Picturepocket's Blog

Category: Bible

  • Exodus 23:20-33 Promised Land

    Exodus 23:20-33 Promised Land

    God tells Moses that he will send an angel ahead of him to bring him to a place “I have prepared.” This is similar language to God’s prompting of Abraham, but the angel is a new development. Moses is told to obey God and he will make Moses’ enemies his enemies and his adversaries, God’s…

  • Exodus 23: 1-19: Lawfully Good

    Exodus 23: 1-19: Lawfully Good

    Where we first might understand Moses’s laws as passive, do not do this bad thing, Moses is now asking people to do good things. If you see an ox or donkey wandering off from a person, you need to bring it back to its owner, even if the owner is your “enemy”. The bar of…

  • Exodus 22: Community Law

    Exodus 22: Community Law

    Moses writes rules for the people to live by. Continuing with the theme of animals, he lets them know that if one farmer allows his animals graze over another’s vineyard he’s got to give the other his vineyard in restitution. Same with starting wildfires, you have to compensate for losses. These are natural and reasonable…

  • Exodus 21: Law & Order

    Exodus 21: Law & Order

    Moses gives the people the laws for living. He expands on the basics of the Ten-ish commandments we just went through. Now there is more nuance and a sliding scale of both crimes and punishments. In the chapter earlier it was a lot of one-liners. “You shall not steal; you shall not murder.” Now Moses…

  • Exodus 20: God’s Rules 

    Exodus 20: God’s Rules 

    God speaks to Moses and Aaron saying he brought them from the house of slavery in Egypt, so they shall have no Gods before him. He says they shall not make a carved image of anything in heaven, on the earth, underground or in the sea. “You shall not bow down to them or serve…

  • Exodus 18: Jethro

    Exodus 18: Jethro

    Remember Moses’s father-in-law Jethro, high priest of Midian? Well, some time during the saga with Pharaoh, Moses sent his wife Zipporah and his two sons to stay with Grandpa Jethro out in the wilderness. Now that the Israelites are out and about, Jethro brings them back to Moses who is now at the base of…

  • Exodus 17: Water & War

    Exodus 17: Water & War

    God directs his the people to move from the Wilderness of Sin to an area called Rephidim, where there was no water. The people complain and demand water from Moses, asking why he has taken them out of Egypt to kill them of thirst. Moses asks them why they quarrel and test him. This sounds…

  • Exodus 15: Daily Bread

    Exodus 15: Daily Bread

    It’s been month and a half after the Israelites escaped Egypt, and everyone is getting tired and irritated. The people complain to Aaron and Moses that they’d be better off dead in Egypt where at least they ate from meat pots and had endless bread rather than starve with you in this wilderness. In less…

  • Exodus 15: Radio Edit

    Exodus 15: Radio Edit

    After God saved them, the Israelites sing a song about it. It is called the Song of Moses. It praises God for, “the horse and rider thrown into the sea.” I grew up in church singing the lyrics, in English, to a very catchy tune. Years later, I still remember all of the words. Music…

  • Exodus 14: A Tight Spot

    Exodus 14: A Tight Spot

    The Lord prompts Moses to take the people down by the sea, warning him that Pharaoh will pursue them. God hardens Pharaoh’s heart so he decides he actually doesn’t want to let his Israelite slaves leave. Since the people have traveled outside of the boundary of his country, Pharaoh takes six hundred chariots and very…