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Wednesday 9/02/26

Thru the Bible: Old Testament Review – Exodus Pt. 3

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Thru the Bible: Old Testament Review – Exodus Pt. 3

God speaks the “Ten Words” to Israel

I have pointed to this place in scripture many times. It is where we left off last week and that was intentional. I believe it deserves some attention for the following reasons.

• For me to explain what I’ve taught about it. 
• To point out the strengths and weaknesses of my belief honestly
• To use this as a spring board into what God has always desired with His people and which He clearly states in other places.

Here are the particulars:

• In Exodus 19, God tells Moses He will come down and speak “in the hearing of all the people” (19:9) — not just to Moses. 
• He instructs the people to consecrate themselves in preparation to hear His direct speech. 
• In Exodus 20:1-17, God speaks the Ten Commandments (literally the 10 words) directly to the assembled people. The Hebrew text uses וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים — “God spoke” — to the congregation directly. There was no intermediary at this point.
• Exodus 20:18-21 After hearing God’s direct voice, the people respond through official channels of the Elders to Moses requesting “You speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (20:19). 
• The Hebrew here is stark: אַל-יְדַבֵּר עִמָּנוּ אֱלֹהִים — “do not let God speak with us.” The preposition עִם (im) specifically means “with” in the sense of direct, mutual conversation — not merely at or to. They are refusing the mode of communion, not just the volume.
• Moses responds in verse 20 by saying that fear, on some level, was God’s intention: “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that you do not sin.” Meaning God’s intention was to inspire reverent awe, not terror. God wanted to expose them to His holiness firsthand to elicit the response of an abiding honor, reverence and respect.

Two other passages give us insight into this event. In Deuteronomy 5 Moses offers a retrospective account of this to the second generation. In it he says, 

“These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more.“ – Deuteronomy 5:22-28

The phrase “He added no more” (וְלֹא יָסָף) is significant — it marks the Ten Words as a completed direct speech act.

Then immediately:

Israel recoils and requests a mediator

“And it came to pass, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said: 

‘The LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen today that God speaks with man, and he still lives. Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore, then we shall die…'” (5:23-25)

God’s transparent & broken heart

Then Moses recounts God’s Own response in verses 28-29:

“And the LORD heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me: 

‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. 

Oh that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!‘”

Notice that God does not say “good idea” or “this is what I intended.” He says they are right in their assessment of the danger — but then immediately expresses a longing (“Oh that they had such a heart…“) that implies the direct relationship was the desired end state that is now not being realized.

The optative mood of the wish — מִי יִתֵּן in Hebrew, is very telling and a little heart breaking. It is a classic expression of unfulfilled longing by God regarding Israel and points to something being forfeited… something desired by God that will not remain unfulfilled.

Moses records and reads the laws and rules

It was in response to this that Moses begins to mediate the law:

“Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said,

‘All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.’

And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD.

(5) And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.

(6) And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar.  (7)  Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people.

And they said,
“All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 

(8)  And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said,
“Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.” – Exodus 24:3-8  

Remember this because this IS the covenant which is spoken of later in the Pentateuch and in Joshua until it is renewed with the second generation in Joshua 24:14–28.  

The writing follows the mediation structure. It was a means of preserving what was now going to be only transmitted through a human intermediary. 

The act of writing is embedded within the covenant-ratification ceremony of Exodus 24 — it serves a covenantal-legal function appropriate to the treaty structure they were now entering as opposed to the reverent but relational means God attempted at the first.

God’s intention & accommodation – The tablets

Importantly, in Exodus 31:18 and 32:15-16, God Himself writes the two tablets:

“Written with the finger of God“ — כְּתֻבִים בְּאֶצְבַּע אֱלֹהִים

This was the accommodation of God to the request of the people.

The next verse is found in Jeremiah 31 and it provides us with an Interpretive Frame

Jeremiah 31:31-33 is exegetically inseparable from these accounts in Exodus and Deuteronomy because it provides for us God’s Own retrospective on this arrangement:

“Behold, days are coming… I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel… not like the covenant I made with their fathers… I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts.“

The contrast is explicit. The old written-stone covenant is presented as the inferior arrangement. It is indirectly implied that such was necessary due to the hardness of the people’s heart. However, God’s plans and purposes WILL be accomplished in the New Covenant. It will restore something more like the direct internalized relationship Israel forfeited. 

This strongly implies the written external law was the accommodation, not the original design.

Summary of What the Text Itself Indicates

Pulling it together strictly from the textual evidence:

1. God’s original design at Sinai was direct, audible, communal speech — He spoke to all Israel directly (Exod. 19-20)
2. Israel refused this mode and requested human mediation (Exod. 20:18-19, Deut. 5:23-27)
3. God’s own response (Deut. 5:28-29) validates their fear but expresses longing that they had the kind of heart that would have made the direct arrangement work — language that implies loss, not fulfillment
4. Writing followed mediation — Moses writes after the people request a go-between (Exod. 24:3-4)
5. God accommodates by writing the core himself on stone (Exod. 31:18) — entering their new preferred medium
6. Jeremiah 31 frames the written law as the inferior arrangement to be superseded when God restores the direct-heart relationship

TO BE CLEAR. NONE of these texts clearly or explicitly state “the writing was not My original plan”. Not in those terms anyway. However, the narrative sequence, the Hebrew of God’s longing in Deuteronomy 5:29, and the trajectory toward Jeremiah 31 collectively make a strong textual case that the written external law was a response to Israel’s refusal of direct communion, and therefore not God’s original intent.

What this reveals about the heart of God

Deuteronomy 5:29 is a real jewel. It is one of the many times in scripture where God is both vulnerable and transparent regarding the thoughts, intentions and desires of His heart in relation to His people.

מִי-יִתֵּן וְהָיָה לְבָבָם זֶה לָהֶם לְיִרְאָה אֹתִי וְלִשְׁמֹר אֶת-כָּל-מִצְוֹתַי כָּל-הַיָּמִים

“Oh that this heart of theirs were so with them — to fear Me and keep all My commandments always.”

As I said earlier, this is a Hebrew idiom of wishing for something which is not currently realized. It has an optative, longing quality to it.

The following is the closest we can get to truly tacking down what God meant when He said that Israel was “right” in all they said:

• God is not saying “good thing they asked for mediation, now we have a workable system.”
• God is expressing that what they lack — the heart to fear and obey — is the very thing that would have made the direct arrangement viable.
• The longing is for a heart condition, not for a different communication structure.

The juxtaposition “they were right” is immediately followed by God longing for Israel to possess a heart they don’t have. 

The natural reading of that juxtaposition is that what they were right about was the danger — they correctly assessed that they could not survive sustained direct encounters with God because of their heart condition. So the “rightness” APPEARS to be a concession about their present state, not an endorsement of the arrangement as ideal.

I want to be completely clear about this. The text truly seems to support this in every way, but the text does not make this explicit. The juxtaposition leans in that direction, but the grammar does not lock it in.

Now taking this a little further, since I understand it better now than I did 9 years ago. This written law was placed in the Holiest of holies either beside or attached to the very side of the Ark of the Covenant or the Ark of the Testimony.

Why not inside, like Aaron’s rod, the omer of manna and the tablets of the ten commandments?

This is all we know…

• The rod was placed inside as a sign against rebels — a closed, settled, divine verdict.
• The manna was placed inside as a memorial — preserved testimony of God’s provision.
• The tablets were placed inside — the foundational covenant terms in the presence of God.
• The Book of the Law was placed outside explicitly as a witness against Israel in their ongoing life — accessible, public-facing, confrontational.

There is a functional logic which the text might support.

What is inside the Ark is either foundational, memorial, or a settled divine verdict. 

What is outside the Ark but within the Holy of holies is the living legal witness. The document that was to travel with them into Canaan, that could be read, that kings were commanded to copy (Deuteronomy 17:18), that Joshua reads aloud to the second generation of Israelites after they crossed the Jordan (Joshua 8:34) which Moses had commanded (Deut. 11:29 & 27:4) and that functions in the covenantal life of the nation from that day forward.

The one item whose external placement relative to the Ark of the Covenant is explained, does do in terms of anticipated failure and guilt. Given everything we’ve read regarding Israel’s heart in response to God’s law, this is a detail upon which the text seems to place a fair amount of weight.

Sins of the fathers

This was another major and foundational teaching which was also first mentioned in Exodus 20, but which also showed up in Deuteronomy 5:9; 7:9-10 and which we really pressed upon when we finally arrived in Ezekiel 18:1-4 and Jeremiah 31:29-30. It was something Israel, and many people since then, have largely misunderstood. Though in modern generations this can be more easily excused due to poor translation.

Here is the passage:

“(5) You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,  (6)  but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” – Exodus 20:5-6  

The following has God addressing a “proverb” which had developed in Israel as a misunderstood spin off of the actual thing God said.

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 

“(1) The word of the LORD came to me:  

(2)  “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel: The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?  

(3)  As I live”–this is the declaration of the Lord GOD–“you will no longer use this proverb in Israel.  

(4)  Look, every life belongs to Me. The life of the father is like the life of the son–both belong to Me. The person who sins is the one who will die.”

This is a most egregious teaching which represents God as an evil tyrant. Like someone just looking for every opportunity to demand a sacrificial pound of flesh. 

The idea being set forth by this proverb is that a man’s children will be punished for the sins their father commits.

This proverb appears both here in Ezekiel and in Jeremiah 31:29-30 and in both places God sets the record straight by condemning that interpretation of His word.

This is a terrible understanding and interpretation of the Word God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:5,6 which reads like this…

Exodus 20:5-6, “(5) You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me,  (6)  and showing covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

To be certain this passage is difficult but only due to limitations in translation. The proper rendering of the words is key, because like in English, words can take on various shades of meaning and in this case it has led to some very unfortunate results.

The word Jealous can also be translated as Zeal or Zealous. The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. In this case what would be jeopardized, if idolatry remained unchecked, is the entire Jewish community.

Though this word translated Jealous CAN carry the sense of “envy,” that is NOT the case here. 

God’s zeal or jealousy is here being set forth as protective of His people, His institutions or His honor. God’s honor is bound up with the life of His people.

In the phrase “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children”, that word “visiting” would more properly be translated as “dealing with”. 

When used in the scriptures in reference to God, it essentially carries the  meaning that God intervenes in the lives of people either for blessing or for cursing. 

The supplemental commentary on the New English translation says this,

“Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev. 18:25; Isaiah 26:21; Jer. 29:32; Jer. 36:31; Hosea 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep His commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them.”

The verse as taken alone “could” mean that the children, with a tendency they saw and inherited from their father, may themselves carry on with those sins and will, as a result of THEIR having continued those sins on into another generation, suffer for them. 

However, when taken together with ALL the scriptures say by principle or by example, we know for certain that such is the only proper way to interpret these words.

In fact, when this passage is restated in Deut. 7:9-10, it helps to clarify the meaning. It says,  

“Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God Who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;  (10)  and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face.” 

Such words are a strong indicator that the one being punished is the one who hates God. This makes the case of the passage in Deut. 5 seem all the more to be saying that if the children continue in the sins of their father they will be punished – not for their father’s sins, but for themselves continuing in it.

It is a certainty that in order to best understand this or any passage, one has to compare the same situation throughout scripture. In this case, we have to look and see God’s judgment in action in other places. 

After all, was it not God Who said to Abram that He would spare the entire city for the sake of just a few righteous and then, God still spared Lot and his family even though his wife and daughters were not righteous.

Now, there is of course a way in which everyone’s sin affects others – beginning with Adam and Eve. Their decisions affected the entire world. It even affected God Himself Who would die to deal with the injustice of their treason. 

Even still, though we all are born into a fallen world with a heart tendency towards sin, we do not pay for the treason of Adam and Eve. We are held accountable only for our own sins UNLESS we go to God in faith and submit to the Lordship of His Son that we might have pardon, mercy and a change of heart.

God IS more than just, He’s merciful!

The commentary notes to the New English translation has this to say as well,

“Deut. 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut. 7:10 and Ezekiel 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity. God is showing here that His ethical character is displayed in how He deals with sin and righteousness, all of which He describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to Him and for avoiding idolatry.”

But God settles all debate on the topic in our verse from Ezekiel 18:1-4, 

“(1) The word of the LORD came to me:  

(2)  “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel: The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?  

(3)  As I live”–this is the declaration of the Lord GOD–“you will no longer use this proverb in Israel.  

(4)  Look, every life belongs to Me. The life of the father is like the life of the son–both belong to Me. The person who sins is the one who will die.”

In Exodus 24 we see Moses returned, by the invitation of God, to the top of Mount Sinai. This is the time when he was on the Mountain for 40 days and nights. During this time God gave Moses the plans for their religious life. This included the courtyard, the altar, the bazen laver, the tabernacle itself, the Ark of the Covenant, the incense altar, the showbread table and the Menorah as well as the priestly garments and their inauguration ceremony. 

The Golden Calf, Moses’ passion & God’s mercy

Then in Exodus 32 God tells Moses about Israel’s idolatry and they have one of the most famous conversations in all biblical history. It shows the emotions and heart of God. The way in which God draws intercession out of the heart of His leaders by telling the truth. It shows one of the ways in which God’s mercy triumphs over judgment.

“(7) And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.  (8)  They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”  (9)  And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.  (10)  Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”  (11)  But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?  (12)  Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.  (13)  Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”  (14)  And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.” – Exodus 32:7-14