Exodus - Lesson 25

Dr. Carmen Imes 
Exodus 
OT605-25 
Conquest of Canaan 
Lesson Transcript

Welcome back. We've made it to chapter 23 of Exodus. We've already read the first 19 verses and now we're entering into a different section.

We're now out of the covenant code. So this is no longer legislation, but it is further instructions for Israel as they enter into the promised land or they anticipate doing so. We're going to spend some time in this passage to to try to listen very carefully to what it is that God is asking his people to do, in part because one of the biggest objections that people raise to the Old Testament and to the God of the Old Testament is the violence of the conquest of Canaan.

For a lot of people, the conquest is the thing that's a deal breaker for them. They don't understand how anyone would want to worship and follow a God who wipes people out. And so we've already seen a hint in the signs and wonders narratives of God's mercy and his compassion and how he gradually increases the intensity in order to get the attention of the Egyptians.

He doesn't just come in and shoot everybody on the first day. I think we're going to need to take that lesson with us into this passage and I'm going to have you listen for blood because sometimes people are so put off by the conquest because it's bloody and they think that God is associated with death that is unwarranted. And so it will serve us well to slow down and read this really carefully.

So I'll begin in verse 20 and there are some mysteries in this passage that I have not solved myself. I'm just going to put it out there for you to ponder with me in the work on my commentary. I'm up to chapter 14 and so we're now long past the part that I've done in depth for my commentary, but I have been teaching Exodus for many years so I do have some thoughts to share, but we'll see kind of where these passages lead us.

Starting in verse 20, see I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. This is interesting. We've already had the mention of an angel before when they're at the Sea of Reeds and being faced by Pharaoh's army bearing down on them.

It said that the angel of the Lord went around to stand between the Egyptians and the Israelites to provide protection. So this isn't the first time we've seen an angel, but it is interesting that it appears again without much fanfare. We don't know much about the angel in terms of could they see the angel? Is the angel in the cloud? And so where the cloud is, the angel is, it's not entirely clear.

What is clear is that God is not leaving them without guidance. So he's brought them out of Egypt, they've met him at the mountain, but he's not just sending them on ahead to fend for themselves. He is sending an angel ahead of them to guard them and to bring them to the place he has prepared.

The instruction is, pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him. He will not forgive your rebellion since my name is in him.

That is, he is my authorized representative. This is not quite the same phrase as what it says about the people bearing God's name. Here the name is in him, so somehow he's representing Yahweh's leadership, therefore they can't just rebel against him.

To rebel against him would be to rebel against Yahweh, and they would have to contend with Yahweh. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.

So we have already, just in these first few verses, protection for their journey, guidance to the promised land, ongoing instruction. He's going to continue instructing them because it says if you listen carefully to what he says. So God has not said everything that needs to be said at Sinai.

It's not like one and done, but God is planning to continue to give them guidance and instruction going forward, and he will lead them in battle and wipe out their enemies. So this is all, I'm sure, reassuring for the people of Israel. Now what will Yahweh do? What will Yahweh himself do? He will oppose Israel's enemies.

He will wipe out Israel's enemies. We will find out in a few verses that he's going to throw nations into confusion and drive them out, establishing Israel's borders and giving the people into Israel's hands. What I want us to listen for carefully as we read the rest of this passage is what are the Israelites supposed to do? And this is where I want you to watch for blood.

Where is the part where they're supposed to kill people? So listen for blood as I read. We're picking it up in verse 24. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them and follow their practices.

You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. To answer the question of what they're demolishing, who are they demolishing? We need to go back to the nearest plural antecedent. You must demolish them.

What's the them? Do not bow down before their gods, plural. So don't bow down before their gods. Instead, demolish them.

That is, demolish the gods and break their sacred stones to pieces. That would be just like demolishing the gods. If there's idols, smash them.

If there are sacred stones with sacred religious writing on them, smash them. Worship Yahweh your God and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you and none will miscarry or be barren in your land.

I will give you a full lifespan. So that's the extent of his instructions for what they're supposed to do when they get there. And did you hear any blood? I didn't either.

The instructions are religious in nature. They're supposed to wipe out the worship of other gods and they're supposed to smash any implements of worship so that worship cannot take place and then God will bless them. So, so far it's not bowing down to or worshiping the gods, demolishing the gods and their sacred stones and worshiping Yahweh.

I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. You don't have to kill somebody when they've run away.

I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. I have no idea what that means. I have no idea what the hornet is or how it works, but apparently this hornet or maybe swarms of hornets since the word locust is singular in the signs and wonders, God sends the locust.

So maybe his sending of the hornet is going to be swarms of hornets to scare people so they run off and leave the land. In any case, whatever this is and however it works, God's going to send the hornet to drive out the people so that they don't have to do it themselves. And then he clarifies, but I will not drive them out in a single year because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

Little by little, I will drive them out before you until you have increased enough to take possession of the land. This is going to be a process that takes some time. This is good to keep in mind when somebody says to you, oh, the Bible's unreliable because we have no evidence of a sudden population explosion or a sudden shift from Canaanite to Israelite inhabitants in the time of the conquest.

Well, the text says here that it's going to be gradual. It's going to take some time to drive the Canaanites out. God reiterates in verse 31, I will establish your borders from the Red Sea or Sea of Reeds to the Mediterranean Sea and from the desert to the Euphrates River.

So that's the northern and western border. And then from the desert to the Euphrates River, this is kind of all four sides of their land, the eastern border and the northern border. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land and you will drive them out before you.

Again, no blood. Driving someone out is not the same thing as killing them. Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods.

Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you. So they're demolishing the worship of other gods. They're driving the people out and this happens in stages.

God's going to drive them out. The hornet's going to drive them out. I will give them into your hands and you drive them out.

Seems like maybe different actors at different times and they're not supposed to make a covenant with them. My emphasis here on listening for blood is not meant to suggest that there wasn't any blood during the conquest. Undoubtedly, people did die in the book of Joshua when the Israelites come into the land.

My point here is to show you that when God commands the conquest, he does not command them to kill people. He commands them to drive them away and to demolish the worship of other gods. So this is not genocide.

This is displacement and the dismantling of the worship of other gods. And why can the Canaanites not live in the land? Why is it that God wants them out? It's very clear at the end of this passage. Don't let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.

It's very important that we get this right, that we understand and notice that it's not because they're a different race or a different ethnicity and I don't want any mixing. The problem is not their skin color. The problem is not the language they speak.

The problem is religion. These people have not become followers of Yahweh and if they remain in the land, they're going to entice you to add other gods before me and to worship multiple gods. That's not going to work.

So this is not ethnic cleansing. It's not a genocide. The concern is exclusive worship of Yahweh.

In a few chapters, we encounter a reiteration of this. So I want to flip forward there now to chapter 34, starting in verse 10. A lot has elapsed between chapter 23 and 34.

We'll talk about that in a future session but I want to show you when God reiterates what they're to do in the land. It's very similar language and again, we could listen for blood. Then Yahweh said, I am making a covenant with you.

Before all your people, I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, Yahweh, will do for you. Obey what I command today.

I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These are all different people groups that live in the land, some based on location, some based on ethnicity. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you.

Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other God, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.

And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons, and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. This is why we have to be so careful about who remains in the land. But notice, it did not say chop off their heads, or slit their throats, or choke them to death.

There's no language about torture or killing. All of the language is about stamping out the worship of other gods and driving the people away. This, I think, is helpful.

It's not unique to the book of Exodus. When we get to Deuteronomy, we have very similar language. Deuteronomy 7, 1 through 6, is another reiteration, Moses talking to the next generation about what to do when they get in the land.

When Yahweh your God brings you into the land you're entering to possess, and drives out before you many nations, Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you, and when Yahweh your God has delivered them over to you, and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. This is the part that sounds potentially bloody, but this is the Hebrew word herim, which simply means they are off limits to you. You are not to take them as part of your society.

It might involve killing. It might involve driving them away, but the main point is you can't engage with them and interact with them. They are not fair game for you to do business with, or marry, or hang out with.

Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and Yahweh's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

This is what you are to do to them. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire. It's the same things that we saw in Exodus.

We are destroying the implements of worship. The commission is not to destroy people, and the same thing can be seen in chapter 12, verses 1 through 4. The breaking of altars, cutting down of the worship of Asherah, the poles for Asherah worship. This is what they're to do when they get in the land, and this is not ethnic cleansing.

So that sets us up for the people signing on to the covenant fully. They've already agreed in chapter 19 everything Yahweh has said we will do, and now we've come to chapter 24. They've received the book of the covenant.

They know what God expects, and so God hasn't asked them to fully sign on until they knew what he expected of them. Now we've had the Ten Commandments. We've had the book of the covenant, and so it's time to enter formally and officially into the covenant with Yahweh.

So chapter 24 confirms the covenant through a special ritual involving blood. We were listening for blood in the last chapter, and we didn't find any, but here is where the blood is, and it's sacrificial blood. It's not human blood.

So let's read together beginning in chapter 24, verse 1. Then Yahweh said to Moses, Come up to Yahweh, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach Yahweh. The others must not come near, and the people may not come up with him.

So we have three tiers of closeness to God in this story. The people are down below the mountain at the base of the mountain. Moses gets to go all the way up to God, and then partway up the mountain is a special place for Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, his two sons, and 70 of the elders of Israel.

They're the representatives of the people, and they get to come a little bit closer to eat a covenant meal with Yahweh, but the rest of the nation stays at the foot of the mountain. When Moses went and told the people all Yahweh's words and laws, they responded with one voice. Everything Yahweh has said we will do.

Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. Here's one place where the book of Exodus indicates that Moses could write, and that he wrote this down. This is an important thing to put into writing because it's the covenant.

It's the confirmation of the covenant, and so this becomes this thing that Moses wrote down becomes part of the whole book, whether he wrote that or whether someone else compiled the final book. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up 12 stone pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Now there are actually 13 tribes because remember Joseph's two sons Ephraim and Manasseh have been adopted as as members of the tribes, but Levi doesn't get counted as a tribe because the Levites are the priests who are helping to administer this ceremony.

So the 12 other tribes are represented with stones set up, stone pillars at the base of the mountain. Then he sent young Israelite men and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to Yahweh. Moses took half the blood and put it in bowls and the other half he splashed against the altar, and then he took the book of the covenant, which we just read, and he read it to the people.

They responded, we will do everything Yahweh has said, we will obey. Moses then took the blood, and this is the most surprising part of the ceremony to me at least when I read it, he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people. It's kind of a gross ceremony to us.

He's taking this animal blood and he's sprinkling it on the people. What does this mean? He says these words, this is the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words. So there has to be some kind of solemn ritual to put this covenant into effect, and the covenant is put into effect with the blood of these offerings that they've made to God.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the 70 elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, a precious gemstone, as bright blue as the sky, but God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites. They saw God and they ate and drank.

Yahweh said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain and stay here and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I've written for their instruction. We've already heard the 10 commandments back in chapter 20, but they were just verbal. God spoke them from the mountain.

We haven't gotten any tablets yet until now. It's now time to put it into writing because they're entering formally into this agreement with God. So then Moses set out with Joshua, his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God and he said to the elders, wait here for us until we come back to you.

Aaron and Hur are with you and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them. Aaron is, of course, the older brother of Moses who will become the high priest. Hur was involved in the battle against the Amalekites.

He was the one who was helping to hold up Moses' arms so that they would win the battle. So Moses delegates leadership to them while he's gone. When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it and the glory of Yahweh settled on Mount Sinai.

For six days, the cloud covered the mountain and on the seventh day, Yahweh called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites, the glory of Yahweh looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain and good thing he appointed Aaron and Hur as his delegated authority because we're told he stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights and this is a long time to be gone and so he wants to make sure that the people have proper leadership while he's gone.

So a few things to notice about this chapter. There is a clear context of worship. The people entering into this covenant do so with sacrifices and offerings and they do so willingly.

There is a clear articulation of the expectations. Moses reads the book of the law to them so that they know what they're agreeing to do. The people verbally agree to do it.

There's a written record of those expectations. There's stone pillars representing all 12 tribes so that everyone is clear that they're part of this covenant. All 12 tribes.

Nobody can be like, no not you guys. I think you slept in that morning. There's a clear message that everyone is welcome.

All the the tribes are part of this agreement with Yahweh and then there's ritual offerings that are offered in the symbolic blood that's sprinkled on them. So what does this sprinkled blood symbolize? Well the priestly ordination ritual is the one other place that applies blood to both the altar and to a person. So in Leviticus chapter 8 they go through the ceremony of consecrating the priests for service.

It's their day of ordination and they take some of the blood and they put it on the altar and then they put some on Aaron's right earlobe and his right thumb and his right big toe. It's a very interesting ceremony but it indicates that from head to toe Aaron and his sons are set apart for the service of God. So the sprinkled blood has a similar message here I think that there's it it shows us the official entrance into the covenant of the people.

They are in fact a kingdom of priests so for blood to be sprinkled on them means that they have been inducted into the priesthood in a sense. It's not the same ordination that Aaron and his sons will go through but it is symbolic of their entrance into the covenant. It underscores their role as a kingdom of priests.

There's only one other place in the Bible where we have sprinkled blood put on a person. If you read Leviticus 1 through 7 where it gives all the different kinds of sacrifices and the particular procedures for each one, you'll notice never is there blood put on a person. The it's never put on people.

So this particular ceremony is unique. It's only seen in the ordination of the priests and here and then in one other place which is worth mentioning because somebody out there has read Leviticus and they're going to wonder about this. So I'll just give a note about what's going on in Leviticus 14.

So Leviticus 14 1 through 32 is regulations about defiling skin diseases and skin diseases make someone ritually impure so that they have to separate themselves from the community until they're healed. It seems like probably the meaning is that when you have a skin disease it looks like your body is decaying as if you're dying while you're still alive and so they would have been used to seeing bodies decay after death because they would bury them in a tomb, wait for the body to disintegrate, and then gather up the bones and put them in a box. You remember Joseph's bones were carried up from Egypt.

Jacob's bones were carried up from Egypt. Normally the Israelites would let a body decompose so they were used to seeing decomposing bodies and when someone has a skin disease it looks like they're starting to decompose even though they're still alive and so the idea here is that at the end of the process if someone is healed of a skin disease then they bring an offering to the priest and the priest goes through a special ritual that includes sprinkling blood on the person. This time the blood is not applied to the altar because it's not a matter of sin that's being atoned for it's a reinstatement of an unclean person, a person who's been in a ritually impure state to a state of purity as a member again of the kingdom of priests.

So it's kind of like a reset button remembering their initial inauguration into the covenant from Exodus 24. That's the only other place we have sprinkled blood. Do you have any questions about the ratification of the covenant or or the instructions about what they're supposed to do in the land? When the Israelites were told to destroy the gods of the other nations is part of the reason for that if we look at it from a cultural perspective the way the other nations practiced their religions things like human sacrifice depending on gods in a way that was really oppressive to people and caused them unnecessary suffering.

Yeah. Just from a cultural point of view is that part of? I think so I mean pharaoh we mentioned in an earlier session that pharaoh's refusal to know Yahweh or his an inadequate knowledge of Yahweh is actually leading to oppression and I think we see that in the worship of other cultures as well the cultures in the land that the the gods are capricious, they're greedy, they're lazy, they're lustful, there's all these anti-qualities about them, vices that they indulge in and then it's no wonder that the people who worship those gods engage in that behavior and so part of it is God wanting to create a just society. You need to have a just God that you're worshiping and so yes there is to wipe out the of those gods would also wipe out the practices that are oppressive.

I think it's also true that it would have sent a strong message about Yahweh being greater than these other gods so it sends a message to Israel and protects them so that they don't go off and worship these other gods but the nations being driven out would have seen it as a signal of Yahweh's superiority. Each time I mentioned in an earlier session that in Egypt they would chop off the the snake on the forehead of the of a pharaoh statue. 

And they would also I think the other thing is he has a belt buckle in most statues of pharaoh there's a belt buckle with his name on it in hieroglyphics and they would chip that out too. And when you take off his name and cut off his nose and cut off the the snake on his forehead he's lost his authority. There's a story of one particular pharaoh Akhenaten who tries to wipe out the worship of other gods and his method of doing this is to break down their idols and to chip away their names. So when God says especially in Deuteronomy to wipe out their names from that place it's a way of decommissioning them saying that they no longer have power.