Earlier this month I quoted Zephaniah 3 as God is Singer. Here, Moses joins in that Song of Praise to the Almighty. Zephaniah said, "Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, o daughter of Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away His judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; You will fear disaster no more. In that day it will be said to Jerusalem:
“Do not be afraid, O Zion; Do not let your hands fall limp.
The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. " (3.14-17)

The victory and the Lord and the singing and the shouting...it's all merged. 

But it's not only a contest of physical and brute strength. It's a matter of honour and holiness and living right before God. 

How are you doing on that one?

God will be the warrior; He will win battles in His name for you. Your job? Stand with Him, love Him, and keep clean.