Will We Trust God’s Wisdom or Our Own?

BibleProject - BibleProject Podcast

This episode explores trusting God’s wisdom over human self-reliance through the lens of the Ten Commandments and Israel’s journey at Sinai. It examines literary structure, idolatry, and biblical wisdom as transformative

Key takeaways

• The Exodus 19–24 structure mirrors a 'Sinai hamburger' with layered laws and narratives.

Transcript preview

Hello, welcome to the hyperlink episode for the Ten Commandments. As we wrap up a series, we like to go digging back through our podcast archives and find clips where we discussed similar ideas from different perspectives. In the Ten Commandments series, we looked at the theme of trusting in God's wisdom, which leads to life, instead of building a life on our own terms, which usually leaves, which usually leaves on our own terms, which usually leaves, to a lot of pain. Today we're going to listen to three clips that explore that theme. We'll first look at how the literary structure of the stories around the Ten Commandments highlights humanity's severe reluctance to wait on God's commands. In the second clip, we'll look at the Golden Caff story and how it relates to the Ten Commandments. Lastly, we'll grab a clip from our paradigm series in which we talk about how all of the Bible, the laws, poems, the poems, the the letters are wisdom for us. That's today on the show. I'm your host Michelle Jones. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Israel is rescued from Egypt on the night of Passover. They travel through the wilderness for three months and then they end up at the foot of Mount Sinai. This clip is what happens when they arrive at Sinai. Israel is given the ten words, that is the ten commandments, and then given 42 more commands. In this conversation, Tim takes us through the literary structure of Exodus 19 through 24, how it's set up up up. up as a chasm or what John will end up visualizing as a double cheeseburger. This clip comes from our episode titled Testing at Mount Sinai. Here's John and Tim. So this is Exodus 19 through 24. It begins with the words and in the third month after the sons of Israel left Egypt. So it's been three months in the third month. So they've been traveling through the wilderness since the night of Passover. which was the first month. The liberation from Egypt and Passover. Marked, yeah, it's as if the calendar got restarted with Passover. It's a recreation, even time gets recreated for Israel. So we're now three months in and they arrive at the foot of a mountain, Mount Sinai, which is the very mountain Moses met God at the burning bush, you know, many years ago. So that's how the section starts. And the exciting, jam-packed action story. that began with Exodus just grinds to a halt right here. We're going to stay parked at this mountain for the rest of Exodus, all of Leviticus, and the first 10 chapters of numbers. And all of that material is going to transpire in what takes up one calendar year. So it's the center of the Torah that spans three scrolls and it's just dedicated to one year. So I think the Book of Genesis kicks off in the first 11 chapters by... sequencing forward like hundreds and thousands of years in 11 chapters. And now we're going to spend a lot of material on. It's an important year. That's right. Yeah. So that's how this section begins. In 19 to 24, here's how the section works. There's a story where God shows up on Mount Sinai and invites the people to make a covenant and he invites Israel to become his kingdom of priests and the people say, yes sign us up. We want to do it. God comes down and cloud and fire. That's chapter 19. God starts speaking the narrative stops and it's a long speech of God and lo and behold we have the 10 commandments the 10 words the 10 words they're the terms of the covenant relationship between God and Israel. So they're not just random moral commands dropped out of the sky there are covenant terms for the Israelites. But they're the first of what's going to be many. Yeah that's right yeah 6 113. In this section there's going to be 42 more. Okay. After this so you get the 10 words that summarize kind of the essence of the covenant starting with don't make any idols then in a short paragraph at the center of this whole section you get a what four verse paragraph chapter 20 verse 18 to 21 and you get a flashback to the moment that God showed up with the cloud back in chapter 19 and there's a unique kind of form of Hebrew verbs that's used to set it aside as not progressing the narrative further but actually giving you back information on the narrative that you read earlier. So this is like a flashback. And it flashes back to the moment that God showed up at the mountain and cloud and fire and it tells you what the people said to Moses in that moment. And what they said to Moses in that moment is, whoa, this God's way too intense. We don't want to go near him. So Moses, you go and we'll stand back. They stay far away. They don't want to come near, they want to go far. And there's that little story right there. And Moses says, no, so that you'll learn to fear him and so that you won't sin and break the covenant. The test is whether they will go up the mountain even though it's intense. Yep, yeah or at least come nearer than they already are. Yep. So you get that little story, it just begins and it ends right there. Okay. Then the story stops and you get another block of commandments. This time it's the 42 laws. They're written upon what's called the scroll of the covenant and they're called the commands. It starts in chapter 20 verse 22 and it goes through all the rest of chapter 23. And this is the first block of real, like laws. This is when, if you're doing you read through the Bible, yeah. This is the first like, well, yep, I'm in the law roadblock here. You start questioning your life decisions, as they say. You're just like 42 ancient near eastern laws? Yeah. You're kidding me? You're supposed to meditate on these? Yeah. So we will meditate on these. They're fascinating. And incidentally, speaking of wisdom of the nations with Jethra, about a dozen of the laws here in the section are nearly verbatim to laws found in the ancient law code of the Babylonian king, Hammurabi. How many? Oh, about a dozen. And then a few more are very close. But some are like almost verbatim. So we're tapping into this theme of portraying Yawe as the way that wise king. and leaders were portrayed in the ancient world which as giving the wisdom of the gods to rule with justice and establish order. So there's the covenant laws. And then after those covenant laws, second block, you get another narrative which is of God's fire cloud on the mountain and Moses comes down and he makes a covenant with the people. They offer sacrifices, sprinkles blood, blood rituals and all the people say, exactly what they said back in chapter 19. Everything Yawe has said, we are gonna do it. We are gonna listen and they, what do you say, ratify, solidify the covenant? Ratify, yeah, that's a fancy word. Yeah, they sign on the dotted line, as it were. And so Moses goes back up to the mountain with the elders and with the priests and elders they go up halfway up the mountain and they have a great feast and they see God, they see through the heavenly dome above and they see like a throne, a throne, and they see like a throne, up above and they see God. And then Moses alone goes up to the top of the mountain into the cloud and fire on the seventh day and that's how this section ends. Okay. So just listening to all that probably you can't see the symmetry but it goes the narrative of God showing up, the 10 commandments, the little narrative that gives you a flashback to what happened when God showed up and you get the next block of laws, then you get another narrative which is about the making of the it's still hard to just listening to that hard to visualize yeah yeah totally maybe let me try so this section here has a symmetry a chiasm because a B C B A so the two most outer parts of this section mirror each other yeah and then there's an inner part that mirrors each other and then there's a central part that stands alone yeah and the most outer part the the the bun is two narratives about Moses going up the mountain and Israel saying we're in for the covenant. Yep, yep. So those are the outer layers. Correct. Then inside you've got like two patties. Yeah, that's right. This is a one of those Wendy's double burgers. You got two patties and those patties are the laws. blocks of laws. So the first one was the 10 Commandments and the second one is the 42 laws. middle of the two patties. A little slice of cheese. So Moses you go up for us. Yeah and Moses says no you guys this is your test draw near to the fire it might look like it's gonna kill you but actually it's gonna purify you as God's covenant partners but the people won't go near okay that's at the center so there you go that's the overview of the section Moses goes up and down the mountain throughout this whole block seven times that's right you've mentioned that he goes up seven times so that and that probably is why it's a bit jumbled seven times. He's constantly going on. There's a lot of hiking. And it's hard to keep track. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But that hamburger analogy, I gotta give it to you, John. That was very helpful for me. And I'm looking at a chart. So I hope it was helpful for everybody listening. This is the Sinai hamburger. Get served up at your neighborhood burger joint. So again, just to kind of close this conversation about the overview of XS 19 to 24. What's cool about it is cool about it? is designed in a way to invite the reader to reread these chapters multiple times. The narrative is out of linear sequence in terms of time, but also is an alternating block of story with a block of laws, story with a block of laws, and then a concluding story. So it's a really great example of meditation literature, which is part of this bigger paradigm. So we're trying to learn how to read these texts according to their design, and this is a really good example. That clip was from our 2022 series Exodus Scroll, episode six titled Testing at Mount Sinai. The literary structure of Exodus 19 to 24 highlights humanity's reluctance to trust Yaway. And this is just the beginning. After this, Moses stays on top of the mountain and gets the tabernacle instructions from Yaway. These are the plans for the tent. Israel is to make so God can come down off the mountain and dwell with them. Then the camera pans back down to the foot of the mountain and we find Israel there, losing patience and instead of waiting for Moses to come down and tell them what Yawe commanded, they start making an idol to replace Yoway. And before Moses even comes back down, Israel is breaking the first three of the ten commandments, worshipping other gods, making an idol, and and carrying Yoway's name in vain. In this next clip, Tim, John, and Carissa discuss how many Jewish scholars consider the making of the Golden Caff as Israel's Fall Narrative. This clip comes from a character of God series in the episode titled A God of Our Own Making. Here's John and Tim, along with former Bible Project scholar, Karissa Quinn. And so this is the scene at the end of Exodus 24. And a cloud, as of verse 15 of Exos 24, and a cloud, divine cloud