Exodus Chapter 15
This chapter starts with a song of praise to God for his
mighty miracle – it is actually quite an interesting song of praise
Miriam (Moses elder sister) takes a tambourine and dances
and praises God.
Given that Moses is 80 years old, Aaron is 83, I guess
Miriam would be getting on for her late 80’s
Having crossed the sea, the Israelites camp at a place
called Marah. There was water there but not drinkable, and the people complain
to Moses about this (as though it is his fault!)
God shows Moses a piece of wood which Moses chucks into the
water and it becomes good to drink.
I’m not sure if there is a scientific reason for this.
God issues a promise to the people but there is a requirement in return –
if they listen and do what is right and obey God’s commands, then none of the
plagues that afflicted Egypt would strike them
They then move on to a place called Elim where there are 12
springs of water.
Exodus Chapter 16
The Israelites now move into deeper desert toward the Sinai Peninsula.
You would think that having witnessed the struggle that God
unleashed on Egypt in the form of the plagues, followed by receiving costly
parting gifts from the Egyptian people, a dramatic night time departure, an
even more dramatic rescue and defeat of the Egyptian army, seeing God turn bad
water into good using a bit of wood, that the people would have a little bit of
trust that God who can do all this would be able to give them something to eat.
You would think - but they apparently thought otherwise!
Instead they complain that they were better off doing hard
labour in Egypt, because at least they had food to eat there.
God provides a type of bread, Manna from heaven for the
Israelites to eat.
Notice that even if you give some people a fully detailed instruction manual, and you tell them personally what to do and anything else you can think of it won’t
make a blind bit of difference? Moses told the people not to try and store
Manna overnight, but those who do not listen try it and it stinks and is full
of maggots.
On the sixth day the rules change – gather twice as much and
store it overnight and it will not go bad.
Sure enough on the seventh day the non listening types go
out to look for manna
The promise from God that if the Israelites follow Gods
commands has lasted for nearly a chapter!.
A portion of Manna was kept in the Ark of the Covenant,
along with the original 10 commandments (as we will see later on) until Indiana
Jones finds it – oh wait is that fictional?
Exodus Chapter 17
One thing that the Israelites seem to notice pretty quickly
after leaving Egypt is that the desert is not particularly well supplied with
water.
Their response is to complain to Moses and Aaron. God points
out a rock and tells that Moses should strike a particular rock.
They called the place Massah (testing) and Meribah
(Quarrelling)
The Amalekites attack Israel in the desert, Moses sent
Joshua off to lead the army while Moses, Aaron and Hur (the character of Ben
Hur in the famous book is a descendant of this man) go to a hill.
While Moses arms are held up the Israelites win, but when he
lowers his arms the Amalekites start to win, so Aaron and Hur wind up having to hold his arms up.
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