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FROM ISAAC TO MOSES
Last week we finished with Abraham and the Sacrifice
of Isaac. Continuing from there we begin this week with Isaac and his
descendants. There isn’t much to say about Isaac. The Bible tells us how
Abraham sent his servant to choose a wife for Isaac from his brother’s
family and how God revealed to the servant that Rebecca should be Isaac’s
wife. Rebecca and Isaac had twins - Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first so
he was the rightful inheritor of all that Isaac had. The twins were
completely different in character; Esau was the outdoor type who loved
hunting and was his father’s favourite while Jacob was content to stay at
home and cook and was his mother’s favourite. One day Esau came home
fainting from hunger and pleaded with Jacob to give him something to eat.
Jacob took this opportunity to sell his food in exchange for Esau’s
birthright. Esau thought that if he didn’t eat something he would die and
then what would his birthright profit him so he agreed and gave away his
birthright for a bowl of lentils. When Isaac their father was very old and
almost blind, he asked Esau to go hunting and bring him some savoury game
to eat and after that he would bless him. Rebecca heard what Isaac told
Esau and while he was out hunting, she prepared the meat from the
livestock and told Jacob to take it to his father and pretend that he was
Esau so that he instead would receive the blessing, and so for the second
time he tricked Esau out of his birthright and became the inheritor of the
Messianic promise.
Isaac sent
Jacob to find himself a wife from his Mother’s Brother’s family. On his
journey he stopped at a certain place to sleep and fell into a dream. He
saw a ladder reaching from the earth to heaven and angels ascending and
descending on it. Standing above the ladder was the Lord who made his
covenant with Jacob telling him that his seed would spread throughout the
earth and that from his seed all the families of the earth would be
blessed. On waking he set up a pillar on the spot where he slept saying
that there was the house of God and the gate to heaven and called the
place Bethel which means the house of God. Jacob’s ladder is a
foreshadowing of the Mother of God. She became the ladder joining earth to
heaven by which God descended and became man and through whom all the
earth is blessed. The story continues how he came to his uncle Laban’s
household and there met Rachel who he fell in love with. He told Laban
that he would work for him without wages for seven years and then he was
to give his younger daughter to him as a wife. Laban agreed and after the
seven years were up, Jacob asked for Rachel. A wedding took place, but
Jacob couldn’t see who the bride was, as she was probably covered from
head to toe in veils. In the morning he saw that he had been deceived and
the bride next to him was Leah, Rachael’s older sister. He was told by
Laban that it was not their custom to marry the younger daughter before
the older, but he could also have Rachel if he worked for him another
seven years. So Jacob married Rachel also and worked another seven years.
Leah gave
Jacob the sons Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and a
daughter called Dinah. Rachel was barren so she gave her maid Bilhah to
Jacob so that she could have children through her. Remember we saw this
surrogate arrangement with Sarah, Abraham’s wife when she was also barren.
It was accepted that as the maid belonged to the wife then any offspring
also belonged to the wife. Bilhah gave Jacob the sons Dan and Naphtali.
Then Leah gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob and bore the sons Gad, and Asher.
Then as it says in scriptural language, “God
remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb and she
gave birth to Joseph.” Now
after working for Laban for 20 years, Jacob decided to leave his father in
law’s house and return to his own land. He set off with his entire
household to return but was afraid off meeting his brother Esau. They had
been as enemies ever since Jacob deceived him of his birthright. When Esau
heard that Jacob was returning he set off with 400 men to meet him. Jacob
thought that he was coming to wage war so he divided his household into
two and sent them in different directions so that if Esau killed the one
party the other would escape. That night Jacob was by himself and he had a
vision that he was wrestling with a man which continued until dawn. At
daybreak the man asked him to let him go, but Jacob wouldn’t let go until
the other blessed him. The other man was God and told him that from that
moment on his name would no longer be Jacob but Israel. And that is how
the nation of Israel received its name and the 12 sons of Jacob are the 12
tribes of Israel. When Esau saw Jacob, he ran to meet him, and embraced
him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. He wasn’t coming
for war but to welcome his twin brother who he hadn’t seen for more than
20 years.
Rachel again
fell pregnant, but she had a difficult labour and died giving birth. The
child lived and was called Benjamin. Rachael was buried in a place called
Bethlehem. Of course you all know the place Bethlehem because that was
where Jesus was born. In the Gospel according to Matthew we read in the
second chapter that deals with Christ’s nativity a quote from a prophecy
by the prophet Micah: “And thou Bethlehem, in the
land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee
shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.” (Matth. 2: 6)
Matthew doesn’t quote the prophecy word for word but just refers to
it in general because it was well known among the Jews. The Septuagint
version of the Book of Micah reads: “And thou,
Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, art few in number, to be reckoned among the
thousands of Juda, yet out of thee shall one come forth to me, to be a
ruler of Israel, and his goings forth were from the beginning even from
eternity.” (Micah 5:2) This is a very important prophecy because it
mentions that Christ existed before his birth: “his goings forth were from
the beginning even from eternity.” Further down after the slaughter of the
innocent children by Herod, Matthew quotes another prophecy; this time
from the Prophet Jeremiah: “Then was fulfilled that
which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice
heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for
her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” (Matth.
2: 17-18). Rama means a high place and was a hill on the outskirts
of Bethlehem. The prophecy mentions Rachel weeping for her children and
presents her as a mother representing all the mothers who wept and mourned
for their children because Bethlehem was given to Benjamin, the youngest
son of Israel and Rachael was his mother who was also buried on that high
place in Bethlehem.
Now let us see
the most touching and emotional story of the Old Testament: the story of
Jacob’s favourite son Joseph. I used to read this story as a young child
from the children’s picture Bible and would always end up with tears in my
eyes. Even today when I read it I still swell up inside ready to burst
into tears. The Church reads the story of Joseph during the services of
the last week of Lent and Holy Week because his life, his sufferings, his
innocence and sinless life are an image and type of Christ. Holy Monday is
also dedicated to Righteous Joseph the All-Good as the Church refers to
him (Ιωσήφ του Παγκάλου).
Jacob loved
Joseph more than all his other sons because as it says
“he was the son of his old age” but also
because he was Rachel’s firstborn and he always loved Rachael from the
first time he saw her. Jacob showed his favouritism towards Joseph and
made him a coat of many colours. This made his brothers hate him and were
always hostile to him. As already said Joseph is an image and type of
Christ. Their two lives have many common elements. One of these is the
fact that they were both hated by their brethren: Joseph by his blood
brothers and Jesus by his brethren the Jews. One day he told them a dream
that he had, which with interpretation said that he would reign over them
and that they would bow down to him. He should have kept quiet because now
they hated him even more. One day Jacob sent Joseph to find his brothers
who were out tending to the flock. When they saw him afar off, some of
them conspired against him to slay him. Reuben the eldest heard what they
were planning to do and persuaded them not to shed blood, but rather just
cast him into a pit. He planned to help him out afterwards and deliver him
to his father. When Joseph came they stripped him of his coat of many
colours and cast him into an empty pit. A little later they saw a company
of Ishmaelites on their way to Egypt and Judah suggested to sell Joseph
rather than kill their own brother. So Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of
silver. Again another similarity with Jesus who was betrayed for thirty
pieces of silver. Reuben was not with the others when they sold him and
returned to the pit to help him out. When he saw that he wasn’t there, he
returned to his brethren, and said, Joseph is not there where can I go? In
other words, how could he return to his father without Joseph? He was the
eldest and therefore responsible for Joseph’s wellbeing. The brothers
decided to kill a goat and dip Joseph’s coat in the blood. They took the
coat to their father telling him that they had found it. Jacob recognized
the coat and said that an evil beast hath devoured him. Joseph is without
doubt rent in pieces. Thus Jacob wept and mourned for his beloved son.
So Joseph now
in Egypt was bought by an officer of Pharaoh named Potiphar. Potiphar saw
that Joseph was a righteous person and that God blessed everything he did
so he made him overseer over his house. Alas the devil had to stir up his
trouble. Potiphar’s wife took a fancy to Joseph and wanted him to sleep
with her. Joseph of course refused but she continued to tempt him. One day
when they were alone she came and caught him by his garment, but Joseph
left his garment and run away naked. She felt insulted that Joseph
rejected her advances that she accused him of trying to rape her and
Potiphar had him cast into prison. He accepted his sentence without
opening his mouth to defend himself. Again here we see a similarity with
Christ who was also falsely accused and kept silent. On Holy Monday we
sing a hymn which compares Potiphar’s wife as a second Eve:
“The Serpent found a second Eve in the Egyptian
woman, and with words of flattery he sought to make Joseph fall. But,
leaving his garment behind him, Joseph fled from evil; and like the first
man before his disobedience, though naked he was not ashamed. At his
prayers, O Christ, have mercy upon us.” (Glory of Mattins)
In prison
Joseph found favour with the prison guard and was put in charge of all the
other prisoners. Time passed and Pharaoh’s butler and chief baker were
cast into prison in the same place where Joseph was. One day they both had
a dream and Joseph interpreted the dreams saying that in three days the
butler would be restored to his position but the baker would be hanged.
And so it was that the butler was reinstated but forgot about Joseph in
prison.
After two
years Pharaoh had a dream and then another dream and all the wise men in
Egypt couldn’t interpret their meaning. The butler then remembered how
Joseph interpreted his dream and that everything he said came to pass.
Pharaoh sent for Joseph and told him the dreams. Joseph interpreted the
dreams and told Pharaoh that there would be seven years of good harvest
which would then be followed by seven years of famine. He then advised
Pharaoh to set someone trustworthy to collect, from all over the land, a
fifth of all the grain to be saved for the years of famine. Pharaoh
decided that there was no one more trustworthy than Joseph so he set him
over all the people and only Pharaoh himself would be above him. Joseph
received glory for his patience, he suffered and withstood everything that
came his way, trusting in God and not losing hope. Now his suffering was
rewarded and he was raised to such a position that people now bowed down
to him. His time in prison is symbolic of Christ’s death and his newfound
glory symbolic of Christ’s resurrection.
Joseph was
given wealth and a wife called Asenath who bore him two sons Manasseh and
Ephraim. He began his mission to gather the food together from the seven
prosperous years. After this the famine came and all the lands of the
Middle East suffered greatly. Jacob, his father, heard that there was corn
in Egypt and sent all his sons except Benjamin the youngest to buy some.
Benjamin was the only son he had left from Rachel after losing Joseph.
When Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt, they came and bowed down before him
not recognizing who he was and Joseph remembered the dream he had many
years before that his brothers would bow down to him. Not wanting to
reveal himself straight away, he accused them of being spies. They denied
it and told him that they were 12 brothers, the sons of one man, the
youngest was with their father and one other doesn’t exist any more.
Joseph insisted that they were spies and the only way to prove their
innocence was to keep one of them in prison until they went back home and
returned with the youngest brother Benjamin. So Joseph filled their sacks
with corn and secretly placed the money they paid for the corn in the
sacks together with the corn. On returning, each found his money returned
to him and feared at what this could mean. They told their father that
they had to return with Benjamin so that the other brother Simeon, who was
cast into prison, would be released. Jacob refused: he lost Joseph; he was
not going to lose Benjamin also.
But
the famine continued and they ran out of corn. Jacob told his sons to go
again into Egypt and buy more corn, but his sons reminded him that they
would not receive any unless Benjamin went with them. Jacob realized that
that was the only way his clan would survive and with reluctance allowed
them to take Benjamin, but also insisted they take gifts and double money
and also the money they found in the sacks. So they returned to Egypt and
again stood before Joseph. He commanded the ruler of his house to take
them home and that they were to dine with him at noon. They of course
didn’t know the reason why they were taken to Joseph’s house and thought
it was to punish them because of the money they previously found in their
sacks. The ruler of the house told them not to worry and that he was
responsible for the money. He brought out Simeon and gave them water to
wash. When Joseph came home they bowed before him and gave him the
presents they brought for him. He asked them about their father if he was
well and alive and then asked if the person with them was their younger
brother Benjamin. At this Joseph couldn’t constrain himself and had to
separate himself from them. The Bible text reads:
“And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he
sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. And
he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself, and said, Set on
bread.” So they sat down to eat and after the meal he had their
sacks filled with corn and had a silver cup placed in Benjamin’s sack.
They left to return home but Joseph sent his steward to accuse them that
they had stolen a silver cup. They insisted on their innocence and said
that with whomsoever it would be found, let him die, and the rest of us
will become the lord’s slaves. So all the sacked were searched and when it
came to Benjamin’s sack there it was. They were taken back to Joseph who
told them that they could all go, but Benjamin was to be his servant. They
tried to explain that they couldn’t return without Benjamin cause that
would be the end of their Father Jacob. They pleaded with him to except
one of the other brothers instead of Benjamin. Joseph couldn’t constrain
himself any longer and wept aloud. He then revealed that he was Joseph
their brother whom they sold into Egypt, but told them not to fear or
grieve because it was all done with God’s providence so that he could
preserve life. In other words he told them that he had forgiven them and
held no evil against them. Christ on the Cross said “forgive them for they
know not what they do.” Here also they had no idea how their evil deed
against Joseph would by God’s providence become their salvation. Joseph
was sold for twenty pieces of silver and cast into prison for the good of
mankind, Christ was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver and crucified for
the good of mankind. Joseph kissed and embraced his brothers and they all
wept upon each other.
Joseph
explained how God in his providence had made him prosperous and a ruler of
Egypt and told them to return to their father, to tell him that he was
alive and to bring all of Israel, man and stock to Egypt and he would take
care of them because there was still another five years of famine. Pharaoh
heard that his brothers had come and ordered that wagons should be sent
with them to help carry the women and children. And so it was that Jacob
left the land of Canaan with his entire household, which numbered 70
people, and travelled to Egypt to be near his son Joseph who he thought
was dead. Pharaoh commanded that they be given the best of the land, in
the land of Rameses and that was how Israel came to be in Egypt. Before
Jacob died he made Joseph promise that he would not bury him in Egypt but
in the land of his fathers, in the cave where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac,
Rebecca and Leah were buried. When He died the Egyptians mourned him for
70 days which reflects how much they loved Joseph and owed him their lives
for saving them from the famine. After the 70 days of mourning Joseph set
of for Canaan to bury Jacob and all the elders of the land of Egypt went
with him to honour the father of their saviour. When Joseph died, he was
put in a coffin in Egypt, but before his death he told Israel that one day
God would bring them back again to the land of their fathers and that on
that day they should take his bones with them. Here with Joseph’s death
ends the Book of Genesis and a new chapter begins in the history of the
Israelites with the Book of Exodus.
Exodus begins
telling us that Joseph died and all his brothers and all that generation.
The Children of Israel were fruitful and increased and multiplied
abundantly and Egypt was filled with them. Israel had become a force to be
reckoned. A new King who didn’t know of Joseph was concerned at the
numbers of the Israelites and feared they would become mightier than the
Egyptians. He set over them taskmasters and worked them as slaves in the
fields and wherever hard work was involved as in making bricks to build
cities like Pithom and Raamses. The new Pharaoh made their lives bitter
with hard bondage. But the more the Israelites were afflicted, the more
they multiplied and grew. Pharaoh then called the Hebrew midwives and told
them that when they deliver a boy they must kill it but if a girl to let
it live. The midwives, fearing God didn’t obey Pharaoh’s command, but he
then ordered his people to cast every male child born into the river. A
woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a son and hid him for three
months. When she realized that she couldn’t hide him anymore she put him
in a basket which she made waterproof and placed it in the river.
Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing in the river and saw the basket and the
baby inside and realized it was a Hebrew child, but not wanting to kill it
decided to adopt the baby as her own son. She named the child Moses and
thus he grew up in Pharaoh’s palace as a Prince of Egypt. Moses is
probably the most well known of all the Old Testament personages. He is
considered the Author of the first five Books of the Old Testament which
is verified by Christ who said: “Do not think that I
will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses,
in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me;
for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye
believe my words?” (John 5: 45-47)
The
story of Moses was made famous throughout the world in 1956 with the epic
movie “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul
Brynner as Rameses II. For a 1956 film the visual effects of the parting
of the sea were so realistic that it is considered the most miraculous
visual effects scene in film history. But I don’t want to stay on the film
or on the miracles performed to persuade Pharaoh to let the people of
Israel go, but rather on those events that foreshadow the New Testament.
So I will assume that you all know the story of how Israel was set free
and crossed the Red sea; let’s leave that to one side and go directly to
the events that are more important for us to remember as Christians. The
first of these is the burning bush. When Moses killed an Egyptian, he left
Egypt and settled in the land of Midian where he married Zipporah the
daughter of the priest of Midian. One day while he was out tending to the
flock he saw a bush that was on fire, but not burning. He went to
investigate this strange phenomenon and heard a voice from the bush
telling him to take off his shoes because the place he was standing on was
holy ground. The voice said to him, “I am the God of
thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
He continues to tell Moses that he must return to Egypt and persuade
Pharaoh with words and miracles to let Israel go so that they can return
to the land of their fathers, which God had given them. But Moses thought,
how was he going to persuade the children of Israel that their God had
sent him? Why should they believe him and what if they asked for the name
of this God that sent him, what would he say? “And
God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto
the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” But what does
I AM mean? The Greek
‘Εγώ ειμί ο ων’ is more properly translated
“I AM THE BEING.” Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
THE BEING hath sent me. In giving us His name
as I AM THAT I AM, or I
AM THE BEING, God tells us that He is the
‘ABSOLUTE BEING’ that has no beginning or end, there is no one
greater than him. I AM from before creation
and ever shall be. I AM the life of all
things, I AM THE BEING that sustains all
creation. If we look at Icons of Christ we see inscribed on the Cross
within the halo the letters ‘O WN’ which form
the Greek words meaning ‘THE BEING’, or
‘I AM THAT I AM’, and it is the same name for
God which was revealed to Moses from the burning bush. But why do we write
this on Icons of Christ? On all icons which show Christ we see two
inscriptions, the “I AM” that we have
mentioned and “IC XC” which is in
abbreviation for the Greek name of Jesus Christ (Ιησούς Χριστός). With the
two names of “O WN” and
“IC XC”, we testify that Christ is both God and Man.
O WN testifies to his divinity, that he was
before all creation and ever shall be. And IC XC
testifies to his humanity, that he became as one of his creatures –
a human being: One person, but two natures Divine and human. The burning
bush has another meaning in the Orthodox Church. It prefigures the
Virgin’s womb for as the burning bush was not consumed by the fire so also
the Virgin’s womb was not consumed when it receive God who is fire as we
say in a prayer before receiving Holy Communion:
“Behold I draw near to divine Communion, O Creator, let me not be
destroyed thereby; for Thou art fire to consume the unworthy. The rather
do Thou cleanse me from all that defileth.”
Our next stop
must be the Jewish Passover. After God sent every kind of plague upon
Pharaoh he still wouldn’t let Israel go but God sent one more plague that
made Pharaoh want to see the back of the Israelites. God told Moses to
tell the people of Israel to prepare for that last night. Each household
was to kill an unblemished lamb and take from the blood and strike it on
the two side posts of their doors. The lamb was to be roasted with fire in
other words barbequed and was to be eaten on that night with unleavened
bread and bitter herbs. They had to eat it quickly and be dressed and
ready to go because it’s was the Lord’s Passover. The Passover had two
meanings, the first was that that night the Lord passed through the land
of Egypt and smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. As he went, he
passed over all the houses that had the blood on the doorposts and the
firstborn of the Israelites were saved. The second meaning is the passing
over of the Red sea which is a sign of the deliverance from evil, the
travelling from death to a new life. The event is celebrated by the Jews
even to this day according to the instructions by God that they were to
celebrate it and never forget how he delivered Israel from bondage and led
them to the land of milk and honey.
The
word Passover in Greek is Pascha and in the New Testament it is celebrated
with a new meaning. It means the passing over of Christ’s body from death
to the Resurrection: The passing over of man from this life of bondage to
the devil to the heavenly land of milk and honey; to Paradise. This for us
is the New Passover, Pascha or Easter, the feast of all feasts where man
is delivered from the evil that had him in bondage until Christ set us
free through his death on the cross and his Resurrection. Notice that the
Jews had to kill an unblemished lamb and put the blood on the doorposts.
For us the unblemished lamb that is sacrificed is Christ himself and his
blood is not painted externally on our doorposts but within us who are
according to St. Paul the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our mouth is the door
of this temple as is expressed in another prayer before Holy Communion:
“I am not worthy, Lord and Master, that Thou
shouldest come under the roof of my soul; But for that Thou desirest, O
Lover of mankind, to dwell in me, I make bold to draw near. Thou biddest
me to open the doors that Thou, my Creator, mayest enter in with mercy
proper to Thee, and bring light to my darkened mind.”
Now how did
Moses divide the Red Sea so that the Israelites passed over to the other
side as though on dry land and how did he close again the divided sea
after them so that the Egyptians drowned and Israel was delivered from the
enemy? It says in the Bible that God told him to lift up his rod and
stretch out his hand over the sea. The movement of his hand made a
vertical line with the rod. To close the sea again, he held up the rod and
made a horizontal line. Thus Israel was saved through the sign of the
cross. Through the Cross the waters parted and the people crossed over
from death to a new life in the Promised Land. Did not the Cross do the
same for us in the New Testament? Did not Christ’s death on the Cross open
for us the passage from this life of death to eternal life in Paradise?
After
travelling for three days in the wilderness the people were thirsty for
water. They came to a place of water called Marah, but the water was
bitter and undrinkable. God showed Moses a log of wood and told him to
throw it into the water. Miraculously the water became sweet and the
people drank of it. Now the miracle was by God and not by some natural or
magical power belonging to the wood, but the Church Fathers see in this
another foreshadowing of the wood of the cross that sanctifies, blesses
and sweetens the bitterness’s we encounter as we journey through our
earthly life. After this they came to a refreshing Oasis called Elim where
there were twelve wells of water, and seventy palm trees: and they camped
by the waters. This again is symbolically seen by the fathers as
representing the 12 Apostles and the 70 Apostles.
The next
miracle we see on the Israelites journey to reach the Promised Land is the
food of quail that covered the camp in the evening, which was for their
evening meal, and the manna, the bread that rained down upon them from
heaven, which was their morning meal. The word manna in Hebrew literally
means, “What is this?”, because when they saw it that is what they said,
“What is this.” It looked similar to coriander seed, but white in colour;
and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. It miraculously
appeared every morning and sustained the Israelites for forty years until
they reached Canaan. It could not be preserved: whatever they collected in
the morning had to be eaten on the same day. If they tried to keep some
over for the next day it filled with maggots and stank. If they were
greedy and collected a lot it was not enough and if they collected less it
fulfilled their need.
Now in the
Gospel of St. John we read that the Jews wanted a sign from Christ to
prove that he was from God. It says: “What sign
shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them
bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh
down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him,
Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the
bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that
believeth on me shall never thirst. Your fathers did eat manna in the
wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven,
that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:
and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life
of the world.” So we see that
Christ himself sees in the manna that he sent to the Israelites a
foreshadowing of the true bread of life which is his very own flesh.
The Israelites
journey to the promise land was not an easy journey. It was full of trials
and temptations which God sent upon them to test their faith and
worthiness to be called his chosen people. They had the miracles of the
plagues he sent to the Egyptians, the parting of the Red Sea, the two
columns of cloud and fire which went before them and showed them the way,
the bitter waters made sweet, the quail, the daily manna, but still they
did not have complete trust in God to deliver them from every occasion.
When they were out of water a second time they did not remember all the
good things God had bestowed upon them, but murmured against Moses that it
would have been better if they had remained in Egypt in spite of all their
suffering than die of thirst in the wilderness. Moses cried unto the LORD,
saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone
me. God answered him saying: Behold, I will stand before thee there upon
the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come
water out of it, that the people may drink. St Paul in his first epistle
to the Corinthians, speaking on the things that the Israelites experienced
says: “Brethren, I do not want you to be unaware,
that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
And all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; all ate the
same spiritual food; And all drank the same spiritual drink: for they
drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown
in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we
should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.” 1 Cor. 10: 1-6)
There is still
much to say about Moses which we don’t have time to look at in detail and
I want to finish with him today so that we can progress to newer things.
There are two more events that prefigure the Cross. The first is during
their war with the Amaleks. Moses held his hand up forming a cross with
his body. As long as his hands were up the Israelites prevailed, when he
tired and let down his hands the Amaleks prevailed. To keep winning, Aaron
and Hur held up his hands until the battle was fought and they were
victorious. The sign of the cross was even in the Old Testament a sign of
victory. The second event we find not in Exodus, but in the Book of
Numbers. Around the time the people started to complain of not having
bread and water and that they were sick of eating the light bread of manna
that God sent them, its says that God “sent fiery
serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of
Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned,
for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD,
that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a
pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he
looks upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it
upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man,
when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”
The fiery serpent on the pole foreshadows Christ on the cross for he
himself used this image to describe his crucifixion. In the Gospel of St.
John Christ says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
The rest of
Exodus mainly deals with the receiving of the law. Firstly the Ten
commandants followed by hundreds of other laws and ordinances they had to
observe which dealt with everything on worship, on sacrifices, on
servant’s rights, on how to live with their neighbours, how to receive
strangers, on cursing, on what to do if someone’s animal harmed someone
else, what punishments were to be applied for stealing various items, for
killing premeditated or accidentally, for causing a fire that destroys
another’s crops, for trespassing, and many other laws that we have to this
day but with different punishments. What is interesting are the ordinances
that had to be observed for the garments of the priesthood which was
assigned to Aaron and the house of Levi. It goes into so much detail for
their preparation using only the finest materials and precious stones as
emerald, sapphire, diamond, topaz, onyx, jasper, amethyst and others. We
Orthodox priests are often accused of having richly decorated vestments
saying that Christ didn’t have such luxuries and riches so why do we fill
our churches with the best money can buy. The answer is that if we look at
what a priest or monk wears during the day there is nothing fancy or rich
in his black cassock. The black garments represents his tomb, a reminder
that he must be dead to the passions and sin. This is his personal life, a
continual reminder of death, but in public and liturgical life a priest
represents Christ the high priest. If God told Moses to pay such
meticulous detail to the vestments, vessels and the temple of the Old
Testament which were a shadow of that which was to come, doesn’t he expect
from us who have received better than the shadow, also to offer, if not
better, then at least the same. Yet our offerings are not the same. They
may look rich, but our gold is not real gold but plated metal, our stones
are not precious but just coloured glass, our materials are rarely of the
finest materials but cheap polyesters and cottons. Yet all these can be
expensive not because they are expensive materials, but because they are
made to order and not mass produced.
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