Week 11 (April 10-14)
Text: Exodus 19 & 20
Mount Sinai and the Law
Mount Sinai:
Mount Sinai is called the Mountain of Moses. it is also known as Mount Hareh, in Hebrew as Har Sinai, in Arabic as Jabal Musa. It is a granitic peak of the south-central Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The Sinai is a land intercepted between the limestone plateau of the Tih desert in the north, and the gulfs of suez and Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea. This is a rugged and waste region, a little watered and full of wild, animal, and impressive mountain scenery. It was and is under Egyptian territory and influence. Geographically, Sinai is composed of rocks of the oldest period. These rocks are granite of a red and grey colour, and Gneiss, with schists of various kinds, hornblende, talcose, and choleric overlaying them. Vegetation is confined to the valleys.
Mount Sinai is renowned as the principal site of divine revelation in Jewish history, where God is purported to have appeared to Moses and given him the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). The mountain rises to 7,497 feet (2,285 metres) above sea level. It has become an important pilgrim and tourist site. There are only two references to Mount Sinai in the Old Testament, the Torah, the Law of Moses was given to Israel on Mount Sinai, then in 1 Kings 19 which describes how prophet Elijah hid himself to escape from evil Queen Jezebel. Mount Sinai is described with a great ecological drama including fire, storm, and an earthquake, only this time God reveals to the prophet that He doesn’t dwell in these outward powerful manifestations, similar to the dramatic events of the receiving of the Law. There was not a permanent dwelling of God in Mount Sinai.
Rabbinic teachings in the Talmud say that “It is not the place that honors the person; rather, the person honors his place, as we found with regard to Mount Sinai, that as long as the Divine Presence rested upon it, the Torah said: ‘Do not let the flocks or the herds graze before that mountain.’ But, once the Divine Presence departed from the mountain, the Torah said: ‘When the shofar sounds long, they may come up to the mountain,’ indicating that the sanctity was not intrinsic to the place, but was due to the Divine Presence resting there.”
The Law:
Moses was the first and greatest lawgiver to the Israelites. John said that the law was given through Moses (John 1:17). For Any nation or community to be united they need a centralized legal system. The exodus community during the time of Moses was badly in need of one such unifying force which was developed by Moses as the law of Moses. This law was not his own invention but the revelation of Yahweh. This judicial system was explained in Exodus 18:15. Moses was solving the issues, and disputes with the help of heavenly intervention. Those formulas were called statues of God and his final decisions.
Torah, the law, was originally an oral tradition passed on to the people of God. It was very practical to meet the needs of this primitive nation during the times of exodus and settlement (Exodus 21:6, 22:8). The laws were dealing with moral obligations, civil rights, and rituals. Moses was the chief justice of their Supreme Court but there were judges at various levels to deal with the cases according to their natures (Exodus 18:13-26). Later these judiciary systems were passed on to the local leaders, judges, and kings in the life of this nation.
Torah began as oral, then became written code. (Hosea 8:12). They also used that word for Pentateuch. Later they used the word law of the Lord in the entire Old Testament. It started with Decalogue (Exodus 20:1, Deuteronomy 5:22). The Israelites were familiar with the words such as miswoth for commands, hukkim for statues, and misphatim for judgments or ordinances. The first three are sacred law and the last one is secular law. The Old Testament has the book of the covenant or covenant code (Exodus 20:22-23:19). They also have the holiness code is found in Leviticus 17-26.
Ten Commandments teach us to “Respect God… respect His name… respect His day… respect your mother and your father… respect the truth… respect your neighbor… respect your neighbor’s wife… respect your neighbor’s stuff… respect yourself.”(Reuven Doron).
References: Dictionary of the Bible, Encyclopedia of Britannica, and a few articles from commentaries.
