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Exodus 21:33-22:15: Private Property and Restitution

July 7, 2017 By Peter Krol

From the start, God’s case laws show that his kingdom is not like the kingdoms of the world, because even the lowest in society have basic human rights. These rights affect the way we treat even one another’s property.

Observation of Exodus 21:33-22:15

Most repeated words: if (17 times), ox (11x), man (10), not (9), make (8), owner (8), beast (7), restitution (7), neighbor (6), sheep (6)

The shift from slavery and violence (Ex 20:22-21:32) to non-human property is clear even from the repeated words

As with the previous section, the main unit of grammar remains the sentence, but sentences are grouped into paragraphs that give alternative situations.

The theme of this entire section is restitution: paying someone back for what was lost, broken, or stolen.

Owners can be held liable for both active (Ex 21:35) and passive (Ex 21:33) negligence. It doesn’t matter whether they cause damage or simply fail to prevent it.
The basic penalty for theft is to repay double (Ex 22:4).
- But high-handed profiteering from theft (killing or selling stolen beasts) requires much higher restitution, based on the profitability of the stolen goods.
Allowing something in your care to steal from another is still a form of theft (Ex 22:5). Owners and managers cannot make the argument that they’re not responsible for the theft that occurred under their leadership.
The issue of restitution can get complicated as it involves a “breach of trust” between one person and another (Ex 22:9).
Borrowers are responsible to care for possessions in their care, but lenders assume a level of risk they cannot control (Ex 22:7-15).
Sometimes there is not enough evidence to assign blame. In such cases, both parties must trust each other’s word and then God with the outcome (Ex 22:11).

Structure:

3 cases of restoring damage from negligence (Ex 21:33-36)
7 cases of restoring damage from theft (Ex 22:1-6)
7 cases of restoring damage to borrowed property (Ex 22:7-15)

Interpretation of Exodus 21:33-22:15

Some possible questions:

Why is it so important to hold people responsible for property damage? Why not just expect people to be generous and to share freely, overlooking any damage to their stuff?
Why must thieves repay double what they stole?
Why are there so many cases dealing with borrowed property?
What are the implications for laws today about negligence or theft?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

From this text, I’m not sure there’s a complete answer, other than the fact that God cares about it. These case laws clearly apply the command “do not steal,” and thus highlight that command’s assumption of the right to hold private property. Of course God is generous, and he calls his people to be always generous and ready to share (1 Tim 6:18). But generosity is not at odds with the expectation that your neighbor will pay for the repairs if he backs his car into the side of your house.
I can only guess at what the text implies, which is that the penalty for theft is to bring on you what you tried to bring on another. If you steal one sheep, you must pay back two sheep—which makes YOU the one who ends up down one sheep.
Since the commands are applying “do not steal,” we might assume “stealing” means causing only intentional property damage. But the concept applies to many other areas, even when our negligence or failure to protect causes damage. God’s people don’t demand that others be generous with them; instead they pay what they owe and return borrowed items in the same or better condition. In fact, God’s standards for restitution involve a generous repayment not only for damaged property but also for lost time and trust.
I’ll leave this question to the legislators, but it does make me wonder whether we’d better disincentivize fraud and theft if we followed these principles. Instead of flat fines, arbitrary fines, or even jail time, the threat of double restitution might cause more citizens and corporations to better count the cost of their negligent or fraudulent actions.

Antony Majanlahti (2005), Creative Commons

Train of thought:

Pay back what you accidentally damage.
Pay back what you intentionally damage.
Pay back damage that occurs on your watch.

Main point: It is good and God-like to pay restitution for damage done to others’ property.

Connection to Christ: Jesus had everything taken from him (Luke 9:58, Matt 27:35), yet he never demanded payment (Luke 23:34). Jesus repays not double, but a hundredfold to those who suffer damages in his service (Mark 10:29-30).

My Application of Exodus 21:33-22:15

This may sound incredibly mundane, but this passage demands it: I must return the things I have borrowed from others, or pay to replace things damaged under my care. It is so easy for me to presume on the kindness of my friends and forget that I’ve borrowed their property. Eventually, borrowed items just become part of my collection once I forget who loaned them to me, but this is not okay.

Loving my neighbor as myself means I treat other people’s stuff as if it were my own. And I teach my children to do the same.

Yet at the same time, I truly can be graciously generous if others don’t do the same. Jesus is well able to repay whatever I lose in his name and for his service.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

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Bible Study for Ordinary Canadians (And the Rest of Us)

July 5, 2017 By Peter Krol

I recently had the opportunity to appear on Indoubt, a podcast for Back to the Bible Canada, where I spoke with host Isaac Dagneau about Bible study for ordinary people. We spoke about why believers study the Bible, how to do it, and what role the Holy Spirit plays in our Bible study. The 28-minute audio episode could serve as an introduction to the topic of Bible study for ordinary folks.

Check it out!

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Exodus 20:22-21:32: Basic Human Rights

June 30, 2017 By Peter Krol

With a few guiding principles in hand, we’re ready to look at the case laws delivered to Moses.

Observation of Exodus 20:22-21:32

Most repeated words: if (20 times), not (15x), slave (14), man (11), go (10), out (9), master (7), ox (7), then (7), when (7)

The frequent use of “if,” “then,” and “when” should not surprise us, as we’re dealing with specific applications of the Ten Commandments.
A major relationship in this section is that of slaves and their masters.

The grammar of the case laws consists of lists of relatively short statements, each describing a specific scenario. The sentences are arranged into groups, but the essential unit is the sentence.

Ex 20:22 is a narrative introduction (“And Yahweh said to Moses”), framing all the case laws into a single divine speech that doesn’t end until Ex 23:33.

However, Ex 20:22-26 appears to be an introduction to the case laws, since Ex 21:1 marks the main body of laws (“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.”).

Grouping topics into paragraphs, and taking note of the narrative markers, yields the following structure:

Introduction to the case laws: The God who speaks from heaven gives 4 instructions about how he is to be worshiped—applying the commands for “no other gods” and “no graven images” (Ex 20:22-26).
Slavery: 8 instructions about possessing slaves—applying “do not steal.”
- 4 instructions about male slaves (Ex 21:1-6)
- 4 instructions about female slaves (Ex 21:7-11)
Violence: 16 instructions about conflict and assault—applying “do not murder.”
- 3 instructions about murder and manslaughter (Ex 21:12-14)
- 3 capital offenses involving parents and kidnapping—applying not only “do not murder” but also “honor father and mother” (Ex 21:15-17)
- 6 instructions about humans assaulting one another (Ex 21:18-27)
  - A: 1 case of direct assault (Ex 21:18-19)
  - B: 2 cases of assaulting a slave (Ex 21:20-21)
  - A’: 2 cases of indirect assault on a pregnant bystander (Ex 21:22-25)
  - B’: 1 case (with 2 examples) of permanently injuring a slave (Ex 21:26-27)
- 4 instructions about livestock assaulting humans (Ex 21:28-32)
  Les Stockton (2009), Creative Commons

Interpretation of Exodus 20:22-21:32

Some possible questions:

Why do instructions about worship introduce the body of case laws?
Why do the case laws begin with the topic of slavery?
So what should we conclude the Bible teaches about slavery?
What do these laws reveal about God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

The Ten Commandments began with the topic of worship. This suggests that the foundation for everything we do is the worship of God. If we get worship wrong, we get everything else wrong as well. In addition, when the covenant is broken in Exodus 32, the Israelites transgress almost every instruction in Ex 20:22-26. The narrative thus highlights the primacy of these worship matters.
Again, the Ten Commandments help, in that God introduces them with, “I am Yahweh your God…who brought you out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2). These people have just been lifted out of slavery; slavery is all they’ve ever known. Yet the Pharaohs were hardly model slave-masters. We could go back over Exodus 1-15 to show how the Pharaohs explicitly violated every one of the principles in Ex 21:1-11. In their new freedom, Israel must not do “slavery” the way it was done to them. They must not drift into what they’re used to. God’s kingdom is altogether different. In particular, slaves have rights. Even female slaves have rights. I believe no other ancient law code gives rights to slaves or to women or to slave women in this way—especially not in the law code’s first article.
Does this mean that slavery is a good idea, commended by the Bible? I will defer this question for another day and another passage, as this text does not address it. But what this passage does teach—and what must be included in any discussion of the Bible’s teaching on slavery—is that slavery always has an end. It was never to be permanent (though we could quibble over the permanence of the voluntary slavery to a generous, humane, and inspirational master in Ex 21:4-6). In the seventh year, slaves were to go free. When mistreated or denied their rights, slaves were to go free. And kidnapping people for the slave trade was a capital offense (Ex 21:16).
God is not like the gods of other nations. God cares about those who usually go uncared for, and who may be unable to care for themselves. God values life, peace, and justice for the oppressed. God instills humanity with basic rights to life and liberty. God holds owners responsible for patterns of behavior even in their animals. God’s justice means, when harm is done, life must be given for life, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Wrongdoing cannot go unpunished in his kingdom.

Train of thought:

Worship the unique God uniquely
Protect the rights of even society’s lowest
Value life and peace over self-advancement

Main point: God’s kingdom is different from the world’s kingdoms in that all its citizens have rights, and justice is the cost of living.

Connection to Christ: Jesus took on the form of a slave to rescue us from our bondage to sin. By his wounds we are healed. Jesus gave his life to pay for our violation of God’s justice. Jesus is God over all, who is blessed forever. Amen.

My Application of Exodus 20:22-21:32

Though God has given me real authority as a parent, he also expects me to honor the rights of my household members. Even if I feel rushed, annoyed, upset, or discouraged that the same issue keeps coming up, my children deserve to be treated with respect. They have the right to an opinion. They have the right to a hearing. They have the right not to be condemned and punished on the testimony of a single embittered sibling. They have the right to know why I’m asking what I’m asking. When I meditate on how justice works in God’s kingdom, I’m motivated to much greater patience and compassion as a leader.

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The Myth of Literal Bible Translations

June 28, 2017 By Peter Krol

Because this blog is for ordinary people, who don’t typically know Greek or Hebrew, we don’t write much about translation issues. But once in a while there’s an opportunity to speak to an issue that impacts ordinary Bible readers broadly. One such issue is the popular, yet misleading, assumption that some English Bible translations are more literal than others.

Bill Mounce, Greek scholar and author of one of the best-selling Biblical Greek textbooks, wrote recently about translation philosophies, and the popular misconceptions of what they mean. Mounce has served on translation committees for both the ESV and the NIV, so he’s well qualified to comment on a variety of philosophies.

Speaking about the two main categories, he writes:

Most people say there are two translation camps, formal equivalent [word-for-word] and functional equivalent (or dynamic equivalent) [thought-for-thought]. The longer I am in translation work, the more I see how simplistic this division is.

There actually are five methods on translation with three sub-categories for the handling of gender language. Translations are all on a continuum, overlapping one another, and hence it is misleading to picture them as different points on a line. I am guessing, but for example, about eighty percent of the ESV and the NIV are the same, once you account for different translations of individual words.

Mounce goes on to explain that, except for a few interlinear Bibles (which aren’t really English translations), no English Bible is literal.

The word “literal” should never be used of any other form of translation since all of them, every single one, despite their marketing, rarely translate word-for-word. They will say they translate word-for-word unless it does not make sense or misinforms, but that is a red herring argument. They are never consistently word-for-word, unless you can find a translation that translates John 3:16 as, “in this way for loved the God the world so that the Son the only he gave in order that each the believing into him not perish but have life eternal.” No Bible on the market is “literal.”

Mounce goes on to describe more nuanced categories of translation, which should inform how we think about our English Bibles. In addition, he addresses the matter of gender language, arguing that there is no English translation in existence that is “gender neutral,” and we should not ignorantly use the term to describe any well-known, modern English Bible.

Mounce’s full article is useful and easy to read; it uses no Greek. Check it out!

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How to Discuss the Sermon in Your Small Group

June 26, 2017 By Ryan Higginbottom

Jon Flobrant (2015), public domain

Sometimes the best solution is the obvious one.

My small group at church was between books. We finished Isaiah and were about to begin Luke, but we needed a topic to fill a gap. Since we meet on Sunday nights and attend the same worship service on Sunday mornings, I realized the answer was staring me in the face. We could discuss the sermon!

A few people in my group had experience with sermon discussions. They knew this wasn’t just a repetition of the preacher’s outline. This was good, hard work. Like strong hands kneading dough, God can use discussions like this to press the application of his word deep into the lives of his people.

Why Discuss the Sermon?

The preacher isn’t the only one with sermon work to do. He studies, prays, and prepares, but the folks in the pews have a job too.

We need to listen carefully and weigh the sermon against Scripture. We’re also called to apply the Bible, and this is where a small group discussion can be helpful.

Consider the benefits of having a conversation about the sermon.

People who anticipate a discussion like this are more likely to pay close attention during the sermon. This greater engagement naturally leads to greater spiritual blessing.

The small group will focus on application, and when several people work hard to apply the sermon together, powerful things can happen. You might see connections or sense conviction you hadn’t noticed on your own. A friend might mention needs in the church or the community that would be an ideal outlet of application.

Think of the benefits to your church if your small group members were diligently discussing the sermon and applying the Word preached! It would mean quite a transformation.

How to Lead a Sermon Discussion

It doesn’t take much to lead a sermon discussion in your small group or Sunday school class. With a little preparation and some good questions, you’ll be ready to go.

Announce it. Let your group know your plans to discuss the sermon. This will encourage them to listen carefully and take notes in preparation.
Apply the sermon yourself. To lead a good discussion, be sure to prepare yourself. Listen to the sermon, think about the connections and implications, and pray for insight and conviction from the Spirit. Bring some personal applications to share in case the group discussion slows down.
Read the Bible passage. If your group meets directly after the worship service, this might not be necessary. But if your group meets hours or days later, reading the Bible passage will start your discussion with the proper focus.
Ask open-ended questions. Begin the discussion by asking for broad takeaways from the passage or sermon. This gives an opportunity for people to share what God is teaching them. Conversations that drift into criticism of the preacher aren’t usually productive, so be prepared to steer the conversation back to the Bible.
Ask application questions. Here is the heart of the discussion. Most of the work of observation and interpretation should be completed by the preacher during the sermon. Your small group provides a great setting to go deep on application. Ask your preacher to write two or three application questions for the congregation to consider; these can be printed in the bulletin along with the sermon outline. Use these questions as starters, but follow the conversation naturally into other areas of application. (You might need to remind your group about the two directions and three spheres of application.)
Ask about obstacles to application. We can dream up all the applications we wish—putting them into practice is the difficult part. Once the group discusses a few concrete applications of the passage, ask what might get in the way of the changes you’re proposing.
Pray! Real change in our lives doesn’t happen because of a sermon, an insight, or a small group discussion. We need the Holy Spirit’s powerful, transforming work to help us glorify God. Before your small group adjourns, be sure to commit your applications to God.

If you use your church’s sermon to propel your small group into the Bible, you’ll have lots of time to wrestle through applications. As you’re confronted with ways you need to change and encourage others to change, it won’t be easy, but it will be worthwhile.

Thanks to Peter for his help in preparing this article.

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6 Principles for Understanding the Case Laws of Exodus

June 23, 2017 By Peter Krol

When Yahweh thundered from heaven, without Moses’ mediation, he immortalized the Ten Commandments. So we teach them to our children, we picture them in stained glass, and we bring them to bear on public life. Christian interpreters legitimately differ on the best way to apply the Sabbath commandment (Rom 14:5), but it is widely acknowledged that the Ten Commandments contain the moral will of God in summary form.

Yet we find greater divergence of opinion when we come to the case laws, the “Book of the Covenant” (Ex 24:7), immediately after the Ten Commandments. How are we to understand ancient slavery, the death penalty, goring oxen, five-fold restitution, road kill, wandering donkeys, and the festival in the month of Abib? As I scan the Exodus commentaries on my shelf, Exodus 21-23 is the section most often skipped or summarized in a mere page or two. Even the extensive tabernacle narratives get substantive attention, as interpreters love discussing how Jesus is the light, the bread, the living water, and the embodied presence of God. But the case laws?

Jan Buchholtz (2013), Creative Commons

Granted, Paul fills his letters with strong statements about the law: No one is justified before God by the law (Gal 3:11). Christ redeemed us from the law’s curse (Gal 3:13). You have died to the law through the body of Christ (Rom 7:4). God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do (Rom 8:3). You are not under law, but under grace (Rom 6:14). The power of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:56).

And sometimes Jesus is accused of breaking the law because of his love: touching a leper (Matt 8:3), eating sacred bread (Mark 2:26), breaking the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17), and overturning fundamental principles of Old Testament justice (Matt 5:38-39).

So how should Christians of the 21st century understand the case laws in Exodus?

Guiding Principles

1. The law cannot save.

The laws given by God in covenant with his people had much glory. Yet the glory was temporary and fading; Moses veiled his face to conceal this fact (Ex 34:33-35, 2 Cor 3:7, 13). The law can give direction (Ps 119:105), but it cannot produce obedience or righteousness (Gal 3:11). Any attempt to turn bad people into good people through the coercion of law will fail. I’d prefer not to begin with what the law can’t do, but we need constant reminders of this fundamental impossibility.

2. Jesus and Paul validated the case laws.

I could point to the big law-statements Jesus makes, such as “not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt 5:18), but the impact of those statements is still disputed. So instead, I’ll remind you that Jesus and Paul assume the ongoing validity of the case laws, when they quote them to support their teaching or choices. We tend to skip over the fact, but Jesus affirms—in two Gospels—the death penalty for those who “revile father or mother” (Ex 21:17, Matt 15:4, Mark 7:10). And Paul quotes the case law from Ex 22:28 as normative Christian behavior in Acts 23:5. (Though I think he’s being cheeky and not a little mocking, showing he knows the law better than the high priest who ordered him to be struck. How could Paul not know which member of the council was the high priest?)

3. The case laws apply the Ten Commandments.

As you read the case laws, don’t get lost in their seemingly random nature, as though the case laws are time-bound, culture-bound, generational minutiae. Yes, they apply the principles of God’s moral will to certain people at a certain time in a certain cultural context. All the details will not be the same for all people everywhere. But don’t disregard them on that account. Instead, figure out which of the Ten Commandments is being applied, and figure out how it is being applied. This will give you wisdom to learn how to apply them in our context. For example, without the case laws, how would you know what counts as murder (manslaughter, etc.), and what doesn’t (just warfare, civil sentence, etc.)? How would you know what to do with an apprehended thief? What does it really mean to take God’s name in vain?

4. The case laws are particular applications, not universal principles.

This follows from point #3. Since the case laws are applications of universal principles, they are not themselves universal principles. This means they may have limited application in their canonized form. God has since revealed more about himself, so we may apply the principles of sabbath or tithing or restitution a little differently. But we should still learn from the case laws what it looks like to apply the Ten Commandments at all. Armed with such a template, and with the Spirit of God illuminating the rest of the word of God, we can figure out how to apply those commandments to our situation.

5. The case laws reveal God’s character.

All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). God’s word will carry out his purpose of creating worshipers (Is 55:10-12). We know God, in all his glory, through the things he has revealed (Ps 19:1-14). We miss part of what God wants us to know about himself if we skip the case laws or disregard them. In studying them, we’ll behold God’s great mercy and justice in action. Believe it or not, I’ve heard stories of people from non-Western cultures coming to faith in Christ by reading the case laws, as they had never seen such mercy and justice working in perfect harmony except through the cross.

6. The case laws reveal Jesus.

All the Law and the Prophets are about Jesus (Luke 24:27). When considering double restitution of what was stolen, we’re amazed at Jesus who gave everything for those who stole from him. When contemplating the freeing of slaves in their 7th year, we’re humbled by Jesus, who took on the form of a bondservant to become a priest forever. When we’re told not to exact interest from the disadvantaged, we can’t help but see Jesus, who became poor so we, through his poverty, could become rich. When we read about the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Harvest, and Ingathering, we’re reminded that in Jesus we have a continual feast.

But we’ll either miss these things, or not understand how marvelous they truly are, if we don’t take the time to study the case laws.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

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When Being “Christ-Centered” Goes Too Far

June 21, 2017 By Peter Krol

Writing for Logos Bible software, Mark Ward summarizes an article from a recent theological journal, explaining the unhelpful extreme side of “Christ-centeredness.”

I think the swing [away from Christ-less moralizing] has done great good: American Christianity has indeed suffered under man-centered readings of the Bible which offer all law and no gospel, all duty and no delight, all rules and no relationship. And yet the ease with which I just tossed off those three slogans points to the pendulum problem: any time a movement reaches the slogan-generating stage, people will go trampling over necessary nuances to grab their party’s banners and wave them at their enemies. Pretty soon the pendulum picks up so much speed that it whooshes way past plumb.

Ward then summarizes a theological journal article which analyzes Psalm 15 and shows us how to read it in its original context. There ought to be a category in our thinking for “meaningful if imperfect obedience,” as we see on the part of Noah, Simeon, and others. Being Christ-centered does not mean we speak only of our sins and failures.

Check it out!

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Table of Contents for Exodus Series

June 16, 2017 By Peter Krol

In Exodus 5:2, Egypt’s Pharaoh asks a fateful question that the book of Exodus endeavors to answer in three acts: “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice?”

Act I: Yahweh Demolishes the House of Slavery (Ex 1-15)
Act II: Yahweh Prepares to Rebuild (Ex 16-18)
Act III: Yahweh Builds His House in the Midst of His People (Ex 19-40)

I created a table of contents page for my series of sample Bible studies on Exodus. If you missed anything, or if you want to get a bird’s-eye view of the series, including what’s to come, check it out!

You can also find it anytime from the site’s menu bar: Hover over OIA Method, then Examples. Then click on Who is Yahweh: Exodus.

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Not By Sermons and Books Alone

June 14, 2017 By Peter Krol

Following up on last week’s “check it out,” John Piper was asked if he plans to write a commentary on the Bible. After saying no, he elaborates:

I suppose there is a kind of commentary that would put the emphasis on helping people find the meaning themselves. That’s the kind I would want to write if I wrote a commentary, because there’s a deep conviction behind this; namely, that over the long haul, strong Christians are created not by sermons and by books alone, but by a personal encounter with the word of God, the Bible itself.

Piper goes on to explain what sort of questions he’d like to see commentaries (and the people who read them) ask.

It’s a great, short answer to an excellent question. Check it out!

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Exodus 20:1-21: Ten Words and Two Responses

June 9, 2017 By Peter Krol

God wants his people close, but not too close. Moses has gone up and down the mountain three times to help everyone prepare for their big meeting with God. Now, with Moses at the mountain’s foot with the people (Ex 19:25), God thunders his covenant from heaven.

Observation of Exodus 20:1-21

Most repeated words: you (19 times), your (19x), not (14), God (10), Lord (8), day (7), all (4), neighbor (4), people (4), servant (4).

I normally would exclude words like “you” and “your,” as common stop words that carry little interpretive significance on their own. But since they serve as the subjects of most sentences here, I cannot disregard them.
This repetition shifts the mood to what “you” must “not” do.

The setting: God speaks all these words (Ex 20:1), from the top of Mt. Sinai, along with thunder, lightning, a trumpet sound, and smoke (Ex 20:18).

The words begin (Ex 20:2) with an opening statement of Yahweh’s identity (“I am Yahweh your God”), history (“who brought you our of the land of Egypt”), and intention (“out of the house of slavery”).

Four of the “words” (Ex 20:5-6, 7, 11, 12) have a reason or motivation attached; six do not.

Eight of the words are negative; two (Ex 20:8, 12) are positive. But even the positive “remember the Sabbath” is actually a negative “you shall not do any work” (Ex 20:10). So only one (Ex 20:12) is a positive “do this” commandment.

The first four words (Ex 20:3-11) speak to the people’s relationship with God. The last six words (Ex 20:12-17) speak to their relationships with one another.

The first (Ex 20:3) and last (Ex 20:17) speak to the heart’s allegiance or desire.

Following God’s words, the narrative describes two response to God’s words:

The people see, fear, and stand far off (Ex 20:18, 21).
Moses comforts (Ex 20:20) and draws near to where God is (Ex 20:21).

Structure:

Yahweh affirms his identity, history, and intentions.
Yahweh speaks four words about their relationship with him, beginning with their heart’s allegiance.
Yahweh speaks six words about their relationships wth each other, ending with their heart’s desires.
The people stand far off while Moses draws near to God.
Prayitno (2012), Creative Commons

Interpretation of Exodus 20:1-21

Some possible questions:

Why does the passage follow this structure?
Why does God speak these words to all the people with thunder, rather than with Moses on the mountain top?
Why do God’s words begin and end by focusing on the heart?
So what sort of response should we have to these words?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

We need some historical background to understand what would have been obvious and assumed to the original readers. This passage closely follows the structure of ancient treaties between a conquering king and a vassal king. Introduction of the parties, recounting their history, stipulating conditions, rewarding obedience & penalizing disobedience, documenting the agreement, and securing attestation. Though this text doesn’t use the term “covenant” or “treaty,” an ancient would recognize it as obviously being one. To learn more, see Douglas Stuart’s excellent article on the structure of ancient covenants. The point is that God is making a covenant and, in doing so, binding these people to himself as vassals. They do not earn their position as his people by obeying these words. He gives them these words because they are already his people.
The setting gives these ten words a unique place among God’s instructions. In the next few chapters, there will be many more detailed commands; but all are spoken to Moses alone on the mountain top. These ten words thunder from heaven for all the people. Therefore, these ten words summarize the essence of God’s covenant with these people. The remaining details will expand on these ten words and apply them to specific situations.
Because they focus on the heart’s allegiance and desires, the first and last words would be unenforceable in a human court of law. How would you get enough evidence to convict someone for something that can’t be observed? This fact shows us that God’s Law has always cared about the thoughts and intentions of the heart. There is no room in this covenant for outward, technical conformity from people whose hearts are far from their God.
We see the two responses of Moses and the people. Ought we to see ourselves in them? Some believe we should hang these words in public schools and community centers, yet perhaps we need to feel the fear and awe the first audience felt. As we unpack the requirements and prohibitions, we tremble at God’s demand for perfection, vertical and horizontal, outside and inside. Maybe we are even scared of the words and want the New Testament to tell us they don’t apply any more. Regardless, the goal of these words is not to baffle you, but “to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin” (Ex 20:20). These words test you. They inspire you to fear the one who spoke them. And they minister his grace to you that you may not sin. We ought to love these words, along with (spoiler alert) the Spirit who indwells us and empowers us to obey (2 Cor 3:1-18).

Train of thought:

Yahweh enters into covenant with his redeemed people, in order to capture their hearts.
This covenant inspires appropriate fear, while also inviting them to draw near to God.

Main point: God makes a treaty with his redeemed people, inspiring them to fear and obey, so they might draw near to him.

Connection to Christ: Jesus speaks no longer from a mountain top but from heaven itself (Heb 12:18-26). He calls us to fear and obey him (Heb 12:28-29), but especially to draw near with full confidence of mercy and grace (Heb 4:14-16).

My Application of Exodus 20:1-21

When faced with impossible standards, I’m more of a run-and-hide person than a shake-my-fist-at-God person. I know well the fear and trembling caused by the Lord’s demands for perfection. At the same time, I struggle with treating my worship and approach to God too flippantly or casually. As though he’s lucky to have me around because I’m so much better than all the other people.

There’s an important tension here I haven’t yet figured out: Draw near with confidence, yet with fear and trembling.

All I know is that I can’t go wrong when I hold fast to Christ. My love for him has grown far too dull.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

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