21.3 Par'shah Ki Tisa, When You Take

[alon]

Name of Par’shah- 21.3 Ki Tisa, When You Take
Par’shah- Exodus 30:11–34:35
Haftara- 1 Kings 18:1-39

D’rash: There is a lot here, and this parashah contains the ch. 34 list which YHVH m’Kaddesh, God Who Sanctifies (Ex 31:13) calls the “Ten Words.” So I am going to break it into two parts: the Ten Commandments and all other commandments. We’ll start with the latter:

* Exodus 30:22-23a,24-25,32-33 (ESV) The Lord said to Moses, “Take the finest spices: of liquid myrrh 500 shekels, and of sweet-smelling cinnamon half as much, …, and 500 of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. …  It shall not be poured on the body of an ordinary person, and you shall make no other like it in composition. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you. Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people.’” Do not reproduce anointing oil; do not anoint anyone other than priests with this oil.
* Exodus 30:34-35,37-38 (ESV) The Lord said to Moses, “Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy. … And the incense that you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to the Lord. Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people.” Do not reproduce incense. These two commandments are very important today as there are some Messianic assemblies and others calling themselves Messianic who, in their zeal try to recreate these compounds which are to be set apart for use in the Temple service of Kadosh Yisroel, the Holy One Of Israel (Psalm 78:41).

Exodus 31:12 (ESV) And the Lord said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Again the command to keep Shabbat; and it is emphasized by saying “Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths.” And it is further emphasized by being in the list of 10 Commandments in both Ex 20 & 34.

Exodus 34:26- (ESV) then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” In choosing whether to serve YHVH Elohim, the Lord Your God (Gen 27:20) or family and friends, we are to cut off all others and serve our Elohim.

I deleted several principles that bordered on commandments to keep this short enough to be manageable. So I recommend reading this parashah carefully and studying for yourselves with an eye to those principles and whatever else you can glean. If you come up with anything you think important, please post it.

Now we’ll move on to our alternate list of Ten Commandments in ch 34. And remember, both the lists of ch 20 & 34 are in Torah, so we are responsible to keep all said in both.

[alon]

Exodus 34 List of Ten Words of HaShem

First let’s establish the veracity of this lists claim to be THE Ten Commandments:

Exodus 31:18, 32:15-16 (ESV) And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. …  Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

So we see Moshe carrying the tablets written on by Avinu (Our Father) Himself. However he is soon to break these tablets in anger over the Golden Calf:

Exodus 32:19 (ESV) And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Exodus 34:34 (ESV) The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

Moshe is to cut new tablets, upon which Adonai specifically says He will Himself write the words that were on the first tablets; which He did:

Exodus 34:28b (ESV) … And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments [the ten words].

And we are told what those words were:

Exodus 34:11a (ESV) “Observe what I command you this day. …” Not really one of the Ten Commandments here, it is still a command to obedience. We are to obey what Melech ha’M’lechim, the King of Kings (Rev 19:16) is about to tell us.

Exodus 34:12-17 (ESV) Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they sleeper after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters sleeper after their gods and make your sons sleeper after their gods. “You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.” An oft repeated theme, to go whoring after those outside the covenant ends in worship of other gods. We are to make no covenants, marriage or otherwise with unbelievers. We are to destroy their idols and altars. We are not to eat food sacrificed to other gods nor participate in any form of worship of strange gods. And we are to make no gods ourselves.

Exodus 34:18a (ESV) “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, …” We are to keep Pesach and the week of Unleavened Bread.

Exodus 34:19-20 (ESV) All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed. We are to redeem out firstborn of livestock and our marriage(s).

Exodus 34:21 (ESV) “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. Whatever we are doing, it is not as important a Shabbat. Agrarian societies always worry, but plowing for planting and then the harvest times are especially worrisome. Weather, fire, diseases- too many things can go wrong. And these two have to be done in their time. So it is a gamble as well as a sense of urgency to getting these done on time. Regardless, we are to keep His Shabbat.

Exodus 34:22 (ESV) You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end. His moedim are important. This connects the Spring and Fall feasts. The time between these two seasons is given to ha’olam for us to bring others to repentance and obedience. I’d say observance here means not only setting aside the days, marking them as holy, but understanding about them and what they represent as well.

Exodus 34:23 (ESV) Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. The Shalosh Regalim; those 3 moedim deemed so important we are to appear before the Lord. If possible we should hold holy convocations on these days.

Exodus 34:25 (ESV) “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning.” Very often violated by Christians when they use crackers, or even bread in their “Lord’s Supper;” an ordinance derived directly from the 3rd cup at Passover. Messianics often violate the 2nd part when we use the leftovers from our Pesach meal later on. We don’t sacrifice now without a Temple, so it’s a technicality, but my opinion is we should strive to have nothing left after Pesach so as to honor this commandment. Both of these things profane the prophetic example of Pesach.

Exodus 34:26a (ESV) “The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.” We are to bring our best to present before El-Elyon, Most High God (Gen 14:18).

Exodus 34:26b (ESV) “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.” An extremely cruel pagan practice of presenting a newborn kid to their gods, then boiling it alive in front of the mother. Jewish sacrifices were done as humanely as possible. The same with slaughtering for meat, which is still done today. When possible we should eat kosher meat which was killed in accordance with Jewish law. Note: Halal is forbidden as sacrificed to the demon Allah, but many Messianics will say it is a good substitute. Don’t listen to those people. This is where Rabbinic Judaism gets its infamous prohibition of mixing meat and dairy. The way I read this they went way too far in extrapolating that mitzvah from this verse.

Then it ends with another commandment not meant for us, but still important because it helps establsh the credentials of this list as a viable contender for the actual Ten Commandments:

Exodus 34:27,28b (ESV) And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” … And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

דָּבָר dâbâr; from H1696; a word; by implication, a matter (as spoken of) or thing; adverbially, a cause:—act, advice, affair, answer, any such (thing), because of, book, business, care, case, cause, certain rate, chronicles, commandment, commune(-ication), concern(-ing), confer, counsel, dearth, decree, deed,

The above is what was written on the tablets, the same as on the first set. And these were called by HaShem Himself “The Ten Commandments.” The term דָּבָר dabar is used here to mean both “word” and “commandment.” As with many Hebrew terms, it has many meanings, the correct one determined by context and convention.

Which list is, or should be called the Ten Commandments is not the important point. As far as I’m concerned we can remove the title altogether. But both are in Torah, both are given as commandments, and so we are required to obey both. The one in ch 20 stresses relations with Adonai and community, while this one in ch 34 stresses the moedim and keeping our sacrifices as HaShem said to. Both however stress the importance of Shabbat!