Introduction
In our previous two studies on chapter 20 of Exodus we have laid some foundations for understanding why God is giving his law and what it means. He claims possession of these people because he has rescued them from bondage. This gives him the right to make demands on them. The commandments describe God's character in moral precepts. As God's people the Israelites are to aspire to copying God in their own lives, both as individuals and as a nation. This will have the effect of glorifying Yahweh in front of the nations when they come to the Promised Land.
We discovered that the Ten Words deal with relationship, towards God and towards others. They deal with instilling an attitude of service and humility. Many hinge on the notion of belonging and possession, which infers limits and boundaries in behaviour.
Fear
The giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt Sinai is a genuinely frightening experience for the Israelites and the want to go 'home' and let Moses face the music alone. They don't like hearing God's voice, and they would rather Moses tell them what God has said later. If fear is the beginning of wisdom as the proverb have it then the Israelites have become rapidly wise in the extreme! Yet, is this instinctive fear of God's power and might the kind if fear that the Bible talks about. After all, we can only approach and deal with God in human terms and if he's genuinely frightening then we are likely to run away just like these ancient Hebrews.
Moses tells them in verse 20 that this 'animal' fear is inappropriate and unnecessary, and that God is giving them an experience of himself to act as an incentive should they try and opt out of his gracious calling. This verse contains an apparent contradiction about fearing God. Reducing it to its logical construction the verse says, 'don't fear God so that you can fear him'.
It is best to understand this logical conundrum by recasting the sentence thus, 'Remember how afraid you are of him here in this experience, so that when he tests you again, you act correctly'. It’s a little like being shown the torture chamber as an incentive not to break the king’s law, although strangely, the law uncovers wholly beneficial delights rather than instruments of pain. Is it not perverse that humanity feels this way about God's holiness.
Perhaps the people have already grasped the truth that the keeping of the Law is beyond their capability. We gain an inkling of how even God’s people will have a natural rebelliousness in them. It is far preferable to have a human judge than a divine one. They need Jesus Christ, as do we, a judge who is fully human, although he is fully divine too.
Context Established
Peter Enns says in his excellent NIV Application commentary, "The Ten Commandments should not be understood as isolated moral maxims... They are given in an historical and redemptive context...to a people already redeemed, not so that they might be redeemed... The focus of many of these commands is to foster social cohesion, which serves not merely to make the Israelites 'nice people', but agents of world change, image-bearers of God to be a light to the nations."
Please bear with me if I seem to introduce an unrelated matter and delve too deeply into the minutiae of the text. You will understand where we are going in due course.
The Israelites have observed God's presence in sound primarily but also in flames of lightening. The word for 'lightning' (Hebrew 'lappeed' v18) occurs just twice in the Pentateuch. Its twin is in Genesis 15:10-19 where it is the 'blazing torch' that passes between Abraham’s animal halves.
Possession of the Land
Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river£ of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates — the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
The issue at stake between Abraham and God in Genesis 15 is possession of the Promised Land (vv.17-18) and the guarantee that it would happen. On the matter of guarantee is where the lightning or blazing torch comes in. It is the sign that God will deliver on his promise of a land. "Know for certain" he says to Abram. Genesis 15 specifically states that ownership of the Promised Land will come about upon release of Abram's family from captivity in Egypt (verse 16).
The sign of guarantee that the Christian has, is surely the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians Paul says,
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.(Eph. 1:13-14)
Geography
Up to now in Exodus the Israelites have been journeying to the pivotal location of the book, which is Mt. Sinai where a covenant is made between God and the Israelites, a legally-binding contract to govern their future behaviour towards one another. You might imagine they have been going up the mountain from the direction of Egypt. Now they are to go down again on the side figuratively speaking facing towards Canaan. So now the focus of this Old Testament book becomes one of possessing the land. Redemption is always a story of two halves, the taking out of and the taking in to.
Testing revisited
Looking at verses 20-26 in Exodus 20, it seems likely the Israelites be tested again on the way down as they were on the way up the mountain and the immediate test will be idolatry – isn’t that why God has Moses stress that in verse 22? Not holding on to God is the journey’s biggest danger. Doubtless, that is ours too.
We are all journeyers, following Jesus towards the Promised Land of Heaven. For many of us there are and will be wanderings through he wilderness. We must ensure that we try and learn the lessons of Exodus well. If there is one over-riding lesson, then it is this. We should always stay in relationship with God, and avoid idolatry of all kinds. Faith, at root, is holding onto Jesus come rain or shine and never giving up.
In our remaining studies of Exodus, we will consider preparation for the Promised Land, the foundation of covenant and the implications of idolatry which we wee in the massive provocation of God in the Golden Calf story of chapters 32-34.