Tag: Moses

Thoroughly Destroyed

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Regarding the total destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the rabbis wondered: Why were the cities destroyed so thoroughly? Surely other cities have been as wicked.

Fire and brimstone seems particularly destructive and thorough.

The rabbis suggest may have been due to the geography. The cities that were destroyed happened to be within the borders of the Holy Land that God promised to Abraham. The Holy Land is a place that devours and then vomits out wickedness.

So they brought a bad report of the land which they had spied out to the sons of Israel, saying, “The land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are people of great stature.
Numbers 13:32 (NASB)

The rabbis point to the spies who scouted out the Promised Land, and suggest that the spies reported correctly, but they did not understand the reason for the land’s behavior.

So Moses must explain to his people before they enter: This is a Holy Land. It must be treated as Holy.

“Now the future generation, your sons who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of that land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say, ‘All its land is brimstone and salt, burned debris, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows on it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath.’
Deuteronomy 29:22-23 (NASB)

But perhaps there is another teaching here that coincides with this.

The “total” destruction isn’t actually total. It’s a part of the bigger land. The land is your heart.

Water and Bread

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and make yourselves comfortable under the tree; and I will bring a piece of bread, so that you may refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.” And they said, “So do as you have said.”
Genesis 18:4-5 (NASB)

When Abraham first meets the three men (or angels!) in Genesis 18, the Rabbis note every word he speaks and wonder if there is prophetic meaning in them.

We know that the offering of water and bread is hospitality, but note the passive and active verbs used for each.

He says “let water be brought” and he says “I’ll bring bread.”

The rabbis say this is clear: the water is to be brought by way of some unnamed servant or messenger, whereas Abraham is offering to bring the bread himself.

And then they point to the Exodus.

In the Exodus, we read that when God provided water for Israel, He did it through Moses, first at Marah in Genesis 15, and later when Moses strikes the rock. God provides the water through… a messenger.

And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
Exodus 15:24-25a (NKJV)

But of bread, God does it directly in the next chapter. It’s set up exactly like Abraham’s hospitality to the three men: A messenger will get the water, but I’ll get the bread for you.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.
Exodus 16:4 (NKJV)

Now, notice back in Genesis 18:4, Abraham used the phrase “a little water.”

We just read past this and don’t pay much attention to it, but oddly, this word “little” first appears three times in Genesis in exactly this same way: “A little water.”

Each time, a messenger is involved:

Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.
Genesis 18:4 (NKJV)

And the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your pitcher.”
Genesis 24:17 (NKJV)

Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass that when the virgin comes out to draw water, and I say to her, “Please give me a little water from your pitcher to drink,”
Genesis 18:4 (NKJV)

In the second two instances, this same messenger’s name is Eliazar, who has the task of seeking out and inviting the future bride of Isaac.

This hebrew word מְעַט (meh-aht) means little. Small. Fewness.

Water. Messenger. Smallness.

For the believer who sees a messenger in the wilderness, standing in the water and baptizing the Messiah, the words “he must increase, but I must DECREASE” suddenly ring.

And for the Christian who sees the Holy Spirit like a messenger of God, speaking precisely the words of God and revealing precisely the heart of God, the connection to this messenger and water gets clearer.

For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:13 (NKJV)

And of the bread? The Christian will see the breaking of bread at communion as a symbol of the broken body of the Messiah, made available for us for salvation. Given freely, not through a messenger, but by God himself.

If the Christian is looking for a Trinune God, perhaps it’s not the three angels in Genesis 18 themselves that give it to us, but perhaps they function as three sign posts to tell us that it is near.

From the Fire

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Then [God] said to him, “I am יהוה who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to assign this land to you as a possession.”
Genesis 15:7 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

The Midrash contains a fascinating story about Abram, suggesting that Nimrod (king of Babylon) threw Abram into a blazing furnace for not worshipping his idol. “Ur” means “flame.”

He was in the fire, but not consumed by it.

The rabbis say that Genesis 15:7 is the first time God tells Abram His name.

Later, when God meets Moses, He presents His name and another fire, this time on a bush that is not consumed.

Perhaps this is how Moses remembers the covenant God made with Abram: these are intentionally linked stories. God preserves us, even through the fire that should consume us.

Fire and Smoke

Posted on by jovial_cynic

So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
Genesis 6:14-16 (NIV)

Everything we know about the construction of the Ark is in Genesis 6:14-16.

Later, God gives very precise measurements for other construction projects.

In Exodus 40, Moses completes construction of the Tabernacle, and God’s glory falls in smoke and fire.

In 2 Chronicles 7, Solomon completes construction of the Temple, and God’s glory falls in smoke and fire.

In Genesis 6, Noah completes construction of the Ark, and I bet there was smoke and fire aboard.

Let there be Light.