My Parshah Journal
Paul Ikonen
18 February 2011
Portion: Ki Tissa
Exodus 30:11-34:35
We begin this portion with God requiring a census of the people and an offering to be given for
the service of the Tent of Meeting. God says that by doing this there will be no plague and that it
will act as atonement for their lives. Those men numbered in the census twenty years and up
were commanded also to give a half shekel, commentators I’ve read suggest this was an enlisting
into the army of Israel, perhaps the plague spoken of was the swarm of other nations and the
chance of being vulnerable to their attack. The half shekel tax is also a transition from the
Next we see more furnishings of the Tent of Meeting: a bronze basin for ritual washing,
anointing oil used to set certain objects (along with the priests) apart as holy unto God, and holy
incense prepared specifically for service in the Tent of Meeting. We see as we did in the last
portion that the people were not absent from the construction but intricate participants, we hear of
the perfumers who had the skill necessary to make the combinations for the anointing oil and
incense. Starting in chapter thirty-one we learn the story of Bezalel, a man called by name by
God who has been “filled with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge
and craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones
for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.” (Ex 31:3-5) And God says it is not just
Bezalel that He has blessed but that He has given to all men ability, that they may make all that I
have commanded you. God never throws out arbitrary rules; from the beginning God’s yoke has
not been heavy but light. The commandments of God are partnerships with God and the tasks of
that partnership are given in such a way that they can be accomplished.
God gives another command; He says that the workweek is long and hard and that at the
end of the week there should be time for rest. It is so important to Him that He considers it a sign
between He and His people throughout the generations and that by participating in it with Him,
we are becoming sanctified. This was so serious to Him that if the people did not keep the
Sabbath they would be put to death. These are hard words but they are words from God and we
are honored to receive them. At this moment it reads that God finished speaking to Moses and
that the words were written on two stone tablets by the finger of God.
It would be nice to end here but the Bible is a book that speaks not only of the triumphs
of God’s people but also their failures. At this time we leave Mt. Sinai and return to camp with
Aaron, the High Priest, in charge. The people become restless at the length of time Moses has
been gone and decided to take matters into their own hands. The people request Aaron to make
them gods who will go before them. The Bible does not record any internal struggle within
Aaron, it immediately tells of Aaron giving instruction on how they would create their new god.
It was made out of the gold earrings of the people and Aaron took them and fashioned it and
presented it to the people and what is worse he gave it the credit that the True God of Israel
deserved. He said to the people “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the
land of Egypt!” and later “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” (Ex 32:4-5) Aaron used the
unique, ineffable name, reserved for God alone, how terrible this moment must have been for
God.
The scene returns to Mount Sinai and God is grieved by His knowledge of the people’s
rebellion. Go back to “your” people, God says, whom “you” brought out of Egypt. God is so
enraged that His plan is to consume them and make a new nation out of Moses. To which Moses
appeals to God’s honor, he says of the Egyptians “why let them say, ‘with evil intent did He bring
them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’”? Moses
reminds God of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to make their offspring prosper and to
give them land. At the mention of the promise the LORD relented from bringing disaster.
Moses returned to the camp from the Mountain with Joshua and when he saw the calf and
the people dancing he threw the tablets and broke them. He went straight for the calf and burned
it and ground it into power and gave it with water for the people to drink. Aaron is confronted, to
which he tells a story of the people giving him their gold earrings, him throwing it into the fire
and (instead of the truth, him fashioning the calf) out came this calf. When Aaron finished
speaking Moses called to the people all who considered themselves on the LORD’S side, to
which the Levites came, and Moses told them to arm themselves with swords and kill brother,
companion and neighbor, 1,000 Israelites fell that day. Soon after this God also sends a plague
Moses and God and you can see the transition from momentary anger to statues of grace on the
part of God. Moses is brutally honest with his emotions as he replies to God’s statement that He
will not be going along with the people because He is afraid His anger will break out against
them. Moses returns to God and intercedes for the people, he says:
“You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me
know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you
have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I
may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is
your people.”
This is such a beautiful appeal to God for His presence to continue to dwell with Israel,
and God’s response? “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” I love
Moses response, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here…is
it not in your going with us that we are distinct, as Your people, from every other people
on the face of the earth?” The people are landless, they are nomads, a traveling nation. If
God abandons them they will lose everything. God recognizes this spirit in Moses and
confirms His Presence being with the people but that appears not to be enough for Moses
because he than asks God to “show me Your glory”. And God agrees.
Because no one can see God and live, God strikes a deal with Moses; God will
hide Moses in a cleft of a rock, will cover him with His Hand, and will pass by. As He
passes take away His Hand and Moses will be allowed to see God’s back. But first, the
tablets are rewritten. This time Moses is told to cut the tablets from the rock, perhaps to
make them worth more so he doesn’t throw them. So Moses prepares the tablets and
appears before God, he is hidden against the mountain and the LORD descends in a thick
cloud and proclaims His name, the LORD. At this time God goes off script a bit, He
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to
anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and
forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty
unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents
to the third and fourth generation.”
And Moses drops to his face and worships the Almighty God.
God now renews the covenant and promises more grace, grace upon grace, to His
people. He promises to “do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in
any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for
it is an awesome thing I will do with you.” Conditions are then laid out; the first
obviously is not to make yourself any gods of cast metal. They are also commanded to
keep the Passover. To redeem their firstborn, observe the Sabbath and to observe the
three pilgrimage feasts (here they are called Weeks, Firstfruits, Ingathering). They must
not mix leaven with any blood offering or allow the Passover sacrifice to remain until
morning. They must bring the best of the firstfruits of the ground before the LORD and
they must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. It is interesting to note that this time
it is not God’s finger who writes on the tablets, God commands Moses to write them
down.
will just attach it to the end, may the reader ponder what happens to the soul when we are
“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the
covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he
had spoken with the LORD. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his
face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to
them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he
spoke to them. Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all
the commands the LORD had given him on Mount Sinai.
When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But
whenever he entered the LORD’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil
until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been
commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil
back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.”