People have a tendency to murmur for two reasons: hoping they won’t be heard and hoping they will. If we complain, God will hear it. If you hear people complaining, don’t join in. If we do, particularly about what God is doing or not doing, the consequences may be grim. God may be working in ways and through people unexpected.
We explore the “strange fire” or “foreign fire” offered by two priests in Leviticus 10 that got God so angry He incinerated both immediately. Was this capricious, or was the Author of Life teaching something fundamental through these deaths?
God, through Moshe (Moses), consecrates His mediator, Aharon (Aaron). There is a clear transfer of spiritual authority from Moshe to Aharon at this point. This is a foreshadowing of God’s consecration of Yeshua, our Messiah as our High Priest, who had to walk a sacrificial walk for us that we could hear, do and walk in God’s word as He does. After Moshe consecrated Aharon and his sons, there was no longer any doubt as to how God has chosen to be the mediator between Himself and His people.
If we can choose just one word to summarize the book of Exodus, it’s reconciliation. God used Moshe (Moses) to bring the descendants of Israel out of Egypt to be His people. Even after the golden calf was made, God still wanted to reconcile to His people Israel, and Israel wanted to reconcile to Him. The people of Israel were willing to give much to be reconciled to Him to the point that Moshe had to tell the children of Israel to stop giving because the coffers were overflowing with gifts. They wanted Him to dwell with them.
God said through Paul that He began a good work in us. God will complete the good work. We are to be living stones. We will surround the Creator of Heaven and Earth and His Son, Yeshua (Jesus) the Mashiakh (Messiah). There will be no temple there, because the temple will be there all the time. The only temple will be the people He saved.
God ultimately used the Messiah to reconcile the world to Himself, no longer recognizing their transgressions. A clean slate, it’s all new. He doesn’t pay attention to our sins, transgressions and iniquities. We are to be ambassadors to reconcile people to God.
The territory of Sin — a place name, not the term for moral malady — that Israel transversed after leaving Mitsraim (Egypt) was a very large place. It’s in the area where Mt. Sinai is located.
Yet, Yisra’el did sin at Rephadim, so it was called Massah and Meribah. But God still gave the people water from the rock — “living water” preceded law at Sinai — and defeated Amalek.
The plague against the firstborn seems harsh because the innocent died because of the faults of the leadership of Mitsraim (Egypt). However, like with the life of Yosef (Joseph), that plague is a foreshadowing of the future death of an innocent Firstborn, Yeshua the Messiah.
The account of Moshe (Moses) encountering God via the burning bush has spawned a number of interpretations and explanations about who Moshe encountered, how the bush could be burning yet not consumed, etc. Yet the declaration of the Name of God there and the signs God gave Moshe to show the leaders of Yisra’el is the important element. The Name and the signs would strengthen not only Moshe but the leadership for something powerful God would do on Earth via Yisra’el in the mighty empire of Mitsraim (Egypt).
This study also explores the seeming strange vignette of God on the warpath against Moshe’s family, placated only by Tsipporah’s circumcising the son. This appears to be a foreshadowing of the 10th plague against Mitsraim.