Friday, May 27

Exodus 26: The construction of the Tabernacle is described in the first part (verses 1-14) of this chapter. It had four coverings, divided into workable sections. The first covering was made of linen, over which were coverings of goats’ hair, rams’ skins dyed red, and dugongs’ skins. Two things are noteworthy about this last: First, the dugong, or sea cow, is a native of the Indian Ocean. The availability of this product indicates the extensive trade carried on through the Red Sea. One speculates that the sea-going power of Sheba was the medium by which this product reached Egypt. Second, the skin of the dugong, which sat uppermost over the Tabernacle, rendered it rainproof.

Next are described the wooden side-frames of the Tabernacle (verses 15-30), indicating that this shrine stood about 14 feet high, was 62 feet long, and measured over 42 feet wide.

Finally comes the internal division of the Tabernacle between the holy place and the Holy of Holies (31-37), the latter measuring about 14 feet square. It contained the Ark of the Covenant and the tablets of the Decalogue (cf. Hebrews 9:3-4).

The division within the tabernacle was later duplicated and further developed within the Jerusalem temple. Indeed, the sense of separated space is intrinsic to the very notion of a “temple,” a word derived from the Greek temno, meaning “to divide.” A shrine of any kind is already a section of space devoted to the things of God, and divisions within a shrine are related to the ordered structure of the community that worships there. The building reflects the congregation’s conception of itself. In the case of Israel and the Christian Church, the ordered structure of the worshipping community is “hierarchical,” meaning that its organizational structure is holy and reflects a divinely appointed order.

This hierarchical aspect of biblical worship, that is to say, is enacted even in architecture. (Indeed, if one looks closely, both “hierarchy” and “architecture” are formed of a common root, a Greek word meaning, roughly, “a principle that gives structure and explanation to reality.”)

Psalm 106 (Greek and Latin 105): This poetic narrative, which summarizes much of the Books of Exodus and Numbers, deals with the period of the Desert Wandering as a source of negative moral example: “Don’t let this happen to you.” Such is the approach to that period through much of biblical literature, from Deuteronomy 33 to 1 Corinthians 10.

The value of this perspective is that it tends to discourage a false confidence that may otherwise deceive the believer. Never has there been missing from the experience of faith the sort of temptation that says: “Relax! God has saved you. You are home free. Once saved, always saved. Don’t worry about a thing. Above all, no effort.”

This temptation was recognized by certain discerning men in the Bible itself. Thus, the Prophet Jeremiah saw it working insidiously in the hearts and minds of his contemporaries near the end of the seventh century B.C. They reasoned among themselves that God, because of His undying promise to David, would never permit the city of Jerusalem, to say nothing of His temple, to fall to their enemies. After all, had not the Lord, speaking through Isaiah a century earlier, promised King Hezekiah that such a thing was unthinkable? And had not the Lord, at that time, destroyed the Assyrian army as it besieged the Holy City? Even so, reasoned Jeremiah’s fellow citizens, there was no call now to fear the armies of Babylon. Thus, fully confident of divine deliverance, they permitted themselves every manner of vice and moral failing. After all, once saved, always saved. Much of the message of Jeremiah was devoted to demolishing that line of thought.

The identical sort of temptation seems likewise to have afflicted the first readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose author also took the period of the Desert Wandering as exemplifying their moral dilemma. Repeatedly, then, he cautioned those early Christians of the genuine danger of stark apostasy facing those who placed an unwarranted, quasi-magical confidence in their inevitable security. This entire book is devoted to warning believers that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31).

The gravity of this temptation, of course, arises from its resting on a solid truth. God is faithful to His promises; He will never abandon those who place their confidence in Him. The danger here is not that of excessive trust in God’s fidelity, but of insufficient vigilance against man’s infidelity. Just as the Galatians were warned against forsaking the Gospel of pure grace, they were also instructed that “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

Saturday, May 28

Exodus 27: We come now to the sacrificial altar, the court in which the Tabernacle stood, and the perpetual flame that was to burn before the Holy of Holies.

The frame of this hollow altar, which was, of course, portable, was to be made of a light wood overlaid with bronze (verses 1-2). Its construction was to be large: its top about 7 feet square and its height about 4 feet.

The corners of the altar were to be extended into horns. Although we can say that these adornments, like all horns, signified strength, their more precise meaning is now lost to us. We do know, however, that similar fixtures adorned many altars in antiquity, from Assyria to Greece. In Israel they took on a social and even political significance (cf. 1 Kings 1:50; 2:28). In the ritual itself, these horns were smeared with the blood of the sacrificial animal.

It is possible that stones were placed on this altar, to provide a surface on which to burn the sacrificial victim. Otherwise it is uncertain how the bronze could withstand the fire of the sacrifice.

Under and around the altar was a bronze grating for the purpose of receiving the ashes from the fire (verses 4-5). Inasmuch as the altar was portable, staves were provided, with which to carry it.

The Tabernacle stood in a court area that measured roughly 142 by 71 feet (verse 18). This area too was set apart by a system of linen partitions (verses 9-17). This was a consecrated area, separated from profane use.

A perpetual flame, fed of olive oil and cared for by the sons of Aaron, was to burn before the Holy of Holies (verses 20-21). The idea behind a perpetual flame is very old and has symbolic value immediately understood by almost all men. As a symbol of the human spirit standing in vigilance against the forces of darkness, it is found in world literature from Homer to the novels of William Golding. As a religious symbol of man’s standing in prayer before God, it is nearly universal. A sustained flame has burned near the altar in Christian churches virtually from the first day they were built.

Sunday, May 29

Exodus 28: This chapter is chiefly concerned with the vesting of the priests. The design and production of these vestments are not arbitrary. While their number and fundamental design are explicitly prescribed, their final elaboration is effected through the inspiration of the “spirit of wisdom” (ruah hokmah–verse 3), an expression the Septuagint translates as “esthetic spirit” (pnevma aistheos). The numbered list of them is explicit in the Torah itself—to wit, a tunic, over which was draped a shawl with a hole for the head and neck, a sash, and an ephod (or apron), over which was hung a breastplate suspended from the shoulders. The head was adorned with a miter. One easily recognizes in this description some of the standard Eucharistic vestments traditional in the Christian Church, both east and west.

The ephod, or apron, was a piece of apparel not unexpected on a person that offered blood sacrifices (verses 6-7). To it was attached a linen box, which hung from the shoulders, its suspending cords adorned with two onyx stones, on which were inscribed the names of Israel’s 12 tribes (verses 9-12).

Inside this box were the divining tokens by which God’s will was discerned in certain specific questions. For this reason the device was called “the breastplate of judgment” (hosken mishpat–verses 15,30).

The front of this box was adorned with rows of twelve precious stones, representing the tribes of Israel. This design signified that the priest, when he entered into the presence of God, carried with him in symbol the whole of God’s people. Their names are borne over his priestly heart unto their remembrance before the Lord (verse 29).

The high priest’s robe was adorned with bells, which tinkled when he walked (verse 35).

While its basic design is prescribed in verses 27-31, the priestly robe actually became more elaborate over the years and, in some respects at least, more symbolic. Eventually the robe of the high priest was adorned with stars and various pictures of objects from the whole earth, symbolizing the cosmic proportions of Israel’s intercessory mediation before God. When the high priest thus entered into the Holy of Holies, he represented all the created world.

Just as the crown was the particular sign of the king, a specially designed miter or turban was the distinguishing mark of the priest (verses 32-35). This adornment of the head is especially appropriate, because each office involves a ministry of “headship.” In the case of the priest, the miter bears a small golden plate with an inscription on that may be translated “sanctuary of the Lord” or “consecration of the Lord” (hagiasma Kyriou). In early Christian literature this word hagiasma is used to designate church buildings, altars, the relics of the saints, holy water, oil lamps, and a variety of sacred objects, including (in Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Wonderworker, and John of Damascus) the Holy Communion.

Monday, May 30

Exodus 29: This chapter covers two subjects: the priestly ordination (1-9), including the sacrifices attendant on that ordination (verses 10-37), and the daily sacrifices of evening and morning (verses 38-46).

Although in the Old Testament membership in the priesthood was determined by bloodlines, the proper exercise of the priesthood also depended on an elaborate ordination. The priest was a consecrated person, and in the Bible virtually all acts of consecration are celebrated and effected in the context of an appropriate ritual. In the case of the Old Testament priests, the consecration lasted one week—as long as God’s act of Creation (verses 35-37). A more ample account of the ordination is found in Leviticus 8:1-38.

The first sacrifice of the ordination was the immolation of a bull as a sin offering (verses 1-14; Leviticus 4:1-12). This was a substitutionary sacrifice, in which the sins of the new priests were symbolically transferred to the animal by the imposition of hands (verse 10). Most of the animal was burned outside the camp (verse 14).

As Christians believe, Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic dimension of the Old Testament sin-offering, as he is of all the Old Testament sacrifices. In this case, the burning of the sin-offering “outside the camp” was seen in the early Church as particularly symbolic, inasmuch as “the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:11-13). Historically, of course, Jesus was executed outside the city because that was the prescribed place of execution (cf. Leviticus 24:14; Numbers 15:35f; 1 Kings 21:13; Acts 7:58), but the author of Hebrews saw that—whatever His executioners intended—this circumstance of Jesus’ death was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy (cf. also Matthew 21:39; Luke 20:15; John 19:20).

The sacrifice of a ram followed suit (verses 15-18). Unlike the sacrifice of the bull, this was a holocaust, meaning that the fire of the altar consumed the entire victim. Once again, hands were first imposed on the animal as a symbol of substitution.

There followed the sacrifice of a second ram, the blood of which was used for anointing the priests and their vestments (verses 19-21). Then comes a description of those parts of the sacrifice that were normally eaten (verses 22-34). It was through that sacred meal that those consuming the sacrifice communed with the holiness of God’s altar. Those sacrifices are properly thought of as “Old Testament sacraments.”

Especially to be noted in verses 15-21 is the consecratory anointing with sacrificial blood. This ancient rite is the prophetic background for the powerful biblical image of being “bathed in the blood of the Lamb” (Hebrews 9:12-14; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 1:5; 7:14). The sacrifices of morning and evening (verses 38-46) eventually contributed to the structure of the daily life of prayer. They are the historical background of what eventually came to be called Matins (or Orthros) and Vespers (or Evensong) in the Church, the two major “canonical hours” of daily Christian worship. It is important to observe, however, that already in Judaism these two times of prayer became joined with another at noon (cf. Psalms 55[54]:17; Daniel 6:10-13; 8:26; 9:21).

Tuesday, May 31

Exodus 30: The use of incense (verses 1-10,34-38) in connection with sacrificial worship may originally have served the purpose of disguising the very unpleasant aroma of the burning flesh of the sacrificial animals. In due course, however, the heavenward rising of the smoke gave the burning of incense an independent meaning as a symbol of man’s prayer rising to God (cf. Psalms 140:2; Luke 1:8-11; Revelation 8:3-5).

Thus, even in places as remote as India and Tibet, worshippers have continued to burn incense as a common religious symbol long after animal sacrifice was discontinued. The use of incense in man’s worship is as universal as the raising of the hands in praise and supplication. Indeed, when used often in prayer, the smell of incense, as of aromatic oils, has been known to work on the deeper stores of one’s memory in order to put the worshipper into a prayerful disposition, even before the prayer begins. Not surprisingly, the ritual burning of incense in Christian worship is at least as old as the construction of church buildings.

The collection of money to support the divine worship (verses 11-16) is not something alien or extraneous to the worship. It is itself a dimension of the proper worship of God. Indeed, whether used directly for the worship, or for the general support of the ministry, or for the relief of the poor, tithes and offerings are always an important component of our worship (cf. Philippians 4:18; Hebrews 13:16). Theognostos of Alexandria speaks of the “sacrifice of almsgiving.”

The use of aromatic oils in connection with worship (verses 22-33) was already so old that its significance is presumed in the text. First, the oil was consecratory. Serving the several purposes of nourishment, healing, and light, oil provides one of the richest symbols in human experience. Kings, prophets, and priests are all anointed with it to indicate and effect their consecration to service in God’s name. (In the twelfth century, Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, preaching on the text “Thy name is as oil poured out” from the Song of Solomon, gave his monks a remarkable meditation on this threefold purpose of oil as symbolizing the invocation of the holy name of Jesus: the name of Jesus nourishes, it heals, it enlightens.)

Second, the oil smelled sweet and pungent. Like certain sights (icons, stained-glass windows, etc.), sounds (psalmody, hymnody, etc.), and tastes (the Holy Communion, the blessed bread, etc.), certain smells can be deeply associated in the human psyche with past memories of worship. Ironically, man’s sense of smell can provide one of the most stable and enduring experiences of his religious memory. The worshipper worships God with his whole being and all his senses, including his olfactory sense.

Wednesday, June 1

Exodus 31: The manifold gifts of the Holy Spirit include the special charism that enables certain chosen individuals among the saints to adorn the instruments of the divine worship. Two of these, one from Judah and the other from Dan, are remembered here.

The Holy Spirit did not stop granting that charism at the end of the Old Testament period, and even today God’s people very much depend on the enhancement of divine worship by architects, ikonographers, precious metal workers, book binders, glass blowers, wood and stone sculptors , designers of vestments, needle workers, and other artificers of God’s temple.

There seems to be no end of the number of times that God must remind the Israelites about the Sabbath (verses 12-17; see also 35:1-3 presently). Someone remarked that the people of the Bible manifested such devotion to work that they could be kept from it only by the threat of death!

While this remark may be only a witticism, it does indicate that the love of work—philergeia—and respect for honest labor that are such distinguishing features of Western Civilization (and the major explanation of its superior material prosperity) come chiefly from the Bible. It must be said that, with the exceptions of Hesiod in Greece and Virgil in Rome, love and respect for work were not features of our pagan classical heritage. In that culture physical labor was chiefly regarded as demeaning and the proper function of slaves.

The Sabbath is the sign (’oth) between God and Israel (verses 13,17). More specifically it is the sign of the “perpetual covenant” (berith ‘olam–verse 16). This descriptive vocabulary with respect to the Sabbath is similar to, even virtually identical with, that which describes the sign of the covenant between God and “all flesh” in Genesis (9:9-12,5-17). The sign, the ’oth, in that case was the rainbow (Genesis 9:12-17), which signified the “perpetual covenant” (berith ‘olam–9:16).

It is instructive to observe three points with respect to these similarities between Genesis 9 and Exodus 31:

First, they are intentional and deliberately invite a theological comparison between the two covenants as they appear in the history of salvation: the covenant with mankind at the conclusion of the Flood and the covenant with Israel at the conclusion of the exodus.

Second, both “signs” in these covenants are built on the structure of nature itself. This is true not only of the rainbow, but also of the Sabbath. It is clearly the teaching of Genesis 2:2-3 that the Sabbath pertains to the natural structure of that creature known as “time.” Thus, each of these covenants is signified (that is to say, is “marked by a sign”). These signs are components that God placed in created nature: the rainbow and the day of rest.

Third, in the case of the covenant with Noah following the Flood, God Himself preserves the sign of the covenant. He places His bow in the heavens (Genesis 9:13). According to the Mosaic covenant, in contrast, the maintenance of the covenant sign depends on Israel. It is Israel that is charged to preserve the Sabbath. Thus, the similarities between these two covenants introduce a contrast.

The two tables of the covenant (verse 18), written with the finger of God, were to be preserved in the Ark of the Covenant. In writing His law on tables of stone, God was also answering a deep need in the human spirit, because the stone inscription symbolizes the permanence of the established moral norm. There are numerous historical parallels testifying to this basic human need, such as the ethical inscriptions of Asoka in ancient India, and the precepts carved into the walls of the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

Ascension Thursday, June 2

Exodus 32: Chapters 32-34 return to the sequence left off in 24:14-18, where Moses (with two companions) had ascended to the top of Mount Sinai. It was during his time on Sinai that there occurred the incident of the golden calf, to which we come in this chapter.

Not least among the features endearing the prophet Moses to the mind of a believer is the memory of his efficacious and powerful intercession for God’s people in the hour of their apostasy. Thus, when St. Symeon the New Theologian sought to praise someone for this same quality, he could do no better than to compare him to Moses. “I know a man,” he wrote, “who desired the salvation of his brethren so fervently that he often sought God with burning tears and with his whole heart, in an excess of zeal worthy of Moses, that either his brethren might be saved with him, or that he might be condemned with them. For he was bound to them in the Holy Spirit by such a bond of love that he did not even wish to enter the kingdom of heaven if to do so meant being separated from them” (Book of Divine Love, Homily 54.1).

The biblical text St. Symeon has in mind here is verse 32 of the present chapter, where Moses prayed for sinful Israel in these words: “Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written!” That fervent prayer was more than a bare intercession; it was Moses’ generous self-offering by an association himself with the people’s guilt. It was Moses’ prayer that made the “atonement” (verse 30).

The context of that prayer is worth a detailed examination. There is, to begin with, a two-leveled scene: Moses is on top of Mount Sinai with God, while Aaron is down in the valley with the Israelites. Just prior to the prayer, two things have been transpiring simultaneously, both of them having to do with Aaron. On the mountain Moses has been receiving from the Lord a series of ordinances and statutes governing the consecration, vestments, liturgical instruments, and other matters concerning the Aaronic priesthood (Exodus 25-31).

Meanwhile, however, Aaron was down in the valley proving himself unworthy of that priesthood, for the Bible describes his complicity in the construction and cult of the golden calf. At the people’s first idolatrous impulse, Aaron acceded to their wishes. “Break off the golden earrings,” he instructed them, “which are in the ears of your wives, you sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” And when they did so, “he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.” (verses 2-4).

In this whole episode Aaron is portrayed as craven and double-minded, a hireling and no shepherd. Though very much involved in the people’s sin, he would never admit this association in their guilt. He becomes, rather, a classical example of rationalizing an infidelity, not regarding his action as the apostasy it was, but rather (as the saying goes) as “accepting people where they are.” “You know this people,” he would tell Moses, “they are set on evil” (verse 22). Refusing thus to assume responsibility, Aaron attempts to disentangle himself from the people’s sin. In a line that the biblical author must have regarded as a kind of mockery, the irresponsible and cowardly Aaron endeavors, moreover, to minimize his own considerable role in the matter, claiming that when the Israelites gave him the gold, “I cast it into the fire and this calf came out!” (verse 24)

Actively taking part in their apostasy, Aaron did not love the people enough to resist them. His attitude is described as the very opposite of that of Moses, whose prayer united him to the guilt of the people, even though he himself had not shared in their sin.

The self-sacrificing prayer of Moses, in which he deliberately associates himself with the guilt of the people, demonstrates an important quality of intercessory prayer in Holy Scripture. The biblical intercessor never stands apart from the state of those for whom he prays. Moses’ wish to be blotted from God’s book rather than see the Israelites perish is clearly repeated in the soul of St. Paul who wrote of those same Israelites: “I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3).

The Bible’s supreme and defining example of this sacrificial intercession is that of the Suffering Servant who “was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), and “was numbered with the transgressors” (53:12), and who, though He knew not sin, became sin for us, “that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Those guilty of the sin of apostasy will perish in a plague (verses 34-35). It was in reference to this plague that the Apostle Paul speaks of 23,000 casualties (1 Corinthians 10:7).

Friday, June 3

Exodus 33: Now comes the order to depart from Sinai (verse 1). It is the second month of the second year of Israel’s journey (Numbers 10:11-12). The Israelites had arrived at the mountain during the third month after their crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 19:1), so they have been in this site for almost a year.

The Lord’s angel will continue to lead them to the Promised Land (verse 2; cf. 23:20). The reason given for this “mediation,” however, is the Lord’s displeasure with the Israelites; He wants to keep some distance from them, as though He could not trust Himself not to destroy them! (verse 3) Learning this, the people put away their jewelry, lest the sight of it remind Lord of the incident with the golden calf (verse 4). One may also note that, by not wearing it, the Israelites will more readily part with it when the time comes for this jewelry to be employed in the adornment of the tabernacle.

There follows a story of Moses’ regular visits to speak with the Lord of a new tabernacle (verses 7-11), which is not so much a liturgical shrine as a sort of oracular place. In short, it is a place where Moses can confer with God.

Unlike the earlier tabernacle, which was placed at the center of the camp (25:8), this one is set up outside the camp. Moses goes there from time to time, to speak with the Lord in great intimacy (Numbers 10:4-8; 17:7-9). When he arrives, he awaits the coming of the Lord in the cloudy pillar which first appeared at the time of the exodus. The other Israelites observe these encounters of the Lord and Moses from the entrances of their own tents.

This new tabernacle becomes the permanent dwelling of Joshua the Ephraemite who in due course succeeds Moses in the leadership of Israel.

Speaking to the Lord in this new tabernacle, Moses now asks something for himself (verses 12-22), confessing that the coming journey may be simply too much for him to endure unless the Lord gives him sufficient light to make coherent sense of it.

God answers this prayer by granting him a special experience of the divine presence—described as a sort of oblique glance at God, catching sight of the Lord’s glory as it passes by. This description is as close as Moses can come to telling of this fleeting and indirect experience of God’s presence, which has been granted to many of the saints in all ages.

St. Augustine (Questions on the Heptateuch 2.154) interprets “I will pass before you” as a reference to the Resurrection of the Lord. No man has ever seen God, except the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. To the rest of us is given to perceive the glory of God shining on the face of Christ (cf. John 1:14-18; 2 Corinthians 3:7—4:6; 2 Peter 1:16-19).

Friday, May 20

Exodus 19: The Book of Exodus, having treated of Israel’s deliverance, now speaks of Israel’s election and the Covenant. Over the next six chapters two sections will emerge as especially prominent—the Decalogue (20:1-17) and the Book of the Covenant (20:22—23:19), the latter containing a detailed, practical application of the rules of the Covenant.

The things narrated in these chapters are not naked events, but events that received theological and liturgical elaboration reflected in the narrative. It is arguable that Israel devoted more attention to these events than to any other in its history.

The people have now arrived at Mount Sinai, where the rest of the Book of Exodus, and all of the Book of Leviticus, will take place. Indeed, the Israelites will not move from Sinai until Numbers 10:33.

The stories begin with Moses’ scaling of Mount Sinai (verse 3), still known among the local Arabs as Jebel Musa. This peak, 7467 feet high, can be climbed in under two hours. When Moses ascends to speak with God, the people wait below at the base of the mountain, the plain of er-Raha (verses 2,17).

God’s election of Israel (verses 5-6) is an invitation to become His chosen people, an invitation that marks Israel’s history until the end of the world, because God will never reject the descendents of those with whom He made Covenant at Mount Sinai (cf. Romans 11:1). What God proposes, however, is only an invitation, requiring Israel’s ratification of His choice and the resolve to abide by its conditions and strictures (verses 7-8). Moses mediates this Covenant (verses 9,25).

The people of God are to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (verse 6). Both the kingship and the priesthood of the Old Testament are prophetic preparations fulfilled in Jesus. Like Melchizedek of old, Jesus Christ is both king and priest (cf. Hebrews 7:1-3). Moreover, because of their awareness of sharing in the royal and priestly dignity and ministries of the risen Jesus, the early Christians were prompt to see this Exodus promise as fulfilled in the Church (cf. 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6).

The subsequent terrifying scene on Mount Sinai (verses 9-25 and 20:18-20) is contrasted with the invitation to Christians to “draw near” to God (Hebrews 12:18-24). The theme of a bold “drawing near to” or “approaching” the divine presence is an important one in the Epistle to the Hebrews, serving as part of its sustained contrast of Christ with Moses (cf. Hebrews 4:16; 7:19; 10:1,22).

Saturday, May 21

Exodus 20: We come now to the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, a code the Bible contains in two forms: the one here and the other in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Unlike the earlier legal codes of ancient civilizations, the Decalogue uses the apodictic form, simply stating the laws, not explaining them. Thus, each component is treated as an absolute principle.

Inasmuch as the latter part of the Decalogue contains elements from Natural Law (the right to life, the right to property, etc.), it is not surprising that these have their parallels in other ancient legal codes.

More to the point, however, is the entirely new theological foundation, on which all the elements of the Decalogue are based—namely, God’s self-revelation in the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods in My stead” (verse 3). This commandment is not the “first” simply in the sense of being the earliest in the sequence. It is not as though the order within the Decalogue could be switched around, so that it might begin with the prohibition of murder, say, or the injunction of the Sabbath. This lex prima is not prima inter pares.

The first of the Ten Commandments is the first, rather, in the sense that it is the source and fountainhead of the other nine. The commandments are not equal, and the first is formally different from the others. Its priority, that is to say, is not just material but qualitative. Its “firstness” pertains to its essence, not merely to its assigned place in the Decalogue’s sequential disposition. It is not only first, but the first.

The first commandment of God’s Law is analogous to the way that the number “one” is the first of the numbers. “One” is not simply the numeral that precedes “two”; “one” is, rather, the number out of which, and by reason of which, that second number comes. “One” is the cause and necessary condition of “two” and all the subsequent numbers. “One” is logically one, then, before it is first. “One” becomes “first” only by the emergence of a second.

One (to hen) is the root and font determining the identity of two and the subsequent numbers. “One” is what we call a principle, an arche. The principle of something is that which confers its qualitative and identifying form. In this sense, there is a formal, and not merely material, disparity between the “one” and all other numbers.

Analogously, the first commandment of the Decalogue is the arche, the principle of the other commandments. Perhaps this truth will be clearer if we examine that commandment in its entirety: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods in My stead.”

Unlike the other commandments, this first commandment commences with God’s self-identification; only then does there follow the immediate prohibition against idolatry. Three things must be said about the auto-identification of God in this commandment:

First, it places the Ten Commandments firmly in the context of God’s revelation. This fact needs to be asserted explicitly, because of a widespread idea that the Decalogue is simply an expression of Natural Law. It isn’t. While it is true that there are a number of material equivalents between certain components of the Decalogue and certain dictates of Natural Law (those governing murder and theft, for instance), there is a formal difference between them. In the case of the Decalogue, each of the commandments is rooted in God’s self-revelation within specific biblical history—Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments are essentially revelatory. They are all extensions of “I am the Lord your God.” This is why we call them the “Decalogue,” or “ten words” (deka logoi). This Septuagint usage corresponds exactly to the Hebrew expression ‘aseret haddevarim, which is common in the Old Testament (e.g., Deuteronomy 10:4).

Second, God’s self-identification places the Decalogue entirely in the context of unmerited grace. He is not simply “the Lord your God,” but the One who “brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The observance of the commandments is man’s grateful response to the God who “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The Ten Commandments, almost any time the Bible speaks of them, were “given” to Moses on Mount Sinai. Holy Scripture regards them entirely as gifts, component dimensions of God’s redemptive grace and covenant.

Third, God’s self-identification makes idolatry necessarily the first sin: “You shall have no other gods in My stead.” All other sins are material extensions of idolatry. When men exchange “the truth of God for a lie,” all other sins follow, because idolatry is the root cause of “all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,” and so on (Romans 1:18-32). It is always the case that those who worship demons do “not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Revelation 9:20-21).

To ensure that false gods are not worshipped, a second commandment prohibits the making of images, especially images intended to represent the true God (verses 4-6). This prohibition played an important role in the history of salvation, because it prepared for the coming of the true Image of God, who is Christ our Lord (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15). The goal and purpose of this prohibition was fulfilled in the mystery of the Incarnation, in which its prophetic value was brought to completion.

In this respect the prohibition of images was similar to the prescription of the Sabbath rest (verses 8-11). That is to say, both commandments were preparatory to the coming of the Messiah, in whose appearance both were fulfilled. For this reason, it would be a theological distortion to appeal to this Old Testament prohibition in order to forbid artistic representations of Christ Himself, just as it is theologically improper to say that Christians must still observe the law of the Sabbath.

Then there follows a prohibition against invoking the name of God irreverently or with evil purpose, such as magic or cursing (verse 7). This commandment did not preclude legal oaths (since perjury is forbidden in verse 16), but it did inspire a godly impulse to avoid oaths in normal conversation (James 5:12).

Then comes the precept of the Sabbath (verses 8-11), which had already been in effect (16:23). Here in Exodus the motive for the Sabbath is entirely theological; it is an imitation of God’s own Sabbath rest (Genesis 2:2-3). In the parallel text in Deuteronomy (5:12-15), however, there is included a certain humanitarian interest—man needs the rest.

The remaining commandments of the Decalogue are concerned with the relations among human beings (verses 12-17), and their inclusion indicates the social nature of man’s relationship to God. These commandments too are fulfilled in the morality of the Gospel (Romans 13:8-10).

The first of these latter commandments points to the importance of tradition, prescribing the honor due to parents. This is “the first commandment with a promise” (Ephesians 6:2).

The prohibition against murder (verse 13) is exactly that. It has nothing to do with the legitimate taking of life by capital punishment or in warfare (cf. 21:12-17; Deuteronomy 20:1-14).

Then, lest the Decalogue become detached from its context in history, it is followed immediately by a return to the description of its original setting (verses 18-21).

The chapter closes with the beginning of what modern historians call the Book of the Covenant (20:22—23:19). The latter commences with rules concerning worship (verses 22-26).

Sunday, May 22

Exodus 21: The material in these next three chapters is often called “the book of the covenant,” a term suggested by Exodus 24:7. In substance this code is largely identical with the core section of the Book of Deuteronomy (and hence the name of the latter, which means “second law”).

Whereas Chapter 20 enunciated universal legal principles, Chapter 21 commences a series of specific “judgments” (mishpotim — verse 1), or “case laws.” The latter are particular applications of the earlier legal principles. Thus, the judgments in the present chapter are concrete applications of the established principle,“You shall not steal” (20:15).

The prescriptions in these chapters come under the heading of “case laws” or casuistry, because they deal with the practical applications of laws to certain hypothetical cases. This is the legal style we find in our most ancient legal codes, such as the formulations of Ur-Nammu, composed in Sumerian about 2050 B.C. and named for the ruler of Ur in southern Mesopotamia (cf. Genesis 11:31).

The accumulation of such case laws serves to indicate certain directions in which future ethical cases—not specifically covered by these laws—might be appropriately judged, by rational recourse to comparison and analogy. The study of such case laws is also intended to give a proper contour to our moral sentiment, a certain “feeling” about moral situations that may arise. By the sustained examination of God’s judgments (mishpotim) in the various hypothetical situations described in these passages, the moral imagination is given a godly shape in order to make proper moral decisions in the future.

The laws in these next few chapters are civil (21:1—22:14), liturgical (20:22-26; 22:28-30; 23:10-19), and moral (22:16-27; 23:1-9).

The present chapter begins with slavery (verses 1-11), the state from which the Israelites have just been delivered. The functioning principle here, through all the hypothetical cases reviewed, is that no man may be enslaved against his own will beyond six years.

In verses 22-36 we have what is the Bible’s first and perhaps clearest enunciation of the legal principle of equity, quid pro quo. Thus, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” and so on (cf. Leviticus 24:17-20; Deuteronomy 19:21). All such laws are founded on the perception of proportions. Justice, that is to say, has something to do with the principles of mathematics (symbolized in the scales that often appear in artistic representations of Justice), a proper conformity to correct measure. Moral truth is perceived like mathematics or any other truth, by the correct application of the properly reasoning mind.

Monday, May 23

Exodus 22: This chapter begins with some more applications of the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” Whereas Chapter 21 presumed situations in which the harm inflicted was unintentional, and thus involved only commensurate restitution, the present chapter looks more closely at situations in which the harm inflicted is deliberate and intentional. In this chapter, then, we are dealing, not only with laws of compensation but also with punitive laws. The penalties in these latter, one will notice, are quite a bit harsher. They are obviously designed to discourage certain sorts of behavior!

The Bible takes very seriously the concept of ownership, a fact that explains the serious penalties imposed for theft. These include a manifold restitution for stolen or damaged property, and the lack of a guaranteed protection for a thief taken in the act (verses 1-4).

Whereas modern philosophy tends to distinguish public from private property, the Bible is more interested in what we may call family property—property as a family’s substance of labor and inheritance. That is to say, in the Bible property is more closely associated with the experience of tradition, including respect for the labor of one’s ancestors. Property is regarded as an extension of family; it is that component that binds the generations of a family together.

For this reason there is a close alliance between “Honor thy father and thy mother” and “Thou shalt not steal.” It is hardly surprising, then, that those who disregard the claims of tradition are more likely to be thieves. Of this latter phenomenon we have a good illustration in the case of Ahab and Jezebel in the instance of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21).

Family property, moreover, is a community concern, over which the newly appointed judges (18:13-26) have jurisdiction and the right of determination (verse 9).

Community concern is also directed to another important dimension of social life: sexuality. In the present context, however, this concern pertains to the (consensual) defilement of a virgin (verses 16-17), a situation in which the offense directly affects the financial worth of the father of the girl. This is the reason for its inclusion in the present section of Exodus.

This brief consideration of a sexual matter, however, prompts the inclusion of another sexual offense, bestiality (verse 19). Perhaps even this inclusion is prompted by the consideration of property, inasmuch as the animal must be slain.

By an association difficult to follow, the subject of bestiality leads in turn to rules about sorcery and idolatry (verses 18,20). Perhaps the common element in all these rules is the prescription of the death penalty.

There next follows a concern for sojourners and others deprived of a normal domestic life (verses 21-24)—those with whom the Israelites, remembering their own sojourn, are to commiserate (cf 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34; Deuteronomy 1:16; 10:17-19; 14:28-29; 16:11-14; Jeremiah 7:6). Sins in violation of this concern are included in this section because of their social nature.

Laws concerning pledges and usufruct are characterized by a concern for the disadvantaged party (verses 25-27).

Tuesday, May 24

Exodus 23: Pursuant to the Decalogue’s prohibition against false witness (20:16), the present chapter opens with directions about judicial proceedings (1-3,7-8).

Because it appeared unlikely that a poor man (dal), in ancient times, would be favored in court, some textual historians suspect that verse 3 has been corrupted in the transmission. They suggest a slight emendation (the supply of one letter in Hebrew), causing this verse to read, “Thou shalt not favor a great man (gadol) in his cause.” This appears to be a responsible emendation that renders the text more understandable in the historical context.

Nonetheless, in more recent times we have seen the rise of political ideologies that have tended in exactly the opposite direction, favoring the poorer, disadvantaged classes as a matter of principle, sometimes at the expense of specific determinations of justice. It is not unknown, in modern times, for the courts to be used in an activist way, to rectify general social inequities, instead of simply adjudicating individual cases on their just merits. It is not the business of the courts to rectify social ills, but to punish evildoers. This is the reason that Justice is portrayed as blindfolded.

The Sacred Text moves on to treat of the effective charity that a believer owes even to his enemies, out of an elementary sense of humane compassion (verses 4-5; Leviticus 19:17-19). This motive also prompts concern for the stranger and sojourner (verse 9), the same motive given earlier (22:21-24).

Following the stated solicitude for the poor and disadvantaged, attention is given to the “Sabbath rest” of the cultivated fields, because this practice, too, serves a kind and humane purpose (verses 10-11, Leviticus 25:2-5; Deuteronomy 15:1-3; Nehemiah 10:31; 1 Maccabees 6:49,53).

From this metaphorical application of the Sabbath rest, the text takes up the literal Sabbath rest, enunciated in the Decalogue (20:8-11). Once again the motive given here is more humane than theological (verse 12).

Continuing the theme of consecrated time, Exodus goes on to treat the three annual feasts (verses 14-17), Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Each of these is here briefly explained, not in relation to its specific meaning in salvation history (deliverance, covenant, and desert journey), but with respect to its place in the annual agrarian cycle. Both aspects of these feast days remain in something of a tension throughout the Old Testament.

Transferred to the Christian Church these three feasts became Easter, Pentecost, and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross; but one notices that Christians too are reluctant to separate these feast days from an agrarian setting in the calendar. They became the occasion for the Ember Days, at which it was customary to bless the fields and harvests.

The recent mention of unleavened bread (verse 15), leads to more reflection on the same subject (verses 18-19). This prohibition of leaven in the sacrificial rites is analogous to the exclusion of polished stones in the construction of the altar (20:25). That is to say, in both cases there is a concern to preserve the elements of the worship in their more primitive and undeveloped state, in keeping with the sparse conditions of the exodus itself. It seems likely that this liturgical concern (for simplicity) was inspired by a reaction against certain features of Canaanite religion.

Thus ends “the book of the covenant,” which is now followed by a general exhortation that fills the rest of the chapter.

Verse 20 is one of our earliest texts to introduce that spiritual presence that an ancient Christian litany calls “an angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies.” Indeed, among the many blessings given to men by God to guide their sojourn in the world, the Liturgy of St. Basil lists the ministry of the guardian angels, a traditional doctrine supported by such texts as Matthew 18:10, Acts 12:15, several passages in Daniel, and the entire Book of Tobit.

Early Christian liturgical texts identify Israel’s guardian angel during the Exodus as St. Michael. In the context of the exodus and wandering, this guardian angel is portrayed as the specific enemy of idolatry (verses 23-24), and surely this danger of the idols (1 John 5:21) remains the reason why God links a guardian angel to the lives of those who, at the exodus of their own baptism, have renounced the false gods. These enemies of the true God are served by the nations that are to be driven out of the Promised Land itself.

With respect to the dimensions of the original Promised Land, it is worth noting that not until the tenth century (1 Kings 4:24), and never afterwards, did it assume the vast dimensions indicated in verse 31.

Wednesday, May 25

Exodus 24: As we have considered in our comments on Exodus 19, God does not impose the Sinai covenant on Israel. He does not force them to become His elect people; rather, He invites them. The covenant is to be ratified by Israel, and in the present chapter, which follows the Decalogue and the Book of the Covenant, we come to Israel’s ratification (verse 7).

This narrative seems to be derived from two accounts of the event, joined, but not entirely reconciled, with respect to some details. For instance, it is not entirely clear which actions take place on the mountain and which on the plain. The ratification itself is marked by both a sacrificial meal and by the sprinkling of sacrificial blood (verses 8,11). We find references to this ratification in Zechariah 9:11 and Hebrews 9:18-20.

Indeed, our earliest Christian reflection on verses 3-8 is found in the Epistle to the Hebrews 9:16-23, in a context emphasizing that the deep significance of the sacrificial blood in the Old Testament is its prophetic reference to the redeeming blood of Jesus, shed on the cross for the salvation of mankind. The blood of Jesus is called the “blood of the covenant” also in Hebrews 10:29 and Mark 14:24.

Moreover, in quoting Exodus 24:8, the Epistle to the Hebrews (9:20) slightly, but very significantly, alters the wording of it. Whereas Exodus reads “Behold (idou) the blood of the covenant,” the author of Hebrews wrote: “This (touto) is the blood of the covenant.” There is no doubt that his wording reflects the traditional words of Jesus with respect to the cup of His blood at the Last Supper (cf. Matthew 26:28).

Moses ascended the mountain with three men (verses 9-18), two of whom were brothers, and there was a six-day delay. Compare the remarkable parallel to both points in Mark 9:2. In the scene of the Lord’s Transfiguration, He is joined by the two figures most clearly associated with revelations given on Mount Sinai/Horeb: Moses and Elijah (cf. 1 Kings 19:8-18).

Moses is again summoned to ascend the mountain in order to receive the stone tablets and certain liturgical regulations (verse 12). The engraving of laws on stone was characteristic of many ancient legal codes, all the way from the Decree of Hammurabi to the inscriptions on the walls of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Law, that is to say, represents inheritance, binding one generation to the next. Hence, it is appropriate to write laws on stone, a substance that does not quickly pass away.

The chapter ends with Moses on the mountain for forty days and nights.

Thursday, May 26

Exodus 25: Here begins a lengthy and detailed orders about the construction of the tabernacle, the instruments of worship, the ordination and vestments of the priests, and so forth (chapters 25-31). Meanwhile, as all of this important instruction is taking place, Aaron and the Israelites will do a bit of liturgical experimentation on their own (chapters 32-34)! The juxtaposition of these two scenes will constitute one of the great examples of narrative irony in the Bible. After the story of the golden calf, the narrative of Exodus will continue in chapters 35-40 with the enactment of the earlier prescriptions.

Chapters 21—31 are composed of seven prescriptive oracles (“the Lord spoke unto Moses, say . . .”), each with its own introduction (25:1; 30:11,17,22,34; 31:1,12). In some of these oracles we recognize points of correspondence with the different days of creation. Thus, the first oracle, which speaks of the candelabrum and of Aaron’s custody of the sacred fire, corresponds to the creation of light on the first day. The third oracle (30:17-21), which describes the brazen sea in the tabernacle, corresponds to the third day’s creation of the seas. The fourth, which prescribes the oil for the lamps (30:22-33), is parallel to the fourth day of creation, when the various lights were placed in the heavens. Thus, finally, this “sabbath” of oracles ends with the Sabbath itself and appeals to God’s own rest after the works of creation (31:12-17; cf. Psalms 89 [88]:21).

Prior to describing all of these matters in detail, the author outlines the subjects that will be treated in the ensuing chapters (verses 3-8). Then Moses is given a vision of the archetypal tabernacle (verse 9,40)—that tabernacle not made with hands—the everlasting holy place into which, in due course, the eternal high priest and one mediator between God and men will enter, having obtained eternal redemption for us (cf. Hebrews 8:1-5).

The ark’s dimensions (verses 10-15) are about 45 inches long, and 27 inches in height and depth. The permanent poles indicate that it must always be ready to travel, and it did move around quite a bit even after the Israelites settled in the Promised Land. Eventually it came to rest in Jerusalem, where Solomon pretty much built his temple around it. The ark was lost when the temple was destroyed. Originally it contained the tables of the Decalogue, bit it seems to have been the receptacle of other sacred objects at certain periods (cf. Hebrews 9:2-4).

The hylasterion (translated variously as “propitiatory” or “mercy seat”) in verses 16-17 will be the place where the high priest sprinkles the expiatory blood on Yom Kippur, thus symbolizing the reconciliation between God and man. As the meeting place of God and humanity, it is a symbol of the Incarnation, where God and humanity are bound together forever. Jesus Himself is called the hylasterion (cf. Romans 3:25). Israel came to think of this hylasterion, overshadowed by the cherubic wings (verses 18-20), as God’s throne in this world (cf. Psalm 79.1; Hebrews 9:5). One is reminded also of the two angelic figures on the empty tomb of the risen Lord, suggesting that the empty tomb is the great symbol of the reconciliation of God and man (cf. John 20:12).

Twelve loaves of fresh bread, representing the full assembly of Israel, are to be kept on the table in God’s presence in the tabernacle (verses 23-30). This “holy bread” (1 Samuel 21:4)—“bread of the presence” (21:6)—and “continual bread” (Numbers 4:7) was a type of the Holy Eucharist, the mystical bread of God’s presence, contained in all the tabernacles of the Church throughout the world, until the end of time.

Friday, May 27

Exodus 26: The construction of the Tabernacle is described in the first part (verses 1-14) of this chapter. It had four coverings, divided into workable sections. The first covering was made of linen, over which were coverings of goats’ hair, rams’ skins dyed red, and dugongs’ skins. Two things are noteworthy about this last: First, the dugong, or sea cow, is a native of the Indian Ocean. The availability of this product indicates the extensive trade carried on through the Red Sea. One speculates that the sea-going power of Sheba was the medium by which this product reached Egypt. Second, the skin of the dugong, which sat uppermost over the Tabernacle, rendered it rainproof.

Next are described the wooden side-frames of the Tabernacle (verses 15-30), indicating that this shrine stood about 14 feet high, was 62 feet long, and measured over 42 feet wide.

Finally comes the internal division of the Tabernacle between the holy place and the Holy of Holies (31-37), the latter measuring about 14 feet square. It contained the Ark of the Covenant and the tablets of the Decalogue (cf. Hebrews 9:3-4).

The division within the tabernacle was later duplicated and further developed within the Jerusalem temple. Indeed, the sense of separated space is intrinsic to the very notion of a “temple,” a word derived from the Greek temno, meaning “to divide.” A shrine of any kind is already a section of space devoted to the things of God, and divisions within a shrine are related to the ordered structure of the community that worships there. The building reflects the congregation’s conception of itself. In the case of Israel and the Christian Church, the ordered structure of the worshipping community is “hierarchical,” meaning that its organizational structure is holy and reflects a divinely appointed order.

This hierarchical aspect of biblical worship, that is to say, is enacted even in architecture. (Indeed, if one looks closely, both “hierarchy” and “architecture” are formed of a common root, a Greek word meaning, roughly, “a principle that gives structure and explanation to reality.”)

Psalm 106 (Greek and Latin 105): This poetic narrative, which summarizes much of the Books of Exodus and Numbers, deals with the period of the Desert Wandering as a source of negative moral example: “Don’t let this happen to you.” Such is the approach to that period through much of biblical literature, from Deuteronomy 33 to 1 Corinthians 10.

The value of this perspective is that it tends to discourage a false confidence that may otherwise deceive the believer. Never has there been missing from the experience of faith the sort of temptation that says: “Relax! God has saved you. You are home free. Once saved, always saved. Don’t worry about a thing. Above all, no effort.”

This temptation was recognized by certain discerning men in the Bible itself. Thus, the Prophet Jeremiah saw it working insidiously in the hearts and minds of his contemporaries near the end of the seventh century B.C. They reasoned among themselves that God, because of His undying promise to David, would never permit the city of Jerusalem, to say nothing of His temple, to fall to their enemies. After all, had not the Lord, speaking through Isaiah a century earlier, promised King Hezekiah that such a thing was unthinkable? And had not the Lord, at that time, destroyed the Assyrian army as it besieged the Holy City? Even so, reasoned Jeremiah’s fellow citizens, there was no call now to fear the armies of Babylon. Thus, fully confident of divine deliverance, they permitted themselves every manner of vice and moral failing. After all, once saved, always saved. Much of the message of Jeremiah was devoted to demolishing that line of thought.

The identical sort of temptation seems likewise to have afflicted the first readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose author also took the period of the Desert Wandering as exemplifying their moral dilemma. Repeatedly, then, he cautioned those early Christians of the genuine danger of stark apostasy facing those who placed an unwarranted, quasi-magical confidence in their inevitable security. This entire book is devoted to warning believers that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31).

The gravity of this temptation, of course, arises from its resting on a solid truth. God is faithful to His promises; He will never abandon those who place their confidence in Him. The danger here is not that of excessive trust in God’s fidelity, but of insufficient vigilance against man’s infidelity. Just as the Galatians were warned against forsaking the Gospel of pure grace, they were also instructed that “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

Friday, May 13

Exodus 12: There are four features especially to be noted about this important text, which interrupts the narrative sequence in order to place the whole into a more theological and liturgical context:

First, the paschal lamb is an example of “substitutionary” sacrifice; like the ram that had replaced Isaac on Mount Moriah in Genesis 22:13, the paschal lamb’s life is given in place of the lives of Israel’s first born sons.

Second, there is nothing in the text to suggest that this sacrifice is “expiatory.” That is, unlike certain other biblical sacrifices, such as those associated with Yom Kippur, the sacrifice of the paschal lamb is not made in reparation for sins. Moreover, the Old Testament provides not a single example of an animal being sacrificed in place of a human being whose sin was serious enough to merit death.

Third, the blood of this paschal lamb is sprinkled at certain points of the houses of those who are “redeemed.” This sprinkling is explicitly said to be a “sign” of covenant protection, parallel to the rainbow in the covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:12-17 and circumcision in the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17:19-27.

Fourth, because this paschal lamb was a type or symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7), it was fitting that the meal celebrating the new covenant in His blood should be inaugurated in the setting of the paschal seder (cf. Luke 22:15-20).

The “this day” of verse 14 is the fifteenth day of the month Nisan, but it includes the night of Pascha. Pascha itself was to be the first liturgical day of an entire “week of sabbaths,” that is, seven days of rest and festival continuing the celebration, during which Israel could eat unleavened bread as on Pascha itself. More regulations relative to this weeklong feast are to be found in 13:3-10. In the New Testament the two terms, Pascha and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, are used almost interchangeably.

After the lengthy and detailed instructions that prepare for it, the tenth plague is narrated very succinctly, to great dramatic effect. The Exodus itself follows at once. In the writings of the New Testament, the event especially served as a prefiguration and type of redemption, including all of the events narrated of that great week, both His death for our sins and His rising again for our justification.

So important was the liturgical observance of Pascha to the life of the early Christians that one of the major and most heated controversies of the second century Church concerned the proper dating of the feast. In spite of a venerable tradition held in Ephesus and the other churches of Asia Minor, it was finally determined that Pascha would always be celebrated on a Sunday, a rule that has been maintained by all Christians since the fourth century.

In verses 43-50 we find more regulations relative to the preparation of the Seder of Pascha. As was noted above, there was no disagreement among the early Christians with respect to the deeper meaning of the paschal lamb. Indeed, verse 46 here, about not breaking the bones of the paschal lamb while preparing it, was seen by St. John as a prophecy of the body of Jesus on the cross, in that the soldiers did not break His legs (cf. John 19:36).

Saturday, May 14

Exodus 13: By the regulations contained in these sections, Israel would be reminded of the Exodus every time a first-born son came into the world. Each such son would have to be “redeemed” by the sacrifice of a lamb. Elsewhere we learn that, for poorer families that could not afford the price of a lamb, the redemption could be made by sacrificing two pigeons or turtledoves (cf. Leviticus 12:8). We are familiar with one very notable family that took advantage of that humane and gentle provision (cf. Luke 2:22-24). This particular “Firstborn” would, by His sacrificial death, be the redemption of all humanity.

In verse 17 the inspired author gives us a picture of what line of reasoning is taking place in the mind of God. It is intimated here that God has a plan yet to unfold. This marvelous detail in verse 19 ties our story backwards to Genesis 50 and forward to Joshua 24 (cf. the comment in Hebrews 11:22).

John 6:1-14: The multiplication of the loaves lived vividly in the memory of the early Christians; there are six accounts of it in the four gospels. The celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the central and defining event in the Christian week, surely accounts for this phenomenon; the event in the desert was regarded as a kind of foreshadowing of what took place in the upper room on the night Jesus was betrayed.

Indeed, the same set of verbs was used to describe both events: Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to the disciples.

The implied Eucharistic allusion in John’s account of the multiplication of the loaves is the only possible explanation for the (otherwise unexpected) reference to Jesus’ blood later on in this chapter. John 6 and the Last Supper accounts are the only places in the New Testament where Christians are commanded to drink Jesus’ blood.

Today we also begin to read Paul’s treatment of the Lord’s Supper in First Corinthians 10—11. Over the next several days, our readings will concentrate on this sacred mystery, in which believers are united to the Savior: by consuming his body and blood.

Sunday, May 15

Exodus 14: In the previous chapter (13:17) we already learned that God had a plan. Now it will be enacted. Pharaoh is being “set up.” As if the destruction of the firstborn sons had not been enough, Pharaoh is coming back for more punishment. On the other hand, God intends this encounter, as He knows what Pharaoh is thinking. If Pharaoh is rash enough to do battle with the Lord, he will simply have to take his chances. Meanwhile, God’s plan remains a secret, even to Moses.

Pharaoh does not know that his own plan has already been subsumed into God’s larger plan (verses 5-9). Thus his very strategy against Israel becomes a component of his own destruction. Compare this with the way the New Testament pictures the plan of Satan being subsumed into Christian redemption (cf. John 13:2; 1 Corinthians 2:8).

The command to “stand” (verse 13) is more than a matter of posture. It is a summons to steadfast faith; cf. Psalm 5:3 — “In the morning I will stand before You, and I will see.” The Lord portrays Himself as a warrior for Israel (verse 14), something to which the Egyptians themselves will testify in 14:25. The image of God as a “fighter” for Israel will appear again in Deuteronomy 1:30; 3:22; 20:4, and it will be taken up again in the narratives of the conquest; cf. Joshua 10:14,22; 23:3. The people must, therefore, “be silent.” When God is in the act of saving, it is best that man refrain from making comments about it, which will inevitably be distracting or even worse.

Although by now Moses is aware that God has a plan, he does not yet know what that plan is. God does not explain Himself; He simply gives an order that must be obeyed in faith (verses 15-18). Indeed, God rather often does this (cf. John 2:8; 6:10; 9:7; 11:39). Few things are more arrogant in a religious person than the refusal to obey orders that one does not understand; we are dealing with God, after all, whom we shall never “understand.”

God has told Moses what to do; now God provides His own part in the plan. The text is clear that the mysterious quality of the cloud comes from an angelic presence (cf. Exodus 23:20; 32:34; Numbers 20:16). The traditional liturgical texts of the Church identify the angel here as Michael, who battles for God’s people; cf. Daniel 10:13,21; 12:1; Revelation 12:7. The cloud follows the people right into the sea, shrouding them in darkness; cf. Joshua 24:6f. St. Paul explains for Christians the meaning of this double experience of the cloud and the sea; cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1f.

As in creation God had separated water from water (Genesis 1:6), He does so here (verses 21-22) in a symbol of the new creation. The imagery of the opening verses of Genesis all return now: light/darkness, water/dry land, and, especially, Spirit/wind. On the relationship of creation to the Exodus, cf. Wisdom 19:4-8. The two texts from Genesis and Exodus are read together in the Church’s Vigil of Pascha, which was traditionally the preferred time of baptism. The images of Spirit, light, and water were part of the Church’s baptismal catechesis from the very beginning (cf. Hebrews 6:4-6).

Since the destruction of the Egyptian forces is the major type of the destruction of demonic powers in the waters of baptism, it is not surprising that the biblical poets loved to rhapsodize over the scene of the Egyptian forces lying dead on the shore (cf., for example, Habakkuk 3:8-15; Wisdom 10:18-20, and many places in the Book of Psalms). This was a sight that Israel was commanded never to forget (cf. Deuteronomy 11:1-4). This scene by the seaside, combined with Exodus 15, will return in the vision of St. John; cf. Revelation 15:1-3.

The Greek word used to describe Moses as a “servant” in verse 31, in the Septuagint text, is therapon, which also refers to Moses elsewhere in the Greek Old Testament: Numbers 12:7f; Wisdom 10:16; 18:21. This noun, therapon, was used in classical Greek literature to designate a ministerial servant in a temple, such as the temples of Dionysus or Asceplius (hence the English “therapeutic,” because these temples were places of healing). It is related to the verb therapevo, which often means “to serve” in a religious sense; cf. Acts 17:25, for instance.

Moses is a servant, therefore, in a kind of liturgical sense, as a minister of worship among God’s people. Among early Christians therapon became nearly a personal term reserved exclusively for Moses, never being used except in reference him. In the seven instances of the expression in Christian literature prior to A.D. 110, it refers to Moses every single time: Hebrews 3:2-5; Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians 4.12; 43.1; 51.3,5; Pseudo-Barnabas 14.4. From these texts it is clear that Moses was thought of by the early Christians in the context of the Church, God’s house, where Moses continues even now to serve God’s people.

Monday, May 16

Exodus 15: The people of God have been hymn-singers right from the beginning. The singing of hymns is the Bible’s normal response to the outpouring of salvation; cf. Judges 5, 2 Samuel 22, Judith 10, many Psalms, etc. This particular canticle, which has been sung by Holy Church at her Pascha vigil from time immemorial, celebrates the Lord’s victory over the oppression inspired of idolatry. It should be thought of as the song of the newly baptized, standing at their baptismal waterside, their demonic enemies drowned in its depths.

It is not only the song of Moses and Miriam, but it is also the song of the Lamb, a prefiguration of that heavenly chant sung by the “sea of glass mingled with fire,” sung after the “last plagues,” sung by those who, with “harps of God,” “have victory over the beast”: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!” (Revelation 15:1-3).

The encounter of Israel with God on Mount Sinai, which begins in chapter 19, will be bracketed between two sequences of desert stories, which provide a narrative frame in which the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai forms the center. We begin the first of these two sequences now, and the second will commence in Numbers 20. These two desert sequences contain some striking parallel narratives: the peoples’ murmuring (Exodus 15, 16, 17; Numbers 14, 16, 17), the manna and the quail (Exodus 16; Numbers 11), and the water from the rock (Exodus 17; Numbers 20).

The murmuring we find at the end of this chapter and into the next is nothing new, of course; the people have been murmuring since the Book of Exodus began, and we will be noting more about it as the account progresses. Here the murmuring is heard with respect to thirst, which is notoriously a problem in the desert.

The murmuring is rebellious, for the people’s anger is turned on Moses and is recalcitrant to his authority. They no longer “believed the Lord and Moses His servant” (14:31). This story is taken up in John 6, where the “murmuring in the desert” is directed against Jesus. The descendents of the murmurers in Exodus, immediately after the feeding of the people by miraculous bread in the desert, begin to murmur and ask for a sign (John 6:30). Then begins the Lord’s Bread of Life discourse, in which He contrasts the ancient manna with the superior bread of His own Eucharistic flesh (John 6:48-58).

Meanwhile, the rebels continue to murmur (John 6:41,43). Just as the people murmured against the authority of Moses, now they murmur against the authority of Jesus. It should also be remembered that it was precisely in the context of the Holy Eucharist that St. Paul warned against the sin of murmuring (1 Corinthians 10:10).

Tuesday, May 17

Exodus 16: The bitter water is sweetened and made potable by the tree placed in it, this tree often being interpreted in Christian history as symbolic of the Lord’s cross, that salvific tree that sweetens many of our bitter experiences in the desert of our Christian journey.

The manna is spoken of much more than the quail. There are two reasons for this: (1) On only two occasions does the Bible speak of the quail, whereas the manna will remain the people’s staple food for the next forty years; and (2) The manna received far more theological attention during the course of Israel’s long history. Speculations about the nature of the manna continued in Israel well into Talmudic times.

Similarly, in the memory of the early Church it is obvious that, with respect to the miraculous feeding with the loaves and fishes, the loaves were the element chiefly remembered, inasmuch as the bread understood—like the manna—as a prefiguration of the Holy Eucharist.

This is “daily” bread, in the sense that God’s people must trust Him each day to provide it. They are to leave tomorrow to His care. The bread, then, becomes the daily occasion of faith in God’s providing. It is the bread for which Jesus commanded us to ask God, “give us, this day” (Matthew 6:11; Didache 8.2), or “day by day” (Luke 11:3). As long as our pilgrimage lasts—until the other side of the Jordan (cf. Joshua 5:12)—this bread will be supplied to God’s people, so that they must not fear nor fret for the morrow (cf. Matthew 6:25-34). Psalm 45 (Greek and Latin 44): Psalm 44 (Hebrew 45) is the psalm that anticipates and most descriptively foretells that future royal wedding of heaven. Its lines describe the “bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2): “The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors; the virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; they shall enter the King’s palace.”

There is even more description of the King’s Son, however, that Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world: “You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured out upon Your lips. Therefore God has blessed You forever. Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride victorious because of truth, humility and righteousness.” This Son’s riding forth in victory is similarly described in the Bible’s final book: “Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. . . . And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:11, 12, 16).

We need not guess at the identity of this Bridegroom nor be in doubt of His divine dignity, for the New Testament quotes our psalm when it speaks of the Son’s anointing by His Father: “But to the Son He says: / ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; / A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. / You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; / Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You / With the oil of gladness more than Your companions’” (Heb. 1:8, 9). This ‘anointed one’ (for such is the meaning of the name Messiah, or Christ) is Jesus, of whom the Apostles preached: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38).

Inasmuch as “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31), then, a certain measure of detachment is necessary to prepare ourselves for the wedding feast of the King’s Son, a certain using of this world as though not using it, a refusal to take seriously its unwarranted claims on our final loyalty. So our psalm once again warns us: “Listen, O daughter. Consider and incline your ear; forget your own people also, and your father’s house. So the King will greatly desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, worship Him.”

Wednesday, May 18

Exodus 17: Like the other events associated with the Exodus, the stream of water miraculously struck from the rock was adopted by the early Christians for its spiritual significance. Drawing on this inspiration, 1 Corinthians 10:4 said that the people “drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.”

Two remarks should be made with respect to this latter text:

First, in calling the rock “spiritual,” St. Paul did not intend to deny that it was a physical rock. He had in mind, rather, to say that the physical rock was possessed of a spiritual significance, both as the medium of God’s special intervention, and as a symbol of Jesus the Lord, who provides us with the water of eternal life (cf. also John 4:10-14; 7:37-39). Thus, St. Paul said, “that rock was Christ.”

Second, the somewhat surprising detail that the rock in the desert “followed them” is derived from rabbinical reflection on the rock. After all, is this not the same rock as in Numbers 20, from which water miraculously flowed at Kadesh?

Rabbinical texts speak of this as a kind of rocky fountain from which water poured as through a sieve, and they describe this rock as traveling up and down the mountain ranges while the people wandered in the desert. This rabbinical speculation about the moving rock is witnessed in an ancient targumic (Aramaic paraphrase) version of Exodus, known as the Targum Onkelos, probably inspired by Isaiah 48:21. The rabbinical scholar Paul was completely at home in these traditions.

For Christian interpreters the picture of Moses praying on the mountain with outstretched arms (verses 8-13) became a type of Jesus praying for mankind with outstretched arms on Mount Calvary. Moreover, the 3rd century commentator, Origen, wrote that this passage in Exodus “is fulfilled whenever we pray in the power of the Cross of Christ.”

Psalm 53 (Greek and Latin 52): In Romans 3:10–12 the Apostle Paul quotes this text (probably by heart, because he spontaneously adds lines from several other psalms in the following verses), with special emphasis on the universal need for salvation. His point is that, strictly speaking, there are really no just men in this world—men who are just in the sense that they are able, by the righteousness of their own works, to attain to the presence of God and stand innocent before him. Thus understood, who is a just man in this world? St. Paul’s answer is emphatic—nobody, absolutely nobody, and he quotes our psalm text to prove the point: “There is none righteous, no, not one; / There is none who understands; / There is none who seeks after God. / They have all turned aside; / They have together become unprofitable; / There is none who does good, no, not one.”

The Apostle is using our psalm here to address the major theme of Romans—that only God can justify man, and that God does so only in Jesus the Lord. Men are helpless, if left to their own capacities and accomplishments, and they are foolish to imagine otherwise. We human beings are so thoroughly infected by the results of sin that, unless God intervenes in our misery and takes a hand in our destiny, our inevitable lot is despair. None of us can measure up, no, not one. Whether Jew or Gentile, “there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22, 23).

Thursday, May 19

Exodus 18: The story of Jethro (verses 1-12) and the institution of the judges (verses 13-27) represent a chronological departure, it appears, from the historical sequence. There are two indications of this departure: First, Israel is still encamped at Rephidim (17:1 and 19:1), whereas the events in chapter 18 take place at Mount Sinai (verse 5). Second, there is the testimony of Deuteronomy 1 that the institution of the judges took place after the Sinai Covenant.

There is no theological or exegetical difficulty, of course, in discovering here a departure of the story from the historical sequence. After all, there is no a priori necessity requiring the biblical narrative to follow the historical sequence. However, if we look more closely at the accounts in chapter 18, there seem to be two reasons that prompted the biblical author to put the stories in chapter 18 before describing the Sinai Covenant.

First, this arrangement is less disruptive to the narrative. Placing these events in chapter 18 before the Sinai narrative permits the biblical author, when he comes to treat of the Covenant, to concentrate attention on the particulars of the Law, without the relative distraction of these other matters. The author reasonably preferred to tell this story earlier than it happened.

Second, a story about the sacrifice of the pagan Jethro at Mount Sinai would be most unseemly if it were told after the institution of the priesthood and sacrifice in the prescriptions of the Covenant (Leviticus 8-10).

What, then, do we find in chapter 18?

To this point all of the great burden of leadership has fallen on Moses, though we did begin to see the gradual emergence of some other leadership, especially that of Joshua, in the previous chapter. In the present chapter, however, Moses accepts the counsel of Jethro and lays a broader foundation for the leadership of the people. It is particularly striking that this counsel comes from “outside” the chosen people. Indeed, it is the advice of a pagan priest! The willingness of Moses to accept the prudent counsel of an “efficiency expert” from outside the community, even in regard to his prophetic and pastoral ministry, seems to be a useful precedent for God’s people to bear in mind. This response of Moses to the suggestion of Jethro is thus of a piece with Israel’s earlier “despoiling” of the Egyptians.

Friday, May 20

Exodus 19: The Book of Exodus, having treated of Israel’s deliverance, now speaks of Israel’s election and the Covenant. Over the next six chapters two sections will emerge as especially prominent—the Decalogue (20:1-17) and the Book of the Covenant (20:22—23:19), the latter containing a detailed, practical application of the rules of the Covenant.

The things narrated in these chapters are not naked events, but events that received theological and liturgical elaboration reflected in the narrative. It is arguable that Israel devoted more attention to these events than to any other in its history.

The people have now arrived at Mount Sinai, where the rest of the Book of Exodus, and all of the Book of Leviticus, will take place. Indeed, the Israelites will not move from Sinai until Numbers 10:33.

The stories begin with Moses’ scaling of Mount Sinai (verse 3), still known among the local Arabs as Jebel Musa. This peak, 7467 feet high, can be climbed in under two hours. When Moses ascends to speak with God, the people wait below at the base of the mountain, the plain of er-Raha (verses 2,17).

God’s election of Israel (verses 5-6) is an invitation to become His chosen people, an invitation that marks Israel’s history until the end of the world, because God will never reject the descendents of those with whom He made Covenant at Mount Sinai (cf. Romans 11:1). What God proposes, however, is only an invitation, requiring Israel’s ratification of His choice and the resolve to abide by its conditions and strictures (verses 7-8). Moses mediates this Covenant (verses 9,25).

The people of God are to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (verse 6). Both the kingship and the priesthood of the Old Testament are prophetic preparations fulfilled in Jesus. Like Melchizedek of old, Jesus Christ is both king and priest (cf. Hebrews 7:1-3). Moreover, because of their awareness of sharing in the royal and priestly dignity and ministries of the risen Jesus, the early Christians were prompt to see this Exodus promise as fulfilled in the Church (cf. 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6).

The subsequent terrifying scene on Mount Sinai (verses 9-25 and 20:18-20) is contrasted with the invitation to Christians to “draw near” to God (Hebrews 12:18-24). The theme of a bold “drawing near to” or “approaching” the divine presence is an important one in the Epistle to the Hebrews, serving as part of its sustained contrast of Christ with Moses (cf. Hebrews 4:16; 7:19; 10:1,22).

Friday, May 6

Exodus 5: The proclamation, “Thus says the Lord” (cf. also Exodus 32:27), places Moses squarely in the prophetic tradition. This is, in fact, the Bible’s first great encounter of a prophet with a king, an encounter that will be repeated with the likes of Nathan and David, Elijah and Ahab, Isaiah and Ahaz, Amos and Jeroboam II, Jeremiah and Zedekiah, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, John the Baptist and Antipas, Paul and Agrippa. It is instructive to remember that, on the sole occasion when Abraham was called a prophet, it was in connection with a local ruler in the Negev; cf. Genesis 20:7.

The source of Pharaoh’s problem is that he does not “know the Lord” (verse 2). Before much longer, nonetheless, he will have ample opportunity to make the Lord’s acquaintance; cf. Exodus 8:22; 9:29. Moses’ encounter with such a man may be compared to David’s confrontation with Goliath, who also did not “know the Lord”; cf. 1 Samuel 17:45-47.

Pharaoh reacts “that same day,” taking the initiative away from Moses and Aaron, thereby making them look inept in the eyes of the Israelites (verses 4-9). “Thus says the Lord” now becomes “thus says Pharaoh” (verses 10-14). Here there is a series of complaints: the overseers to the foremen, the foremen to Pharaoh, Pharaoh to the foremen, the foremen to Moses, Moses to God. Pharaoh’s tactic is to divide the people that he wants to oppress. He does not discredit Moses directly; he acts, rather, in such a way that the people themselves will turn on Moses.

The scene in verses 15-21 will be repeated many times in the next 40 years. On each occasion when things do not go well, the people will blame Moses. And when the people blame Moses, Moses will often enough blame God, as he proceeds to do now.

John 3:22-36: The position of this section of John may have been determined by the earlier reference to Baptism in 3:5. The Evangelist now returns to John the Baptist for the last time.

The reference to Jesus baptizing does not mean that He did so with His own hands. From 4:2 we will learn that Jesus’ apostles normally performed this rite. It is not easy to determine the exact nature of this baptism, and it is difficult to affirm that it was the Christian sacrament of Baptism of which John the Baptist had spoken earlier (1:33), because the Holy Spirit will not be conferred on the Church until much later in this Gospel. However, there is no need to be apodictic on the nature of the baptism here in John 3; we may leave the question as unclear as the Evangelist leaves it.

The place named in verse 23 is not identified with certainty, though we presume John’s earliest readers recognized it. The name means “springs,” which suggests that it was not a site on the banks of the Jordan. Some archeologists identify it with a site in Samaria. If true, of course, it indicates that John the Baptist had some following among the Samaritans.

In verse 24 the Evangelist presumes his readers’ familiarity with the story of the death of John the Baptist (cf. Mark 6:17-29).

Verse 25 indicates the context of the words of John the Baptist. It is clear that controversies about Jewish cleansing rituals were not uncommon (cf. Mark 7:1-5).

The disciples of John the Baptist were understandably disturbed that the prestige of their leader was being eclipsed by the growing notoriety of Jesus. In answering them, John the Baptist again affirmed his own preparatory and subordinate role with respect to Jesus. He knew the ministry and task given him from heaven and dared not attempt to transcend the limits of his vocation (verse 27). Jesus, as the Messiah (verse 28), was the bride’s groom, whereas John was only His best man (verse 29).

We have here the first instance of what is a veritable mystique of the voice of Christ in the Gospel according to John.

Saturday, May 7

Exodus 6: Here commences God’s response to Moses’ complaint in chapter 5, and the major message is one of reassurance. God recalls his covenant with the patriarchs, to whom He was also obliged to give reassurance from time to time. God’s covenant with them has now been perfected by the revelation of God’s mysterious Name (cf. Ezekiel 20:5-7). Everything that Moses is to tell the people is summed up in the revelation of the Divine Name.

In verses 14-27 we find another genealogy, of which there were so many in Genesis, and many more of which will be found in the rest of Holy Scripture. Although modern readers may be disposed to skip such passages as uninteresting, they were certainly important to the biblical writers, not least because they helped give structure to the continuity of the narrative. In this case the genealogy serves to relate the founding of Israel’s priestly family, the established priesthood being one of Israel’s principal defining institutions. In biblical thought, salvation is not a purely individual thing; it is intimately linked, rather, to certain prescriptive institutions and authoritative ministries, and priesthood, as one of these, involves a proper succession. Proper succession is also a requirement of Christian ordination, a point that was argued strongly before the end of the first century; cf. Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians 40-44.

John 4:1-26: The three-days’ walk through Samaria was the shortest way of making the trip between Jerusalem and Galilee. Luke records that Jesus took that route, but in that instance the Samaritans did not receive Him favorably (Luke 9:51-53). We should observe that only John, among the evangelists, tells of a ministry of Jesus to the Samaritans.

The well is identified with the town Sychar, known today as Askar. (The well is still there and well known; it lies between Gell el-Balatah and Askar.) Jesus sat down beside the well (pege), though one papyrus manuscript says that He sat “on the ground” (ge).

What Jesus did next was nearly unthinkable in the social context of that time. A Jew, He spoke to a Samaritan. A man, He spoke in private to a woman who was not His relative. A Jew would normally never have drunk from the defiled water pot of a Samaritan. In the context envisioned by John, this whole story has the ring of improbability, not to say shock and scandal.

He asks her for a drink, and she is appropriately shocked. In response, Jesus speaks of living water—hydor zon. This was a common metaphor in the Hebrew Bible, signifying Wisdom, divine grace poured out in the last days, the Holy Spirit, and so forth.

Sunday, May 8

Exodus 7: Moses will be the wonderworker, and Aaron the speaker. (As a matter of irony, however, we will find Moses doing almost all the talking, while Aaron extends the wonderworking rod.) Deed and word go together in the Bible, as in any fine drama. Speaking and doing are the two components of God’s revelation. Indeed, these two things sum up the whole activity of Jesus and the Apostles (cf. Mark 6:30; 1 Thessalonians 1:5).

What is described in verses 8-13 is not one of the plagues, but it is the beginning of a prolonged test of wills and skills. Pharaoh is not much impressed with Moses, since his own people demonstrate comparable skills. After his initial retaliation, however, Pharaoh will never again be in a position to retaliate. Moses and Aaron will keep him on the defensive, with his hands full of trouble. The most he can hope for from any encounter is to break even, and gradually this too will be taken from him.

The first plague is most serious, because the Nile has always been the foundation of the entire Egyptian agricultural and mercantile economy. Pharaoh’s response is very humorous. After all, the last thing Pharaoh needs right now is another display of water-to-blood skills in Egypt!

John 4:27-45: The high point of Jesus’ identification, in this discussion with the Samaritan woman, is the Ego eimi of verse 36. These are the words from the Burning Bush, and they appear in the context of God’s revelation. John’s expression, “I am, the one who speaks to you,” comes very close to the Lord’s words in Isaiah 52:6 (LXX)—Ego eimi avtos ho lalon: “I am, the very One who speaks.”

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ auto-identification as “I am” is the culminating point of a discussion that has been centered around the question of who He is. He is both the Messiah and the One who spoke from the Burning Bush.

It is at this point that the Lord’s disciples return, and the woman quickly departs, leaving her water pitcher, rather like the disciples earlier left their nets. Since John explicitly mentions this point, it seems likely that she left the water jar so that Jesus might drink from it.

She runs to tell her fellow citizens what has occurred. “Come,” she invites her friends, “see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (4:29).

Two points may be noted here:

First, the woman’s tentative question—“Could this be the Christ?”—bears substantially the same message that Philip bore to Nathanael: “We have found Him of whom Moses wrote in the Law, and also the prophets—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (1:45).

Second, the woman’s identification of Jesus as an anthropos ties this story to the Lord’s Passion. Jesus will be identified later by Pilate as “Man”—“Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And [Pilate] said to them, “Behold the Man!” (19:5).

This is one of the places where John ties the story of the Samaritan well to the Lord’s Passion, as Celano perceived. Another is John 6:14—“Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’ But they cried out, ‘Away, away! Crucify Him!’” In John, both this meeting with the Samaritan woman and the Lord’s crucifixion take place at the same time—midday.

Jesus continues His discussion with the newly arrived disciples: In the meantime His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know.” Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him something to eat?”

The failure of the disciples to understand the statement on food corresponds to the woman’s inability to understand the statement about living water, as well as Nicodemus’s misunderstanding the necessity of being born again. Jesus must be more explicit with them: “My food is that I shall do the will of Him who sent Me, and that I shall complete His work.” This is a summary of Jesus’ whole life and ministry.

In the next verse Jesus cites what was evidently a proverb about the distance between sowing and harvest: “There are still four months and the harvest comes.” In His mouth, however, it becomes a parable about God’s sowing and harvesting. Jesus is telling the disciples to keep alert: They are about to see a harvest. In fact, as John well knew when he wrote of this scene, Samaria was to become an important step in the Gospel’s promulgation throughout the world (Acts 8). Indeed, John himself would be sent to Samaria to confirm the work of Philip’s evangelism.

These words about a prior sowing in the north country probably refer, as well, to the ancient ministry of the prophets up there: Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea. The Christian preachers will reap the fruit of their sowing.

During the time that Jesus stays with the Samaritans, they come to a mature faith in Him, no longer dependent on the testimony of the woman at the well. At the end of the story, the woman’s Samaritan friends add another important Christological title: “We know that this is in truth the Savior of the world” (4:42).

This confession of the Samaritans—“Savior of the world”—forms a summary, as it were, of John’s reflections on the discourse with Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” That is to say, the conversion of the Samaritans is an important step in the evangelization of the whole world.

Monday, May 9

Exodus 8: There are several obvious connections among the various plagues. Here, for instance, there is a great multitude of frogs, because their natural habitat, the water, has become contaminated.

Even though this second plague is not as harmful as the first, we will see Pharaoh begin to weaken. Obviously this second plague has gotten his attention. For all that, it may be thought of a “nuisance plague,” perhaps putting one in mind of Elijah’s mocking of the prophets of Baal prior to doing them the real damage (1 Kings 18:20-40).

Once again Pharaoh’s magicians, still a bit “unclear on the concept,” demonstrate that the bringing forth of frogs is also within their power—as though Egypt was suffering a shortage of available frogs!

Pharaoh’s reaction is new; he is starting to recognize that Moses is not a nobody. Pharaoh is going to test if Moses is really a spokesman for God. As will be very much the case later in the Exodus narrative, Moses is presented as a man given to intercessory prayer. Here he tells Pharaoh to “pick the time,” and Pharaoh, remembering that the previous plague lasted a week, prudently picks the next day! In this plague (verses 9-10), as in the previous one, mention is made of the outrageous stench afflicting the nation. The third and fourth plagues are clearly related to the death of all the frogs, which are the natural predators of insects.

Although Pharaoh will once again harden his heart, we at last see in him some disposition to negotiate. He starts to make some concessions that Moses will reject as inadequate. Since the Israelites and the other Semites were accustomed to sacrifice certain animals unacceptable to the Hamites, including Egyptians, however, Moses insists that the people be allowed to leave Egypt to perform these sacrifices. Moses still has a “hidden agenda,” of course, as does Pharaoh. There is no reason either man should trust the other.

Psalms 25 (Greek and Latin 24): In virtually all the traditional Eucharistic rites used by Christians, both East and West—-going back to the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus near the beginning of the third century—when the celebrant commences the central Eucharistic benediction (corresponding to the Hebrew berakah), he turns to the congregation to exhort them to intensify their prayer: “Let us lift up our hearts!” (Ano skomen tas kardias is the lovely Greek original.) In the ancient Latin version, this exhortation becomes more succinct: Sursum corda, “Hearts up!” A congregation of elevated hearts is the proper context for that great act known simply as “The Thanksgiving,” Eucharistia (the celebrant’s next line being “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God!”).

Psalm 25, which begins with the lifting up of the heart, goes on to elaborate what this means: It is a prayer for guidance and deliverance. Confused by the “mixed signals” of life in this world, the believer petitions, “Show me Your ways, O Lord, and teach me Your paths. Lead me by Your truth.” Surrounded by perils on every side, the believer prays, “Behold how many are my enemies, and with an unjust hatred have they hated me. Guard my soul and deliver me, that I may not be put to shame, for in You have I placed my hope.”

Tuesday, May 10

Exodus 9: The matter of the livestock had been introduced in connection with the previous plague, as well as the Lord’s protection of the Israelites from all the plagues. This latter is particularly important. God is already beginning to separate Israel from Egypt, and this separate treatment will continue till its culmination on the night of Pascha.

As the Hebrew word ’aba‘bu‘oth (verses 8-12) appears nowhere else in the Bible, the exact nature of these sores is obscure. The Greek word in the Septuagint text, helkos, means any sort of wound, abscess, or ulcer. We observe that at last the magicians retire, no longer able even to put in an appearance in Pharaoh’s court.

Exodus 9:16 is quoted as part of St. Paul’s famous treatment of the dialectic of salvation history; cf. Romans 9:17. It is one of the greatest misfortunes of theological history that some later commentators, abstracting this passage from its context and inserting it into philosophical speculations about divine predestination and foreknowledge, reached certain conclusions unwarranted by the Scriptures—at odds with the traditional teaching of the Church, and unknown to the earlier, classical commentators on Romans (such as St. John Chrysostom). It is important to insist that the argument in Romans 9 is not about individual salvation; it is about the historical relations of Israel to the Church. There is nothing in this passage to infer that Pharaoh (or Esau) was predestined to be damned.

Since verse 6 states that all the cattle of the Egyptians had perished anyway, some question may arise with regard to the cattle mentioned in verse 19. Obviously the inspired biblical writer is not interested in problems like this, a fact perhaps suggesting that we shouldn’t be, either.

While some of the other plagues, such as insect infestations, visit Egypt occasionally even in normal times, a hailstorm in northeast Africa is a truly rare thing (verse 23). Accompanied by a frightening display of lightning and thunder, this one proves too much for Pharaoh, and for the first time he admits his sin. Alas, his repentance does not outlast the plague that inspired it.

Verses 31-32 are our only indication with respect to the time of the plagues, suggesting the month of January, before the appearance of the winter wheat.

Wednesday, May 11

Exodus 10: To an agricultural economy, few things are more frightening than a visitation of locusts, which can reduce all plant life, over many square miles, to absolute ground level in a matter of hours (cf. the first chapter of Joel).

In three respects this is the most effective of the plagues to date: (1) Pharaoh’s servants, who had begun in support of him, and had come to see themselves bested (8:15), and had then retired from the combat (9:11), now come out to make a common plea with Moses against Pharaoh; (2) Pharaoh, for the first time, offers to release the Israelite men even before the plague starts; (3) Pharaoh himself asks for forgiveness. Even though the king’s heart is still hardened, the inspired author takes note of the progress.

In Egypt the sun god, Re, held a special prominence, so this plague of darkness is freighted with special theological significance; the Lord is in earnest doing battle with the gods of Egypt. The three days of darkness here should be seen as a type of the three hours of darkness that covered the earth on that afternoon when the new Moses did battle with the most ancient of the pharaohs of our slavery, himself the Prince of Darkness (Mark 15:33). There on Calvary, as here, the plague of darkness immediately precedes the death of the Firstborn Son.

Psalm 38 (Greek and Latin 37): This is one of the rougher parts of the Psalter, and its thematic conjunction of sin and suffering is also the manifest key to its meaning.

Suffering and death enter the world with sin. To humanity’s first sinners the Lord said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow,” and “Cursed is the ground for your sake” (Gen. 3:16, 17). So close is the Bible’s joining of suffering to sin that some biblical characters (such as Job’s friends and the questioning disciples in John 9:2) entertained the erroneous notion that each instance of suffering was brought about by certain specific sins.

Like Psalm 6, the present psalm commences with a prayer for deliverance from divine anger: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.” Already the poet feels overwhelming pain which he describes, whether literally or by way of metaphor, in the most physical terms: “Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down.” What he suffers comes from sin and the response of the divine wrath, from which he begs to be delivered: “There is no soundness in my flesh, because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin.” The equation: sin = wrath of God.

Whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual—or all of them together—what we suffer in this life are the incursions of death, and death is simply sin becoming incarnate and dwelling among us, for “through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

Such is the essential conviction of our prayer in this psalm: “For my iniquities are gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my folly.”

The proper response to sin and suffering? Confession of sins and the sustained cultivation of repentance, for “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Thus we pray in this psalm: “For I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually (tamid ) before me. For I will declare my iniquity; I will be in anguish over my sin.” Notwithstanding a widespread heresy that says otherwise, repentance (metanoia) is not something done once, and all finished; according to one of the last petitions of the litany, it is something to be perfected (ektelesai ) until the end of our lives. This sorrow for sin, says our psalm, is continual, ongoing (tamid). Every suffering we are given in this life is a renewed call to repentance. Every pain is, as it were, the accusing finger of Nathan: “You are the man” (2 Sam. 12:7).

Psalm 38 is not the happiest of psalms, but it is exceedingly salubrious to the spirit. If its message can be summed up in one line, that line may well be David’s response to Nathan: “I have sinned against the Lord.” These words make all the difference, because, as another psalm insists, “a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Over and over the tax collector “beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” (Luke 18:13)

Sin is also the great solvent of our relationships to one another. As is clear in the accounts of the first sins (Gen. 3:11–13; 4:12), sin means isolation and alienation. Sin separates us, not only from God, but also from one another. Our psalm speaks of this isolation: “My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague. And my relatives stand afar off.”

We are not talking about morbidity here. Contrition and sorrow in this psalm are accompanied by repeated sentiments of longing: “I groan because of the turmoil of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You. My heart pants, my strength fails me. . . . For in You, O Lord, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God.”

Finally, there are the enemies. As I have insisted all through these meditations, the demons are the only enemies of the man who correctly prays the Book of Psalms. Nowhere does Holy Scripture exhort us to forgive or pity the demons. They are the only true enemies that our prayer recognizes. Unlike human enemies who are to be prayed for, the demons are always to be prayed against. Our fight with them is unsleeping, as is their fight with us, plotting our ruin: “Those also who seek my life lay snares for me; those who seek my hurt speak of destruction, and plan deception all the day long.”

Thursday, May 12

Exodus 11: Commenting on this “borrowing” from the Egyptians by Israel, one observes two preoccupations among the Fathers of the Church: (1) their concern lest anyone think that this action on Israel’s part was to be copied as a moral example. Some of the Fathers took care to point out that the Israelites were, in fact, slaves and, as such, entitled to just remuneration for their coerced labor, and (2) their insistence that the silver and gold that the Israelites took from the Egyptians was to be understood allegorically, as representing the philosophical and cultural riches of Egypt. Thus, they used this example to justify the Christian use of classical pagan philosophy, law, and cultural ideals.

This allegorical interpretation is not far-fetched; indeed, it is rooted in historical fact. Israel did, indeed, take from Egypt a massive inheritance of philosophy, law, literature, and other cultural wealth. Their own Semitic culture had become enormously enriched by their extensive sojourn in northeast Africa, surrounded by one of the oldest and richest civilizations the world has ever seen. Alas, however, so many of these trinkets would eventually be used in the construction of the golden calf, a fact indicating the dangers inherent in any “borrowing” from the world.

In some sense, Moses and Aaron will now be “out of the picture.” The final and decisive plague will involve no activity on their part. This work will be accomplished without human mediation of any kind; the Lord will use only the angelic ministry. The chapter ends by saying that Moses and Aaron had done all they could do to prevent what was about to befall Egypt.

Doubtless this is what accounts for the anger of Moses as he leaves Pharaoh’s presence for the last time. Sign after sign had been ignored by an inveterately stubborn man seemingly intent on his country’s destruction, and the inspired biblical author stands amazed at such hardness of heart. (Compare St. John’s bewildered comments on the later hardness of heart that could not be softened by the many “signs” done by Jesus; cf. John 12:37-41.)

Psalm 37 (Greek and Latin 36): If we think of prayer as speaking to God, this psalm appears at first to challenge the very notion of the psalms as prayers, inasmuch as not a single word of it is explicitly addressed to God. It speaks about God, of course, but never to Him, at least not overtly.

It is obvious that Psalm 37 has close ties to the Bible’s Wisdom tradition. If it were not part of the Psalter, we would expect to find it in Proverbs or one of the other Wisdom books. It appears to be a kind of discourse given by a parent to a child, or a wise man to a disciple. It is full of sound and godly counsel: “Fret not thyself because of evildoers . . . Trust in the Lord and do good . . . Cease from anger and forsake wrath . . . Wait on the Lord and keep His way,” and so forth. Such admonitions, along with the psalm’s allied warnings and promises, are stock material of the Wisdom literature.

So how does one pray such a psalm? To begin with, by respecting its tone, which is one of admonition, warning, and promise. Surely prayer is talking to God, but it also involves listening to God, and this is a psalm in which one will do more listening than talking. It is a psalm in which the believer prays by placing his heart open and receptive to God’s word of admonition, warning, and promise.

One may likewise think of Psalm 37 as the soul speaking to itself: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him . . . But the meek shall inherit the earth . . . The little that the righteous has is better than the riches of many wicked . . . The Lord knows the days of the upright . . . The Law of his God is in his heart,” and so on. The human soul, after all, is not of simple construction. The great thinkers who have examined the soul over many centuries seem all to agree that it is composed of parts, and sometimes these parts are at odds one with another. This mixture of conflicting experiences in the soul leads one to utter such petitions as, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” It is one part of the soul praying for the other.

In this psalm, one part of the soul admonishes the other, reminds the other, cautions the other, encourages the other. And this inner conversation of the human spirit all takes place in the sight of God, the Giver of wisdom.

This inner discussion is rendered necessary because of frequent temptations to discouragement. As far as empirical evidence bears witness, the wicked do seem, on many occasions, to be better off than the just. By the standards of this world, they prosper.

Our psalm is at pains to insist, however, that this prosperity is only apparent, in the sense that it will certainly be short-lived. As regards the workers of iniquity, “they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb . . . For evildoers shall be cut off . . . For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be . . . For the arms of the wicked shall be broken . . . The transgressors shall be cut off together.”

The suffering lot of the just man is likewise temporary and of brief duration. He need only wait on the Lord in patience and trust: “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, and trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass . . . But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord will help them and deliver them; He will deliver them from the wicked and save them, because they trust in Him.”

This, then, is a psalm of faith and confidence in God, without which there is no Christian prayer. It is also faith and hope under fire, exposed to struggle and the endurance that calls for patience. After all, “faith is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1), and “We were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope . . . But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (Rom. 8:24, 25). Our psalm is a meditative lesson on not being deceived by appearances, and a summons to wait patiently for God’s deliverance.

Friday, May 13

Exodus 12: There are four features especially to be noted about this important text, which interrupts the narrative sequence in order to place the whole into a more theological and liturgical context:

First, the paschal lamb is an example of “substitutionary” sacrifice; like the ram that had replaced Isaac on Mount Moriah in Genesis 22:13, the paschal lamb’s life is given in place of the lives of Israel’s first born sons.

Second, there is nothing in the text to suggest that this sacrifice is “expiatory.” That is, unlike certain other biblical sacrifices, such as those associated with Yom Kippur, the sacrifice of the paschal lamb is not made in reparation for sins. Moreover, the Old Testament provides not a single example of an animal being sacrificed in place of a human being whose sin was serious enough to merit death.

Third, the blood of this paschal lamb is sprinkled at certain points of the houses of those who are “redeemed.” This sprinkling is explicitly said to be a “sign” of covenant protection, parallel to the rainbow in the covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:12-17 and circumcision in the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17:19-27.

Fourth, because this paschal lamb was a type or symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7), it was fitting that the meal celebrating the new covenant in His blood should be inaugurated in the setting of the paschal seder (cf. Luke 22:15-20).

The “this day” of verse 14 is the fifteenth day of the month Nisan, but it includes the night of Pascha. Pascha itself was to be the first liturgical day of an entire “week of sabbaths,” that is, seven days of rest and festival continuing the celebration, during which Israel could eat unleavened bread as on Pascha itself. More regulations relative to this weeklong feast are to be found in 13:3-10. In the New Testament the two terms, Pascha and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, are used almost interchangeably.

After the lengthy and detailed instructions that prepare for it, the tenth plague is narrated very succinctly, to great dramatic effect. The Exodus itself follows at once. In the writings of the New Testament, the event especially served as a prefiguration and type of redemption, including all of the events narrated of that great week, both His death for our sins and His rising again for our justification.

So important was the liturgical observance of Pascha to the life of the early Christians that one of the major and most heated controversies of the second century Church concerned the proper dating of the feast. In spite of a venerable tradition held in Ephesus and the other churches of Asia Minor, it was finally determined that Pascha would always be celebrated on a Sunday, a rule that has been maintained by all Christians since the fourth century.

In verses 43-50 we find more regulations relative to the preparation of the Seder of Pascha. As was noted above, there was no disagreement among the early Christians with respect to the deeper meaning of the paschal lamb. Indeed, verse 46 here, about not breaking the bones of the paschal lamb while preparing it, was seen by St. John as a prophecy of the body of Jesus on the cross, in that the soldiers did not break His legs (cf. John 19:36).