Professor Christine
Hayes: So following the
theophany at the burning bush,
Moses returns to Egypt,
and he initiates what will
become ultimately a battle of
wills between Pharaoh and God.
 
The story in Exodus has high
drama, and lots of folkloric
elements, including this contest
between Moses and Aaron on the
one hand,
and the magicians of Egypt on
the other hand.
This kind of contest is a very
common literary device.
 
It's a kind of "our boys are
better than your boys" device.
The Egyptian magicians who are
initially able to mimic some of
the plagues that are brought on
by God--they are quickly bested,
and Yahweh's defeat of the
magicians is tantamount to the
defeat of the gods of Egypt.
 
There are ten plagues.
 
These include a pollution of
the Nile, swarms of frogs,
lice, insects,
affliction of livestock,
boils that afflict humans and
animals, lightning and hail,
locusts, total darkness,
and all of this climaxes in the
death of the firstborn males of
Egypt in one night.
And source critics looking at
this material discern numerous,
diverse sources that are
interwoven throughout.
These sources preserve
different traditions on the
number and the nature of the
plagues,
as well as the principal actors
in the drama:
God, Moses, Aaron.
 
So according to the source
critical analysis,
no source contains ten plagues.
 
J has eight and E has three,
and P has five,
and some of them are the same
as one another,
and some of them are different,
and so on.
Some of them are unique to one
source, some are not,
but ultimately,
the claim is that these have
all been merged,
and have left us then with an
overall total of ten.
 
This may in fact be true.
 
Nevertheless,
as much as we like to engage
sometimes in this kind of
analysis about the sources that
have gone into the composition
of the text,
it's also always important to
keep your eye on the final form
of the text as we've received
it.
Literary analysis that is
sensitive to the larger contours
of the account will reveal the
artistic hand of the final
editor.
I have charted this at the top
of the board here.
 
Some scholars have noticed that
the plagues are organized in
three sets of three.
 
There are literary links that
connect them and make it clear
that these are three sets of
three,
followed by the climactic tenth
plague--and again,
three and ten are ideal numbers
in our biblical texts.
Each set of three shares
certain structural and literary
features.
So in each set,
the first and second plague are
forewarned--that's what the FW
is on the side--whereas the
third plague is not.
So a warning,
a warning, and then a third
plague;
a warning, a warning,
and then a third plague;
a warning, a warning,
and then a third plague.
 
In each set,
the first plague is accompanied
by a notation of the time in the
morning.
It's also introduced by God's
speech, when God says,
"Present yourself before
Pharaoh," and to do this in the
morning.
So each of the first plagues in
the sets of three is introduced
this way.
Now the second plague in each
set of three is introduced with
the divine instruction,
"Go to Pharaoh."
The third plague in each set
has no forewarning and no
introduction.
So this sort of structural
repetition creates a crescendo
that leads then to the final and
most devastating plague,
which is the slaughter of the
Egyptian firstborn sons.
 
The slaughter may be understood
as measure for measure
punishment for the Egyptians'
earlier killing of Hebrew
infants,
but it's represented in the
biblical text as retaliation for
Egypt's treatment of Israel,
and Israel is referred to as
the firstborn son of Yahweh.
So in Exodus 4:22,
Yahweh tells Moses to say to
Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord,
'Israel is my firstborn son.
I have said to you,
"Let my son go,
that he may worship Me," yet
you refuse to let him go.
Now I will slay your firstborn
son.'"
So it's seen as retaliation.
 
In this last plague,
God or his angel of death
passes over Egypt at midnight,
slaying every Egyptian
firstborn male.
Moses orders each Israelite to
perform a ritual action,
and this action will protect
them from the slaughter.
 
The ritual consists of two
parts.
Each family is told to
sacrifice a lamb.
The lamb will then be eaten as
a family meal,
and its blood will be smeared
on the doorposts to mark the
house so the angel of death
knows to pass over that house,
--and the pun works in Hebrew,
as well as English,
which is kind of handy.
 
In addition,
each family is to eat
unleavened bread.
 
So according to Exodus,
this Passover ritual was
established on Israel's last
night of slavery while the angel
of death passed over the
dwellings that were marked with
blood.
The story attests to a
phenomenon that's long been
observed by biblical
commentators and scholars,
and that is the Israelite
historicization of preexisting
ritual practices.
In other words,
what we probably have here are
two older, separate,
springtime rituals.
One would be characteristic of
semi-nomadic pastoralists:
the sacrifice of the first lamb
born in the spring to the deity
in order to procure favor and
continued blessing on the flocks
for the spring.
The other would be
characteristic of
agriculturalists:
it would be an offering of the
very first barley that would be
harvested in the spring.
 
It would be quickly ground into
flour and used before it even
has time to ferment,
to quickly offer something to
the deity, again,
to procure favor for the rest
of the crop.
It's supposed by many that
Israel was formed from the
merger, or the merging of
diverse groups,
including farmers and shepherds
in Canaan.
The rituals of these older
groups were retained and then
linked to the story of the
enslavement and liberation of
the Hebrews.
So you have older nature
festivals and observances that
have been historicized.
 
They're associated now with
events in the life of the new
nation, rather than being
grounded in the cycles of
nature.
This may in fact be then part
of the process of
differentiation from the
practices of Israel's neighbors,
who would have celebrated these
springtime rituals.
 
So now the blood of the
sacrificial lamb is said to have
protected the Hebrews from the
angel of death,
and the bread now is said to
have been eaten,
consumed in unleavened form,
because the Hebrews left Egypt
in such a hurry.
They had no time to allow the
dough to rise.
Historicization;
and we'll see this
historicization of rituals
recurring again and again.
 
And following the last plague,
Pharaoh finally allows the
Israelites to go into the desert
to worship their God,
but he quickly changes his
mind, and he sends his infantry
and his chariots in hot pursuit
of the Israelites,
and they soon find themselves
trapped between the Egyptians
and something referred to as
Yam Suph,
meaning Reed Sea.
 
It isn't the Red Sea.
 
That's a mistranslation that
occurred very,
very early on,
so it's led to the notion that
they were at the Gulf of Aqaba,
or somewhere near the actual
big ocean water.
Some of the Israelites despair,
and they want to surrender.
 
"Was it for want of graves in
Egypt that you brought us to die
in the wilderness?
 
What have you done to us,
taking us out of Egypt?
Is this not the very thing we
told you in Egypt,
saying let us be,
we will serve the Egyptians,
for it's better for us to serve
the Egyptians than to die in the
wilderness."
But Moses rallies them,
and then in the moment of
crisis, God intervenes on
Israel's behalf.
Once again, source critics see
in the account of the parting of
the Reed Sea,
in Exodus 14 and 15,
three different versions of the
event that have been interwoven.
 
I have to stress,
though, that scholars differ
very much on where the seams in
the text are,
what parts of the story belong
to J, or E, or P,
so you'll read very,
very different accounts.
There's some consensus,
but a lot of disagreement.
One thing that most people do
in fact agree on is that the
oldest account of the event is a
poetic fragment that's found in
Exodus 15,
verses one to 12, in particular.
This is often referred to as
the Song of the Sea,
and here the image is one of
sinking and drowning in the Sea
of Reeds.
You have a wind that blasts
from God's nostrils,
the waters stand straight like
a wall,
and at a second blast,
the sea then covers the
Egyptians, and they sink like a
stone in the majestic waters.
 
The hymn doesn't anywhere refer
to people crossing over on dry
land.
It seems to depict a storm at
sea, almost as if the Egyptians
are in boats,
and a big wind makes a giant
wave,
and another wind then makes it
crash down on them.
So they're swamped by these
roiling waters.
But the name Yam Suph,
Reed Sea, implies a more
marsh-like setting,
rather than the open sea.
John Collins,
who is a professor here at the
Divinity School,
points out that this
image--particularly in poetic
passages--this image of sinking
in deep waters,
occurs often in Hebrew poetry.
It occurs particularly in the
book of Psalms,
where it's a metaphor for
distress.
In Psalm 69,
the Psalmist asks God to save
him, for "waters have come up to
my neck.
/ I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me".
But a few verses later it's
clear that the poet isn't really
drowning: this is a metaphor for
his difficult situation.
"More in number than the hairs
of my head are those who hate me
without cause.
Many are those who would
destroy me, my enemies who
accuse me falsely."
So Collins suggests that the
poem in Exodus 15 is celebrating
and preserving a historical
memory of an escape from or a
defeat of Pharaoh,
and that the drowning image is
used metaphorically,
as it is elsewhere in Hebrew
poetry to describe the
Egyptians' humiliation and
defeat.
Later writers take this poetic
image and fill out the allusion
to drowning in this ancient
song,
and compose the prose accounts
in Exodus 14,
in which the metaphor is
literalized.
According to these prose
accounts now,
Pharaoh's army was literally
drowned in water.
 
But even in the prose accounts
in Exodus 14,
we can see a composite of two
intertwined versions.
In the material that's usually
associated with P,
Moses is depicted as stretching
out his staff,
first to divide the waters,
which stand like a wall so that
the Israelites can cross over on
dry land;
and then, he holds out his
staff to bring the waters
crashing down on the Egyptians.
 
But according to one little
section--this is just verses 24
and 25 in Exodus 14;
some attribute this to J--it
seems that the Egyptians were
stymied by their own chariots.
The image we get there is that
the Israelites are working their
way through the marsh on foot,
and the Egyptians' chariot
wheels can't make it through the
marsh.
They get stuck in the mud,
and this forces them to give up
the chase.
So, the final narrative that
emerges from this long process
of transmission:
perhaps a core image of escape
on foot,
where chariots are bogged,
a poem that describes the
defeat in metaphorical terms
using a drowning and sinking
image,
and then prose elaboration on
these previous traditions that
have a very dramatic element of
the sea being parted and
crashing down on the Egyptians.
A long process of transmission,
interweaving,
literary embellishment has gone
into the creation of this
account in Exodus 14 and 15.
 
But the story as it stands
reiterates a motif that we've
seen before: that of the
threatened destruction of God's
creation,
or God's people,
by chaotic waters,
and of divine salvation from
that threat.
What's interesting about the
Song of the Sea,
this poetic fragment in Exodus
15,
is that here the Hebrews adopt
the language of Canaanite myth
and apply it to Yahweh.
If you still have that sheet
that was handed out before,
listing different epithets for
Baal,
and listing epithets for
Yahweh, it would be handy to
have that, or to take a look at
it later again,
because the description of
Yahweh is that of a storm god in
Exodus 15.
He heaps up the waters with a
blast of wind,
like a storm at sea,
and this is reminiscent of the
Canaanite storm god Baal,
as you see on your handout.
 
Baal is said to ride on the
clouds, he's a storm god,
and he's accompanied by wind
and rain.
At the beginning of the rainy
season, Baal opens a slit,
or makes a slit in the clouds,
and thunders and shakes the
Earth.
In one important legend that we
have from the Canaanite texts,
the Ugaritic texts,
he defeats an adversary who's
known as Prince Sea,
or Judge River.
After he vanquishes this watery
foe, he is acclaimed the king of
the gods, and the king of men,
and he is housed in a home,
not a tent as El was.
El was housed in a tent,
but now this Baal is housed in
a permanent structure,
a home that is on top of a
mountain, and is built of cedar.
 
Now, ancient Hebrew
descriptions of Yahweh employ
very similar language in the
poetic passage here in Exodus
15, but also in other poetic
passages.
So, for example,
Psalm 68:5, "Extol him who
rides the clouds,
the Lord is his name," Yahweh
is his name.
So "Extol him who rides the
clouds, Yahweh is his name," as
if to say not Baal.
So Yahweh is described like
Baal, as riding on the clouds.
Psalm 29 also employs the
language of a storm god.
"The voice of the Lord is over
the waters.
The God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over the mighty
waters."
Some scholars think this
actually was originally a psalm
about Baal that was simply
adopted and referred to Yahweh.
 
Images of God engaged in a
battle with some kind of watery
foe also appear in the Psalms.
 
Psalm 74: "O,
God, my king from of old,
who brings deliverance
throughout the land;
it was You who drove back the
sea with Your might,
who smashed the heads of the
monsters in the waters;" and so
on.
Judges 5 is also another
ancient song fragment in verses
four to five.
It uses the same kind of
imagery.
Now, Michael Coogan,
who's a very important biblical
scholar and an expert in the
Canaanite texts,
the Ugaritic materials,
has made some intriguing
observations in connection with
the biblical representation of
Yahweh in terms that are so
reminiscent of the storm god,
Baal .
He notes that Baal was the key
figure in a change,
a change in the religion of
Canaan,
that happened somewhere between
1500 and 1200 BCE,
and that is also the
traditional time for what we
think of as the Exodus and the
introduction of Yahwism,
or the differentiation of
Yahwism.
At this time,
somewhere in this period,
there was a transfer of power
in the Canaanite pantheon from
the older gods to younger gods.
The older god El,
the sky god,
was replaced by the younger
storm god, Baal,
and he was replaced by virtue
of his defeat of Prince Sea,
or whoever this watery foe is.
 
So El is replaced by Baal after
a defeat of some watery foe.
Coogan notes that about the
same time, there seems to have
been a similar change in many of
the world's traditions,
or many of the traditions of
the region.
We have a younger storm god who
usurps power from an older god
by virtue of a victory over a
water god.
Remember Enuma Elish,
which we read at the very
beginning of the semester.
 
You have the young storm god,
Marduk, who defeats Tiamat,
the watery ferocious deep
monster,
and does so by blasting a wind
into her, and so establishes his
claim to rule,
instead of the old sky god, Anu.
In India, the storm god Indra
about this time assumes the
place of a previous god,
Dyaus.
In Greece, Zeus,
who is associated with a storm,
thunder--lightening bolts you
think of in the hands of
Zeus--he replaces Kronos,
who had been the head of the
pantheon.
And so here in Exodus,
we find that just as the nation
of Israel is coming into
existence,
just as the Israelites are
making the transition from a
nomadic existence to a more
settled way of life ultimately
in their own land,
there seems to be a collective
memory of a similar change in
her religion.
Like the storm gods in the
myths of Israel's neighbors,
Yahweh heaps up the waters with
a blast of wind.
He wins a stunning victory,
he establishes himself as the
god of the Israelites in place
of El, who was worshipped by
Israel's patriarchs,
remember.
And like the Canaanite god,
Baal, Yahweh,
as we will see as we continue
to read the text,
will eventually want a house
for himself atop a mountain,
Mount Zion, and it will be
lined with cedar.
 
There are of course,
important ways in which
Israel's use of the storm god
motif diverges from that of
other Ancient Near Eastern
stories.
The most important is that
Yahweh's battle is a historic
battle, rather than a mythic
battle.
The sea is not Yahweh's
opponent, nor is Yahweh's enemy
another god.
Yahweh is doing battle here
with a human foe,
the Egyptian pharaoh and his
army.
The sea is a weapon deployed.
It's a weapon in the divine
arsenal, and it's deployed on
behalf of Israel,
but,
again, Yahweh is depicted by
the biblical writer as
transcending nature,
using forces of nature for a
historical purpose,
acting in history to deliver
his people, and create a new
nation, Israel.
So just as in Genesis 1,
the universe is created when
the wind of God parts the
primeval waters,
so in Exodus 14 and 15,
a new nation is created when
the wind of God parts the waters
of the Reed Sea.
But to describe what was
understood to be a historic
event, a one time event,
not a recurring mythical event,
but a historic event,
the ancient Israelites employed
language and images drawn
naturally from the traditions
and myths of their broader
cultural context,
or I should say,
that were the cultural context
in which they themselves
existed,
while at the same time
differentiating themselves to
some degree.
Now, as has long been noted,
the Exodus event became the
paradigm of God's salvation of
his people,
and when I say salvation,
I don't mean that in the later
Christian sense of personal
salvation from sin.
 
That's a notion that's
anachronistically read back into
the Hebrew Bible.
 
It's not there.
Salvation in the Hebrew Bible
does not refer to an
individual's deliverance from a
sinful nature.
This is not a concept we find
in the Hebrew Bible.
 
It refers instead,
to the concrete,
collective, communal salvation
from national suffering and
oppression,
particularly in the form of
foreign rule or enslavement.
 
When biblical writers speak of
Yahweh as Israel's redeemer and
savior, they are referring to
Yahweh's physical deliverance of
the nation from the hands of her
foes.
We're going to see this
increasingly as we move to the
prophetic material.
 
So the exodus is a paradigm for
salvation, but it would be a
mistake, I think,
to view the Exodus as the
climax of the preceding
narrative.
We've gotten to this point now:
we had this big dramatic scene
at the Reed Sea,
but the physical redemption of
the Israelites is not in fact
the end of our story.
It's a dramatic way-station in
a story that's going to reach
its climax in the covenant that
will be concluded at Sinai,
and as many sensitive readers
of the Bible have noted,
the road from Egypt leads not
to the other side of the Reed
Sea, but on to Sinai.
 
God's redemption of the
Israelites is a redemption for a
purpose, a purpose that doesn't
become clear until we get to
Sinai,
for at Sinai the Israelites
will become God's people,
bound by a covenant.
And so the story continues.
 
In the third month,
after the Exodus,
the Israelites arrive at the
wilderness of Sinai,
and they encamp at the mountain
where Moses was first called by
God, the text says.
 
The covenant concluded at Sinai
is referred to as the Mosaic
covenant.
So this is now our third
covenant that we have
encountered;
we will have one more coming.
 
And the Mosaic covenant differs
radically from the Noahide and
the Abrahamic or patriarchal
covenants that we've already
seen,
because here God makes no
promises beyond being the patron
or protector of Israel;
and also, in this covenant,
he sets terms that require
obedience to a variety of laws
and commandments.
So the Mosaic covenant is
neither unilateral--this is now
a bilateral covenant,
mutual, reciprocal
obligations--nor is it
unconditional like the other
two.
It is conditional.
So this is our first bilateral,
conditional covenant.
If Israel doesn't fulfill her
obligations by obeying God's
Torah, his instructions,
and living in accordance with
his will, as expressed in the
laws and instructions,
then God will not fulfill his
obligation of protection and
blessing towards Israel.
 
Now, the biblical scholar Jon
Levenson, here,
maintains that historical
critical scholarship has been
unkind to biblical Israel,
because of a pervasive bias
between the two main foci of the
religion of ancient Israel.
Those are (1) the Torah,
or the law-- understood as the
law--not a great translation,
I prefer instruction,
but Torah, taken to mean the
law on the one hand;
and, (2) the temple on the
other.
He says that,
on the one hand,
negative stereotypes rooted in
Paul's condemnation of Mosaic
law as a deadening curse from
which belief in Jesus offers
liberation--that account colors
scholarly accounts of the giving
of the Torah.
On the other hand,
a Protestant distaste for
priest-centered cultic ritual
colors scholarly accounts of the
temple,
and its meaning for ancient
Israelites.
These biases are so much
embedded in our culture,
he says, they permeate the work
of even secular scholars of the
Bible,
so that a negative view of the
law affects interpretation of
the book of Exodus.
Scholars tend to place great
emphasis on the deliverance from
Egypt as the high point in the
Exodus narrative,
rather than the more natural
literary climax,
which is the conclusion of the
covenant at Mount Sinai,
and the delivery of the Torah.
 
So Levenson,
in his book Sinai and
Zion, tries to correct this
prejudicial treatment.
He says he seeks to give the
two central institutions of
Torah on the one hand,
and Temple on the other,
a fair hearing.
So in his book,
Sinai and Zion,
Levenson explores what he calls
the two great mountain
traditions that express these
central concepts:
the tradition of Mount
Sinai--that's where Israel
received the Torah,
and entered into this defining
covenantal relationship with
God--and then on the other hand,
the tradition of Mount Zion.
Zion will be the future site of
the nation's holy temple in
Jerusalem.
Mount Zion is in Jerusalem,
it's the Temple Mount today
where the mosque now is.
Today, we'll consider
Levenson's analysis of the Sinai
tradition as an entrée into the
Israelite concept of the Torah,
and the covenant bond,
its meaning and its
implications.
Levenson stresses the
importance of the covenant
formulary.
There are Ancient Near Eastern
parallels to the Sinai covenant
of the Bible--especially Hittite
treaties that date 1500 to 1200,
or so;
also Assyrian treaties in about
the eighth century,
but they are in many ways
continuous with what you find in
the Hittite treaties--treaties
between a suzerain and vassal.
 
Remember we talked about two
types of treaties:
suzerainty treaties and parity
treaties.
Parity treaties between equals,
but suzerainty treaties are
between a suzerain,
who has a position obviously of
power and authority,
and a vassal.
He details the following six
elements, which I hope you can
all see , especially in the
Hittite treaties.
They're not all found in every
treaty, but they're often enough
found that we can speak of these
six elements.
First there is a preamble.
 
That's found in every one.
 
The suzerain identifies himself.
 
Second of all,
there's generally an account of
the historical circumstances
that are leading to the treaty:
so some kind of historical
prologue.
Then we usually have some sort
of set of stipulations and
requirements,
upon the vassal generally.
Fourth, there's generally some
arrangement, either for the
publication of the treaty,
or its deposition,
its safe-keeping in some sort
of shrine.
There is generally a concluding
invocation of witnesses,
usually the gods are invoked as
witnesses to a binding oath,
some kind of covenantal oath
that brings the treaty into
effect, and it's witnessed by
gods.
Lastly, there will be very
often a list of blessings for
the party who obeys,
and curses for the party that
violates the pact.
 
The curses are particularly
emphasized in the Assyrian
treaties.
Levenson then identifies many
of these elements in Yahweh's
very first speech to Moses.
Moses and the Israelites arrive
at Sinai, in Exodus 19,
and God says the following in
verses 3b to 8:
The Lord called to him
from the mountain,
saying, "Thus shall you say to
the house of Jacob and declare
to the children of Israel:
'You have seen what I did to
the Egyptians,
how I bore you on eagles' wings
and brought you to Me.
 
Now then, if you will obey Me
faithfully and keep My covenant,
you shall be My treasured
possession among all the
peoples.
Indeed, all the earth is Mine,
but you shall be to Me a
kingdom of priests and a holy
nation.'
These are the words that you
shall speak to the children of
Israel."
Moses came and summoned the
elders of the people and put
before them all that the Lord
had commanded him.
All the people answered as one,
saying, "All that the Lord has
spoken we will do!"
 
And Moses brought back the
people's words to the
Lord.
So Levenson,
who draws actually on
long-standing work by other
scholars,
and earlier in the twentieth
century even,
Levenson finds several of the
main elements of the Hittite
suzerainty treaties in this
speech.
So verse 4, "You've seen what I
did to the Egyptians,
how I bore you on eagles'
wings," is the historical
prologue.
That's the reason that we're in
the situation we're in now,
and making this covenant.
 
Verse 5 contains God's
stipulations.
It's a very general
condition--"If you obey my
laws."
Basically, keep my covenant,
obey me faithfully,
that's the conditional.
That's going to be filled out
and articulated at great length
in the subsequent chapters when
all the laws they have to obey
are spelled out.
The second half of verse 5 and
6 gives the reward:
God is conferring on the
Israelites this elevated status
of royalty, of priesthood;
"You'll be to me a kingdom of
priests, and a holy nation."
In verse 8, the people solemnly
undertake to fulfill the terms
of the covenant,
so we have at least three of
the steps that we find in the
Hittite treaties,
as well.
If we take a broader view of
the full biblical account of
Israel's covenant with God,
all six elements can be
identified in the biblical
narrative.
They're scattered throughout
the text, however.
 
We have the preamble,
and the historical background
to the covenant in God's summary
introduction to the people in
Exodus 20: "I am Yahweh who
brought you out of the land of
Egypt."
It sums it all up:
introduction,
who I am, and why we are
historically connected.
 
So this fact of God's bringing
Israel out of Egypt,
presumably establishes God's
claim to sovereignty.
The terms of the treaty are
then stipulated at great length
in the instructions that are
found in Exodus chapter 20
through chapter 23.
 
Moses reads the book of the
covenant--it's called the Scroll
of the Covenant--publicly:
this is said in Exodus 24:7.
In Deuteronomy we read that it
will be deposited for
safekeeping in a special ark.
 
The Israelites vow that they'll
obey Exodus 24:3,
also 7b.
The covenant is then sealed by
a formal ritual.
In this case it's a sacrifice
in Exodus 24:8.
In a monotheistic system you
can't really call upon other
gods to be witnesses to the
sealing of the oath,
so we have heaven and earth
being invoked as
witnesses--Deuteronomy 4:26;
Deuteronomy 30:19;
31:28--heaven and earth,
the idea being perhaps the
inhabitants thereof should
witness.
As for blessings and curses,
we have a long list of each
found in Leviticus 26,
and Deuteronomy 28,
also interesting reading.
Some of these curses,
particularly the ones in
Deuteronomy bear a very striking
resemblance to curses in an
Assyrian treaty that we have
that dates to about 677 BCE the
Assyrian king Esarhaddon--and
many of the curses are really
almost word for word.
 
So while no one passage
contains all of the elements of
the Hittite treaty form,
there are enough of them
scattered around to suggest it
as a model, as well as its later
instantiation in Assyrian
culture.
So what's the meaning of this?
 
Why does it matter that Israel
understands its relationship
with God, and uses the covenant
as a vehicle for expressing its
relationship with God,
the vehicle of the suzerainty
treaty?
According to Levenson,
the use of a suzerainty treaty
as a model for Israel's
relationship to Yahweh,
expresses several key ideas.
It captures several key ideas.
 
First, the historical prologue
that's so central to the
suzerainty treaty,
grounds the obligations of
Israel to Yahweh in the history
of his acts on her behalf.
So it's grounded in a
historical moment,
and we'll come back to this and
what that might mean about her
perception of God.
 
Second, the historical prologue
bridges the gap between
generations.
Israel's past and present and
future generations form a
collective entity,
Israel, that collectively
assents to the covenant.
And even today,
at Passover ceremonies
everywhere, Jews are reminded to
see themselves,
they're reminded of the
obligation to see themselves as
if they personally came out of
Egypt,
and personally covenanted with
God.
The historical prologue,
thirdly, explains why Israel
accepts her place in the
suzerain-vassal relationship.
Israel's acceptance of a
relationship with God doesn't
stem from mystical
introspection,
or philosophical speculation,
Levenson says.
Instead the Israelites are
affirming their identity and
their relationship with God by
telling a story,
a story whose moral can only be
that God is reliable.
Israel can rely on God,
just as a vassal can rely on
his suzerain.
The goal is not,
Levenson says,
ultimately the affirmation of
God's suzerainty in a purely
verbal sense.
The point is not mere verbal
acclaim of God as suzerain.
Levenson points out that the
affirmation of God's suzerainty
is rendered in the form of
obedience to commandments,
not mere verbal acclamation.
 
Observance of God's
commandments is,
as Levenson puts it,
the teleological end of
history.
Why is that important?
Unless we recognize that the
road from Egypt leads
inextricably to Sinai,
that the story of national
liberation issues in and is
subordinate to,
is ultimately subordinate to,
the obligation to God's
covenantal stipulations and
observance of his laws,
then we run the risk of doing
what has been done for some
centuries now:
of reading Exodus as first and
foremost a story of a miraculous
delivery,
rather than the story of a
relationship,
which is expressed through
obligations to the observance of
specific laws,
commandments,
and instructions.
 
The suzerain-vassal model has
further implications.
Levenson and other scholars,
point many of these out.
Just as the Ancient Near
Eastern suzerainty treaties
specified that vassals of a
suzerain are to treat other
vassals of the suzerain well,
Israelites are bound to one
another then as vassals of the
same suzerain,
and are to treat one another
well.
So covenant in Israel becomes
the basis of social ethics.
It's the reason that God gives
instructions regarding the
treatment of one's fellow
Israelites.
So the suzerain-vassal
relationship grounds the social
ethic within Israel.
 
Also, just as a vassal cannot
serve two suzerains--that's
pretty explicit in all the
treaties,
you owe exclusive service to
your suzerain--so the covenant
with God entails the notion of
Israel's exclusive service of
Yahweh.
The assertion is not that there
is no other god,
but that Israel will have no
other god before Yahweh.
 
The jealousy of the suzerain is
the motivation for prohibitions
against certain intimate
contacts with non-Yahweh
peoples,
because these alliances will
end up entailing recognition of
the gods of these peoples.
The covenant with Yahweh will
also, we shall see soon,
preclude alliances with other
human competitors.
If Israel serves a divine king,
she can't, for example,
serve a human king,
and that's an idea that will
express itself in biblical
texts,
as we'll see,
that are clearly opposed to the
creation of a monarchy in
Israel.
Not everyone was onboard with
the idea that Israel should be
ruled by a king.
So there are texts that will
object to the creation of the
monarchy of King Saul,
and King David,
and so on.
There are also texts that are
going to object to alliances
with any foreign king,
or subservience to any foreign
king, whether it's Egypt or
Assyria or Babylonia.
So subservience to a human
king, native or foreign,
is in these texts considered a
rejection of the divine
kingship,
which is the ideal--the
exclusive kingship of
Yahweh--and it's seen as a
breach of the covenant.
 
Now, Ancient Near Eastern
suzerainty models also speak
repeatedly of the vassal's love
for the suzerain.
Vassal so-and-so will love the
Assyrian lord so-and-so,
and that's an element that is
not absent at all in the
biblical texts that deal with
the covenant bond.
The Israelites promise to serve
and to love Yahweh.
That's an additional theme
that's associated regularly with
the covenant.
It's one that we'll take up in
greater detail,
though, when we get to the book
of Deuteronomy,
where it is stressed to a
greater degree than it is in
Exodus, but for now,
we can accept Levenson's claim
that Sinai represents an
intersection of law and love,
because of the use of the
suzerainty model.
 
So the covenant concept is
critical to the Bible's
portrayal and understanding of
the relationship between God and
Israel.
The entire history of Israel,
as portrayed by biblical
writers, is going to be governed
by this one outstanding reality
of covenant.
Israel's fortunes will be seen
to ride on the degree of its
faithfulness to this covenant.
 
The book of Exodus closes,
with the construction of the
sanctuary, and when the
sanctuary is completed,
the text says the presence of
the Lord filled the tabernacle.
This is a sign of divine
approval.
The long section where we have
the receipt of the instructions
for the building of the temple,
and then we have an actual
account of those instructions
being fulfilled,
not the temple,
tabernacle, excuse me:
it's just a tent structure at
this stage--so receiving the
instructions and then the actual
construction of the tabernacle,
that extends from Exodus 25 to
the end of the book,
Exodus 40;
but it's interrupted in Exodus
32 by the account of the
Israelites' apostasy with the
golden calf, which is a great
and very ambiguous story.
The moment of Israel's greatest
glory is to be the moment of her
greatest shame.
As Moses receives God's
covenant on Mount Sinai--he's
there at the top of Sinai
communing with God-- the
Israelites who are encamped at
the foot of the mountain grow
restless,
and rebellious,
and they demand of Aaron a god,
because they don't know what's
become of "this fellow Moses."
They say: what about this guy,
Moses?
They use a very colloquial kind
of term to dismiss him.
So Aaron, feeling the heat,
makes a golden calf,
and the people bow down to it,
and someone declares,
"This is your God,
oh Israel, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt."
 
Well, an enraged God tells
Moses: You know what's going on
down there?
And he tells him to descend
from the mountain.
 
The people are sinning,
they've already gone astray,
and he says:
I'm through.
I want to destroy the nation,
and I'm going to start a new
nation again from you,
Moses.
Moses manages to placate God
momentarily, and then he turns
around to face the people.
 
He comes down from the
mountain, he approaches the
camp, he's stunned by what he
sees.
He's carrying the tablets,
the instructions,
and then he smashes them at the
foot of the mountain in fury.
He manages to halt the
activities.
He punishes the perpetrators,
he has a few choice words for
Aaron.
This temporary alienation from
God is ultimately repaired
through Moses' intense prayer
and intercession.
 
It actually takes several
chapters to reach a resolution,
and God pouts for quite a
while,
but a renewal of the covenant
does occur, and another set of
stone tablets is given,
and according to one rabbinic
text the broken tablets,
as well as the new tablets,
are both placed in the ark.
 
And this embarrassing episode
is just the beginning of a
sequence of embarrassing events
that will occur as the
Israelites move from Egypt
towards the land that's been
promised to them.
 
Most of these episodes will
occur in the book of Numbers,
and they involve the rebellion
of the people in some way,
generally God's fury in
reaction to that rebellion,
Moses' intervention usually on
behalf of the people,
and God's appeasement.
 
The book of Numbers recounts
the itinerary of the Israelites
throughout the 40 years of their
wanderings and encampments
around the sacred tabernacle.
 
The tabernacle always moves in
the center of the tribes,
and they're positioned in
certain specific positions
around the tabernacle as they
move.
They stay at Sinai for a year,
I believe, in the text,
before they begin their
movement, and Numbers contains
some law, and much narrative
material.
The material tells of God's
provision for the people in the
desert, but it also tells of the
Israelites' constant
complaining, and rebellion.
 
The Israelites rebel against
Moses and God,
and they long for Egypt.
 
There are several times when
God threatens to exterminate
them, but Moses manages to
dissuade him.
In Numbers 14,
for example,
when the Israelites complain
again, God is determined to
destroy them,
and Moses intervenes,
and the intervention leads to a
compromise.
God swears that none of the
adults who witnessed the Exodus
-- with the exception of Joshua
and Caleb,
who did not join in the
rebellion -- none of the adults
who witnessed the Exodus would
see the fulfillment of God's
salvation,
and enter the Promised Land.
This means the Israelites will
have to wander for 40 years in
the desert until all of those
who left Egypt as adults pass
away,
leaving a new generation that
hasn't really tasted slavery,
to enter the land and form a
new nation.
The book of Numbers,
I think, is most remarkable for
the relationship that it
describes between Moses and God.
 
I love reading these particular
stories, and just hearing the
dialogue between them,
and imagining it,
because the two of them
alternate in losing patience
with the Israelites,
and wishing to throw them over.
But each time the one convinces
the other to be forbearing.
The relationship between Moses
and God is a very intimate one,
very much like a husband and
wife,
who are working together as
partners and parenting a
difficult child.
They're partners in the
preparation of Israel for their
new life, readying Israel for
life in God's land as a nation,
as a people.
I'm going to just give you two
examples of the way Moses and
God act as a check upon each
other.
The first excerpt is from
Numbers 14, and it shows Moses'
ability to placate the wrath of
God.
Now, in this story,
the Israelites express great
fear.
They've just heard a report
from a reconnaissance team that
scoped out the land,
and they come back and say:
Oh, boy, you know,
it looks really bad--and that
they think that the chances of
conquering the Promised Land are
very, very slim.
The whole community broke
into loud cries,
and the people wept that night.
 
All the Israelites railed
against Moses and Aaron.
"If only we had died in the
land of Egypt," the whole
community shouted at them,
"or if only we might die in
this wilderness!
Why is the Lord taking us to
that land to fall by the sword?
 
Our wives and children will be
carried off!
It would be better for us to go
back to Egypt!"
And they said to one another,
"Let us head back for Egypt."
… the Presence of the Lord
appeared in the Tent of Meeting
to all the Israelites.
 
And the Lord said to Moses,
"How long will this people
spurn Me, and how long will they
have no faith in Me despite all
the signs that I have performed
in their midst?
I will strike them with
pestilence and disown them,
and I will make of you a nation
far more numerous than they!"
But Moses said to the Lord,
"When the Egyptians,
from whose midst You brought up
this people in Your might,
hear the news,
they will tell it to the
inhabitants of that land….
 
If then You slay this people to
a man, the nations who have
heard Your fame will say,
'It must be because the Lord
was powerless to bring that
people into the land He had
promised them on oath that He
slaughtered them in the
wilderness.'
Therefore, I pray,
let my Lord's forbearance be…
abounding in kindness;
forgiving iniquity and
transgression….
Pardon, I pray,
the iniquity of this people
according to Your great
kindness, as You have forgiven
this people ever since Egypt."
 
And the Lord said,
"I pardon, as you have
asked…."
So note God's offer to start
all over again with Moses.
 
This is a pattern with this
god, you know--create,
gets upset, a flood wipes them
out,
let's start again,
oh, still not too good,
let's choose one person,
Abraham, see how that goes;
oh, disappointed,
let's go with Moses--so this is
a bit of a pattern.
 
But Moses refuses to accept the
offer, and instead he defends
the Israelites,
and he averts their
destruction.
He appeals primarily to God's
vanity: What will the neighbors
think if you destroy them?
They'll think you couldn't
fulfill your promise.
They'll think you're not the
universal God of history.
But the roles are reversed in
the following passage,
and this is where the text
blows hot and cold.
In fact, there's a rabbinic
image, there's a rabbinic
tradition that talks about this
period of time,
and has God and Moses talking,
and God says:
Listen, between the two of us,
whenever I blow hot,
you blow cold,
or when I pour hot water,
you pour cold,
and when you pour hot,
I'll pour cold,
and together we'll muddle
through, and get through here.
 
The Israelites won't be wiped
out.
But in this next passage,
which is Numbers 11,
Moses is the one who is
impatient with the Israelites'
constant complaints and lack of
faith,
and he's ready to throw in the
towel.
I'll just read this last
passage.
The riffraff in their
midst felt a gluttonous craving;
and then the Israelites wept
and said, 'If only we had meat
to eat!
We remember the fish that we
used to eat free in Egypt
Okay, we were slaves,
but the food was free,
you know?
I just love that line.
 
We used to eat this fish free
in Egypt.
…the cucumbers,
the melons, the leeks,
the onions, and the garlic.
 
Now our gullets are shriveled.
 
There is nothing at all!
 
Nothing but this manna to look
at!'
…
Moses heard the people weeping,
every clan apart,
each person at the entrance of
his tent.
The Lord was very angry,
and Moses was distressed.
 
And Moses said to the Lord,
"Why have You dealt ill with
Your servant [me],
and why have I not enjoyed Your
favor,
that You have laid the burden
of all this people upon me?
 
Did I conceive all this people,
did I bear them,
that You should say to me,
'Carry them in your bosom as a
nurse carries an infant,'
to the land that You have
promised on oath to their
fathers?
Where am I to get meat to give
to all this people,
when they whine before me and
say, 'Give us meat to eat!'
I cannot carry all this people
by myself, for it is too much
for me.
If You would deal thus with me,
kill me rather,
I beg You, and let me see no
more of my wretchedness!"
 
Then the Lord said to Moses,
"Gather for Me seventy of
Israel's elders of whom you have
experience as elders and
officers of the people,
and bring them to the Tent of
Meeting and let them take their
place there with you.
I will come down and speak with
you there, and I will draw upon
the spirit that is on you and
put it upon them;
they shall share the burden of
the people with you,
and you shall not bear it
alone.
So again, hot and cold.
 
And in many ways,
Moses sets the paradigm for the
classical prophet.
 
He performs this double duty.
 
He chastises and upbraids the
Israelites for their rebellion
and failures.
When he's turning and facing
the people, he's on their case.
 
But at the same time,
he consoles the people when
they fear they've driven God
away irreparably,
and when he turns to face God,
he defends the people before
God.
He pleads for mercy when they
do in fact deserve
punishment--and he knows they
deserve punishment.
 
He even says as much,
but please have mercy.
At times he expresses his
frustration with the difficulty
of his task, and resentment that
it's been assigned to him.
But we'll consider the
character and the role of Moses
in much greater detail when we
reach the book of Deuteronomy
next Monday.
For the coming week,
I would like you to please pay
particular attention:
we're dealing with two topics
that will be,
I think perhaps for some of
you, a little different,
new, alien.
We're going to be dealing with
biblical law on Monday,
and biblical ritual,
purity text,
holiness, temple,
on Wednesday.
These are worlds apart from
many of the things we know,
so please, there's a lot of
textual reading to do for Monday
and Wednesday.
Please do it carefully,
and I might even hand out a
little bit of a study guide to
help you with that.
