Sunday Morning Greek Blog

October 20, 2026

Presence and Participation (Exodus 33:12–23; Matthew 22:15–22)

Filed under: Ecclesiology,Eschatology,Evangelism,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Government,Matthew Gospel of,Moses,Righteousness,Ten Commandments (Decalogue) — Scott Stocking @ 10:31 pm
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I repurposed my message from three years ago on Proper 24 passages and added an encouragement to vote. I said that voting was a way to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” I also believe voting in a representative republic is a stewardship of our freedom. I preached this message October 18, 2026, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Nebraska. It is different enough from my previous message to warrant a separate post.

No one in the OT, not even Abraham, had quite the experience of the manifest presence of God that Moses did. Moses had spent the first 40 years of his life exposed to the best that Egypt had to offer, but he also was touched by the suffering of the Hebrew slaves. When he’d had enough, he killed an Egyptian and fled into the wilderness, where he, like Brother Lawrence, had the opportunity to reconnect with God.

Moses, however, could not completely put his past behind him and focus on the power and presence of God once called. Listen the exchange God has with Moses at the Burning Bush:

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

And Moses responded: “Great Lord! Let’s get started! When do we leave?”

Umm, no. Even though God had just told Moses in person, out loud, he would do all the heavy lifting, and all Moses would have to do is stand before Pharaoh, Moses just couldn’t take the focus off himself when he responded:

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”[1]

How many of us have said at least once in our lives, “I just wish I knew what God wanted me to do”? Even though God had given him all these assurances, Moses just couldn’t comprehend that the presence of God before him and his people would be infinitely more powerful than whatever he might face standing in presence of Pharaoh. Maybe he was still afraid of Egypt. Maybe his experience in city planning in Egypt made him feel like relocating about 2 million slaves might be an impossible task. Whatever the reason, Moses was focused more on the potential troubles of what he saw around him and had a difficult time receiving God’s grace and appointment.

Fast forward through the awesome power of God displayed in the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and a solo trip to the top of Mt. Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, and by then, Moses seems to be getting a handle on the concept of the Presence of God, but he still doesn’t seem convinced by the time we get to the passage we read earlier from Exodus 33:12–23.

Let’s look a little closer at this passage and glean some important truths about living in the presence of God. First, when we walk in the presence of God, we can be leaders in our own way. Some of us may lead in small ways; others may have more prominent roles. Whether we’re leading one person into a deeper relationship with Christ or a community full of people to the same goal, we have the promise of God’s presence, but we need that reminder from God as Moses did here.

At first glance here, it may seem like Moses still hasn’t learned his lesson about what it means to be called by God. In Exodus 3, we saw that Moses was so focused on his own weakness that he couldn’t see that God would provide everything he needed to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. But at least here in chapter 33, Moses doesn’t completely reject the idea of continuing to lead, but he still wants someone to go with him. What he doesn’t realize, and what God affirms in vs. 14, is that God’s Presence (capital P) will go with him. Not only that, God’s presence will keep them from harm as they journey through the wilderness. The “rest” God will give them is not only the security of the Promised Land if they’re faithful to what he’s calling them to do, but rest as two million souls moving across the wilderness is no small logistical challenge!

Moses’s response to God has a twofold meaning: He acknowledges that he can’t lead two million people without God, and he seems grateful for that. But Moses also needs a visible sign from God not only for himself, but for the people as well. After all, it’s easy to establish your authority over two million people if you’ve got a cloud by day leading you and a pillar of fire by night as your rear guard. Moses was one of the fortunate few who got to witness God’s glory up close and personal in the cleft of the rock. That was the boost of self-confidence he needed to continue leading God’s people.

The second thing we see in this passage is that God knows Moses by name and that Moses knows God has favored him for this task. The word for “favor” in Hebrew was translated by the Greek speakers in Jesus’s day to the word for “grace.” In other words, God gave Moses the task of leadership not necessarily because he was the best and brightest, but because he chose to gift and empower him with that task. He did nothing to earn it. This is important, because even in those few times we read of Moses missing the mark during the wilderness wanderings, God still affirms his leadership through what would become a 40-year journey for the Israelites. There was no “vote of confidence” among the Israelites if they didn’t like the way things were going. God was leading, and Moses was his earthly representative. Case closed.

The third thing we see in this passage is that Moses, like Solomon a few hundred years later, desired to be taught God’s ways so he could continue to lead and continue to find favor with God. He began to realize the importance of his role and influence in leading two million people on a journey to their new homeland. This was perhaps the largest migration of any people group at any time in history. Even today, some scientists claim they can still see evidence of such a migration in satellite imagery of the Sinai Peninsula. Moses had grasped the significance of what they were about to embark on after receiving the Ten Commandments and the instructions for the Tabernacle and its accoutrements. He asks God to “Remember that this nation is your people.” Then again, after hearing myself say that out loud, there might be a tinge of sarcasm in Moses’s voice. How many of you who raised boys ever said to your husband, “He’s your son!”

I imagine that Moses already had an idea of what he was in for after the year or two it took them to get from Egypt to Mount Sinai. His father-in-law Jethro had advised him to appoint a hierarchy of “judges” who could rule on the inevitable conflicts and issues that arise in such a large population. Aaron hadn’t helped with the whole “golden calf” incident just before this story takes place either. It seemed that even though the people had left Egypt, Egypt hadn’t left some of the Israelites. They grew impatient waiting on Moses to come down from the mountain and used some of the gold they had plundered from the Egyptians and fashioned it into an idol of gold. They had so quickly forgotten what God had done for them because they took their eyes off God and what he was establishing for his people.

In Moses’s late years, he was leading the Israelites through a sparsely populated wilderness. Yet even in that wilderness, God’s people found reasons to be distracted, usually about the quality of their diet. In Jesus’s day, the distractions were more about politics, but they had to concern themselves about it from a couple angles. On the one hand, they were concerned about keeping the legalistic Pharisees and Sadducees happy. On the other hand, they had to tolerate Rome’s presence to keep order among the masses. Not a few times, we see the Pharisees trying to get a little political themselves to detract from their own shortcomings.

The Pharisees try to put Jesus between a rock and a hard place by trapping him with a question about paying taxes to Rome. Jesus tells the Pharisees that if the coin has Caesar’s image on it, give it back to Caesar. But if you bear the image of God, give yourself to God.

In this election season, I’ve been thinking a lot about what that first bit about giving to Caesar means. I don’t think Jesus is just talking about taxes when he says that. When you think about, Jesus never openly criticizes the Roman government or military. In fact, he’s almost downright friendly and compassionate to them. He heals the family members of a couple soldiers; he teaches his disciples to go the extra mile when a Roman soldier legally demands you carry their gear. Nor is he contentious with Pilate or Herod when he stands before them. It’s as if Jesus knew what Paul would say about what our relationship with government authorities should look like, and of course he did. Jesus gave the rulers of the day the respect they were due.

First-century Judea wasn’t a democracy like some of their earlier Greek Nation-State predecessors, so Jesus and his disciples didn’t have any way to change such governments. For the sake of staying alive and out of a Roman prison, they would go along to get along.

You and I live under a completely different concept of governance. We live in a representative republic according to our Constitution. This was a unique, radical, and wise way to form a government by a group of men who had studied ancient Greek and Roman government styles. But the writings of our Founding Fathers reveal that they thought the type of government they were forming would only work or work best with a group of people that share a common moral and ethical background, namely Christianity.

As such, the Founding Fathers wrote about the responsibilities of citizenship from the perspective that our participation was a divine duty. Voting is an exercise of stewardship of your freedom in America. It’s not my place to tell you how to vote; but I do want to encourage you to faithful exercise that duty of “giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s” by voting and participating in the democratic process, at least at the local level.

So, what are the other takeaways for us this morning?

First, know that God loves us and wants to lead us into his glory, so that we can share his love with those we encounter and point them and lead them to his glory as well. His presence goes with us. Today, we’ll likely not have a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night leading us. But we have something much more personal: God’s Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in our lives is the confirmation of God’s presence with us. The Holy Spirit knows the heart of God and knows the love that God the Father has for his son, Jesus, and reveals to us God’s heart as we faithfully follow him and rely on him for strength and salvation.

Second, God knows each of us by name. Romans 8 says that as Spirit-led children of God, we are in fact heirs: “Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” because we share in his suffering that we might also share in his glory. What a marvelous thing to know the Creator of all the Earth knows each of us by name, and not only that, but knows our hearts and our hurts, and his Holy Spirit helps us get in touch and stay in touch with God even in our times of weakness. When we can’t find the words to pray, the Spirit prays for us. When we fail and fall short, the unfailing God is there to restore us. When we can’t find the words to express our joy, God puts a new song in our hearts. When we are broken, he brings healing. When we hurt someone or are hurt by others, the one who bore our hurts and pain brings healing.

Finally, stay focused on the Word of God. Moses and Solomon both asked God to teach them his ways and give them wisdom to lead. That is an attitude we all can model. God’s word never fails; it never returns void. It always accomplishes the purpose for which it is intended when spoken out loud and claimed for a promise. We may not see or understand that purpose at the time, or it may not be what we intended, but it will be effective nonetheless. Stay in community with the body of Christ as well as much as you can, especially as the days continue to become increasingly evil. Only the members of the body of Christ can support the body of Christ. The world will continue to hate us, just as Jesus predicted, but stand strong in the word of God and in the fellowship of the saints around us.

Jesus is coming. If not today, then tomorrow. If not before we die, then after. We don’t know when, but Jesus does tell us to pay attention to the signs of the times. Pray for peace. Pray for safety. Pray for the triumph of Good over Evil. Pray for the lives of the innocent and oppressed as well as for the souls of the wicked and the oppressors. Take heart in knowing that God will win the victory, and that we who believe will someday be gathered to him in glory.

Amen.

My thoughts are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

[1] Exodus 3:5–11. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

July 30, 2026

Podcast Episode: Does the Structure of Exodus 21:1–27 Tell the Patriarchs’ Story?

Filed under: Exodus,forgiveness,Greek,Hebrew,Moses,Righteousness,Ten Commandments (Decalogue) — Scott Stocking @ 8:19 pm
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Pip: Sunday Morning Greek Blog — where the laws of ancient Israel turn out to be hiding a family scandal the whole time.

Mara: Today we’re following Scott Stocking into the structural heart of Exodus 21, where a chiasm built around slavery, parents, and kidnapping turns out to be pointing directly at the patriarchs.

Pip: Let’s start with the structure itself and what it reveals.

Does Exodus 21 Hide the Patriarchs’ Story?

Mara: The post opens with a seminary assignment — Exodus 21:12–27 — but when the Hebrew text revealed that verses 1–27 formed a complete paragraph, the scope expanded, and so did the discovery.

Pip: And what the expanded passage reveals is a chiasm — ideas presented in one order, then mirrored in reverse, with the most important element locked at the center.

Mara: The center, in this case, is kidnapping. And the post explains why that placement matters: “Kidnapping was the ultimate form of mistreatment of another person. That is why it was at the center of the passage.”

Pip: So the architecture of the law is doing theological work — the center of the structure is the center of the argument, not just a formatting choice.

Mara: Right, and the Hebrew confirms it. The word translated “kidnap” is the phrase meaning “the one stealing a man,” using the same root — ganav — as “steal” in the Ten Commandments. Same word, much higher stakes.

Pip: Stealing a man means removing him from his covenant community and erasing the life he had planned. That is not a footnote crime.

Mara: Which is why it sits flanked by laws about striking or cursing parents, and by the Hebrew slave provisions that open and close the passage — all of them potentially capital offenses, all gathered under the shadow of the lex talionis.

Pip: And then the historical context lands, and the whole structure suddenly reads like an indictment.

Mara: Exactly. Joseph’s brothers kidnapped him, sold him into slavery, and lied to their father — which the post calls equivalent to a curse. The first law code after the Ten Commandments is a direct mirror of what Israel did to its own.

Pip: The message being: you are the case study. The law you just received describes crimes you already committed.

Mara: The post frames it plainly — even though God intended it for good, that cannot become an excuse. Structure and context together make the passage a warning, not just a statute.

Pip: Moses built a legal code that doubles as a confession. That is a long way from a seminary homework assignment.

Mara: The deeper point is that how a text is arranged is part of what it means — structure carries argument.

Pip: Which means reading carefully is not optional. It’s the whole job.

February 22, 2026

Lectionary Help (John 3:1–17; Second Sunday in Lent)

Filed under: Biblical People,Biblical Studies,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Immersion/Baptism,John Gospel of,Lent,Moses,Numbers,Repentance,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 5:24 pm
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For Lectionary Help on Option B in the March 1, 2026, Year A Lectionary gospel passage, see the post from Transfiguration Sunday: Lectionary Help: Transfiguration Sunday (Matthew 17:1–9) | Sunday Morning Greek Blog

Option A is John 3:1–17, which I’ll cover in this post.

On “born again” in John 3:3, 3:7:

A word study of ἄνωθεν (anōthen) along with the context of the discussion between vv. 3 & 7 suggests that the more likely meaning here would be as an adverb of place (“born from above”) as opposed to an adverb of time (“born again” or “born anew”). “Born of water” (vs. 5) most likely refers to natural birth, while “[born of] the Spirit” refers to being renewed by Spirit through his infilling, which of course can only come from above.

Regarding the Serpent on the pole:

God told Moses to fashion what in Hebrew is called a saraph (שָׂרָף śārāp̄), a bronze serpent that itself must have had a fiery appearance in the desert sun and put it on a pole so the Israelites who were bitten could look upon it and live. However, it did nothing for those who had already died. This bronze serpent was not an idol originally[1] but rather something akin to a sign of judgment on the Israelites. It couldn’t save them from the pain of being bitten by the snakes, but it would save them from the poison that had entered their bodies. Something else was absorbing the fatal penalty of their disbelief. It’s a bit of a mystery why the word for the winged angels, or seraphim, of Isaiah 6 is also translated snake or serpent elsewhere. Regardless of the specifics of what it looked like, it must have fostered some measure of fear among the Israelites. “You can look at the scary bronze snake, or you can die from the real ones.”[2]

The serpents were cursing the Israelites with death, but if they would look upon the image of the curse, they would live. Jesus took on the curse of sin for us by being lifted up on a cross. We need to look to Jesus to be saved.

May God bless your sermon and lesson preparation this week as we settle into the season of Lent.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own.

[1] See 2 Kings 18:4 where Hezekiah destroys the bronze serpent because the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

[2] Sermon excerpt from How God Loved the World: John 3:14–21; Numbers 21:4–9 | Sunday Morning Greek Blog

February 21, 2026

The Ten Commandments in Community (Exodus 20)

Filed under: Biblical People,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Hebrew,Moses,Righteousness,Ten Commandments (Decalogue),Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 12:12 pm
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This paper on the Ten Commandments was the last major paper I did at Lincoln Christian Seminary before I graduated in 1995. I majored in Old Testament under Dr. Gary Hall, to whom I will ever be grateful for instilling in me a love of the Hebrew Scriptures. I went all in on the paper because I wanted to go out with some solid evidence of all I’d learned at Lincoln from Dr. Hall. I discovered the file with the paper a few years ago, but I had prepared the paper in WordPerfect, so it didn’t translate too well into Word. I spent a couple months diligently working through the file and checking all sources again to ensure my citations were accurate. I also didn’t have Logos Bible Software available to me at the time, so all of my word counts were done manually. I updated the word counts at the end based on Logos search results. It’s too long for a Web format, so I’m including the link to the .pdf below. I hope you enjoy! Feel free to submit comments using the Comment feature below or e-mail at the link in my signature. Peace to all!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own

Exodus20SeminaryPaper-FinalDownload

February 15, 2026

Transfigured and Transformed (Matthew 17:1–9)

Filed under: 2 Corinthians,2 Peter,Biblical People,Biblical Studies,Elijah,Epifanía,Epiphany,Eschatology,James and John,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,Miracles,Moses,Peter,Resurrection,Romans,Thanatology (Death),Theophany — Scott Stocking @ 5:02 pm
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This Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time when Christians worldwide anticipate the remembrance of Christ’s death on the cross and the celebration of his resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday. I can’t help but think there must be a small bit of irony that we celebrate the birth of Jesus and his resurrection, the beginning and ending of his life on earth, only about three or four months apart. Jesus is that special to us that we choose to recognize both those events as holidays in our culture and in Christendom more broadly. Most people who have holidays today only get them for their birthdays, like President’s Day tomorrow, or Martin Luther King Day last month.

We don’t have a holiday that I’m aware of where recognize the death of an individual. We do have Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day, and Pearl Harbor Day to recognize the sacrifices of our loved ones and heroes who’ve served and in many cases given their all for this country for our freedom. Of course, as the old hymn goes, “Jesus gave it all” for each of us as well, but for our spiritual freedom and eternal life with him in Heaven.

Jesus knows what his end goal is: the cross. But he also doesn’t want his disciples to be taken by surprise by that event either. In Matthew 16, Jesus begins to warn his disciples that he must be handed over by the Jewish leaders who hated his disruption of their power over the people to the Romans for the death penalty. The first time Jesus says this, Peter is indignant: Most English translations have Peter saying something like “Never!” or “God Forbid!” The one word that Peter utters is the word for “Mercy!”

It was a dire prediction after all, and I’m sure the disciples weren’t ready for that just yet. That’s when Jesus responds to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Keep in mind that just a few verses earlier Jesus said he was going to build his church on Peter, or at least on the truth of his confession that Jesus is the Christ.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. In all three gospel accounts of this first prediction, Jesus goes on to say something about each of them having to take up their own cross to follow Jesus. In other words, they need to “die” too. But for those who would come to Christ later, that experience of “dying,” that is, “taking up the cross,” will look very different. That has got to be pretty earth shaking for a young group of disciples who thought that Jesus was going to lead them in breaking away from Roman rule. This background is important to emphasize here for what is about to happen.

About six days later, according to Matthew’s account, it’s at this point that the story from our gospel reading this morning kicks in. Jesus chooses what is apparently his “inner circle”—Peter, James, and John—to go up onto a high mountain, and he wastes no time getting to the reason he came: He transfigures himself before them to reveal his heavenly glory. Matthew says Jesus’s face “shone like the sun” and his clothes were “bright white.” Luke is much less dramatic: he just says Jesus’s appearance was “different.” In fact, Luke doesn’t even use the word for “transfiguration” in his account. That word is one that should be familiar to you: it’s the Greek word from which we get the English word “metamorphosis” (μεταμορφόομαι metamorphoomai, μεταμορφόω metamorphoō).

Mark is the only other gospel writer to use that word in his account. It simply means to change form. I don’t think anything “physical” happened to Jesus in this event. I think the divine nature of Jesus overpowers the physical nature and manifests its form on top of Jesus’s human form. For added excitement, Moses and Elijah show up in their heavenly forms to chat with Jesus.

But why Moses and Elijah? Luke tells us this: “They spoke about his departure, q which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.”[1] Elijah is not the first prophet in the Old Testament, but he is the most famous, and he never died. Maybe Elijah is sharing his experience of having his human form whisked off to heaven and what Jesus should expect at his resurrection. Elijah also represents John the Baptist, the last of the prophets under the old covenant, as Jesus would go on to explain in Matthew 17:12.

Moses’s presence is easy to explain. Moses was the one who was initially given the Law by God that he passed on to the Israelites, so it makes sense that he would be present to see the one in whom all that law is fulfilled. What did Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount? “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”[2] The apostle Paul would say some 25 years later, “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”[3] Both Moses and Elijah together represent the full experience of how God revealed himself in the Old Testament, and both of them get to see the fulfillment of their respective roles in that revelation firsthand.

The transfiguration event doesn’t seem to take very long, maybe a few minutes at the most, but then again, the disciples seem to be in a bit of daze at the whole event. It’s not long after they come down from that mountain-top experience that Jesus again repeats his prediction of dying. This puts a closing bracket on the transfiguration story and provides a final clue as to what we can take away from that story.

Jesus reveals his divine nature to his inner circle in the transfiguration event so that they can have assurance that Jesus’s death will not be the end of the story. The disciples see that Moses and Elijah are still alive, so there is proof of life after death. For the disciples to both see the glory of God in Jesus and hear his voice also puts them in the same unique class as Moses and Elijah, men who have seen the glory of God, have heard his voice, and have lived to tell about it.

There are at least three takeaways for us in this story, then.

  • Heaven is real and the patriarchs are alive and well in that realm;
  • Jesus himself will be resurrected when the time comes; and
  • Jesus has the fulness of divinity in him, i.e., he’s the Son of God.[4]

It’s possible this event may also be a sort of looking forward to what will happen on the Day of Pentecost. The tongues of fire I’m sure looked a bit different than what Peter saw in the transfiguration, but there would have been no doubt in his mind that this was God at work. In fact, Peter mentions this event in his second letter:

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” i 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.[5]

Now I’ve been calling this event the “Transfiguration” because that’s the fancy, $20 religious term that’s in the Lectionary and that has been used for hundreds of years in English translations. I do believe it deserves that special designation, because it’s not something you see every day. But in everyday usage, this word simply means “transform,” and we find it in two other passages that have significance in our own faith walk. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is writing about the “greater glory of the new covenant” (NIV heading) and how we are being “transformed” into the image of Christ as we follow him and live in him:

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”[6]

In other words, our transformation, our heavenly visage when we finally meet our Savior in glory, will be glorious in and of itself. We really will have a “glow” to us, so it seems. I’m looking forward to that day, and I pray you are too.

The other passage where we find this word is Romans 12:1–2:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.[7]

The “therefore” in this passage is important, because it follows on the heels of Paul’s 11-chapter treatise on righteousness and faithfulness. At the center of that argument is the event that triggers our transformation from being world-focused to being God-focused: baptism. Paul says that those “who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”[8]

This is what it means to be the “living sacrifice” Paul speaks of in Romans 12. Not only are we “buried with Christ,” but we’re raised up to live a new life. When we’re in Christ, he can begin and continue the work of transforming us into his image through the working of Holy Spirit. This is how much Christ loved us and continues to love us. He will never leave us nor forsake. Even if we blow it sometimes, he’s still faithful to continue loving and guiding us into his way.

As we transition from Epiphany to Lent this week, let us consider how we can improve our focus on Christ and living for him in service of others. May God bless you and yours this week. Amen.

[1] Luke 9:31. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Romans 10:4. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[4] Colossians 1:18–19; Matthew 17:5.

[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] 2 Corinthians 3:18. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[7] Romans 12:1–2. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[8] Romans 6:3b. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

February 5, 2012

Does the Structure of Exodus 21:1–27 Tell the Patriarchs’ Story?

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Exodus,Hebrew,Moses,Old Testament,Righteousness,Ten Commandments (Decalogue),Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 8:40 am
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I really enjoyed my Old Testament exegesis classes in seminary with Dr. Gary Hall, who is retiring from Lincoln Christian Seminary this year. Each week, we had a passage to dissect, and we always followed the same pattern. The systematic method he taught us has stuck with me all these years, which is one reason why I love teaching hermeneutics. It has also opened up new depths of understanding to difficult passages, and has helped me discover the eternal principles behind the earthly stories of those who have gone before me.

Exodus 21 Assigned

One such passage that sold me on the value of discerning structure in the Bible is Exodus 21:1–27. I believe we had actually been assigned Exodus 21:12–27, which is set off in the TNIV with the heading “Personal Injuries.” However, when I looked at the passage in the Hebrew Bible that week, I noticed that vv. 1–27 were a complete paragraph. Dr. Hall had taught us to pay attention to such structural clues, so I took it upon myself to expand the assigned passage and see what I could discover from that. I was amazed at what I found, but I was even more amazed when I took into account the literary and historical context of the passage.

Here is the structure of the passage:

1 Introduction

    2–11 Hebrew Slaves

        12–14 Striking a man/conditionality

             15 Physically attacking Father/Mother

                16 Kidnapping

             17 Verbally attacking Father/Mother

        18–25 Striking a man or a pregnant woman

        [18–19 Striking a man]

    [20–21 Striking a Slave]

        [22–25 Striking a pregnant woman]

    26–27 Hebrew Slaves

Exodus 21 Considered

If you’ve read my posts regularly or if you’ve ever taken a class that talks about the structure of a biblical passage, you will instantly recognize this as a chiasm, a passage that presents ideas in one order and repeats them in reverse order. The key point about a chiasm is that whatever is at the center of the chiasm is the focus. So when I discovered this structure, I thought a couple things were unusual:

  1. Why were the two nearly identical laws about parents not together? and
  2. Why was “kidnapping” inserted between the two commands, especially when kidnapping isn’t mentioned in the Ten Commandments?

I need to answer both those questions together, because there is a connection. I do remember when I was looking at this passage in some English texts that one English version (I thought it was my RSV confirmation Bible, but I can’t locate it now to confirm) actually had the chutzpah to flip verses 16 and 17 around, because the translators thought as I did at first glance that they belonged together. The answer to my second question came when I looked at the Hebrew: the word “kidnap” is translated from the Hebrew phrase וְגֹנֵ֨ב אִ֧ישׁ (wə·ḡō·nēḇ ʾîš, \wuh-goh-nayv eesh\), which literally means “the one stealing a man.” Aha! Stealing: now that is something in the Ten Commandments. Now I’m getting somewhere.

גָּנַב is the same word translated “steal” in the Ten Commandments. “Stealing” a man meant not only removing that man from his covenant community but also taking away the life he had planned for himself. גָּנַב is often used of stealing things and people. It’s presence here, especially in the center of the structure (see above), indicates the seriousness of the crime of kidnapping. It is on a par with striking or cursing your parents, and the abuse and murder of slaves. All crimes listed here could be punishable by death, especially with the presence of the lex talionis at the end of this passage.

So now I was at least part way to an answer. Kidnapping was the ultimate form of mistreatment of another person. That is why it was at the center of the passage.

Exodus 21 in Context

But there was a larger question to answer. I had only dealt with the central elements, but what about the rest of the paragraph? I asked myself, “What do treatment of slaves, mistreatment of parents, and kidnapping have in common?” The answer stuck out like a sore thumb. Joseph. Joseph’s brothers kidnapped him. Strike one. They sold him into slavery. Strike two. They lied to their father Israel, which would be equivalent to a curse, about what happened to Joseph. Strike three. So the first story out of the gate after hearing the Ten Commandments is like a slap in the face to all of Israel. “You did it to Joseph, which is how you wound up in slavery in Egypt in the first place. Go and sin no more. Even though God intended it for good (Genesis 50:20), don’t let that be an excuse to try it again.”

Conclusion

I hope you can see how important structure and context is in determining the meaning and significance of a passage. Moses brilliantly structured Exodus 21 (or God did so for Moses) not only to communicate his statutes, but to place those in the historical context of God’s people.

Peace!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M. Div.

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