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Portion 42

Golden Text: Ex 19
Readings for the week:

Day 1: Ex 19

Day 2: Is 60

Day 3: Ps 96

Day 4: Lk 12:32-59

Day 5: Eph 2

Day 6: Heb 12:12-29

I- Learning from a people who listen to God.

God presents a condition to the people of Israel: “If you will hear my voice today“. It is best understood considering the previous two portions when Jethro and Moses “heard.” This is the time for the people to listen and understand that, by obeying God’s voice, they will find the blessing that the Creator has given them.

However, this special selection that God would make of them did not have much to do with a kind of supremacy over others, but to make them an example or model to the nations of what God wanted. The word segulah translated as ‘special treasure’ loses a lot if we leave it in that meaning. This comes because the offering (of each Sabbath) that is taken out by the family is called that, and the translators believed that “special treasure” would be a good way to interpret it. Segulah refers rather to something that becomes a ‘prototype’, so that specific offering represents or is a prototype of the grateful heart of the family. Considering this, the people were to be the prototype or model of what God wants in the midst of the nations.

II- We need a Lord.

It also says here that the Lord is going to do this because “the earth is His.” God is sovereign over all things, but his plan is not focused on lording it over a dictator or a despot, but to bless his creatures. He as Creator knows that being Lord of Man is how he can best guide him (due to his natural limitations) in the face of the unknown and it is based on this that he draws up his plans.

III- The only holy nation.

God is going to make them a kingdom of “priests” (minister-servants)[1] and therefore they would be a holy nation (set apart to live by God’s standards). It is amazing how God uses for Israel the word goy which means ‘the most general mixture of nations’ (Gentiles), but now in a state of ‘set apart for God’ (kadosh which means ‘holy’). This had a later repercussion in the minds of the apostles who saw the Gentiles, who accepted God’s grace, as the continuation of that call to be goy kadosh (1 Peter 2:9).

IV- God is the only one who takes man to another level.

Until that moment Mount Sinai did not represent anything, it was a simple desert where there was a mountain where God was worshipped, and that same God put that mountain on the map of history. In the same way, when someone is humble and God touches their heart, He blesses them by engraving their holiness on their heart making them a man of God[2].

Questions:

1.- How do you think all the special calls God makes could be summed up under one common calling?
2.- Why do you think it is so important for human beings to hear, understand, and listen to God (which are the meanings of the word Shema)?
3.- According to the Golden Text, how should the church assume this role of prototype for the world?
4.- In what sense do you think the concept of the Kingdom of God can be misinterpreted?

 

[1] It is interesting that Jethro is mentioned as a priest and hence his special attitude and that now God calls the people: A kingdom of “priests”. That is, their attitude had to match or harmonize with the characteristics of Jethro’s attitude.

[2] 1Tim: 6:11.

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