Category Archives: Out of Egypt

The Ark

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Israel made the Ark of God after the Children reached Mt. Sinai. It took until the end of that year to finish it and the rest of the Tabernacle. Moses received the plans while being in God’s presence. He viewed the real things that were in heaven. It was the center of the camp of Israel for forty years. They housed the Ark in a special tent that held other sacred objects for the worship and honoring of God. A wall of “curtains” that also housed an altar for burnt sacrifices and offerings surrounded this tent. The tents of Aaron and the other Levite families, which were protected by the Tribes of Israel, circled all of this. The layout of the camp and the order they followed the Ark when the pillar of fire moved seemed to be arranged by birth order (who the mother was) and the size of the tribe.

The Ark is three distinct things that are known as the Ark. The three components are the Mercy Seat or the Atonement Cover, the Ark or box, and the Poles. I have no problem with the symbolism of this representing the Trinity-the Cover is the Father, the Box is Jesus, and the Poles are the Holy Spirit. The three parts are distinct in their functions but equal to the Ark of God, which represents God’s presence here on earth.

Because this holy object went missing at the time of Jeremiah and the fall of Jerusalem, myth and legend have become associated with it. They have made many documentaries about it that explore where it could be. There is a genuine artifact that is housed and guarded in Ethiopia. There are researchers who claim they saw it under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Others have assigned the Ark of God as being a receiver for cosmic messages or made fictional movies about the fantastic powers it could unleash. Rant-If it is a receiver, the message will be “go read my Book and believe in My Son”. If you want power; accept Jesus as Lord and be baptized with the Holy Spirit, then walk in His way!

This study started during Easter because of the tomb and the two angels sitting on the slab where Jesus was laid before He rose from the dead. That symbolized the Mercy Seat and the blood offering that was put on it during the Feast of Atonement. This makes you wonder if the real tomb faced east? Other questions that you will not find answers to (this list is not complete).

  • Was the Ark always covered when they moved it?
  • Did Samuel, as a boy, sleep near the Ark?
  • Why were they always taking it into battle?
  • How long were the poles?
  • The actual weight of the gold that was in and on the Ark.
  • How thick were the boards of the side of the Ark?
  • Where and when did Aaron’s rod and the manna get removed from the Ark?
  • Which direction did they carry the from-long sides or short sides?
  • How many men carried the Ark-4, 8, or 12?

This site supplies some good possible answers.

Click to access 352_Ark.pdf

A reason we are not shown everything. Because God is a mystery.

A work assignment-compare and contrast Noah’s ark and Moses’ basket with the Ark of the Covenant.

Gershom and Eliezer the Sons of Moses

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Moses had two sons-Gershom, the first-born, and Eliezer. There is not a lot of information about them, but Moses’ family line is still mentioned in the time of David. It is not easy being the child of an overachieving parent, especially someone who was used so mightily by God. So, to talk about the boys and their mother, we should frame this study with Moses.

Moses was about forty years old when he murdered the Egyptian and ran for his life. He was eighty when God called him to the burning bush. Popular thought and movies have the boys as very young, like pre-teens. Exodus 4 certainly makes them sound young, but they could have been teenagers to thirty years old. It is obvious someone knew about the requirement to circumcise Hebrew boys, and Moses just did not do it. Either way, there were two unhappy boys on the way to Egypt. The Study Continues The narrative in Exodus 4:21 has the Lord talking to Moses; compare this to verse 27 where the Lord is talking to Aaron. The conversation is about Israel being the Lord’s firstborn son and putting to death Pharoah’s firstborn son.

Verse 24 is where the Lord meets with someone and is about to put them to death. Was this Moses or a son? Exodus 4:24 Hebrew Text Analysis I am not sure, and I have no desire to guess, and the Hebrew text does not offer any clues. So, was it Moses, Gershom, or Eliezer that was about to die? Who sinned? Who needed to learn a lesson?

I said two boys were not happy, but the text indicates one boy being circumcised. Exodus 4:25 Hebrew Text Analysis The jots and tittles with “ben” indicate one son was cut by Zipporah. That did not make her very happy. (Click on benah in the analysis to see everywhere that form of the word was used.) The one son phrase made me look and Eliezer is not mentioned by name until Exodus 18:4. Verse 4:20 does use the term banaw which does indicate two sons left to go back to Egypt.

Circumcision was the sign of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:11+14) and there is no reason to think Moses was not circumcised before he was put into the basket. (That may have been another clue to Pharoah’s daughter that he was Hebrew.) Moses was the scribe for Leviticus 12:3, probably before the People sent the spies out. However, something happened when the people had to wander thirty-eight years. Joshua, in 5:3, had to circumcise the men before any fighting started for the land promised to Abraham; it is possible that 38 years of males did not have their foreskin removed. Maybe, Deuteronomy 10:16 is an indicator of what happened, their hearts needed to be cut.

Another mystery – Exodus 18 has Jethro, the grandfather, bringing the boys and Zipporah to Moses. When and why did they leave? When-The best two places in my thinking were when they met Aaron and found out how bad it could be for them, or after the Red Sea, to save them from the harsh trip. Why-I want to be “light” on Moses with either explanation I just gave. It could have been a dark reason. The elders of the people did not like a leader having a non-Israelite wife with children. We saw that with Miriam and Moses’ second wife. The flip side of that dark thought is, why did Jethro bring them back? Was his community afraid of them and the miracles that happened in Egypt?

Events – They missed the first leg of the trip with the people testing God. They were around for everything else, including the complaining that got the thirty-eight years of going in circles. Moses, very probably, buried his sons and his grandchildren went into the Land. Since they were Levities they had a responsibility with the Tabernacle and not leading the people, like Joshua. Those two lived and saw a lot. Imagine having a father who glowed after his prayer time with God. So, if you read Levite in those first forty years, Gershom and Eliezer were there. (There was also a Gershon family in the Levites, they were not children of Moses.)     

Names – Exodus 18: 3+4 explains the boys’ names. I know a good amount of thought is put into naming children, this is seen throughout the Bible and is still done today. With that said I am sure the names reflect praise and thanksgiving to God. Gershom was named because Moses was a foreigner in a foreign land. Eliezer was named because God helped Moses and saved him from Pharaoh’s sword.  

If there is an “iah” or “el” in the front or back of a Hebrew name it is saying something about God. Those make good studies. Names got “recycled” and giving family names were/are a thing of honor. Be careful because it may look like they are the same people but check the Bible timeline, there may be hundreds of years in-between people with a similar description.   

1 Chronicles 23:12-17 deal with heritage and 26:24-28 cover job assignments. Again, they should be included when possible, in studies about people.

Gershom’s Family – Judges 18:30 is a dark side of this family that lasted for hundreds of years. When the tribe of Dan did not take their allotted possession of the land they went somewhere easier. Part of this includes stealing household gods and installing members of Jonathan, son of Gershom, as a priest. This lasted from the Book of Judges to the captivity caused by the Assyrians, which covers Samuel, Saul, David, and several of David’s grandsons. The Study Continues The 1984 Edition of the NIV has a footnote for Judges 18:30 that says it is a scribal tradition to name Jonathan as a grandson of Manasseh. The name Gershom is consistent with the name of Moses’ son. Hebrew Concordance: gê·rə·šōm — 12 Occurrences. If Jonathan is from the tribe of Manasseh, he could not be a Levite, which is why Micah recruited him to be his priest. The other option is there was an important unheard-of Levite named Manasseh who had a grandson. Was someone trying to protect Moses’ good name? The Study Continues A study into the name Manasseh is worth some time. It means “forgetting” and could add a twist into this verse. See https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Manasseh.html. Do the scribes want to forget that worshipping the bronze snake continued for so long because of Moses’ grandson? The Study Continues The name Moses and Manasseh in Hebrew are very similar; Moses is Moshe and Manasseh is Menashe. The difference in the Hebrew is the letter “nun”. It seems that it is suspended above the line, meaning it is ‘partially inserted’. References: Judges 18:30 – One+One and Judges 18:31 with Translations | The Sefaria Library   

Shubael appears to be a family name as 1 Chronicles 23 has one as “first” and then 1 Chronicles 26 has one working for King David as a treasurer. This second Shubael recruited his cousins from Eliezer’s branch to serve with him.

Eliezer’s Family – 1 Chronicles 23:17 states that the first was Rehabiah and Eliezer had no other sons. But that Rehabiah had many sons. 1 Chronicles 26:24 list four grandsons.

            THOUGHTS

  • Moses interceded with God to not destroy the sons of Jacob. God offered a new people to come through Moses; would Gershom and Eliezer had been the start?
  • The bloodline of Moses may still exist today. 
  • The children of leaders do not always have a great life. 

The Study Continues Judges 17 and 18 are a story that tells how lax attitudes had become in parts of Israel.

  • Dan, the Tribe. As a tribe Dan is active until the time of Amos and Isaiah, but this unfaithfulness may show up in Revelation 7:5-8 where the 144,000 from Israel are listed. Dan is not listed in the tribes, the twelve however include Manasseh and the ‘tribe of Joseph’ or Ephriam.
  • Dan, the bully. This group from Dan stole and threatened a fellow Israelite over an idol that neither one of them should have had.
  • Making your own priest. This sin was borrowed by Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12:31 when he set up golden calf gods in DAN and Bethel. This may have been because of location, but those idols had done their damage. These calf idols seem to have been there until the northern kingdom was exported by Assyria during Isaiah’s lifetime.
  • Manasseh – Good king Hezekiah produces the worst king named Manasseh, 2 Kings 21. I point this out because of the name association, but it almost seems prophetic.

Christmas Connection’s 2020

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My wife found these two verses as we were looking into a place called Migdal Eder.  This Christmas connection adds support to the story we know and love.

Migdal Eder is a new place and term for us.  We heard about it in connection with the sheep and shepherds around Bethlehem.  In my post (Jeremiah – A Christmas Connection) we talked about Jeremiah 31:15 because of Rachel and her death and mourning.  Both of these things are part of the history of Bethlehem.  Migdal Eder was a tower that was used to guard the sheep that were used for the Temple.  This tower/cave/birthing pen/stable might have been where Jesus was born.  The reference in the Bible is Micah 4:8 and uses the term watchtower and stronghold and in 5:2 we have Bethlehem added as the location. There are many opinions and much uncertainty about Migdal Eder but I feel it has a place in the Story.   

During the study we saw Job 38:7 – “the morning stars sang together and all of the angels shouted for joy” (NIV).  This is part of the Lord’s answer to Job.  It also would fit very well into the Genesis narrative of the story of creation.  It describes the angel’s songfest for the shepherds on the first Christmas.  So, how does a creation idea work into Christmas?  Jesus’ arrival marked a new beginning for mankind and especially Israel. The Bible is the story of the children of God and our history.  First, with natural Israel and then with spiritual Israel.  The two stories need to be told together to get to all that the Lord God wants to show us.

Over the years, we have heard many facts and traditions about the swaddling clothes or strips of cloth that Mary put on Jesus and that the shepherds were to be looking for.  These two things are tied to Migdal Eder.    

They could have been at THAT stable for the lambs for the Temple.  There seems to be a few facts about the wrapping up of Temple lambs in strips of cloth from the worn-out priest robes.  Some people reference tour guides in Israel as their source of information and others quote an eighteenth-century book about a third-century oral tradition. Do your own study – the idea is nice but very few solid facts about wrapping up baby lambs.

Ezekiel 16:4 does talk about the practice of child care after birth.  The child was washed in water, rubbed with salt, and wrapped in strips of cloth.  This verse and story of how God treated Jerusalem can also be used as part of the Exodus story as the washing might be the trip through the Red Sea after they were delivered from Egypt. The rubbing with salt may be the forty years of wandering and the wrapping up could be the protection God gave Joshua and David.

These verses are good additions to my other Christmas Connection verses.

 

I AM – Exodus

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“I AM” is the name that God Almighty chose to reveal to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The name is so holy to the Jews that they leave the vowels out of it so that it is not pronounceable – YHWH.  According to the footnote in my NIV, Lord sounds like and may come from the Hebrew for I Am. 

My purpose in studying this passage/phrase is to look at the times Jesus said “I AM” in the Book of John.  I feel it will add to the miracles that John highlights as proof that Jesus is the Son of God.  But this is my background study, and I am glad that I started here.  There are several things I saw and want to show you.

First, in Exodus 6:3 God tells Moses He showed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty or El-Shaddai (Genesis 17:1).  That is important when you realize that they had no written Word or anyone to teach them about the true God.  Joseph and his brothers (so their children) only had oral traditions and possibly dreams and visions to guide them.  (It does make you wonder what part Melchizedek played, if any, in their education.)  The “few times” that God interacted with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives had to be impressive or they would have wandered away.  (The reason I said a “few times” is the number of recorded “visits” or “revelations” versus the number of years they lived.)    

Names are important in the Bible – some are changed, you can be given a new one (Revelations) and Jesus has one that will not be revealed.  I tend to start with the meaning of names (people and places) in my studies, but they can hold a mixed bag of information.  Lo Debar is deceptive if you do not study the town, where it was located, and its main source of income.  The three Ananias’ in the Book of Acts portray a wide range of characteristics and not all of them fit with the name or at least my paradigms.

Second, is the play on words between Moses and God with the phrase “I am”.  I know some of this depends on the translations you read, KJV is slightly different than many others.  KJV has Moses using “am I” twice, once in verse 4 (Here am I) and then again in verse 11 with God using “I AM” seven times (the number of completion) in the same conversation.  Many other translations have Moses in verse 4 saying, “Here I am.”

The third interesting thing is the change in the word Lord.  My Second Edition Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance has two different listings under the word lord.  A more common use of the word is first used in Genesis 18:27 while the word rendered Yahweh starts in Genesis 2:4. Then, there are times when the word Adonai and YHWH are together, and you see LORD in the NIV. (This is from the preface in my NIV.)  The non-God reference in this concordance is #123 with donay being #151 and Yahweh being #3378 (These are not Strong’s numbers.)

Forth, I suggest using the parallel function on Bible Gateway and see the way different translations handle Exodus 3: 4-15. I paralleled The Names of God Bible, Complete Jewish Bible, Orthodox Jewish Bible, the Revised Standard Version, NIV, and others.  Check the footnotes as “I AM” may have other meanings- “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” was a common possible version.  Verse 12 in the NIV has God saying, “I will be with you” to Moses.

Please check YouTube for Jonathan Chan videos as he has very good revelation into the I AM mystery. Also, check –   https://www1.biu.ac.il/indexE.php?id=17636&pt=1&pid=14398&level=0&cPath=43,14206,14373,14398,17636   This is Bar-Ilan University, they have several viewpoints on this topic.  I also found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am   helpful on the Yahweh and ehyeh connection. In Genesis God revealed Himself to Abraham as God Almighty or El-Shaddai.  In Exodus, He added the name of I AM or Yahweh or LORD.  I will be showing how Jesus used “I am” in introducing Himself in the Book of John to show Himself as the Son of God.

Thoughts On Out Of Egypt

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Israel wanting to back to Egypt

Exodus 32: 1 is a progression in the story of the People’s discontent with God and Moses.  They had crumbled and test God ten times in this progression and it will come to a head in Numbers 14.  In this installment of the story Moses is on Mount Sinai getting the tablets of the Law, he was gone a long time and the people want a physical “god” they can follow.  

In Numbers 14 the spies have come back from the Land and Joshua and Caleb are the only ones to have a good report.  The people lose their minds and work themselves up to pick a new leader and go back to Egypt!  Most of the time when I have heard this taught the speaker says something about slavery and all of the bad things that happened.  What if, they were planning to go back and attack Egypt and enslave them!  They had been trained and were ready to go fight for the Land. It is only two years since they left Egypt and they had left Egypt in shambles.  (It is interesting that in Numbers 13: 33 they saw themselves as grasshoppers.  The hordes of grasshoppers that do invade the lands of the Middle East are still today viewed with dread!). It would make sense that they felt they could conquer Egypt or at least a part of it and live there.  How many times are Christians plagued with the thought that at least some portion of the old life could be made acceptable because going forward seems so hard?  

Caleb and Joshua

This thought about Joshua and Caleb has left me hanging!  Did their families (wife and children) go in with them, if they were over nineteen years of age?  Numbers 14:20 starts the consequence part of failing to obey the Lord’s voice.  God drew a boundary of twenty years as the age of who would get in.  We know from Joshua 15:13 and Joshua 24: 15 that both of those men had families in the Promised Land.  Caleb tells his age in Joshua 14: 7 (40 yrs.) when he explored the land. He could have had “family” by then.  I know a lot can happen in thirty-eight years, Caleb had a daughter in Joshua 15: 16.  She was the reward for taking the land that Caleb had received from the Lord. 

Since everyone over nineteen years old did not make it in, I will go that they had their families after the spying incident.  (Remember, girls, married in their teens and sometimes the men were older and established before they took wives.)

Caleb was eighty-five at the time he asked Joshua for the right to “take” his land.  so, 45 – 38 means that at that point the conquest was seven years old. Forty-five is how long he had been kept alive and thirty-eight was the wandering time.  (See thirty-eight) (See Out of Egypt)

It would have been hard for me to watch everyone I know to die!  On a different note -Numbers 14: 20 does say that the people had been forgiven, just that they were not going into the Land.

Miracles are given to confirm the word of the Lord and strengthen our faith – learn from them!

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