Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [62]
•“You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.” (Ex. 22:18)
•“Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.” (Ex. 22:19)
•“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Ex. 22:21)
These last four laws, rather incongruously grouped together, point up the vagaries of “obeying” the Bible. Obviously, modern folks have very different ideas about virginity, marriage, and bride-prices than Moses did. The women who offer advice on “Psychic Hot Lines” are annoying, but do you want to strap them into the electric chair? Bestiality is indeed icky to most of us. But a capital crime?
PLOT SUMMARY: THE GOLDEN CALF
Moses has been up and down the mountain once, and then goes back again, this time for forty days and nights. He is going to be given a very specific set of directions on how to build the sacred dwelling place for God, the Tabernacle designed to be portable so the Israelites can carry it with them, and the special Ark of the Covenant in which the tablets with the Ten Commandments are to be stored. But while Moses and God are sorting out the design plans and the laws, the people get impatient. They tell Aaron, the brother of Moses, to make them a new god. Aaron doesn’t put up much of an argument and takes all the gold earrings and rings in the camp, melts them down, and casts them into a golden calf that the people dance around.
God is not happy about this and sends Moses down. He smashes the tablet containing the law and grinds the calf into dust. Then he spreads the dust on the water and makes the people drink it. God follows this with a plague on the camp. Moses asks for the loyal to stand by him, and all the Levites rally to his side. They take out their swords and kill three thousand people.
For his role in this mischief, Aaron gets away scot-free, and his alibi is amusing: he tells Moses he threw the gold into the fire and the calf emerged! Moses apparently accepts his brother’s explanation.
After this purge, Moses gets two more pieces of stone for new tablets. This gets a little tricky because God says he will write them. Then a few verses later God tells Moses to write the laws, which he does, bringing back the fresh set of commandments.
BIBLICAL VOICES
The Lord said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Ex. 33:1-3)
FORTY YEARS ON THE ROAD
LEVITICUS, NUMBERS, DEUTERONOMY
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Lev. 19:18 KJV)
And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years.
(Num. 14:33)
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deut. 6:5 KJV)
* What is “kosher”?
* Why can’t Moses enter the Promised Land?
* What did the speaking donkey have to say?
* What is the “Great Commandment”?
* How does God feel about cross-dressing?
As good storytelling goes, the next three books of Moses—Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—pale against the epic nature of the first two. All three books largely focus on restating, adding to, or even reinterpreting the elaborate ritual and religious law codes of Israel. That’s one reason why you find another slightly different version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5. It essentially says the same thing as the first, but has some alternative wording. You might think it was just fine the way it was the first time. And if Moses had written it down, why couldn’t he keep it straight and read it the same way? But these sorts