{"id":2196,"date":"2014-02-24T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/onscripture\/?p=2196"},"modified":"2014-02-21T20:43:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T20:43:43","slug":"god-beyond-all-relationships-and-agendas-exodus-2412-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/onscripture\/2014\/02\/god-beyond-all-relationships-and-agendas-exodus-2412-18\/","title":{"rendered":"God Beyond All Relationships and Agendas: Exodus 24:12-18"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By Walter Brueggemann<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Exodus 19-24<\/a> enacts an agreement of mutual fidelity between YHWH and Israel. That covenant consists in two major parts: YHWH\u2019s commands set the requirement of covenant in the form of the Ten Commandments (20:1-17<\/a>), and Israel pledges allegiance to the covenant through obedience to YHWH\u2019s commandments (24:3, 7<\/a>). This enactment creates a relationship in which the defining dynamic is one of \u201ccommand-obey,\u201d with the understanding that Israel\u2019s obedience will result in abundant covenantal blessing.<\/p>\n

That dynamic of \u201ccommand-obey\u201d creates an opportunity for much interpretive mischief. Religious zealots of various kinds can extrapolate many other requirements beyond those God sets forth, leading to an acute moralism that is laden with ideological passion. But others reject the biblical \u201ccommand-obey\u201d structure as an authoritarian form of social control.\u00a0 The covenant, cast according to commandments, has given Judaism (and derivatively Christianity and Islam) a weighty moral shape.<\/p>\n

The question emerges, then, what kind of God meets Moses on this mountain? Is this the God who prescribes commands, one who sets an agenda for people to follow? Is this a comforting God, one who enfolds Moses in the arms of divine love? A strong part of us yearns to know God intimately and to trust God. Very few people earn our trust. Even fewer political or social causes merit our allegiance. We long for a God we can trust: sometimes we want a God to tell us what to do and believe, and sometimes we need a God who softly breathes words of assurance in our ears.<\/p>\n

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People talk about the importance of trust in their lives<\/em><\/p>\n

At the heart of our passage, Exodus 24:12-18<\/a>, lies Moses\u2019 direct encounter with Israel\u2019s God. The story reinforces and interrupts the model of covenant as commandment. The reinforcement <\/em>simply reiterates that the commandments have been given, now on \u201ctwo tablets of stone\u201d (vv. 12-14<\/a>).\u00a0 Our interest here involves the interruption<\/em> of this dynamic in verses 15-18<\/a>. Moses enters the inscrutable zone of divine presence at the top of the mountain where, according to poetic imagination, heaven touches earth and God engages humanity.<\/p>\n

Three stunning markers of Moses\u2019 encounter are to be noted. First, it is \u201cthe glory of YHWH\u201d that settles on the mountain. The term \u201cglory\u201d is a way in which the Bible speaks of the luminous, inscrutable, inaccessible power and presence of God. Second, the appearance of the glory is like (not \u201cis\u201d but \u201cis like\u201d!) \u201ca devouring fire,\u201d powerful and dangerous. Third, the glory is hidden in a cloud into which Moses must enter in order to engage the presence of God, an entry that is surely risky.<\/p>\n

This convergence of features concerning divine presence attests that the genre of literature we have in verses 15-18<\/a> is a \u201ctheophany,\u201d that is, an \u201cappearing\u201d (or \u201cshowing\u201d) of God. The Bible features multiple such theophanies. They attempt to narrate inscrutable encounters with the divine presence that in fact defy description. There is of course no easy or obvious match between religious encounter<\/em> and the literary articulation <\/em>of that encounter, but the genre of theophany represents the Bible\u2019s best effort. This genre makes clear that there was a real encounter with the real divine presence, but that that presence resists all of our explanatory categories.<\/p>\n

The book of Exodus is variously preoccupied with that divine \u201cglory.\u201d In Exodus 14:4<\/a>, 17<\/a> YHWH resolves to \u201cget glory\u201d over Pharaoh and does so by defeating Pharaoh. This glory is the residue of divine majesty and sovereignty when a mighty victory has been won. In Exodus 33:18-23<\/a>, moreover, Moses wants to see God\u2019s glory, but his request is not granted. Even though present to Moses, YHWH will remain hidden. Moses may see God\u2019s \u201cback side,\u201d but not the fullness of glory. In Exodus 40:34-38<\/a> God\u2019s glory comes finally to rest in the tabernacle, a dedicated space in the presence of all of Israel\u2014but YHWH\u2019s glory is extended only to Moses. Even in the tabernacle, YHWH\u2019s glory remains hidden in a cloud.<\/p>\n

It strikes one that in this encounter of Moses with YHWH nothing happens. YHWH does not speak and does not engage Moses, issues no command. YHWH is simply \u201cthere\u201d in YHWH\u2019s unutterable otherness. The theophany, in its description and characterization, moves beyond \u201ccommand-obey,\u201d thus resituating the commandments of covenant. The effect of YHWH\u2019s unutterable otherness is that it precludes taking lesser matters, even commandments, as ultimate.<\/p>\n

This divine otherness, hidden in a cloud, summons us to recognize that all else is penultimate, less than ultimate, and should not be invested with ultimacy:<\/p>\n