Yay! I'm finally caught up! It seemed as if I was reading, thinking, and writing ALL DAY yesterday. Not a bad thing, mind you, but draining.
Today's insights:
-Exodus 15:27 provided me with my most amazing "Whoa!" moment. In this verse, it is explicitly mentioned that the particular place where the Israelites stopped had twelve wells and seventy palm trees. Why is this necessary or relevant?
Then I had a thought. What if the children of Israel, having exited Egypt, made specific mention of these things because they signified their origin as a nation. Perhaps the twelve wells represented the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel), each a head of the twelve tribes of Israel. Taking the comparison further, what if the seventy palm trees were significant in that when Jacob entered Egypt for the first time, he brought sixty-nine others with him... a total of seventy people were the start of the great nation of Israel.
-Exodus 18:1-6 I don't think I ever realized that Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, wasn't with him during the exodus from Egypt. He shows up, having tracked Moses down, and returns Moses' wife and two sons to him, who also had not been with Moses during the exodus.
-Exodus 20 is the giving of the Ten Commandments. What I found interesting was that God devoted so many more words to describing the command against graven images and the command to keep the Sabbath day holy. All the other commands are bare minimums.
-Exodus 21:6 talks of ear piercing as a mark of permanent servitude. I wonder if pierced ears still carry this stigma(?) of slavery to this day and we just have forgotten it.
-Exodus 22:28 struck me particularly as God, in the middle of a bunch of other instructions and laws, explicitly commands that we are not to make fun of the false gods and not to say derogatory things about our rulers. So mocking and deriding the gods of other religions is right out, as is criticizing our President and elected officials. Something to think about next time you want to forward that political cartoon or anecdote.
-Exodus 25 has what I would refer to as a translation inaccuracy, not necessarily mistake. The word "cherubims" is unnecessarily plural. In Hebrew, to make a word plural, the suffix "-im" is added. Therefore, one cherub, two cherubim... not cherubims. [even the spell check picks it up]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I think we're both caught up - yay!
I had the same thought about the 12 + 70 - I went so far (and forgot to write it down) that I wondered if certain palm trees were fed by certain wells and curious what palm trees represented.
I too am curious about the ear piercing as indication of lesser status. It would be easy to see feminists on both sides of this argument, given how much value our culture places on jewelry and multiple piercings.
Nice catch on the political cartoons; I'm sure there still SOME political cartoons that are not derogatory - probably those that don't focus on the president?
And I'm still curious about the whole cherub / cherubim / cherubims thing - both in finding it interesting that spell-check catches it AND because I'm curious if it truly means groups of groups of cherubs. Perhaps a quick look at the original Hebrew might be of value.
Good stuff!
Post a Comment