Entry 36: Exodus 22-25

Dear Reader,

Chapters 22 and 23 were mostly about commandments and restrictions. So far all the rules laid down seem okay to me. Of course you shouldn’t take things or be mean to your enemies even if they are your enemies. You should help them out in their times of need. I’m not so good at this one, I need to get better. The one thing I didn’t like was saying that if someone stole something and couldn’t pay for it they would be sold into servitude. This seems a little extreme. What if you only took a small thing? One thing, however, that seemed very fair was that everything had a value. Therefore, if you stole something you would know how much recompense to give the owner. This seemed fair to me because unlike today you knew what you were getting into. The punishment was written down. You can’t claim you didn’t know and there was no massive leeway like today. Nowadays people get punished get punished based on irrelevant things like skin color or who your parents know. Even though the punishments were stricter back then at least it was applied to everybody fairly.

In chapter 23, the Lord kept mentioning an angel who was going to ascend to accompany his chosen people into new lands. I had a brief thought that perhaps the angel was Jesus’ spirit even though Jesus doesn’t appear for several thousand years. Being Jesus, I assume he was around in some form.

I don’t get the point of chapter 25 at all. From what I can discern, it’s basically God saying this is what I want my temple to look like using very exacting details. I like pretty things as much as the next person, but if you’re the Almighty, don’t you have bigger things to be concerned about. I can’t see devoting an entire chapter of my book to this subject.

The next time I encounter one of those crazy right-wing people who think they have a monopoly on God, I’m going to direct them to chapter 22 and 23. Nowhere does it say “hit anyone with anything” or “Call names or be unfriendly to them.” Even if they have designated that I am their enemy there still supposed to be nice to me. I also am to them, but this is hard for me and I resolve to work on it.

Entry 35; Exodous 18-21

There were posts of all of these chapters that I liked, as well as parts I found frankly alarming. In chapter 18, the father in law had a good idea that Moses share the judging duties rather than being the sole arbiter. This is a beginning act of Democracy in a time when democracy wasn't even a really a concept

Chapter 19 was really unimportant or so it seemed to me. It was just Moses talking God. My feelings may, of course, be due to the fact that I’m word tired. I never thought I would be tired of words, but I am. I went to a reading today and took notes at it that I’m sure will become a poem when I’m less word worn. I also finished and reviewed my 69th book. After that I edited my Textbroker.com assignment. Then I listened to 4 Bible chapters. After this, I will take a word break and watch a popular movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Chapters 20 and 21 were the commandments. The commandments don’t seem that hard to keep. Decent people simply don’t do those things. I was sorry to learn that a slave must leave his family in custody if he has been freed. If he refuses to do so, he risks enslavement for life again! I do, however, like that you could be freed from slavery if your master hurt you. Not that slavery is ever good or acceptable, but at least there were some behavior limitations provided to those in power over it’s victims. One would’ve hoped that such limitations would have been enforced among white owners and their African slaves. Sadly, this was not the case. Perhaps if they would’ve read the actual Bible, slavery although still horrible would’ve been much less damaging to the black body proper.

I also liked the fact the pregnant women we’re given special protection in these verses. Goodness knows that women back in the day needed it and too many modern women still do. Remember, Lacy and Connor Peterson?

If I going to this rate, I will finish in 4 days. That means Monday; I will try to finish Sunday. Go me!