Heading for the Golden Hoof

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Heading for the Golden Hoof

In this week’s parasha (Ex.21:1-24:18) you’ll notice it’s titled Mishpatim. These are the rulings, basically, you do this and you’ll get yours in this fashionJ. If we were to skip over sections of scripture, I’m sure many would be in agreement to forget about these passages. After all, not too many of us have oxen running around loose goring people that we need to know what the cost is going to be to us. Our human nature seems to want skip over those types of instructions and move on to things like; what am I going to get if I commit adultery or break the Sabbath, or tell a lie, or steal, etc, etc. For the most part, we only want to know what do “I gain” and what do “I lose” as it pertains to us personally. These particular passages in Exodus however, cover a ‘vast array of rulings’ that certainly will not hurt us to read about them. We can see the community back then was much stricter than our society is today.

We certainly could use some of their guidelines today. As the saying goes, back then it was against the Law (Torah) to be against the Law! Today you see tea leaf, card reading, crystal ball gazing places of business every where, to just name one little area of indiscretion. Somewhere I think believers dropped the ball here. How many believers visit these places to get their palm read, “just for fun?” How many believers check their horoscope every day “just for fun?” It says in Ex.22:18 that you’re not to allow a witch to live! Now this was not to say they were instructed to go to all the other little towns and randomly kill every witch. No, in the “Torah community of believers” if someone practiced witchcraft, they were put to death. The Bible tells us we are not to judge the actions of the unbelievers, only the believers (1st Cor. 5:12-13).

If you remember Paul told the Corinthian Church, I’m giving you the ruling now as if I was present with you (1st Cor. 5). You should have judged the people involved in the incest and put them out of the congregation. Today we are more concerned with being politically correct or possibly hurting someone’s feelings than to adhere to correction in the body. You also see twice, once in Chapter 22 and once in Chapter 23, where it states not to vex a goy, nor oppress a goy. Here we have all the twelve tribes present that have come out of Egypt, so who are the goy? Some translations have the word stranger here. These were the people who came out of Egypt along with the twelve tribes but were not descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Today we have many Messianic Jewish leaders who oppress the people under their leadership who they believe are not of the same blood line as they are. They are breaking the Mispatim of the Torah when they do this. No one is a cut above anyone else! In Chapter 24 Moshe is mountain climbing again for the fourth time. Notice in verse three you have Moshe telling the people all the Mispatim and words of YHVH. It says the people answered with kol echad (one voice). Only one other place was the people ever in one accord, at the day of Shavuot (Pentacost). That New Testament experience was just a rehash of Mt. Sinai. Afterwards, in verse six you see Moshe ordering a burnt offering and a peace offering to be done by the young men. Who are the young men? They were made up the firstborn males. Notice in Chapter 24:7, Moshe read the SCROLL of the covenant to the people. Once again they answered; we will do what YHVH has said. Notice he then sprinkled the people with the blood.

The Torah covenant was done with blood, just as the New Testament was sealed with blood. The first time in verse three it says Moshe “told the people”, then in verse seven, it says he “read the scroll” to the people. These are two separate incidents. First he just related what YHVH had said to them, the second time he read it to them from a scroll. So evidently he had written these things down. The actual Torah on tablets had not been given yet. We do see in the previous chapters the people did have commandments to go by however, it’s not like they did not know how to conduct themselves at this point. YHVH had revealed to them some correct life applications from previous times Moshe went up to meet with Him. After this incident you next read Moshe, Aharon, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy elders go up the mountain. It says they saw the Elohim of Israel. Now if no man can see YHVH and live, then they must have seen Yahshua incarnate. Yahshua is also called the body or the bone of the Heavens. In verse eleven of Chapter 24 it says they ate and drank. I don’t believe this meant they had a full course meal. They had the zeker (remembrance) of bread and wine.

Then in verse twelve YHVH separates Moshe out and tells him to come “into the Mount” and He will give him tablets of stone, the Torah and the Mitzvot which He has written. Joshua also went up with Moshe, but only Moshe drew near into the mist of the cloud. The cloud covered the mountain for six days and on the seventh day YHVH called to Moshe out of the cloud. YHVH NEVER does anything on any old day, it’s always on a Sabbath or a festival. So the journey of the forty days and forty nights on Mt. Sinai to get the Torah begins. Tune in next time to see how the people have their “fill of veal” before it ever leaves the golden hoofJ. Moo & Shalom