“Pharaoh and his soldiers were cruel men, bent on destroying God’s people. Was it not right for God to punish evil men for killing innocent children? It was especially appropriate for them to die by drowning because they had once tried to drown the children of Israel in the Nile. What happened to them at the Red Sea was divine retribution. These men deserved to be punished for their sins. And God is glorified when he judges people for their sins because this displays his divine attribute of justice” -Rykin
Tag: Exodus
Favorite Thoughts on the Tabernacle from “The Tabernacle Place”
“A person could not simply come from any direction into the tabernacle as he pleased — he had to enter through the one gate, which was always located to the east (so that people were facing west when they entered the tabernacle — a direct opposition to the pagan sun worshippers of the day who always faced east).” – the-tabernacle-place.com See Ez. 8:16-18
“The Bible has two chapters on creation and 50 chapters on the tabernacle. Why don’t we teach it more?” – the-tabernacle-place.com
“The detailed commands that God gave the Israelites for the setting up of the tabernacle demonstrate to us God’s holiness — in order for sinful man to approach a holy God, he must come to God in God’s own prescribed way, and no other way.” – the-tabernacle-place.com
Another amazing symbol surrounding Christ’s death is the tearing of the temple curtain from top to bottom. That event is meaningless unless we understand why the curtain was there in the first place and what exactly it was separating — a holy God from sinful man. To see that, we need to be able to visualize the physical layout of the temple. And the origin of the temple itself is difficult to explain apart from its prototype — the mobile tabernacle given to the Israelites in the wilderness.” – the-tabernacle-place.com
“why is Jesus so often referred to as our “high priest” in the New Testament? Invariably, you are forced to go back to the tabernacle to explain the nature and purpose of the priesthood.” – the-tabernacle-place.com
“Its physical structure, ‘a copy and shadow of heavenly things’ (Hebrews 8:5), teaches us spiritual lessons about eternal truths.” – the-tabernacle-place.com
“For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.” (Hebrews 9:24)
Sig. of only one gate & tall outer walls… to approach God you have to do it God’s prescribed way, and no other way.
Tenons and Hands: A Word Study on יד (Yad)
TEN’ON , n. [L. teneo, to hold.] In building and cabinet work, the end of a piece of timber, which is fitted to a mortise for insertion, or inserted, for fastening two pieces of timber together. (Websters)
By using this type of connector, common in traditional Chinese architecture, the boards could interlock with perfect fit, without requiring glues or fasteners, and allows the wood to expand or contract according to humidity.
Tenon (in Hebrew יד or yad) means hands. It also has many figurative uses, such as describing someone who would be a right-hand man (assistant) or in the hand of (in the custody of). The only place in the bible that yad is translated as tenon is in the tabernacle description in Exodus (26:17,19 and 36:22,24).
“Exo 26:19 You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons [hands].”
Yad occurs 1536 times in the old testament, and only four of those times is it translated tenon, all four of those times being in the context of describing the tabernacle construction in Exodus 26 and 36. Most of the time, yad means hands, or the work of the hands.
- Moses stretched out his hand (same word) to instigate many of the plagues.
- God stretched out his hand (same word) to smite people with pestilence.
- When Isaac felt Jacob’s hands to identify that he was Esau, yad is the word used for hand (Gen. 27:2).
Yad also appears to have a less frequent secondary meaning as an edge, border, or boundary. The “coasts” of Cypress (Num 24:24) and the “side” of the great River Tigris (Dan 10:4) are also uses of yad.
Jon Courson on Worshipping Confidently
Great thoughts on being free to worship God despite our sin by Jon Courson:
When a Jewish person went to the temple to worship, he would bring a lamb to offer on the altar. After careful examination by the priest, if the lamb was found to be without spot or blemish, the worshiper could worship confidently. You see, the priest never inspected the person—only the lamb. Satan will try to whisper in your ear, “You’re blemished. You’ve dropped the ball. You haven’t been a woman of prayer. You haven’t been a man of integrity. You can’t worship. You can’t talk to the Father. You can’t be blessed.”
But he’s wrong. At the temple, the priests didn’t inspect the worshiper. They inspected the lamb. The same is true of you and me. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” declared John the Baptist—which is why three days before His crucifixion, Jesus Himself was scrutinized as the scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees, and Greeks questioned His theology, His morality, and His integrity (Matthew 22). Pilate’s declaration that he found no fault in Jesus meant He passed even their inspection perfectly.” -Jon Courson
Effect of Seeing God’s Power
Exodus 14:31 – Seeing God’s great power led to fearing the Lord and believing in the Lord.
seeing God’s power
->
fear of the Lord
->
believing God and his Messengers
Science Vs. The Bible
Last night I watched a History Channel movie called “Decoding the Exodus”. The whole idea was that a film-maker/investigative-reporter tried to research whether or not the whole story in Exodus could be scientifically plausible or not. So most of the movie was basically him presenting scientific research on how science could account for causing all ten of the plagues and the crossing of the red sea and artifact evidence in Egypt, Greece, and the middle east that corroborates the incidence of this event.
Basically, a volcanic earthquake storm off the coast of Greece in the 1500s BC is what the movie proposes triggered the event. He had interesting ways of supporting his case, such as scientific evidence of events more recent in history where similar things happened. Like a volcano spewing out ice and fire together, and citing a lake in Cameroon that turned blood red due to an underground (naturally caused) gas leak in 1986 and how all these crazy things happened near that lake in Cameroon that were similar to several of the plagues (such as people living nearby breaking out in boils and sores, and people and animals dying from a poisonous vapor that resulted). Basically, he had a scientific explanation for every part of the story, and a lot of historical artifacts including writings in stone that corroborate the events from different perspectives. Of course, I can’t say I read hieroglyphics to agree or disagree with his renderings or have been to these sites to really verify these caves “filled with ancient hebrew carvings” are really where he says they are and so forth. But if I needed some confirmation that it is *plausible* that the events of the Exodus could have happened, its really interesting to hear from someone who did some thorough research what scientific and archaeological evidence supports the idea that the events weren’t just mythology, but historical events.