Exodus 20-21

ust what exactly were all the rules the Israelites agreed to? We only saw one so far - don't touch the mountain. This chapter starts the rules.

The rules begin with the same introduction the offer for covenant did - "I am the God that brought you out of Egypt." This is immediately followed with what later become known as 10 commandments.

It begins with you shall have no other God's before me. Relatedly, no images that you bow to. In God's explanation of why not, we also see something peculiar, God punishes the children of sinful parents to the 3rd and 4th generation, whereas God blesses the children of good people for a thousand generations. Whoa. We have already seen some generational blessings/ punishments - Adam, Shem/Canaan, and Abraham. As for the modern equivalent, I think of things like child abuse, parental temper tantrums, or domestic violence, where children see the parents act terribly and then grow up and do the same.

As for # 4, Sabbath rest, I have wondered what exactly it means to keep a day 'holy'. Holiness seems to have a contextual definition. But here it is defined - no work, for you, your family, your animals. It is interesting that the animals are supposed to rest. Out in the wild, I don't think animals take a day off from rest. For instance, a gazelle is not going to say to the wolf, "I'm not going to run from you today because it is the Sabbath.". But I think this speaks to domesticated transport animals - don't ride your camel 30 miles, give it a day off.

After God's top 10, the people are trembling with fear and want God to talk to Moses directly. Thus, it appears that the 10 commandments were heard audibly by the entire multitude. Therefore, they are all on notice about God's expectations, at least the top 10 ones.

Moses tries to calm them, but ends up going alone to converse directly with God. God repeats to Moses that no idols are allowed, but God does want an altar made of natural, uncut stones for sacrifices. By the way, don't go up the altar on steps or your private parts may be seen. Is God referring to exposing our private parts to other people? Or to the altar? Given that cutting tools would defile the altar, I am not entirely sure.

Afterwards, what follows are rules that seem especially out of date to us, but perhaps had more significance throughout most of human history. Basically, if buy a Hebrew servant (i.e.,slave), you are to release him or her after six years of work. What?! We also get a bunch of details about if the slave has kids or a wife. It even has a bunch of rules about when a man sells his daughter into slavery. Whoa?! What?! It says nothing about non-Hebrew slaves.

We don't see an absolute prohibition of the practice. Since this generation had just come from slavery, there probably was a strong tendency to want to be re-enslaved, to enslave your neighbor, or to enslave your daughter. It was probably the norm in Egypt and something that they had culturally deeply engrained.

This is probably the first great example of rules we're glad did not carry into the New Testament era.

I think the placement of the rules right after the initial 10 commandments speaks volumes itself. I would guess that in the weeks or months since the Red Sea, the Israelites were already making slave contracts. "I'll trade you my daughter for that goat" kind of stuff.

God does not outlaw the practice, while in contrast the 10 commandments immediately before were full of "thou shall not" prohibitions.

Likewise, there is no age requirement for slave freedom, only a time requirement. Therefore that young daughter who was sold by her father for the goat would have to be freed after 6 years of work. Similarly, they cannot mistreat the slaves. In the physical injury rules, they must free the slave if during punishment, the slave loses an eye or tooth. Uh oh, what about when slave kids are loosing their baby teeth?

This all begs the question of whether God is enabling this practice by making rules to contain it rather than prohibiting it. I see potential analogies for more modern things like condoms v. abstinence, taxes on alcohol (or other sin taxes), etc...Even if we stick with slavery, rules to contain slavery were tried leading up to the American Civil War.

But let's be honest, this is not indentured servitude. This really is slavery. It is watered-down as freedom is guaranteed after 6 years of work. But it is slavery. For example, Exodus 21:4 says:

"If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."

After Hebrew slavery, we see some rules on physical injuries - you get the death penalty for murder (ok, we do that), but we don't do the death penalty for the others - attacking your parent, kidnap, cursing your parents.

Nonlethal injuries get financial restitution or freedom, as in the case for slaves.