FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Video: Exodus Overview (Part Two) - Genesis 3:10 - February R&C Episode Note: We provide links to specific resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Full Episode
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. About seven weeks after leaving Egypt, the Israelites finally make it to the wilderness of Sinai, at the base of Mount Sinai. We've seen this mountain referred to earlier in Scripture as the Mountain of God, and it's probably also the same place as Mount Horeb. It seems to be one of God's favorite places.
Here, God calls to Moses from out of the mountain, and Moses passes his words along to the people. These people who, as far as we can tell, seem to complain more than they praise, promise to do everything God commands of them. We'll see. God says he's going to meet the people at Mount Sinai, so they need to consecrate themselves.
This is the same thing he called them to do for the firstborns, and it basically means set them apart and prepare them to encounter God. It usually involves a bath and some clean clothes. And Moses also tells them to abstain from sex during this time, not because women are evil, but because things like seminal fluids and blood are symbols of life and death.
As far as their laws for cleanliness are concerned, to be depleted of either of those things points to the depletion of life, which wasn't considered an appropriate way to honor the presence of the giver of life. When the people come to meet God, they cannot touch the mountain or they'll die. And if someone does touch it, no one is allowed to touch that person.
That would mean the transfer of both the death sentence that person was carrying and the transfer of the power of God. It's kind of like grabbing somebody who's being electrocuted. God's power is not hypothetical. Being in contact with it has verifiable dramatic effects. You may have noticed that he says they have to kill anyone who touches the mountain. It doesn't say they'll die from touching it.
This is interesting here because it shows us that God regards killing as a different thing than murder. We see this again in 21.12 when he says, "'Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.'" I'm not making any kind of political statements about the death penalty here.
I'm just pointing out that Scripture makes a distinction between murdering someone and killing someone as a penalty, or even as an accident. The reason I'm pointing this out is because some people say God contradicts Himself here by telling them to kill someone, then issuing the Ten Commandments only a few verses later.
But the Hebrew phrase in the Ten Commandments is best translated as, you shall not murder. Murder specifically is different than killing in general. The Hebrew word for murder is never used in the Old Testament when referring to war or capital punishment. So here they are at the mountain of God, and on the third day, there's a big storm and a loud trumpet blast.
God descended on the mountain in fire and it was covered in smoke. Oh, there's also an earthquake. Then in the midst of the storm, a fire, smoke, an earthquake, and an ever increasing ear piercing trumpet noise, God tells Moses, come closer, climb the mountain, the mountain that no one else is allowed to touch. And Moses does. God has a few things to tell him.
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