Good Mornin’, Siblings! 

Today’s readings are Exodus 19-21

Rabbit Trails

Today we have a group challenge! Make sure you read towards the bottom to be able to take part. I encourage you to do so, it is a game changer.

As always, a lot happens in our verses but today I’m going to focus on two things with my trails.

🌿We are given what is known today as the ten commandments! For centuries now, Christianity and Judaism have held these commandments up as the foundation for living a moral, ethical, and righteous life. 

In fact, if you look at them and then pay attention to all of the other commandments coming up, the ten commandments act as an outline, with future commandments falling under one of the primary ten.

🌿Then, when we move on to the greatest commandment, Deuteronomy 6:5 (Jesus repeats this in Matthew 22), it is an even larger umbrella that all of the commandments fall under.  You can read more about this by checking out my article here: Did Messiah replace the ten commandments with just two? 

Think about it, if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, what will your attitude be towards Him? It will be submission, recognition of His authority, reverence, and obedience. 

How do we obey Him? By following His commandments.

Obedience is YHWH’s love language.

And the commandments are very simple and straight forward, plainly spoken, and written with full intent of us understanding them. It’s when the humans get involved that the waters get muddied and things get complicated – but God is pretty cut and dry. 🙂 Many say that the commandments are too hard for us, that no one can possibly keep them. But I trust YHWH over any person any day. Check out what He said about them here: Deuteronomy 30:11-14 .

While these have been the bedrock of our foundation for living a moral life for a very long time, there are many inside and outside of churches today that dismiss some or even go so far as to say we are not obliged to obey any of them anymore.

I am not here to argue, nor do I see a fruit in doing so. Humans have always said a lot of things and always will say a lot of things. Mankind will reason things away what they want to reason away and add things in that they want to be added in. Our logic is flawed and self serving by nature. 

As we continue with our reading, I encourage you to start each Bible session with your mind and heart as a blank piece of paper and allow YHWH’s Word to be the one to fill it. 

YHWH’s Word is here, written for you, speaking directly to you. 

🙌May we let His voice be the loudest in our lives. 🙌

🌿Another topic I want to add a little context to is the verse about a man selling his daughter. Yikes, I know some of this is scary stuff, especially when we look at it in our modern mindset and don’t understand the culture and customs of the day. Now don’t go thinking I’m excusing slavery! I am absolutely not. I am horrified and deeply grieved by our history with this horrible act and the continuance of racism today, especially in the body of believers. Hang on, though, because I want to explain that what we are reading here is not the same thing that our modern mindsets envision. We must put it back into cultural context in order to understand.

Exodus 21:7-11

⁷ “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. ⁸ If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. ⁹ If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. ¹⁰ If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. ¹¹ And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

A couple of years ago I was reading up on the culture and history during this time frame and came across an explanation that made these verses make so much more sense. I can’t remember the source and I am paraphrasing what I learned but this is something I’d like to share. Please consider it a possibility rather than fact, although I do believe it to be true at this point.

Now, we are about to speak specifically of “slaves” in the Hebrew culture because there were very specific guidelines for them. First of all, you need to know that the Hebrew word used here is ebed and many Bibles translate this as “servant”. My primary Bible says slave but has a footnote that it is “servant”. In this context and within these parameters culturally and according to the faith, I feel servant is a more accurate translation.

In this time, there was little room for social mobility. The poor remained poor because they were indebted to the rich for work and their means of living. The rich remained rich and their wealth grew as their families grew.

However, The way of YHWH’s law offered a means for a young girl to escape poverty and thereby her family as well- and that was by intermarrying with a wealthy family. This was a means of social welfare that well off families felt some obligation to take part in and families of lesser means often relied on. 

If a father wanted this to happen for his daughter, he could approach a man of fellow Hebrew of integrity and wealth and offer his daughter as a servant in his house. The man would give the father a price for her, thereby immediately helping her family, bring her into his home, and provide for her in exchange for her working in his household.

The goal for both parties was that either the man himself or one of his sons would eventually take her as a wife. The man of the household has the added bonus of being able to raise this girl up as a member of his household, which would promote a much more content and strongly bonded marriage. 

If he or one of his sons marry her and then he takes another wife later, he is not allowed to treat her any differently or diminish her status in any way. Exodus 21:9-10

If neither he nor his sons decide to marry her she is to be set free with no payment, but essentially having been cared for in exchange for work all those years she lived in the house. Exodus 21:11

However, more often than not, these girls would have grown up in the household and eventually become a daughter in law of that household. 

Now read that passage again and see if it makes more sense to you.

We also see in this same reading that some servants may declare that they love their master and wanted to remain with him forever. If this happened they had their ear pierced and were considered permanent members of that man’s household. While slavery as we think of it today certainly did take place in that time, what we are reading about is a Hebrew culture which, by and large, treated their servants as members of their own households. 

Feel free to research it further. In fact, research everything! Never take anyone’s word for it. Read YHWH’s Word first, entertain only trusted sources outside of that, and in the end still only trust God’s Word with the fullness of your heart.

~People are fallible, YHWH is not. That is an important perspective to maintain.~

Remember, the Bible is the straight edge to which all else must line up, not the other way around. YHWH’s Word is true yesterday, today, and forever. He is God, He does not change and His wisdom is beyond our scope of understanding. What a BLESSING it is to have the amazing access we do to the Word of God today!

🌿Exodus 19:1 Begins “On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone to fo the land of Egypt…” This is the Hebrew way of saying three months later because they marked the beginning of their months by the new moon. Interesting tidbit, below is a photo of what is considered a new moon. 

Now you’ve probably caught on by now but it is good to point out that the Hebrew calendar is not the same as the Gregorian calendar we follow. 

🌿Exodus 19:4-6 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

Can you imagine being there, having those words spoken about you? These words are timeless, they have never expired. And the Father, in His Grace, allows us to take part in this covenant as well. 

🌿Exodus 19:15 ends on an abrupt and somewhat humorous sounding note! However 1 Corinthians 7:5 yields a bit more insight. 

🌿The Ten Commandments are known in some circles as the Ten Words and many actually see eleven commandments there, with the first being “I am YHWH your God”. Just something to know. Today we are given them in Exodus 20:1-17 and I want to challenge you to do something that I did only recently and it really changed how I viewed the commandments, helped me frame them better in my mind, and yielded some prayerful insight that I had not realized before. Ready for the challenge? 

Today’s group challenge: Write down the Ten Commandments by hand. All of them. From Exodus 20:1-17

• Number them as you do and leave a space in between each commandment so you can clearly tell when one ends and the other begins. I think you’re going to be surprised when you do this by what you might see, understand, or realize that you had not noticed before.
• If you accept my challenge, take a photo of them after you’ve written them out if you can and upload it on today’s comment thread in the facebook group!

THANK YOU for being here. 

I’m SO EXCITED to be growing closer to the Father with each of you and I hope you feel continually encouraged and strengthened the more you read. 

BE ENCOURAGED! YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB and the results are immeasurable.

TEST EVERYTHING

May YHWH bless the reading of His word!

Today’s recipe: Hot Spiced Apple Cider

Print This Post

Fellowship Members: Click here to visit our Facebook group to discuss today’s readings,  Click here to visit our prayer request thread

Visit the Faith Homepage  • Read my statement of Faith • Print the November Readings • Begin at the beginning with our Genesis notes

Yum

GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING! 

Today’s readings are Exodus 16-18

Rabbit Trails

🌿Interesting fact alert! In Exodus 16:15 when the Israelites asked “what is it?” with regards to the name of manna, in Hebrew the transliterated words for “what is it?” are pronounced “Man-hu”. Neat, huh? 

Test it here: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/16-15.htm

🌿Exodus 16:16 They were told to gather an omer of bread, which translates to about half a gallon. I like to know these things. 

🌿Exodus 16:4-5 There are so many incidents of grace when it comes to the Father. He is truly a God of grace and mercy. I specifically noted the two incidents of grace in these verses. First of all, the Israelites, after all that He had done for them, began grumbling against Him. As a parent, we know that it was with a great deal of Grace that He didn’t smite them then and there! Secondly, he rained down Manna to feed them. By His very hand, He fed these people who had grumbled against Him. 

🌿How tragic that we have people who teach that Grace began in the “New” Testament. In Malachi 3:6, YHWH says “I am YHWH, I do not change.” However, there was a woefully errant teaching that permeated the body of believers centuries ago which teaches that there are actually two “Gods” in the Bible, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. This theology also teaches that the old God was angry and vengeful and the new God is loving and shows Grace. This teaching stands in direct contradiction to the word of YHWH, the words of our Messiah, and the Bible as a whole. But it is only when we read it for ourselves that we can see the truth. If you’d like to learn more of this, the start to this rabbit trail is the name “Marcion”. Marcionism is good to know about in order to recognize the influence over doctrine today. I just wanted you to know that the whole idea of “Grace began in the New Testament.” is a statement that stems from the continuing influence of Marcion. Moving on…

🌿Exodus 16:19-21 19 And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. 21 Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

🌿Exodus 16:27 On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather but they found none. And YHWH said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?” 

Each time I’ve read these passages I find myself answering out loud, “Centuries, at least.” 

Sidenote: Remember, never accept a single verse from anyone. When someone gives you a verse, go put it back where it came from and read the entire context to make sure it means what you think it means. 

🌿Do you see it? The Father is teaching them to trust in Him. After all that they have been through He is still sensitive to the fact that they are not used to a God who will be faithful to them and so, bit by bit, He is training them to learn to trust in Him. He does the same thing with us, each day. We step out in what faith we have and He, in His compassion and lovingkindness, helps us to grow that faith. 

🌿Do you see yourself in the Israelites? I sure do! We are being told these stories so that we will know and understand our own propensities as people. The Father, in His wisdom and kindness, not only gives us guidelines (commandments) on how to live our lives successfully, but He also gives us examples of what happens when we turn from Him and what happens when we turn TO Him. What a loving Father He is! 

Remember, the Bible is not meant to be used as a microscope to examine others with but as a mirror in which to see ourselves. Each of these stories have direct application in our own lives today. 

🌿Exodus 17:8 – The Amalekites are descendants of Esau. In Deuteronomy 25:17-18 we find out that when they attacked here, they actually attacked the rear of the Israelites group, which is where the weakest members (children, elderly, etc) would have been positioned. The Father despised this action. Even today, those who target after our elderly and our young are deemed the most despicable. These groups represent our most treasured and our most revered. 

🌿Exodus 17:5 Water from the rock – Notice that the father has Moses take elders from Israel with him to witness the miracle YHWH was going to perform. This is another way the tribal structure helped them as these elders could then get the word to every single person beneath them in the structure tree as to what the Father did to bring this miracle about. Also, pay attention to the fact that the Father specifically told Moses to strike the rock to bring forth water. We’ll come back to that information later on in Exodus. 

🌿 Exodus 18:9-11 I loved seeing Jethro come to know the Father! 

“And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” Exodus 18:9-11

🌿When Moses goes up to lift up his arms so that the Israelites will win the battle, we see that Aaron and a man named Hur went with him. Who is Hur? He is mentioned again in Exodus 24:14 and is clearly very important. We aren’t given the information on who he is but many believe he was Miriam’s husband. This is speculation and nothing to get hung up on, just an interesting tidbit.

~Soapbox~

OH MY GOODNESS the grumbling of the Israelites! The grumbling always frustrates me to read about – and then I am immediately reminded to look in the mirror and make sure my own attitude is where it should be with regards to awareness and appreciation of all that YHWH has done for us.

However, there is a lot to love in today’s reading! For me, I am enamored with the description of the Manna. How beautiful must that have looked glistening on the ground with the first light of the sun’s rays.

In these precious verses, YHWH is teaching Israel to trust in Him to sustain them.

With this in mind, so many things in my life that I may have looked differently upon begin to look like Manna. So many opportunities to learn to trust in Him more, rely on Him, and have faith that He will provide.

Did you notice the respect and honor given to Moses’s father in law when he arrived?  Did you see how easily Moses followed Jethro’s instruction? He was truly a humble, humble man who had no issue accepting wisdom and advice from someone else. We will see this humility time and again as a pattern among God’s chosen leaders.

It’s SO EXCITING to be here with you all today! 

For the past several days I’ve been keeping an eye on my clock and going out on the back porch with a blanket and a cup of coffee to watch the sunrise. ☀️ These minutes of silence outside, surrounded by our Father’s creation, watching the sun rise on the earth again, have brought me a great deal of needed peace at the start of the day. 

If you are reading this in the wee hours of the morning, I encourage you to grab a blanket and head on out to your own porch. If you are reading this later, perhaps you could catch a sunset 😊 Our Father sure does give us a lot of beauty each day – and how blessed we are when we make time to take it in!

Test everything, hold tight to what is good – and HE is the source of good!

May YHWH bless the reading of His Word!

Print This Post

Today’s recipe: Steak and Milk Gravy <- Visiting my recipes is a great help to me so thank you! 

Fellowship Members: Click here to visit our Facebook group to discuss today’s readings,  Click here to visit our prayer request thread

Visit the Faith Homepage  • Read my statement of Faith • Print the November Readings • Begin at the beginning with our Genesis notes

Yum

GOOD MORNING SIBLINGS!

Today’s readings are Exodus 13-15

Rabbit Trails

So today, I want to establish (with a visual) that there were a LOT of Israelites leaving Egypt.

🌿Exodus 12:37-38 tells us: “And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.”

Did you catch that? “…about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children“. So this 600,000 number only included the men. Many men had multiple wives and they all pretty much had a whole passel of kids (remember how fruitful the Bible tells us they were earlier in this report). Some folks estimate there were 2-3 million but that could easily be a highly conservative number. 

In addition to THAT, these verses also tell us that a “mixed multitude” of others also went with them. WOW.

Suffice it to say, that was a LOT of people. This makes the clan structure really come into play when it comes to how each tribe was organized – we will talk over that in a minute.

But today I wanted to share a visual to help us wrap our heads around this. So we know there were 600,000 men, but that is just the beginning as that number represents the smaller number of the Israelite party.  Still, it’s a starting point.

This photo is Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee and it’s max capacity is a little over 100,000.

Picture this times 6…. then double that. 

Then triple that. 

Then quadruple that… you get my point. 

That is a LOT of people!

Something to think about as we read of the exodus taking place!

🌿Can you imagine millions of people being led by one man? Only YHWH can do that! However, there was a tribal structure in place which allowed these groups to be led and made a communication tree possible. Below is my hand drawn representation of this. I’m not an artist but it gets the job done. 

So this is how you could lead that many people. In essence, Moses need only speak to the princes of each tribe and from their, they need only speak to a few, and this action trickled down until every person heard whatever information was being passed down. 

Are you ready for a funny story? Let’s take a wee break from the Bible for me to share this with you. I drew this diagram last year for our Bible study and I thought it was pretty effective so I decided to improve it this year. I asked Ricky if he could draw it up in some fancy software or something to make it look more “official” and he felt that it being hand drawn was a plus and I shouldn’t strive for bells and whistles, but keep the Bible study more authentic instead. He had a point and I agreed with him. So I decided I would just sit down, take some time, and draw it out again but this time do my very neatest work. I knew the hierarchy by memory so I didn’t bother using the first one as a reference. When I was done, I printed out the first one to see how much I had improved it. And I laughed so hard! 

Below are last year’s drawing compared to this year’s drawing. 

Yes, they are almost identical. Oh well, I’m nothing if not consistent and I remain true to myself! Moving on…

🌿This is how the leadership was set up so that there could be order rather than chaos and we can clearly see what a blessing this societal structure would be during the Exodus.

Tribes -> Clans -> Households

So my husband and I along with our children would be an individual family. Back then my husband would have had many more siblings and each of them would be married with a family of their own. We would all then belong to the household of my husband’s parents, who could have many others among their rank under a clan. Those clans would belong to a greater tribe, which in those days would be one of the 12 tribes of Israel, that is, sons of Jacob.

• See Exodus 1:1-5 for the listing of these tribes that had gone to Egypt. 
• Exodus 6:19-25 goes a little deeper into some clans. 
• Exodus 12:1-4 is another small reference to households. 
• Exodus 24:9 tells us that Moses went up with about 70 elders from the tribes of Israel. 
• Elders and Scribes were very important in this structure.

Hope this makes sense and helps the words we are reading become more real to you! 

And now for a gentle but important reminder as we read: 

🌿I want to point out something very important in our Bibles that may help certain chapters make more sense and help you to put them back into context. Chapter numbers, titles, and verse numbers were not part of the original manuscripts. These were added later by translators.

While this may seem obvious, I think we overlook it sometimes and our brain automatically resets the scene so to speak as we move from one chapter to the other. Many times in our reading, a chapter will make more sense if we re-read the ending of the chapter before it and then read it within that context as a fluid story.

Of course, the chapters and verse numbers are *extremely* helpful in being able to look things up and cite verses, so I’m absolutely not knocking those, we just need to know that they can sometimes trip us up mentally and removing them will help the story make sense again.

🌿While I’m talking about things man has added to the Word, I would be remiss if I missed an opportunity to remind you that anything placed in parenthesis within the text is quite possibly added. Translators, denominations, etc, sometimes add things within the text this way to clarify points that they feel were being made or to add in doctrinal assumptions based on the text. It is my strong personal opinion (which you are free to dismiss entirely) that these insertions belong in footnotes, not the text itself, as the reader naturally believes them to be part of the original text and they are therefore misleading. Let’s cast my opinion aside though and see what the Father says about this. 

• You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.  Deuteronomy 4:2
• “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. Deuteronomy 12:32
• I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, Revelations 22:18

In summary, know that sometimes mentally removing the chapter and verse numbers help a story to make more sense and beware of anything in parenthesis. And spiders. Always beware of spiders. But I digress…

🌿We are going to see, time and time again, YHWH tell His people to do things so that their future generations will know they are a set apart people. He will have them pass down stories, commandments, the celebration of appointed times, etc, so that they may know. We have to remember that our history has to be told and passed down, our standing with YHWH, all that He has done in our lives, it must be told again and again – especially to our children and grandchildren. 

We will see throughout our readings but especially once we get to Kings that it only takes one generation for a people to completely fall away from the Father – but in one generation they can completely return as well. If you’re here, reading this now, you’re a driving force in one of those generations and you could very well be the influence that determines which way your descendants will go. 

Do not let His Grace go unremembered. Do not let the stories of all He has done pass on with you, but rather pass them on to your descendants. Tell of His glory!🙌

🌿BACKTRACKING – Exodus 11:4-5 Regarding the judgement which resulted in the killing of the firstborn. Note that it did not designate that as babies only. It is possible, therefore, that this meant all firstborn. Therefore if you were married to a firstborn son and your father in law lived with you (who was himself a firstborn) and you had a son as well, you could have possibly lost all three in one fell swoop.

🌿Interesting tidbit: Exodus 13:17 When Israel starts out we are immediately told what route they did NOT take – the one that was obvious, well known, and long established. The scripture tells us this was for their own safety and to avoid them being discouraged and tempted to want to turn back. However, I just thought that was an interesting little God wink towards the narrow path we are told to take as followers of The Way.  Matthew 7:13-14

🌿Exodus 13:19 Joseph’s bones went with them. What a beautiful reminder that this is a continuing story, not a new one, just as with the rest of the Bible and even into our lives today!

🌿In Exodus 14 we see that God had the Israelites turn back and position themselves so that they would appear lost and trapped in a particular part of the desert. We see that Pharaoh would be told this and he would then see it as an ideal time to attack and try to reclaim his slaves. How would pharaoh know this? He most likely had scouts and spies following the Israelites and reporting back to him. Recall that he was never told anything different (to our knowledge) from the whole idea of Moses and the Israelites being gone just three days but he clearly distrusted them – and in this case with good reason 

Either way, YHWH is setting the stage for a great show of His power to the Egyptians and Israelites alike.

🌿Did you catch what happened in Exodus 14:20? It’s commonly overlooked. The cloud moved in between the Israelites and Egyptians and all night long it cast the Egyptians into darkness and gave the Israelites light. This gave them a huge head start in crossing the sea. The Hebrew here is the same used during the plague of darkness that we talked about a few days ago.

As we move forward, we will see the government of Israel being set up, laws and rules being put in place, and a nation rising up from that parted sea!

THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE! It is an honor to read through the Word with you!

Test everything, hold tight to what is good – and HE is the source of Good! 

I hope you all have a WONDERFUL day and may YHWH bless the reading of His Word! 🙌

Today’s recipe: Easy, From Scratch, Cream of Chicken Soup <- Visiting my recipes is a great help to me so thank you! 

Print This Post

Fellowship Members: Click here to visit our Facebook group to discuss today’s readings,  Click here to visit our prayer request thread

Visit the Faith Homepage  • Read my statement of Faith • Print the November Readings • Begin at the beginning with our Genesis notes

Yum