Lecture 12: A Kingdom of Priests: The Covenant at Sinai and the Shape of Exodus

The lecture, section by section

1. Brought to myself

   At Sinai Yahweh sends Moses to the people with a reminder and a claim: you have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. The personalization is the point: you were Pharaoh's, bound to obey his commands; now you are mine. Through the exodus a personal relationship has been established, grounded entirely in Yahweh's redemption, and the prologue to the ten words repeats it: I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the house of slavery.

2. Israel came to Sinai by faith

   What had Israel done? They believed. When Moses first announced Yahweh's concern, the people believed and bowed low and worshiped; at Passover their one act was the obedience of faith, a lamb slain and blood on the doorposts; and when the sea closed over Egypt's army, they feared the LORD and believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses. Whatever one makes of Sailhamer's larger thesis, Moses plainly emphasizes it: Israel stood at Sinai by faith, having watched Yahweh do the work, and they stood there at all because they were Abraham's seed, heirs of a sworn covenant.

3. Faith that leads to obedience

   Then comes the call: now, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant. Israel had a model for exactly this order. Abraham believed the LORD and it was counted to him as righteousness, and the covenant was renewed to Isaac because Abraham obeyed. They were at Sinai because of Yahweh's covenant loyalty; Yahweh now calls for theirs, faith showing itself in obedience.

4. The special treasure

   The promised result: you shall be my special treasure among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. God has other treasure, the Abrahamic covenant already pledged blessing to some from every family of the earth, but Israel is given a unique place and role, spelled out in two callings. A kingdom of priests looks Godward: a priest represents others before God, and Israel is the one mediatorial nation through whom the nations must come to Yahweh. A holy nation looks manward: a people set apart to represent God before the nations.

5. A testimony the nations would notice

   Deuteronomy 4 unfolds the manward calling: keep the statutes and do them, for that is your wisdom in the sight of the peoples, who will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people; what great nation has a God so near, and statutes so righteous? Israel's obedience was designed to whet the nations' appetite for Israel's God, and when the drawn nations came, they would come through the kingdom of priests. Hold that thought for the latter prophets, where the nations stream to learn the way of the LORD.

6. The covenant made, in blood

   Chapters 20 through 24 record the making. The ten words are spoken in the hearing of all the people, who ask Moses to mediate the rest; chapters 21 through 23 deliver the ordinances that work the ten words out; and in chapter 24 the covenant is cut, blood sprinkled on the people with the words, behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you. More revelation will follow, but the bond is sealed.

7. Sinai stands on Genesis

   None of this is intelligible without what precedes it. The creation mandate, mankind's sin, the Noahic covenant's preserved and blessed world, the Abrahamic covenant and Yahweh's loyalty to it in the exodus: the covenant with Israel is a further delineation of the national promises, so that Israel might be the special treasure for the blessing of the nations. God does not demand covenant loyalty merely so Israel can prosper, though blessing follows; he demands it so Israel can be what he called them to be for the world.

8. A kingdom implies a king

   Kingdom of priests carries an implication: a kingdom has a king. Yahweh himself is Israel's king, and Genesis 49 has already promised that King Yahweh will establish a human king from the tribe of Judah, the one who defeats God's enemies and brings God's abundance. That king will himself be an Israelite, one privilege more of the special treasure, and Deuteronomy 17 will require exactly that: a king from among your brothers. Essex adds a discipline of terms: the Torah never calls this coming king Messiah; the first to correlate king and Messiah is that great theologian Hannah, in 1 Samuel 2.

9. Chosen in Abraham: all of grace

   Why did God enter covenant with Israel and no other nation? Because of their Abrahamic association. Any Israelite asked why did God choose you must answer, he did not choose me; he chose Abraham, and I was born into the blessing. In New Testament terms, it is all of grace: Israel merited exactly nothing, as the believer merits nothing, born into the right spiritual family. And this is why Galatians 3 and 4 cannot be understood without the Torah's covenants; Paul wrote them to Gentile believers precisely so false teachers could not distort their salvation.

10. The purpose of Exodus is two things, not one

    There is no real debate about the book's purpose: Yahweh, the God of creation and of the patriarchs, redeemed Abraham's physical seed from bondage in Egypt and entered into covenant with the nation Israel at Sinai. Students who answered getting out of Egypt on the entrance exam missed half the book: the exodus occupies fourteen and a half chapters, and twenty-five and a half remain.

11. Two parts, divided at the sea's far shore

    Some outline Exodus geographically, in Egypt, on the way, at Sinai; most contemporary interpreters outline it by its ideas, and Essex takes two parts: the redemption of the sons of Israel, from 1:1 to 15:21, and the revelation to redeemed Israel, from 15:22 to the end. The seam at 15:22 is confirmed by an echo-pattern: grumbling, then manna and quail, then water from the rock, then victory over enemies, the same sequence Numbers 11 through 21 replays after Sinai, the great revelation standing between the two wilderness journeys.

12. Two kings who would not join

    A larger frame binds the Torah's whole second division. It opens with Pharaoh confronted by an Israel that was fruitful and multiplied and filled the land, the Noahic mandate and the Abrahamic promise coming true before his eyes, and he chooses to disdain rather than join, and is judged. It closes in Numbers 22 with Balak of Moab, terrified of the people covering the surface of his land, hiring a curse against the nation whose God had said, whom you bless is blessed and whom you curse is cursed. Egypt's judgment came at once; Moab's waits for the end of the days. Two kings, one choice, one covenant standing over both.

13. From Marah to the tabernacle

    The revelation section opens at Marah, where the LORD showed Moses a tree, and Essex pauses on the verb: yarah, the root from which Torah comes, to show, to instruct, to direct. There God made a statute and tested them: redeemed Israel needs direction. Jethro's counsel in chapter 18 presses the same need for ordered instruction and judgment, preparing for chapters 19 through 31, covenant and tabernacle. Then the book ends in breach and grace: the golden calf, Israel committing idolatry at the very mountain, the covenant renewed through Moses' intercession, and the tabernacle built, God's presence dwelling in Israel's midst, from which he will speak in Leviticus. Israel leaves Sinai having already shown the sin that will haunt the whole Old Testament: turning from Yahweh to other gods.

1. Israel watched Yahweh do the work and believed, then was called to obey. How does keeping that order, grace received by faith, then obedience, guard a believer from both legalism and laziness?

2. Israel's obedience was meant to make the nations curious about Israel's God. In what ways does a congregation's ordinary faithfulness still function as that kind of testimony?

3. He did not choose me; he chose Abraham. What changes in your prayers and your assurance when you locate God's choice of you in his covenant grace rather than in anything in yourself?