Then he said to them (the Levites), “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Exodus 32 : 27 & 28 TNIV
The grand assumption of most of the Christian world is the authority of Scripture. It is the given that the Holy Scriptures reveal divine truth for life. To question this hypothesis, is to invite the heresy label. True, when the new believer experiences the gospel the “good Book” rightly becomes a roadmap to the Kingdom or the God inspired life. However, there may be truth and then there may be truth.
For example, Moses comes down from the mountain and finds the family having a party around an idol. The Book says that God told Moses to go through the camp with a sword and slaughter 3000 of the family. Surely this was needed tough love, or was it? If that be the case, the party, the people and all we similar mortals are in trouble. Could there not be another angle on the truth?
Reading literally one must concluded that the God of Israel kills to defend His priorities. Let us not be so satisfied and read beyond the obvious. Biblical scholarship expresses this as “Sitz im Leben” or situation in life. The life setting of Moses as he came down from the mountain should be understood “as if” we were in his shoes. He was driven to a high isolated place where he had a close encounter with God. Pouring out his heart and life emotions, while fasting for thirty days, Moses witnessed a divine happening as his God describes the ultimate hope for His people. This hope was written on stone tablets.
Returning to the camp Moses was surely tired, hungry, thirsty, and emotionally drained. Certainly he was suffering withdrawal from the divine presence. The people’s party and rebellion seemed so foreign to his elevated encounter with God. Moses snapped. Have you ever snapped under life pressure? Moses was so furious he over reacted and ordered the self righteous killings. The decision seemed so right at the time, in his depressed condition, the orders must be from God. Have you ever blamed God for a bad decision made in the heat of life? The honest believer will certainly understand.
These are two very different ways of reading this passage from Scripture. Which reading is the truth of Scripture? The answer must be the readers. To this reader the answer is obvious. The unifying central theme of all Scripture is the love of God for all the people, sinner and saint. Ultimately, God wants us to model His love back to Him and to each other. This is the first commandment Moses brought down from the mountain. Jesus called it the greatest commandment and He was the only one of us who ever lived it. As in the other nine commandments, we fail miserably to accomplish them in fact or reality. We all are sinners or spiritual failures.
There is a self righteous bent to human nature, we all can claim that as well. Be it Muslim terrorism or Christian enthusiasm, the demand that our way is the only way seems to be universal and it is good to kill in it’s defense. Is not this self righteous propensity the engine of mankind’s history? There have always been wars and rumors of wars, all with justifiable self centered motives.
The writer of Exodus, probably Moses, attempts to divert to the Godhead the self righteous anger he could not control. The conflict wages within Moses, he reaches a compromise by blaming God for the killing which allows him to argue in the peoples defense. Then retreats into the violence he had opposed. The story seems to have little consistency. Let us remember that centuries of retelling may have increasingly sought to protect the reputation of Moses. However, the truth of the account remains.
The Coming Kingdom of God, the Kingdom under construction, will not be so ordered. That Kingdom will be the ultimate hope of Moses, the Ten Commandments and the One God of Scripture. In the interim, we believers, sinners though we be, are marching to the drumbeat of the long awaited rule of Him who is all consistent. We are inconsistent marchers but by God’s grace, we are the Kingdom now.
G.Goslaw
