Commandments (Exodus 19-31)

[Exodus 19]

The Israelites enter the wilderness at the foot of Mount Sinai. God repeats to Moses that he means to hold up the Hebrews as his chosen people, and says they need to keep themselves clean in preparation for a major visitation in three days. Wash your clothes, stay away from women, don't touch Mount Sinai. If you touch Mount Sinai, you'll die.

(Yep, touching women does make you dirty. More on that in Leviticus.)

And on the third day, God descends upon the mountain in a column of smoke.


[Exodus 20]

Via Moses, God says to the Israelites:

(1) You will have no other gods besides me.

(2) You will not make a sculptured image of anything in the heavens, or the earth, or the waters. You will not worship said effigies.

--Those are, note, two separate injunctions. Don't make graven images, and don't worship them. So sculptures of any sort - Michelangelo's 3D works, the model of an icthyosaurus at a natural history museum, cross pendants, the comical knickknack pictured at the top of this web page - are illegal.

Though I'd guess Picasso is allright, since his work was nonrepresentational?

The third and fourth generations of those who cross me (God) will get punished; the thousandth of those who don't will be shown kindness. So if you're Michelangelo's great grandkid....

(3) You will not swear falsely by the name of the LORD. This is commonly translated as taking the Lord's name "in vain"... but is the idea here that we shouldn't use his moniker frivolously, or that we shouldn't invoke it in a pledge or promise we don't plan to keep?

(4) Every seventh day, you will do no work - not you, your son or daughter, your male or female slaves, your cattle, or any strangers who sojourn with you.

(5) Honor your father and mother.

(6) Do not murder (a fellow Israelite).

(7) Do not have sex with a fellow Israelite's wife.

(8) Do not steal (from a fellow Israelite).

(9) Do not bear false witness against your (fellow Israelite) neighbor.

(10) Do not want/covet/be jealous of your (fellow Israelite) neighbor's wife, male or female slaves, oxen, asses, or anything else he owns.


...A lot could be said about this particular choice of commandments, of course. Some of them, rather than laying the foundation for human morality, are really codifications of the obvious, or at least the already-known. After all, Abel's blood itself cried out from the ground after Cain murdered him: way back then, the wrongness of killing was self-evident. The same might be said for stealing and bearing false witness. We didn't get this far into the Torah without it being quite clear people shouldn't be treating each other like that.

Three other commandments legalize God's jealous insecurity by throwing down threats against those who don't pay him sufficient obescience.

And the rest of them seem intended to establish the Hebrews' group cohesiveness and identity (as do the commandments mandating worship of God, by the way). Honor your father and mother, don't bear false witness against your fellows, don't covet or make off with their wives or other possessions. And, joining with your whole nation, observe a Sabbath. Like circumciscion, sacrifice, and dietary laws, I think the Sabbath foremostly serves to create a sense of shared identity - the point is ultimately nothing more than to prove loyalty by following orders for orders' sake, and coming together as a community to do some arbitrary thing. Like Marine boot camp, or the fact of all Muslims bowing five times daily toward Mecca, or those weird initiations the Shriners put each other through.

--The Israelities, freaked out by the column of smoke hovering over Mount Sinai, and by these solemn prounouncements read out at them by Moses, ask nicely that he continue to be their interlocutor with God. They're all quite afraid of the guy. Moses says sure.

And God, apropos of pretty well nothing, passes on some instructions to Moses on how to build sacrificial altars. For some reason it "profane"s a stone to cut it, so altars should be made of rough, unhewn rocks (tell that to the Vatican). "Do not ascend my altar by steps, that your nakedness may not be exposed upon it." (Exodus 20:23)

Eh? What does climbing stairs have to do with being naked? Oh, I see. Folks wore robes at the time. Evidently with no underwear.


A last word about the ten commandments. The mercifully-former Alabama judge Roy Moore is an idiot. Not that this will come as news. But the ten commandments are clearly not a foundational moral or legal document of the United States particularly, nor of modern western civilization in general. Right around half of the commandments are about oblating one's self to God, including a particularly well-emphasized (in the rest of the Hebrew Bible and Midrash) injunction not to work on the Sabbath. There's no such law in the U.S. today, our weird restrictions on the timing of liquor sales notwithstanding. There is no law mandating death for disrespect of one's parents. There is no law prohibiting graven images like the very one this world-class idiot put on display in his court. If we've thrown out three quarters of the ten commandments in our nation's laws, in exactly what sense can it be said that our nation's laws derive from them?

Here's a further example of how contemporary American jurisprudence is completely incompatible with Hebraic law. Note that the Israelites didn't keep jails - all crimes turn out punishable by fine, exile or death - and they couldn't have kept jails, because the business of jailing would require guards to work on the Sabbath.

Did Judge Roy Moore ever approve sentencing anyone to jail for a term of seven days or longer? Yes he did. So he is a fool and an intellectual leper.

Just how wrong is God's law for the world today? Why, let us examine the next chapter of Exodus and see.


[Exodus 21]

Further immutable laws of morality, straight from God's mouth:

Hebrew slaves must be released after six-year terms of servitude, freed either with or without a wife depending on how the slave entered bondage. That is, if the master gives his slave a wife during the term of slavery, the master permanently owns that wife and any children born to her.

Because you see, if you sell your own daughter into slavery, she like any female slave will be owned by the buyer for the rest of her life. Even if a master finds a Hebrew sex slave he has bought to be displeasing, he's required to continue feeding her and keeping her clothed (and maintaining her "conjugal rights", or "ointments", whatever this means exactly).

Now this is all very onerous, right? I'd thought God was a rock-ribbed Republican and truly respectful of property rights. So how can intrusive laws require me to keep feeding my sex slave even after she's grown boring to me?

You shall put a man to death who: fatally strikes another man (okay, if it's an accident you can let him flee town), kills another man out of treachery, strikes his father or mother, kidnaps a man - or insults his father or mother. (Yieeow. I wonder how many of us have our noses clean on that one. I just went through Christmas vacation with the family, and must say I'm not too sure about myself.)

If two men get in a fight and one is injured, the other must pay worker's comp for his downtime.

If you hit and kill your slave, the slave must be "avenged" (how?). But if the blow only kills the slave after a day or two, don't sweat it.

If you assault a pregnant woman and cause her to miscarry, her husband can sue for damages. But if your assaults on other people's property cause "other damage" - other than the termination of a pregnancy, that is - then the penalty is to be, "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." (Exodus 21:24)

Zzt! Zzt! ***Important notification and alert*** Here the termination of a pregnancy is clearly implied not to be murder - and is punished less harshly than accidental manslaughter or the killing of a slave. It is treated on a par with property loss, or the destruction of an animal.

Well, thank goodness that debate is now finally over with for all time.

So back to the big list. If you knock out your slave's eye or tooth, you have to let the slave free. If your ox gores somebody to death, the ox is to be stoned; and if this isn't the first time your ox gored somebody to death - and you didn't see to it previously that your ox got stoned - then you get stoned. Unless the gored person was a slave, in which case you pay 30 sheckels to the bereaved master.

God's laws, friend. We've got about 210 more pages of them from here to the end of Deuteronomy.

If you dig a pit and fail to cover it up and an ox falls in (is it just me, or are these things getting steadily sillier?), then you need to pay restitution to the ox's owner. However, you do get to keep the dead ox, so you've got that going for you.

If an ox kills another ox, the ox-owners will split up the meat of the dead ox, as well as the sale price of the aggressor ox, which must be sold to make restitution. So saith the LORD, yea verily and et cetera.


[Exodus 22]

More immutable laws of morality, part 2 of 3:

If you steal an ox or sheep, you owe back four in recompense. If you're caught breaking into someone's house, it's okay if the homeowner kills you.

If you let your cattle graze somebody else's land bare, you're liable. If you destroy a bunch of stuff in a fire, you're liable.

If you steal something that's in safekeeping with a third party, you pay back 200% restitution to the original owner. If there's suspicion as to how some borrowed property went missing, and the borrower swears an oath that he did no wrong, then the owner has to drop his case.

However, if you've borrowed someone's animal and the animal is torn by beasts, the owner lumps the cost.

If you have sex with a woman who hasn't yet been sold to you as a wife through the transferal of a dowry payment, then you must make that payment to her owner (father). Even if her father chooses to keep her, you've still got to pay.

"You shall not tolerate a sorceress." (Exodus 22:17) Can't improve on that wording.

"Whoever lies with a beast shall be put to death." (22:18) By the way, have you seen that movie "Zoo"? Weird, and repellant, but interesting.

You will be "proscribed" if you sacrifice to another god (banished? Stoned?) You should be nice to strangers, since that's what you all used to be in Egypt (although heck, the Israelites were also slaves in Egypt, and they aren't required to be so terifically nice to slaves in these laws).

Be good to widows and orphans. If you're bad to a widow or orphan, God promises to come and "put you to the sword". Like, personally. Can you imagine God showing up and attacking you with a sword? Yaakh. So be nice to widows and orphans.

Hebrews cannot charge interest to other Hebrews. Which I suspect has been rather widely flouted over the centuries. But that's nothing next to this next, very curious exhortation: "If you take your neighbor's garment in pledge, you must return it to him before the sun sets; it is his only clothing, the sole covering for his skin. In what else shall he sleep?" (22:25-6)

How does God know the borrower has only got one shirt? Do all Israelites have only one shirt? And who would want a guy's shirt as collateral in the first place? This is just weird.

Oh, and do not: revile God, put a curse on a chieftain, delay skimming your vats, fail to sacrifice every first-born male (or animal proxy) on its eighth day of life, or eat roadkill.


[Exodus 23]

Immutable laws of morality, part 3 of 3:

No false rumors or testimony, whether in support of the rich or of the poor.

If you find a wandering ox or ass, take it back where it belongs. I like that. That's nice.

You should help even an enemy's ass if it has fallen beneath a burden.

Don't bring false charges, execute innocent people, or accept bribes. Be kind to strangers, as we already covered rather recently. Every seventh year, let your fields go fallow (and eat what?). Keep the Sabbath. Don't worship other gods.

Three times a year, for a week, you can eat only unleavened bread: these being Passover, harvest, and ingathering, whatever ingathering may be. Bring in your first fruits to the house of the LORD.

Never boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. And be honest - you know you've been tempted.

When I (God) send an angel to lead you to destroy the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, don't give him a hard time, okay? Just do what the angel says. If you do what he says there will be no sickness among you, and all your women will be fertile (really?), and those other folks just mentioned will all be hit with plague. You will get their land from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Philistia, and from there over to the Euprhates.

And one more time with feeling: do not worship other gods.

Seems to be a big problem, this worshiping-other-gods stuff....


[Exodus 24]

God tells Moses to come on up the mountain to receive these teachings and commandments in stone. But first Moses builds an altar, sacrifices some bulls, and slings the blood on the altar and on the Israelities assembled before him. Like a Gwar show.


[Exodus 25]

Well atop Mount Sinai Moses waits six days, and on the seventh God finally speaks to him and says - you'd never guess this, honestly - "Tell the Israelite people to bring me gifts."

Now I don't know about you, but this would make me suspicious right away. It's like an email scam, except this guy claims to live in the sky as opposed to Nigeria (and uses even more-unnatural diction).

How can God need gifts? You'd think if there's anybody who already has it all... And what's God asking for? Gold, silver, copper, yarn, linen, goat hair, ram skins, dolphin skins, acacia wood, lighting oil, spices, incense, and lapis lazuli.

Hommina hommina. Whuh-whuh?

Goat hair? It's really just quite indescribably bizarre. Dolphin skins?

What in the name of all that is holy is God planning to do with goat hair?

And then we get some ridiculously detailed instructions on the manufacture of tabernacles and covenant-arcs, which continues through


[Exodus 26]

and straight into


[Exodus 27]

, all of which is every bit as interesting to read as the assembly instructions for an Ikea dinette set. Except God doesn't use those cute diagrams with the little man puzzling over screws and allen wrenches.

By the way, what's a tabernacle? It's one of those religious words I think the brain naturally fogs over upon hearing, like ecclesiastical (pertaining to the [Christian] church) or episcopal (pertaining to bishops) or ecumenical (interfaith). "Tabernacle" derives from the Latin for "tent", and describes the sanctuary where the Hebrews' most holy stuff goes. The ark of the covenant, as well as various implements for the burning of incense and dashing around of blood. A more literal English translation of the Hebrew word in question, mishkan, is "tent of meeting". Which I'll go with.


[Exodus 28]

And now, Moses, you need to craft some preposterously fancy clothes for Aaron and the priests, including such baffling accessorizations as frontlets, ephods, and something known as the Breastpiece of Decision.


[Exodus 29]

Then get the garments ready for service by a seven-day process of washing and dressing the priests in something called the Tent of Meeting, dumping oil over all their heads (?), and, of course, chopping up a load of livestock and slopping their blood and entrails all over the place in very much the manner of a gaggle of psychopaths.

...[T]ake [a second sacrificial] ram, and let Aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the ram's head. Slaughter the ram, and take some of its blood and put it on the ridge of Aaron's right ear and on the ridges of his sons' right ears, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet; and dash the rest of the blood against every side of the altar round about. Take some of the blood that is on the altar and some of the anointing oil and sprinkle it upon his sons and his sons' vestments. Thus shall he and his vestments be holy, as well as his sons and his sons' vestments. (29:15-21)

...And then go on to sacrifice a lamb, as well as various cereals and oils, there at the tent of meeting every morning and every evening into perpetuity. Their burnt offering creates an odor which is pleasing unto the LORD.

No comment.


[Exodus 30]

Moses, build a special altar for burning incense. Enclosed are some lengthy Ikea instructions for it.

Take a census of of all Israelites age 20 and up, collecting a half-sheckel from each (and the funds will be used for...?).

Make a "laver", which is a copper basin in which the priests will wash their hands before entering the Tent of Meeting. If they fail to so wash, they will die.

Mix together a load of myrrh, cinnamon, cane, cassia, and olive oil, use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Covenant, the altars, the table, and everything else you've recently been instructed to construct. Also the priests. Never again make this same kind of anointing oil, because the recipe is sacred and for use on this occasion only. Ditto for some incense you should now, and now only, prepare from out of stacte, onycha, and galbanum.

Easy to follow that last order. You're hardly running into stacte, onycha, and galbanum at the corner store every day. But my goodness, what if in ignorance of Exodus 30 you accidentally mixed up a batch of the stuff?


[Exodus 31]

God explains that a guy named Bezalel, with assistance from a certain Oholiab, will make all of this sacramental stuff so recently described: Bezalel has been granted the necessary innate talents in wood- and metal-working, tailoring, gemology, incense-pulverization, what have you.

And keep my Sabbath. It is holy for you.

Then God hands down the two tablets of the Covenant.

Two small thoughts. I find it interesting how ambiguously God's presence is described in the foregoing episode. He kind of seems like a human form meeting physically with Moses on Sinai, and kind of seems like a diffuse smoky pillar which somehow manages to dispense stone tablets. And what's with the tablets? If they relate the full contents of Exodus 19-31, then they've got to be some very large slates.