Exodus 20:18-26 – Chronological Problems and the Giving of the Law
We have previously seen in Exodus that theology sometimes trumps chronology. The narrators of Scripture are oftentimes more concerned with telling us the story in a theologically-pleasing way than a strictly linear, chronological narrative.
We saw this in the Jethro narrative in Exodus 18. 18:5 tells us that Jethro came to Moses “where he was encamped at the mountain of God.” The mountain of God is Mt. Sinai. Problem is, they don’t get to Mt. Sinai until chapter 19! But the narrator places the story here (with clues that it is dischronological – he’s not lying to us or tricking us, but merely telling the story in a nonlinear way) because he is intent on helping us see the contrast between the kindness of Jethro the Midianite and the hostility of the related Amalekites. (See the sermon on Exodus 18 for more detail about this).
So we know that the narrator doesn’t always give us the story in the order that it happened. One of the most difficult chronological aspects to figure out is Moses’s ascent and descent from the mountain, and when exactly the Law was given (and to whom).
Here’s a taste of the problem: there are a number of up and down movements in chapter 19 (again, see my sermon there for a summary of them). While Moses is at the base of Mt. Sinai (19:14), God appears in a theophany – with thunders and lightnings, a trumpet blast and smoke (19:16-18). God then calls Moses up Mt. Sinai to meet Him (19:20).
Moses is then told to go back down and warn the people not to break through the smoke and touch the mountain (19:21-22). Along with these instructions, God commands Moses to go down and bring Aaron back up with him (19:24). The chapter ends with Moses going down the mountain to presumably follow God’s instructions (19:25).
This is where things get tricky. Because chapter 20 opens with God speaking the 10 Commandments (20:1-17). Did God speak these personally and privately to Moses, who then relayed them to the people? Or did God speak audibly to all the people at this point?
This is a difficult question. On one hand, we might assume that Moses went down to get Aaron to bring him back up, and while he was down Yahweh spoke the 10 Commandments publically to everyone. On the other hand, we could see the people’s response to God’s theophany after the 10 Commandments (20:18-21) as a parallel with their initial response to the similarly-worded theophany in 19:16 instead of a subsequent event. In both cases there is thunder, lightning, a trumpet blast and smoke, and the people react with fearful trembling. If these two reactions are really just one reaction that is literarily (not literally) separated by the 10 Commandments, then Moses may have received the commands privately at the top of the mountain instead of the commands being given publically to the people at the base of the mountain.
Either way, Moses ends up drawing near to God (ascending the mountain) in 20:21 while the people stay at the base. The next few chapters (20:22 – 23:33) are basically one long “sermon on the mount” wherein God imparts the covenant law to Moses. Again, 20:21 implies that Moses receives the whole of this Covenant Code privately at the top of the mountain.
However, when we finally get to 24:1-2, we see Yahweh commanding Moses to “Come up” with his brother, nephews and 70 elders. How can Moses “come up” when he already is supposed to be up? Are we to assume that he descended before chapter 24 and gave the covenant law to the people?
The best sense I can make of the motion and chronology of these chapters is that on the morning of the third day, God appeared to the Israelites in a great theophany. 19:16-20 and 20:18-21 describes the same event. The people see the theophany and react in fear, begging Moses not to allow God to speak to them directly, lest they die (19:16b, 20:19). So Moses ascends alone to the top of the mountain to receive the Law from God.
The Law is given to him in that trip up the mountain, and given to us in two installments: the 10 Commandments in 20:1-17 and the Covenant Code in 20:22 – 23:33. Notice how the Covenant Code begins by repeating the first command (20:23), perhaps a symbolic representation of them all. After he is given the covenant stipulations, we are to assume that Moses descends and communicates them to the people sometime between chapters 23 and 24.
But all of this is tentative, and I admit that there are problems. For instance, not only does chapter 24 open with God calling Moses and the elders back up the mountain, but then Moses comes down (24:3) and tells the people God’s rules and they respond, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do” (24:3), which is the exact words they used in 19:8, right after Moses calls the elders of the people and sets the commands before them.
All this may indicate that we have a triple overlap of the same story, if we are to understand the identical language as telling us the same story. Otherwise, the language is just simply repeated for emphasis, theological or storytelling purposes. It is all extremely complicated to figure out, and since 1) I don’t have it all figured out, and 2) even if I did, it would likely be too complicated to explain it without losing half the audience on a Sunday morning, I figured I’d best leave it to the Cutting Room Floor.
But one more thing before finishing this blog: if this is indeed a double or triple retelling of the same story, why did Moses, the narrator, choose to tell us the story in this way? My guess is that by juxtaposing the giving of the Law with the theophany and reaction of the people, it’s simply another way of demonstrating that the Law ought to be understood only within the context of the narrative of redemption and God’s presence. This is not Hammurabi’s Code found on a stela separate from all other narrative and story. It’s not the Constitution of the United States written on a parchment devoid of the history that surrounded it.
The Law of Israel is written and presented within the context of the narrative of redemption. It’s a Law for the redeemed people, given by a gracious, fearfully awesome God.
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