Friday, May 5
Psalms 9 & 10: In the original text (and as preserved in the ancient Greek version) these two psalms formed only one psalm; indeed, it was an “alphabetical psalm,” in which each verse began with the next letter of the alphabet.
The opening lines of this psalm introduce two ideas crucial to the praying of all the psalms: the heart and storytelling—“I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart, I will narrate all Your wonders.”
First, the heart: “I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart.” The key to the proper praying of the psalms is purity of heartTo pray with understanding in the deeper spirit of the psalms requires walking “the blameless path,” living with an undivided heart. To give oneself over to psalmody as the skeletal frame of the life of prayer, therefore, is inseparable from the life of sustained spiritual effort to purify one’s heart. All prayer is a struggle to see God, after all, and we have it on very strong authority that only the pure of heart will see God.
Second, storytelling: “I will narrate all Your wonders.” A major motif of the Psalter is formed of the magnalia Dei, the great wonders that God has wrought. These wonders are forever set in review throughout the psalms: our creation from nothingness, the Lord’s constant provision for our lives, His promises with respect to our final destiny, His covenant with our forefathers and its fulfillment in Christ the Savior, our liberation from bondage to the satanic pharaoh through the shedding of the paschal blood of Jesus, our passage through the Red Sea of baptism, our journey through the wilderness where we are nourished with living water and the bread of angels. The “all Your wonders,” then, has reference to the great mysteries of our redemption: the Incarnation, the atoning Passion and Death, the glorious Resurrection and Ascension, the sending forth of the Holy Spirit, and the founding of the Church. These manifestations of God’s grace are the substance of the narrative inherent in the psalms.
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 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 significance 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 meaning (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 sacrifices.
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 over the forces of darkness, it is found in world literature from Homer to 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.
Saturday, May 6
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 that the Septuagint translates as “aesthetic spirit” (pnevma aistheos).
The numbered list of the vestments is explicit in the Torah itself—to wit, a tunic, over which was a shawl with a hole for the head and neck, a sash, and an ephod (or apron), over which hung the breastplate suspended from the shoulders. The head was adorned with a miter. One easily recognizes in this description something close to 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 the whole 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 the LXX). 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 Nazianzus, and John of Damascus) the Holy Communion.
Sunday, May 7
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 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).
Monday, May 8
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 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 sweet and pungent odor. 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.
Tuesday, May 9
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, stone masons, carpenters, iconographers, jewelers and workers in precious metals, 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. With the exception of Hesiod in Greece and Virgil in Rome, it must be said that love and respect for work were not cherished features of classical pagan history. 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.
Wednesday, May 10
Exodus 32: Chapters 32-34 return to the sequence left off in 24:14-18, at the place where Moses and two companions ascended to the top of Mount Sinai. It was during his time on Sinai that there occurred the incident of the golden calf, the point at which we arrive 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.
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), while beneath the mountain, down in the valley, Aaron was proving himself unworthy of that priesthood. 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 never admits his association with 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 tells 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 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 does not love the people enough to resist them. His attitude is described as the very opposite of that of Moses, whose prayer unites 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).
Those guilty of the sin of apostasy 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).
Thursday, May 11
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 12
John 9.24-41: This story began with a question: “Rabbi, who sinned?” During the course of the account, sundry answers are given. After his healing, both the man and his parents are subpoenaed for interrogation by the Lord’s enemies, who have their own ideas about “who sinned.” The latter will say of Jesus, “We know that this Man is a sinner” (9:24). Then, when he refuses to agree with them, the man himself is pronounced guilty: “You were completely born in sins” (9:34). They thus provide their own answer to the question first posed by the disciples.
There is a deeper blindness in the story, nonetheless, an unrepentance that is the real sin. Thus, at the very end of the account, Jesus gives a further response to the original query, “Who sinned?” To those hard of heart who condemned the man born blind, the Lord asserts, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore, your sin remains” (9:41). This is the story’s final answer to its first question. Thus, the problem of “who sinned” is seen to be an interpretive key to the whole narrative.
Exodus 34: We observe that the Israelites, notwithstanding the command to depart from Sinai at the beginning of the previous chapter, are still at the site (verse 2), and it is clear that they will remain there for some time yet.
Moses, we recall, had broken the original tablets of the Decalogue when—in anger because of the golden calf—he had flung them on the ground (32:19). That physical “breaking” of the Law symbolized the true breaking of the commandments by the idolatrous Israelites. Now these stone tablets must be replaced (verse 1).
It is to be remarked that the two stone tables verses in 1-9, though to the naked eye they may seem lifeless and hard, actually embody the awesome personal experience of Moses described in these verses. Regarded in faith and in the context of the covenant, these stones are alive with the grace of that experience. They are “God’s word written.”
Verses 10-28 are joined by the common theme of the purity required for an exclusive fidelity to God.
The Christian theological meaning of verses 29-35 is explained by St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:7—4:6.